#at the end of the day silverflint is not anywhere near as destructive | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

jaynovz · 3 years

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tell us more abt the hannibal and black sails parallels pls

Okay, first off, I am so sorry this took so long!! I’ve been moving and shit has been so busy.

Second, yay!! This question. Now I have an excuse to ramble.

Okay so, the two shows do have a lot of similarities. The big one you notice right off the bat is that both have an extremely codependent relationship at the center.

There are a ton of ways the Flint-Silver and Hannibal-Will relationships parallel, like, they both talk about melding minds with another person, being monstrous, reveling in being monstrous, being made complete by an unlikely source, personas/playing roles/person suits, knowing yourself more completely next to another person, darkness as a source of freedom, something beyond choice/being drawn inexorably into a person’s destructive orbit and being forever changed by it. They deal with the nature of truth, both have supernatural elements, both have religious imagery connected to one half of the ship (Flint and Hannibal both compared to god).

Also, both shows end with an impossible choice and, ostensibly, tragedy; and they both have open endings that are interpretable based on what you want to believe.

But at a certain point, the similarities end and the two shows veer off from each other. Namely, the dynamics between the two ships are fundamentally different in a lot of ways, and it's more interesting to look at the ways in which they don't parallel. At the end of the day, the biggest one is that Silverflint is not anywhere near as destructive, whereas for Hannigram, mutual self-destruction is sort of the name of the game. Silverflint may be as codependent but I think the important addition of either Madi or Thomas or (ideally) both, helps make the relationship a lot healthier. If they would actually just talk to each other and work some shit out, it could be great. This is of course contingent on whether you think one or the other could compromise. (The compromise being that they come to some middle ground between Flint giving up the big picture Cause for personal happiness, or Silver throwing in genuinely with the idea of revolution and it being worth the risk of the people most important to him.) The end tragedy of Black Sails sets us in a spot where it doesn’t seem like either Flint or Silver are willing to do so, but perhaps one or the other could grow and change (with helpful mediation, as stated.)

Whereas Hannigram, well. It’s rooted from the very beginning in gaslighting, manipulation, and a completely skewed power balance. It’s absolutely like, this person has done so much bad shit to you, they’ve killed people you love, they’ve sent people to kill you, they’ve lied to you, isolated you, made you fundamentally doubt what kind of person you are etc. But still, you literally can’t cut them out of your life because nothing is ever going to compare to the experience of having them around even if it’s, most often, largely a negative influence. Like, damn. So dark, so unhealthy. They’re the zero-sum game.

For Will it’s: you love this terrible, terrible thing and you hate yourself for loving it, but also can’t deny it and it makes you feel alive. And for Hannibal, Will’s really the only person who can understand and accept him, but also is uniquely positioned to be able to lie to him, manipulate him in return, and be his utter ruin. They both tried to cut each other out and it didn’t work. So, can’t live with him and can’t live without him. That’s why we end with a cliff dive (impossible choice), Will can’t abide the thought that this thing that is objectively terrible, this ugly thing, is the thing he wants desperately, but he also can’t give it up. So it’s like, “let me try to do my last little bit to society by throwing both our asses off of this cliff b/c we’re both terrible.” Will is so interesting b/c he is at all times living in both the dark and the light and has trouble reconciling these opposing drives. It’s a function of his magic empathy.

(I think they’re metaphorical cliffs also b/c like.... there are no cliffs in Maryland jsyk. What is it with these shows that I like and Metaphorical Cliffs. Edit: I have been corrected there are some cliffs in Maryland but they're not as absurdly high as the ones in Hannibal.)

Anyway, let’s do the one-to-one and talk about Empathy and my Mirrorball boys first. Silver and Will are both extremely good at reading people, seeing what they most need to be, and shapeshifting into it. They both have the ability to shrug on different personas as easy as changing clothes. HOWEVER, the way in which they view this ability is very different. For Will, it’s a curse, he literally cannot turn it off, can’t stop himself from doing it, and it torments him. And I think for Silver, he also does it unconsciously and can’t help himself, but it’s not a torment in the same way. It’s rooted in survival and is an acquired skill that a very intelligent mind learned in order to stay alive. Though I would say they could commiserate on their mirrorball tendencies getting them into trouble/in over their heads.

As for Flint and Hannibal parallels? Well Hannibal is the unrepentant monster who revels in wickedness and largely views the rest of humanity as inferior. He’s having an absolutely excellent time murdering and cannibalizing folks, and the only real thorn in his side is Will Graham and his inability to kill Will b/c Hannibal loves him.

I think Hannibal is the absolute beast that Flint fears himself to be. And though both are presented as the “destructive orbit” or “intoxicating presence” and both perpetrate great violence... well they’re on opposite ends of the spectrum as far as how they view those behaviors. Flint is drowning in guilt constantly, hates that he has to be this monster, the persona of the dread pirate Captain, and that he’s losing more and more of his humanity every time he does some heinous shit. Whereas Hannibal is a “happy little duckling,” literally feels zero guilt about his heinous acts. Hannibal’s playacting a real man in a lot of ways while Flint is playacting a monster. So, Flint wears a monster suit and Hannibal wears a person suit.

Anyway, I could go on and on about this. The way they use supernatural elements, the way characters embed multiple meanings in subtextual dialogue, how well quotes from Silverflint can transfer to Hannigram and vice versa. Oh the way each show deals with like, queer issues, disability issues. etc etc ad infinitum

But I’ll let this be it for now, lol. If you wanna hear me ramble more, let me know~

THANKS AGAIN FOR ASKING.

#fictionandmusic #thoughts #hannibal #black sails #hannibal spoilers #black sails spoilers #hannibal/blacksails

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