#leaving Ed not just dissatisfied with his life as Blackbeard but fucking MISERABLE in it

[starbuck]

I’ve seen some OFMD Takes that equate Stede and Ed’s softness and boil it down to an anti-toxic masculinity thing and an uncomplicated moral good, but I feel like doing that misses a lot of nuance by ignoring the role that class plays in their stories.

Stede does face negative repercussions for being ‘soft,’ for failing to measure up to the ideal of masculinity enforced by civilization, but only social consequences. And that’s not to say those consequences don’t matter; it’s terrible that his father was emotionally abusive, that he was bullied by his peers, that he felt alienated from his family. However, nobody was going to repossess his house because he wasn’t performing masculinity up to their standards. He was never going to have to worry about where his next meal would come from because of it.

Further, Stede has the privilege to walk away whenever he feels like it. He can “upend his entire comfortable life to become a pirate” and then “un-abandon [it] on a whim” and STILL face no economic consequences for any of it.

Ed, meanwhile, cannot just walk away from being Blackbeard because his legend is his only source of income. He can’t simply choose to stop being a pirate and be soft instead because, for him, the consequence of failing to perform the ideal of masculinity is death. In a fair and equal world, Ed would be able to wear all the silk robes and throw all the talent shows he wanted to, but that is not the world he lives in.

Piracy was supposed to be his escape from poverty, but all it’s managed to do is allow him to stave it off, and become a prison unto itself in the process. Ed is trapped, not by toxic masculinity, but by economic desperation. No matter how hard he tries, he’s still not one of “those kind of people” and he never will be. That’s the symbolism of him throwing the red silk away at the end of ep 10: the acceptance that “you wear fine things well” was only ever a dream for him and that dream is now dead.

#our flag means death #ofmd #which is why i DO think there’s an argument to be made that Stede ‘ruined’ Ed - just not in the way he thinks #but by giving him a taste of what a truly comfortable life is like and then ripping that away from him #leaving Ed not just dissatisfied with his life as Blackbeard but fucking MISERABLE in it #which was not Stede’s intention of course but it is What Happened - from Ed’s perspective anyway #and that element cannot be separated from his heartbreak over Stede’s leaving him - they’re one in the same #which is not me saying that Ed only loved Stede because of his money - that would be ridiculous #but at the same time - pretty much everything that originally fascinated Ed about Stede is related to Stede’s privilege #INCLUDING his softness! #which isn’t to say that softness is bad - only that moralizing it misses the point #misses it in the exact same way that Ed does in declaring himself a monster for the things desperation drove him to do #it’s just not that simple #in a show where the very first episode reminds you that no one except Stede is a pirate because they want to be - it’s not that simple #and - with that in mind - i would not be at all surprised if Ed’s first reaction to hearing that Stede gave up his fortune to return to #piracy isn’t ‘gosh how romantic’ but ‘ARE YOU FUCKING INSANE???? DO YOU THINK THAT *I* WOULD STILL BE A PIRATE IF I HAD ANY OTHER CHOICE??’ #and that is a valid reaction