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iamadequate1 · 16 days

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I have some longer thoughts on it being exhausting to try to have discussions with people who care only about Izzy, but I want to do an addendum on this post by. I have a different bizarre take I'm going to write about for funsies (stressing: funsies, I'm writing a lot but this is just me chilling out on a Sunday afternoon with my cats and watching TV), but this became a side tangent that got too big. I was going to do it as a RB to put it next to my first logic thing, but I was having too much fun, and this got way too big.

I have a bit of a ramble before calling BS on "Izzy taught Stede how to be a pirate and/or captain!1!11" I put an ALL CAPS STATEMENT in big bold red font on its own where I actually start talking about this ridiculousness specifically. 😁

Since pictures cause posts to be noticed better, look how beautiful Stede is in 2x5!

OK, now onto the long ramble.

I put the basic background here, but the logic conclusion is marked with bold blue if you just want to scroll! The Izzy thing is directly after.

With a statement in the form "(cause) implies (effect)", there are several ways to prove or disprove it. In disproving it, a common method is proof by contradiction. That is, assume the (cause)/triggering event (is true)/happens (i.e., the antecedent/hypothesis statement is satisfied) and find a situation where the (effect)/consequence (is false)/doesn't happen or show that the (effect)/consequence (is always false)/never happens (i.e., consequent/conclusion statement is NOT satisfied).

For example: "I go to work if it's Monday" in a general sense rather than being THIS Monday specifically. The antecedent statement is "It's Monday", and the consequent statement is "I go to work." This implication can break with contradictions if you start having to consider things like "What if it's a holiday?", "What if you have PTO or other leave?", "What if you don't have a fixed schedule?", etc., and extra conditions may have to be thrown into the antecedent/hypothesis statement or given situation statements should be clarified. Saying something like "I have a fixed schedule, I get major holidays off, and I have a reasonable leave policy unlike most Americans (burn). I usually go to work on Mondays." (you know, imagine if this were organically phrased like a human instead of a STEMy robot)

Another way to PROVE statements is proof by contrapositive, which is awesome. This is logically equivalent to proving a statement directly (i.e., cause=true means effect=true) by doing a reverse negation: that is, assume that the conclusion DID NOT happen, and show that the hypothesis DID NOT HAPPEN (i.e., effect=false means cause=false). Above, the contrapositive of "I go to work if it's Monday" is "It's not Monday if I did not go to work." It's often easier to DISPROVE a statement by DISPROVING the contrapositive: that is, assume the conclusion DID NOT happen, and find a situation where (or show that in all situations) the hypothesis DID happen. In the example, we get a contradiction in the contrapositive by starting with the hypothesis "I did not go to work" and find a situation where this is true but "It's Monday."

I'm going somewhere with this, I promise. In logical statements, we can add conjunctions "and" and "or.": "P and Q" is true if both P and Q are true, and "P and Q" is false if at least one of P and Q is false. "P or Q" is true if at least one of P and Q is true, and "P or Q" is false if both P and Q are false. (In Venn diagrams, "P and Q" is where you shade in the P and Q circles' intersection, and "P or Q" is where you shade in the entirety of both the P and Q circles, i.e., the union... the negation is where you shade in the opposite, i.e., the complement.)

In a logic statement, a contradiction of "P and Q implies R" means we have a situation where both P and Q are true, but R is false. For example, "I go to work (R) if it's Monday (P) and not a holiday (Q)" fails if it is Monday and not a holiday, but you don't go to work (ex, a situation where you were never scheduled on Mondays anyway!).

The contrapositive of "P and Q implies R" is "(not R) implies (not P) or (not Q)." The contrapositive of "I go to work if it's Monday and not a holiday" is "It's not Monday (not P) or it's a holiday (not Q) if I don't go to work (not R)." If you want to disprove this with contradiction, assume that you didn't go to work, but show that this is true in at least one situation where it's Monday but not a holiday.

In cleaning up logical arguments, you want to reduce the amount of "and"s and "or"s you toss in to the hypothesis statement. If a statement in the hypothesis statement doesn't actually add anything to whether the implication is true or false, toss it out. For example, "I go to work if it's Monday, the capital of Canada is Ottawa, it's not a holiday, I live in a blue house, I have a fixed schedule that includes Mondays, my cat's breath smells like cat food, and I'm not using un/paid leave."... some of that has no effect! Tossing out all the superfluous statements that don't affect the statement's logic is necessary to make a clean statement.

The logic conclusion

In cleaning up arguments, ask yourself if the condition is excluded from the hypothesis or conclusion statement, does a contradiction appear in the logic connection as a result? That is, when removing the condition, does a true antecedent statement always guarantee a true consequent statement (direct implication), and does a false consequent statement mean the antecedent statement is false (contrapositive implication)? If removing a condition doesn't break the argument, the condition should be removed.

Stressing again: I'm writing this for funsies. Writing about that logic stuff is fun to me! 🤣

BS ON IZZY CONCLUSION STARTS HERE

In 2x5, we have a scene where Izzy has Stede do some stuff that leads to some bizarre takes along the lines of "Izzy taught Stede how to be a pirate and/or captain!" Lol, what?

So, let's break this down!!!

Antecedent S2 actions of the end of 2x5:

Stede is still called captain in 2x1 even though they have no ship. His crew remains together with him through working odd jobs and living under a bridge even though they could easily have joined other crews (and, no, Izzy's "bottom of the barrel" comment does not contradict this)

Stede puts his grief aside and prioritizes rescuing his crew from execution and reclaiming his ship at the end of 2x3

Stede listens to the crew and abides by their decision that he disagrees with at the beginning of 2x4 (and giving Izzy a separate scene with a deciding vote is such BS, but I digress...)

Stede listens to the crew (including Pete's adorable kitty collar idea to give Lucius warning, lupete my otp! 💜) on keeping Ed aboard at the beginning of 2x5 (and, no, Stede shushing Jim isn't a point against this... they all obviously have already had a discussion that led to a majority decision with a plan of action, and interrupting people giving a short speech is rude! also, Stede is still learning)

Stede tells Ed that he has to keep up the probation until the crew is comfortable

Stede tells Ed that he hasn't felt like a captain since they returned to The Revenge

Ed tells Stede to confidently/properly say he is captain and own the role (partially to help Stede and partially as a treat for himself)

Stede tells Ed to fit in, be helpful, fix something, and stop p---ing people off

Ed tells Stede to work on his mean voice. Stede's very next scene is going to Izzy

Point here: it does not matter if Izzy says Stede is a s----y captain, knows nothing, has a total lack of skills, etc. In stories, show matters significantly more than tell. In talking about this, you need to ask "How is he measuring that, and are those metrics effective?" or "Is Izzy actually right?" or "Why does Izzy think he's right?" and use those answers to look at how the pieces fit into the story and overall themes. Again, back to the first bullet point: Stede kept his crew together without a ship for three months, and Izzy got mutinied on in like, idk, a day. Izzy is lacking captain skills and knowledge that Stede has whether he's realized it at this point or not

"You taught him everything he knows, made him the captain he is today" Ed is very pointedly not a captain on that day, emphasized with his scene with Stede a few minutes prior. As we already know, Izzy did not teach Ed his pirating and captaining skills (1x4: "...I was honored to work for the legendary Blackbeard, the most brilliant sailor I had ever met"). By what we already have been shown in the story, we know Stede is aggrandizing with this statement and "one of the greats" in order to flatter Izzy. Since this comes directly after Stede being told to work on his mean voice and he's in a friendly but passive aggressive mood (see, the "good candles" remark), ask yourself about Stede's motivations and how literal he's being. He told Ed (his safe person) that he doesn't feel like a captain, not that he doesn't know how to be a captain

We get a montage: Izzy sucker punching Stede, Izzy pushing Stede for one go at a rope swing, and Izzy having Stede take one shot at some bottles that he misses. What we are very specifically not shown in this montage or even later in the episode is Stede showing improvement in or even using these activities that Izzy is having him do (and I am veering far away from the word "teach" with respect to that montage) Compare this to Mulan's "I'll Make a Man Out of You", which starts with showing everyone sucking, showing the instructor having base competence in the skills (even prior to The Leg, we never saw Izzy punch in battle, rope swing, or shoot targets well), and showing marked improvement in the skills in the montage, though not at expert level; furthermore, the skills in the montage are used later in the movie as a bigger payoff of the montage

Izzy then makes fun of Stede some. Stede says "I think being out in the field is my thing. It's like I black out, my body just takes over. I beat you in a duel (...) I have no memory of it." This starts introducing the idea that Stede has strong instincts. It also ends with a hilarious power move brush off

They find the ship of the dead (that is never explained, lol... I love this show). Jim says the dead priest says everything is cursed, and Stede takes the suit anyway. (Note: this is not a failing on Stede for not immediately doing what Jim wants! Curses aren't real, and that suit was gorgeous)

Stede punches a guy who pops out of the closet (I am not counting this as a point of Izzy "teaching" this to Stede in the montage since we're only shown Izzy punching Stede in the abdomen. We have already seen Stede doing the quick "my body just takes over" spin-and-attack move with "Unhand me or bleed", so this is just a feature of Stede, not something Izzy "taught" him)

They celebrate the raid. Most people say the suit is awesome, and Jim plants the seed with the crew that it's cursed

Izzy tells Stede that he has to "burn" the suit because the crew believes in the curse (stressing here: Izzy says to burn it, but that's not what they do)

Jim, Oluwande, and Archie wear garlic and put up a salt line to protect themselves. Stede walks in and leaves right away

Stede calls Frenchie and Roach "men of science" sees some of their beliefs with the yeast-and-faeries talk

Hilariously here, Roach picks up a correlation "Frenchie starts itching right as Stede leaves" means "the suit caused the itching, so it must be cursed!" which is a logic fail (ilu, Roach, but it's on theme here)

Stede talks with the crew, and they all say they think it's cursed and try to take it from him. He runs off to protect his suit. Izzy repeats his earlier statement, and Stede tells him to f-off

Then we get the consequent actions, where the "Izzy taught Stede how to be captain and/or a pirate!" kicks in, I think?! Because I absolutely cannot imagine what story beats in 2x6, 2x7, or 2x8 are claimed to be the payoffs of the tiny montage and this statement always stands alone like that as A Fact (and any detraction is Your Opinion)

Stede removes the outer suit part and has a meeting with the crew

Stede allows the crew to believe the curse is real

They came up with the plan to give the curse to someone else (on Oluwande's suggestion)

There is a cut to them carrying out this plan and Stede complimenting Izzy's swordplay (payoff to Izzy's candle practice) and saying he fought back to back with Oluwande, then Oluwande saying Archie swung in on a rope (Archie, not Stede! Archie was already a "proper pirate", and there is no evidence Izzy taught her anything), then Stede does another spin-and-attack by shooting into the air (not at a target) and using a captain voice on the would-be-attacker

Stede downplays his day when talking to Ed at the end

The beginning logic ramble and conclusion has me asking this: what would have changed at the end of 2x5 if Stede did not have that short montage with Izzy? Would something have broken in the narrative of getting Stede to that point if Izzy were absent?

We have a lot of interactions feeding into what Stede does at the end of the episode, but without Izzy there, would Stede NOT have had the crew meeting (he already was shown to have them at the beginning of 2x4 and 2x5), would he NOT have eventually gotten rid of the suit (he let the crew vote out the love of his life at the beginning of 2x4 so the suit is an easy casualty), would he NOT have worked harder to own the captain role (like Ed instructed him to after he expressed his fears), would he NOT have chosen a style where he leaned toward kindness and compliments (killing with kindness and being a polite menace and talking it through is the brand he's building from day one)? Really, what goes wrong if Izzy is not there?

And, going with my contrapositive points, if Stede had had a massive failure of captaincy at the end of 2x5, would a longer Izzy montage have prevented it? Would further antecedent actions from Izzy changed anything?

My beginning statement comes into play: it is extremely frustrating to talk to people who only pay attention to Izzy scenes. If you remove every bullet point in the antecedent action list that isn't about Izzy's actions, you can fill in a story that Izzy was the one to teach Stede everything! Ludicrous, and it's a disservice to Stede, Ed, and all the other characters and how they're developing. In particular, Stede and Ed are the main characters, and Izzy is a supporting character to their story. It does not make sense for the narrative to remove accomplishments of a lead (e.g., Stede evolving as a captain by interacting with multiple people and developing his own captaincy brand) and hand it to a side character.

We cannot even draw a conclusion that Izzy taught Stede anything because Stede isn't shown using anything Izzy taught him. When Jim and Oluwande taught Stede the stun move, we saw Stede later using the stun move (not in the way he intended!). When Ed taught Stede about being run through, we saw Stede later using that knowledge (in a rather unconventional way!). When Izzy does some activities with Stede, we aren't shown Stede using that information later. This is a story being told, and these characters do not exist. If the story is showing us these activities and there is no follow up of Stede using these lessons at all, we cannot infer that Stede actually learned anything nor, specifically, can we infer that the point of the scene was Izzy teaching Stede something. This montage is a subversion of most other times we see this trope used, and its subversion is that the story payoff is not that Stede was taught anything but something else entirely that wasn't expected from the usual set up. The frustrating part of these Izzy-only arguments and that it doesn't seem to matter the effect that it actually has on Stede's character, only that Izzy had the appropriate beginning story beats, and the rest can be filled in with imagination.

The Izzy montage and allowing Izzy a few thumbs up doesn't change Stede's captain story, though it does bolster it as it is part of how Stede interacts with his crew. This is a season that was given a truncated run time, and it became more critical that all scenes mean something. Since it doesn't actually have an effect on Stede's story, the montage wasn't about teaching Stede captaincy at all.

Changing the conclusion, though, what if it was more about Stede's effect on Izzy than Izzy on Stede, what is it saying about the existing pirate culture and its efficacy, and looking at how Stede is developing his own captaincy style in reaching out to all crew members is a much more interesting and developed read. (Example)

In post conclusion, I had fun writing this, and now I'm going to get some pizza and watch more junk TV! 💜

#our flag means death #ofmd #stede bonnet #izzy hands #logic my beloved #fandom critical #stede is best captain

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