On Self Awareness and Cognitive Dissonance
So @jaynovz made this really interesting and excellent post about Silver's crazy decision to go to Charlestown at the end of S2. I thought I'd toss out my two cents as to why he might have done it. And also discuss some related stuff. Buckle up, folks!
So first, let's begin with THE SCENE:
Silver: I've had my fill of adapting lately, doing your bidding, keeping the crew in line for you.
Flint: I wasn't the only one who benefited from that.
Silver: It certainly seemed that way.
Here Flint refers to Silver's position among the crew, which Flint sees as a benefit to both of them. As we see:
Flint: I need your help. They need your help.
Silver: Oh please. Don't try to convince me to do it for the sake of their futures.
Flint: For the sake of your own. Those men listen to you, they care about what you think, what you want them to think. Where else in the world is that true? Where else would you wake up in the morning and matter?
I could talk endlessly about this whole scene, particularly about Silver's incredibly amazing lie and how he acts during it and his bitterness toward Flint, but that's beyond the scope of this. Instead I wanna focus on self awareness.
With these few words, Flint basically drags Silver kicking and screaming to self awareness land. He is suddenly exposed to the fact that he actually means something here. And by his reaction, I think it's fair to assume this is one the few times, if not perhaps the first time, he's been in a position like this. Based on his past actions and his desire to remain anonymous (see refusing to show his face during the schedule thing, it’s safer to be anonymous), I think his previous modus operandi has been to position himself behind some powerful figure and work in the background to help them achieve their shared goals of getting lots of money. Said people were also probably not as smart as him so he could easily manipulate them as well. We see him do this with Flint a bunch, too, working in the background to help him. And that's what his position on the Walrus crew starts out as.
But then he becomes the centre of attention. They start to like him, which he didn't even necessarily expect when he started his gossip monger plan, he just wanted them to need him, despite his proclaiming that he’s a hard man not to like. But no, they get attached to him. And he, unbeknownst to himself, becomes attached right back.
Now, it's entirely possible that he's been in similar situations in the past just like this one, but because he is very good at repression and lying to himself, he was able to walk away without any real trouble. Maybe he realized afterwards that he actually liked those people but it didn't matter because he'd already left and he tells himself it’s for the best anyway. Silver is likely carrying around some heavy trauma related to emotional attachments to other people, given how he tells Muldoon that “we’ll take care of you” is the most terrifying part of everything that’s happened after losing his leg. And, considering everything else, that sure is saying something.
But here, he has hitched his wagon to James Flint, a man after his own heart. Flint is a lot like Silver, a brilliant liar and excellent manipulator, able to bend people to his will and look damn good while doing it.
Then he does it to Silver, too. And it's all while Silver is in the middle of pulling off his own master class in lying, some of his best work, by being outraged and angry that the gold he actually stole is gone and trying to extricate himself from Flint and the crew. Except Flint won't let him.
Flint's request for Silver's help doesn't, I don't think, extend merely to the lovely speech Silver gives to swing the vote in his favour, either. During the voyage to Charlestown, Silver continues working to convince the men of the dangers that lie ahead, presumably at Flint's behest. Scott does indicate to Billy that Silver is using his storytelling powers to “help the captain” when Silver is addressing the crew.
So Silver stays because he has come to value his position on the crew. However he doesn't yet realize how attached to them he's actually become. Jay is right, he could’ve easily deserted after the vote, run off to hide somewhere until Flint is gone, but he doesn’t. And he's still lying to himself about why. He thinks “yeah ok, Flint, you won this round. I'll stay and go on the voyage so as not to arouse suspicion from you and everyone else, and I’ll take the scouts along because I don’t trust them not to fuck this up, but I am leaving after that.” The real reason he stays is because he values his position, he actually likes that he matters, but he is still convinced he’s going to leave because he also wants the money. I think he probably would’ve left, too, but he’s trying not to think too hard about the newly exposed self awareness and continuously telling himself he doesn’t need this and he sure as fuck doesn’t actually care about these people, even as he stays. It’s like he’s torn between how he wants to be and how he actually is and he cannot bring himself to go no matter how much he wants to.
That’s also not even going into how, during the voyage, he is exposed to how much power he actually has over the men on the crew when he gives the scout a fucking look and said scout kills their co-conspirator because of it. And then that same scout tells Silver that all the men know he cares about their best interests and Silver is just fucking taken aback by the level of regard these people have for him. This is on display again when they all stand up in his defence after Vane’s men come to grab him.
When Vane’s men attack the ship, Silver could swim to shore with the remaining scout and if they kept their heads down, they'd probably be ok. They could likely swim far enough away to not get caught, especially at night. Silver surely knows this, too.
Instead, he cuts the forestay and saves the crew. And then he refuses to give up a list of names, once again saving the crew. He has, against all his own cognitive dissonance, become attached to them enough that he endures torture and risks death for them. Now, I don’t think that he ever thought that he would lose his leg, I don’t think that he made space in his mind for the possibility of being tortured either, he knew that one of the men had grabbed the keys during the scuffle when they took him away and he thought that he could stall long enough until they broke in and saved him because he’s good at talking his way out of trouble. I also have to say that it is such a nice moment when he says this to Vane’s man: “The question you should be asking yourself is, where are his keys and has he seen them since he took me away from my men?” They are his men now, his brothers, whereas before he always set himself apart from them.
And it's all because Flint made him see that he valued his position enough to stay and go on the journey to Charlestown in the first place. Silver even gives Flint credit for this in 305 - “Such a waste, it seems to me, knowing that it doesn't have to be this way. That the man who talked me into giving a shit about this crew, he could talk those people out there into anything. If he wanted to.”
Or that’s how I read it anyway. The way Silver’s attachment to the Walrus crew is developed over the course of season 2 and the final culmination of him refusing to betray them is one of my favourite things about his story and I have a lot of feelings about it. I could be wrong in my interpretation, of course, but thank you all for coming to my Ted Talk :)
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Is it rude to say that you hadn’t expected Dabi to have had his own car? Not because of money issues, but because of a few reasons being: 1) he walks everywhere he goes, and 2) he’s quite literally never mentioned having a car nor a license before.
But you sit with him, in his old beat up bucket that jerks every time he hits a bump in the road, fighting for dear life. Your window doesn’t roll all the way up and bugs keep flying in, and it doesn’t help that Dabi is going 80 in a 55. You would hold onto the little life support grip thing above the window, but it looks like there hasn’t been one on the passengers side since he received the car.
You know he’s going this fast because, not only does it scare you, but it makes him hit the potholes a little harder. Which in turn makes your thighs and stomach and boobs jiggle more than usual. You should’ve known he had another motive when he insisted you ride with him to the convenience store, especially the one across town when there was 7 others he’d passed in the meantime.
But you’re too busy trying to keep your head from hitting the roof of the car, and your tits from falling out of your low cut shirt. Oh, this fucker must’ve had everything planned out the moment you walked through the door.
“Can you slow down a little?” You yell over the bass of his too loud rock music, one hand gripping his that rests on your thigh, the other holding your chest tightly. “My boobs are gonna fall outta my goddamn bra by the next pothole!”
But that only encourages Dabi, makes him throw a grin your way as he glances to how your chest jiggles again with another bump in the road. He laughs at your screech for him to look at the road, turning his eyes to comply with your request, his chin still turned in your direction.
“Well, sounds to me like I’m not going fast enough.” He teases, softly steering his wheel to the nearest pothole, a deep one. He snaps his eyes over to you the moment he hits it, smirking at your squeak when he sees your chest bounce out of your grip before you regain it again quickly.
He glances up to you, grinning even wider when you’re already glaring at him. He can’t help the squeeze of your thigh, blue eyes already zoning in on the next dip in the road for him to hit. He’s not stopping until your complaint becomes reality, and only then, he’ll find a convenience store.
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