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iamadequate1 · 5 months

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Black Pete vs Izzy (Pt 1)

I've long thought that Izzy and Black Pete are analogous like Prince Ricky and Stede. They have surface level similarities, but there is an undercurrent that sends their characters in wildly different directions. The mood has struck me to do a painstaking comparison of the two!

Starting disclaimer: Mind the "Izzy Critical" tag for realsy. I was not charmed by Izzy in S2, and I firmly view him as an antagonist all the way through. I also love Black Pete, though, and forgive all his sins.

This is going to be long and messy, but it is mine. I used to have it in one large post, but now I'm going to break this up into at least three separate posts. I have about 12 points, and it's gonna be a surprise how this develops. Let's begin!

#1: Pete and Izzy are both introduced as expressing displeasure in Stede's style of piracy

Everyone who isn't Ed seems to think poorly of Stede's pirate skills when they first meet him, but Pete and Izzy seem to be unique in that their character introductions in the series is them being most vocal about it.

Pete introduces the "real pirate" view of Stede before Stede's onscreen introduction. He gives us the first conversation of the series, and it is not flattering!

Pete: Fuck this! I'm out. Crew: Hey! Oluwande: What're you doin'? Pete: I didn't sign up to play cards. Weeks we've been out here with nothing to show for it. I should have... 20 kills by now, at least.

First of all, "nothing to show for it", and the screen is focused on Lucius. Petey, you gain a hubby from this, but you just don't know it yet!

Anyway, Pete's introducing right away that Stede is not up to real pirate captain standards when viewed by outsiders. After their first (and truly epic) raid, Pete is the first one to clearly criticize Stede:

Stede: Here it is: the spoils of battle! Woo-hoo. Congratulations on today's raid. I do have some notes, though. Uh, opening speech went well. Very inspiring. Uh, oh yes, I guess the big note is more energy! We're swashbuckling, we're looting. Let's have fun with it. Pete: Stealing a plant is hardly swashbuckling.

Like Pete, Izzy's very first scene in the series, he's not at all impressed with the Eccentric Pirate Bonnet and his savage, insane, vengeful pirate horde.

Izzy (also talking to historical Israel Hands): What kind of fuckin' idiot runs his ship aground? And this lot managed to take English officers hostage.

As a bonus, Izzy's disdain for Stede extends to Stede's entire crew! Upon meeting the entire crew in 1x4, we get Izzy's assessment to Ed:

Ed: Let's get to it. What've we got here? Izzy: Well, the ship sustained some damage in the crossfire, and the crew's completely useless, bottom of the barrel.

When Izzy is forced to partake in the teaching raid at the beginning of the next episode, he says:

Izzy: Crew of Revenge, you are not to engage. You are simply here to observe how real pirates function in the real world. Pete: Uh, we are also real pirates in the real world, so.

Yes, Petey, stand up for yourself! He was the "real pirate" in the pilot, but as the first season moved into its second act, the show starts to demonstrate more of how The Revenge is an anomaly in the pirate world even with the character who is the "real pirate" at the start. (Also, weird that we don't see Izzy on the raid that directly follows! How were they supposed to learn??)

#2: Pete and Izzy start as anti-soft

They both start the series with tinges (to very different degrees) of toxic masculinity: a push to being "manly" and dominant, minimizing emotional vulnerability, derision of the feminine or "weak." Nigel is the beginning example of this in the series as he calls Stede weak and mocks him picking flowers. On the crew side of the cast, Pete and Izzy are the ones who display these traits the strongest.

In the first episode, Pete is the most disdainful of Stede's super sweet flag activity, using misogynistic language.

Stede: Now, each of you will create a flag. And we'll vote for the best one, and that will be the official flag for The Revenge. Pete: I'm not fuckin' sewing. That's women's work. Stede: Oh, Black Pete, come on now. You know that's not true.

After their encounter with the British in the same episode, he makes disparaging remarks about a soft approach when attempting to fool the officers:

Roach: It's always the quiet ones. Frenchie: I thought that was fairly badass. Swede: You got to admit, he pulled it off. Pete: Pulled what off? Making us dress up like a bunch of fancy boys?

He doesn't make any comments as aggressively anti-femme after the pilot, but as we move along, we see him in a tender scene at the end of 1x6 when he gives Lucius the wooden finger and confesses that this feelings are deeper than a quick hookup:

Pete: So, uh, listen, I, I thought I was going to lose you. Lucius: Oh, yeah. Well, you nearly did 'cause I had a really bad infection, so. Pete: Exactly. And, uh, and, death, you know, I'm used to death, but, um, but not, um, your death. Uh, so anyway, I, uh, made this for you. It looks like a thumb, but it's a finger. I whittled it. It's, it's dumb. You don't have to wear it. Kiss: *happens, awwww* Lucius: I love it, and I didn't know you whittled. Pete: There's a lot you don't know about me... actually, that's kind of it.

At this point, we had seen Stede and Ed open up about some of their insecurities (see: Ed's bathtub confession just before this, or Stede talking to the therapist in 1x2), but this is the first scene we get a character confessing their feelings about someone to that someone in series. It's scary, it's vulnerable, and even though it's couched in violent language, it's very soft. It's also the round about confession phrasing similar to what we have with Oluwande to Jim in 1x7 or Ed to Stede in 1x9. Pete in the pilot would not have believably played this scene.

Pete progresses through the season, but in the last episode of the first season, instead of shaming him, Pete claps and makes (awkward) supportive comments to Ed's breakup song and even willingly dresses up as a "fancy boy" in the resulting talent show.

He's trying! Going into Season 2, he doesn't have a reaction at all to a woman (Zheng) calling him soft, and he just rolls with it.

Izzy, on the other hand, keeps his gendered insults throughout S1. In 1x4, we get "I'm not dying. Not for that ponce and not for you." In the next episode, we walks in on Lucius and Pete having a hookup with Wee John in the room taking a nap. He lashes out at all of them, but...

Izzy: You're all getting specific duties. Lucius: No thanks, Iggy. I only take orders from my Captain. Izzy: My name is Mr. Hands, First Mate Hands, or God as far as you're concerned, and I've got just the job for you... bitch.

Sure, it's funny in a pathetic way (the tagged on ineffective "bitch" is a big lol for me), but he ignores the disrespect Pete and Wee John give him and targets the most feminine one in the room and tosses in a "bitch" for good measure. In the end, Izzy tries to shame Lucius for being a "seductress," and it backfires as Lucius easily makes a fool of him. Izzy used the gendered insults ("bitch", "seductress", whatever that Oh Daddy thing was) as a power move, and it failed.

The next episode, he's calling Stede Ed's "pet" since they're developing a healthy friendship, and he makes sure to bring up Ed's past words re: pets that Ed is now "weak," what is a horrible, horrible thing.

This derision against the soft/weak/femme culminates in the S1 finale with Izzy's threats against Ed.

Izzy: I'm going to speak plainly. Ed: Wonderful. You know we share our thoughts on this ship. Izzy: I should've let the English kill you. This, whatever it is that you've become, is a fate worse than death. Ed: Well, I am still Blackbeard, so. Izzy: No. This, this is Blackbeard. Not some namby-pamby in a silk gown pining for his boyfriend.

(This show is awesome. The Blackbeard caricature from 1x4 has no face, but the one in 1x10 has a face and a lighthouse beside him.) Anyway, Ed is showing human emotions at having lost love, so Ed is ruined in Izzy's eyes. As mentioned above, Pete at this time was supportive of Ed (to the extent he can give), but his character mirror buddy is doing the opposite.

The beginning of this outburst feeds into the theme that will keep coming up with how deceptive and self serving Izzy is: the English were there because Izzy called them on Ed and his boyfriend. Izzy was already in the process of punishing Ed for being "weak" and having a "pet," and he thought Ed should have been punished far more harshly because he didn't immediately behave how Izzy wanted him to. The ship and crew weren't in danger from Ed and Stede sailing the seas happily, but they were in danger from Izzy. "Let the English," like he was a protector instead of the one that led them to The Revenge in the first place.

In this mocking, Izzy also continues with the derisive language. "Namby-pamby" by itself isn't a crime, but it is the same loaded language that Izzy used throughout the season, and "pining for his boyfriend" is said in a cruel mockery of the deep heartbreak Ed was going through. Ed was mourning the loss of an entire life he wanted, not the loss of a silly puppet he could scamper through meadows with when the mood struck. Izzy minimized these deep emotions so he could keep his control.

Izzy and Pete both began the season as angry against the softness, the weakness, that Stede was bringing into their worlds, but Pete dropped it much more quickly, while Izzy doubled down to the extreme. Pete got the soft affection confession, while Izzy angrily lashed out at someone having soft affection at all.

I should add as the last Pete and Izzy parallel that Izzy did also have his "fancy boy" moment in 2x6, but it felt more like a farewell for Con O'Neill than something that was organic or meaningful around Izzy. It's a parallel nontheless!

This is continued in Part 2!

Preview: They both wanted Stede dead at certain points! They both have a thing for the Legend of Blackbeard! They both are terrible pirates! Tune in next time. Same bat time, same bath channel!

Series: Part 1, Part 2, Buttons tangent, Part 3, S2 Izzy reaction GIF

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