Black Sails 🏴☠️ Video Essay: Should love always win? | Shain Slepian aka TimeCapsule
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- čas přidán 20. 05. 2023
- "Black Sails" asks a few questions about the fundamental nature of humanity: is our natural state better or worse than our 'civilized' cultural state? What really compels people to progress society forward? What responsibilities does a person have to the world, and to their own hearts? In this video essay, I answer all these questions conclusively and for all time. TimeCapsule 2024.
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I appreciated that the show was honest about how pirates were active in the slave trade. I couldn't find the clip to get accurate quotes, but when the maroons capture the crew one guy says something like "we've freed slaves before, so maybe they'll let us go" and someone responds "we've sold as many as we've freed." So yeah we're given a demystified view of pirates society, but then we're provided a much better vision of the future with the maroon settlement. Madi may be John's great love, but Madi's great love is her people, and that's why her idealism is much deeper and more grounded than Flint's would ever be. No, pirates never took Nassau from the British Empire irl. But Queen Nanny -- who Madi and her mother are loosely based on -- DID defeat the British Empire in the First Maroon War in Jamaica.
I think you're missing two things about the finale that might give you a clearer idea of how you feel about it. 1. It's a tragedy and 2. It's ambiguous.
It's intentionally written to be a tragic ending with a few morsels of hope. The treasure island characters, specifically, have to be set up for the start of the book, and so flint and silver's end has to be horribly tragic. Also, the show is partly historical, and pirates and slaves unfortunately didn't overthrow the british empire. We're happy that max realized that love is more important than legitimacy, that anne was willing to forgive her for betraying her, that woodes rogers won't go down in history as a hero. We're devestated that silver's choice destroys any chance of revolution and destroys his relationship with both flint and madi in the process. I don't think they want us to agree with max or silver's choices. I don't think we're meant to believe that the pursuit of a better world is pointless, this is just a story about people who tried.
Secondly/ maybe this is really the same point: there is a very real possibility that silver killed flint in those woods. We hear birds scatter from a gunshot, and the rest of the story is told to us by one of the biggest liars in the show. Flint meeting thomas in the field is shot similarly to flashbacks and dream sequences. You're meant to be able to believe either ending. Both outcomes are pretty tragic from silver's perspective though.
There aren’t enough Black Sails videos out there! This was great. You talked about things from some angles I hadn’t considered. I hope you get more views, this video deserves it! And if you do more Black Sails videos in the future I’ll definitely watch.
Thank you so much! I agree, it flew under the radar for such a tight series. Really strong writing, acting, everything. I really appreciate your comment and kind words. If you want to help me get more views, I'd love it if you shared this around! I'd love to talk about it more!
I went ahead and made another one! czcams.com/video/vzwFF4p6_Fc/video.html
@@timecapsule7842 definitely watching this later!
i think you really sell Flint short in this analysis. most of the things you say about him are true in season 1 and 2, but i think there's a very clear line of demarcation with his character. Miranda accuses him of fighting for the sake of fighting, embracing brutality to bury his grief over Thomas, and I think that's where we get a lot of his more tyrannical stuff. but after Flint meets the Maroons, we see him soften, become kinder, embrace a genuine hope in the future. he stops talking about Caesars and kings and starts talking about real freedom. i think one of the best things about Flint as a character is watching someone so insanely, deeply twisted, power hungry and cruel and vengeful, slowly regain the light in his eyes. it's a redemption arc which has weight because of the hideous things he's done before, and the cause of genuine good onto which he lashes himself.
by the end of season 4 he's committed to war with England not only for revenge but for the promise of a brighter future, and he's invested such genuine trust in John Silver that he's willing to forgive the kind of betrayals that he would have killed a man over in season 1. i think that's what makes it so gut-wrenching when that open and genuine trust is what ends up fucking him.
also, if you like Black Sails you owe it to yourself to read Treasure Island. the show's tragedy hinges on that book, especially in the ways that so much of Treasure Island is drawn from narratives provided by the historical Woodes Rogers about pirates, completely bearing out Flint's in-universe prediction that Silver's decision allowed their story to be defined by the histories of empire. not to mention that its events illuminate that Black Sails did not just have an ambiguously bad end, it had the worst possible outcome.
Hi there! This is a really thought-provoking comment. I started thinking about how I would respond, but then I realized I really wanted to clarify some of the points I was trying to make in this video, so I am drafting another video essay right now. Should be short (hopefully), but if you're interested, I can link to the video here when I'm done. Thanks for commenting!
@@timecapsule7842 oh, that'd be great, very interested to hear your thoughts!
@@concon09090 It's done! Thanks again for your comment, I really appreciate it 😊 czcams.com/video/vzwFF4p6_Fc/video.html
Great video. I loved the show and never even really thought about how Queer it was until afterwards, which is wild as I'm am all the Queer. I think it's a testament to the show that love and relationships are wholly treated as normal in a way that so much media, for good and ill, draw a lot more attention and/ or delineate between pretty much anything white, cisheteronormative, able bodied, and neurotypical, and anything considered by intersectionality, particularly with Queer relationships.
I absolutely adored the show, but I think my biggest criticism, especially reflecting on it and this video, is that the tangible love being the most important thing is great, I truly believe that every moment of joy I experience as someone is white, but otherwise Queer in pretty much every other sense than the 'norm/ law' is a victory of resistance, BUT, while a message to the marginalised to find love and joy where you can and forget everything else, is one I can somewhat get behind, that doesn't go for everyone (everyone deserves love and joy I'm not on the SCUM ticket). Contrasting that message with slavery, murder, capture, torture, etc. and basically giving up to your oppressors, whether completely or in compromising and contorting yourself, is, frankly, fucked. Like, I truly believe in the red and black flag, and I know revolution isn't tomorrow or maybe even ever. I'm stuck in capitalism, but I absolutely won't advocate or accept it in any way beyond being able to survive. There is a capitalist realism and privilege looking over the end of the show, I fear.
I am so glad they get to be united in the end, but this is a brutal show with measures of truth that ends up abdicating radical ideals, and it is the quest of love of a man who is a tyrant. He is a true believer for sure, but he is authority, and wants to impose that on those who have thrown it off. That guy being Queer and motivated by love is huge and I'm here for it, as I am all about not burying the gays, but him getting an ideal and vague happy ending is really sus and lazy. It would have broken me, but seeing Hamilton realise who Flint always was and what he became and maybe even Flint working against him to remove his power, as a man who knows best, maybe even keeping him under lock and key, like Jimeny Cricket in a cage, would be more honest about what Flint represents. At least Silva has the decency to grow into an old, selfish bastard lol.
Honestly, not contrasting things with the slave uprising would be the way to go to tell this story I think because there is too much to stake and too much that is too real.
I love this show and I'm so much more critical of things I care about. But yeah.
Pirate look is sick btw! 🏴☠️
I love this show
2:25 Lel no sorry, I am interested in how it did storytelling and lessons to bring into my own works. I do not think there is a need for focus on a special need for "same gender relationships", people are people no matter what shape size or sex. There can be some differences in what men and women prioritize and think, but that is still more of an individual thing rather than a group thing. There is some differences though, but I could not claim to know enough to put my finger on it (part of why I am here).
Lmao you look a lot like John Silver here actually.