Black Sails 🏴☠️ Video Essay - Comment Response | Shain Slepian aka TimeCapsule
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- čas přidán 7. 09. 2024
- This is a response to a comment I received on my last video about the series. Check it out here: • Black Sails 🏴☠️ Video...
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I'm so sad I took so long to discover those videos you made... Black Sails is really little known in Brasil. It was amazing to hear you about it.
Interesting! You articulated your points really well. “We should all be fleeing to farms to be gay” is also an argument I can’t refute lol.
For me I just interpret what the show is saying a bit differently. I don’t think it is outright agreeing with the philosophy you’re positing. Not that any of this is meant to change your mind or whatever, just my own thoughts.
Part of it comes form just my own reading of the show over many rewatches, and some of it comes from hearing interviews that the writers and actors did.
So, I think all the stuff you laid out is there. I think the show is presenting that philosophy as a viable and real one that people have. Is it saying that it’s right? I’m not so sure.
Let’s talk about Miranda. You’re 100% right that a lot of her character and personal philosophy involves seeking her own pleasure and happiness. However I don’t think she believes that it must be chosen above all else. And while she of course isn’t as prone to violence as Flint, and often tries to find ways to the least violent outcome, I don’t think she is opposed to its use by marginalized people against those who have wronged and oppressed them either. It is her who told Flint where he could find Alfred Hamilton, knowing full well what that would mean. And when she tried to rely on a part of civilization that she thought she could trust - she learns just how deeply that civilization betrayed them. She dies for it, but not before a very important declaration. “I want to see this city that you purchased with our misery, burn.”
And of course, Flint declares later that “her word will be the last word for this place.” And the burning of Charlestown is framed - perhaps not quite as righteous, but definitely as a judgement that has been earned and built over time by all the horror Ashe has been willing to abide by to ‘be a king of the new world’ and a part of civilization.
Now, as for the ultimate conclusion of the show…I don’t think it portrayed John Silver’s choice as the good one. An understandable and human choice yes. But the right one? I don’t think it’s saying that at all.
For one thing there is the ambiguity of it all. The show does not actually confirm or deny what happens to Flint. We do not see the moment of it, only hear Silver (the storyteller) describing it to Madi afterward. But we don’t know if it is true or not, and that’s very intentional! I tend to go back and forth, and it sort of depends on my mood. Regardless, I think that ambiguity is very important for the framing of the show’s philosophy, especially combined with Jack’s last monologue about storytelling.
Like, yes John Silver is choosing love, but is that being framed as a good thing? It isn’t framed as evil, but good or right doesn’t feel accurate either. Even that last shot of him and Madi standing together feels like such a contrast to how they joyfully reunited earlier in the season. The shot hangs on them standing apart. Even if John did this to choose love, this gap is always going to be between them. The easy trust and love they shared will never be back. That’s not exactly a huge endorsement for his choice.
On top of that, while I totally get not viewing the show in the context of Treasure Island, I do think there is intentionality there as well. John chooses to end the war, to try and choose love and happiness over horror. But what do we know of Treasure Island? Even just through cultural osmosis? That John Silver once again seeks the treasure.
That John Silver and Captain Flint, as Flint so desperately warned about in his final speech, “have become nothing more but monsters in the stories they tell their children.”
Aaanyway, I hope that was coherent. There’s a lot more I could have said but only so much room in a comment haha! It’s fun to have these kinds of discussions about this wonderful show.
Ok watching this one as well now - from the last video and the beginning of this one I was not with you about what the creators want us to believe. I was thinking they don't want to tell us what to believe. Which is true to an extent, I think they try to raise a lot of moral questions and ask the audience to draw their own conclusions. But you've really sold me on how it still operates with its own moral code, whether that was intentional or not. And flint is really the perfect example of that
About the ending, I really like to stick with the doubt, although I've read Treasure Island. Like Israel says "Fvck Flint, don't fvck Flint". Not getting a final answer makes me feel more like I'm a character fed by rumors, like a sailor of the crew hearing something here, something there, never knowing what to believe, TRYING not to carne, but bugged, from time to time... Loved the conclusion of the pirate revolution you made! 🙌
Be happy, happy pride day/month/year/life whenever you read this, if you do read. Haha
Glad I found your channel! 🙏
Thank you! I agree, I think it's a strength of the show.
A bit of an interesting side-note, Flint is more or less an empire in the shape of a single man (Stalin to Lenin as Flint is to Hamilton) in that he (like most individuals) will start things from Fear, Pride and Self Interest. On some level we understand it is good for a person to act to prevent what he fears, to strive for his Self Interest, and while it is a cardinal sin, Pride is something to obtain! Our very beings want to feel good about things that has to do with us as people.
On some level it becomes bad when, as Flint or an Empire or an Ideology, it swallows people whole. But that is also how progress appears to be made historically. Taking it back to the old Romans, How do we feel about the dead of Caesars wars in france? Do people of France today see it as good that the romans spread culture to them, even if it was at the point of a spear, so that we could have the cultures we have today? Was it good of the french revolution to kill all the people it did to give us what we have today? Was it good and well for Gengis Khan to ravage most of the Indo-european continent to break the borders and open up for trade and culture? Humanity as a whole progress on the death of individuals. Even things like "This poisonous fish can be eaten if you cut it up just right" would have required so many deaths to learn that, it is insane! But that on some level is how we humans operate. Individuals rule groups, groups rules cities, cities rules countries, countries rules empires, empires rule worlds. And on some degree, I fear to wonder: How many people have been sacrifised on the altar of progress to give us Air Conditioners and Computers today?
and for the end of this video: Life does get insane many times! We find motivation wherever we can, and as I told a friend: Try to meet someone somewhere, sit down, share a glas of something or an ice cream and just forget about the insanity sometimes. Cheers!
I find the whole "Personal > Ideology" to be fairly common among people I look up to, such as Terry Pratchett being the first who truly got me to see it from his stories, even if there is also the famous "Personal is not the same as important" -Captain Carrot. I feel like Ideologies are just like most groups, ideas do seem to have a mind of their own and it becomes very easy for people to get swallowed by mindsets and forget what I learned from DJ Peace Cobblers video on the red dead character, "Individuals are ends, do not use them as means to your ends". Even if I would be happy to sacrifise myself to a greater future, I would want it to be a future I would help to shape, and I would not want someone else to force me into it, that is part of what makes Flint such a villain, he will step over more corpses than Griffith to get his castle!
Flint was and about half the pirates were based on real pirates and their individual life stories and events political maneuvering here are not that far from the truth. The pirate community at Port Royal is credited with the first model of a modern republic point of view and the real Flint had a significant part in it. When the pirate community collapsed, several managed to go inland and lead normal lives under different names.
The actor that played Black Beard also played in Rome, main character. A series you should view with the same political eye and is pretty accurate. He passed away a few weeks back.
You should check the real life stories of these pirates. It may inform and enhance your critique.
Fun fact. The largest pirate fleet was under the command of an asian woman, had 600+ ships. actually retired to a palace in the interior of China.
I don't think the ending of Black Sails was very good, and I always imagined that James was brought together with Thomas in death. He never felt like he would be able to settle down to being "the boogeyman people tell the children", that feels like the most unrealistic to me, that someone who got that high would be able to settle down. Just like Silver goes back for the treasure in the book, Flint would have eventually started some new shit with Hamilton by his side.
1. Your hair is amazing and seems to incredibly suit you regardless of length.
2. Your videos are amazing and it's a crime you aren't getting the views you deserve.
3. Loved the last video and this one was brilliant.
I think Flint is an incredibly compelling character, largely because of the depth of emotion and humanity he is shown to have, while, as you say, changing very little and having somewhat questionable beliefs. I see him as someone closer to the original, little L libertarian, while still being on the Libertarian side. This man in modern times or his equivalent might where a yellow t-shirt with a snake on it. But we wouldn't be able to see him as emotional and human through that lens, and sadly that kind of man now wouldn't be able to access and express that emotion. I think that's the beauty of stories, that they allow us to see other perspectives and people as the human beings they are. My not feeling at all safe with this man, his philosophies, and frankly the philosophy of the show, doesn't change my respect and appreciation of them. However, I at least to me, it is important to mark that I don't just disagree with the stance of the show and Flint, as we generally agree on it, I denounce and oppose that sentiment. This doesn't mean I am against the show and various perspectives need to to be seen and understood, but I find it hard to reconcile and just agree to disagree with the stoic, hedonistic, isolationist approach of art made now, especially in which Queer, racial, and authoritarian issues are prominent. The show and Flint are problematic faves, which you intimate in both videos as being too strong a word to use, but I think it's appropriate. I don't use it to it's full most powerful sesne, but in a world of demonising liberty, rising devisions and hatred, particularly for Queer folx, especially us transes, it is dangerous and privileged.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this is hardcore propaganda, and I absolutely acknowledge there's a lot of more of a chance for people to be moved and grow on app manner of topics from watching this show. There is so much potential good it can also do, so I really want to be clear that this is not an attack on the show. I just think want amounts to a laissez-faire message is the last thing we need right now, and is kinda terrifying a conclusion for the creators to come to, both from the setting and story they are writing and the climate they are writing it in.
I had intended to not leave another long comment, apologies. Great video. Great show. I just feel very strong and am very afraid. Love, support and solidarity ❤
Thank you so much for all your kind comments! I'm hoping to upload more regularly but balancing work and my other projects makes it difficult.
@timecapsule7842 You are more than welcome! Thank you for sharing your wonderful, thoughtful perspectives, and putting up with my ridiculous comments. Life is tough and always comes before any sense of obligation to an audience. In the words of of Emma Grrrl “[you] don't have an obligation to anyone but [yourself]. The world is a nightmare and we gotta survive and keep on keeping on. That's always the priority. In a perfect world we would be free to create, but that's not where we at. Just know your videos make the world a better place and we can all wait as long as you need!
That's so sweet 🥲 thank you!