Besides How Incredibly Real This Seem, Flint's Gaze In The Third One Absolutely Kills Me. This Scene

I've always said that, he is immortal. 🙌🏻

(And I refuse to believe that someone like Silver could have been his end, sorry.)

“I have survived starvation, a tempest, pirate hunters, jealous captains, mutinous crews, angry lords, a queen, a king, and the goddamn British navy.” - Captain J Flint, Black Sails (Toby Stephens)

Im not the first person to post about this, but I just rewatched VIII with a friend who is watching the show for the first time, so it’s fresh in my mind again, but like jfc on a rewatch the scene where gates tells flint that his crimes are too great that he is going to have to be spirited away with miranda in the dead of night to avoid the noose, the look on flints face, the way he says please. Please don’t do this is just. Fucking devastating. when you, the audience, are burdened with the knowledge of exactly what happened to him and miranda and thomas back in london. Flint killing gates is so horrific, so completely incomprehensible and unforgivable on the first watch, my friend was basically shouting at the screen, “why would he do this? It doesn’t solve any of his problems! That’s his only friend! What the fuck! Fuck this guy!” And like. Yeah. This doesn’t fix any of Flint’s problems. It doesn’t make any sense for Captain Flint to do this. I could hate Captain Flint for doing this. The ghost of James McGraw however…? I understand exactly why he does that.

The Untamed x Harper’s Bazaar

This is the last thing Flint says to Miranda in a private conversation and I think is one of the most revealing things about Flint as a character he directly states.

Flint was created to be ephemeral and that explains where his fear of being perceived as the villain comes from. Up to this point, what James has been doing is compartmentalizing the actions and feelings of his two versions: McGraw and Flint. And since his intention has always been to get rid of Flint because he is not who he believes himself to be, he can't stand the thought of people only taking into account what the latter has done.

But it's inevitable, James McGraw and James Flint move in completely different circles, they are known to different people. Only one person has lived with both of them: Miranda. She is the anchor to his past life, the one who reminds him that no matter how many years he has been called Flint, he was McGraw before and he still is.

So that's why what is about to happen at that dinner has huge implications for him that will turn him into what he was so afraid of becoming.

Lately I went rewatching ep.I. It was the third time, but the first one being as obsessed with this show (and having the full picture of it) as I am now. And, wow, it really could be called an “introduction”. I mean, besides all the main characters' introduction, in those 60 minutes there are hints to all of the main themes treated in the show.

They give a sketch of the pirate figure they are going to deepen throughout the seasons (free men who keep what they want) and also of the way they are seen and conceived by the civilized world (as fearsome monsters).

They also start to give some hints about the nature of that “civilized world”.

They even introduce the concept of shame! I didn't remember that.

Captain Hume says: ”gossip is what holds civilization together. It reinforces shame. And without shame the world is a very dangerous place.”

Which, wow, is pretty ominous considering what we are going to discover in season two.

They also start to make it pretty clear how things work in Nassau, how important it is to have allies and at the same time how easily those alliances may change, with poor Gates trying to gain votes for Flint (and I'm going to say it once again: he didn't deserve to die. Like, I love Flint, but this I can't forgive him.)

And speaking about Flint, they already give very important informations about him.

Sure, we see him being the bossiest and the strongest of the bunch, all determined with his actions and plans and all, but what I'm really talking about are the hints to his personality.

Of course we don't know him yet at episode one (and I'm sure the first impressions of him must have been the most disparate. I can't even remember my very first impression of him, but considering my actual tastes in characters I think that if I had first known him now I would have loved him at once) but they drop things which are very important considering what we are going to discover about his character.

Like, we know at first that he doesn't trust his men at all (“I don't trust them with the truth”+ the various lies lol), and we see that he definitely is not “one of them”, because they find him too different from them to be considered such and probably this is where all those mistrust in him come from (“I know they've always found me aloof, too educated” which really, really, tells a lot about him).

And I just thought: how strong must he have been to gain and hold the power over those men in a world where there are no rules, no indisputable ranks, where trust and submission is granted (and only barely promised) to the stronger ones or to the ones who are considered the most fitted to receive it only basing on one's subjective judgment and advantage, without even being liked by those men?

And also, Dufresne says that “he loves his books” which is another one of the things that in my opinion are so beautiful about his character for the deep links those books have with his story and his development (I could write a whole essay about Flint's books lol).

Anyway, I just finished rewatching season 4 some weeks ago and since I can't stay for long without BS anymore I thought: why not starting it again? And so. Btw, I really needed to rewatch the first season since I feel like I still haven't appreciated it enough.

I'm trying to get back into the groove of things. I am currently diving headfirst into one of my oldest hyper fixations. I finished this a few days ago after taking too long to work on it, but well....

REBLOG IF THIS RELATES TO YOU:

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explain your favorite ship without using any names/titles

People like that are so hard to find, really. So many are good at speaking but very few are actually good at listening.

I think it's important to interact too, ask questions and show interest while someone talks about things they love, even if it's not your favourite kind of things, because you may find new interests you never thought about first of all, and then because it's a form of respect. If I'm interested in you as a person, I should be also interested in what you say, whatever that may be.

Just my thought about it.

It makes me happy when they listen

You will care. Someday, you will care.

Re-reading Treasure Island and this (incredibly ableist) quote from pg. 30(?) really struck me. And all I could think of was how Silver saw himself after losing the leg and struggled, even when he was at the height of his power - but his allies never saw him as lesser for it. Only Civilization did... Would that haunt him, too? I thought that having a s1-inspired Silver in contrast with that quote was particularly meaningful.

Textless version under the cut.