bowlsnbones

and they were shipmates

i’m eddie! :) ☆ he/they ☆ brazilian (🇧🇷) ☆ 17 ☆ just some nerdy high schooler who’s totally normal about media :D (i’m not) ☆ gif by @/love-byers

19 posts

YEESSSS

YEESSSS‼️‼️

Jack tried so hard to make Stede hate Ed, to make him become afraid of Ed, to turn them against each other by exposing some obscure aspects of Ed’s past, but that just proves how much Jack doesn’t know Stede and his love for Ed! cause if he did he would know that his plan would’ve NEVER worked on Stede and that there is nothing he could say about Ed that would make Stede see him as a monster <33 (this makes me think of that verse from Mary on a Cross by Ghost “your beauty never ever scared me”- 😭😭)

Stede not only knows how much Ed regrets the violence that he committed in the past and how painful those memories are for him; he knows firsthand what the urge to free yourself from your past feels like!

Stede- through the entirety of season 1- is being constantly haunted by aspects of his past that disturbed him and which he tried to escape by leaving to become a pirate; people like Jack and Izzy representing the idealized vision of masculinity that he never managed to achieve -which led to him being ridiculed by people like his dad or the Badminton’s who saw his tenderness as a weakness-, the rich assholes in S1E5 being the embodiment of the society that oppressed him and made him feel worthless, his guilt for leaving Mary and his children behind and the fear that they’re suffering as a result of the choices he made, etc

I wanted to repost these bigger, because, first, good acting choices. Second, the progression of their faces as Jack talks about Ed's past really does tell a story about how they're both perceiving the conversation.

Stede's initial reaction is surprise, but it quickly slides into trying to discern how Ed is reacting to what Jack says.

Ed never really looks at Stede as soon as Jack brings up the burning ship. He dissociates almost immediately. Even when Stede directly speaks to him, he won't meet Stede's eyes, and keeps avoiding his gaze throughout the scene.

It lays the groundwork of Ed's fears that Stede will eventually realize what a monster he is. It's also the first time that Stede is really facing the reality of Ed's past—Ed's reaction indicates that Jack's not lying—and he's increasingly distressed by it.

Stede brings up Ed having "given up the killing," a reference to their conversation in the bathtub. Stede doesn't know that Ed has only ever told him about this, but of course it resonates with Ed. And Stede does seem to be looking for reassurance, or for some explanation, since what Jack is saying and the man that Stede knows seem to be two different people.

Though Ed doesn't look at Stede, Stede looks at Ed. He looks at him more than he looks at Jack, and he watches his responses. Stede has very little emotional insight into himself, but boy does he have a lot into Ed. You can see the progress of his thoughts across his face, even as he doesn't put them into words.

The whole episode isn't just about Ed looking at his past, but Stede looking at Ed's past. Ultimately Stede's conclusion is that Ed's past is Ed's business, but it's also important Stede himself knows more of who Ed is now. He's learned more facets—Ed has indeed been Blackbeard, the man who burned a ship full of people, and who made turtles fight crabs. Stede can either accept that about him or deny it, but denying it means that he denies a part of who Ed has been.

It is not that Stede decides to ignore Ed's past violence, but to accept what it is—a part of piracy, something that Ed has done and that he's moved beyond. Because Stede does not see a man laughing and joking about burning people alive, as Jack does, but a man deeply ashamed of having done it. Stede later tells Jack that maybe Ed isn't the same man he knew, and he means that.

This feeds into Stede's love of Ed, as well as the basis for Ed's self-loathing. Where Ed believes that this is "what I am," and where his shame at bringing violence onto Stede's ship makes him want to run before he can hurt or be hurt, he misses that Stede sees him clearly. Stede neither rejects Ed based on Jack's stories, nor does he disbelieve those stories. It gets threaded into the fabric of his love—his recognition of Ed's past, his belief that Ed is a good man (because he has seen more evidence of that than anything else), and his acceptance that this good man has done bad things.

Once more, Stede does understand Ed. He does love everything about him. He doesn't excuse Ed's past violence, he doesn't disbelieve or pretend it doesn't exist, but he also doesn't treat it as the sum total of the man. Stede sees the man who murdered his father to protect his mother, the man who went on a treasure hunt for a petrified orange and who takes seven sugars in his tea, the man who has treated him and his crew with kindness and gentleness, the man who planned to kill him but didn't, the man who has cried in the bathtub and also threatened to skin a racist. Stede never sees Ed as a monster, even when told the most monstrous things he's done. He sees him as a flawed, damaged, gentle man. And he loves him for all of it.

YEESSSS

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