I hear there's lots of plundering down in New Mexico...
I have been told by one 
catwalksalone that she will do a sad face if I don't write a bit about the epic amazingness of Black Sails. Since I am a sucker for the threat of a sad face, and Black Sails has seriously just been blowing my tiny nerd brain, here are some of my thoughts about that.
SPOILERS.
NO REALLY.
SPOILERS.
IF YOU CARE ABOUT THIS AT ALL YOU WILL GET SPOILED.
Okay.
The thing is, the show was ALWAYS about narrative. It was very clear right from the beginning that this wasn't just about either Treasure Island the book, or historical piracy. This was about the intersection of those two things. What I think a lot of us didn't get until much later was just how deep the show was going to take that discussion. I am just bowled over and full of love for that, because what we ended up getting was a whoooooole lot more interesting than I thought we could get. We got layer upon layer upon layer about stories, how they're made and why they matter, and they didn't even kill my favourite characters! It actually reminds me a little bit of what The Americans is doing with history, except this time pirate history and narrative. I couldn't be more thrilled. I hope it inspires a BAJILLION COOL THINGS.
None of this is going to be massively coherent, but hi. :D
One of my favourite things is that it retrospectively explains their decisions in season 1. I was not a fan of some of that: specifically, there was a whole lot of rape and sexual violence. It made sense to me that they were using it partly to say “You like pirate stories? Real pirates were NOT NICE.” I just wished saying that hadn't involved a rape tent, because frankly we do not need that.
What I think NOW is that yes, they went full-on with that as a way of pointing out that the reality of piracy was not what most viewers would be expecting, but that it was also used as a way of saying that these are things which shape the narrative. Max's story depends on her trauma: not because she is defined only by that, but because that's part of the world in which women's stories are created. That she can came from such a terrible place to be the amazing and powerful woman who basically runs Nassau is possible because of that narrative: Mrs Guthrie understands and respects her, and ultimately aids her, because of it. Max is given the agency of her own narrative, and I LOVE THAT.
I especially love that Max is queer queer queer queer, her love of women is CENTRAL to who she is and what she does, and that's explicitly tied in to her narrative power. If there's one thing the finale did, it was to say firmly that all these queer and female and brown-skinned stories are absolutely fucking vital and nothing will stop them because story is everywhere. Flint gets his sort-of happy ending with Thomas, because the point isn't that we “know” he died in Savannah: it's how we contextualise that. Jack and Anne and Max will all have to die sometime, we know that, but that's also not the point. It's what that MEANS. And what that means is narrative.
Also, hella fucking gay. Thankyou, show.
This is also also why Jack's revenge on Woodes Rogers is so satisfying. We know as viewers that the pirates lose Nassau in real life. But they also won the narrative battle; their image and their legacy matters in ways that Woodes 'Hi I'm a psychopath let me tell you all about it' Rogers will never, and can never, defeat. Woodes Rogers killed lots of people and he sort of wins the war... but he is eviscerated in history. (By the show itself as much as by Jack in the world of the show. Layers on layers on layers. Narrative all the way down!) Rogers' effect on Eleanor's story is to stop it short, her metaphorically standing back from her role in order to cede it to him as well as literally to end it with her dead on the floor, but narrative is a weapon for other people too. Seeing him taken down by his own weapon made my DAY.
And like a bunch of other people have commented, it makes sense that it would be by Jack. I've always loved Jack, and it makes me so happy. He's been the voice of the modern viewer. He speaks in the most modern way, he THINKS in the most modern way, and he has always been the self-awareness lurking at the edges. And at the end, he gets to create the most iconic piratical symbol of them all, outlasting everyone and everything on the show, look down at his work and go... “ehhh.” It makes me laugh every time I think of it. It's so Jack! I love him! He expresses everything about the way we are never fundamentally satisfied with our own stories. He is that yearning to make it somehow more perfect, even though there's no way to fully realise that perfection. He is the way our own stories are always distorted in the mirror of our experiences. He is the breath we take that lets us keep going anyway. I love it.
And I love Mary Read and I LOVE THAT SHE'S THERE AND THEY'RE GOING TO KEEP SAILING ON AND HAVING ADVENTURES IN OUR IM\AGINATIONS FOREVER. Mary/Jack/Anne forever! Ahem.
Can I make a case that Mary is an argument for the inclusion of trans narratives here as well? There are so many - SO MANY - queer narratives in this show that it's really the biggest obvious massive gap. Especially when we know from the record that at least some pirates were definitely living as a gender they were not assigned at birth. It definitely is including trans narratives in my head, anyway.
The other thing there, though, is the viewer. Part of the meta-narrative is the way we are making the narrative simply by watching. When Jack or Flint or Silver or Billy talks about narrative and making the story, they also mean for us. Which I think is incredibly cool. I also think it's exactly why it didn't end in all our favourite characters dying. It could have, but what would that have said? In retrospect, it seems so obvious. Creating narrative, being part of it, is often FUN. It's a living thing, it's a process that never ends. The one thing it can't be is dead. Narrative only dies when we stop thinking about it, stop talking about it.
Nice one, writers. I should have guessed. :D
Basically, lovely people please come and geek out with me! I just had such a great televisual experience and I desperately want to share it!
This entry was originally posted at http://soupytwist.dreamwidth.org/160640.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
catwalksalone that she will do a sad face if I don't write a bit about the epic amazingness of Black Sails. Since I am a sucker for the threat of a sad face, and Black Sails has seriously just been blowing my tiny nerd brain, here are some of my thoughts about that.
SPOILERS.
NO REALLY.
SPOILERS.
IF YOU CARE ABOUT THIS AT ALL YOU WILL GET SPOILED.
Okay.
The thing is, the show was ALWAYS about narrative. It was very clear right from the beginning that this wasn't just about either Treasure Island the book, or historical piracy. This was about the intersection of those two things. What I think a lot of us didn't get until much later was just how deep the show was going to take that discussion. I am just bowled over and full of love for that, because what we ended up getting was a whoooooole lot more interesting than I thought we could get. We got layer upon layer upon layer about stories, how they're made and why they matter, and they didn't even kill my favourite characters! It actually reminds me a little bit of what The Americans is doing with history, except this time pirate history and narrative. I couldn't be more thrilled. I hope it inspires a BAJILLION COOL THINGS.
None of this is going to be massively coherent, but hi. :D
One of my favourite things is that it retrospectively explains their decisions in season 1. I was not a fan of some of that: specifically, there was a whole lot of rape and sexual violence. It made sense to me that they were using it partly to say “You like pirate stories? Real pirates were NOT NICE.” I just wished saying that hadn't involved a rape tent, because frankly we do not need that.
What I think NOW is that yes, they went full-on with that as a way of pointing out that the reality of piracy was not what most viewers would be expecting, but that it was also used as a way of saying that these are things which shape the narrative. Max's story depends on her trauma: not because she is defined only by that, but because that's part of the world in which women's stories are created. That she can came from such a terrible place to be the amazing and powerful woman who basically runs Nassau is possible because of that narrative: Mrs Guthrie understands and respects her, and ultimately aids her, because of it. Max is given the agency of her own narrative, and I LOVE THAT.
I especially love that Max is queer queer queer queer, her love of women is CENTRAL to who she is and what she does, and that's explicitly tied in to her narrative power. If there's one thing the finale did, it was to say firmly that all these queer and female and brown-skinned stories are absolutely fucking vital and nothing will stop them because story is everywhere. Flint gets his sort-of happy ending with Thomas, because the point isn't that we “know” he died in Savannah: it's how we contextualise that. Jack and Anne and Max will all have to die sometime, we know that, but that's also not the point. It's what that MEANS. And what that means is narrative.
Also, hella fucking gay. Thankyou, show.
This is also also why Jack's revenge on Woodes Rogers is so satisfying. We know as viewers that the pirates lose Nassau in real life. But they also won the narrative battle; their image and their legacy matters in ways that Woodes 'Hi I'm a psychopath let me tell you all about it' Rogers will never, and can never, defeat. Woodes Rogers killed lots of people and he sort of wins the war... but he is eviscerated in history. (By the show itself as much as by Jack in the world of the show. Layers on layers on layers. Narrative all the way down!) Rogers' effect on Eleanor's story is to stop it short, her metaphorically standing back from her role in order to cede it to him as well as literally to end it with her dead on the floor, but narrative is a weapon for other people too. Seeing him taken down by his own weapon made my DAY.
And like a bunch of other people have commented, it makes sense that it would be by Jack. I've always loved Jack, and it makes me so happy. He's been the voice of the modern viewer. He speaks in the most modern way, he THINKS in the most modern way, and he has always been the self-awareness lurking at the edges. And at the end, he gets to create the most iconic piratical symbol of them all, outlasting everyone and everything on the show, look down at his work and go... “ehhh.” It makes me laugh every time I think of it. It's so Jack! I love him! He expresses everything about the way we are never fundamentally satisfied with our own stories. He is that yearning to make it somehow more perfect, even though there's no way to fully realise that perfection. He is the way our own stories are always distorted in the mirror of our experiences. He is the breath we take that lets us keep going anyway. I love it.
And I love Mary Read and I LOVE THAT SHE'S THERE AND THEY'RE GOING TO KEEP SAILING ON AND HAVING ADVENTURES IN OUR IM\AGINATIONS FOREVER. Mary/Jack/Anne forever! Ahem.
Can I make a case that Mary is an argument for the inclusion of trans narratives here as well? There are so many - SO MANY - queer narratives in this show that it's really the biggest obvious massive gap. Especially when we know from the record that at least some pirates were definitely living as a gender they were not assigned at birth. It definitely is including trans narratives in my head, anyway.
The other thing there, though, is the viewer. Part of the meta-narrative is the way we are making the narrative simply by watching. When Jack or Flint or Silver or Billy talks about narrative and making the story, they also mean for us. Which I think is incredibly cool. I also think it's exactly why it didn't end in all our favourite characters dying. It could have, but what would that have said? In retrospect, it seems so obvious. Creating narrative, being part of it, is often FUN. It's a living thing, it's a process that never ends. The one thing it can't be is dead. Narrative only dies when we stop thinking about it, stop talking about it.
Nice one, writers. I should have guessed. :D
Basically, lovely people please come and geek out with me! I just had such a great televisual experience and I desperately want to share it!
This entry was originally posted at http://soupytwist.dreamwidth.org/160640.html. Please comment there using OpenID.