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i'm gonna try and pull together a bunch of things about ed's arc in ofmd that i think fit together in a way that's hard to articulate, and i'm thinking out loud here, so this might not be my most coherent meta. a lot of this is stuff people have said before, i don't know how much of it's new.

ok. the trust no one tattoo.

we don't know if ed got the tattoo during the kraken era or already had it. i have a hard time imagining he didn't have any back tattoos before. but nevertheless the narrative framing is it's the very first thing we see of ed in season 2 and it is new information we did not have before.

so this is meant to set the stage for where ed is as a character at the start of season 2, the way stede's dream sets up where stede is at: the first thing the show wants you to know about ed and his mental state at this point is that he does not trust anyone. he wants to remind himself not to trust anyone.

it's easy to think of this as being primarily about stede: he trusted stede, stede betrayed him, the tattoo is a reminder not to fall in love again.

that is certainly part of it. i don't think it's the whole thing though. i think no one means no one.

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i have a combination of takes on the namby-pamby scene that seems kind of uncommon, which is that of course edward better watch his fucking step was definitely obviously a death threat, and one that izzy meant ed to take seriously, and ed did take it seriously and that's why he does what he does next. but also ed does not become the kraken because he's afraid of what izzy will do if he doesn't.

if the only threat was izzy, there's ways to deal with him. ed knows how to deal with him, izzy's dangerous but he's also predictable and not all that smart.

but getting rid of izzy is pointless, because it doesn't solve the problem.

because if it's not safe to be vulnerable around izzy, it's not safe around anyone. if letting his guard down means izzy's already threatening him like this, how much less can he trust a bunch of people he mostly just met a couple weeks ago? that's why you get that very strange moment where ed stands there with a haunted look on his face listening to the crew call "eddie sing us a song."

izzy was the trigger, izzy is the one who taught him to be afraid, but what he's afraid of is not izzy.

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one thing about father figures is your relationship with your parents tends to set a lot of your fundamental expectations about all the other relationships in your life.

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something that always gets me is the we in "why are we even being pirates."

stede told ed what retirement means but i don't really think for a second that a guy as smart as ed had never thought of the fact that if you have a lot of money you can stop working and live off the money. he could have retired at any time. he could have made plans to run away to china at any time. when stede didn't show up he could have just run away to china on his own. he could have gone off and opened an inn. he doesn't need anyone's cooperation to do this stuff.

but he doesn't do it. he's wanted to stop being a pirate for a long time, but he didn't make any move to act on it until stede was in his life. and when his plan to retire in china with stede falls apart the first thing he does is go back to the ship, to the crew, some people he mostly barely knows at this point, and ask if they'll stop being pirates with him.

he really wants to do it, but not alone.

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when the crew's being marooned on the island roach calls "tell edward my special skill is juggling!" you know, like you would if you were really genuinely excited to share this talent show with your friend.

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calico jack is not ed's friend. they like each other a lot and have been through a lot together but they're not friends and they both know it. the reason they're not friends is because their relationship does not involve trust. what kind of pirate has a friend, we're all in various stages of fucking each other over.

but jack also says, the old blackbeard would've seen me coming a mile away. and the thing is he's right. the old blackbeard, the guy ed was a couple weeks ago, never would have made the mistake of trusting jack like he does in this episode.

he knew they couldn't trust each other, and that kind of relationship made perfect sense to ed, because he knew he's not capable of having real friends. he's not a good person. he's a monster who killed his own father. he doesn't get to have fine things, like friendship, or love. the kind of relationship he has with jack is as close as someone like him can get.

but a couple nights ago stede learned about the reason ed's a monster and all he said about it was "i'm your friend." and that upends everything, because if ed really believes that, it means ed is a person who is capable of having friends. if stede can love ed then ed must not be completely unlovable.

if it's possible for ed to have friends then maybe he was wrong. maybe jack's his friend. maybe izzy is. maybe the crew could all be his friends one day.

so he tries treating jack as his friend, and jack says no, i'm not your friend and it was stupid of you to think otherwise.

and that doesn't make him give up, maybe jack wasn't his friend but stede still is. and then stede leaves him.

and then that doesn't make him give up either. he says, all right, stede didn't want me but maybe i can still be the kind of person who has friends. maybe i can treat izzy and the crew as friends.

(under the circumstances this is insanely, unbelievably brave. a leap of faith.)

and he tries that and what happens is izzy goes to him and says i should have let the english kill you. whatever it is you've become is a fate worse than death.

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it takes lucius offering some support before ed has the courage to make that leap of faith. and that makes sense, because lucius is the one member of the crew ed had gotten a little bit close to before this point. lucius is the one who'd seen his feelings back when he was trying to hide them and responded with support and told him to embrace them.

so when he realizes it was a terrible dangerous mistake to try to act like a person who can have friends he has to get lucius out of the way first, before he can do any of the rest of it. because lucius is the one he's most tempted to trust, and that makes him the biggest threat.

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when izzy confronts ed it's not because ed shaved or wore a robe or built a blanket fort. he seems to have known about all that and tolerated it, reluctantly, as long as ed kept that stuff in private where izzy thinks it belongs.

what was unacceptable to izzy was ed displaying emotional vulnerability in front of the crew. ed rejecting the blackbeard persona in front of the crew. ed expressing his feelings in front of the crew.

what gets ed to shoot izzy is when izzy names his feelings out loud in front of the crew.

actually back up a little. what starts that whole scene is that izzy says "talk it through," and ed finishes the line, "as a crew," and yeah he is upset in part because this is treading dangerously close to mentioning stede.

but it is also treading dangerously close to referencing the exact thing izzy had told him not to do. the thing izzy said was a fate worse than death, the thing that started all this.

you know that's part of what's going on because how ed reacts, specifically, is not to get upset at izzy right there in private but to march out on deck and find the crew - whom he seems to have been largely avoiding during the kraken era, remember they seem to barely see him, they have no idea what's going on with him except a lot of rhino horn - and say hey guys let's talk.

the toe thing was malicious compliance, we've all talked about that, izzy asked for the old blackbeard back and blackbeard is a guy who'll make a bloke eat his own toes for a laugh. you called him, well, here he is.

this is malicious compliance too: you want to talk about my feelings as a crew, izzy? you mean the thing i was trying to do before, when i wore a silk gown and sang to them? you think i should talk to the crew now? you get to decide when it's time for that to happen, huh? on your terms, not mine?

well, i'm blackbeard, remember, i'm a monster. this is the only way blackbeard can talk to his crew: at gunpoint. you made sure i know what happens when edward tries to talk to them like they're his friends.

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a common criticism of s2 is that it portrayed romantic love as the only thing ed needs to be happy and as magically fixing his mental health. i do not agree with that for a couple reasons some of which i have already talked about. but another one is it really just looks to me like a lot of ed's arc is about how he relates to the crew. and it positioned stede's love as something that was healing for ed in large part not because he needed romantic love to be whole but specifically because the experience of being loved by stede gave him the courage to open up to other people in a way he couldn't before.

(i have more to say about how stede fits into this too, probably, sometime. this is already too long.)

on his deathbed izzy does not talk about stede at all, which is weird. narratively, the deathbed scene has to be the culmination of izzy's redemption arc, it's where he has to sum up who he is and what his role in the narrative was about and what exactly he did to ed. and you'd think, in a show that is fundamentally a romance, that izzy's worst sin would be standing in the way of true love.

but he doesn't mention stede and instead he does talk about the crew and ed's relationship with them. he says, you're surrounded by family, they all love you.

we've had a lot of discourse about whether that's true and whether s2 does enough to establish that it's true. i do think the beat could have been hit harder. but - this framing is what you'd expect if the narrative thought one of the worst things izzy did to ed was convince him to turn his back on his developing bond with the crew. it feels a lot more right if you remember all of this started with izzy berating ed, fundamentally, for thinking he could trust the crew. and it ends with izzy assuring him he can.

#crying wailing sobbing etc etc etc #txt #sc #meta #bts #edward teach #crew of the revenge #izzy hands #s1e06 #s1e08 #s1e09 #s1e10 #s2e01 #s2e08

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