#anyway point is: nobody tell me i sound like an unhinged conspiracy theorist I'm well aware | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bookshelfdreams · 2 years

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HELLO YES I WANT TO HEAR ABOUT SPERM WHALES

DO YOU NOW

ok this is of course about the pirate show

first of all, let me redirect you to this tag where you will find the rest of my unhinged ramblings about this insignificant almost-certainly unintentional random little detail; of course I'm gonna ramble some more.

The paperweight Stede uses to knock out Nigel Badminton resembles a sperm whale.

An animal that mainly eats squid, including giant squid; the real-life Kraken.

I am absolutely in love with it, it's got incredibly dense symbology, so many different angles one could take on interpreting this.

One could focus on the monster-killer aspect: Stede kills Nigel with it, who is the one who's truly monstrous. And yes, whether or not stede actually murdered him is debatable on a technical level, but he IS the one directly responsible for his death. Which doesn't mean he should feel bad about it. He shouldn't, the story absolves him. Not because he wasn't actually responsible, but because Nigel had it coming, good riddance. The sperm whale kills the only monster on the ship, and later, Stede finds the perfect paperweight to replace it: the petrified orange, the symbol for family, and home, and love. The thing he finds right as he invites Ed to take a place at his side and Ed accepts. The whale is no longer necessary; there are no more monsters on this ship.

Or. How about this: both Ed's and Stede's most violent moments are tied to creatures from the deep.

Ed diassociates the part of him that was capable to strangle his father to death. He tells the story about the Kraken, about a mythological beast emerging from the ocean to wreak senseless havoc, to kill an innocent man while he watches, frozen in fear (but doesn't fail to mention that his father deserved it). An animal that can only survive in crushing depths, in darkness, that never comes to the surface, or if it does, kills without mercy or meaning. A terrifying alien, unlike anything us surface-dwellers know or understand.

An animal that, in reality, is intelligent and fascinating. Not evil, because evil does not exist in nature. A survivor, each adult the only one of thousands to grow that big.

And Stede. Stede gets the sperm whale. No less terrifying, but understandable. Air-breathing and warm-blooded, like us, but, so very unlike us, made for depths. Diving deeper than any other mammal, the biggest predator on earth. Deadly, but not to us or other mammals, and gentle. Kind and living in a network of strong social bonds. Hunted nearly to extinction, because colonizers have never seen a miracle of nature and not exploited it to near-destruction.

Not monstrous like the Kraken. Not inspiring fear and awe. Not even the protection of unreality; just a big, dumb animal that can be killed for the fluids in its body, the giant carcass left for the scavengers.

A hunted giant, striking back.

A great, horrible power emerging from the waters, and retreating back in the safety of its own legend.

Both Ed's and Stede's most violent moments are tied to creatures from the deep, but neither is a monster, and neither is evil. Both are just living things, trying to survive in an increasingly hostile world.

But there's this too: you cannot make a life in the depths, if you are human. Violence is necessary sometimes, and cycles of violence do not start with the oppressed and marginalized defending themselves; but dwelling on it cannot make a life grow. To find contentment and healing, you will have to release the creatures to the abyss where they belong.

You have to plant oranges.

#THANK YOU GOOD NIGHT #and like yes. yes I know this is unintentional. the kraken isn't but the sperm whale is. but it just. fits too perfectly #too good to be accidental too random to be intentional #the script that made the rounds a few weeks back just mentions a brass paperweight (of course I checked) that's proof it's not that deep!#except it's clearly an early draft that has 2 or 3 additional characters so maybe it was a sperm whale on purpose! I don't know!#anyway point is: nobody tell me i sound like an unhinged conspiracy theorist I'm well aware #the fucking sperm whale #our flag means death #thoughts #moth-ra #message

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