#but it could ALSO be stede really wanting that world/respect/look for HIMSELF
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Izzy Hands is a victim of his own success. And not just in his construction of Blackbeard, which we'll get to... later. Probably in another post. But he's a victim of his own success in that he has created his own persona and nobody ever takes him for anything but surface value.
Izzy's created himself as a capable, suave, smart individual who can handle anything that comes at him. And, in a general sense, it's true. He's helped Edward Teach create the Blackbeard myth, he's an obviously talented fencer and fighter, and he's reasonably (more in a minute) sure of his place in the world and what his responsibilities are.
And here's the thing.
Izzy's place in the world is just, "Blackbeard." I mean, yes, you could expand that to "Blackbeard's right arm," because Izzy is Blackbeard's first mate, given that position by Blackbeard himself. But I'd make the argument that it wasn't really because Izzy did anything exceptional; it's because Izzy was there, he helped construct Blackbeard, of course it makes sense that the next step would be making him first mate to help keep Blackbeard shored up.
And being first mate comes with a certain set of duties, like keeping the crew in line, basically being the captain when the captain isn't around. And as long as he's doing it in Blackbeard's name, there's not that much required out of him; the fear of Blackbeard does most of the job for him, and he can fill in the rest. And the crewmembers like Ivan and Fang (I love Fang so much) have probably figured this out. I mean, they have zero respect for Izzy; consider the sketching in "The Best Revenge Is Dressing Well". Wee John comes in and tells Lucius and Fang that "the boss" is back, and Fang literally shits himself thinking Blackbeard is back and hurries to get up, but John tells him, "it's just that angry fecker, Izzy" and the INSTANT reaction is laughter and "let him look." And then he proceeds to spill the tea to Lucius about Izzy's misadventures at sea, which was meant only to humiliate Izzy.
Which brings us to the Revenge crew.
Absolutely none of them have respect for Izzy. You'd think they would, because of who he purports to be (Blackbeard's First Mate), but their first experience with Izzy is... they run rings around him and Stede steals back one of their prisoners. Given what we know about the crew's opinion of Stede at that point, if Izzy can be beaten by Stede, why would they have any respect for Izzy? And then he shows up on the Revenge and Blackbeard "takes" the ship, but it's not like any other ship they've encountered.
They don't know how to be invaded, they don't know how to be prisoners, and Edward is totally enthralled with everybody and everything, including being ass over teakettle for Stede Bonnet. There is no fear of Edward or of Blackbeard--only respect, and only for Edward. Izzy gets dragged along, yes, but he's such a fish out of water. He has no idea how to actually handle people; even Ivan and Fang ultimately agree to mutiny against him. Lucius blackmails him--and let's marvel at that for a moment. *Lucius* blackmails Izzy. And not only does he blackmail Izzy in a beautifully benign way--"It'd be a shame if your nickname got out, Dizzy Izzy"--but he also shows Izzy that he is out of his depths. Izzy tries to blackmail in return, with Lucius' sexual history, and Lucius basically defangs him. He proves that Izzy really doesn't know how to manage people outside of fear, and that sets him back.
Then, we have the heartbreaking moment of Izzy and Fang and Ivan in "The Art of Fuckery." not just the opening monologue, but the moment of, "I guess we're not killing this guy" and Izzy's determination of, "The plan is very much alive. He promised me." That's not the voice of a man who is happy, but of a man who is expecting disappointment. He knows he's going to have to be the one to kill Stede Bonnet, and he's going to have to be the bad guy, again, and push Edward into something Edward doesn't want to do. Izzy doesn't care that it'd break Edward's heart, or possibly break Edward himself, he just wants Stede and these other idiots gone and be back with the real Blackbeard.
But there's also like, maybe 1% of Izzy that is... well, not rancid. He has actual feelings; Con O'Neill is utterly brilliant at using his face to show what Izzy is feeling, even when his mouth is saying something different. He's chastising himself when he lets Stede get away with one of the hostages; he's petulant when he whines "Can't I just send the boys, Ed?" and Edward insists that Izzy do it to make a good impression on the "Gentleman Pirate." Somewhere under all the bullshit that Izzy has constructed for himself, there's a person.
And that person has some kind of love for Edward. It's not healthy, for either of them, it's not even spoken of, hell, maybe it doesn't even have a name outside of "weird" or "toxic." But he's capable of it, and the fact that nobody sees that is what makes me love Izzy the way I do. Nobody sees beyond this shell that Izzy built for himself--which is exactly the thing that's happening with Edward. Nobody sees beyond the shell that Edward has built for himself--except when he meets Stede.
Izzy doesn't have a Stede; in fact, if there were someone willing, I don't know that Izzy would even accept it. But I also think, of course he would if that someone was Edward.
My hope is that eventually, Stede and Edward break through with each other, and then Edward can look at Izzy and say, "Shit, man, I've been wrong to look at you like this. You're my friend, mate, and you need help."
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But like, on the other hand, while Ed is very much responsible for his actions, we really gotta call Izzy out for pushing Ed's buttons so hard.
Because ultimately, does Izzy care for Ed? Yes. But Izzy cares ultimately for himself- and this may be a symptom of his emotional constipation- but Ed is almost equally as constipated and he still chooses to care for people.
He does manipulate Ed for his own gain (and usually to his detriment) because *he* wants to be the biggest bully on the block. No one fucks with bullies. People respect bullies. (though Bullies also end up stabbing themselves through the eye or shooting themselves on accident). Blackbeard is the bully god and Izzy is the bully master that serves him and is the highest anyone human can attain.
(and again he does *care* for Ed as a person. It's often overrode by his own pride but he holds these two truths in himself, looking after Ed and worshiping Blackbeard. The difference and the point is that Izzy chooses to view Ed as less than a person and more of an ideal because it serves him and his own ambitions more. Could he have chosen otherwise? Yes. And he can still choose otherwise. But it would mean giving up his lust for power [in the terms that he views it])
Which is all a roundabout way of saying that, yes, Ed chose to be the Kraken. That was his choice and his will and his actions. The cool thing about Ed being a POC in a white man's world is that no one can force him to do anything- Even the Navy gave him a choice.
But the choice of the Kraken? To go so fucking hard? That is Ed pushed too far- because if he had stayed Edward (which is not really himself but him really trying hard to be Stede because Stede has friends D> [and we'll get to that one day]) Izzy had told him to: "watch his fucking step" Which implies that Izzy would have become a threat.
And we all know that while Izzy might not necessarily shoot Ed in the face, he has his ways of making Ed's life absolutely fucking miserable by messing with people he cares about.
And also Ed can't be Blackbeard again because Blackbeard is his anger, yes, but his sheer fucking joy at being alive in the world and going on adventures. It's all of him.
But his joy is gone, abandoned by one friend, betrayed by two others (counting Jack), so the only thing left is the anger and the sorrow and so the Kraken.
And so Izzy, from his own choice, has by and large created his own hell.
#our flag means death#ofmd#meta#long post#izzy hands#edward teach#blackbeard#like it's contradictory as fuck#and I can see why people detest izzy for this reason#and they are allowed to!#I think people should feel free to love or hate characters as they choose#because they are characters and not real people#but the complexity of it#the crunchiness#humanity in its ups and downs#that fam is what I am here for
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honestly that’s why i’m not super in the fandom. i’m just in the background writing my dysfunctional izzy/ed fic and trying not to be weird abt izzy but tbh idek what ppl discourse abt. the only think that appeals to me abt him is the ed stuff. like why does ed want him to stay. why does he want ed to be blackbeard. it compels me. but some fanon interpretations of izzy i’ve run into have been. odd
I went off here but drop the fic if you want I'll probably read it.
Oh baby I wish I was you. I jumped on the fandom really early on because I needed something to do to take my mind off of a recent breakup and other things that were also happening which I'm less inclined to talk about and now I'm in the fucking trenches. I'm pretty immune to a character like Izzy Hands because I personally have never been able to hide who I am and I've always been violently myself. Mad respect to the autistics who have mastered the art of masking but I could personally never figure it out. I never really spent time in the closet I just realized what I was and announced it to the world. So a character who the vibe on him is "repressed gay man who hates himself" is a character I'm sympathetic too but is not relatable to me, and a character who is constantly obsessed with projecting his idealized version of other people onto them and getting violent when they don't fit into the box he's made for them is a character I loose patience for immediately. I'm navigating a minefield of guys who want me to fit into their neat little box and get mad when I don't in my real life. It's very easy for me to be normal about him for this reason.
If I can get a little off of your og question and into the weeds for a minute (I can you are in my inbox now <3) One of the best things about this show for me personally is the morality of it. Like this show sets up a world where we're supposed to forget everything we think about right and wrong and accept a new metric for us, growth and authenticity vs stagnation and repression. It's a moral framework that really appeals to me as a trans person a gay man and a neurodivergant person who has been beaten down for who I am my entire life, and also as someone who has never really figured out hiding for my own safety no matter how much I probably need to. I really like stories that tell me "I know it's hard for you to go against the grain but actually you're doing amazing sweetheart. being yourself is based as fuck" and there are a lot of stories that pretend to have that message but none of them really feel inclusive to me except for this one. And Izzy is terrific as a main villain because he basically embodies the wrong side of OFMD's moral dynamic. He mirrors Stede in a lot of ways, but Stede is constantly learning and growing and encouraging others around him to grow and be themselves, where as Izzy stagnates and tries to drag Ed down with him. And he's got more layers than a Calico Jack or a Badminton so, as much as I, a known Calico Jack enjoyer, hate to admit it, he is the best villain in the series.
So when people look at him and say "Actually that guy is right" it just sort of takes the wind out of me almost. Because while Our Flag says "the greatest good their is is being authentic to yourself" Izzy says "Oh, you think your cute" and "Pirates my ass" and "I should have let the English kill you. This, whatever it is that you've become, is a fate worse than death." Like you're not supposed to sympathize with that mindset, even if its coming out of the mouth of a character in the fundamentally relatable position of being gay and having a big fat crush on Ed.
So yeah the fanon interpretations have been really fucking odd. (there are also the other, bigotry related aspects, which have been talked to death by me and others.) I do think a lot of it is a failure of media analysis. And because I have to explain this character so thoroughly he has become less fun to play with as a toy. I'd much rather play with Calico Jack, a character who all of my disagreements with the majority of the fandom on are pedantic or conjecture, and none are related to racism or sexism or homophobia or anything like that. Which is tragic because Ed and Izzy's weird co worker codependancy is fucking juicy, dude. Why are they like that? I hope we get some of it in season 2.
I also kind of hope that Izzy is newer. Like Taika offhandedly threw out the idea that Ed has been a pirate for 20 years in an interview and I've seen people be like "Izzy has been pining for Ed for 20 years of working under him" as if it's a fact and I think it would be very funny if it was like "Nah actually they lesbian u haul moved in together 2 years ago and they've been like this ever since. " I don't know tho there's so many possibilities.
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The Passion of Izzy Hands
I think we can all agree that Izzy Hands is a tragic character. He is a man on the brink, his world is crumbling around him and he is desperate to shore it up, to make it make sense again. He is desperate to reassure himself that he has not wasted his life with Blackbeard, that he himself is not a twat.
He is so deeply in love with Blackbeard while simultaneously being so deeply in denial about his own sexuality, that ultimately he is just full of rage. He only loves the idea of Blackbeard, the myth that terrifies sailors, the monster in the illustration with a million guns and knives. This myth of Blackbeard does not leave any room for feelings or tenderness or softness, there is no possible way that he is a twat, or that by extension Izzy could be a twat by serving him.
By working with and serving this terrifying image of Blackbeard Izzy has ensured his own unquestionable manliness and power. But now, NOW, this idiot Bonnet has come along and undone everything. All his illusions are crumbling, it turns out Blackbeard is just an illusion and Edward Teach the man does in fact have feelings and is capable of tenderness and love. Izzy is trapped on a ship full of twats, each more ridiculous than the last and he is looking at the very real possibility that he himself might be ridiculous. That he himself might actually want Lucius to sketch him. That he himself might be jealous of Bonnet and the relationship he has with Ed.
This scene goes on for a while, and I really respect Con O’Neill’s acting here, the range of emotions that Izzy goes through as he listens to Stede and Ed struggle erotically behind him. He is disturbed and shocked, but also clearly sad. He is sad because all those illusions are being destroyed and all he is left with is the terrifying and completely disorienting possibility that maybe he has wanted to do this with Blackbeard all along. Except, I suspect Izzy has always secretly wanted to be the one getting run through.
He is angry at Ed for “pining for his boyfriend” because that’s what he himself has been doing practically since Stede showed up. He wants Ed to get back to being Blackbeard so they can both go back to being their old manly and impenetrable selves.
#OFMD#izzy hands#Poor Izzy#I wonder how it will end with him#Will he be redeemed at some point?#Will he make peace with his own desires?#Will he ever be able to get over Blackbeard?
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I’ve heard it said that Stede and Izzy represent the two sides of Edward (“Ed” and “Blackbeard,” respectively), but I’d like to frame that dichotomy a little differently. The way I see it, Stede, as a character, represents the emotional while Izzy represents the practical.
Stede is immediately attuned to Ed’s emotional needs and thinks outside the box in ways that Ed finds enthralling. However, his privileged background means that he’s ignorant to many of the harder realities of piracy (Ed may love the marmalade he keeps stocked but he had to get rid of the gunpowder to fit it) and he also tends to make big decisions, as Mary put it, “on a whim.”
Izzy, meanwhile, is always focused on practical things. In ep 4, he’s distressed that Ed won’t tell him the plan (and doesn’t seem to have one), because he knows that, if they don’t do something, they’ll all die, and, throughout eps 4-6, he’s frustrated by the Revenge crew’s aversion to doing necessary work around the ship. He’s completely inflexible but, in that, is reliable and a constant.
A good example of Stede and Izzy’s opposing, yet complementary roles exists in ep 4. Ed comes up with a brilliant plan to save them from the Spanish but chooses to wait till the last second to reveal it to show off to the Revenge crew, and to Stede and Izzy specifically, which leads to two problems: 1) Ed has the date wrong, and 2) he’s not in a good state of mind, so he would rather just give up than try to come up with an alternative. But Izzy had the correct date all along and it’s the emotional conversation Stede has with Ed that gives them the idea that saves them, so imagine how much less chaotic that situation could have been if the three of them had been working together on a solution from the start!
But all three of them get in each other’s way. Izzy doesn’t see the value in Stede’s outside-the-box thinking, because it’s the total opposite of everything he knows from experience about how one survives as a pirate and Stede doesn’t see the value in Izzy’s practicality, dismissing him as “a complete asshole” for asking reasonable, basic questions Stede should have known the answers to because Stede’s privilege means he’s not used to having to answer to the world’s harsh realities. And Ed, meanwhile, tends to presume that he has everything figured out and often overlooks both emotional needs AND practical realities. In ep 9, Ed completely misses all of the clear emotional signals Stede was giving that he wasn’t nearly so keen on the “row a dinghy to China” plan as Ed was. And then, in ep 10, Ed gets it in his head that he and the Revenge crew can just stop being pirates on a whim if they want to, despite the fact that this is completely impractical when they’re no longer being funded out of the vast fortune of Wealthy Landowner Stede Bonnet. Ed is wrong in both of these cases.
But Stede and Izzy are also wrong. Whatever Stede thinks he’s going to do rowing out to sea with only the shirt on his back and (officially and permanently now) not a cent to his name, it’s extremely romantic but there’s not an ounce of practicality to it. Meanwhile, Izzy encouraging Ed to recommit to the role of Blackbeard might suit the practical reality that They Are Pirates and don’t really have any other choice but to keep doing that until they die, but it’s completely out of touch with what Ed truly wants for himself emotionally.
Stede and Izzy’s limited and opposite perceptions of Ed parallel their limited and opposite worldviews. But, for that very reason, there’s an extremely productive middle ground to be found if they were all willing to look for it. If Stede and Izzy were able to see the value in each others’ way of thinking—Stede by adapting to the practical realities of the Real World (which he’ll have to do one way or another now that he’s cut off from his money) and Izzy by learning to become more flexible about what is and isn’t Actually Necessary and maybe even exploring his own emotions in a healthy and meaningful way—they could really learn a lot from each other and grow as people in the process. And Ed could begin to appreciate a balance between the emotional and practical. That discovering what you want and trying to find a way to see it through is good, but you can’t always act on your first whim and practicality doesn’t have to equal misery.
To sum up, I’ll be honest with you: this is Stede/Ed/Izzy propaganda disguised as a meta post. I truly think that the only way these severely emotionally damaged old men are going to get their shit together is as a unit and, not despite their differences but because of them, I believe in them wholeheartedly.
#our flag means death#ofmd#i've said it before and i'll say it again: the most important aspect of love is Understanding and none of the three of#them Understand each other as things stand right now#not fully anyway#but they COULD if they put their minds to it - if they realized how vital that Understanding may be to their very survival#because we've seen how all three of them fare on their own and it's um. BAD!!!!!!#and the same with any two of them in prolonged isolation#but TOGETHER - in ep 4 - they have success#very chaotic nearly-failure success because Ed didn't tell them the plan earlier but again - if he HAD it could have gone even better#so imagine if they actually COULD see the full value in each other and made a conscious choice to work together?#to grow and change for the better together??#that has the potential to be a REALLY good thing if they could let it!#but i'm not naive - i see a LOT of messy ridiculous bullshit between where we've left off in ep 10 and there#i'm not saying that this would be easy#but i do think that they could do it#and that they'd all be better for it#so that's both my theory and my hope#because i want them to be happy - at least for a little while...#i DO still think that Izzy is going to die at the end#but i'd like it to end up being a choice he makes to save Ed and Stede because he loves them#not in the depressing and awful way he loves Ed now but in the sense that he fully Sees Them and loves them for who they are#even if he doesn't personally share every single one of their viewpoints - he still Respects them#and he feels Seen and Respected in return#that's where i want them to get to by the end#doesn't all need to be next season - we love a slow burn and i want it to read as Emotionally True for all of them#but again - i think they can do it#because - at the end of the day - this relationship has always been a triangle and it's not gonna stop being one just because that's#inconvenient#so they might as well put their heads together and make it work! (and kiss!)
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what's UP i wanna talk abt the pirate show some more, bear with me
so in connection with this post and also this ask I've gotten, I really want to talk about Stede's and Mary's marriage a bit. Specifically how Stede being fucked up the way he is lead to the marriage being so shitty, and the short conversation scene from ep4.
I have seldom seen two people interpret the same conversation so widely differently. They're talking but they're absolutely failing to communicate.
Before we go in, some basics about both of them. Mary is, all things considered, probably a pretty normal, well-adjusted person. She's not very enthusiastic about her marriage but she's not violently opposed to it either. She doesn't have any romantic notions; she knows this may well end every dream she ever hoped to achieve. And I think we need to acknowledge that she's very justified in being wary of Stede. She doesn't know anything about him; and she doesn't have any way to protect herself, not really, should he turn out to be a dick. He could be emotionally or physically abusive. He could gamble away all their money; he could plunge her into poverty. She has no idea what to expect of him but she knows he would be capable of thoroughly fucking her over.
But! She's also not meeting Stede in bad faith, not really. From the very beginning we can see her reaching out to him. She takes his hand at their wedding; they're a team now, for better or worse. Yes, she doesn't love him, but that doesn't mean they can't become friends in time, yk? She's probably seen loveless marriages play out in her social circle and she knows she can make this work.
Now Stede. Stede is, as I've mentioned, decidedly not well adjusted. "I thought I could marry for love", he says and what he means is: I thought I could find someone who would love me, one day. His father sneers at this; "Peasants marry for love" because in their social class marriage is a business contract above everything else. But Stede, who all his life has been told that he's defective and unworthy, hears "Shut the fuck up, no one could ever love you". He's so used to being met with disdain and disgust, he doesn't consider a marriage where, even if there's no romantic love, they could still respect and value each other. So when they meet, he already knows Mary isn't super excited about this all and he takes it to mean she just despises him like everyone else.
Just look at this shot.
This is them having their wedding picture taken sketched.
He's so careful not to touch her; to perform closeness without actually subjecting her to it. He's trying to be respectful of her and to keep himself as far away as possible. You can almost hear his thoughts here: "I know you don't want me here, this will be over soon".
But it comes off as "I can't even bear to touch you". From her point of view, Stede can't stand her presence, not even performatively, not even a few minutes.
Ok. This is the actual wedding.
Seldom have I seen two people so much on the same page about anything. Neither of them wants to be there! It's almost comical how much you'd expect this to work. It should be the easiest thing in the world for them to have an honest conversation about their respective needs and expectations.
And Mary knows this. As soon as she sees Stede's face she takes his hand, and I read that as an expression of support. She's showing him that they're in this together, they can make this work.
But. Communication turns out to be impossible.
The next time we see them, he's reading and she's drinking. "Will you please play with your children",she says and means: Show an interest in your family. Because they cannot talk to each other and I hate to say it but it's mostly Stede's fault. He keeps himself closed off because he's learned early on that he is repulsive and if he opens up, he's gonna get hurt.
So he doesn't. So he rejects any attempt at connection.
And Mary keeps reaching out! She shows him the painting and it's genuinely lovely art, thoughtful and a piece of her. She opens up; she's saying "I made a promise to you and I still want to make this work, work with me".
Stede, though, doesn't realize that what she's doing. He asks if the children made the painting not because he dislikes it (he loves it in fact) but because he doesn't consider the possibility that this is Mary, trying to make a connection. He's closing up on her, again and again, and doesn't even realize that's what he's doing. He honestly doesn't consider that she wants to connect to him! That she wants, needs to be his friend!
He thinks she's disgusted with him, but she isn't, not at first, and not for many years. Mary only becomes frustrated when it looks like Stede is deliberately disregarding her needs and her feelings again and again, for seemingly no reason other than sheer dislike.
(And the scene with the boat model is similar, but I'm gonna skip that since this post is too long as is)
And the conversation this post was supposed to be about is where this all culminates and laid bare for everyone to see.
"I know you're unhappy", Mary says. "I'm unhappy too."
She's still trying to connect. She's admitting to being unhappy to show Stede she understands and moreover, that they're on the same boat. That there is common ground, and that it doesn't have to be this way if they can just talk about it.
But Stede's first instinct is to deny it and immediately push her away. "I'm not unhappy" is an obvious lie. But. The thing is. Stede doesn't recognize this as an attempt at solving their problems. He's not really hearing her.
Because what he's been taught is "Your feelings are shameful and you should not have them". And "Whenever you reach out to someone, they will hurt you". And "Nobody could ever care for you".
And with these core assumptions, when Mary tells him she hears him cry sometimes, he doesn't read that as sympathetic even though that's clearly how it's meant.
He reads it as a scolding and a threat.
And so he denies it. He refuses to talk to her. Mary's frustration at this is palpable but she's still so patient about it; she really wants to solve this! She can't go on living like this and she doesn't want him to go on living like this, either. She begs him to listen.
"We wouldn't have chosen each other, not in a million years" and again, it's meant to establish common ground. But Stede hears "You're repulsive" because that's all he ever hears. He can't bear to hear it; he refuses to engage her and he pretends to fall asleep.
This flashback scene is introduced by Stede feverishly mumbling "I was a coward" and he was. He is scared to the death of emotional honesty and openness, because (like all people who believe themselves to be deeply, irrevocably terrible) he's scared to be found out. He is scared to be seen as he truly is, because as soon as he lets anyone see his true self, they're gonna hurt him. That's what's always happened in the past.
And it's different with Ed, because. Well.
First of all, this:
And (arguably) more importantly, this:
Spot the difference :)
Anyway that's a different post, I'm getting off track.
The point is. Stede eventually makes it back, and Mary is over it. She tried. She really, really tried, and she's done. She's done begging for a conversation Stede has shown her time and time again he's not willing to have.
The irony is, that once she decides that she's done trying to solve this peacefully, they can actually, finally talk to each other! And wouldn't you know. They're on the same page! She's happy for him. Because despite everything else, she does care for Stede and she wants him to be happy.
The face of a woman who couldn't be prouder of her dumbass husband.
So yeah. Communication is key, and abysmal self-esteem will make you hurt the people around you.
Thank you ofmd for reminding us to be nice to ourselves so we can be nice to others.
#accidentally wrote 1.5k of analysis whoops#its!! a good show!#our flag means death#stede bonnet#mary bonnet#thoughts
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Lucius being unabashedly himself and absolutely true to his emotions is not only plain beautiful but it’s also the complete antithesis to Izzy and probably why Izzy can’t keep his shit together when he’s around Lucius
We see from the beginning that Lucius is pretty well-respected despite not really having the stomach for piracy. Although he doesn’t seem to admire weapons or blood or pillaging, none of the other pirates fault him in the way they do with Stede, though I do attribute this to in part to his clever personality and skill in reading a room. He is even sought for, since in this world of pirates his ability to read, adapt, and empathize are skills he’s utilized to get himself ahead
However, though he is willing to dumb himself down for survival every now and then, he still stands his ground when it matters. Even though there is a high chance he might be stabbed, Lucius still stands up to Ed and tells him he’s being a dick in ep 7, because he sees the relationship between him and Stede and not only wants to help with their relationship but also is looking out for Stede. Again, when Izzy tries to bring him down after hooking up with Black Pete, Lucius confidently states he’s cute because he wants to be cute, effectively becoming our new role model and shutting him down
Izzy, on the other hand, is a compressed ball of dissatisfaction. I mean, his default state is anger with anyone outside of Blackbeard, leading us to believe that while he is clearly a mean bastard it’s not necessarily because he’s just a bastard. We see moments where he’s responsible (albeit usually on power trips, which are probably a defensive response), and even moments of caring, though these of course are limited to Blackbeard
As much as he is toxic and not responding to Ed’s true desires, Izzy does act in what he thinks is Blackbeard’s best interest. He calls him Edward, when they’re alone and he feels he doesn’t need to act so horrible, and most importantly Ed is willing to keep him around. Like a miserable housewife, Izzy continues to just put up with everything Ed throws at him, refusing to actually do what he himself wants. I’m not going to go into his likely repressed sexual identity and ideas of toxic masculinity because there’s a lot to unpack there, but let’s just sum it up to saying he is very unwilling to confront his true self and acts more in accordance to what he thinks is the correct way versus what he wants to do. Though he has been able to be successful because of this thus far, Lucius has down what he wants to do versus the supposed correct way and ALSO been successful
We see the tension between them and you can interpret that tension however you want, but can’t be just some weird chemistry or irritation over an annoying personality. Lucius is in some way representing the side of Izzy that he wishes he could recognize and let out, just in the way Ed has in the presence of Stede (side note that this repression of his own desires while he watches Ed finally follow his own is most likely a main reason why Stede irks him so much). We all want to be Lucius so it’s not hard to understand why Izzy is so worked up
#our flag means death#ofmd spoilers#ofmd#ofmd lucius#izzy hands#stede bonnet#edward teach#blackbeard#black pete#ofmd meta
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There's a headcanon that Izzy is from the aristocracy, but I think that's actual canon.
When Blackbeard asks him to go get Stede, he says he wants Izzy to do it, not the boys, because BB "wants it done right" because Stede is a gentleman. By social rules, you don't have lower ranked people or servants call on those of equal or higher rank, unless first being invited or introduced. BB has not been invited or met him, but Izzy has met Stede. Social rules say it has to be Izzy--and that's only appropriate if Izzy is of equal rank, aka a gentleman; I suppose it would work too if we consider BB as royalty in the pirate world, and so Izzy would be a prince, but that doesn't seem to be how it's meant to be read. Social rules wouldn't be referred to at all if that was the case; BB could go himself. Needing to be invited and needing to follow proper rules fits with BB being on the outside of the world of fine things, him not fitting in there or being able to reach that himself, which IS a huge theme.
Izzy also dresses differently than the others, even those of BB's leather crew. He's not frippery fancy like the aristocracy, but he's "properly dressed" instead of looking like a raggedy pirate or a naval officer. Other pirates would not respect frippery, but his two-piece-suit type high ranking servant's outfit seems to be practical but high end enough that it's not mocked. He's really only missing the fancy coat to be "properly dressed"; he has the waistcoat+shirt+cravat, they're just black as opposed to colored. In the show, it's black because black is badass and represents emotional repression, but historically black was for mourning, and peasants wore that and darker colors like brown because it hid dirt better, therefore making their clothes last longer--especially formal clothes--because they couldn't wash their clothes as much (which worked against lighter colors and wore out fabric much faster) and it hid patches and darns better than lighter colors. The revelation that Izzy has a wedding ring in his cravat may point to his black being both mourning and emotional repression. I think we'll see him in color by the end of the show when he breaks his repressive shell, and stops seeing himself as needing to be under BB, needing to be his servant.
Izzy also knows the rules of dueling and is a stickler for "professionalism", which only makes sense if he grew up being taught dueling--a pirate would love ambushes and not care about playing fair or by stuffy rules. He also seems to be far more personally resistant to the "anything goes" sexual mores of piracy, which doesn't fit if he's from the lower classes because that's who pirates (and the mass ranks of navy recruits) mostly are, but does fit if he's upper class and grew up with those "namby pamby" dicks-about-spoons rules.
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