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#not enough ppl realize that him pushing lucius overboard was not ed breaking a lifelong record
bassiter2 · 2 years
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the main reason for the sheer amount of meta yall make about the whole "ed doesn't kill" specifically re: "does izzy actually know" imo is the need to reconcile the fact that izzy has been ed's right hand man for a decade and the fact that his behavior indicates that he may not actually be aware of it. and that's really understandable, like I absolutely see the desire to believe that izzy has (had) an intimate enough relationship with ed to be aware of that fact about him. but the thing is, I feel it's made pretty clear and in fact necessary by the narrative that what ed told stede in the bathtub was the first time he told anybody.
before I lose you: YES, a hundred percent, izzy knows that ed killed his dad. it was probably an intimate moment between them once upon a time, ed telling izzy that he killed his own dad. but what i do not believe izzy knows, and what ed himself likely did not fully understand until the fuckery episode, is that he was traumatized by it.
see, the old ed was coping with feeling like a monster by taking pride in it, and izzy was romanticizing that proudly ruthless man. the ed we know is realizing that that was unhealthy and is finally processing those feelings properly, with someone who will let him be soft and in fact reassure him that he is NOT the monster he thinks he is. izzy was never that person (bc if he was then we wouldn't have the show to begin with), so that full confession could never have happened.
it wouldn't have been something that izzy just observed on his own, either. aside from any theories about how izzy offers to kill stede for him and what that signifies about their relationship... I think this is just where a lot of people don't seem to really get the point of ed's confession about not having killed another man since his dad. all the talk (and most often misuse, tbh) of "unreliable narrators" in this fandom and almost no one wants to accept that ed's claim of not killing is, as far as most people both irl and in-universe would see it, Not True.
what matters is that ed believes it because this confession scene isn't about morality, but about ed personally feeling like a monster and getting it off his chest to stede and proving that stede will let him grow into a healthy version of himself rather than expect him to repress his trauma. the point IS trauma.
like, the only part of killing that ed abstains from, or can't bring himself to do, is being physically and consciously present for the victim taking their final breath as the culmination of his violence. and for the sake of the narrative and this scene, it's fine and makes sense that this is the most significant thing to ed. and it makes sense for his personal feelings, too - he was only horrified by the murder of his father once it was over and the rage had fizzled out and he was face to face with what he'd done, so that's the trigger moment for him. just facing the wanton ending of a life.
but for just about everyone else, especially the victims, that is not the most significant part of killing. being the cause of death in any direct capacity is killing. maiming someone and leaving them for dead is killing. setting a ship on fire, knowing that many of them will not be able to jump to safety, is killing. pushing someone into the ocean, to the sharks, is killing.
you want to believe that izzy knows ed doesn't kill because of all the time that izzy has known him, but that's exactly it. izzy has known ed for a decade and he HAS watched ed kill, by his own definition of killing. he may have a sense of "ed prefers to let others do the dirty work when it's not on the battlefield" but as far as he's concerned, ed kills. just like any other fucking pirate, of COURSE he fucking kills.
and you know what? by the events of we gull way back I think ed has even re-routed his definition of killing back to the normal one, and it's why his confession to stede didn't ultimately save him from feeling like a monster for very long. he processed his trauma a bit but then jack reminded him that just because he hasn't watched the life leave someone's eyes doesn't mean he hasn't been the cause of many a death and done plenty of other horrible things. but imo it's also BECAUSE of ed's development through stede that he's able to even have this unrepressed guilt, this sense of responsibility to keep himself away from those he might hurt or at least taint. it's still not ideal, as it's very much informed by a diminished self worth, but it's a step in the right direction to processing the more complex trauma of all the harm he caused after killing his dad.
or it was, before he backtracked to his old coping method of Embracing The Kraken.
as for izzy... he's a tragic character and you can very much see it as part of his tragedy that not only did ed grow out of him but for all the time that he knew ed, he still didn't really know him. but it can also be a simple matter of izzy just not being right or healthy for ed in the long run, as he was never an influence for ed to change or realize things about himself. except for the worse.
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