Icon by @ThatSpookyAgent. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. The X-Files. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
Stede tells the crew: "We'll talk it through as a crew" and he gets them to be emotionally open and honest with him and with each other, but he can't bring himself to do the same. He gets Ed to open up to him in a sobbing meltdown but he's a closed book.
I think the first (and possibly only) time in the show that Stede ever actually talks about his own feelings is on the beach: "You make Stede happy."
and since i have a couple minutes i want to talk about stede and trauma responses.
because stede’s got a lot going on, re: the reasons he makes some pretty poor choices throughout the run of the show; he’s got a touch of narratively ironic main character syndrome, he’s preeeeeeetty fucking non-neurotypically coded, his wealth and material comfort have kept him from noticing the larger state of the world, the hilarious snippy retorts parts of him are hilarious and snippy, etc.
but on top of that: we’ve met his fucking dad. i don’t really want to speculate past what canon showed us, but i’d say he absolutely qualifies as emotionally abusive, and we know he sent stede off to sad alone little rich boy school at some point.
we get zero indication stede has experienced even the barest attempts at emotional support until mary offers them, at which point he’s like ‘what is this… telling people deeply personal things about you that you speak of??? and then people don’t take those things and laugh at you??? they want to help you??? seems sus, i would rather go read a book and/or run away to sea like a small child lugging his backpack of fruit snacks down to the park. also when i tried to tell you about horses with kind eyes you didn’t understand what i was trying to do there and i felt slighted, so thanks to my upbringing i have taken that miscommunication and hung onto it and even if i don’t know it, it’s playing into why i won’t take you up on your very kind and well-communicated offer to alleviate my pain. i am A LOT. it’s sad, it’s realistic, but oh man. it’s hard dealing with me and it’s hard BEING me. tell you the truth, i don’t like it much either. or myself! weird, that.’
this man makes me want to CRY.
anyway: stede grew up with a father who looked him in the face and said: you suck. you deserve no kindness, which is handy because i will never show it to you! and if you don’t get used to that level of cruelty in the place that should feel safest from the person the world says is taking care of you, you are not gonna make it out of this shit alive.
stede made it the fuck out. he cut himself into pieces and shoved himself into boxes and learned to shut his fucking mouth and not expect kindness, so when people offer it to him he doesn’t trust it.
hell. i’m not even sure he knows what kindness is, before he takes his fruit snacks and his backpack and runs away to the sea.
I love all of this, but I do have a slight amendment to make.
Stede tries to talk about his feelings one (1) time prior to the beach. It’s the very first time he and Ed properly meet, in Stede’s quarters. Ed is lying back on the couch, Stede is propped poorly on a table or something. Ed says, “You ever feel trapped? Like you’re just treading water? Waiting to drown?”
And Stede starts to answer, real and honest when he says, “Yes. I have… I very much have felt that way–”
And Ed fucking interrupts.
It’s not even a little interruption, either! Like a request for a clarification or a surprised “no, you?” or anything even vaguely demonstrative of giving an actual living fuck about Stede’s answer! Ed plows straight into Stede’s small, aching truth with a ramble about his own feelings, going so far as to say that Stede “has it all sussed out,” making it clear to the audience and crystal fucking clear to Stede that no, actually, Ed asked him a question but it wasn’t one Stede was meant to answer because Ed thinks he already knows everything he needs to know about this rich weirdo’s emotional landscape.
No one wants to hear what Stede really feels. Even this kind man, this peak pirate, this one person who wants to praise Stede for all the things he’s been tortured for before– even he doesn’t want to hear how close Stede was to giving up and letting the water in.
And so, probably, that means it’s not something meant for Stede. Here’s proof again. The final evidence that establishes the fact: no one wants that kind of thing from Stede. And he’s fine with that. He’s okay. He’s had a lifetime of learning it, and he should just be grateful that Ed had kindly ignored his faux pas, is still willing to be friends even in the face of Stede’s sullying the conversation with his ill-bred, intrusive, filthy fucking feelings.
He’ll just have to remember not to do it again. Which isn’t a problem, really. It’s tiring, to try over and over again – and it’d be easier, better, if he stopped. Stick with what might be safely said in social circumstances; listen and support others as a gentleman ought, but remember too that a gentleman doesn’t burden others.
Keep kicking your legs, Stede Bonnet, and wonder how everyone else manages to walk on water rather than drown in it.
oooh, i had forgotten about that! i agree with this, actually with one …not so much disagreement, as added perspective:
ed’s delighted by stede being a weirdo. he’s incredibly intimidated by stede being rich.
he definitely talks over stede there, but in the same way stede is like: fucking… look at you. you’re so cool and tough and strong and a legit pirate, how could you have pain? and comes in with an image of ed he got from a book ed comes in with a bunch of his own baggage about wealth.
he was taught directly and indirectly that people like stede have made it: they won at Being People. god quite literally loves them the most, god gives them nice things because of that, and stede is worthy of those things in a way ed can’t quite accept he could be, too.
so when he talks over stede, he’s thinking: this man? this peak of Being Loved By God And The World (who is shaking up piracy! who thwarted izzy! who is just… mad and amazing and very attractive even while looking like a half-drowned golden retriever) how could he possibly feel like i do. look at everything he’s got! having Things is how you make it in life, because once you have Things and god loves you most, by god happiness is apparently supposed to come along with.
and since this is their first meeting and stede has been conditioned to read that unintentional rejection of his (very important) attempt to connect as a hard and forever no, he goes: well shit. lesson learned, i must now shut the fuck up or he won’t like me anymore.
the heartbreaking thing here (and the mark of the very good writing in terms of setting up natural conflict via characters being deeply, relatably human) is that if that had happened later? say… in that scene on the deck? there’s almost no chance ed would have talked over him, if i had to make a guess.
they both came in with these images of each other on a pedestal for very, very different reasons, and because of the very specific ways they are each a little bit broken the end of the season is almost inevitable, one way or another.
it ONLY makes sense for the first three episodes to be ed-based, show him really spiraling, ivan and fang grow increasingly worried about him, start colluding with jim and frenchie to fix this, even izzy starts getting nervous about this monster he’s helped create, ed is doing riskier and riskier jobs, we tangentially hear about stede tirelessly searching, trying to catch up with him, he has the revenge in his sights.
then, end of episode 3, ed takes a stupidly risky deal, he knew it was a bad idea, lashing out, trying to get hurt on purpose, as the English officer pulls his gun ed crumples, pathetic and trembling, deep purple bags under his eyes matching the makeup, the disheveled hair in his face, the uneven scruff. “do it” he pleads, falling to his knees with all the pain and exhaustion. his wounds are catching up to him. and as the officer raises his gun, he falls forward. struck on the back of the head with the butt of a sword. stede, romance-novel protagonist level beautiful, loose white shirt billowing, the beginnings of a beard making him all rugged and handsome. “now then, where’s this kraken I’ve heard so much about?” ed grips his side, barely keeping his guts in, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes, and whispers a broken “you came back?” and stede lets go, his face softens, so full of love it’s agonizing as he rushes to ed’s side, holding his wounds, shushing him as he guides his head into his lap, ed’s almost blacking out and stede combs his hair out of his face, “oh, darling, never left”
I love how David Jenkins handled Mary’s character and story in the season 1 finale. How many other shows have framed characters like hers as unreasonable, as emotionally in the wrong, as bitchy, for their reactions to a protagonist who has given them every reason to be angry or hurt or mistrustful? How many other shows would expect the audience to handwave the (often male) protagonist’s shitty choices and behavior and side with them in the face of the supporting character’s justified unhappiness?
Not here. We know Stede, we love Stede. We know him far better than we do Mary at this point, but the show doesn’t excuse his behavior towards Mary or its disruption of her life for one. Single. Second. There is NEVER a moment where we are expected to side with him against her just because he’s the main character, and I love them for that. He did her dirty by sneaking out (not by leaving, but by how he handled it), and then came back and inserted himself somewhere he had given up his right to, and the show drives that point home with every scene they share. Mary’s monologue at the breakfast table when she’s trying to read the paper is some of the best dialogue in the show. She lays it out, and we’re with her every step of the way.
AND THEN, the show goes further yet, and has STEDE recognize and acknowledge the validity of Mary’s feelings (and their children’s. ) His development isn’t just a series of plot points getting him in position to go back to the life he belongs in, it’s him recognizing how he wronged and is continuing to wrong her FOR MARY’S SAKE.
This show, man. Like I have dropped shows (and movie series) over this very thing being done badly. The expectation that I will side with the hero over someone they’ve wronged simply because they are the hero. That their bad choices get a pass.
It is actually extremely important to me that y'all understand the importance of the talent show subplot to the structure of ofmd being not just a gay romcom but a story fiercely thematically opposed to toxic masculinity and amatonormativity; how Ed the Emo crying into his blanket fort and silk gown writing sad boy poetry music is the most emotionally healthy he’s ever been and a hairsbreadth away from sustained happiness.
Which is a hard sell with Stede still playing house and straight man a million lightyears and then one (1) rowboat trip away, but I swear the reason that Ed has this subplot instead of disappearing for twenty minutes of B-plot about mutinying against Izzy only to swan in as The Kraken at the end is because Our Flag Means Death correctly believes with its whole big gay pirate heart that Ed doesn’t need Stede to be happy.
Ed has this annoyingly relatable tendency to swing SO overly hard in whichever direction heās nudged. Theyāre captured and they could apparently very easily simply walk away on foot from the Academy with no consequences but Ed wonāt even entertain it heās just full on āthere is no escape :) :) iām a professional folder now :)ā Then he kisses Stede ONCE and in practically the same breath heās asking him to assume new identities and run away to CHINA. Not go back to the ship together, not even start a new life in like, Canada. Has to pick the most extreme far off destination he can think of. He doesnāt even take a beat to plan further, he immediately runs off the beach to get started and wants to leave TONIGHT. Poor guy sets himself up for failure at the docks because now heās not just lost Stede, heās lost this entire new life heās constructed all in his head because heās got so far ahead of himself.
He does it in his break up too like he puts on Stedeās robe for comfort and all of a sudden he needs to channel this exaggerated version of the parts of Stedeās personality that he loves or wishes he could have. Then the MOMENT Izzy tells him he wants Blackbeard back Ed just fully kills a man, severs toes, and rebrands himself to be the most evil version of himself yet. And by doing these things he just breaks his own heart over and over again because heās constantly mourning these false identities and fantasies that he builds up in his head and has to abandon.
All or nothing thinking makes you feel like such a failure because nothing in life is all or nothing, including the ability to stop thinking about things as all or nothing, so itās hard to even begin to start approaching things with caution or moderation because if you fuck up even once well then thatās it, Iām a lost cause I wonāt even try to regulate myself any more and iāll just make giving up & getting my hopes unrealistically up my full time job. We make (deserved) jokes about Edward āGuess Iāll Dieā Teach but thatās exactly what this kind of behaviour is: Iām bored with my life so maybe Iāll just DIE ABOUT IT like jesus dude maybe thereās something in between ātrying dyingā and trying to become a completely new and different person either by literally assuming a new identity or metaphorically through intrinsically weaving his sense of self in with Stedeās companionship.
I struggle with this so much like i make the most wild impulsive dramatic life decisions sometimes because they feel like the easy solutions to big problems, and measured responses are boring, and boredom is intolerable.
Stede has the exact same problem I just think heās at a different stage of learning how to break this pattern. He seems much more willing to bounce his ideas and impulses off of other people which can give you a lot of valuable outside perspective. He still makes dramatic unilateral decisions like running away to become a pirate and then running back home, but by the end of the latter I think heās realized that thereās always a third option. I guess the lesson when you find yourself between a rock and a hard place of 2 extreme options is to remember (ironically) that there IS always an escape.
