Black Sails: The Perfect TV Show Ending

- Over a million people signed the petition to get the last season of "Game of Thrones" remade with better writing. So I think it's safe to say that it was not universally loved. There are dozens, maybe even hundreds of videos on YouTube dedicated to dissecting exactly what went wrong with that series. What I wanted to do in this video is examine ways in which a big sweeping show like that could get things entirely right by contrasting the big mistakes in "Game of Thrones" with a series that to my mind has a perfect ending. In this video I wanna talk about "Black Sails." "Black Sails" is a four season pirate show that aired during the heyday of "Game of Thrones" between 2014 and 2017. On the surface, it's a prequel to "Treasure Island" following characters like captain Flint, Billy Bones, Long John Silver in the years before the start of the book. But it also fleshes out its casted characters with a roster of real pirates from history including Jack Rackham and Bonny and Charles Vane as well as original characters that amongst other things ensure a lineup of female characters like Max, Eleanor and Madi in a show that could have justified not having them under the guise of historical accuracy. And also for the interest of the people who normally watch my channel. It's pretty damn queer. When you lay out the overarching narrative drives of "Game of Thrones" and "Black Sails" you can see a lot of similarity between the two shows. They're both sweeping Epic historical dramas based at least partly on a book or book series. There is one central goal. Get the iron throne or get the Urca of gold. This goal is shaped by opposing sides and alliances of houses or crews. It has a backdrop of violence, politics, betrayal, slavery, bravery, loyalty and limb loss. There is also an overarching threat that makes their internal squabbles look petty in comparison climate change, I mean the White Walkers and the British Empire. Now this isn't necessarily an unusual narrative breakdown. There's probably a number of shows that you could fit into this pattern, but it's a useful basis for comparison. Now, if you haven't already seen "Game of Thrones", honestly it's not gonna matter for watching this video but if you haven't already seen "Black Sails" honestly like mute this video, open another tab and start watching. It is genuinely one of the best shows of the last decade. And certainly the most underrated like I know saying this is gonna absolutely tank my watch time on this video 'cause everyone leaves like 30 seconds in to go watch this show but honestly you will not regret it. I know who watches my channel and a show that is at its core about a press communities railing against empire and colonialism while exposing the hypocrisy of it suppose civilization and being super queer at the same time. I know that's going to be your jam. The first season is only a very British eight episodes long and has its flaws, but they let the writers lease from season two onwards and it truly gets better every episode before a flawless finale. So if you're still here, I'll assume that you have seen and loved the show. So let's get to it. Part one, key moments. One of the most frustrating things about the final season of "Game of Thrones" was the choice of what to show the audience and what not to. Key moments either didn't happen, were interrupted or had that impact lessen because we never really saw the fallout of them afterwards. When Cersei destroys the Sept for example, what that might mean for the citizens of Westeros is apparently of no consequence to the story. Is anyone angry at the destruction of one of those important religious buildings or the mass murder of a seemingly well loved family, amongst many, many others? Who can tell, did anyone draw comparisons between Cersei actions here and the actions of the mad king, a key player in the setup to the current political turmoil? Nah, these impressive set pieces are an obvious opportunity to have an impact, not just on the lead characters that are directly affected but a ripple effect that digs into the political intrigue element that was so popular at the beginning of the show. But instead plot points happen without lasting or even existing consequences for momentary theatrical satisfaction. Known examples of this were more obvious or frustrating than the reveal of John's true parentage to the remaining Stark siblings. We had this big buildup to it and then nothing. We didn't even hear the secret being said, let alone their immediate reactions to it either for the wider political landscape and the throne or for their very personal family involvement. What does this change about the memory of their principled father who lied to them their entire life about having an affair? This moment could have been a fascinating way to circle back to the very beginning of the show to the Starks that were the main characters in that first season. To draw us back into their family dynamic. Even after we have expanded to all of these different characters and houses and lands. So how could they have done it better? Let's look at how "Black Sails" deals with similar storylines. The big backstory reveal conversation we're invested in in "Black Sails" is Flint telling Silver about Thomas. The man he loved who died after Flint was forced to play England when their relationship was discovered. It's a similar moment to John's parenthood reveal and it is this big past or secret that when revealed could have lasting consequences going forward. Rather than just skip over it, they actually cut back to the conversation over a full episode and a series of scene fragments and ensure the conversation shows us something about Silver's character by way of his instinctual reaction. Silver's self preservation from the start of the show kind of combines and contrast some battles with his newfound loyalty and friendship with Flint. He doesn't care that Flint is gay but he does care about the ways in which this news might affect their relationship going forwards. When this scene happens, we're kind of expecting it to go one of two ways and really aren't necessarily sure which way Silver will fall down on. Either he will conform to the attitudes at the time and be uncomfortable or directly hostile towards Flint because of this reveal of his sexuality or he just won't care at all. And it will be a moment of bonding for the two men. However "Black Sails" managers to give us something down the middle that is specifically unique to Silver and Flint's characters. At the end of his tail, Flint says to Silver, "That was the day that on some level I knew, "that England was broken, "and that sooner or later a good man must resist it. "You don't need to say anything. "You asked me where I began "and I felt that you were entitled "to an answer to the truth." And then Silver replies, "I appreciate that. "And I am genuinely sorry "but you can see how this might be a particular "and immediate concern for me. "Before today I knew of two people "who had managed to truly know you, "to gain your trust, to be your partner, "and they both ended up dead while playing the role. "Now you're telling me that there is a third member "of this class, making it even less credible "to characterise Mr. Gates' "and Mrs. Barlow's deaths as bad luck. "It would seem that those closest to you meet their end "not just during their relationship, but because of it. "And as I sit here, I am acutely aware "there may be no one closer to you "in the world right now than I." Okay, one, can we just pause for a moment and just acknowledge how fricking beautiful like every piece of dialogue is in the show even lines that do not have to be stunning are stunning. And then you get moments like this which they know that they're building towards. And it is just chef's kiss. Also two the fact that they devoted an entire episode to this, kept flashing back to it. This kind of quiet conversation between these two men all throughout the rest of the episode, really emphasised to us as an audience, how important this was both to the writers and to the characters. With "Game of Thrones" it kind of felt like the writers were saying, "Oh, well the audience already knows "that piece of information. "So we don't really have to dwell on it "when the other characters find out, "we just need the audience "to know that the other characters know." But here's the thing, just because the audience knows something doesn't mean that we can't hear it again. If it's gonna give us a greater sense of narrative satisfaction or character insight, which this in "Black Sails" did perfectly. The character conflicts linked to the stakes, which linked back to character actions which then link back to character complex again, everything is in sync. It is linked and tied together through this solid grounding in character. Why is that so important? Let's look at what happens when you sacrifice character in place of plot. Part two, character development, what character development? - Exactly. - Character development. - Love it all. - I really need to shut up. - You're brave? - At the end of the show "Game of Thrones" in large part became a group of characters driving towards what they always had been. Arya is a badass in the first and last episode. The game ball was a thing. Jamie is still doing bad things for Cersei. John is with the Nightwatch and all the Wildlings. Even love of my life Sansa Stark ends up as expected taking her place in King's Landing. All very circular the wheel is in fact not broken. You end up kind of asking yourself did much really happen in the grand scheme of things either in terms of characters or Westeros in general. And the most frustrating thing is that could have been the whole point, right? That these systems of power and abuse and violence inevitably lead to people being trapped within them, in their sort of churn of revenge and trauma. And that there's endless churn means that both the characters and the system seem incapable of change, except we get this big speech about changing the political structure going forwards from the character Tyrion who is meant to be the cool smart one that we all like, like the throne the symbol of this system is literally burned away. Everything at the end of the series seems to be suggesting something new is happening. When you think about it for like a second it's really kind of not. And to my mind the worst defensible is what they did to Jamie. Oh, Jamie, my sweet trash prince. Jamie Lannister started out as the guy from Shrek who pushed a kid out of a window to cover up his affair with his sister. But since that moment we'd seen him slowly moved with being a better man and reveal his past actions in a new light. He saved Brianne from an assault formed a meaningful friendship with her and lost his hand in the process. He eventually abandoned Cersei, seeing her for who she truly was in what seemed like a final demonstration of how far he'd come from the first episode. In the last season the respect and affection he holds for Brienne of Tarth, finally culminates and then sleeping together after a hard fought battle. However, the very next morning in an emotional scene we get Jamie leaving to go to his sister while Brianne looks on in tears. Now, when this originally add I know a lot of us thought that this was a kind of bait and switch from the writers that it was gonna look like he was going back to be with his sister but actually he was going back to kill her. And Brianne was crying not because she was like, don't leave me Jamie, but because she was trying to persuade him not to go, so that he wasn't drawn back into the world of his sister or wouldn't have to suffer the guilt of having killed her afterwards. But no, no, he, he was just going back to be with her and Jamie's always had this kind of obsessive toxic relationship with his sister. But what we've seen on the show was him pulling away from that. We never really saw him being drawn back to her. We saw him leaving her. Explicitly making heart light with Brienne, sleeping with Brienne and then just changing his mind. Probably the most infuriating line of that entire last season for me was when Jamie says, "To be honest "I never really cared much for them innocent or otherwise". About the citizens of King's Landing, which we know is untrue. It is in direct contrast to his entire identity of King Slayer, a title he gained because he was the one person to choose the innocent normal people of Westeros over the king and his position. He is the only person to make that moral decision in the entirety of the court. And not only that, but that decision cost him his entire reputation for life. And he knew no one would believe him. And yet in the bathhouse scene with Brienne earlier in the show we can clearly see that despite everything, he doesn't regret that decision. When he claimed she's hateful and so am I, it just left us confused. Where is the evidence of that? There was this concept in filmmaking called show don't tell. The idea being don't just like tell me in dialogue about what a character is feeling or who they are, but show it to me through their actions. And the writers never showed what Jamie was telling us. The writers ended up. It's kind of a raising their own character in order to give us this final image of the sibling lovers in this embrace as if they were the romantic relationship that we had been like rooting for all along. "Black Sails" in comparison is a show that allows characters to be utterly different at the beginning than they are at the end. Either the characterization stays consistent but the circumstances around them change or there has been a fundamental shift in the way that they see themselves or the world around them. The political situation around them swings and forth. But ultimately in the last episode ends functionally the same as the start. The British empire still exists but so to pirates. The Guthrie family is a financial powerhouse in Nassau and men and women are still on the account there. This ability to give individuals meaningful and logically sound arcs while also examining the potential futility of fighting against the systemic behemoth of civilization is much more interesting than "Game of Thrones" where so many characters stayed functionally the same and no character demonstrates the spectrum in the show especially in comparison to Jamie than John Silver. Silver develops from a self-confessed coward ready to literally and figuratively jump ship. As soon as he can line his pockets into a man who cares deeply about other people and is revered and feared as a pirate king. As actor Luke Arnold has said of the start of his character, "The further away we can get "from where we want him to be in the end, "the more fun it is when he gets there." Silver develops into who he is at the end of the show. And by extension that that he is in "Treasure Island" by becoming invested in other people. It's a fascinating and highly unusual antagonist dark that instead of being the archetype of the remorseless unfeeling sociopath, it's actually gaining empathy that sets him down the path of darkness. As it gives him a true enemy to fight against, it means he'll do drastic and dark things to protect his people. He holds within himself, both the sum of his experiences and connections with other people but also his innate sense of self-preservation that he demonstrated at the start of the show. Like Jamie, he hasn't truly moved past his beginnings. Silver is stuck in this loop of selfless and selfish actions. Is he truly being selfless by protecting Madi even though it means losing her or is it ultimately a selfish act to go against what she wants and what she's fighting for even if it might save her life? Honestly, it's a kind of moral complexity that passed the final season of "Game of Thrones" by completely. Part three, character versus plot. A lot of the frustrations about the way in which the character of "Game of Thrones" are treated in the final season is about the way in which they treat characters as plot devices. They don't really follow a cohesive pattern of like thoughts and action, but instead do out of character things in order to push the plot to where it needs to be. Because of this one of the big problems "Game of Thrones" has at the end of the show is figuring out what to do with its previously clever characters. As Lindsay Ellis put it in her video about "Game of Thrones", "By the end of the show everyone is an idiot." And make no mistake watching clever characters make mistakes especially based on their own particular flaws can be fascinating to watch. But that's not what "Game of Thrones" was doing here. - He's bringing all the dead people back to life and they put the women and children in a crip with all the dead people. So prah, Tyrian is smart, but I guess not that smart. - In "Black Sails" we have the brilliant example of Jack Rackham, extremely smart character who on more than one occasion does a thing we know is stupid because we see what danger he's walking into but the decisions he makes with a smart or not, are always consistent with what the character knows and what he prioritises. Jack's obsession with legacy, his own erring ability to see himself as the hero in the grand tale of human history, his fatal flaw I guess you could say is the thing that trips him into these decisions. In season three we see him make arguably his most disastrous decision. He and Anne almost a way with a fortune's worth of Urca gold, they are free. And yet he turns around and returns to Nassau in order to accept a pardon so that he can keep living under his name, Jack Rackham. Of course he doesn't know what we the audience do that since he left town, he's become a wanted man. And if he returns, he will be imprisoned. The thing is any other character wouldn't have even thought about returning to Nassau. They would have been like, sure I'll change my name, who cares? I have all this gold. I have my partner with me. Everything is fine. But Jack is so tied to this idea of legacy that everything that he does will be under this name, that people will remember him in history that it was completely consistent with his character to make this mistake. And that mistake is something that has horrendous consequences. It is because of his return ultimately that his friend Charles Vane dies and it's Charles Vane's death that motivates Jack for the rest of the seasons. Anne herself puts it pretty plainly saying to Jack, "So we change our names for a bit who gives a shit?" And Jack replies, inevitably and slightly apologetically, "I do, a little bit, I do. "With everything I've lost in recent days, "I can't afford to lose the name, too. "Not when it is so easy to keep." We can see here not just in his words, but also in his actions how much that name means to him. That he values legacy alongside material riches in this world. This link chain of action and consequence is what makes good stories. So satisfying to us as an audience, everything feels cohesive and tight and linked. Everything makes sense. So what happens when those two things, character and plot become disconnected. Part four, the rushed conclusion. Cutting corners with characterization inevitably leads to a vicious cycle with rushed plot. If you try and stuff too much plot into a short season then you end up having to unrealistically speed up character arcs. And then conversely, if you try and create character arcs which are too complex for a short season you end up having to stuff more plot into that season to try and justify that actions. In the final season of "Game of Thrones". Plotlines that needed a bit more time to breathe were thrown in break neck speed. And one of the most notable examples of this is the King's road. So travelling the King's road in early seasons of "Game of Thrones" used to take like sometimes half the season for some characters. Sometimes even think like a full season. And what was so interesting about this was one, it showed the expansive nature of Westeros. It really gave us a sense of scale and environment but it also allowed characters to slowly change who their interactions with each other on this kind of isolated quest or journey together. So this happened to Brienne and Jamie and it happened to Arya and The Hound. But then in the final season of "Game of Thrones" that same journey became a matter of an episode or less. But as an audience, we still remember it taking longer. We still remember people changing on the road, having conversations and so we're left thinking well, what happened in the meantime especially with characters who we think, yeah they could make a rash decision in the moment but given half a season to think about it with someone else by their side, they're gonna change their mind, right? And so it was with Arya and The Hound when they make it to King's Landing, they have this conversation about the idea that Arya doesn't really want to kill Cersei. Arya should just turn back, that ultimately they would have had while travelling for days along the Kings road already, it feels to an audience like we've been cheated out of something. And what makes us even more frustrating is that we've seen in interviews with the writers and showrunners or "Game of Thrones" that this problem was in a lot of ways self-imposed. In a segment of the interview with entertainment weekly they said, "To their credit HBO put their money "where their mouths are, literally stuffing "their mouth full of million dollar bills, "which don't exist anymore. "They said, we'll give you the resources "to make this what it needs to be. "And if what it needs to be "is a summer tentpole-size spectacle in places, "then that's what it will be." HBO would have been happy for the show to keep going to have more episodes in the final season. The most obvious example of this which actually compares really well to a similar plot line in "Black Sails" is the descent of Dany into villainy that ends with her decimating a city full of innocent civilians. Her development from self-styled liberator of the people to a tyrant capable of horrendous war crimes with no immediate provocation was so fast. It felt impossible to believe, even to people who saw that arc coming eventually already. On the show, they kind of clumsily tried to give her a personal reason to have done this with the death of one of her dragons and of Missande. But those deaths didn't happen like in the moment right before she did it, it wasn't this kind of emotional catalyst. So it kind of felt flat. And then they also try to sort of like cover their bases by giving a whole, the Targaryen are just crazy, it's inevitable, she's just like her dad, which also just felt lazy to be honest. We could have had the story include Dany's actions from the finale, but have it felt less rushed by linking it to her previous successes, failures and characterization as a leader, a tactical sacrifice, a cultural misunderstanding or decision around the greater good for her people. "Black Sails" on the other hand consistently creates justifiable reasons for its characters to do immoral things including a similar destruction of a populated city and a ruthless crusade of murder and its aftermath. Charles Town is destroyed in a bid to rescue Captain Flint. And as a power play to ensure the local leaders of surrounding forts are too scared to oppose piracy. "Black sails" handling of this plot shows how it is entirely possible to have this kind of character development with characters that they also portray as sympathetic. You can understand the reasoning behind a character doing something apparent without condoning their actions. Flint has these elements of previously established violence even to his other sympathetic characters such as the death of Gates. And let's be real the attempted murder of Billy Bones So we know that violence is something he is absolutely capable of. If he thinks that the ends justify the means, he also has a clear and understandable motivation for this particular escalation, the death of Miranda. He is unable to justify to himself the destruction of Charles Town and the subsequent execution of governors in the area. And although the ruthless killing of not just the men in power, but their families and children too is objectively apparent. These episodes are steeped in the overwhelming guilt and grief Flint is feeling around Miranda and we as an audience understand the practical reasoning behind spreading a reign of terror through the new world. At the end of "Black Sails", all of the central characters have their own unique and complex feelings around the key themes of empire, freedom and colonialism. They all have their own lines that they are or aren't willing to cross. And these are all based on their characterization, personalities and experiences throughout the show. And the audience is constantly asked to acknowledge the great within even their most beloved characters. It's a kind of moral complexity that honestly "Game of Thrones" wishes it could have pulled off. Part five, the known ending. Although different sources report different levels of knowledge. It's generally accepted that the writers or show runners had at least a blueprint of how the books are going to end because the writer of the book, George R.R. Martin hasn't actually finished writing them yet. Martin himself set up his upcoming books. "I mean, I think the major points of the ending will be "the things I told them, you know, five or six years ago. "But there may also be changes, and they'll be a lot added." So the writers of "Game of Thrones" essentially had the problem of knowing where they needed their characters to end up but having no idea how to get them there. And as we've just seen, Dany was the ultimate example of this. Like it absolutely would have been possible to take Dany to that dark place and it might even have been possible to do it in that few episodes. There's a lot of people online, God I love Reddit. Who've already suggested ways to do this. And a lot of them feel very narratively satisfying. This seemingly insurmountable challenge for "Game of Thrones" actually has an interesting parallel with "Black Sails", where the writers already knew the endings for those characters who appeared in "Treasure Island". So here's where we talk about something that I call pre-read texts. I have no idea if there's like an official literary term for this, but it's just a phenomenon that I have picked up on and I'm absolutely fascinated by and wrote way too many essays about a university. So I am extremely hyped to finally be able to talk about it in a video. A pre-read text is a book which has become so ingrained in our cultural consciousness that the general public will often never have actually read it, yet will have a strong sense of what it is about. And we'll also have a clear idea of images, characters and concepts that arise within it, which might in fact but only a passing resemblance to the original material. This is often achieved through adaptations, with each new film or TV show beginning a narrative and visual discourse with previous versions until what has been created likely has as much or more of a connection with the other adaptations than the original book itself. Dracula, Frankenstein, and Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde all examples of pre-read texts. And so is "Treasure Island". People are much more likely to have seen the 1950s "Treasure Island", a Muppet's version, or even the highly underrated Disney animated feature "Treasure planet" than they are to have actually read the book itself. And yet book and its subsequent adaptations have helped to establish the ways in which we visualise pirates themselves. The one leg gentlemen of fortune with a parrot on his shoulder is Long John Silver. The "Black Sails" writers knew that their Long John Silver had to become the one legged cook from the book, that Flint has to bury his treasure. The Billy Bones has to become Silver's enemy. And so for people who are already familiar with "Treasure Island", this could have become a disappointing or predictable story where like we know where those characters are going to end up. So nothing is really that surprising to us but instead the writers used this known ending to their advantage, having Billy and John Silver start as far away as possible to their "Treasure Island" counterparts. So what we see is this kind of inevitable, tragic, descent into the men that we know that they are going to become. I think a lesser show would have played a lot of this for shock value. When Billy goes over the side of the ship in season one, they would have had him stay dead as a way of doing that thing that I think a lot of shows do when they want people to take them seriously by saying, you know, we killed this character because we wanted to prove that any character could die. Anything could happen. The stakes are so high, when in fact it would have just in this case, broken the promise of the audience that this is a prequel to "Treasure Island" and made it more of a generic pirate show. This quote from one of the "Black Sails" producers, she has a clear vision and understanding of the show's relationship with the pre-read text. "You know, our goal with the ending was to get as close "as possible to "Treasure Island". "It was to try to leave you in a place "where you could finish the show "and then start at page one of the book and start reading it "and have it not only makes sense in the narrative sense "but also be something of a new story for you "because now you could fill in a lot of the between "the lines in terms of the characters "and their relationships and their histories." I think one of the cleverest things about the show is that it works for people who are very familiar with the text of "Treasure Island". Who have read the book, who know it really well. The people who are familiar with it as a pre-read text and also people who know nothing about "Treasure Island", whatsoever. Example of Billy going overboard in season one is a great one. If you're not familiar with "Treasure Island", you don't know that Billy's gonna survive to the end of the show. This is a shocking moment where this really beloved character has just died. And there is a possibility that the captain, the other character that you're meant to be rooting for is the one that did it. Whereas if you're familiar with "Treasure Island" you know that Billy has to have survived that fall. And rather than that, just becoming a moment where people who've read the book go, oh, well, you know he's not really dead. So it kind of has taken all the drama out of there because of the way that he died, because of it's a link to Captain Flint and the tenuous power that he's holding over the crew, what we're thinking when we know Billy has to survive is oh God, what happens when he comes back? We have this sense of dread knowing inevitably he's going to return and potentially at the worst moment possible further into the story. And it's this little thing in the back of our minds which keeps us in this state of tension. "Black Sails" doesn't just create this kind of linear cause and effect pattern, but this web of backstories and interactions and relationships that makes it feel really real. If we look at Billy story from season one to season four, he goes from being this sort of adorable cinema role that we all love, to one of the main antagonists to the pirate cause. His key role in "Treasure Island" as a kind of Harold being the one to put you on his path is paralleled and foreshadowed in the show by his constant ability to make people more than they used to be. He lies to the crew for Flint in episode one and in doing so, keeps him from being mutinied and solidifies Flint's princes of the new world narrative. He persuades Dufresne to fight, to take a prize and Dufresne it ends up biting a mans throat out. He literally creates the concept of Long John Silver. And this is supported by an almost throwaway comment about Billy's backstory before he joined the pirates where he was the son of antidepressant activists who taught him how to read and write. Billy has so much power in the show through stories. And then in "Treasure Island" tells the story of Jim that sets everything moving. Ultimately "Black Sails" allowed breathing room for characters to become who they needed to be throughout the seasons. Whereas "Game of Thrones" rushed the process in the last three episodes because of time restraints of their own making and the audience noticed. Part six, storytelling. One of the most, wait what moments in the last episode of "Game of Thrones" is Tyrion's stories are important speech which essentially felt like the writers trying to shoe horn in themes or ideas in that last episode to like convey meaning and it really falls flat. And one of the funniest things to me is that "Black Sails" also have a story-based speech in its final episode, but because it comes in a show which has been working consistently for four seasons to create this really solid theming and motive around storytelling, it just works so much better. So first let's look at Tyrion's speech, "What unites people? "Armies? Gold? Flags? Stories. "There's nothing more powerful than a good story. "Nothing can stop it, no enemy can defeat it. "And who has a better story than Bran the Broken." So it's pretty obvious, what some of the flaws in this speech are, if you think about it for like two seconds. One, having a good story is very much not a prerequisite to being a good leader. Two, the character that he seems to think has the best story absolutely doesn't and actually wasn't even in a whole season of the show, his story was so irrelevant for so long and three, no one in this damn show except Sam seems to even read anyway. How does "Black Sails" do it differently? So the speech is also about stories and it's also in the last episode but it's given to the character whose entire plot line as established actually earlier in this essay is about legacy and story Jack Rackham. For copyright reasons, I can't just play you the speech obviously. So I'm going to read it instead. Apologies in advance for not doing it justice. But I think some really interesting things to pick out are the way in which Jack talks about storytelling, the messages and kind of the theming behind it but also the way in which the writers called attention to the fact that he is himself telling a story while this is happening. The way in which well Jack is saying these things about stories being true and untrue. He is himself aware of the way in which he tells stories might be different to the way someone else does. Not just in terms of content but in terms of form, that he runs away of themselves that he gets carried away in his own thoughts. So here's what you says, "A story is true. "A story is untrue. "As time extends, it matters less and less. "The stories we want to believe, "those are the ones that survive, "despite upheaval and transition and progress. "Those are the stories that shape history. "And then what does it matter "if it was true when it was born? "It's found truth in its maturity, "which if a virtue in man ought to be no less "so for the things men create. "As this relates to your question specifically, I'm sorry. "Remind me, what was your question specifically, "Long John Silver yes. "Please forgive me. "I will go on from time to time, "but generally in the service of thoroughness "and always at the best of intentions. "Long John Silver's story is a hard one to know. "The men who believed most deeply "in it were ultimately destroyed by it. "And those who stood to benefit most from it "were the most eager to leave it all behind. "Until all that remains of any of it are stories, "bearing only a passing resemblance to the world "the rest of us live in. "A world we survived. "A world that is no more. "What's it all for if it goes unremembered? "It's the art that leaves the mark. "But to leave it, it must transcend. "It must speak for itself. "It must be true." This speech is a last scene in the show and it brings together ideas of stories, lies, legacy and history that have been woven throughout all four seasons. Jack gives this speech to a new character interested in joining his crew, telling them the story. And for those of us who know the real Jack Rackham, we recognise this newcomer as real life pirate Mary Read, disguised as Mark Read. A character whose name is both true and untrue. A real legend and a fictional portrayal. The end of his speech about art transcending is spoken as he looks at his new flag, a flag which has been designing throughout the whole show. A flag all of us know through our own familiarity with the history and myth of piracy, the Jolly Roger. A flag that was raised by pirates to create a story of fear in their victims to encourage a smooth taking of cargo even as it promised potential danger and bloodshed. Stories and lies and legacy and history yet again. The most obvious story created by characters on screen in "Black Sails" is that of Long John Silver, the embellished figurehead of the anti empire movement. In the show John Silver is a real man, a reluctant pirate and an amputee with a Silver tongue, but Long John Silver is a carefully scripted threat to be read to the right people at the right time for maximum impact. And the development of this figurehead within the show shows that regardless of what Tyrion says in "Game of Thrones" you don't just need a story to rule, you need deeds to back it up. Dufresne for example, scoffs at Silver's threatening speech saying, "Is that it? "Surely there must be more. "Surely, if captain Flint were truly alive, "he can do better than to send a handful of men led "by a half man in the dead of night "to deliver a threat as weak as this. "A threat that amounts to what? "Fear my name, contented men have short memories "and they have little reason to fear the dark. "Captain Flint's name is already half forgotten. "As for you, I know enough of you to know that even whole, "you are unworthy of half the attention we paid you. "And now, as a invalid, you expect that to change?" It isn't until Silver then stomps his skull with his new leg. That the story actually takes form. Reputation, fear and respect. They all rely on stories in "Black Sails" and are the currency of power. Crews are constantly paying people to either spread rumours or gather intel about the word on the street. Vane saves Captain Flint at the end of season two, a man that previously he would have been happy to see die because he understands that the story of the execution of a highly feared pirate would mean the end of fear of piracy in the region. And in the final season, Madi is unafraid of death by Billy Bones and Woodes Rogers because she understands the potential storytelling power of her becoming a martyr for her cause. I mean also see how narratives can be misused and propaganda spread in a meta examination of our own perception of pirate stories. When Jack goes to America and sits in the library hearing a young woman recount false or incomplete horror stories, the newspapers report about pirates and Jack himself, she's recounting the kind of tales that we are familiar with from our own understanding of the past. I think one of the most interesting and varied explorations of storytelling within the show is Abigail Ashes narration in season two, episode eight, who this one episode she allows us to see stories as a metaphor for illusion and truth, using the imagery of the theatre to reveal how everyone is playing their roles around her. Initially she says, "my father told me "about these men about their natures, "so I know that any appearance of civility "from them is but a glimpse of the men they once were. "A ghost that shows itself only while the darker things "that now govern their souls lay dormant. "Though I'm forced to wonder "if this illusion is no accident at all, "but theatre for my benefit, "orchestrated by someone so awful, "even monsters such as these have no choice "but to dance to the tune he plays for them. "Which leads me to the one thought I find most frightening "and most difficult to dismiss. "What happens if that man decides "the theatre no longer serves his purposes "and he lets the monster to loose?" So we can see that at first, she believes that the kindness afforded to her by these men is a trick based on the accounts of them by her father. But then she comes to realise that, in fact what she's been told by her father is its own constructed narrative for her benefit. "All I knew with the stories I was told of monsters "and valiant men sworn to slay them. "But now that I've nearly traversed the ocean "that separates new world from old, "I fear that the stories I've heard "may have clouded the truth more than clarified it. "It would seem these monsters "are men, sons, brothers, fathers. "And it would seem these men fear their own monsters, "an empire, a Navy, a king, my father." Abigail becomes this kind of self-aware unreliable narrator using the imagery of monsters and men that actually foreshadows speeches further on within the story. Flint's line, "Everyone is a monster to someone. "Since you are so convinced that I am yours, I will be it." As well as the iconic dragon speech from that final episode, "They paint their world full of shadows "and then they tell their children "to stay close to the light. "Their light, their reasons, their judgments. "Because in the darkness that'd be dragons. "But it isn't true. "We can prove it isn't true. "In the dark, there is discovery, "there is possibility, there is freedom in the dark "once someone has illuminated it." Watching "Black Sails" is so satisfying in large part due to the patterns of words and imagery that track through the whole show. Phrases in one season will reemerge as imagery in another. Characters will each talk about freedom or light or darkness or power in ways that intersect and reveal new things about the speakers and the topics themselves. "Black Sails" is also in conversation with other works of art and literature. One of the most prominent being the Odyssey. At the very start of the first season, Flint talks about Theseus. You get the sensation that when he talks about this long journey and finally returning home. That he's really talking about himself, the struggles he's had so far and his wish to finally be at peace. "The ghost tells him to pick up an oar "and walk inland, and keep walking until somebody mistakes "that offer a shovel, for that would be the place "that no man had ever been troubled by the sea. "And that's where he'd finally find peace. "In the end, that's all I want." What I find so interesting about that initial speech while re-watching is that while at first, yeah that is what Flint wants to let it all go, to kind of shake off this Flint persona and be James McGraw again, as he continues and as these tragedies pile upon him, he starts to get more invested in war, in a vengeance against England about a revenge that will never stop. And it's this kind of obsession that is fed by characters around him, not just because of what the potential is for it to do but also the way in which it's destroying him. And it's the reason why in that final episode we see what Silver has done to and for him in reuniting him with Thomas. When we finally reached the end of Flint's journey and see Thomas standing with a shovel, ready to welcome him home in that moment we think back on not just the speech in season one oh, all time to shovel and the backstory of Flint and Thomas but also the idea of Flint as a character, a role to be discarded when James McGraw is finally at peace. It makes perfect narrative sense for Thomas to be there with a shovel, but it also makes poetic sense too. it is a death and beginning that captain Flint is dead is both true and untrue. There are so many more examples from "Black Sails" that I could have given and that's why it works because everything is always driving towards these ideas that it wants to put forward. And so that ending felt like a combination of stuff that had been building for four seasons. Whereas in "Game of Thrones", that stories are important. Speech at the end fell to me a little bit more like a kind of self congratulatory circled chart about how writers are the best. Part seven, the golden age of television. Now it's no secret to say that "Black Sails" is at its worst in season one. These eight episodes where it kind of felt like it was just emulating "Game of Thrones". I remember liking season one when I was first watching and then really noticing a brown popping quality from season two. And then it just felt like every episode was just getting better and better. And so when it came to re-watching the show, which I've done on multiple occasions it felt so jarring to watch season one again, the show that I used to think was like pretty good. Just doesn't look that good in comparison to the rest of the show. The whole thing feels like this weird push and pull of what the network thought it should be to try and compete with "Game of Thrones" and then what the writers actually wanted to do with it. Even in the first episode, we have these really cringe-worthy introductions of like Eleanor's introduction or the black beard scene. And then it ends with the princes of the new world speech, which is just incredible. And one of the reasons why I finished that first episode and just wanting to continue to the next one straight away. And if we look at the time that "Black Sails" was being produced it kind of makes sense because at that point "Game of Thrones" was the golden standard of television. I can understand that the attitude would be look if you're gonna have this sweeping historical show then you should maybe be looking at what "Game of Thrones" is doing. And I think one of the things that "Black Sails" in that first season picked up from it was this idea of like sexy violence. Even the female characters, it's kind of like weird, not like other girls swagger to them. But I think one of the most interesting things about "Black Sails" is the way it manages to course correct on these kind of mistakes from that first season. One of the most obvious storylines that blends itself to the influence of "Game of Thrones" is Max's assault storyline in season one. The storyline itself all plays out over these three episodes. And at the end of it, the perpetrators are all dead and there are no more assault storylines for the whole of the show. Once we get to season two and it really gives a sense that the writers had a lot more control over their show. That was just something that they were clearly not interested in. And this is a kind of storyline that a lot of these shows pick up on including "Game of Thrones" which actually I did a sexual assault storyline for Sansa Stark, which wasn't in the books. Whereas in "Black Sails", not only is no one on the show ever sexually assaulted again but actually all of the sex scenes from then on are initiated enthusiastically and with consent by women. And that's not to say the "Black Sails" pulls punches in terms of brutality, but instead of leaning into this kind of gross spectacle or dehumanising aspects of it, "Black Sails" deals with the harsh realities of violence like Anne's disfigurement or the keelhauling theme rather than glorifying it. I know that people often defend sexual assault storylines and shows like this for like historical accuracy, even as they ignore other historically accurate things like you know, women's body hair and dragons. And I think that ultimately subverting the sexist and genre expectations can lead to a better show. Part eight, fan service. Let's talk about fan service. This is a concept that I think is a massive discussion right now within fandom communities. Essentially, it's this idea that a show will put in particular storylines or pairings or references in order to specifically appeal or satisfy its core audience of fans. Fan service in practise could look like anything from bringing up a lot of character back from the dead after fan backlash, to referencing fan theories in a kind of meta way in a script. On the surface this might seem like a no brainer. Surely you want to give the fans what they want so that they enjoy the show. But the criticism of thought is that it often leads to kind of stale stagment or predictable stories especially if creators have changed an original vision for a show or film to conform to what the fans demand. However, on the other hand, writing deliberately against expectations can lead to confusing plot points which seemingly coming out of nowhere and fan backlash. "Black Sails" in my opinion expertly walks the line between these two extremes. It allows itself to subvert elements of his own genre while also giving the fans the confrontations and battles and elements that we are waiting for. It subverts what we might expect from a Michael Bay produced pirate show but always feels cohesive and with purpose rather than something that's just happening to be edgy or different. One of the things I find really interesting is watching reaction videos to "Black Sails" on YouTube. There's like four or five channels that reacted to all of the different episodes of "Black Sails" and what you see consistently from these people reacting genuinely and naturally to the show in the moment is that when these big reveals or subventions or twists happen, they aren't just reacting in a purely emotional way of like, Whoa, what what was that like, didn't see that coming? But there's always afterwards this moment of like, oh of course, oh, it makes sense now. It's not just a twist for this shock value or subverting expectations just to make you go wait, what? It's always in service of the story. And it always makes sense. One of the most exciting genre subversions for me in the show is its portrayal queer people and its portrayal of black people. These are two identities, which are often missed out of this kind of genre entirely under the guise of like historical accuracy as if like the only people were like sis straight white men throughout history until like the 20th century or the 21st century where we sort of popped up like, hey we are here. But "Black Sails", doesn't just include these characters for set dressing or supporting roles with no real impact. They are lead characters whose experiences of marginalisation are key to the entire show without taking away the agency. Because ultimately in a show about breaking free from the confines of civilization it would have been disingenuous to have all of these main characters be straight white men. The reveal in season two, that Flint is gay for example, initially had some negative reactions from a section of the audience who had been drawn in by the machismo promise of a raunchy and violent Michael Bay pirate show. But the reveal makes perfect sense. Every decision that Flint makes, every action that he takes is in pursuit of the destruction of the empire that would take away his love and condemn him for it. If you re-watch season one with that knowledge from season two, it just elevates the performances and the story even more. I have a huge amount of respect for the writers of "Black Sails" for the way in which they decided to reveal Flint's sexuality in season two, I think it would have been really easy for them to have justified having it in season one especially towards the end, maybe having it in the final episode, a big cliff hanger, a big PR thing people talking about it, more people watching the show, it being this thing where the story around the Michael Bay gay protagonist became more important than the actual story itself. They've talked in interviews on multiple occasions about being aware of that and not wanting to play into it but they always knew that this was the case. They told Toby Stevens when he first got the role so that he would be able to have his performance in season one reflect that backstory so that if you went back to watch season one after the reveal, you would see something new in it and you absolutely do, some of the stuff he says to Miranda is like a thousand times more heartbreaking when you understand why he's saying them to her and the meaning behind them. Another great subversion of both female and queer relationships is Anne Bonny. The show allows this tough fighter lady to get a happy romantic ending and a Queer one at that. I can't help, but compare Anne's ending in "Black Sails" to the endings of Arya and Sansa in "Game of Thrones." For me they have this weird sort of hashtag girl boss vibe holding onto the idea that the ultimate win for women is rejecting romantic love in favour of power or freedom as if they're mutually exclusive and implying wanting romantic love is a lesser goal. Arya and Gendry have long been a fan favourite potential future pairing with their easy comradery and genuine care for each other. In season eight, they're reunited, rekindle their friendship and ended up sleeping together. And then all you rejects him in favour of exploration, kind of implying that there is this strict binary choice. She could either have Gendry or she could have this life of exploration and freedom. That those two things were no way compatible. Sansa goes from this silly, innocent, romantic girl to the cold, hard, badass woman who mocks her own past self for her weakness and romantic foolishness. This is presented in the show as a kind of positive growth for her, even though she also says in the show that, that growth was explicitly because of her sexual assault saying, "Without Littlefinger and Ramsay and the rest, "I would have stayed a little bird all my life." "Black Sails" subverts Queer narrative as well as quick character expectations. For example, there's this buildup to a final showdown between Flint and Silver throughout the show. The expected rule of these kinds of big confrontations is that one character will almost certainly die. And the expectation based on both "Treasure Island" and the bury your gays trope is that Flint will be the one to perish yet instead they both survive with Silver killing captain Flint the concept and leaving James the character to continue without his destructive part persona. We get the fulfilled promise of an incredible fight sequence plus the thrill of a twist and the satisfaction of an ending that fits each character. Part nine, slavery. Criticisms of "Game of Thrones" slavery narratives are pretty well-established by now, especially this white saviour image, the lack of meaningful narrative power or character development for the slaves themselves and the ex slave and last women of colour alive on the show being killed to motivate war crimes. The show has a strange sense of cognitive dissonance where they have these terrible brutal things happen every day in European corroded Westeros. And yet the narrative tells us that all of the Eastern lands that Dannie liberates are uniquely corrupt and savage and cruel before she comes over and civilises them. Even though I think "Game of Thrones" thinks of itself as like being a good show because it's against slavery on the surface, it also feels very like pro colonial at the same time. "Black Sails" on the other hand, deals with slavery in a very different way. The majority of white pirates don't come in as these saviours or civilised betters of the black characters. In fact, they appears outsiders in the Maroon's own narrative. Eventually they become reluctant allies, but they begin as an inconvenience and they are never saviours. Maroons are a group of people based on the Maroons camps from real history. Who've been creating a life for themselves hidden mostly outside of colonial rule, but still tied to it through the need for supplies and to provide a safe passage for escaped slaves. And they've used of their life there and what a future might potentially look like on a monolith, they have different varied and changing opinions with Madi notably wanting to drive towards a more all encompassing idea of what freedom could be through war revolution. "Black Sails" is betrayal of slaves and slavery encompasses more than just the escaped slaves of the Maroon camps. It also looks at ex-slaves like Vane and Max. The show allows their pals to inform their worldview and actions without languishing in the visual terror of it for the slavery based torture bait that plays out in so many slave dramas. We also have the Nassau slave rebellion storyline where the previously good and moral character of Billy which we have been sympathising with this whole time. The sense into villainy because of his us versus them attitude towards the slaves being willing to sacrifice them for his people or the pirates. When we see the slaves rise up and escape they gain their own freedom. And while the pirate scramble over the fall of Nassau the strengthened Maroon camp shows us that these free pirates are only a portion of the full picture. When Flint comes to the Maroon queen to try and persuade her to join the war, he talks up an Alliance rather than them being his subjects or wanting to support him. In the exchange she says, "Let's say that by some miracle "we could dislodge the British from Nassau. "I could not possibly hope to defend it with my numbers." Flint replies, "Your numbers? "For every man in your camp, there are a thousand "somewhere in the West Indies living under the same yoke, "chained in fields pressed on ships, sold into indenture. "When they see a sitting governor protected "by his Majesty's Navy, "deposed by an alliance of pirates and slaves, "how many consider joining that fight? "How many thousands of men will flock to Nassau, "join your ranks, and help you defend it? "What does a colonial power do when the men "whose toil powers it laid down their shovels, "take up swords and say, no more? "Bring down Nassau, maybe you bring it all down." The show is also aware of how far that is a tentative Alliance. Flint hasn't really cared about the people who are enslaved around Nassau until it became something that was useful to his cause. In season three, Mrs. Scott talks to Madi about this delicate balance between these two communities. He says, "I worry that we've made a terrible mistake. "I see what you see in them, Silver and Flint. "But their relationship is so volatile "and we've put our lives in their hands. "Those men rose to their stations because they are peerless "when it comes to shaping the world to their will, "in creating a narrative and wielding it "to compel men's hearts and minds. "But the most compelling story requires a villain "at its centre. "And if either captain Flint or Mr. Silver sees the other "as a villain or worse us as that, then all is lost. "They are of great value to us, "but they must be managed by us to avoid that outcome." This turning of marginalised communities against each other has long been a tactic of those in charge to stop the communities from joining together and pushing for change. Apart from being a passive victim waiting to be saved by white heroes, Mr. Scott is presented as a skilled strategist, a beloved leader, and a worldwide thinker. He can also see from an outside view of both the supposedly civilised England and the brutality of piracy. That just because England stability is a lie, it doesn't mean the world of piracy is better. They are violent murderers and even use slave labour to rebuild the Fort when unable to get any of the free pirates to work. In an interview about the show on the "Black Sails" podcast, Fathoms Deep. Zethu Dhlomo who plays Madi has talks about her goal to not make Madi too cold and stoic in her leadership. Madi is smart, and compassionate and strong, emphasising the power in her capacity for love, that her love for people is her strength. Dhlomo herself is South African and in the interview she draws parallels between herself and Madi. She doesn't remember apartheid and therefore hasn't directly experienced that level of legalised racism but she does live with its legacy. In the same way, Madi wasn't a slave herself but lives with a legacy of slavery too. She didn't seem the same brutality. And so she's less cautious than her parents and more ambitious in her goals for what liberation and freedom might mean. Dhlomo sees the relationship between her generation and her parents in that dynamic. In the shared vision we see Flint and Madi similarities but we can also see their differences. Whatever he says Flint is ultimately doing it for himself and his own personal vendetta. Whereas Madi is doing it for other people. Flint is motivated by past trauma whereas Madi sees the importance of the past and what it has done to her people but she's looking to the future. And what I think is one of the most powerful scenes in the show she says, "I hear other voices. "A chorus of voices, multitudes. "They reach back centuries. "Men and women and children "who lost their lives to men like you. "Men and women and children forced to wear your chains. "I must answer to them. "And this war, their war. "Flint's war, my war. "It will not be bargained away to avoid a fight." Part ten, death and violence. It's been pointed out by a lot of people commenting on "Game of Thrones" that within its first few seasons, deaths worked really well. They were spread out enough to be unexpected. They had real consequences and it made the world feel dangerous. However, most people also agree that this quality of the show sort of drops off from season five where the characters who die with increasing frequency are doing so to either simplify the narrative or for some kind of unknown spectacle. "Game of Thrones" in later seasons also adds to their body count by killing off characters like Rickon and Myrcella who have been absent from the show for awhile or are characters with the audience aren't invested in. If the remaining characters care then like, sure, we might too. But when the remaining Starks reunite Rickon is not really mentioned. And with Myrcella, like we know that Cersei cares about her because we're told that she does but we've never really seen them bonding. Comparatively the deaths in "Black Sails" are always steeped in consequences, precision, character development and thematic resonance. All of these deaths have a huge impact from before the first season even starts all the way through to the final episode. We know that this world is brutal. We know that characters might die but somehow every single death comes as a shock. One of the brightest saying, "When a character dies, "almost by nature of wanting the death to feel dramatic, "it needs to feel too soon. "It needs to feel abrupt and unsettling." Even the deaths of characters that we don't sympathise with have a huge impact on the characters and the plot of the show. Take Singleton for example, he dies in the very first episode of the first season and his death could have been a really easy way to tie up the mutiny plot line. But instead the writers continue to show the consequences and aftermath of the death and the decisions around it particularly for Billy that run through to the end of the show as well as acknowledging how the death of Singleton for some people in the crew might continue to be a problem that we'll play Flint later on. And Singleton was just a minor character in a single episode. What happens when we look at the consequences of one of the major character deaths. Let's take Blackbeard's death as an example. At this point in the show we're pretty certain that either Blackbeard will kill Woodes Rogers or vice versa. The show does give us this confrontation but increases the brutality with the introduction of the real historical punishment of keel hauling and along and strip vaccine. This death does multiple things beyond simply being there for shock value. One, the concept of the King is dead long live the King. From a narrative standpoint, Blackbeard needed to die for Long John Silver to come into his true legacy. He was a mark up of the old pirate regime and hung heavy over both the characters and the audience's minds. When it came to powerful pirates. This is moving Silver towards the character we know him to be in "Treasure Island." Two Jack's legacy. Jack needed to start to think about an alternative vision of what his legacy was going to be. It couldn't be as the strong, brave, violent captain, he needed to be free of his obsession with proving himself to men he would never be. Three woods Rogers. The audience needed to see the depravity Woodes Rogers was capable of to truly set him up as a villain of the final season, amongst so many other morally complex characters. Four, civilization. And finally thematically, it ties in with the challenging of the concept of civilization. If a so-called civilised man could do such a thing on behalf of his regime, then the concept of civilization is in itself a lie. The show also subverts our ideas of queer death and queer representation. This is definitely helped by the sheer number of Queer characters within the show, which means that the death of Eleanor is not the death of the lone queer protagonist. Anne nearly dies but survives. Flint also nearly dies, but also survives. Max is alive and happy. And Thomas even rises from the supposedly dead at the end of the show. We get two different Queer couples who are both alive at the end of the show. And that feels revolutionary. Part 11, the big problem. "Game of Thrones" establishes with increasing urgency as the show progresses, that the real danger, the real problem are the white walkers and the whites. Not the squabbling of human factions. They are built up as a nearly unkillable enemy which can only be defeated of the population comes together essentially a stand in for the looming existential threats like climate change in our own world. When it came to the final season of the show it seems obvious that this was going to be the final boss battle. With some people suggesting maybe pessimistically that ultimately humanity would lose. And our final image would be the white walkers on the iron throne, but then we know they were defeated in one episode with minimal casualties. So I guess, good news for climate change everyone. Ultimately this neat wrapping up of what was signposted as an unimaginable power with strong thematic meaning, meant that the previous seasons retrospectively fell flat and then like have real consequences far reaching sacrifices or lasting compromises destroyed any high stakes the stories seem to have. "Black Sails" sets up its own external threat which overshadows the petty grievances of individual crews, namely the British Empire. Not just a physical threat but a psychological and philosophical one as well. The show exposes a supposed civilised nation for what it truly is. And it's done in an absolutely masterful way because we know from history that the pirates will not be successful. Nassau still exists, but it's not a pirate island. Slavery endured for over a hundred years and the empire for even longer. This gives the audience a kind of sense of tragic pathos where we know that they're going to fail. But what we're interested in is exactly how that's going to happen and potential individual victories that can coexist with our ultimate failure. For me, this feels like a more true version of the phrase LGTV in comparison to what "Game of Thrones" kind of self describes itself as. Like "Black Sails" isn't just LGS statics is explicitly talking about corrupt power structures that still exist in our own world today, while still acknowledging that some people will still try to do good even in dire situations. It kind of gives a middle finger to the sort of edgy pessimism of a lot of shows that essentially get the impression that like caring about anything is vastly uncool while also not sugarcoating history or our current world. I would argue that the big bad in "Game of Thrones" is more developed and arguably more terrifying than the supernatural threat of "Game of Thrones." The white walkers and whites are ultimately scary on a horror fantasy level. They're focused in one note in their intent to kill everyone and take over Westeros. And "Black Sails", however were given various different reasons to hate and fear England that intersect and weave through each other. The brutality of slavery, the injustices of the class system, deadly homophobia, each faction has their own unique and specific reasons for joining the fight. And the consequences of their potential failure are also specific to each faction. They're not quite victory in "Black Sails" is a much better example of how to show characters fighting an existential threat that is almost impossible to destroy but still give them a satisfying ending. As opposed to "Game of Thrones" whose metaphorical element meant it didn't logically track across the two levels of meaning. Part 12, breaking the wheel. Perhaps then it will be more fair to compare the fight against England in "Black Sails" to the breaking the wheel concept in "Game of Thrones." However, as I mentioned earlier "Game of Thrones" is handling of the breaking the wheel conceit was lacking to say the least. The character who had supported the breaking the wheel idea from the very start, Dany quickly falls into a murderous dictatorship. And although the council meeting that is cool to decide the new ruler is signposted as a progressive move away from monarchy. It ends with a noble family on the throne, characters laughing at the concept of democracy and no real change the wheel at all. The show sort of presents this scene as if it's like a conclusion like, okay and I guess this is sorted, but there's actually nothing to stop these characters doing exactly the same as they did before. Like just killing whoever's on the throne and then putting themselves in their place. And like that maintaining of the status quo could have been the point, but it wasn't. Because they just essentially gave us what was happening at the beginning of the show, just with all of our favourites in those roles. In "Black Sails" on the other hand, all of the characters have their own complex relationship with the wheel or civilization as they call it. And they see freedom as the antithesis of this. Flint is looking to be free from moral persecution. Eleanor wants to be free from gendered roles and the powerlessness of financial and social instability. The pirate cruise wants to be free from a working class struggle that keeps them under the boot of a rich landowners. And the Maroons look towards freedom for slaves and ultimately the end of slavery itself. Now, interestingly, both shows have a physical manifestation of the power of the wheel. In "Game of Thrones" it's the iron throne and in "Black Sails" it's the Urca of gold. It is a thing that hangs over all the seasons that multiple factions want for different reasons that symbolises power in a real and abstract way that can change hands like sand slipping between fingers. There's a tool to get the other things that characters ultimately want. In "Game of Thrones" the physical throne is melted with dragon fire at the end of the show in a dramatic suggestion of revolutionary change, get the symbolic promise of the end of the monarchy is undermined by the defect on monarchy established in the final episode. The Urca gold on the other hand becomes much more than very treasure throughout the show. As Jack Rackham explains, "Charles Vane sacrifice is in that box. "Along with my good name. "Along with her lost love. "Along with your late quartermasters life. "All the awful sacrifices made to assemble "that box and are part of its contents "and those things are sacred things "that I trust in no man's hands." Each character also abused the gold in different ways. Jack has a clear understanding of it as a representation of the sacrifices they've made so far, to lose the goal to be to render those sacrifices pointless. Yet this desperation also betrays the fragility of a plan that revolves around gold that no one can keep in their possession for long. To a character like Max, who grew up as a bastard child of a slave owner, gold is not just money and her wanting it, it's not a form of greed, but a way of creating some control in her life that has never had a safe and steady footing. Madi on the other hand is fine with the Urca of gold being given up because she sees the bigger picture and the long-term goal to end slavery saying that without gold, "It would be difficult "but since when do we expect this to be anything else." Those are the audience familiar with "Treasure Island" know that ultimately that gold is going to be lost to all of our characters. Because in "Treasure Island", Jim and Long John Silver must retrieve it. And so we are always aware of the inherent tragedy of all these characters grasping desperately towards it. Unlike "Game of Thrones", it's never a battle to get to the top of the sake of power, or even to stop someone worse getting into power themselves. Flint and Silver in their final confrontation are not arguing who's going to be rich or powerful. They are locked in a battle of intersecting desires and fears that go beyond that. Seeing the gold of what it really is a tool for change. In the end, it's Max provides an alternative to the gold and the black and white simplicity of either keeping the status quo as it is or trying to bend it all to the ground is outside revolutionaries. She points out to Jack, "Civilization has been winning "that war for 10,000 years against men richer, braver, "stronger and smarter than you. "How can you be so blind not to see that? "You must sort of fall stronger "than you had any right to hope for. "You hit the governor when he was at his weakest. "And at what result? "Eleanor is dead, Anne is nearly dead, "and the governor is sitting in Nassau "in my fucking chair victorious. "You cannot fight civilization from the outside in.: Max is providing the alternative viewpoint that you don't have to completely break the wheel. If you're able to be in the driver's seat of the car itself. Although on the surface, this might seem like Max is simply assimilating into civilization, her outright projection of the misogynistic and heteronormative ultimatum given by Madam Guthrie, the idea that she must marry a man to secure herself within society shows us a middle ground that is possible as opposed to the extreme of Flint's war. Max is very existence as a queer black woman no longer a slave living a life with a woman she loves, and being the real power in Nassau is a revolutionary act in itself. Part 13, the cast reactions. So the cast of "Game of Thrones" have said some less and enthusiastic things about that final season. It's been well-documented over the internet. - And are you happy with how things ended? - Yes. - She didn't say yes, you didn't say yes. - Best season ever. - But it wasn't until I watched "Black Sails" and specifically interviews with the "Black Sails" cast that I truly realised how hard actors could stand for their own show when it was this good. - I mean, it's great to actually be in a show that comes to a coherent end. It's a proper full story. - I would honestly not have time in this video to go through everything that these actors have said about the show and how much they enjoyed it and the scripts and the writers and how brilliant their co-stars were. But I have picked out some for you. As I guess, a kind of a positive antidote to the "Game of Thrones" cast reaction to their own show. Luke Arnold, who played Silver has said, "Such a gift to be given insane material "to sink ourselves into every week "and a beautiful fan base to share it with, what a job? "And I wouldn't usually talk up something "I'm part of so in fat sickly, but the writers, directors, "cast, and crew around me blow my mind." Toby Stephens has said, "I'll never move on from Flint. "Thank you, John Steinberg "for creating the greatest character "that I will ever have the privilege to play." - I think a lot of the cast struggling being actors out in the world of film and TV after working at a show like "Black Sails" 'cause you did not get given dialogue like that hardly ever. - It's too bad, that the show is in, you know, more mainstream popular. I'm hoping that it feature it will be because I just think it's, I really do think it's one of the best shows on television. And so many people are missing it. - [Woman] Yes. - It's like, I want to watch it. And I'm so proud to be a part of it. - And the writers were so incredible because they told me at the beginning of the season that it was part of, you know, there was gonna happen. And so I knew that I was gonna get these beautiful story lines and these beautiful moments of reconciliation. And as the scripts came through, I was just blown away by how they were building to it. And it was just, it just felt so right. All of the things that I've been playing for, like, you know for the past three seasons I've been incorporated in, in such a subtle and like brilliant way without throwing in the audience face at all. - To do those things with an actor like Toby Stevens every day is like, I mean it doesn't get any better. It was any was is I think there's that thing where you do some stuff and you look back and go, could I wish we'd known, you know, how good this was when we were doing it. It was like, oh, we knew and I think everyone very early on, we understood that we were part of something special and you can't not, when you're doing those kinds of scenes when you get like no shows go like, hey here's a 10 page, two hander. That's just you and this incredible actor going toe to toe with each other, you know? And in the last season I was like we're getting that every episode. - There's a real sense that making the show as good as it could be, making the characters as good as they could be based on these scripts was something that the entire cast unanimously like dedicated themselves towards while filming the show. Pretty much all of them have guested it, sometimes multiple times on the unofficial "Black Sails" podcast, Fathoms Deep. This is a podcast that did not at the time of any kind of official link to the show. One of the actors just like found it and then they all started listening to it. And now they'd like go onto the show, not just to talk about like fun anecdotes and behind the scenes like you would expect from actors talking about the show they were on but like really intense discussions about like the minutiae of the thematic resonance of particular elements within the show itself. There is so much to dig into, that these actors are still finding new things about this show that they themselves loved and dedicated themselves to, like the actor who plays Jack Rackham wrote a whole damn pre-cool graphic novel about how Anne and Jack met. Ultimately I think "Black Sails" succeeded where "Game of Thrones" failed because if it's honouring dedication and love for its characters and ensure that their backstories, motivations, actions and reactions were always at the centre of the story. By making the characters the focus, it ensured that it didn't matter that people knew how it ended. Instead, it became much more about a group of complicated flawed, real, literally in some cases people and their fight to live, how they want to live under a system that is still very much in place today. "Game of Thrones" sort of started this way. And it's heyday it's shone because of its characters and houses and relationships. As soon as they started to lose sight of that and make the characters action suit the plot and not the other way round, they lost it. "Black Sails" elevated itself from being simply a show about well-established characters to something truly special and it's clear and sustained exploration of themes that wove their way through dialogue, imagery, plot, and character acts. Everything in that show is in service of every other piece of it. It's this woven cohesive kind of hole that a lot of shows never reach or the through mismatch messaging, average writing, early cancellation or bloated series that just go on for too long. This under the radar pirate show might've seen a first glance like a Michael Bay produced attempt at "Game of Thrones". In fact, far surpassed it to become one of the best shows of the last decade. If you would like to help support me make these videos in the future, I'm gonna leave a link to my Patreon below, which actually has a new perk which has just added the other week, which is movie reactions. So if you're interested to see me react to various probably very queer movies, that is a new tear along with lots of other ones that I already have. So check that out if you're interested. I wanna say a huge thank you to both Gemma from a million map musings on YouTube and also Rebecca Shaptor for the amazing work to helping descript edit this absolute beast of a video as well as Daphne from the Fathoms Deep podcast who has just been like the best sounding board for ideas around "Black Sails" and whose DMs are just entirely full of me like gushing about this show and like all of the disjointed ideas that made themselves into this script. And until I see you next time, bye.

Channel: Rowan Ellis

Views: 99,192

Keywords: black sails video essay, black sails review, black sails review no spoilers, game of thrones video essay, game of thrones everything wrong, game of thrones everything wrong with season 8, black sails lgbt, black sails lgbt representation, black sails reaction, black sails reaction 2x05, black sails everything great

Id: SMFll3aIbmo

Length: 71min 9sec (4269 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 05 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Gabzy12]

Black Sails actually earned the happy ending whereas Thrones on the other hand didn’t. The attempt at a bittersweet finale failed hard and I didn’t feel sadness or sympathy for the death of a character which I had liked for 7 seasons up to the penultimate episode. Sigh

[u/Orome2]

I was a big fan of Game of Thrones (especially the earlier seasons), but Black Sails is a better show overall. It's obvious GRRM intended A Song of Ice and Fire to end the same as it did in the show, and I think it would have been much better with GRRM's writing stile, but D&D botched the final few seasons so badly that it ruined the whole series.

It's too bad Black Sails never got the recognition it deserved.

[u/Taashaaaa]

I wasn't expecting such a long video, I'll have to watch it later.

It's frustrating that Black Sails wasn't as successful as it should have been, it's sooooo much better than GoT. But maybe GoT was playing to it's audience, I think people would talk about it as if it was really clever and really subversive but ultimately it wasn't. Jon Snow is a total cliché. Which is fine but we shouldn't act like it's something it's not.

I dunno if this is just me feeling superior but I dunno if Black Sails is too clever for a lot people. GoT had cool shocking moments that were fun to chat about in work. Black Sails is deeper and I think a lot of people are shallow, they don't want to think too much about what they watch.

[u/Hope-on-life-support]

Game of Thrones also had a devout following of book lovers that had waited nearly 20 years for the stories to finish. The budget was stratospheric; and there was fantasy and dragons.

Black sails is inspired by Treasure Island but isn't directly based on a series. There were no fantasy fan base to pull from. I honestly didn't hear about Black Sails until it's penultimate season.

Both shows had plenty of nudity, however, I also think Black sails was hit by the same prejudices as the movie Bareback Mountain. There are bigots in this world that cannot stomach homosexual relationships. I'm not saying that's right or even fair but it's a factor.

Then there was the market ram of HBO.

In the end, it matters not. I've rewatched black sails and own the series. You can't pay me to watch GOT again.

Edit: a word

[u/Agha_AH]

Game of Thrones was produced by simpletons Benioff and Weiss. Plenty of the changes they made to the original source material made them seem like buffoons.

[u/tollcrosstim]

Thank you for sharing this video! I really enjoyed it.

[u/Shappie]

I consistently use Black Sails as an example of the perfect way to end a show. There are very few that can measure up to it.

[u/flowersinthedark]

The thing is, it's not quite fair to draw this comparison.

The thing is, the writers of GoT only got handed half a story and then had to finish it on their own. The narrative scope was much broaders - spanning various continents, countries, several convoluted plot arcs - and at some point, D & D were only given story beats that then then had to meet. But since they'd cut so many of the arcs and killed off characters and kept others alive, they had to brutally force the narrative to meet those beats and it started to look like they were amateurs.

Levine and Steinberg got to write their own story, with a much smaller cast and a less convoluted plot. They had more creative freedom and it was their work from the beginning to the end.

All of that doesn't mean that D&D didn't fuck up, it just means that you need to recognize that the conditions that allowed BS to shine were simply not the same for GoT.

[u/idunno--]

Step 1: Only have four seasons of story to tell. Step 2: Don’t adapt an unfinished work. Step 3: Don’t have dozens of characters, storylines, and locations to film on.

Seriously, I don’t think people understand what a massive undertaking Game of Thrones was compared to pretty much any show, including this one.