"But I Hear Other Voices. A Chorus Of Voices. Multitudes. They Reach Back Centuries. Men And Women And

Wei Wuxian made the Bonding/Binding Talisman...

Solely because he got inspired by getting tied with a sacred forehead ribbon to his crush.

Look at him admiring the handiwork wrapped around his wrist.

Not to mention that that's the only talisman he made that's colored blue.

I'd have renamed it. Like...you conqueered it, what's the point in keeping the original name? Though the name is definitely important, so it's strange they didn't specify it in the show. Even if I've noticed they generally haven't given too much importance to the ships per se (Urca being the exception) or to the captain/ship relationship as much as one would find it in other pirates story. I mean, they are important for who owns them or for the action they are brought into but there's not really that... almost "personification" of the ship (what brings us to use the "she" pronouns for them after all). Don't know if it's clear what I mean, it may be only my perspective of course, but like...poor Walrus gets wrecked once, almost destroyed twice (if not more) and burned in the end, and they barely spared her a though in season 4 (when Silver talks to Billy about her resilience). So that's probably also why the man 'o war disappears. Like...it wasn't important, they didn't need it anymore and the show just...forgot about it😂

The Man O'War

One of the mysteries of Black Sails is where the Spanish man o’war captured in season 1 vanishes to after Captain Flint and his crew return to Walrus…but another mystery is exactly WHAT is this ship. I’ve seen her referred to as a frigate, but now that I’ve captured a good screenshot (season 2, episode 4), that this is definitely no frigate.

The man o’war has three full gun decks. Counting gun ports, it looks like each has approximately fifteen guns, plus a short gun deck back aft near the main deck. This averages to 45-49 guns per broadside, which makes this grand bitch not just a ship of the line, but a first rate ship of the line. That's the age of sail equivalent of a battleship! Take a look at the gif below of the man o’war savaging Walrus and Ranger.

(Frankly, if she was a frigate, I don't think Flint would've worried much; Walrus has the throw weight of a sixth rate frigate and would've stood a good chance; with Ranger along, they would've been just fine and no one should've panicked.)

So, what ship is this? The Urca de Lima was a real ship, though Urca was only a nickname for Santissima Trinidad, and she was part of a combination of two flotillas that made up the 1715 Treasure Fleet. This fleet consisted of eleven ships, of which at least two were ships of the line.

The first was ex-Hampton Court, a British built third rate ship of the line of 70 guns that was captured by the French then sold to the Spanish. Sources say that she was renamed Nuestra Señora del Carmen, but contemporary sources such as the governor of Jamacia, Archibald Hamilton indicate that this was a separate ship and the flagship of the second part of the fleet. (More on that in a moment.)

The second confirmed ship of the line was the French Griffon, which was the one and only survivor. (Cool fact: the captain of this ship was also likely the informant who gave Hamilton his information).

The third ship is the mystery ship that brought up the rear of the formation. This ship is harder to place, and was either a different "massive war galleon" or Nuestra Señora del Rosario, a third ship of the line. This may have been a third rate or fourth rate ship of the line, but sources make it very hard to tell. Given that the wrecks that have been found have never been positively identified, it's even harder to determine which ship was which.

Back to Black Sails. Historical evidence says that there wasn't a first rate ship of the line in the 1715 Treasure Fleet, but the show does also indicate that the Urca was traveling alone, so a bit of dramatic license says that we've got a first rater along for the ride. It's far from outside the realm of possibility, given the contemporary evidence that the Spanish definitely did use ships of the line as escorts for treasure ships.

I think it's safe to say that the ship isn't Hampton Court, however. An ex-British officer like James Flint would 100% recognize Hampton Court, who would've been captured (1707) after he left England but was a distinctly British design. Additionally, the characters continuously refer to her as a Spanish man o'war, which indicates she's Spanish-built.

Spanish-built ships of the line with three decks have 94 guns or greater. Until 1700ish, they frequently were referred to as galleons, a term that faded out of use and was replaced by navíos. If I'm going to be a real history nerd, Spain didn't really have a three deck ship of the line in this era; they'd scrapped the only one they had in 1705, Nuestra Señora de la Concepción y las Animas. But prior to scrapping, this ship was sent to the colonies to harass settlers around Panama, so she was on the right side of the world in the early 18th century.

Historically speaking, Nuestra Señora de la Concepción y las Animas (Our Lady of the Conception and of Souls) is the best candidate for the Man O'War in Black Sails.

In-universe speaking, that big bitch is a three deck, first rate ship of the line of somewhere between 94-100 guns, just based on the number of gun ports and the mincemeat she makes of two ships at the same time. Why did she vanish? Probably because it'd be hard as hell for anyone to beat Flint if you let him keep that ship, and Woodes Rodgers would've had a much harder time taking Nassau when she was protected by a ship of the line.

Have you seen this post before? Probably a close cousin of it. Dimwit me deleted my tumblr and had to remake it.

Additional sources:

1715 Treasure Fleet Information

Ship resting places, armament, and educated guesswork

Archibald Hamilton's information

Go tell them how this woman (and her husband) shaped this man's whole world.

This is exactly the spirit of the show. This is what Thomas would say about their war (well, his own war too). This is what makes this show so dear and personal to me. The key to all historical changes.

As Woodes Rogers once said:

"You expect the world to become what you want it to be despite all avaliable evidence and experience to the contrary."

Yes, this is what they all have been doing through the whole show. WR included.

Long live Black Sails.

The thing is. The thing is about black sails is. What did they get in the end for all their pain and suffering and blood? Well, nothing. Absolutely nothing. In the end it all came down to nothing and it meant nothing and they were remembered in history as monsters and died as monsters. But yet it meant everything. They failed, every single one of them, but the fact that they failed meant they tried and that meant everything. They failed in the end, so what was the point of it all? Wouldn't it be better off if none of them had tried, if none of them had bled and struggled and fought or even met? But THAT is the point! The point was in the living, not in the dying, not in the failing! It was in the trying! The way they tried because of each other and for each other! The way they tried to beat against something that could not and would not ever move in their lifetimes! Flint tried for Thomas and Miranda tried for Flint and Miranda tried for Thomas and Silver tried for Flint and Mr. Gates tried for Flint and Max tried for Eleanor and Eleanor tried for Max and Charles Vane tried for Elaenor and Mr. Scott tried for Eleanor and Mr. Scott tried for Madi and Silver tried for his men and Billy tried tried tried and the Maroon Queen tried and Madi tried for freedom and Jack tried and Anne tried And Jack tried for Anne and Anne tried for Jack and Anne tried for Max and Max tried for Anne, and Eleanor's grandmother tried for her and Eleanor tried for Woodes Rogers and Woodes Rogers tried for her, and Woodes Rogers tried and Edward Teach tried for Charles Vane and Jack tried for Charles Vane and on Skull island, Silver may or may not have tried one last time and they all tried and it meant nothing and yet everything. Everything. Because the point was not the losing, but that they fought at all to win.

Agathario AU | Dinner with Evanora ends in disaster when Rio stands up for Agatha.

We, that have made of subtext our belief🔝😍

That's amazing😂

So… I tried to make a thing.

@holyblanchett : Someone said Rio closes her eyes because she can't stand to see Agatha in pain, and now I can't stop thinking about it

This is a great analysis, and one I'm very glad to read too. I've always been on his side and have always supported -or understood at least-  his decisions (except Gates), though with time I've started to understand also how most of his people could not trust him completely or doubt his choices.

It's undenyable that he would be ready to give up A LOT (including members of his crew. I mean, if he killed Gates for it, we shouldn't really be surprised about any "lack of interest" towards the others) in order to get what he wants, and it is also true that he keeps most of his plans for himself, partially because he has often reasons he can't voice, partially because he know he can't really trust anyone (and I mean, can we really blame him, considering the environment?), so I can understand why someone would not put his own life in his hands without seconds thoughts.

Still, as long as it's not strictly necessary, he does his best to save as many as possible, or better, to save the situation as much as he can.

It's the reason why he can be captain when no one else of his crew can (in my opinion at least): he knows how to look at the bigger picture, and this of course means making the most difficult decisions and taking the responsability for them (which I was so glad was underlined in this post).

I think that what his crew thinks about him depends not so much on his direct actions, often infallible (in fact every time he regains his power over them it's thanks to his smart moves, of someone who /knows/ how to rule a ship), as much as on his reputation (things they have only /heard/ about him) and on his character (which we know is not of the most sociable kind).

And always through his actions he shows how he actually cares to keep them alive at least.

I wouldn't say he cares about them personally, not at the beginning at least ("who is Billy?" says enough XD), but I think that with time, as the crew becomes more central in his war plan, and as the war becomes (at least for him) not just...plundering searching for gold but fighting for a cause, his attention towards them grows too. I felt this especially in 4x6, when he says he isn't going to leave anyone behind (that statement actually surpirsed me, honestly, and he wasn't even talking about the men of his crew alone, but about whoever had joined their fight).

Probably it is a selfish kind of attention, probably they are just soldiers to feed his lines or the last humans he still have left on his side, but still, as long as it is not inevitable he would reduce the losses as much as he can.

Anyway, I'll keep saying that people should have listened to him more, even if probably we wouldn't have had the show at all if they hadXD.

The thing is, I rarely deem his actions foolish (or reckless at least) but also when I do, it's easy to forget about it when I listen to his speeches, which is basically what his men often experience and probably the whole foundation of his character. I'm just saying that they built him /so well/! It's amazing.

I am also of the opinion that he didn't push Billy, btw. That would have been a silly move. Flint doesn't make silly move. Change my mind.

I have a take that might be lukewarm at best and boiling at most, but:

Captain Flint has ALWAYS cared about the Walrus crew.

Hear me out.

Many of the characters in Black Sails have this perception of Flint as kinda aloof, distant and reserved, and he DOES prove time and time again the lengths he's willing to go to accomplish his goals regardless of the welfare of his crew. I mean, by the time the show is done, only three original members of the Walrus make it out alive (RIP to our girl, she put up such a fight until the very end). Everyone else is very much dead.

But like, remember the episode when they beach the ship to scrape the barnacles off the hull and make her faster and more nimble before the Urca job and some crew guys tie off the ropes on the wrong fucking trees before going off to the fuck tent for Gods know how long? And then the trees get uprooted under the weight of the Walrus while Randall and Morley are under there and Randall gets stuck UNDER AN ENTIRE SHIP AND IS ABOUT TO GET CRUSHED TO DEATH??

Who was the first among them to run under that ship while everyone else, including Billy Bones, the Eternal Defender of His Men™ (until season 4 that is lmao) scramble to get away and save themselves?

Flint did. FLINT.

He rushed in there without thinking in the hopes of saving at least one of the men under there, despite the danger to his own life. And if it hadn't been for him and Silver, both those men would have died. He saves Randall's life by cutting off his leg, which takes a looooong time, and hauling him away just in time before the rest of the ropes give up. Poor Morley though, he died trying to save Randall too.

And like, throughout the show he's always making decisions that he knows will save the most lives, as difficult as they might be for everyone else to accept later. He's the captain after all, it's his job to make the hard decisions. He'll always sacrifice the few to save the many, but that doesn't mean he doesn't give a shit about them. There are exceptions of course, like Mr. Singleton and Mr. Gates, whom I will never forgive him for bc Flint deprived us of the joy that is Mr. Gates for the remaining three seasons and he was the GOAT, but back to topic - note that both those men severely threatened his position as captain and therefore his suicidal revenge mission against England before he murdered them. It's like Silver himself says later: he only wants things done so long as they are done HIS way. But that's a conversation for another post.

Which brings me to the whole "did he or did he not push Billy overboard that night during the storm" question.

Personally, I don't think he did. He had every reason to do it, of course: Billy found out about Miranda and how she was pushing for a pardon to be given to Flint so the two of them could go to Boston and live the rest of their lives in peace, and if the crew found out about it, Bad Things would follow. Then Billy slips and Flint reaches out for his hand just in time to stop him going overboard (on an aside, I love that the writers didn't let the audience see what happened next, leaving all this doubt about what actually happened). Even Billy himself recounts later that he's not sure whether his hand slipped from Flint's or if Flint simply let go.

In my opinion, and this is just MY opinion, I believe he did try and haul Billy up and save him because up until that point, Billy was going along with Flint's plan. I mean, he lied to the crew about the blank page taken from Singleton's body and he knew about Miranda's pardon plot and the Maria Aleyne story for at least one episode. If he was going to tell the crew, he would have done so already. Saving Billy's life would have been a risk, sure: Flint would have to trust that Gates would convince him to keep his mouth shut and that he would obey. In fact, I'd argue that saving Billy's life would be much more advantageous in the long run than letting him drown at sea. Flint is a master strategist and would have taken all these things into consideration before making a decision.

Maybe that's why he ended up failing in saving Billy: he was so preoccupied trying to decide the more desirable outcome that Billy just... slipped and fell. And as we see as the season continues, Billy's "death" brought more problems than it solved. It wore out the crew's trust in him as captain, it destroyed his relationship with Gates and put in jeopardy the entire Urca mission and his plans for a war against the British Empire.

I guess, it doesn't really matter whether he intended to save Billy or not. Everyone thought he had let him fall or even pushed him. Given his past actions, who could blame them? The lies, the falsehoods, the secrets... They all had a cost, and this was the straw that broke the camel's back.

What do y'all think? Sound off in the replies/reblogs/tags.

Still, TL:DR - Flint always cared about his crew no matter his decisions and worst impulses, and that's the hill I will die on!

Oh my goddess🤩

🗡🗡knives done :3