Y’all I Love The Dynamic In Episode 5 So Much…

Y’all I love the dynamic in episode 5 so much…

One of the reasons I love ofmd is because Ed and Stede are both repressed in ways that are inherently exclusive to queer men but in completely different ways. It makes the way they learn from each other so interesting and informs what they need from each other.

Stede’s able to present himself in a way that reads as queer by modern standards his whole life because of his aristocratic status, but he doesn’t want it. (And yes modern standards matter in a historical fiction show that has lines like “ew, lame” 😂). His whole life he’s been blamed by everyone in his life for not being “man” enough, not being able to even fake it till he makes it. The fact that his queerness is worn on his sleeve at all times with only the virtue of period typical straight obliviousness keeping him hidden makes it so he almost kind of has a “been there done that” attitude about it. After all, it only ever lead to bad things.

Meanwhile Blackbeard is the exact masculine ideal Stede thinks he (himself) should be, and he doesn’t want that. Ed’s the perfect definition of a “real man” but it’s something he was forced to hastily toss up like a wall for defense decades ago without actually considering what makes him feel like himself. He lights up at the promise of colorful fancy clothes, he likes being soft and kind of ridiculous, he wants to be the one who’s wooed by someone he likes. But he can’t ever really have an outlet for those things because he accidentally became the literal poster child of traditional masculinity. (It’s the classic “ran into the closet so hard you broke through the wall and don’t even know where tf you are now” lol)

So what happens in episode 5?

Ed let’s Stede “save the day” instead of him which culminates in a ship on fire (peak swash buckling), and Stede let’s Ed stand under the moonlight and basically hear that he’s pretty.