Is black sails gay

As a result of his choice, Flint loses everything and leaves England to become a violent outlaw. Max is presented with the same predicament twice.

Flint, meanwhile, gets his own second chance. In fact, their choices, romantic and otherwise, were the bedrock of the show. ‘Black Sails’ has finally made its way to Netflix, and we’re already obsessed with it. Brought to Nassau as a little girl, Eleanor manages to cobble together a criminal empire based on selling stolen pirate goods.

Not unlike Max’s more recent pirate comedy Our Flag Means Death, Black Sails uses the well-argued belief that homosexuality was common on the high seas as a. After Eleanor, Max becomes part of a triage with historic pirates Anne Bonny and Jack Rackham who in reality were likely in a similar arrangement with a woman named Mary Read.

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In the first season, we see him covered in blood, lying to his entire crew, dueling to the death, and murdering his own best friend—all in the pursuit of some hidden ulterior motive that none of his subordinates understand.

But power is precarious and uncertain, as the show keeps emphasizing. Max chooses power, as Eleanor did. Black Sails: Gayer than you remember? She thinks of Eleanor and demands to be given both power and her lover—or only Anne. I can't say whether Black Sails is the same, I'm going to start it and hope for the best, but the way people have defended it in the comments makes it seem like they just reference a guy is gay and think that's sufficient representation.

Another main character, Eleanor Guthrie, is faced with a similar choice. But we especially love the gay characters — gay pirates are in!. Then Max witnesses the destruction of all that she worked, just as Eleanor did. The series was a violent, big-budget production about politics, power, civilization, colonialism, and piracy in the 18th century.

In season four Max does it differently: She refuses to choose power of the island over distancing herself from Anne.

Netflix Finally Adds Black : This article contains mild spoilers for Black Sails

Eleanor chooses power, only to see everything she built—including her relationship with Max—crumble soon afterward. Sometimes—very rarely—there will be one relationship that lasts more than a season, though chances of that decline the more seriously a show tries to take itself.

Yet it was also ultimately about a bunch of queer people choosing between struggle and a quiet, peaceful life with their lovers—and all the nuances and complexities of those decisions. On a side note, for anyone into gay pirates, read/listen to Kidnapped by the Pirate by Keira Andrews.

In one way, Black Sails is referencing Treasure Island and the role of pirates as morally repugnant villains. It loves to make meta statements, as befitting a piece of fan-fiction. He explains that if Silver dismantles the war effort, history will be written by the victors.

But Flint points out that this is precisely the mechanism through which England stays in power: making the cost of resistance too high for most people. The only reason he became a pirate was because England took away the one thing he cherished most: his boyfriend.

Although it aimed to be prestige TV for much of its run, the queer characters on Black Sails were never secondary. Queer love and desire play such a huge, fundamental role in everything the show has to say about history, narrative, power, sacrifice, civilization, politics, and criminality.

Long John Silver has tasted resistance to the empire and would rather rather bury his sword and live happily with his wife.