some ramblings about a storyline and a character that oftentimes get brushed off and sillified if i may speak that way (although the show is a comedy and i am most definitely about to go on a wild tangent) :
i keep going back to buttons’ storyline and motivations this season, how he yearned to be at sea once more but stayed on the ground with his mates and how much of himself he was willing to betray and sacrifice just to stay faithful to his crew, even though it meant sticking to the shore.
i keep thinking about the inherent doom of longing to truly belong to the sea, and the unfathomable grief that comes with being stuck back on earth after one has vowed to enter seamanship. a similar commitment is required from nuns and priests and newlyweds : buttons has a god he adores, buttons has a spouse he reveres. the show is at its core a story about lovers, and buttons, in all his weirdness and inaptitude, is very much a lover, to the same extent as lucius, pete, ed, izzy or stede. he is faithful, forgiving, uplifting, to a bird, to a captain, to a ship.
when she comes to him with all the reverence owed to a sea witch, auntie sees buttons for who he is and doesn’t dismiss the grief he struggles so hard to express, the way the crew dismissed him for being to loud, too off-putting. he is back at sea, and yet he still misses it like one would miss a forsaken part of oneself. she comes to him at a time where his feeling of loss must be immense and washing over him, and she gives him everything he could ever wish for : a path to transfiguration.
every pirate, every sailer has once realised they’ll only join the sea for good through death and so many shanties celebrate the simple glory of being known as the one that got lost at sea for this very reason. thanks to auntie, buttons gets to join the sea through a new form of life, and in that way willingly sacrifices another part of himself, this time for his lover : « to love the sea as she must be loved, requires change ». his transfiguration parallels how much lucius has to process before he can be able to commit to pete, how much ed has to repay before he can achieve self love and be worthy of the crew’s love and forgiveness.
there isn’t more glory to a pirate’s love for the sea than to a cultivator’s love for their land, it is as absurd as it is gut wrenching. it is the impossible, mystical union of man and element, the foolish desire to be swallowed once again by the very thing that spat you out. it’s a love as messy as the human relationships portrayed in the show.
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