#bsguthrie

“One very significant element is that she died in a Spanish raid, and her mother died in a previous Spanish raid. On the island, we have the burned out church, which you can sometimes see in the big wide shots, and that church is a very symbolic thing for Eleanor because it burned down in the raid that killed her mother. For me, I’ve been playing this throughout the whole four seasons, trying to make this place a civilized, functioning society because her mother died as a consequence of the fort not being shored up. There are little clues, throughout the seasons, as to what happened. The fact that Eleanor then died in a similar way as her mother did is a beautiful full-circle metaphor for how this island defeats everyone, in so many ways.”

1. To watch S1Max is both a suffering and a miracle. Suffering because, well, she goes through hell and we know it. Why a miracle, then? Well - in those first scenes with Eleanor, she’s so defenceless; so small. Hints of cunning and brilliance are already all over the place, of course, but the sense I get from her at the beginning is that she’s content enough with how far away she’s got from the slavery of her childhood, and that she would be more than content with her whole world starting and ending in Eleanor’s arms. She’ll tell us about it, won’t she? How mesmerised she was by Eleanor in the beginning. Now, let’s top that with how much in love she was with her, and the modesty of her early ambitions starts to make sense all of a sudden. Then - then she gets broken, quite simply. And after that, she will mend herself anew, with her own hands, and from that destruction she will build ambitions. Max’s growth and rise to power are among my favourite things in BS, and to watch her beginnings with knowing eyes is amazing.

2. As a corollary to point one: to watch S1Eleanor knowing what’s to come, to the contrary, is a fucking nightmare.

3. S1Miranda. Oh, Miranda of my heart. Watching it all again, I remembered how fooled I was by appearances when I first watched S1; how similar to the Londoners and the villagers and the pirates I was when confronted with Miranda. I remember watching her reading Marcus Aurelius to that arsehole of a Guthrie man, watching her flirting with that asinine coward of a pastor, and I remember feeling both irritated and puzzled. Irritated, because I came to her while thinking about Flint; he would be displeased to see her like that, I must have thought - or was it even a thought? More of an automatism: she shouldn’t have been giving all of this attention to these unworthy men. As for puzzled - the first of those men was hideous; the second, an hypocrite. And she seemed to know. Why on earth, then, would she care to spend those many seconds of her life with them? And now I think -

Black Sails Costumes - Season 4

↪ Eleanor’s green dress

Season 1 Episode 1

0.001% Eleanor dying quickly and definitely, preferably anne killing her, like nooow   

Yes to this too!

I cannot look weak. I cannot feel weak. I cannot be weak.

Not in front of my men. Not in front of your men. Not at all.

For some time now, I have been holding my entire world together with both hands, keeping my men in line, seeing to their needs, and the only way that endures is if I look the part.