Again on my Maxanor/Silverflint parallelism in season three agenda
Writing again about MaxSilver mirroring in season three and especially sorry to beat again the Maxanor SilverFlint narrative parallelisms and anti-parallelisms horse: (I am not actually a bit sorry).
I am thinking about the fact that Silver never actively pursued power or leadership in the way Max did, and yet in season seven episode three Max is enraged for the price that this power is asking from her, and disgusted with herself for the choices she is making to mantain it (the same choices Eleanor once did without regard of Max's safety or her well-being) while Silver for the first time is finding PLEASURE in mastering the darkness he once saw in Flint.
Silver never wanted to actively take Flint's place in the narrative or his position of leadership amongst the men- he wanted to ESCAPE from all of this.
But his ambitious scheming, that, in Silver's intentions, were initially only supposed to serve his survival, unintentionally (or maybe not) lead him to yeld this kind of power that require him to become more and more like Flint.
Max actively bought Eleanor's tavern (in the same episode Silver was elected Flint's Quartemaster against his will or at least without any conscious efforts from his part) and even before that schemed her way to become first Madame and then a top player of the island - she wanted the power because she thought that was the only way to guarantue her long-term survival.
And now Silver for the first time is realizing he LIKES having that kind of power, not only the power to manipulate theirs minds (which he apways has even when he was a nobody, and was the thing that set him and Flint aside from the others men of the ship and together, doomed to reoignize one in the other despite not liking each others) but also the rush of power one feel while crushing another man's skull. He has found and felt, despite himself, the pleasure in the "darkness" that John Silver saw in Flint for the first time when shortly after theirs first meeting he saw him beat to death a man in a similar way.
At the same time, Max's realization that yelding the same power Eleanor once did, if not more, is leading her to make the same choices Eleanor once did (hurting Max in the process) to mantain it, is ruining her enjoyement at the security of her new position, and causing her to curse the power she seeked and now has.
Because she has discovered, despite herself, how Eleanor felt when she was sorry for having betrayed Max and yet was not really regretful because her seat was more important. And she doesn't like feeling this!
Max really, really doesn't want to understand Eleanor, or the Eleanor of the past, both because she rightfully doesn't want to feel empathy toward how her ex might have had felt after making a choice that ruined her Max's life, and because she doesn't want to be like Eleanor in this way!
But it's the effort to maintain power she has seeked out and worked for that demands for Max to make those choices and thus become like Eleanor once was. (Or still is, depends on who you ask.)
And so Max makes these choices; and she hates herself (and Eleanor, and the Chair that she got in the divorce and the power they are both still after) for it.
But, in true Max's style, she doesn't shy away from saying out loud this truth, no matter how uncomfortable: "My god, how I hated you. And now I am you."
Because if Silver is the character that more than any other escapes definition by avoiding not only to reveal himself in any way, but also to do or voice any self-awareness (specifically that is focused on who himself is rather than how the people around him make him feel and how they perceive or he act in relation to them) , Max is the character who is not only more self-aware of her inner motivations and journey and even role in the narrative, but also less scared of dissecting it and voicing those things out loud, no matter how uncomfortable they might be.
