Also watch Black Sails.
You can’t just say “Watch Black Sails” without saying you have to give that show time to come into its own. The first season is setup, the following seasons are much better.
I second Black Sails, god I loved that show
I mean, not to get too deep into black sails discourse, but I don’t think the show ever presents what happened at the end as a good thing. But considering the historical realities and what happens in treasure island, it was basically how it had to end.
I mean, the pirates get to return to being happy little illegals, and the one Revolutionary guy gets put to jail where he can’t hurt anyone but at least he’s with his love interest. The show literally ends with him kissing his lover in jail, with an uplifting music. Looks pretty much like a lib happy ending to me. I’m not saying they should have gone for the complete revolutionary victory of the pirates, but at least having an ambiguous ending like “the pirates are still going strong and one day will conquer the world” would have been nice. But I guess that would be putting ideas in some people’s heads. They also could have gone waaaaay further with the “freeing slaves” thing. More slaves should have been freed and more slave owners should have been killed. But maybe this would have resulted in their subreddit getting nuked lol
PM Press just published a second edition of Gabriel Kuhn’s Life Under The Jolly Roger , which analyzes pirates as gender/race diverse intersectional nomadic outlaws from a marxist/anarchist lens (also persistent 25% off code “stick25”) (libgen link if you want also)
Also gay marriage and relationships were common among pirates, called “matelotage” (from the french word for sailor, matelot). Matelot partners shared their loot and should one of them die at sea, the ship would pay the surviving partner the deceased’s fair share. Hence the origin of the term “matey”.
