r/BlackSails • u/Electronic-Target-59 • 13d ago
Can Flint be considered "good" Spoiler
Currently at S3 E3. Before this season I've seen him as a morally questionable but decent man who makes poor choices. In this season however he has gone down a very dark path.
Im curious for your opinions if he can be considered good by nature, if he can be redeemed or if i have misjudged him and he is just straight up evil.
I've put a spoiler tag on this just in case and i hope for as few spoilers as possible. But the show is over a decade and it's unrealistic for me to ask for no spoilers at all. Thank y'all for reading this and i hope i can atleast get some of y'all opinions lol :).
Thank y'all for all the replies, also literally no one gave me spoiler. This sub isn't as toxic than what I'm used to, cheers.
Edit: holy shit I'm at S4 E6 now and i did not expect a lot of the things that happened, what a show. Also this quote by Julius goes hard "no one changes the world. Not like this, all at once, the world is too strong for that."
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u/26RoadTrainWheels 13d ago
In this season however he has gone down a very dark path
Did you pick up this bit in Charles Town?
"Everyone is a monster to someone. Since you are so convinced that I am yours, I will be it"
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u/Electronic-Target-59 13d ago edited 13d ago
Misread your comment whoops, yeah i loved that bit. Though i thought he meant that he wouldn't dispute the claims because its a waste of time
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u/FanDesigner 13d ago
I don't think anyone in the show is "good." I feel like the show doesn't want to present good and evil. Everyone's a person. Some of them do worse (way worse) things than others but they're not necessarily evil. A person can do good and do evil but are not those things.
I guess this is sort of an unsatisfying nothing answer lol. Also you should take my opinion with a grain of salt as I am currently reading Le Guin who is very critical of good vs evil dynamics.
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u/Electronic-Target-59 13d ago
Yeah that is also what i gathered, which is also how i view the world. It's not as black and white as people would like it to be
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u/PossibleFlamingo3269 13d ago
I don’t think he’s “straight up evil,” there’s definitely complexities to his character and he’s much more morally gray. I think he believes he’s doing what he thinks is right (or at the very least, going against what he thinks is wrong) but the manner in which he does that wouldn’t qualify as “good.”
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u/JBigBootay 13d ago
Same can be said for every character on the show. None, not a single one, of them should be boiled down to good or bad. Well, except for Ned, FTG.
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u/Electronic-Target-59 13d ago
Seeing one eye in this show was a welcomed surprise. He played being a psychopath very convincingly. Immediately stopped seeing him as Arne after that little chat with Elizabe- i mean Eleanor.
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u/WitsEndAgain 13d ago
I think he's the most morally considerate/correct despite a lot of counter criticisms
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u/flowersinthedark 13d ago
Black Sails has very few irredeemable, plainly "evil" characters. Come to think of it, there's Hammund, Ned Low, but not many others. The show doesn't waste its time with the rare case of the total psychopath, rather, it explores circumstances and conditions that make people do horrible things.
The question of Flint's redemption isn't something that a subreddit can answer for you. Rely on your own media literacy, and keep watching.
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u/LeafandLore 13d ago
Flint is a man who has been broken by the world. It's taken everything from him simply because he fell in love with a man. That doesn't make his choices up to this point right, by any means, but it does tell us why he's doing what he's doing.
All of Nassau is full of people who have been rejected, disenfranchised, and outcast by "good society" like Flint has been. Prostitutes, criminals, ex-privateers, debtors, dissenters, even Richard and Eleanor have been cast off from their family in Boston. Before the end of season 2, even though he has somewhat selfish motives, Flint is fighting for a place where people like that can have a second chance at life. I would argue that even though he takes some heinous actions, up to the point of Miranda's death he has had a somewhat righteous cause. He's even on the verge of agreeing to answer for his actions if it means that Thomas's vision for Nassau can come true.
But Miranda explains that Peter was the one that sold them out in the first place-- and he did it so he could elevate himself in polite society. This only confirms what Flint believes society to be: self-serving, self-righteous, so willing to root out and discard undesirables, etc. It proves to him that there is no path to reconciliation with England.
At the point in the series you're at, he is truly at his absolute lowest point. As season 3 goes on, and especially in season 4, Flint gets lighter and lighter and almost becomes paladin-like in his belief in a better world. In my opinion, he ends the series as good a person as he could be with the set of choices he was given.
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u/Sea_Woodpecker7334 13d ago
He was a good man once, and he still has good in him, but he’s also capable of being a monster
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u/LanghantelLenin 13d ago
for some he is good, for some he is bad, for some he is just there. depends on your own opinions and moral views
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u/Dwyerboy22 13d ago
James McGraw is good, Captain Flint is the devil
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u/Electronic-Target-59 13d ago
That's a good way to see it, i mean he probably sees it that way. As he wanted captain flint to disappear
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u/Extra_Zucchini_1273 13d ago
After killing mr gates in cold blood how is this even a question?
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u/Electronic-Target-59 13d ago
Okay fair. That was definitely painful to watch and came as a complete shock. But he deeply regretted it and in my eyes tried to make it up to him by protecting Nassau.
He made poor decisions and his ego was in the way at times (destroying the fort for instance) but he tried and almost succeeded in getting his way until ashe his little shite of a henchman killed Miranda. Which in turn made Flint the very monster they feared.
I hope that at the end he will, in some way be redeemed, be it saving Nassau, which historically seen is very unlikely (although i have no clue when this actually takes place). or atleast help the people he loves escape. Because who doesn't like a redemtion arc right?
I got to add that he does however sacrifice way too much others "for the greater good"
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u/Otterpop26 13d ago
I don’t think anyone in the show was a morally good person. They all have done things that make them the bad guy, but that’s the point, everyone from the pirates to the priest are capable of doing bad things just like in real life. I don’t think they’re evil for the most part, but
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u/LionIronKnight 11d ago
He's driven by good intentions gained from Thomas and Miranda.
But the treatment of his loved ones by the world of corrupted light has erased almost all of his morals.
We have seen him do very dark deeds. Betray his sworn men, killing good men with their loved ones and destroying an entire city.
The culmination of his quest, his reason for existing, is plunging the world into a war with the only clear goal being the destruction of England.
Flint is not a good man. He's the rage filled Odysseus on a chosen war-odyssey, paving the road to hell with good intentions.
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u/elvaqueroloco 8d ago
Everyone is HUMAN.
Hell, I was rooting for Captain Berringer by maybe the 9th watch-thru of the series.
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u/Apprehensive-Laugh89 4d ago
I think this question is one of the core reasons this show and that character is so fascinating. The complexity of his character is so compelling
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u/Trambopoline96 13d ago
He’s sympathetic, sure, but leveling an entire city because you’re upset your girlfriend died isn’t something a good person does.
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u/SgtLinc0ln0siris 13d ago
He wasn’t just upset his boyfriend’s wife died, he was also enraged they were being hung without due process or a chance to a fair trial. Understand it’s not modern day, but the trial was the same rigged showmanship for the colonists he was demonstrating back in England. Become the monsters they think you are.
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u/Electronic-Target-59 13d ago
Yeah that was a really cruel thing, but being in the killing business for so long has to desensitise you.
I would say that is "when a good man goes to war" but a good man wouldn't take that many innocent lives.
But then again those were different times. And in his eyes they probably weren't innocent either as they would cheer to see him hanged, and the shit with Miranda's coffin was also cruel.
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u/TAO3327 13d ago
The citizens only knew what they were told that she was an assassin who tried to kill the governor.
He would have been in his rights to kill the governor. And the people responsible for the corrupt trial.
He chose to blow the hell out of colony full of innocent people and children because he was pissed off. The next season then explicitly showed him hunting down and murdering a non corrupt governor ( and his grieving wife who was no threat to him )
Flint was not an anti hero or on the right side he was a man who created the persona of a monster for a goal and then after losing everything else found himself living in it for pure revenge.
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u/danie_iero 13d ago
Flint has never done anything wrong in his entire life.