The other day I was babbling to a friend about OFMD, as I am wont to do, and casually mentioned cPTSD and the different types of trauma responses Ed and Stede employ in stressful situations, and, hey, maybe I shouldn’t just assume that’s common knowledge, and also, maybe I'll just go ahead and write a whole essay about it? So first, it’s only responsible to say that I am NOT an expert: I did study psychology in college, and I have researched this condition, but all that was ages ago, and I am not a mental health professional. So take what I say with a grain of salt, and anyone who knows better than I do is welcome to correct me where I am wrong. With that ringing endorsement, cPTSD, or complex post traumatic stress disorder, is a form of PTSD that is caused by long-term, repeated trauma as opposed to a single traumatic event (usually, and in the case of Ed and Stede, the result of prolonged child abuse). It presents with extreme mood swings or difficulty controlling emotions, pervasive feelings of hopelessness and worthlessness, difficulty forming or maintaining friendships, dissociative behaviors, and frequent suicidal ideology. Surely this all sounds familiar when applied to our favorite pirate captains, yeah?
Trauma response refers to the coping behaviors used to deal with traumatic situations and inform the way one responds to stress-inducing scenarios. Everyone has heard of Fight or Flight, but less commonly known are Freeze and Fawn. Freeze behaviors can have a physical component (anything from actual immobility to sensations of heaviness, rigidity, or numbness, or restricted breathing, or mindlessly following instructions even when counter-intuitive), and/or a mental component (failure to recognize stimuli, or being slower than usual to process information, inability to communicate, “brain freeze”). Fawning behaviors include being a “people-pleaser”, saying “yes” to requests even when they are inconvenient or painful to you, putting other people’s comfort and needs above your own, and changing your behaviors or mode of expression to try and fulfill the expectations or desires of others. It’s important to note that no one chooses their trauma response; it’s based on what kinds of behaviors have kept you safe in traumatic situations in the past, and is completely involuntary. A given individual will also usually employ a mix of the different responses, though it’s not uncommon for one or two strategies to pop up most frequently.
With Ed’s reputation as the dread pirate Blackbeard, one would expect to see Fight as his primary coping behavior. And while we do see that some of the time, far more frequently we see him Fawn.
- In his childhood flashbacks, we initially see him Freeze when confronted with his drunken father’s abuse, and while that works in the moment, it’s the Fight response that keeps him and his mother safe on a more permanent basis.
- On the French Merchant ship, when the captain insults him, we see his Fight kick into high gear. He yells, looms menacingly, and even when Stede calms him down, still demands physical violence be enacted on his tormentor,
- When the fickle favor of the French aristocrats turns against him, Ed initially responds with Flight, removing himself from the situation. But that doesn’t let him outrun the feelings of humiliation, so we see him turn to Fight, growling that “No one laughs” at him and pulling his gun with the intention to go inflict physical violence on those who inflicted emotional damage.
- In response to Izzy getting in his face and snarling about the real Blackbeard, Ed pins him to the wall with a hand around his throat.
- He tells Izzy that he intends to kill Stede and take over his life, putting Izzy in the position of captain in order to stop him from leaving after the lighthouse incident.
- While initially reticent and seemingly off-put by the French aristocrats, we see his manner change over the course of the party to mirror their behavior. He becomes increasingly braggadocious, louche, and insouciant, eventually even sacrificing his friend on the altar of a crowd-pleasing witticism.
- At Izzy’s insistence, he agrees to go through with the plan to kill Stede, even though it’s clear that he very much does NOT want to do that.
- He goes on Stede’s treasure hunt even though he makes no qualms about how cringe-y and uncomfortable he finds the whole ordeal.
- We see Ed’s mirroring behavior again with Calico Jack. He’s more raucous and rowdy than we’ve ever seen him, and often looks at him to see how he's acting before he starts doing a similar sort of behavior (like when when Jack starts whispering apologies for the cannon fire that awoke Stede, or when he brings up "whippies" at the breakfast table). Even when the things Jack says are making Ed visibly uncomfortable, we see him returning to match Jack's energy again and again.
- When Ed and Stede are at the Royal Privateering Academy for Wayward Seamen, Ed’s adjustment is near instantaneous and flawless. He cheerfully confirms his name on the roster with a cute little rhyme, is visibly excited about the block of soap he receives, throws himself into mundane chores, and even shaves off the eponymous beard that is his claim to fame.
- And finally, Izzy goads him in into his Kraken transformation, and Ed goes full “You want my crazy? I’ll SHOW you crazy” even though we see in his private moments how much it pains him.
Unfortunately, because Ed is such an emotional chameleon, it’s not always easy to tell when he is acting according to his own genuine desires and when he’s doing what he thinks other people want from him. Did he lean in to Stede on that moonlight drenched deck because he thought that’s where Stede was going with the whole “You wear fine things well” moment, or did he do it because he wanted to kiss those honeyed words off Stede’s lips for himself? Does he concoct a plan to run away to China because that’s what he wants to do, or is he just coming up with a plan to please Stede because he knows that Stede doesn’t want to stay in the service of the British? And even more unfortunately, Ed would probably say that all of the examples listed above WERE his idea, because even the ones that clearly make him uncomfortable are better than the agony of disappointing someone, or pushing a disagreement to a crisis point where he would have to relive the trauma of his childhood violence.
Stede, on the other hand, uses the trauma responses of Flight and Freeze, the latter more frequently than the former.
- Runs from the bullies of his youth.
- Runs away from his family to become a pirate. He’s done everything he’s been told all his life he’s supposed to have done; got married to someone appropriate, even if they would never have chosen one another, not in a million years, made babies, even made sure one of them was male for patriarchal inheritance purposes, but he’s been miserable for nearly the whole of it. So after Mary confirms that their differences are, indeed, irreconcilable (he wants nothing more than to live on a ship, and she HATES the ocean), off he slinks in the middle of the night, (when Louis is about the age real-life Stede was when his father died, which I thought was an interesting way of squaring the narrative with history. Also, real-life Stede and Mary had four kids; three boys and a girl over the 6 years of their marriage; I think it an interesting and important detail that the writers decided to pare it down to two kids, Louis being the younger. It gives a very “copulation for the sake of procreation and NOTHING ELSE” vibe that adds a layer to the misery and desperation of their marital situation. I would not be the least surprised to find Stede had not so much as touched Mary since the birth of their heir. They must be SO touch-starved, and yet mutually repulsed. This parenthetical aside seems to have gotten away from me…).
- Runs from Ed in response to the trauma of Chauncy’s screed about Stede ruining everything he comes in contact with, the veracity of which is immediately and fatally confirmed in Stede’s mind by Chauncy’s accidental death.
- The beheading of the goose in his youth is where we see this first solidified. He is initially frozen in shock as the blood spatters across his face, but it isn’t until tries to turn away that his father remonstrates him, effectively telling him that coping strategy is NOT acceptable. Incidentally, this flashback sequence is an illustration of Stede experiencing an emotional flashback as he Freezes on the deck of his ship, eyes unfocusing and breath shallow, while, all around him, his crewmates gleefully prepare for a slaughter.
- We see another emotional flashback at the tea party of re-lived trauma as Nigel wistfully recalls the abuses he subjected Stede to in their youth. Stede sits silently, eyes unfocused and shoulders hunched as he dissociates into the filmic flashback.
- After Nigel’s death, he is again Frozen in shock.
- The tribal tribunal trial again sees Stede dissociating in a Freeze as he focuses on the mental construct of Nigel’s ghost instead of paying attention to what is being said by those around him, muscles so rigid he’s shaking.
- He Freezes when Jackie threatens to take his nose.
- When Mary gets upset over the model boat and all the implications thereof, Stede Freezes again, shoulders bent, eyes averted.
- Ín the “You wanted to be Blackbeard. This is what it's like” scene from episode 4, we see a prime example of mental AND physical Freezing. As the questions keep coming and the tension mounts, Stede fumbles his words and sputters, repeating himself, and saying “I don’t have an idea. I don’t know what to do!” while his body goes rigid and his eyes go glassy.
- On the French party boat, we see mockery of Sir Godfrey: “Oh, Thornrose, will you never cease with your incessant nattering?” to which Stede draws in on himself and falls silent.
- Just everything Calico Jack. It’s like Nigel all over again without even the veneer of civility. Stede just spends so much time in stunned, shamed silence from the initial insult introduction (“Who’s the big girl?”) to the crab/turtle battle that no doubt is bringing back goose flashbacks (“Loser gets his head cut off, and winner gets his fuckin’ head cut off!”).
- Freezing shows up once more when Chancy wakes Stede with a gun to the face, and again after he shoots himself.
I also think the Freeze instinct is tied up with Stede’s death wish. But wouldn’t that be Fawning - agreeing that he deserves disrespect and death? There’s an element of that, yes, but I think it’s less a case of him trying to please his tormentors and more a case of him mentally freezing and failing to process all the very good and valid arguments against passively submitting to that kind of treatment.
I don’t have any real conclusion to draw here, It’s more of a “Behold this thing I noticed” kind of exercise. Was it all an excuse to make a collage of Stede’s wonderful stupid face looking like a Podling from the Dark Crystal? You’ll never prove anything. Actually, this started out as a very different essay with a VERY different tone, but then I started defining terms and it turned into a whole thing. All of which is to say, I’ve a little more tinkering to do, but more to come soon.
