@2pence I absolutely agree that Ed has wronged the crew. I might be looking at it through a modern lens of safeguarding, but to me he had that responsibility to them. As a teacher to pupils, as a parent to their children. And he does need to apologise properly. The YouTube apology whilst funny doesn’t cut it and I fully empathise with Lucius’ reaction. But if Ed needs to apologise then so does Izzy, much more so than Ed, and I rarely see anyone say that Izzy needs to own up for his part in what happened.
Just for the record, I never said in my previous post that abused spouses have the right to murder those who rely on them(?) I said abused spouses sometimes visit terror upon their children and should fully apologise if given the chance without a ‘Yes, but’. Yet the abuser of the spouse is responsible also, and possibly more so. It’s very complex. Izzy knows he has done wrong and never lets on to the Crew.
Ed isn’t trying to murder the Crew. He is trying to provoke them into murdering him. It’s like Suicide by Cop. Of course he puts their life in danger, but this is a pirate world. It’s not ours. Things happen. Who is right and who is wrong is never really asked by the screenwriters.
Initially Ed is trying to provoke Ned Low into murdering him. That’s what the raids are all about. In the trailer, which they cut from the final season 2 edit, Ed throws a knife at a wall in which he is keeping a tally chart of all his raids. He says after shooting Izzy ‘We have a record to break’, Ned Low’s. He knows Low will turn up and kill him if he does. Unfortunately (or fortunately) that happens after Stede’s return.
He tries to get Izzy to shoot him from behind. He refuses, which is his right.
Ed realises he needs to get the Crew to do it. He changes his clothes so he has the least possible chance of survival. He is barefoot so he can be easily washed overboard. He wears a long leather duster jacket which will pull him down into the ocean. Ed is also unarmed. I can’t stress that enough. He puts Stede’s black cravat tight around his neck as a last act of symbolic heartbreak. If he’d wanted to murder everyone, he’d simply shoot the mast. But he doesn’t. Instead he dresses for his suicide.
When he tells them he’s destroyed the wheel, he expects them to kill him. They don’t. When he tells Jim and Archie to fight, he expects them all to kill him instead. But they comply until they don’t. You are absolutely correct that they are following orders. Mutiny is a capital offence and we see later discussions around that. This is a desperate situation.
Ed then goes to light the fuse, and still no one does anything until Izzy fires his shot into Ed’s arm. That’s the trigger for Fang to rush Ed. It gives him permission. And for them all to consent to whatever it is Jim does with the cannonball. Ed’s word, ‘Finally’ reveals his endgame. He never wanted the Crew to die, he wanted to die. Should he have simply killed himself? Probably, but self-preservation is a strong instinct, which is why the situation Suicide by Cop exists in our time. Were the Crew collateral damage. Yep. Was it fair on them? No. Is the situation incredibly complex? Definitely.
The whole situation around Izzy’s power over Ed goes back to Ed’s relationship with his white father. It’s about race. It’s too complicated to go into here. I’m sure I’ve covered it elsewhere in previous threads.
I might come back later and address the Fisherman incident. Suffice to say Ed is not a well person. Taika plays Ed as a character with what we would call now Dissociative Identity Disorder. David Jenkins said Ed is a man in recovery by 2.8, but not recovered. We needed season three to see that recovery.