Stede Bonnet’s story is one that seems entirely fantastical. The idea of a wealthy man leaving behind his life to commission a pirate ship, hire a crew, and head out for a new life of piracy sounds like the kind of flight of fancy that could only exist in fiction – which is exactly why his ridiculous story was itching for an adaptation, one that arrived to immense success in the form of David Jenkins‘s series Our Flag Means Death. The show follows Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby) through his journey of attempted piracy and chronicles its own fictionalized version of his infamous relationship with the pirate Blackbeard (portrayed by Taika Waititi).
The show goes out of its way to deconstruct the mythos around Blackbeard. It shows him to be a skillful and revered pirate, true, but it also shows him to be a troubled and even pitiful man. He, like Stede before he left his life and family behind, is trying to maintain the mask of who people perceive him to be. Our Flag Means Death goes to great lengths to show Blackbeard as much more than a fierce and frightening pirate captain and the show does the same with Stede Bonnet. From history alone, we get the sense that Stede was quite goofy and clueless. After all, it certainly takes a great deal of eccentricity to use one’s massive wealth to try and become a pirate. But Our Flag Means Death wants to show Stede as more than a historical joke. It wants to flesh him out into a real character, one whose true character is not fully reflected in the history books.
The show uses Stede Bonnet’s actual past as a foundation on which they can build his character. In the first episode, we’re presented with the kind of straightforward presentation one would expect of Stede. We see an eccentric, poshly dressed man ordering around seasoned crewmates who all roll their eyes at him. He stands upon a beautiful boat he commissioned with his own wealth, a crew he pays daily wages, and shows off the luxuries of his fascinating ship. Stede lacks a sense of practicality for life upon the high seas, a mindset that could be summed up in his short-sighted decision to include a library on his ship. Our initial perceptions of Stede are just like that of his crew: this man has no idea what he is doing.
And that, in general, seems to be the prevailing sentiment about his real-life counterpart as well. His encounter with Blackbeard is a one-in-a-million instance of one of history’s greatest pirates meeting one of history’s greatest jokes. But as discussed, the show wants both of these characters to be much more than that. Instead of just enticing the audience to laugh at Bonnet’s cluelessness (though we sometimes do), his character is not just a laughingstock. His approaches are often unorthodox, but we see time and again how that is not always a bad thing. He is able to come up with an idea to evade the Spanish Navy by imitating a lighthouse. A party full of awful aristocrats is demolished in a matter of minutes through a few passive-aggressive actions. Stede’s unorthodox approach to situations still leads to successful outcomes. He achieves chaos in his piracy just like ordinary pirates he just does it with his own style. His eccentricity is not just a hindrance, it can also be an asset.
The last two episodes of the show, in particular, allows Stede’s character to assume its fully realized form. Through Our Flag Means Death, the tale of the gentleman pirate becomes more than a tale of one historical idiot but instead a story of self-actualization. When Stede and Blackbeard are sent to the barracks Stede finally comes to grips with the weight of his own actions. Towards the beginning of the show, Stede leaving his family was treated mostly as a joke but here we are allowed to see the weight of that action not just in his own guilt but the reaction he receives when he tries to return to the family he abandoned . Stede’s foolish and selfish actions are not just a symptom of his eccentricity but are more deeply tied to the dissonance between what Stede wants and who he believes he has to be. Only through this confrontation with the consequences of his actions can Stede fully move in one direction or the other. He must understand the weight of his actions. The story itself may seem funny, but the show wants to portray Stede Bonnet as a man, not a jester. For him to move forward unhindered he has to confront himself and the destruction he had thoughtlessly left in his wake.
By the end of the show, we see that Stede Bonnet the character (and by extension the real man) is far more than his eccentricities. We see how the narrow lens of history has left out so many details of what makes a person who they are whether those omissions were intentional or not. It expounds upon his foolishness. Our Flag Means Death sees Stede Bonnet’s eccentric actions and decides to explore them, to come up with probable causes, to allow his actions to have meaning. Instead of Stede running away from home and making foolish decisions entirely on his own whim, the show explores these actions to all be symptoms of Stede being truly out of touch with himself. In the eyes of Our Flag Means Death, Stede Bonnet is not a fool; he’s a man who has no idea what he’s looking for but is desperately grasping for it anyway. Stede wants to define his own life, to not be ruled by society’s expectations, thus he is drawn toward the lawlessness and freedom of piracy. He wants to feel like he has a purpose, and eventually, he finds that purpose in his relationship with Blackbeard. They started off with the idea of a sort of cultural exchange but ultimately find the meaning they were both looking for in each other. All of this is extrapolated from the wild tales of an aristocrat-turned-pirate befriending a legendary pirate.
Through the exploration of his most basic character traits, we see that Stede Bonnet has layers. He’s fleshed out through the context Our Flag Means Death affords his actions. They are still often ridiculous and selfish within the show’s own fiction, but they are still explained by his characterization. Our Flag Means Death‘s Stede Bonnet is not the simplified caricature we see in history, he’s now fully a character and afforded all the dimensions that come with it. The show takes this historical joke and recontextualizes him within its own fiction. We are here to laugh with Stede Bonnet as much as at him. Stede, through careful character writing and wonderful performances, is brought to life not as a wooden puppet for our amusement but as a real boy.