I continue to spend too much time sailing the Sea of Thieves, even with many other interesting games being released lately, and even though I’ve hit the top reputation levels, and am mostly playing for achievements/bragging rights now. I make no bones about the opinion that I’m on Team Pirate, for life (as opposed to, say, Team Cowboy or Team Ninja), but it’s fascinating that some of my reading recently has continued to reinforce this.
Part of what I’ve been reading are the official Sea of Thieves expanded lore books (Tales from the Sea of Thieves, Sea of Thieves Comic Volume 1, and Sea of Thieves: Athena’s Fortune; such seas, much thieve, wow). Yet it’s also fun where pirates have come up in other places in the last few weeks.
There is a lot that I love about the ideals of pirates. Pirating required teamwork (for the most part), and so many of the crews (both historic and fictional) are fascinating examples of found families (drama and betrayal, included). Many historic crews were said to be extremely democratic in their organization and planning. Historic records suggest that pirates were relatively egalitarian and diverse (especially compared to their colonialist “sponsors” or foes, depending which side of the privateering coin they fell on at the moment.) Fictional pirates are often even more so diverse and accepting.
One interesting read on this topic is The Masterless People: Pirates, Maroons, and the Struggle to Live Free. It deals with the historic etymology of the English word maroon (and relatives like marooned) to escaped slaves, and how pirates befriended and worked with the maroons, in this chapter namely the famed English corsair Francis Drake versus the Spanish. It’s an excerpt from a larger book (Marooned: Jamestown, Shipwreck, and a New History of America’s Origin), which I might try to read, and is now in my kindle wishlist.
Another strong read on the topic that has been making some rounds on social media
is the observation regarding pirates and their (lack of) ableism from a user
iapologise on Tumblr as most often seen in screenshots [^1] of its
reblogging iapologise on pirates (with comment)
by i-need-that-seat. To help counter the odd ableism of how often I’ve seen
only screenshots of it with no transcript for screenreaders, allow me to quote
iapoligise here, because it is a sentiment that deeply amuses me:
I love pirates because they have no concept on albeism. oh you have no leg? here have a peg leg. no hand?? well guess we gotta put a hook on that, give those sons of bitches a surprise. Blind in one eye, put an eyepatch on no one fucking cares, youre deaf??? go man the canons you glorious bastard.They dont care if youre disabled bcus as long as you can fuck shit up they literally dont fucking care
Hashtag Be More Pirate, indeed.