Blackbeard, The Kraken, and Ed: A Gendered Reading

[inspired by this article and copied from original post here written June 4, 2022]

The Kraken as the Divine Feminine is sending me into the stratosphere oh my god

like…the layers here. the distinctions between ed and blackbeard and the kraken as intrinsically gendered identities, all three distinct from the other.

to Ed, the masculine and the feminine have been guises to wear, protective facades in various contexts. but Ed has never actually had the opportunity to navigate an experience of gender that feels TRUE, only ones that have been NECESSARY for survival. the feminine divine of The Kraken is what killed Ed’s father, protected Ed’s mother, helped Ed escape from a life of servitude and degradation. The masculine persona of Blackbeard allowed Ed to navigate the space of piracy safely, allowed Ed to project authority and competency. but neither of these personas are ED. Ed has only ever used gender as a facade, a weapon, a shield against painful, threatening things, and never actually experienced gender fully for their own pleasure and self-actualization

this reading also kind of recontextualizes the popular interpretation of Ed at the end of episode 10, NOT as being in just Kraken-mode or Blackbeard-mode, but as perhaps reviving both Blackbeard and the Kraken at once. These two ferociously gendered identities who have protected Ed at various times, that drown out everything else in the search for survival, and leave no room for Ed as a person. It lends itself to a much more complex reading of Ed’s gender. If the Kraken (the feminine) is the part of them that Ed’s afraid of and Blackbeard (the masculine) is the part that Ed doesn’t know how to escape, are either of these things what Ed really wants? both have been necessary, and both are important in various ways, but are either of them goals to strive for? in the aftermath of the simultaneous revival of these violently gendered identities, I hope Ed gets the chance to really think about who “Ed” can be, and that maybe there’s a path forward that doesn’t necessitate clear identification with either

but then here’s the thing: these gendered identities are not equivalent, despite neither being fully “true” for Ed

they’re both adaptive to Ed’s environment and they both came out of danger and trauma. but Blackbeard is an identity imposed from the outside. it’s a persona designed to fill some of the functions of masking–Blackbeard is all the “correct” things that Ed is “supposed” to be as a pirate, as a man, and specifically as a man of color. Blackbeard is a way of relating to the world through a normative lens that only way he can

The Kraken, on the other hand, is a subversive and subverting persona. The Kraken was never supposed to exist, in Ed’s world or any other. It’s something powerful, an affront to the god Ed was raised to believe in. it’s a new god, a protective, feminine pathway toward safety that uses violence and power to assert control over the things Ed was always told were “fate” or “God’s will.” The Kraken isn’t what Ed’s supposed to be, it’s what she needed to be to survive.

there’s an empowering quality to the Kraken that isn’t necessarily true of Blackbeard. She asserts, while He hides. She challenges, while He accepts. She is a way of being in the world that Ed was never “supposed” to find, but that Ed found their way to anyway.

I think this distinction for me is the difference between reading Ed as a trans woman versus reading Ed as nonbinary or transfemme. there’s a power to the feminine that Ed has needed and drawn on for survival, but that threatens to subsume all the complexity of who Ed is if left unchecked.

The two identities have both been essential, both been repressive, but they’re not created equal in terms of how they function for Ed