Short-gayy - Short-gayy

the red silk...

on my 49682th rewatch of OFMD and noticed something about the scenes with the red silk. the first time, when ed shows it to stede, and stede asks if he can see it, ed doesn’t hand it over. he kind of... loosens his grip and just lets stede take it out of his hands. then he puts it in ed’s breast pocket symbolizing his heart etc. but it’s important that ed doesn’t just willingly hand it over. this is representative of the fact that ed doesn’t just completely give himself and his heart to stede. over time, ed lets stede grow closer to him and lets him in, but he often doesn’t initiate this process. letting stede take the silk is the first example. in the next episode, when he’s in the tub crying, he doesn’t seek out the comfort of stede. stede finds him and ed opens up by allowing himself to answer stede’s questions. or in the next episode, when ed has snake in his beard, he doesn’t tell stede to get it, but when stede reaches over to do so, he allows it to happen. obviously i’m not saying ed didn’t initiate anything; he famously initiated The Kiss, but simply that stede is often the one making these apparently romantic moves -- whether stede realizes what he’s doing or not -- and ed is often left responding to them. this brings me back to the final scene with the red cloth, when ed gets rid of it. he gets rid of it in much the same way stede takes it -- he lets it go. we do not see ed throw the piece of silk to the wind in anger. he just loosens his grip and allows the wind to eventually blow it out of his grasp and into the sea. this is symbolic of the fact that it wasn’t his choice to throw away his heart, his love for stede. to ed, stede made that choice, so he just has to accept the fact that it’s over and let his heart/softness/love be taken away. to end on a lighter note i think it’s fucking hilarious how ed is the one with the fattest crush on stede yet here stede is being super romantic without even realizing