Kumar Ayush

I have things to say about Pirates of the Caribbean. It is mostly praise, but limited to the main trilogy - the first three movies. When I first saw these movies, I fell in love with the charisma of Captain Jack Sparrow and all the music that Klaus Badelt and Hans Zimmer put into the movie.

When I second saw these movies, I was older and was aware of useless trivia such as how this is a Disney movie based on a ride in Disneyland and so on. But that implies, and the following is true even if the writers in their flesh or ghost tell me that I am wrong, that there is a princess. Okay, I know that all Disney movies don’t have a princess hero journey but this one does nevertheless, and that is numero uno of the many reasons the plot is evergreen to me. Captain Jack Sparrow is simply the paladin here, with the prince being William Turner.

The other reason I admire these movies is that these are fantasy movies with great worldbuilding. The plot follows the trope of fitting an adventure journey between an explicit prologue and epilogue. I did a careful rewatch with a notebook for finalising this post in order to confirm my bias that the plot is teee-aight.

spoilers ahead, why are you even here if you’ve not seen the movies?

Elizabeth’s feminism and agency

The first scene of the trilogy starts with a young Elizabeth Swann who has a childish sense of wonder about pirates. No wonder when a young boy turns up in the water with a skull medallion, she hides the medallion. Her actions are only questionably explained by herself in a later scene, but it is believable that a child would hide a trophy from the grown ups because the grown ups are dismissive of what you care about. The young boy’s name is William Turner.

The first scene is the prologue. The next scene is years later when an adult Liz is being peacocked (peahenned?) around by her father because she is of a marriageable age of course. Captain and soon Commodore James Norrington is a recurring side character who fancies Elizabeth and Governor Swann sees Norrington as a fitting groom for his daughter. But Liz does not care for any of it. They are explicit that she loathes what women are encouraged to go through in the name of society. “women in London must’ve learned not to breathe!”, while her maids dress her up in a corset. They are never explicit about what Liz yearns for in her dialogues, which is what makes this a hard point to drill among casual viewers, but it is made clear from her mannerisms and eventual decisions that she ultimately yearns to see the world, be a sailor. She has affection for Will. The whole thing is set on Port Royal, a British colony in the Caribbean. So, they must have grown up seeing each other now and then, but it is not clear what the source of the affection is or how deep it runs. I did interpret it as Liz seeing Will as her counterpart who has the freedom that she yearns for.

Liz falls in the water and is saved by Jack who happens to be around to witness the fall. Jack also uses Liz as a hostage to escape after Norrington insists on capturing Jack for being a pirate. Later in the night, a maid asks Liz about her horrifying day, and Liz answers about the marriage proposal from Norrington while the maid was asking about the experience of being taken hostage by a pirate. I am interpreting this as the view that the proposal was a more dangerous hostage situation for Liz because that captures her freedom which is worse than a meager threat to her life.

Liz decides to wear the skull medallion and coincidentally falls in the water with it, which arguably calls the Black Pearl to Port Royal after so many years. This too is not explicitly explained. The crew is indeed looking for the medallion, or as we will learn it is a cursed Aztec gold coin. But Liz decides to “Parley”. She invokes the pirates’ Brethren code. And this decision drives the plot for the first movie forward, which in turn drives the plot for the entire trilogy. Liz displays limited fear of the pirates. She has read about them, she knows how to talk to them and is comfortable making demands from Captain Barbossa. In the next scene itself, she names herself as Elizabeth Turner, which puts her into the plot although it is arguable if there was any free will here.

All of the above is early scenes in the first movie. Elizabeth in the second movie is a tremendously ambiguous character. Her screentime picks up with her rescue and support mission for Will as all of them are incarcerated by the powers of the East India Company Lord Cutler Beckett. However, they show her being attracted towards Jack? There is also a compass scene where the magic compass that shows what you want most is pointing towards Jack. The movie ends with her kissing Jack to trap him towards the Kraken, thus leading Will to wonder if Liz loves Jack. And this is how I had always interpreted it, but while viewing it with the lens that I am writing this essay with I realised this is a manifestation of her love for freedom. Jack calls it out too. Liz knows that even if she does succeed in her adventure, her next steps would be marriage and settling down, but she loves adventure. The compass points towards Jack because she wants to be like him, and not because she likes him.

The third movie is outright focussed on resolving the grand conflict against the EIC. Nevertheless, there is plenty of leadership demonstrated by Liz. There is the choice to stick to Sao Feng’s crew when Norrington shows up to capture their ship. At this point, she has been captive by Sao Feng, but she would rather pick the crew. These are not monumental moments but the final “What shall we die for?” speech by then Pirate King Elizabeth Swann is a goosebumper.

East India Company

The antagonist of the movie is the East India Company. This is almost never explicit, but almost always implicit. The first moment EIC is mentioned is when Norrington meets Jack after he has saved Liz from drowning. He looks at a ‘P’ burn on Jack’s wrist and says “Had a brush with the East India Company, did we, pirate?” There is no mention of them through the rest of the first movie. What’s the point of this except to place pirates in direct opposition to the trade of the East India Company?

The second movie begins with the introduction of Lord Cutler Beckett of the East India Company, and the plot is driven by his machinations to get Jack’s compass and hence reach Davy Jones’ heart. There is no explanation as to why would he want the heart, but there are two interesting scenes.

One, when Jack and crewmates are imprisoned by a cannibal tribe, Jack finds himself hiding inside a tent while running away from the tribe. The tent has a plethora of modern goods, among which he picks up a can of paprika and there is EIC logo etched at the bottom of the can. This has a few seconds of screentime, but the point seems to be clear.

Two, there is a recurring merchant ship shown in the second movie, and at one point, the captain of this ship is looking at several bills of port charges by the East India Company and complaining that “Is there no free port remaining?”, to which his mate replies with Tortuga. This too has a short screentime and the direct plot goal seems to be to lead this merchant ship which has another character as stowaway towards Tortuga. However, the implicit point is yet again clear.

There are moments where the authority of Cutler Beckett and Governor Swann clash, where the Governor’s noble influence in London is overshadowed by the money that EIC brings in. “Coin is the new coin”, as Beckett says.

When the third movie hits, it is made clear that Beckett was interested in Davy Jones’ heart such that the Flying Dutchman could be used as a mercenary in the service of East India Company. While Jack seemingly wants to replace Davy Jones to live forever in his stead, and Will wants to save his father, Liz represents the last flame of freedom that piracy represents against the oppression of the East India Company.

The third movie also shows the death of the Kraken, the beast tamed by the might of war strategy wielded by the EIC, and Jack and Barbossa remark how the world has become smaller now. This is complemented by Beckett mentioning “edges of the map being filled” in another scene. Of course, a significant part of the movie shows Singapore and the EIC’s influence there as well.

The trilogy has the perfect villain. It is in the philosophy, and it is among us, rather than being manifest in scary skeleton pirates.

A Perfect Fantasy

Defining a genre is often a subjective task. A key feature of fantasy to me is the sense of wonder it evokes outside the plot, and to do so without giving the feeling that the plot is arbitrary.

Mister Gibbs is shown as part of the crew in the first prologue. He’s not a pirate then. What happened in the years since then? The entire lore of Calypso as the Sea Goddess and her powers are conveniently vague. They convene the Fourth Brethren Court in the third movie. How long ago was the First one? And why are there nine pieces of eight among nine pirate lords? It is also implied that Barbossa knows that Jack has one of the nine pieces but only by deceit does he learn which of the many jewelleries on Jack’s body is the correct piece. If it was so hard, what is the story behind Jack obtaining his piece? There is a pair of comedic Black pearl crew members - a stout fellow and a thin one-eyed fellow. What are their names? Their names are mentioned just once in the third movie.

There’s a princess, there’s a pauper, there’s a paladin. There is not a dragon but there is a kraken so that’s covered. There is a threat to the world which the trio fight against and it ends with the princess becoming the queen, the pauper no longer a pauper and the paladin doing heroic deeds. What else do you expect from a Disney fantasy plot?