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"I feel so normal about him" well I dont. move

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“You’re so quiet, what’s wrong?” I’m creating my own fantasy world to escape from reality so shut up.

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Did Norrington leave for Tortuga in his own civilian clothes or do you think the things he’s wearing in DMC were pieces he scrounged up from pirates in Tortuga? Did he rob them or buy them? Did he keep his wig and hat and coat on the entire time, or did he keep them wherever he was lodging at the time and put them on periodically, or did he hear Sparrow was back and recruiting, and put the pieces back on to assert authority in the face of his enemy? So much about his time in Tortuga left to imagination

OMG.

BUCKLE UP.

These all are great questions! And I have had some time to ponder on the whole James Norrington's Tortuga sabatical year these past few days... Let me go one by one from what I think happened... This is merely my interpretation of the man, from what I've read, from what I've also written myself trying to get into his head...

I'm going feral with this ask, i'M really sorry about that-

Did Norrington leave for Tortuga in his own civilian clothes or were they scrounged?

HIS OWN CIVILIAN CLOTHES?! Absolutely not and I will die on this hill. My beautiful, tragic, order-obsessed boy lost EVERYTHING in that hurricane chasing Sparrow. His ship. His crew. His career. His HONOR. I hardly think he had the presence of mind to pack a travel case with his favorite linen shirts and trousers just in case.

He washed up on some godforsaken spit of land with nothing but the salt-crusted, tattered uniform on his back and the crushing weight of his failure. The things he’s wearing under the coat in the tavern—that sad, frayed, but once-fine vest (As someone pointed out it could be damascus fabric but very worn and damaged) and the grimy shirt, the trousers, the boots; are 1000% pieces he acquired in Tortuga. They are the physical proof of his fall from grace.

AND I think this way because i'm 100% convinced that he resigned by letter... Not in person. He never made it back to Port Royal or London for that matter after that incident.

Think about the sheer, suffocating SHAME of it all.

This is James Norrington. A man whose entire existence was built on protocol, on honor, on facing his duty head-on. To stand in the Admiralty's office in London, or even in front of Governor Swann in Port Royal, and have to say the words out loud? To have to form the sentence, "I, Commodore Norrington, pursued a pirate in a hurricane and lost His Majesty's Ship the Dauntless, my crew, and my dignity after I FIRST let him have one-day head start"?

He would have rather died. He literally could not have done it.

He finds some dingy port town, trades his watch or something for a piece of parchment and some ink, and just... writes it. his hand is probably shaking. ink's bleeding on the paper.

He'd seal it, hand it to the captain of the first ship heading back toward civilization, and then just... disappear. He wouldn't even wait for a reply. He'd just turn his back on his entire life and walk toward the nearest bottle of rum.

Did he rob them or buy them?

Okay look. This is what makes it so TRAGIC. Rob them? Like a common pirate?

The man who lived and breathed the law. The thought would have physically repulsed him. It would be the final betrayal of himself.

BUT BUY THEM? WITH WHAT? The man was drinking himself into an early grave! He had no money! My personal, deeply-held headcanon is that he had to trade the last vestiges of his former life for them. Maybe the silver buttons from his ruined breeches (I think they look silvery, I might be wrong). Maybe his signet ring, or like I said, his clock (I whole believe he had one like the gentleman he is).

Or maybe he had to swallow his pride and do some disgusting, menial labor that would have been unthinkable for a man of his station.

Did he keep his wig and hat and coat on the entire time, or did he hear Sparrow was back and put them on to assert authority?

THIS. THIS IS WHAT KILLS ME

No, of course he didn't wear that mess all the time, are you kidding me?! It's hot and disgusting in Tortuga. He kept those sacred, tragic, tattered relics wherever he was staying—probably some leaky, rat-infested room that smelled of despair. He lived his daily life in his scrounged pirate rags, marinating in his own misery and rum. He was a ghost. A nobody.

BUT THEN. THEN HE HEARS THE WHISPERS.

Sparrow is back. Captain Jack Sparrow is in Tortuga. Recruiting a crew.

And something in him SNAPS.

That is when he goes back to his hovel. That is when he pulls out the ghost of his former self. He deliberately puts on the tattered coat. He shoves the filthy, lopsided wig on his head. He places that battered tricorn on top.

He didn't just put it on to "assert authority" in a general sense... HE PUT IT ON FOR SPARROW. It was a calculated act of psychological warfare. He was walking into that tavern to face the architect of his ruin and he wanted that man to SEE him. He wanted Jack to look at him and see the full scope of what he had destroyed.

Also he was drunk the entire time so...

It was him screaming, "YOU DID THIS TO ME. YOU THINK I'M JUST SOME DRUNK YOU CAN IGNORE? LOOK AT ME. I AM COMMODORE JAMES NORRINGTON, AND I HAVE COME BACK FROM THE DEAD TO END YOU."

He was dressing for his own funeral, hoping it would be a murder-suicide. So much left to the imagination and my imagination is a 24/7 film festival of Norrington's pain asdfghjkl;' thank you for letting me get this out.

Sorry if I'm overly excited about this, is just that I have a thing from emotionally wrecked british men.

love,

-Ari.

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behind the scenes

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made myself these gifs as gifts to myself but you guys can look at them too <3 merry crisis <333

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And lo, he got a triptych in the end (I just wanted to try rendering the first two again using the better correction layer setup I used on the new one, it picked up the lighter areas of tea better)

You can commission one of these yourself for $20/£15 on my Patreon! That’s a fuckin bargain for how much love I put into em patreon.com/jadesarson

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My story? It’s exactly the same as your story, just one chapter behind. I chased a man across the seven seas. The pursuit cost me my crew…my commission…and my life. ↳ jack davenport as james norrington, dead man’s chest (2006)

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“Why is the rum always gone?”

Pirates of the Caribbean : Dead Man’s Chest (2006)

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The quote “We shall have a magnificent garden party and you’re not invited” get funnier when you realize Jack’s dad has a manor and probably had pirate garden parties before

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the fact that Jack was so calm in front of mermaids, sea monsters, pirates, dead people, dinosaurs, gods, tigers, witches and more but as soon as he saw his father's ship in the distance he turned pale with fear says alot.

Like: even fitz says he has never seen him so scared in almost a year of traveling together.

that boy has risked his life at the least 10 times in 10 different ways and yet the scariest thing for him is his father? Damn Teague you really fucked up

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Do you think in the scene where they bring out the Code Elizabeth took one look at Captain Teague, did a double take, and just went to Barbossa "Hold on is that Jack's dad" "Yeah that's Jack's dad...they look alike dont they, you can really tell" "Your right, they do"

and then later mentioned it to Will

"Hey Will you see that captain over there with the red coat, black hair and trinkets in his hair" "Yeah??" "Who does he remind you of?" "Jack, why?" "That's Jack's dad" "Really wow...didn't we just trade his son to the British Navy??" "....oh god"

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It's a pretty old drawing but I still like it....

Young Teague?

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"But pirate's in your blood, boy, so you'll have to square with that some day"

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hey babe would u be ok w me sending some fanart of the tides that bind us this fic has consumed my soul

Would I be okay?

I WOULD SWOON OVER THE MOON

🥺🥺🖤🖤🖤 it would make me incredibly happy and so honored.

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On James Norrington's outfit in DMC:

So, I just wanted to share something I noticed just now because I'm an IDIOT, and I can't believe I didn't see this sooner—considering the amount of time already that I spend looking at this wreckage of a man every day.

I was re-watching DMC for writing purposes, and I noticed something about the costume design for James when he's in his scruffy phase.

A part of me kept seeing the coat and assumed he was wearing his uniform just changed the breeches for trousers and the buckled shoes for boots. BUT. I was mistaken.

So this is the whole uniform right, the creme-colored vest with the golden rims. The blue navy coat, the cravat, the white breeches (look at that leg)

Here's a better picture of it, which I always find hilarious:

And in my head, I always assumed that he just got it dirtier, and that's it. Like, he kept the vest, but the months he spent in Tortuga drinking (probably picking fights) just darkened the vest. A dirty vest, that's what I thought.

But that's not it.

He is wearing a flower-patterned vest underneath the navy coat. Also his pants are clearly civilian clothes, no uniform in sight, except for the coat itself. Not even the shirt seems to be navy issue because the ruffles are different, like the neck is not high enough to get that cravat and neck support thing going on. Sorry, I wish I was a fashion historian to explain this better, but basically, he's in full civilian clothes.

We know this, we know this (I didn't fully grasp it until recently), HOWEVER—

This brings me to my point. So we know that after letting Jack go:

he spent a good half of that next year tracking the man across the Seven seas, almost had him a Tripoli and then lost the Dauntless in a hurricane.

That failure drove him to resign his commission (or be forced to resign because it was a whole thing).

And at the beginning of DMC we learn that it's been some months now since he resigned and left Port Royal to go drown himself in rum (and probably to wait for Jack Sparrow to appear and idk, do something)

And he's wearing his navy coat, his WIG and his hat. WHILE wearing civilian clothes underneath.

What I'm trying to say is that THIS MAN, this beautiful, obsessed wreck of a man, resigned his commission and KEPT his uniform, of course, and the first thing he does is leave for Tortuga with his NAVY COAT, his WIG and his NAVY HAT, to go find Jack Sparrow to pick a fight with him.

He's so wrecked here, after everything, that he has to physically hold on to the last remnants of what he thinks he is (the officer, the navy man, the commodore), by holding onto his coat and wig and hat.... I'm emotional now.

This is an amazing detail to include in the films, that I think goes beyond the simply comedic effect. His wig is a mess, it looks like a roadkill, his coat is frayed but the gold still golden like they want us to KNOW its a Navy coat. They couldve just put him in another coat btw, a plain thing, a brown thing like Beckett's. They didnt had to do it like this. But they DID. On purpose. And now I cant stop thinking about this.

Anyway, people... costume design is damn great on these movies. That's all I'm saying.

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