#hector barbossa

[imagopirateversion]

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales; Why It Shouldn’t Exist

Or how I invested time and energy into an analysis of a relatively dead franchise instead of doing it for my actual media analysis university course.

An essay by: a bitter and obsessed PotC fan since they were 7, with a lot of free time.

Lads, this is going to be long. You have been warned.

The Beginning

At the very beginning of the movie, we see a young Henry Turner looking for his dad.

Now, we're not talking about characterization problems or how likely it is that a ten-year-old child would risk his life to look for a man he technically only saw once; we're talking about plot problems, actual logical fallacies. My questions are:

How? The Flying Dutchman is a legendary ship, impossible to be found unless She wants to be found. The only reason we see Her in Dead Man's Chest is because Davy Jones himself is looking for Jack to collect his debt, and in that occasion the Dutchman's captain wasn't even doing what he was supposed to do, so he was most definitely in the living world. Will otherwise, he's doing the job Calypso gave him, so he's constantly in between. Is the movie trying to convince me that a kid was able to do something no one in the history of piracy was ever able to do? And even if he did, why hasn't anyone explained me how? He simply looks at a map and throws himself on the bottom of the ocean. How did he know The Dutchman was there? How did he know it would've come to surface?

Where is his mom? We got to know Elizabeth in the first three movies; we know she's a smart woman and we can assume she's an attentive mother. She didn't notice her son preparing himself for a trip in the middle of the ocean to go look for his dad? Was she distracted? Was she outsmarted by a 10ish-year-old? Or is she just not contemplated in this scenario?

Why does Will look like that? Will is doing his job, so... why does he look like he's slowly corrupting? That kind of corruption is the punishment Calypso reserves to The Dutchman's crew when the captain fails her, which isn't the case. Did they forget about it? Was the idea of putting algae on Orlando Bloom's face just impossible to resist to?

Alright, this isn't actually from this movie but it's bothering me, so I have to write it; also, it would make this whole movie unnecessary, so it's somehow related to it. Why (and I can't stress this enough) can't Elizabeth be on the Dutchman? Why can't they do the job together? Is it because she's not a pirate? I'm pretty sure se actually is. Is it because she's a woman? Last time I checked she was the KING. She wants to stay with Will forever, Will wants to stay with her forever, they can literally live forever on the same ship. Why aren't they?

Whatever the Hell Happened to Jack Sparrow

Imagine creating a character that is so iconic whenever you ask a person who was a kid in the early 2000 to imagine a pirate, they imagine said character.

Now imagine fourteen years pass and you decide to ruin that character by making him the most hideous, annoying, idiotic person in the whole saga, and we're talking about a saga that has Philip the Missionary in it. Why? Jack Sparrow is THE anti-hero. Never on the right side, but never on the wrong one. You can tell he's doing something morally questionable, but you still find yourself rooting for him. He's stupid enough to make you laugh, but he's secretly clever enough to always get away with it. Now he's just... drunk. And that's not even an excuse for this horrendous new characterization, because he was always drunk. The guy FORGOT HE WAS ROBBING A BANK, the same guy just one movie earlier was able to escape from the King of England's palace and steal a lady's earring (by pretending to be a literal slut) in the process. He just switched from the iconic drunk bi bestie everyone loves to my cringe uncle that drinks too much at Christmas parties and makes everyone uncomfortable. Please, if the risk is ruining an entire generation's beloved character, either don't make the movie or find a better explanation than "Bad luck dogs you day and night".

The Pearl in The Bottle

So... what you're telling me is that Jack Sparrow, the guy who was able to defeat Hector Barbossa, Davy Jones and Blackbeard thanks to his slyness, and who loves his Black Pearl more than anything else in the world, had said ship in a bottle in his pockets for FIVE YEARS... and he never thought about breaking the bottle to free Her. That's what you're telling me. This is the pivotal point upon which the entire Jack's plot hinges. I... I don't even know what to say. Was this supposed to be funny?

What an Incredibly Lucky Coincidence

A guy needs a treasure to save his father. To find it, he needs the help of a notorious and legendary pirate. He looks for him everywhere, sailing on dozens of ships just so he has the remote chance to stumble across the pirate. The last ship he's been on has sinked, he's the only survivor. He's been found in the middle of the ocean and someone brought him to the nearest city. Which city? I mean, the one that has both the pirate he was looking for and a lady who's the only person in the whole planet who's able to find the treasure he was looking for! And, oh my... he finds the both of them! In that same city! Without even LOOKING FOR THEM! A hell of a coincidence, if you ask me. Also known as lazy writing.

What's Wrong With the Guards?

Now, I know Pirates of the Caribbean isn't exactly known for its accurate historical reconstructions, but why are the guards in this movie acting like they're some sort of hellhounds ready to kill anyone in sight? Even pirates and traitors as Jack and Henry were supposed to stand trial before being sentenced to death. It would've probably been an unjust and barbaric trial, but there should've been one. We literally saw it, in the previous movie. Why's Jack been sentenced to death for simply existing here? He gave pirate vibes and they decided that was enough?

Paul McCartney

This is not an actual point of the analysis, I just wanted to remind people that Paul McCartney is in this movie and that's the only valid reason to watch it.

Salazar

I am confused. Once again, I have questions.

El Matador Del Mar was so good at his job he had almost defeated piracy. "The last ones joined together to try and defeat me". The last what? Pirates? There were no pirates left? This happened when Jack was young, so a lot of time before the first movie, right? Where were, I don't know... Blackbeard? Davy Jones? Barbossa? All the other Pirate Lords? I might be wrong, but I guess Salazar didn't kill them, did he? Why weren't they there during that "last battle" in which "the last ones joined together"?

The Devil's Triangle. I just don't understand what's the logic behind it. So, this is a cursed place. Whoever enters there, can't get out. One would think it means that if you get there, you die; and Salazar does die, but he somehow also becomes a ghost whose only purpose is to find Jack Sparrow and have his revenge. So, do people become ghosts when they get in The Devil's Triangle? We have to assume people have gotten stuck in there before; otherwise, there wouldn't be legends around the place. So why isn't it like full of spirits ready to haunt people? Why are Salazar and his crew the only ones?

Poseidon or Calypso?

What's the Trident of Poseidon? Does Poseidon exist? Isn't Calypso the Goddess of the sea? Breaking the Trident, you break all the curses of the sea, so the Trident must be more powerful than Calypso, which leads to a question. Where is she? She IS the sea, right? So she must have known someone was about to find the Trident and brake all curses, including her one. She just decided it was okay? It really feels like someone decided to suddenly change the world's mythology without giving explanations.

The Compass

This is possibly the most blatant plot hole in the whole saga. Probably the most blatant plot hole I've ever witnessed, and man, I watched all the Harry Potter movies. In Dead Man's Chest, Jack meets Tia Dalma in her "shop" and he tells her he's looking for the Davy Jones' key. She asks him "The compass you bartered from me, it cannot lead you to this?", making another pivotal point of Dead Men Tell No Tales factually senseless.

That man couldn't have given his compass to Jack, because that wasn't his compass.

So either Salazar is lying while telling his tale or they forgot about that line in the second movie. Anyway, let's pretend that line doesn't exist; even if that captain gave Jack his compass in that exact moment, why would it be the key to free Salazar, exactly? How is the compass in any way related to The Devil's Triangle or to Salazar? In the movie, they try to explain it with a sentence: “if you betray it, your greatest fear comes true”. So, is Salazar Jack's greatest fear? I really doesn't seem right, Jack almost didn't remember Salazar when Henry mentioned him. To Jack, he's only a guy he outsmarted decades earlier. Also, Jack technically already gave the compass away, twice: to Elizabeth in Dead Man's Chest, to make her find the chest, and to Beckett in At World's End, when they're negotiating.

That's... That's Just Body Shaming, Mate

Let's talk about her. So, the woman's ugly. It can happen that a woman is ugly. Was it necessary to build an entire scene around some blatant body shaming? This scene wants to mimic the similar scene in Dead Man's Chest: Jack's on an island, running from the main villain, and he's forced to do things he doesn't want to do until someone saves him, then it was Will, now it's Hector.

Except in Dead Man's Chest it was LITERAL CANNIBALISM he was facing, and yet he looked LESS TERRIFIED and DISGUSTED. What's exactly the message here? Lads, is marrying an ugly woman worse than cannibalism? I don't know... that was just bad.

Justice for Hector Barbossa

If you know me (you probably don't, but if you do) then you know about my obsession with Hector Barbossa. I truly believe he's the best written character in the saga, and he's in my top five of the characters I love the most in all media. I watched The Curse of the Black Pearl when I was seven and I am autistic, so I had all the time to develop a literal relationship with these characters in my head. As much as Geoffrey Rush's interpretation was impeccable, as always, it really hurt to watch Hector in this movie. He just doesn't sound like him. First of all, why isn't he on the Queen Anne's Revenge? Why's he letting someone else sail around on his ships? He would've never. Why's he just sitting on a throne and shooting musicians instead of, I don't know... being a pirate? Being a pirate is the only thing that matters to him. He says it at the end of On Stranger Tides, and he even says it in this movie, to the witch. "I'm a pirate. Always will be".

So, why isn't he pirating? What happened to him? And what about the pact with the witch? He made her curse all his enemies; that's honestly the most out-of-character thing he could've done.

Seriously, watch this movie, and then The Curse of the Black Pearl and tell me he sounds like he's the same character. Then there’s his death... was it necessary? And I don't mean if it was necessary to the plot (it wasn't), but the way he died, did it make sense? He takes the sword and sacrifices himself to kill Salazar, but WHY? Salazar was back a mortal. They could've brought him to surface and then shoot him. What was the point of his death, Disney? I will never forgive you.

I would've preferred if they never showed him again. He's alive and living his best life in Tortuga, if you ask me.

How does Carina Smyth exist?

Let's do the math. Carina Smyth has approximately the same age as Henry Turner, who was born around nine moths after the end of At World's End. At the end of that movie, Barbossa once again stole the Black Pearl (he's iconic we stan a legend), so we have to assume it is during that time (between the At World's End and On Stranger Tides) that he conceives Carina. He stays with this woman during the whole pregnancy, bacause he says he was there when she died. So nine months, at least, right? Except; Jack makes it clear that he and Barbossa met Carina's mom, Margaret, together.

When, exactly, did this happen? It can't be between On Stranger Tides and Dead Men Tell No Tales, because Hector himself says only five years passed between the two, and Carina doesn't look like a five-year-old;

it can't be between At World's End and On Stranger Tides, because we know Jack and Barbossa weren't together, and Hector was too busy losing a leg and planning his revenge by working for the King of England; it can't be during At World's End, because Barbossa was too busy rescuing Jack and then slaying (literally and metaphorically) Beckett's men to save piracy; it can't be during Dead Man's Chest, because he was dead; it can't be during The Curse of the Black Pearl, nor during the ten years before it, because he was... he was a skeleton, I hardly believe he could reproduce, despite what’s written in some fanficions; it can't be before, of course, because Carina would be too old. The only chance, but it's a stretch, is that Hector and Jack met this Margaret Smyth years and years before, and that at a certain point (while he was still busy slaying, losing a leg or planning his revenge), for some reason he decided to come back to her and accidentally had a daughter. That would mean that Jack remembered Margaret Smyth's name DECADES after he met her.

The Post-Credit Scene: What?

WHY'S DAVY JONES BACK? The Trident technically broke all the curses of the sea. He is THE cursed man of the sea. AND HE'S DEAD. The only answer I was able to give me, is that the moment the Trident broke the curses, the curse that said if you stab his heart he dies was also broken, so he technically didn't die, but it makes even less sense, because if the curses just aren't real anymore, then a man shouldn't be able to... carve out his heart and put it in a chest, right? (Which by the way, makes Will Turner being alive senseless as well). Even if so, Davy should've come back as a human.

My conclusion is that this movie should not exist, and we, as a community, should pretend it was never made. Hector is alive. Bye.

Imago

[boltlightning]

look! the moonlight shows us for what we really are. we are not among the living, and so we cannot die — but neither are we dead.

[owenhcrper]

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL

[that-sarcastic-optimist]

Okay TV weddings are cute and all but name a more iconic wedding scene than Will and Elizabeth Turner’s cause they were literally married by the man who kidnapped the bride and killed the groom’s dad, WHILE killing sea creature-people things and while reciting their vows to each other and their witnesses along with the psychopathic officiant were two other previously undead freaks who tried to kill her the first time they met her and a fucking immortal monkey.

And don’t even get me started on the way he spun her like they were dancing. That. Was. Everything.

You can’t get weddings like those on sitcoms.

[cupcakeshakesnake]

Some POTC anthro doodles

[imaginepirates]

How They Confess

For the anon who wanted to know how the characters would confess their feelings, and how they would react if the reader confessed first.

This includes Jack, Will, Lizzie, James, Beckett, and Barbossa.

Jack:

Jack isn’t one to make a grand show of things, and if he’s to confess, it’ll be in a moment of simplicity. You’ll be curled up together in his cabin, warm and drowsy, soft light shining out from the lanterns. He can only admit it to you when he’s completely relaxed—he can hardly admit it to himself sometimes, how much he loves you. But he says it softly in your ear, and you’re more pleased than surprised, already tangled together in the sheets. Your brain’s a bit fuzzy anyway, and the full weight of it wouldn’t hit you until the next morning. But by then he’s up and out on deck, and you’re left with the knowledge that he really does love you after all. 

If you’re the first to confess, Jack would be taken aback. He doesn’t expect you to love him, not really, so it comes as a bit of a shock to his system. It would take him some time to process, too, and he has to do some serious introspection before he can say it back. Love is a heavy thing in his eyes, and he’s not about to mess it up. 

Will:

Though he can be bashful, Will is completely unashamed of his feelings for you. If you’re of the same social station, he’ll simply tell you how he feels by taking you out for a walk along the oceanfront. If you’re too far above him on the social ladder, he’ll keep his feelings to himself, though they shine through with all the things he does for you to make life easier and more convenient. 

If you speak up first, Will’s a little embarrassed, but in a good way. He feels a little guilty for not saying anything, but quickly gets over it; he’s just happy you feel the same, and that you’re comfortable enough in your affection to tell him. He likes that you can own it—not everyone is attracted to blacksmiths. Besides, hearing the words from you is just the confidence boost he needs. 

Elizabeth:

Elizabeth wants to make her confession as perfect as she can. She does it over a nice dinner, just the two of you, and she’s pulled out the candles for the occasion. She’s a romantic at heart, and wants to have the right atmosphere in which to tell you how she feels. She’s really one for the aesthetic. It’s honestly rather cute, the effort she puts in, and you’d be lying if you said you didn’t enjoy it. 

If you’re the first to confess, Lizzie is just delighted. She has butterflies for days, and be prepared for all the secret little messages dictated by high society. I’m talking fan-signals, flower language, the whole package. Even though she loves you earnestly, and even though you know both know it, she’s absolutely going to make the most of the courtship process and all it entails.

James:

We all know how awkward James is about confessing his feelings. He’s been rehearsing for days, and is almost too anxious to do it in the first place. He’s afraid of coming off too strong, and overanalyzes every interaction you’ve had together. He ensures the setting is both pleasant and proper, and though it may seem a little stiff, you’re aware the confession is genuine. That being said, the moment you indicate the feeling is mutual, his composure cracks and he gives you that huge smile he tries so hard to hide. 

If you beat him to it, he’d be shocked. Not only is he surprised that you made the first move, which is so expected of him, but he honestly had no idea you felt that way about him. It takes him a good long time to find the right words to tell you he feels the same, and you’ll have to be patient as he recovers from his astonishment. 

Beckett:

This man is never, ever, going to admit to loving you. He won’t even let himself think about his affection for you. In all truth and honesty, he’s terrified of his feelings, seeing them as a weakness that someone will figure out and exploit. He’s also afraid you won’t feel the same way. How could you? It would take a serious moment of vulnerability—either when something awful happens to you, or when you show him honest tenderness. Either way, it’s completely unexpected and almost unbelievable…until you see the fear in his eyes and realize it’s the truth. 

If you make the first move, Beckett doesn’t think you’re serious. He’s willing to play along, but he figures you want something from him. So he brushes it off, though your words linger in his mind for days after. He’s probably in his office doing paperwork when it hits him that you were being completely serious, and he’s absolutely overcome by it. He makes sure to explain himself when he sees you next; he just didn’t think someone could feel that way about him. 

Barbossa:

Barbossa is, if nothing else, a gentleman at heart. Again, this will likely be a dinner confession, though Hector isn’t nearly as anxious as Elizabeth might be. He’s been around a while, and he’s really only going to say anything if he’s fairly certain you’re interested. He also isn’t offended if you reject—he completely understands why someone wouldn’t want to be with him. He’s relaxed about the whole affair so you never have to feel nervous over any of it. If it turns out you are interested, he’s going to treat you with perfect curtesy and warm affection.

If you’re the first to say anything, Hector’s a bit smug. He might be slightly sheepish that you beat him to it, but overall, he’s happy to hear you say it. He’ll tease you over it in good humor, though he knows you can give as good as you get. He’s secretly happy to hear you say it because he’s insecure about his age. 

[kabukiaku]

WHERE MY POTC ENJOYERS AT!!!! I adore this series. I don't talk about it ironically but I FUCKING LOVE THESE MOVIES (the first three that is)

[yosb]

yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me!

[t-annuki]

Pirates of the shitpost

[imagopirateversion]

bringing the potc fandom back one meme at a time #11

[boltlightning]

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL july 9, 2003 — original script descriptions

[owenhcrper]

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD'S END - Costume design by Penny Rose

[piratesandjungles]

When you and your friends share a laugh before you kill each other.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2007)

[cupcakeshakesnake]

Another one

Original

[furiouskettle]

you can replace barbossa with just about anyone from the series tbh