time for some fannish blathering!

[melannen]

So, I came across permetaform's recent post on why she doesn't like Jack/Norrington fic in PotC. And her main point is that Jack, in the movie, represents freedom, and Norrington the opposite.

I don't see this at all. I know it's a big part of most J/N fic, and fanon for their characters, but man, if you go back to the source? It's the opposite. Captain Jack Sparrow is *married*, man. And he's whipped. He is an utter slave to that ship. Vhich would completely reduce his effectiveness as a pirate, since they depended on the flexibility of switching ships. And every part of his life that isn't completely bound to his Pearl has been sacrificed to maintaining his reputation. The only time we see Jack acting at all free is when he's lost hope, on the island with Elizabeth. And even then he's mostly just mooning over his ship.

Whereas Norrington is only bound by his personal sense of duty and honor. Which is not particularly strict nor conventional. He has the characteristic which is essential for freedom, and that is the ability to let go of things when they're no longer doing him any good. His hopes for Elizabeth, the Interceptor, his antipathy to Jack. He is, from the very beginning, willing to bend the rules, twist honor, risk propriety, let go of pride. . . he answers to no-one but his own conscience, and not always even that. Anyone who can't see pirate!Norrington can't see Norrington at all.

Thus, the only Jack/James fic I ever started (which was really more of a James/Black Pearl fic anyway) started like this:

Part One: What A Ship Needs

May that man die derided and accursed/ that will not follow where a woman leads.
-- Thomas Heywood, The Fair Maid of the West, Part I

"Rum, if you would, love," a familiar voice slurred, tossing something shiny toward Anamaria with a negligent flick of the wrist.

She caught it by reflex as she turned. "If it isn't Jack Sparrow," she said, raising her finger in synchrony with his and adding, "Captain Jack Sparrow," before he could say it. She spun through her fingers the glass trade bead he'd tossed her, the bead she'd last seen tied up below his trademark red scarf. "Run yourself into a spot of bad luck since I took my stake and bailed, have you, Sparrow?"

Jack shrugged, rolling with the motion. "I know how to counter luck."

Annamaria snorted. "The good sort of luck as well as the bad, I'd wager." She passed him his drink and he lay back against the rough wall, closed his eyes, and drank as if he'd been without for a year.

"It's been a while since the Pearl made berth in Tortuga," she added conversationally. A while indeed: A year and a half since he'd dropped off what crew wanted to go and sailed off with his true love once more into the horizon. She didn't ask what he'd been doing in the meantime: that, they both knew. Hiding and running. Running from 882 pieces of identical Aztec gold, and something else: something that could not be heard except by those who already knew what it offered: a seductive whisper of death and immortality..

Instead, she asked, "What brings you to port at last?"

"Ah, you know," he said, fluttering his free hand about. "The Pearl needs a bit of work, new sails and that."

"Jack," Anamaria said, crossing her arms, "This is Tortuga. The only thing that matters here is how much gold you've got. And you're down to spending your hair beads for rum. How exactly were you planning to pay for a refit?"

He jerked away from the wall and peered vacantly around the tavern. "Oh, I'm sure there's someone as will be willing to fix her up for me. The Pearl's the fastest ship in the Caribbean-- one good run, and we'll have the gold for it ten times over. Fix now, pay later, savvy?"

Annamaria spread her arms. "A very good plan," she said. "You're overlooking only one thing."

Jack twirled on his heel, the skirts of his coat flaring out, and turned to look at her again. "And that is?"

She stepped up and cupped his chin in her hand, the plaits running through her fingers. "You're Captain Jack Sparrow, love. Do you really think a single person on this island is going to be daft enough to give you anything on credit?"

"One person, surely, at the least."

Annamaria stepped back and laughed. "And for all that, there just might be one person who would. There's new faces in Tortuga since you've been gone, Jack. How much they know of the captain of the Pearl-- Ask after the Black Swan. If anyone's going to be daft enough to spot you the money, it's there."


The Black Swan. An auspicious name, Jack thought. Among other things, a traditional name for a pirate ship-- Captain Leech's ship, that had been, and a bonny girl indeed until they'd got on the wrong side of Sir Henry Morgan. Somehow he suspected this black swan wasn't a ship, although Anamaria had been characteristically terse and sent him off after only a few words. And, indeed, after several hostile and frightened brush-offs, and a marked lack of slaps that made him feel positively unwelcome, he eventually elicited directions to a residence in a once-prosperous part of town, halfway up the city, accompanied by the advice that he'd be mad to go there.

Nothing like encouraging words. By the time he'd reached the elegantly dilapidated two-story house on a silent street, it was nearly sundown, and the rest of Tortuga had begun to finally wake up for the night.

He raised his hand in preparation to knock and nearly tripped backwards off threshhold when the door was unexpectedly opened by a manservant. Despite his shabby clothes and carelessly groomed appearance, he had the superciliousness of the truly high-class. "What is your business here?" he asked in a hard voice, then looked Jack slowly up and down before adding an insolent "Sir."

Jack regained his balance and swept his hat off into an extravangent bow, ignoring the thrill of unease and-- recognition?-- that had run through him.. "If this is, indeed, the domicile of the Black Swan, as has been vouchsafed to me by the good residents of this city, then I am come to offer a proposition which involves rather a large amount of gold."

The man stared at him, then suddenly smirked, and quite graciously gestured him inside. "Up the stairs and to the left, Captain. The Lady will be with you shortly," he said, and strode away into the dusty recesses of the house.

The aforementioned room was lit by moonlight from a single high window overlooking the sea and the moon and a gaudy candelabra set on the table in the middle of the room. The walls were lined with dark, heavy chests and cabinets, and the table was also set with food: a silver tray of bread and cheese, wine bottles and jewelled goblets, and a bowl of the brightest red apples he'd ever seen. He pulled a carving-encrusted chair out from the table, put his feet up, and got comfortable. Lady, ey? Very interesting. Well, it had been Anamaria who'd given him the name . . .

He picked an apple and took a bite out of it, considering. The apple, despite its color, had no taste whatsoever and felt like chewing on a dry-rotted sponge; he put it down at the sound of the door opening.

It was, in fact, a woman; letting herself in, she'd unwisely turned her back to Jack in order to lock the door behind her, and all he saw at first was the straggles of her dirty blond hair and her dress, which might have been red velvet and high fashion several years and quite a lot of hard wear ago. And then she turned and sashayed across the room, and he saw who it was.

"Hmph," Jack muttered, letting his mouth run on and cover for him as usual. "Bloody girl thinks she's the only one around here who can sashay." And then, louder, "Miss Swann." He paused to take another bite out of his apple. It really was about the worst apple he'd ever tasted. "Or is it Mrs. Turner now?"

Her lips curved into a smile. "Captain Sparrow. So that was the Black Pearl who limped into port this morning. She looks almost as trim as the first time I saw her."

Jack winced, and sat up straight. "Well that would be why I'm here, I was told somebody in this house could offer loans for refitting honest ships, although I must say I wasn't expecting it to be you, didn't I leave you behind in Port Royal a few years ago?" He smiled winningly up at her.

"Yes you did," she said, coming over to the table and touching the top of the wine bottle. "You did indeed leave me behind." She sat down across from him, skirts rustling dryly, hand still on the wine. "A kindness I shall never forget, I promise you."

"So what would bring you to Tortuga, then, love?"

She looked aside and began filling a goblet with the wine. "Well, there didn't seem much to keep me there, after half the town fell into the sea with the earthquake and my father was killed and I lost my son to a miscarriage. And the new governor had a very few uses for a young lady who had made herself notorious for being familiar with pirates." She shoved the goblet across the table at him. "Do make yourself free with the food, I've no use for it."

He sipped at the wine. It was rather vile wine, too. Sour. "And what about your young Will, then? Was he not enough to keep you on Jamaica?" He saw the expression on her face then and shut his mouth, gazing up at the black cobwebby ceiling. "Ah, well, I did say I was rooting for that Commodore all along."

She continued as if he hadn't interrupted. "So I thought, well, I'm at a bit of a loose end, and I happen to know where there's an absolute mound of gold and treasure sitting on an island for the taking-- as I was fairly sure none of the others who knew about it had the spine to come for it-- and what do you know, I was right! Get a ship and a few trusty mates to help me gather the gold and carry it off, and I'm set for life. And good ol' Jack, of course, had turned up to show us the way to the island."

"Now wait a minute there," he said, raising a finger, "I don't actually recall having seen you in the interim. Although, there was that one week after we acquired that load of really green bananas--"

Elizabeth smiled. "Not you, Captain Sparrow," she purred, leaning over the tabletoward him and offering a wonderful view down the front of her dress. "They named the monkey Jack."

And then he realized why she'd bent forward so provocatively. Hanging from a chain between her breasts was the glitter of a medallion. A very familiar glitter. "You took the Aztec gold," he breathed.

She raised her eyebrows at him, stood up, and walked across the room, standing just beyond the light from the window. "There are times," she said, snapping her fingers, "when not being able to feel anything ever again seems a very attractive prospect." A rustle in the rafters resolved itself into a dark streak that landed in a slash of moonlight on the forearm she'd held up for it. A ragged, skeletal arm, and perched on it the tatters of Barbossa's damned monkey. It leapt to her shoulder, she moved away, and then she was just Elizabeth again.

"Very interesting story, that, isn't it?" She cocked her head. "And now you've come to ask me for a loan to make repairs on your boat." She sat down again, and handed the monkey the remains of Jack's apple; he gnawed on it greedily. "Unfortunately, Jack, I don't consider you a good credit risk. However," she raised a delicate finger, "For old times' sake, I'm willing to make you one offer."

Jack swung his boots back up on the table and picked up a hunk of the white bread. Ah, now, this was the way the tale was supposed to go. Captain Jack Sparrow's legendary luck pulls through again, when all seems lost. The premier financier in Tortuga turns out to be an old friend who still remembers him fondly. She would offer him what he needed at a very reasonable rate of interest; or, yes, an outright gift, from a spirit of fellowship and for favors done in the past.

"One offer, Jack," she said. "Do pay attention. It's take it, or leave it. I'll buy the Black Pearl from you, for a fair price, given her current condition-- we can negotiate the exact amount later-- you divide that money among your crew according to the ship's articles. I'll pay for a full refit, as owner, out of my own pocket, and--"

It had taken Jack that long to process the first part. "Elizabeth, love," he said.

"Swann," she corrected him harshly.

"--Swann," he said, "I b'lieve I misheard you. I almost thought you wanted me to sell the Black Pearl."

"Yes," Elizabeth said patiently. "Sell me the Pearl outright. With certain conditions, of course--"

"There are no conditions under which I give up my ship!"

"Do you mean that?" she asked, curious. "None at all?

"None," he said, then added almost plaintively, "I truly thought you understood me better than that."

She shrugged. "I thought I did, too. I thought she was important enough that you'd do what was necessary to give her what she needs. A keel and a hull and a deck and sails? Ten years' searching, Jack. But if you won't sell her, then that's that. I am sorry. I'll have James show you the door. Good luck in finding someone else in Tortuga who will pay to refit a cursed ship-- It would honestly pain me to have to watch her rotting away in the harbor." She held out a dirty white hand for him to shake.

He stood up. "She isn't cursed!"

Elizabeth raised one eyebrow. "I suggest you take a closer look at her current condition and reconsider that statement. And even if it's true, try finding anyone on this island who will believe that, after ten years with a captain so evil Hell spat him back out, then three years where you disappeared so effectively you might as well have gone back to Hell, for all we could tell. But if you won't sell, you won't sell. It's a shame, really."

"We only sailed around the Cape," Jack muttered, sulky. "S'not a crime." Then a sudden thought took him, and he looked up. "Besides, if they all think the Pearl is cursed, how'd you expect to find a captain for her if you bought her?"

She gave a snort of laughter. "I wasn't planning to find a captain. Really, Jack. I may be undead and quite insane, but I'm not daft enough to try to sail the Pearl under any master but Jack Sparrow. You'd still be captain, of course. As I'd have got around to mentioning, if you hadn't quite adorably panicked before I could outline the rest of my offer."

Jack slowly sat down. "What is this offer, then?"

She shrugged. "It's hardly worth going into, since you won't consider selling under any conditions."

"I might-- consider."

"Really." She tilted her head at him. "So you are a reasonable man, then. I'd wondered." She laid her hands flat on the table. "Very well. My offer: You sell me the ship, I pay for refit and provisioning. You as captain and any of your crew who'll stay on-- I'll provide my own first mate, of course, as is customary in these arrangements-- will carry out one errand for me, keeping any incidental plunder for yourselves. If this one errand is successful, I'll consider my investment repaid and sign the Pearl back over to you and your crew, no strings attached."

"That's all?" Jack asked, incredulous.

"Oh, and Jack and I'll be coming along ourselves, of course, to ensure that you don't make a complete bollix of things, as usual, so if some of your crew still have that silly predjudice about women aboard, you might have to do a bit of convincing."

"Women, we can deal with. Skeletal ladies with undead monkeys--" Jack paused, certain there was something else he was missing. Then he said, "If that's all you need, one errand, why don't you loan me the money and then hire the ship? More profit and less risk in it for you." He gave her a hopeful smile.

"Very simple, Jack." She smiled back, kindly, then moved away to rummage through one of the cabinets "I don't trust you. I don't trust you not to run off again as soon as the ship's repaired. I don't trust you not to creatively reinterpret any promises you make as soon as you're out of sight of land. You're a pirate, love. But one thing I'm quite sure you won't do is take a ship from her rightful owner, through treachery or mutiny. So I'm afraid it's still sell me the Pearl, or nothing."

He looked at her, crossed his arms, stared at the ceiling, sighed, ran his fingers through his beard, tapped his foot, glared at the monkey, fingered his remaining beads, shook his head, and said, "All right then."

"Was that a yes?" she asked sweetly, spinning to face him.

"Yes, damn you!" he said. "I haven't any other choice."

"Too late," she said, grinning. "I already am." She smoothed the paper she'd dug out of the trunk, and scribbled a few lines.

"But you'd best give me a good price," he added, unable to repress himself.

She raised an eyebrow, folding the note and sealing it with wax from the candle. "It won't be anything extravagant, I'm afraid. She's barely floating, Jack, it'll cost me a fortune to get her into good condition, especially if I pay for a rush job. But you can discuss the particulars with Anamaria; she's my main agent in town, she'll handle the details." She gave Jack the letter. "Go back to her tavern and give her this and she can get started right away."

Jack took it docilely, then said "--This first mate of yours-- The Pearl won't accept just anyone--"

"It won't be Anamaria, I'm afraid. She prefers staying closer to shore, as I'm sure you know, and being her own mistress. But I can assure you my man will be satisfactory. He's a bit rusty, but I vouchsafe you'll have no complaints on his seamanship."

"And this errand--"

"Jack," Elizabeth said, her voice a sword's edge, "Go. Now. Before I change my mind."

He traded stares with her for a second, the monkey echoing her from the table, then unilaterally declared victory, ducked his head and swept out. The monkey jumped back to her shoulder and hissed as he left.


until I inevitably lost the wind in my sails. . .

Of course, I also think Mulder is clearly the skeptic and Scully the open-minded believer, so hey.