melannen | More pirates!

Yeah, Jack doesn't really seem to do much plundering, does he? Lame, that.

I mean, he'd be great fun at parties, but working for him would be rather like waiting tables at a restaurant that never gets any customers but the one creepy old guy who comes in at the same time every day and leers at your arse.

The lack of plundering's a pretty big part of it, yes.

But also - he's crap at handling his crews, he keeps secrets from them (on a proper pirate ship that'd be against the articles and cause for him to lose the captaincy, all by itself!), he's way too fond of his ship, he doesn't stand by his own kind, he can't delegate, his reputation's not nearly bloodthirsty enough (which would make plundering difficult if he ever did try) ... need I go on? 'Cause I could. Gibbs' support as quartermaster's the only reason he could've kept the Pearl as long as he did this time.

But there was lots and lots of plundering offscreen! Between movies! Yes.

Who's the better Captain: Kirk or Sparrow? Discuss!

No there wasn't! The crew was *whining* about the complete lack of plunder!

Kirk! Kirk is totally Horatio Hornblower in Space!

(You can actually trace my fandom lineage there - tGBotG described Kirk as "Hornlower in Space", so I eventually got around to reading some Hornblower (which, by the way - so not Kirk. More like Spock, really.) (They have the supposedly very pretty Hornblower DVDs at the library here. We should spend all next weekend watching them. Yes.) Hornblower cast me in love with Age of Sail in general, and tall ships in particular, so that by the time I got around to watching PotC I was primed to go - "Sweeps! Tacking! Turn and rake them! SQUEEE!", which was a large factor in my falling for that fandom. (Then I got into Aubrey/Maturin; luckily the canon there is so dense that I'll be years finishing it.)

...Er, probably not what you were looking for. Still: Kirk. Definitely Kirk. He actually shows signs of leadership occasionally. And fulfulled his mission instead of dragging the crew along on personal quests all the time. Who's the better *man*? that's a tougher call.

(Heh, I just re-read one of the very first PotC fics ever (http://www.geocities.com/cpt_jacksparrow/firstwarning.html), and:

(“How in the hell did you ever command a crew?” Will had snarled once when he completely lost his temper, being ordered starboard and port and let this out and reef that and what do you mean you don’t know what reefing is? and all right then just–-just stay out of the way because you’re making everything worse, there’s a good lad.

Sparrow stared at him a moment, then tapped the side of his head, favored him with a golden grin, and said, “your dad, mostly,” --and then, whistling, jumped off the foredeck, sauntered into his cabin and let a rather stunned Will finish lashing up a flapping sail in relative peace.)

My sentiments exactly.)

I've been thinking about reading Aubrey/Maturin, actually! Hmmm. That would mean I'd have to get off the computer, though.

It's not Jack's fault that he got the Pearl back just as his 13 years were coming due!

Well, Kirk and Jack both regularly flaunt the rules of the supposed structure in which they sail (Kirk by ignoring Starfleet on a whim, Jack by ignoring his crew on a whim, but ...) That they've succeeded for so long seems to rest mostly on charisma, and the trust and affection of their crews. They trade mostly on their ability to fast-talk, their pretty face, and their reputation ... ah, it's after midnight and I literally just now starting thinking about this, so I'll save any more thinking about it for later. d-: (And they're both completely obsessed not only with their ships, but what their ships represent!)

oh, boy, another fic!

I've collected the first six! You're welcome to borrow! They're an .. experience, though. Denser than Tolkien, the language really takes some getting used to, and even when I was really into it it took me a week or so to get through one of them.

He could've spent some of that ten years trying to get his soul out of hock! Or at least ammassing treasure so he'd have something to pay a crew with while he was off doing other stuff! But nooo, Jack's completely obsessed with his ship. (I've been trying desperately to come up with a way for Jack to get a talking-to from Charles Gunn, about 'things it's worth it to sell your soul for,' but I haven't found one yet.)

Kirk only ignores Starfleet when it's for Starfleet's own good. *And* he doesn't put the crew at risk in the process without giving them a choice to opt out. Jack only ignores his crew when it's for Jack's own good, and he keeps secrets the whole time. Yeah, I can pick which one's the better leader. (However, I have to admit that I've been known to compare Sparrow and O'Neill's leadership style on occasion. I call it 'Follow the crazy man. All the other choices are worse.')

I might borrow, at least the first. I really, really need to get off the internet and back to paper-reading for awhile, but the siren call is strong....

Make me leave the laptop in Leesburg this weekend. Please. And tell me I can't go back and look at all the newsletters I've missed on Sunday night. Well, maybe only the Pirates ones. And the Stargate one. And the Star Wars one. And ... oh, dammit. d-:

How is it in Starfleet's own good to corrupt his former command staff into hijacking the Enterprise and rescuing the Federation's second-biggest headache from the jaws of fiery death and saving the whales, exactly? ;D And there, Kirk was definitely motivated by the chance to captain the Enterprise again, along with the whole Spock thing.

Gunn can go back in time, and not be able to find his way back again, and wind up spending months in a Tortuga bar before Fred figures out how to get him back. Yep.

You're welcome to. (The first one is probably the boringest of the ones I've read. Except possibly the second.) All my paper-reading lately has been about pirates, so.

Leave the laptop in Leesburg! I need to spend the weekend getting my laptop working, myself.

Saving the whales *saved the Earth*! I think that was for their own good. And he may have corrupted the command staff, but he didn't haul his entire crew along on the mutiny without giving them a choice. *And* he wasn't a Starfleet captain at the time, so there, so it doesn't count. q-:

Did you read all six? It does get better, yes?

(But then, I voluntarily started reading Sense and Sensibility last night, and it'd be hard to come up with something denser than the first few chapters of that ...)

Let's see - I've read the first one, half of the second before I got distracted and the library book was due, and the fifth and sixth (and the seventh, out of the library, which finished that sequence). I liked the fifth and sixth a lot more. It might be because they're getting better, or because they were the first ones I bought (and therefore the first ones I read) or it might be because they had some of my favorite historical stuff and settings (1812 Boston! The Constellation and sisters repeatedly *kicking their butts*!), and fun female characters, unlike the first two, which were rather claustrophobically British Navy focused, at least as far as I recall.

I haven't read the others; bought them at the Loudoun book sale, and haven't gotten around to such a project yet. (I also have the first three Hornblower books. Have read all of them. They're fun.) I still haven't read Sense & Sensibility - at least I don't think I have. I thought I'd read all of hers except Emma, but somehow I seem to have missed S&S (And Northhanger Abbey, which I really ought to get to.) Read Persuasion! It has lots of Navy in it!

Okay, according to LT the second was "A tribute to Jane Austen, set mostly int the drawing-rooms of England". That might be why it sucked, PO'B is no Jane Austen. Maybe I should skip to three and get my ships back. (Then again, #4 is supposedly about "Middle management and the tedium of blockade duty" so maybe not.)

Well, I was at Borders last night buying baby shower presents, and there was an Austin omnibus on the cheap table, which I had to buy since the one "we" have is technically "yours." d-: It only has S&S, P&P, Persuason, and Emma - but I suppose I can return "our" paperback P&P to Mom's house now. d-: And S&S is the first in the book, hence why I started that one.

Have still not read any Hornblower, despite buying one (probably one that you've co-opted) back in the tail end of my last Kirk-obsession phase. d-:

Oh, that's where that one came from! I found it laying around the computer room and couldn't figure out why it was there.

Maybe - it was about 5 years ago or so, cheap outside that bookstore by Chipotle in College Park.

Sisko!

Sisko wasn't a Captain! At least not for the part of the show I watched. If you can call Sisko I can call Jack O'Neill.

He was given a full captaincy in the third season AND his very own warship in addition to the space station. Plus, dude's the Emissary of an entire planet and single-handedly turned the tide of an interstellar war that the Rihannsu, Klingons, and Feds were losing just by convincing the Prophets to tell the Dominion to fuck off.

Sisko > Everybody :D

Did I really quit watching way back in Season Three? Huh.

It's not really Star Trek if there's an actual interstellar conflict. The Federation exists in a perpetual state of cold war, with nothing but occasional quick flare-ups soon doused by the Enterprise. I refuse to admit that this ever changed!

The last two seasons of DS9 was one long war and some of the best Trek ever written. You should really watch it and the three seasons leading up to it. The first two seasons that I assume you saw were more in the vein of TNG but it really became its own series right after you quit watching.

I'll concede that it might've been good, but it wasn't Star Trek! That's why I stopped watching then: before the war and the Defiant, it had been just different enough to be new and good; after, it wasn't Star Trek any more. I think the Defiant was the last straw for me, because a starship with no purpose but war would *never* have been commissioned by the Starfleet I knew and loved.

(Also, I've never really been able to get into TV shows that are one long grinding storyline over season after season. Couldn't enjoy B5 or new-BSG either. So okay, might've been the best thing ever; I still have no desire to watch it.)

I disagree with you and believe Deep Space Nine is much more like Star Trek in tone than The Next Generation and Voyager were. The preachy and contemptuous morality of the latter two really grated on me whereas TOS and DS9 admitted they still had room for improvement. One of my most favorite lines of all 700+ hours of the franchise is when Sisko says:

"On Earth, there is no poverty, no crime, no war. You look out the window of Starfleet Headquarters and you see Paradise. Well, it's easy to be a saint in Paradise, but the Maquis do not live in Paradise. Out there in the demilitarized zone, all the problems haven't been solved yet. Out there, there are no saints — just people. Angry, scared, determined people who are going to do whatever it takes to survive, whether it meets with Federation approval or not!"

Wow, fascinating results so far!

It might be interesting to correlate the results by those who have and have not consumed a steady diet of meta for the past month. d-:

You think *Norrington* gets the Pearl? Really? Why?

I kind of think the Lettres of Marque are played out - they started in Beckett's office, and they're back in Beckett's office. Norrington's got his, presumably, and the person they were originally intended for (Jack) seems patentedly uninterested. I predict they'll only be mentioned in passing, and probably only by (or in reference to) James and/or Cutler and/or Weatherby.

I have seen a spoiler/speculation that (highlight) (spoilers are nummy with milk and bananas!)

Tia Dalma as Davy's ex just strikes me as all wrong. I doubt she was *ever* the sort to appreciate or encourage sappy love proclamations and dramatics. (Biggest drama king EVAR.) Unless she tricked him into falling in love with her with glamors and false words, or molded his ideal woman out of mud and pulled the strings from afar, which I guess is possible. But I really see his lost love as something far simpler, like a milkmaid from Kent who died of consumption or left him for a blacksmith.

It would! I'm also interested by the way what people want to happen and what they think will happen seems to coincide!

Mostly because I want him to. :) Also, Elizabeth + the Pearl to the same person would be rather an embarrasment of riches. Also, Jack totally doesn't deserve that ship, and I think she knows it. (I would also be okay with her eloping with Barbossa, though. 10 years they were together, and then her master's murdered and she's abducted by scurvy pirates. *sniff*) ... um. The reason I think it'll happen, really? Norrington won the heart, and the heart is the key to the Black Pearl. And through him's the only way they'll be getting her back, and he's the only one of the lot who'd be able and willing to take her away from Jack, too. And I don't see a happy ending where Jack has Lizzie *and* his ship, I just don't see it; and they're pusing the Jack/Liz so hard, and his character arc this movie was about him getting *less* obsessed with the ship ... maybe they'll pull a RotJ and blow it up at the end of the third movie (And not chicken out this time!). Watch out for Jack saying "Not a scratch on her!"

Yeah, I never bought Tia as Davy's heartbreak, especially with all the frillery in the chest - so not her. They could do it, but it'd take a *lot* iof work to make me believe it, and there's already a lot going on in that movie. But it seems to be a prevailing opinion. I only just heard the theory where's she Jack's mum today, and I like that one slightly better, though it scares me a little. Intresting that everyone's willing to see her as the Sea but not as Davy's girl, though.

Where are you getting all of these spoilers? They're completely insane!

Indeed! Funny how that happens.

Hmm, I think I have perhaps been reading too much fic, because "retrieve Jack and the Pearl from the end of the world" has not been necessarily correlated in my mind with "bribe Davy Jones to bring them back." I see the heart as the key to rescuing Bootstrap, maybe, but not necessarily the Pearl. Hmm. I will have to think about that more.

I don't see Jack/Elizabeth/Pearl as too much of a stretch: after all, it's what Elizabeth has always wanted and what Jack has always wanted, and if they don't go for the Prince Charming Will/Elizabeth ending, I think they will at least end it as happily as possible for all concerned. I think we can probably agree that Disney does not give a whit about realistically letting the "best pirate" win. ;D

Though I wouldn't be terribly surprised if Norrington died, actually.

The Pearl won't go down for good. She's been lost too many times already, it's old hat. I swear she's getting as bad as Daniel!

Really though, I didn't see any diminished Jack/Pearl love in DMC. Maybe a bit of willingness on Jack's part to care about *people*, too, and bit of Elizabeth's practicality rubbing off to prioritize the people above something that is, after all, just wood. But then, there's a parallel with the hat here, too: when he began to put saving his own life before appreciating the Pearl (he *grounded* her!) is the same time that he lost his hat and began to fall apart at the seams, and in the end when his life and the Pearl's became once again irrevocably entwined, he was finally free again to be Captain Jack Sparrow. (I'm in the camp that thinks he was ready to go down with her anyway, Lizzie!bondage!kiss or no.) I don't think Jack's Jack without the Pearl, or the righteous belief that he *deserves* the Pearl - and denying him that at the end would take away part of who he is. I know they've said that (highlight)

Where do you think Jack could stand to end up, if not either with the Pearl or dead?

Heh! That little tidbit came from somewhere in the comments to one of the posts I linked in

seigeofangels' journal. I take it you don't buy it?

Ok, *why* did it not put a slash through that name? I meant

siegeofangels, of course. I before E! *facepalm*

Well, I don't know that they'd need Davy to get Jack back: Jack's at world's end, not in the Locker. But surely they'd need to deal with him to get the Pearl back - the Kraken has her - one way or another!

Yeah, I can see Norrington dying. I would make me sad, but it could happen.

Jack/Pearl/Elizabeth seems unlikely to me because since the start of the series there've been two prizes to be won: Elizabeth and the Pearl. And if Jakc gets them both and leaves everybody else just staring after them bereft - that would not be a satisfactory ending to me. I *like* Will. (Now, J/W/E/P, that I could see!)

I think Jack needs to let the Pearl *go*. I've thought that since the first movie, but even so. He'll end up as bad as Davy Jones, or worse, if he doesn't get over his codependency. He needs to be able to connect to people, and he won't be as long as the Pearl's there. He survived ten years without her, and as far as we know they were *good* years. Anyway. Yeah. Jack/Pearl is my Anti-ship. They're just so completely unhealthy together. (Not that Jack/Elizabeth is any healthier really. But Elizabeth and Jack bring out the worst in each other, and at least for as long as it lasted, there'd be no illusions between them.)

I don't buy it because Will's smarter than that! Even at his dumbest he'd know better than to ever make that sort of deal, no matter what the supposed payoff. (And he's the one who is able to remain more-or-less rational even in times of extreme angst.) I can see him maybe doing something similar, honorably volunteering for a job that needs doing, sailing off to become a Jedi Knight! Preferably in the Pearl. (I'd be okay with WIll getting the Pearl and Norrington the Letters. The Pearl and Will get on right well.)

But if they do make Will go all Chosen One on us, they'd better freaking remember that he's a blacksmith! Because that's *important*; ironworkers have their own magics. (In Baron Munchausen there was a scene where the piratical rogue seduced Aphrodite away from Hephaestus, and I was sitting there going: OMG Jack/Elizabeth/Will! I may have mentioned that do you already. Blacksmith! Cold iron!)

Well, I don't know that they'd need Davy to get Jack back: Jack's at world's end, not in the Locker. But surely they'd need to deal with him to get the Pearl back - the Kraken has her - one way or another!

But-but Jack and the Pearl went together! Either they're both at World's End or they're both in the Kraken's gullet! As you noticed, the Pearl didn't *break*, she just ... went under. I'm expecting they'll find both Jack and the Pearl at World's End ...?

ince the start of the series there've been two prizes to be won: Elizabeth and the Pearl

.... I think a major theme of at least the second movie is "Elizabeth is not a prize." And I almost half hope she ends up with nobody.

J/W/E/P I can see, but not from Disney. d-:

I kind of agree about the codependency, but I'm having trouble coming up with an ending that leaves Jack both happy and Pearl-less. For starters, I don't think he'd be happy without the sea, and for that he needs a ship, and better the Pearl than one he doesn't know, eh? I mean, Jack trying to start a relationship with another ship, *especially* if he lost her not the seafloor but to another man .. it'd be even more unhealthy than with the Pearl, because he'd end up pouring all that angst into the new girl!

I don't take issue with men and their ships, because a ship is freedom and life, and if you don't treat her right she may not protect you, y'know? 'Course, the only ship 'ship I can think of that managed to coexist with a girl is Han/Falcon .. in which the Falcon is "home" to the Organa-Solos so much more so than any Coruscant apartment. (Jack Sparrow, diplomat, married to the Leader of the New Caribbean Republic? Scarily enough, I can see it, as long as he gets to go down to the docks and tinker with his Pearl and take her out to Tortuga for a bit of carousing whenever he wants, and bring Lizzie along and have adventures whenever she starts to go insane from all the diplomacy. And they could have twins, and hide them from the evil Spanish Empire on the unplottable Isla del Muerta with their nanny Pintel, and Will can start a school for ~~pirates~~privateers among the, um, Mayan ruins, and .... hokay, stopping now.) So I don't see J/E working without the /P, just as Han/Leia wouldn't be so awesome without the /Falcon, and no one's going to capture Jim Kirk's heart if they can't stomach a little /Enterprise on the side .. and anyway, from the beginning it's been Jack/Elizabeth/Freedom, and Freedom=Pearl, so.

Will + Forge = Love. Agreed, there needs to be some addressing of this in movie 3. (Difficult to be a blacksmith *and* a Dread Pirate, though! Unless he can hook himself up with whatever wizard designed Davy's organ.)

(You should pimp this, so more people will come vote!)

Um, I hate to break this to you, dear, but Jack is a human being (more or less) and the Pearl is a ship. Just because they went down together doesn't mean they went to the same place. Hence, presumably, Jack is *dead*, and they'll need to bring him back from the dead. The Pearl is just sunk. She's been sunk before. (Granted, there are other possibilities, but that's the simplest.)

And of course you're right: I've felt terrible feminist guilt every time I refer to Elizabeth as something to be won. But based on internal story logic, she *is*. I don't know if I agree that the second movie refuted that: her whole thing with Jack about how he'll do the right thing so that he can get the "accolades" that come with it only establishes that she's a prize who'll choose her own winner - not necessarily that she's not something to be won. An ending where she *isn't* a prize would be awesome, though, and I can see how the second movie might have set that up some more. (Awesomest would be an ending where they all go be pirates together and it's deliberately ambiguous as to whether she chose nobody, or she chose them both. Have your W/E/J and eat it too!)

But the F/H/L relationship is very much one in which Han chose Leia over the Falcon, and the ship is at best the other woman. That choice happens in RotJ when he takes his generalship and give the Falcon into Lando's care. (Which ... come to think of it, might have a *lot* to do with my imagined happy ending in which J/E are together and Barbossa and/or Norrington has the Pearl. q-: ) And it's significant that in the original cut of the film, the Falcon didn't survive. Han/Leia works because Han doesn't need the Falcon any more.

The Black Pearl, on the other hand, will be NOBODY's "other woman". (I can see an ending where Elizabeth is the Other Woman - there've been some nifty fics on that theme - but it's not a *happy* ending.)

But I don't know that the Pearl has ever really been freedom to Elizabeth. She's Jack's freedom, in a way, but Jack already has freedom: his narrative isn't about becoming free, it's about how there's other things than freedom. And how in hoarding freedom above all, you become less free (hence the bargain of servitude in return for the Pearl.) Elizabeth's freedom has never really been linked to the Black Pearl. To Jack, maybe, but not to the Pearl, and maybe to Will. Jack/Elizabeth is much more complicated than Jack/Elizabeth/Freedom because Jack's freedom doesn't have room for anybody but his ship. (Actually, one thing I noticed about DMC - and one of the reasons I still like it less - is that freedom as a theme is so very much less present.)

Smithing is a very valuable skill among pirates! Being able to repair your ship's metalware and weaponry without having to come into port would, for many pirate ships, be the very last step needed for *total* independence - everything else they can do themselves, get from desert islands, or take from plunder. A volunteer smith would get near a captain's share of booty on most vessels!

(I'm planning to pimp all three of these polls along with my fic, if I ever get any of the fic finished. Maybe after all the papers are in.)

But the Pearl has a soul! She could go to World's End, too! Besides, when Tia Dalma starts them off on the quest, it's for "Jack and his precious Pearl." It never even crossed my mind that they might not stick together.

I didn't really see that as her offering herself to Jack if he bes a good boy. I mean, I guess that's what she ended up doing, really, but to continue the Star Wars analogies, I took it in the same spirit as Luke's "she's rich .. more wealth than you could possibly imagine" whispered in Han's ear to get him to rescue the Princess. Granted it's Elizabeth doing the offering, not Luke, and she is rather coming on to him, but .. I saw Jack's doing good and Elizabeth's wanting to kiss him as not entirely contingent one on the other. I mean, Elizabeth might only want him if he does turn out to be a good man, but I don't think she meant to be offering herself as the reward, and I don't think he ought to've taken it that way. It would bode as badly as her offering to marry Norrington for saving Will! Anyway.

An ending where they all go be platonic pirates together would be cool .. but it would be emotionally difficult to resolve the story that way, I think. Somehow they'd have to get it to the point where the tension is just gone between the three of them, and .... yeah. It would be awesome, but it would be hard, and probably a temporary balance, and it would spawn lots and lots of really painfully angsty J/E and W/E (and J/W!) fic (and some fluffy interesting J/W/E fic! but still).

Ok, I see your point. But. Han didn't lose the Falcon! If she'd been blown up with the Death Star, fine. But she wasn't. And there was no way he'd be willing to turn her over to Lando *permanently* - I can't even imagine that. Han would be all "Hell no!" Anyway. I can see Jack not "needing" the Pearl in the sense that he wouldn't fall to pieces if she never returned from the depths, but not to the extent of allowing another man to captain her in anything other than an explicitly temporary capacity. And I *can* see the Pearl playing "other woman" to Elizabeth, in much the same way as Leia, if we see similar changes in Jack's character to Han's growth in ROTJ - I wouldn't surprised if the capacity to allow that was one of the changes in Jack that we'll see in the next movie. Being ~~frozen in carbonite~~dead seems to grant a degree of perspective ...

Hmm, very interesting about freedom. I think you may be right. I was thinking almost entirely of the toast scene from cotbp, but taking everything together... yeah, hmm.

Can you have a decent forge on a ship? A ship the size of the Pearl? I would tend to think it would be a bad idea. All that fire, and heavy anvils and iron ore, and the rolling waves and wooden ship .. generally unmixy things, no? Hence my comment about Davy's organ. And if you have your forge as home base at some port, you've tied yourself down, which would seem to be a very bad idea for a pirate ...

As much as we like to play that she has a soul, that's never been outright stated, or even directly implied, in either of the movies. q-: And it's not a *human* soul, anyway, I'm sure. Besides, as everyone was so quick to point out: the Kraken pulled her down intact! She didn't actually die! The only way she & Jack would be together is if Jack's not at all dead either.

Besides, that they're differently alive and don't get to go to the afterlife together is one of the recurring motifs of sea tragedies. It's *why* it's worth it for Jack to trade his afterlife for his ship - because he knows they can't be together in the afterlife anyway.

Jack's being good is not contingent on Elizabeth *wanting* to kiss him, no. On Elizabeth *actually* kissing him, though - that's exactly the way it was presented, and the way it happened, and the way she meant him to take it. She definitely set herself up as a reward to be earned, the same way she was a treasure to be stolen in the first movie. (Of course, it didn't work out as quite an unmixed blessing, but that's how things go in these movies.)

I think an ending where she doesn't go with either of them would be cool, and quite possible, and that breaking the tension could very well be done. Actually, I think as of the last scene her, the tension between her and Will was all but broken anyway - they still clearly love each other, but I think neither of them still quite believes in, or really wants, the fairy-tale wedding and wedding night; they've lost that innocence and want other things more. And J/E - I can see an ending where J comes back and they're all over each other, but I can also see an ending where Elizabeth works past her guilt and the UST goes with it, and where the symbolism of kissing Elizabeth = shackles is no longer lost on Jack. I can also see an ending where Will and Elizabeth realize they need Jack in their lives in order to be themselves enough to love each other, and where Jack loves them both but realizes he needs each of them as a buffer against the full force of the other. It could, in fact, even be the same ending.

Mmmm. "Platonic Pirates". That ought to be a band name or something. :D Did you know that authentic Platonic love is all about perpetual UST as a foundation for friendship? That would so work for those three, too.

But she was *going* to be, and so they structured the rest of the story in such a way that she wasn't necessary for Han's happy ending. (And I sort of wish she had been, except that I want Lando to live.) And I can see Jack letting the Pearl be the other woman, but she has far more of an independent spirit than the Falcon ever did, and *she* wouldn't put up with it - she'd get herself commandeered at the first opportunity. And Jack might even let her, if he trusts the man in question, and he's grown enough to stop putting her first. And let's stop talking about Star Wars or the crossover ideas will never go away.

You can have a decent forge on a ship - not a big fancy one, probably, not big enough for say making cannon-balls probably, but enough for small day-to-day repairs and probably even things like swordsmithing. Some ships had them. It's not like there wasn't already lots of fire and lots of heavy iron on board a ship - it might've been wooden and tossing, but it was also pretty wet most of the time, and the danger of fire was probably not much greater than in a house on land. (Blackbeard used to go around with lit matches in his hair! And you thought Jack's hair was silly.) And actually, there were plenty of 'Pirate Kings' who had permanent or semi-permanent bases on land - Madagascar was a pirate republic for about sixty years, and there were plenty of small islands all over the Americas that were the same. You weren't tied down as long as you still gave your loyalty to the Brethren rather than some other law ... Will has pirate in his blood, after all, but nobody ever said he had the sea in his blood.

Also, I don't think Tia Dalma's very old. Certainly not older than Jack. If she's the embodiment of the sea, it's because she welcomed the sea into her with her magic. It could have been a *previous* incarnation of the sea that fell in love with Davy, I guess, one less overtly tricksy (because I think Davy's been doing what he's doing for many, many, many centuries).

Like Dax and Jadzia! (My goodness, what is *up* with my Star Trek parallels tonight??) Ok, Selmak and Jacob. .. Dang. I can't believe I haven't caught that ST/SG parallel before now. Anyway ...

But if she's the embodiment of the sea, why live deep in the bayou and not along the shore? Hrm.

(Are we going camping this weekend?)

It's hard to tell how old Tia Dalma is; I could see her as Jack's mum if she was only 13 or so when he was born (not unreasonable given that she'd've been a slave and the dad white, almost certainly) and Jack's at the younger end of his possible age range. And she's a sorceress, at least! She could be as old as the islands! He wouldn't necessarily *know* she was his mum, but *she* would.

And Davy, it's really hard to place him. It would be nifty if it turned out Davy was actually Jason of the Argonauts or something. Heh. But the Flying Dutchman only dates back to the mid 17th century at the earliest, and Davy himself was first mentioned in 1751, and certainly the chest and contents didn't look that old. Even if they're both immortal, though, it's hard to see how a Welshman or a Dutchman or whatever Davy is would've gotten entangled with a black/maroon woman any earlier than about 1600.

There was a fic with Tok'Ra and Trill in it - oh yeah, here (http://www.suberic.net/multiverse/thereandbackagain.html). (Darn it, I *was* going to resist the temptation to read this year's Multiverse stories.)

The sea-goddess in the Creole traditions belongs to the rivers as much as the sea, so it'd be perfectly appropriate for her to live in the tidal bayou where they mix together, an in-between place. Especially if she has history with Davy and she's trying to give hime space.

(No. Didn't Mom ever call you? We're gong the weekend after, if we go at all. Howver, our Tennesee cousins will be visiting, and the baby shower on Sunday's still on.)

You've seen the spoiler about his dad, right?

.. well, maybe. I'll have to watch his face the next time I see it, as he's going into the hut, but I really didn't get the impression that "before" his intentions were at all filial. d; Her reactions toward him are certainly interesting, and kind of motherly, though, and she basically completely passed him over for Will ... hmm.

But really now. Why do we have to make everyone related to everyone else? Hmm? Can't they all just be friends, and stuff? d-:

Surely the POTC-verse Davy has been around longer than that! Even if the current Davy isn't too old, surely there was someone before him who controlled the sea and captained the Dutchman. That ship definitely looked like it'd been barnacle fodder for well over fiftyish years, and if the minimum time to serve is 100 years .... and the becoming-fishface seems a gradual thing, too. It took Bill ten years to grow one lousy starfish; how long do you think it took Davy to grow a squidface and a claw? Unless it came on all sudden-like with the captaincy, hmm.

The in-between makes sense, especially if my idea about her taking the sea into herself is correct, and the part of her that's Tia has ties further inland.

(No. But I suppose it's possible my phone has been accidentally off all weekend. Oh well. I'll check messages tomorrow.)

Yeah, Mom says check your voicemail.

I've heard that his dad's going to show up eventually and be Keith Richards; that rumor's been around for years. I really hope it's not going to be much more than that; don't tell me if it is.

Well, like I said: Jack wouldn't necessarily know. (That's one reason I've been less than curious about the Jack's Dad rumors: I've always believed that he knew who one of his parents was, at most.)

YOu'd think Davy was older, wouldn't you? It's certainly implied. But the Dutchman was never Davy's ship anyway, not until this movie. And it only took the Pearl ten years to get like she was. And Bill grew his starfish over the course of the movie: he didn't have it in his first few scenes. So it can happen fast. And honestly? The heart wasn't all that hard to find. You'd think somebody else would've got him by now. And its accoutrements were a couple centuries out of date at most. (Hmm, you know what would be really cool? If the Pearl was Davy's original ship! There's something special going on with her and him, anyway. Maybe *she's* he ex, as changeable as the sea!)

Well, if they keep up the african/creole stuff with Tia that they started, it wouldn't so much be taking the sea into herself as letting the Goddess become her. Which sort of boils down to the same thing, I guess, only a bit more personal.

K. Tomorrow.

That's all I've heard, really. And I kind of would rather Jack's origins remain completely hazy. But whatever.

But the Dutchman was never Davy's ship anyway, not until this movie.

That's why we can't trust the actual legends to tell us anything at all about Davy's age. d-:

Bill DID have his starfish in his first scene, on board the Pearl. I was specifically watching the last time, and it was definitely there. Someone on LJ seems to have got the impression that it wasn't, and the idea has spread, but no. It was definitely there. He *did* have something else sprout on his *cheek* during the movie, but its species is as yet unidentifiable.

Did the Pearl get like that over 10 years, or did it get like that when the curse happened? Because the ship was definitely cursed, too. Otherwise it definitely couldn't have moved, not with those ragged sails. Ragged sails which were just as ragged in Elizabeth's flashback as during the movie proper, by the way.

And the Pearl's disintegration was superficial, anyway. You and I could probably do that to a ship in one afternoon. The Dutchman was sodden with centuries of growth and mold and algae and barnacles on its barnacles.

Same thing. However you phrase it, it's thoroughly personal.

Why is it so laaaaaaate. Bedtime.

But we ought to be able to trust the props and costumes! At least a little!

I hadn't seen anything about the starfish online; I was specifically looking for it too, and it wasn't there! :P The other things the sprouted were barnacles, weren't they?

I've no idea how the Pearl got that way, but the Dutchman shouldn't've been able to move, either. And you'd be suprised how fast a ship could und up looking like her: ships becalmed in the Sargasso Sea could get nearly that bad just a month or so, so befouled they couldn't move, at least below the water - and the Dutchman submerges, so. And Bill brought the encrustations onto the Pearl with him - when he disappeared the hold was suddenly shipshape again - so they can appear right quick. (The ragged sails would have made much less difference than the seaweed growing all over. Befoulment greatly increases drag and weight. Ragged sail just slightly reduce acceleration - most of the sail surface was still intact, and with a good wind, ships could make fair time with just one sail up. Highly maneuverable and fasted ship in the Caribee, no; but she wouldn't've been crippled the way the Dutchman should've been.

(I wouldn't be suprised if Jack beached the Pearl at least in part so he could check and make sure the barnacles and shipworm weren't really as bad as Bill made it look. Because that sinks a ship faster than any cannonfire.)

(I wouldn't be suprised if Jack beached the Pearl at least in part so he could check and make sure the barnacles and shipworm weren't really as bad as Bill made it look. Because that sinks a ship faster than any cannonfire.)

Okay, that's a neat thought; I was looking at the characters and am sort of not the most observant moviegoer, and didn't really notice that Bill had an aura of Sea Crud that affected the ship as well.

On Tia Dalma/Davy Jones/personifications of the sea:

Somewhat randomly, I've seen a lot more people thinking Dalma/Davy (or, I suppose, Davy-->Dalma) than are showing up on your poll. It seems reasonable enough to me, although I'm not particularly wedded to the idea or anything. (I simultaneously think it's likely that she's a sea-personification, whether this is an innate or acquired trait, that she's been sleeping with Barbossa though she'd probably scoff at any attempt to insist on exclusivity, that she may have slept with Jack at some point and knows where to poke him to make him jump in more than one way, and that she wouldn't mind it with Will. I wouldn't call any of them definite -- heck, she could be a virgin for all I know -- but the impression I got was for some reason that she's had as many lovers as Jack but none of hers would have the nerve to try hitting her.)

I am not sure Tia Dalma's unlikeliness to tolerate his frills, sappiness, or drama really gets in the way of her being the woman Davy Jones fell in love with; the point, after all, was that the woman in question didn't want him. ("Go away, you drippy nitwit." "WOE! I will go carve out my internal organs!" "You do that.")

I also assumed she was quite possibly ageless/unaging, or at least older than she looks. I'm not really sure where I got that either, but it was at least an assumption I didn't stop to question when I was first encountering the theory that Davy had fallen for her.

Davy Jones specifically says "I am the sea!" at one point. This is not true; at least, he is not all of it -- heck, at the time he's frustrated in a way that would be decidedly unlikely if he had full control -- but I wonder if there's maybe some struggle between aspects of the sea going on.

I was wondering about it after the first time I saw the movie - when Jack goes down to get his rum, he seems surprised at the barnacles and such all over, and it seemed unlikely even for the Pearl to let her rum supply get in such bad shape. So I watched more carefully the next time, and it did all go away when Bill did.

I've seen a lot of people thinking Dalma/Davy too (but then, not a lot of people have filled in my poll!) It seems to be the dominant theory now, just not on my flist.

I can see Tia saying "You do that!" - maybe - but I don't know if it would jive with the way she told the story. I mean, she's "changing as the sea" which implies that at least for a while she encouraged him. And I still have trouble wrapping my head around a 17th century or earlier European man trying that kind of conventional romance on an African woman. I suppose it *would* be very nifty if they went there (And I suppose there's the possibility that Davy's also African!)

Davy also accepts the assertion that he is the Devil Himself. I think Davy's mostly just a drama queen. But it would be neat if Davy and Tia were both the sea - there is a kind of a tension between classical Mediterranean personifications of the sea as male and Northern and Southern versions that generally make her female.

I mean, she's "changing as the sea" which implies that at least for a while she encouraged him

Aah... I can see where you're getting that, now; I'd thought of it as more of a general thing.

And I still have trouble wrapping my head around a 17th century or earlier European man trying that kind of conventional romance on an African woman. I suppose it *would* be very nifty if they went there (And I suppose there's the possibility that Davy's also African!)

I'm not entirely sure whether I think Davy was ever human, as opposed to some sort of squiddish sea-godling, although I suppose languishing over a human woman is kind of weird. He may have been surprised she had the power to reject him (and live through it...), especially if there's any similarity between his romancing and recruiting practices. The comment-thread here was actually the first time it occurred to me that this Davy, like his sailors, might have been transformed into a sea creature-meld instead of starting out that way.

Davy also accepts the assertion that he is the Devil Himself. I think Davy's mostly just a drama queen.

Well, yeah. *g* But it seems like the sort of thing that ought to be included, for completeness's sake if nothing else, in the discussion of whether he fell in love with the sea or a woman or a woman who might be the sea, and general personification... stuff.

Well, if she was Davy's girlfriends, I assume she was talking about herself it that bit. If she *wasn't*, I assume she has no clue what she was talking about.

And see, this is the first time it's ever occured to me that maybe Davy was *never* human. Just goes to show, I guess. Now I'll have to spend some time thinking about that one!

If Tia Dalma took the sea into herself, or let the (sea-?) Goddess become her (I'm not up on the relevant system, so I'm just stealing your phrasing and probably taking it nonsensical places), could the goddess in question be Davy's lover? If, you know, Davy was a squid-god. Or, well, some other type of sea manifestation. *waves vaguely*

Well, we'll just have to go see it again this weekend and settle this starfish question for once and evar!!1!!

You're insane. And also obsessed. I'm not going again till it shows up at Jumpers. q-: (I take it you'll be here this weekend?

Seems so. I haven't talked to Mom yet, but I guess I'll try to be there in time for Stargate on Friday. Did you guys get my email about taking off for Christmas?

I did, I dunno if Mom has or not.

"In time for Stargate" - oh yes, can't forget the most important thing! (And to think Mom&I were just mocking Uncle Ken for his fantasy football--)

And equally important, driving by Point of Rocks in time to buy kettle corn! :D

More pirates!

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Re: mm, swashbuckling pirate prizes.

Re: mm, swashbuckling pirate prizes.

Re: mm, swashbuckling pirate prizes.

Re: mm, swashbuckling pirate prizes.

Re: mm, swashbuckling pirate prizes.

Re: mm, swashbuckling pirate prizes.

Re: mm, swashbuckling pirate prizes.

Re: mm, swashbuckling pirate prizes.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

mm, swashbuckling pirate prizes.

Re: mm, swashbuckling pirate prizes.

Re: mm, swashbuckling pirate prizes.

Re: mm, swashbuckling pirate prizes.

Re: mm, swashbuckling pirate prizes.

Re: mm, swashbuckling pirate prizes.

Re: mm, swashbuckling pirate prizes.

Re: mm, swashbuckling pirate prizes.

Re: mm, swashbuckling pirate prizes.

Tia Dalma

Re: Tia Dalma

Re: Tia Dalma

Re: Tia Dalma

Re: Tia Dalma

Re: Tia Dalma

Re: Tia Dalma

Re: Tia Dalma

Re: Tia Dalma

Re: Tia Dalma

Re: Tia Dalma

Re: Tia Dalma

Re: Tia Dalma

Re: Tia Dalma

Re: Tia Dalma

Re: Tia Dalma