Massive amounts of pirate analysis
So I've been spending far, far too much time at the official Pirates of the Caribbean fansite forums this weekend. o_0 I figured I should cross-post some of my ramblings there to my LJ to A.) save it for posterity, and B.) share it on the off chance that someone here gives an undead monkey's arse about PotC shipping debates. ;)
Because this stuff is long (or "longness liek whoa", in Net parlance), I'm going to LJ-cut it all into nice and manageable sections. Aren't I nice? ;) Also, it goes without saying but I will anyway: major spoilers for both Pirates of the Caribbean movies. I don't think there's anything too spoilerish about the third movie from rumors I've heard, so you're safe that way. ;)
Some of this might also be a bit redundant if you've read my other PotC discussion posts here on LJ, but it can't be helped.
Oh, and check out my new icon. *snerk* Sparrabeth OTP! ;)
This was posted to the J/E forum thread (around page 68 or 69, I think)...
---------------------
This forum moves faster than the Black Pearl with a fair wind in her sails. Which is wonderful but it's hard to keep up! I mainly lurk anyway, but I have to chime in with a few things...
"A Pirate's Kiss," I looooove this part you wrote several pages back:
Quote:
when she chained him, he smiled, gleamed with pride and joy, and put her needs first. He knew this was Lizzie's moment...she was making her first BIG step in her transformation to piracy. She had to do this with him, because he is the only one who would understand, would want her to, and would love her for it. To me there is nothing but true love, actually uncondtional love in that one simple word- "pirate" and in the looks that follow.
End Quote
That's so true...people who think he's going to be angry at Elizabeth or want revenge against her just don't see it, I guess. But yes, they're both pirates, and this is the sort of thing that pirates do. They're on the same page. He knows what she's doing...they lock eyes for a moment between the time he hears the shackles jingle and the time she actually locks them around his wrist. He absolutely, passively let her do it. He had all the time in the world to stop her, or to call for help from Gibbs and the others, but no. He played along and loved every minute of it.
Another gem of an observation from "A Pirate's Kiss":
Quote:
And I don't think she is only thinking of leaving him there and his death, I am SURE she is thinking of that kiss...oh, that kiss!!! She is probably replaying it in her head over and over, how it felt, how he tasted, the look in his eyes, the sound of his voice the last time he spoke to her ("pirate")
End Quote
How he tasted...perhaps that's why she didn't really drink from the cup that Tia gave her! She didn't want to lose that last taste of Jack... *swoon* It's so sad and romantic and...eeeeee!
I love this ship. :D
A thought I had...
Does anyone else think that Jack is stalling for time when he makes his long, rambling speech about "the finding of which leaves you capacitorally etc etc etc finding old what's-her-name"? (Sorry I can't quote it exactly...it's when Will is trying to get the compass from Jack early-ish in DMC.)
[Someone later found the quote I was looking for: "You want you to find this. Because the finding this finds you incapacitorially
finding and/or locating and your discovering the detecting of a way to save your [dolly? dotty? hard to hear] belle ol' what's-her-face. Savvy?"]
He doesn't make any sense during that, even for him. ;) He's trying to make a grandiose, verbose speech like Captain Jack Sparrow does, but he's so distracted by thinking about Elizabeth, now that Will brought her into the conversation, that he can't manage to bring it together. He's redundant and incoherent and he knows it, finally just surrendering to using the wording "old what's-her-name".
He's trying his best to act normally (or as normally as Jack ever does) and failing miserably.
/End post
---------------------
The above post was made to the thread for J/E shippers only, so it was a friendly audience. Then there's the "Thunderdome" thread, where debate between W/E shippers and J/E shippers rages in as civilized a manner as possible--which is sometimes borderline flame wars. ;) The next post comes from that forum, page 12...
-----------------
Would a W/E ending to AWE deter me from shipping J/E?
^-- Seems to be the question of the day so I'll throw my hat into the ring. ;)
In a word...no.
In a lot more words... o_0
I'm a bit odd when it comes to shipping preferences. My favorite ships are usually those that are either outright canon or plausibly canon (a highly subjective term, I admit). Random ships with no hint at all in canon just don't interest me at all. I'm thinking of pairings like, I don't know, maybe Arthur Weasley/Minerva MacGonagall in the Harry Potter fandom, or something like Mullroy/Anamaria in this fandom: totally random pairings that have no basis whatsoever in the original material. (Same reason slash is nearly always of no interest to me.) There's nothing inherently wrong with playing around with such obscure ideas, but it doesn't interest me in the slightest.
Nor, however, do I usually go in for the central, blindingly obvious, angst-free ships, either. Something a bit edgy, somewhat off-center, a little tempestuous, is more my cup of tea.
When I first saw CotBP I was with a friend who's somewhat of an Orlando fangirl, [*waves at katarina42*) so she was focused on him and his character. At first I figured, hey, he's gorgeous, what's not to like? But by the time I was out to the parking lot after the movie I was thinking to myself, "Well, okay, Orlando's easy on the eyes and all, but wow, Jack was a fun character! There's something about him that's really appealing...even attractive." He soon became my favorite character, and as I concentrated on him I more or less ignored the W/E side of things. It was a cute love story and all, but they had their happy ending, and it seemed sort of cut-and-dried, case closed. I didn't--and still don't--dislike W/E, but neither did it really hold my attention.
Usually in fandoms where my favorite male character doesn't have a love interest I end up inventing one for my own notebook doodles or perhaps a fanfic. (No, not Mary Sues...*gag*) But in Jack's case, I found that "shipping" him with the Black Pearl was actually the most fufilling to me. After all, he had pursued "her" for a decade with a determination and devotion that would have been an epic romance if he was trying to get back a woman who had been kidnapped. The cadence of his voice when he'd talk about her..."the Pearl"...had this hushed, reverent tone. He recognized her guns from within his jail cell. He risked his life (and the lives of those around him, heh) to rescue her. He ran his hands over the wheel in the most adoring, possessive, sensual manner when he finally got her back at the end. His driving force in the entire film was to get that ship back, at any cost.
I particularly liked fics in which the Pearl has a sort of mystical consciousness, or personality, somehow, and was aware of his devotion and returned his affection on an intangible, magical level. Sort of like a ghost story, almost.
If I sought out any fanfic, it was of that sort. If I ran across a nice spot of J/E fic or art, I'd enjoy it because they're both fun characters, but I didn't consider myself a shipper. I figured if Jack "had" to have a woman (besides Giselle and her co-workers) it would be Anamaria, though.
Then I saw the trailer for DMC with the Kiss of Death in it, and a spring in my brain went "ker-boioioing!" "I didn't just see what I thought I saw, did I? DID I? J/E kissing?" All of a sudden, I actually had hope that such a fun pairing would happen in canon. Oh, the possibilities!
Then I saw the movie. And wow, it was so tragic and steamy and fascinating. I loved the idea but at first I balked, thinking, "No. Jack Sparrow doesn't do relationships. A night with Scarlett or Giselle and then off again on the morning tide. But no attachments. That's not his style."
But the more I thought about it, and read essays by talented fans on LiveJournal and KTTC, I began to realize that it made a lot of sense. It absolutely could work. Jack and Elizabeth are the perfect foils for each other, their conversations are like verbal tennis matches, and they just seem to be having so much fun together.
Upon my second viewing of the film, I realized that Jack himself wanted this to happen (even if simultaneously wishing it wouldn't :lol: ) and being with Lizzie would make him happy. Who am I to second-guess the desires of my favorite character? ;)
The more I thought about J/E, the more exciting and interesting it was, and more fufilling it seemed to me from a creative standpoint. My muse sat up and took notice, giving me the itch to do fic/art/meta, and analyze the symbolism and characterization like I did back in the good ol' days of my college English classes. No ship in PotC had inspired me that way before. W/E was cute and sweet but pretty straightforward. There's much more room for me to play, intellectually, in J/E. I'm not implying the W/E shippers don't like to think deeply, because I know that's not the case, and some of the things you folks have written on this site [KTTC] are very intelligent and insightful. ;) But J/E fits better with the way I like to analyze things. It just appeals to me more, and gives me more to sink my teeth into as far as literary criticism goes. (I know it's a movie, not a book, but the same tools I use for literary criticism work just as well with it, thanks to T&T's brilliant screenplay.) [i.e. Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio, screenwriters of PotC who lurk and occasionally post at KTTC.]
This post is already insanely long and rambling but humor me while I copy over a bit I wrote in the J/E thread earlier this weekend...
The fundamental thing that makes this pairing so right (to me) is that Liz and Jack complete each other and moderate each other's extremes. Liz makes Jack want to be a good man, and Jack makes Liz want to be a pirate. Liz isn't happy living as a lady of society and she needs someone to encourage her fiery side. Jack is a pirate but has a deep drive to do good things (save random damsels from drowning, not kill unnecessarily, etc), and he needs Elizabeth to give him the encouragement and the permission to act on those good impulses.
They balance each other perfectly. And that's what the final scene between them in DMC is all about.
Jack needs to do the Right Thing. Elizabeth needs to do something pirate-ish. Shackling him gives her the perfect chance to act on that pirate instinct, and in doing so she makes it "okay" for Jack to go all the way with the heroic deed that's bursting to get out of him. By dipping into their piratical and noble sides they give each other the opportunity, even the excuse, to act on the impulses they've been denying for so long. (Not to mention the impulse to lock lips!) ;)
In that moment they're each at the extremes of behavior in the opposite direction from their usual role. He's doing the most heroic, selfless thing he's done in recent memory, and she's doing the most underhanded, devious thing she's done in, well, ever. And they meet perfectly in the middle.
(end quoted part)
In a nutshell (if you can stuff this monster of a post into something as small as a nutshell), my muse and interest will continue to be directed at J/E, regardless of the outcome of AWE. I will not, however, throw myself on the floor and have a shrieking tantrum if W/E end up together. I won't devote fanfic/art/meta to them because my muse is like a mule--if it doesn't want to go somewhere, it just doesn't! :p W/E would disappoint me because J/E gives me so much more to analyze and over-analyze and re-analyze ;) but I'll still be a PotC fan, which I most ardently was long before I found myself shipping any couple at all.
The main thing for me, above all else, is that Jack Sparrow gets a satisfactory ending, whatever that might be. He's such an awesome character with so many layers and so much personality, that I want the ending to do him justice. I loathe the idea of him being used as a mere plot device to strengthen Will and Elizabeth's relationship. I will be royally cheesed off if that turns out to be the case, and that would actually turn me against the W/E pairing. I'm indifferent to it now, but if, in order to get them together in a more mature relationship than they had at the end of CotBP, the moviemakers use Jack like that, I would deeply resent W/E. If W/E happens and Jack seems like he'll be okay and have a content future, then I'll accept it. (I admit it would take a lot to convince me of that, but if anyone can manage it T&T can.)
But if the powers-that-be mistreat Jack that way, I'll be looking up Calypso's phone number so she can do some major smiting for me. ;)
/end of post on debate forum
---------------------
Now here's the rest of the post from the J/E thread that I partially quoted above...
------------
Furthermore, I think Elizabeth's desperate order to "GO!" in the longboat is, indeed, to stop herself from second thoughts as much as to get a head start on the Kraken. On my first viewing I thought she wanted to get out of earshot as soon as possible in case Jack called for help, but he had plenty of time to do that before. Her rush was due to her own misgivings.
I also am struck each time I see that part by how distant Elizabeth and That Other Guy are from that moment onward. They never touch in the rest of the movie. They don't lean on each other for support, literally or figuratively. They stay apart in the longboat. They sit in different places in Tia Dalma's shack. Poor Liz is sitting there, folded in on herself in such grief that she can barely change her facial expression from numb horror, and he does nothing to comfort her. Not a sympathetic glance, not a hug, not an "It'll be okay, Elizabeth." Nothing.
Without getting too personal, I'll just say that I've been in the position of sitting there, upset and crying, when someone I cared a lot about (in a familial sense, not a romantic sense) walked right past me and ignored me, didn't even ask what was wrong. It hurt my feelings deeply, and made me feel even worse about what I was crying over in the first place. There's a special kind of kicked-in-the-gut feeling that comes over you when something like that happens.
My point being that even if Elizabeth and You-Know-Who weren't having any sort of relationship issues before the post-Kraken-sinking-the-Pearl scenes, they certainly will now.
If he doesn't care enough about her to so much as put a comforting arm around her shoulders when she's experiencing crippling grief, that really says something.
The point being, anyway, that there's even less holding Liz back from pursuing Jack than there was before.
(Anyone else notice that when lists reasons she and Jack wouldn't work out, she never once even alludes to her fiance? Sense of honor and decency and personal hygiene, but never a peep about the man she's supposed to be in love with and supposed to marry.)
---------------------
In a shipping-neutral thread in the general section of the KTTC forums, there got to be a debate about how "ZOMG HORRIBLE" Elizabeth is for chaining Jack to the ship at the end of DMC. I've seen people harrangue her as a murderess for that, including in that thread. I responded thusly:
---------------------
Jack knew what Elizabeth was doing. There's a moment when he hears the shackles jingling and they stop kissing. Their eyes lock and at that moment he obviously understands. Before he heard the chains move I think he was just going, "Hey, finally a kiss! Yay!" But then he heard the metal clinking and knew. He had to. He knows every inch of his precious Pearl, he knew there were shackles there.
As they pause, their eyes fixed on each other, he has time to either push her away or at least say "Lizzie, what in the Sam Hill are you doing, luv?" But he doesn't.
He just stands there watching, waiting to see if his protege in piracy is going to make that leap.
She does. She locks the shackle on his wrist, but does he pull his hand up in disbelief, gasp in surprise, say "Hey, wait just a darn a minute, you crazy woman!", call to Gibbs for help, or try to get loose? Nope.
Instead he gazes into her eyes with a smile of admiration and amusement. He knew it all along and he's tickled pink to be proven right about her. "Pirate."
I firmly believe that Jack allowed himself to be chained.
Whether he had planned to stay before that moment, no one can say. I like to think he would have stayed, but I'll admit a strong argument can be made for him leaving. But as soon as he heard those chains and realized what she was doing, he was okay with it.
Captain Jack Sparrow isn't stupid or unobservant. Not by a long shot. He also doesn't go down without a fight. If he hadn't wanted to play along with Elizabeth's scheme he wouldn't have. Jack Sparrow is not a passive man.
I do admit, however, that none of the above changes Elizabeth's morality. She didn't know Jack would acquiese when she started backing him into that capstan. In her mind, she definitely was taking the "Stay or Go" choice out of his hands.
But, as "DPR" said in numerous eloquent posts before me (kudos to you, mate), her options were extremely limited. In a perfect world choices like that would never have to be made. But our world, and the PotC world, are far from perfect, and when faced with the situation she was in, Elizabeth chose the lesser of the two evils.
Was it a good thing? No. Was it easy? No. Is she proud of it? Clearly not. Will it haunt her forever? Likely. Does it make her a horrible, bloodthirsty killer? Absolutely not.
*phew*
And now you know why you haven't seen me on WoW this weekend. >_< Well, that and I finally finished playing through Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos. Now the Frozen Throne expansion is staring at me from the corner of my desk... Hmm... ;)
Have I ever mentioned how annoying and hectic it is to be obsessed with too many fandoms and topics at once?
Because this stuff is long (or "longness liek whoa", in Net parlance), I'm going to LJ-cut it all into nice and manageable sections. Aren't I nice? ;) Also, it goes without saying but I will anyway: major spoilers for both Pirates of the Caribbean movies. I don't think there's anything too spoilerish about the third movie from rumors I've heard, so you're safe that way. ;)
Some of this might also be a bit redundant if you've read my other PotC discussion posts here on LJ, but it can't be helped.
Oh, and check out my new icon. *snerk* Sparrabeth OTP! ;)
This was posted to the J/E forum thread (around page 68 or 69, I think)...
---------------------
This forum moves faster than the Black Pearl with a fair wind in her sails. Which is wonderful but it's hard to keep up! I mainly lurk anyway, but I have to chime in with a few things...
"A Pirate's Kiss," I looooove this part you wrote several pages back:
Quote:
when she chained him, he smiled, gleamed with pride and joy, and put her needs first. He knew this was Lizzie's moment...she was making her first BIG step in her transformation to piracy. She had to do this with him, because he is the only one who would understand, would want her to, and would love her for it. To me there is nothing but true love, actually uncondtional love in that one simple word- "pirate" and in the looks that follow.
End Quote
That's so true...people who think he's going to be angry at Elizabeth or want revenge against her just don't see it, I guess. But yes, they're both pirates, and this is the sort of thing that pirates do. They're on the same page. He knows what she's doing...they lock eyes for a moment between the time he hears the shackles jingle and the time she actually locks them around his wrist. He absolutely, passively let her do it. He had all the time in the world to stop her, or to call for help from Gibbs and the others, but no. He played along and loved every minute of it.
Another gem of an observation from "A Pirate's Kiss":
Quote:
And I don't think she is only thinking of leaving him there and his death, I am SURE she is thinking of that kiss...oh, that kiss!!! She is probably replaying it in her head over and over, how it felt, how he tasted, the look in his eyes, the sound of his voice the last time he spoke to her ("pirate")
End Quote
How he tasted...perhaps that's why she didn't really drink from the cup that Tia gave her! She didn't want to lose that last taste of Jack... *swoon* It's so sad and romantic and...eeeeee!
I love this ship. :D
A thought I had...
Does anyone else think that Jack is stalling for time when he makes his long, rambling speech about "the finding of which leaves you capacitorally etc etc etc finding old what's-her-name"? (Sorry I can't quote it exactly...it's when Will is trying to get the compass from Jack early-ish in DMC.)
[Someone later found the quote I was looking for: "You want you to find this. Because the finding this finds you incapacitorially
finding and/or locating and your discovering the detecting of a way to save your [dolly? dotty? hard to hear] belle ol' what's-her-face. Savvy?"]
He doesn't make any sense during that, even for him. ;) He's trying to make a grandiose, verbose speech like Captain Jack Sparrow does, but he's so distracted by thinking about Elizabeth, now that Will brought her into the conversation, that he can't manage to bring it together. He's redundant and incoherent and he knows it, finally just surrendering to using the wording "old what's-her-name".
He's trying his best to act normally (or as normally as Jack ever does) and failing miserably.
/End post
---------------------
The above post was made to the thread for J/E shippers only, so it was a friendly audience. Then there's the "Thunderdome" thread, where debate between W/E shippers and J/E shippers rages in as civilized a manner as possible--which is sometimes borderline flame wars. ;) The next post comes from that forum, page 12...
-----------------
Would a W/E ending to AWE deter me from shipping J/E?
^-- Seems to be the question of the day so I'll throw my hat into the ring. ;)
In a word...no.
In a lot more words... o_0
I'm a bit odd when it comes to shipping preferences. My favorite ships are usually those that are either outright canon or plausibly canon (a highly subjective term, I admit). Random ships with no hint at all in canon just don't interest me at all. I'm thinking of pairings like, I don't know, maybe Arthur Weasley/Minerva MacGonagall in the Harry Potter fandom, or something like Mullroy/Anamaria in this fandom: totally random pairings that have no basis whatsoever in the original material. (Same reason slash is nearly always of no interest to me.) There's nothing inherently wrong with playing around with such obscure ideas, but it doesn't interest me in the slightest.
Nor, however, do I usually go in for the central, blindingly obvious, angst-free ships, either. Something a bit edgy, somewhat off-center, a little tempestuous, is more my cup of tea.
When I first saw CotBP I was with a friend who's somewhat of an Orlando fangirl, [*waves at katarina42*) so she was focused on him and his character. At first I figured, hey, he's gorgeous, what's not to like? But by the time I was out to the parking lot after the movie I was thinking to myself, "Well, okay, Orlando's easy on the eyes and all, but wow, Jack was a fun character! There's something about him that's really appealing...even attractive." He soon became my favorite character, and as I concentrated on him I more or less ignored the W/E side of things. It was a cute love story and all, but they had their happy ending, and it seemed sort of cut-and-dried, case closed. I didn't--and still don't--dislike W/E, but neither did it really hold my attention.
Usually in fandoms where my favorite male character doesn't have a love interest I end up inventing one for my own notebook doodles or perhaps a fanfic. (No, not Mary Sues...*gag*) But in Jack's case, I found that "shipping" him with the Black Pearl was actually the most fufilling to me. After all, he had pursued "her" for a decade with a determination and devotion that would have been an epic romance if he was trying to get back a woman who had been kidnapped. The cadence of his voice when he'd talk about her..."the Pearl"...had this hushed, reverent tone. He recognized her guns from within his jail cell. He risked his life (and the lives of those around him, heh) to rescue her. He ran his hands over the wheel in the most adoring, possessive, sensual manner when he finally got her back at the end. His driving force in the entire film was to get that ship back, at any cost.
I particularly liked fics in which the Pearl has a sort of mystical consciousness, or personality, somehow, and was aware of his devotion and returned his affection on an intangible, magical level. Sort of like a ghost story, almost.
If I sought out any fanfic, it was of that sort. If I ran across a nice spot of J/E fic or art, I'd enjoy it because they're both fun characters, but I didn't consider myself a shipper. I figured if Jack "had" to have a woman (besides Giselle and her co-workers) it would be Anamaria, though.
Then I saw the trailer for DMC with the Kiss of Death in it, and a spring in my brain went "ker-boioioing!" "I didn't just see what I thought I saw, did I? DID I? J/E kissing?" All of a sudden, I actually had hope that such a fun pairing would happen in canon. Oh, the possibilities!
Then I saw the movie. And wow, it was so tragic and steamy and fascinating. I loved the idea but at first I balked, thinking, "No. Jack Sparrow doesn't do relationships. A night with Scarlett or Giselle and then off again on the morning tide. But no attachments. That's not his style."
But the more I thought about it, and read essays by talented fans on LiveJournal and KTTC, I began to realize that it made a lot of sense. It absolutely could work. Jack and Elizabeth are the perfect foils for each other, their conversations are like verbal tennis matches, and they just seem to be having so much fun together.
Upon my second viewing of the film, I realized that Jack himself wanted this to happen (even if simultaneously wishing it wouldn't :lol: ) and being with Lizzie would make him happy. Who am I to second-guess the desires of my favorite character? ;)
The more I thought about J/E, the more exciting and interesting it was, and more fufilling it seemed to me from a creative standpoint. My muse sat up and took notice, giving me the itch to do fic/art/meta, and analyze the symbolism and characterization like I did back in the good ol' days of my college English classes. No ship in PotC had inspired me that way before. W/E was cute and sweet but pretty straightforward. There's much more room for me to play, intellectually, in J/E. I'm not implying the W/E shippers don't like to think deeply, because I know that's not the case, and some of the things you folks have written on this site [KTTC] are very intelligent and insightful. ;) But J/E fits better with the way I like to analyze things. It just appeals to me more, and gives me more to sink my teeth into as far as literary criticism goes. (I know it's a movie, not a book, but the same tools I use for literary criticism work just as well with it, thanks to T&T's brilliant screenplay.) [i.e. Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio, screenwriters of PotC who lurk and occasionally post at KTTC.]
This post is already insanely long and rambling but humor me while I copy over a bit I wrote in the J/E thread earlier this weekend...
The fundamental thing that makes this pairing so right (to me) is that Liz and Jack complete each other and moderate each other's extremes. Liz makes Jack want to be a good man, and Jack makes Liz want to be a pirate. Liz isn't happy living as a lady of society and she needs someone to encourage her fiery side. Jack is a pirate but has a deep drive to do good things (save random damsels from drowning, not kill unnecessarily, etc), and he needs Elizabeth to give him the encouragement and the permission to act on those good impulses.
They balance each other perfectly. And that's what the final scene between them in DMC is all about.
Jack needs to do the Right Thing. Elizabeth needs to do something pirate-ish. Shackling him gives her the perfect chance to act on that pirate instinct, and in doing so she makes it "okay" for Jack to go all the way with the heroic deed that's bursting to get out of him. By dipping into their piratical and noble sides they give each other the opportunity, even the excuse, to act on the impulses they've been denying for so long. (Not to mention the impulse to lock lips!) ;)
In that moment they're each at the extremes of behavior in the opposite direction from their usual role. He's doing the most heroic, selfless thing he's done in recent memory, and she's doing the most underhanded, devious thing she's done in, well, ever. And they meet perfectly in the middle.
(end quoted part)
In a nutshell (if you can stuff this monster of a post into something as small as a nutshell), my muse and interest will continue to be directed at J/E, regardless of the outcome of AWE. I will not, however, throw myself on the floor and have a shrieking tantrum if W/E end up together. I won't devote fanfic/art/meta to them because my muse is like a mule--if it doesn't want to go somewhere, it just doesn't! :p W/E would disappoint me because J/E gives me so much more to analyze and over-analyze and re-analyze ;) but I'll still be a PotC fan, which I most ardently was long before I found myself shipping any couple at all.
The main thing for me, above all else, is that Jack Sparrow gets a satisfactory ending, whatever that might be. He's such an awesome character with so many layers and so much personality, that I want the ending to do him justice. I loathe the idea of him being used as a mere plot device to strengthen Will and Elizabeth's relationship. I will be royally cheesed off if that turns out to be the case, and that would actually turn me against the W/E pairing. I'm indifferent to it now, but if, in order to get them together in a more mature relationship than they had at the end of CotBP, the moviemakers use Jack like that, I would deeply resent W/E. If W/E happens and Jack seems like he'll be okay and have a content future, then I'll accept it. (I admit it would take a lot to convince me of that, but if anyone can manage it T&T can.)
But if the powers-that-be mistreat Jack that way, I'll be looking up Calypso's phone number so she can do some major smiting for me. ;)
/end of post on debate forum
---------------------
Now here's the rest of the post from the J/E thread that I partially quoted above...
------------
Furthermore, I think Elizabeth's desperate order to "GO!" in the longboat is, indeed, to stop herself from second thoughts as much as to get a head start on the Kraken. On my first viewing I thought she wanted to get out of earshot as soon as possible in case Jack called for help, but he had plenty of time to do that before. Her rush was due to her own misgivings.
I also am struck each time I see that part by how distant Elizabeth and That Other Guy are from that moment onward. They never touch in the rest of the movie. They don't lean on each other for support, literally or figuratively. They stay apart in the longboat. They sit in different places in Tia Dalma's shack. Poor Liz is sitting there, folded in on herself in such grief that she can barely change her facial expression from numb horror, and he does nothing to comfort her. Not a sympathetic glance, not a hug, not an "It'll be okay, Elizabeth." Nothing.
Without getting too personal, I'll just say that I've been in the position of sitting there, upset and crying, when someone I cared a lot about (in a familial sense, not a romantic sense) walked right past me and ignored me, didn't even ask what was wrong. It hurt my feelings deeply, and made me feel even worse about what I was crying over in the first place. There's a special kind of kicked-in-the-gut feeling that comes over you when something like that happens.
My point being that even if Elizabeth and You-Know-Who weren't having any sort of relationship issues before the post-Kraken-sinking-the-Pearl scenes, they certainly will now.
If he doesn't care enough about her to so much as put a comforting arm around her shoulders when she's experiencing crippling grief, that really says something.
The point being, anyway, that there's even less holding Liz back from pursuing Jack than there was before.
(Anyone else notice that when lists reasons she and Jack wouldn't work out, she never once even alludes to her fiance? Sense of honor and decency and personal hygiene, but never a peep about the man she's supposed to be in love with and supposed to marry.)
---------------------
In a shipping-neutral thread in the general section of the KTTC forums, there got to be a debate about how "ZOMG HORRIBLE" Elizabeth is for chaining Jack to the ship at the end of DMC. I've seen people harrangue her as a murderess for that, including in that thread. I responded thusly:
---------------------
Jack knew what Elizabeth was doing. There's a moment when he hears the shackles jingling and they stop kissing. Their eyes lock and at that moment he obviously understands. Before he heard the chains move I think he was just going, "Hey, finally a kiss! Yay!" But then he heard the metal clinking and knew. He had to. He knows every inch of his precious Pearl, he knew there were shackles there.
As they pause, their eyes fixed on each other, he has time to either push her away or at least say "Lizzie, what in the Sam Hill are you doing, luv?" But he doesn't.
He just stands there watching, waiting to see if his protege in piracy is going to make that leap.
She does. She locks the shackle on his wrist, but does he pull his hand up in disbelief, gasp in surprise, say "Hey, wait just a darn a minute, you crazy woman!", call to Gibbs for help, or try to get loose? Nope.
Instead he gazes into her eyes with a smile of admiration and amusement. He knew it all along and he's tickled pink to be proven right about her. "Pirate."
I firmly believe that Jack allowed himself to be chained.
Whether he had planned to stay before that moment, no one can say. I like to think he would have stayed, but I'll admit a strong argument can be made for him leaving. But as soon as he heard those chains and realized what she was doing, he was okay with it.
Captain Jack Sparrow isn't stupid or unobservant. Not by a long shot. He also doesn't go down without a fight. If he hadn't wanted to play along with Elizabeth's scheme he wouldn't have. Jack Sparrow is not a passive man.
I do admit, however, that none of the above changes Elizabeth's morality. She didn't know Jack would acquiese when she started backing him into that capstan. In her mind, she definitely was taking the "Stay or Go" choice out of his hands.
But, as "DPR" said in numerous eloquent posts before me (kudos to you, mate), her options were extremely limited. In a perfect world choices like that would never have to be made. But our world, and the PotC world, are far from perfect, and when faced with the situation she was in, Elizabeth chose the lesser of the two evils.
Was it a good thing? No. Was it easy? No. Is she proud of it? Clearly not. Will it haunt her forever? Likely. Does it make her a horrible, bloodthirsty killer? Absolutely not.
*phew*
And now you know why you haven't seen me on WoW this weekend. >_< Well, that and I finally finished playing through Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos. Now the Frozen Throne expansion is staring at me from the corner of my desk... Hmm... ;)
Have I ever mentioned how annoying and hectic it is to be obsessed with too many fandoms and topics at once?