Changing the world
Curt: We set out to change the world and ending up… just changing ourselves.
Arthur: What's wrong with that?
Curt: Nothing! … If you don't look at the world.
(Todd Haynes, Velvet Goldmine)
There was a time when the only thing I wanted (besides Elizabeth) was to rid the world of pirates. Every last one of them, gone. It would be my vengeance for the death of my father, and everyone knew pirates were nothing but lying, murderous thieves anyway, so the world would be well rid of them.
It's funny how much things can change over a few years. Here I am now, the bloody caption of the Flying Dutchmen, probably the most infamous of all pirate ships. Me, Will Turner. The boy that once vowed to become the best swordsman he could be so he could kill every pirate he ever met. And now that the boy has become a man, he's found that he's also become the one thing he hated most: a pirate.
There are days I still hate pirates. Days I wish I'd never met Jack Sparrow or Captain Barbossa or any of the others. But if I hadn't met them, I wouldn't have been able to save my father. And I might not have ever known Elizabeth's love, or married her. So some days, I'm grateful for them, and for becoming a pirate myself. There's a freedom to this life that I never felt at the forge. Even now, tied to the Dutchman for ten years and unable to step foot on land, there are days where I enjoy what I'm doing. It's an important job, this captaincy, and I'm sharing it with my father. I remind myself that once the ten years has ended, I can be with Elizabeth again and share the rest of my life with her. Serving my time on this ship is a small price to pay for that.
I'm not sure I ever set out to change the world with my one-man crusade against piratekind. In the foolish way of a young man who thinks he knows everything, perhaps I did. But in the end, all I managed was to help save them. The East India Trading Company may have been doomed to lose even without my involvement - after all, I was helping them at times - but either way, the pirates lived to pillage another day. Well, most of them. I'm not sure if the world is a better place for it, but then I'm not quite in the world any longer. All I can say is that the part of it I do inhabit, the places in between this world and the next, are better now. The reign of Davy Jones has ended and all those lost souls finally have someone to guide them on.
I will take my position seriously until it is no longer mine to hold. And after that, I can only hope the world I return to hasn't changed so much that Elizabeth is not there waiting for me. As long as she is there, I can honestly say I really don't care what's happened to the rest of it.
Arthur: What's wrong with that?
Curt: Nothing! … If you don't look at the world.
(Todd Haynes, Velvet Goldmine)
There was a time when the only thing I wanted (besides Elizabeth) was to rid the world of pirates. Every last one of them, gone. It would be my vengeance for the death of my father, and everyone knew pirates were nothing but lying, murderous thieves anyway, so the world would be well rid of them.
It's funny how much things can change over a few years. Here I am now, the bloody caption of the Flying Dutchmen, probably the most infamous of all pirate ships. Me, Will Turner. The boy that once vowed to become the best swordsman he could be so he could kill every pirate he ever met. And now that the boy has become a man, he's found that he's also become the one thing he hated most: a pirate.
There are days I still hate pirates. Days I wish I'd never met Jack Sparrow or Captain Barbossa or any of the others. But if I hadn't met them, I wouldn't have been able to save my father. And I might not have ever known Elizabeth's love, or married her. So some days, I'm grateful for them, and for becoming a pirate myself. There's a freedom to this life that I never felt at the forge. Even now, tied to the Dutchman for ten years and unable to step foot on land, there are days where I enjoy what I'm doing. It's an important job, this captaincy, and I'm sharing it with my father. I remind myself that once the ten years has ended, I can be with Elizabeth again and share the rest of my life with her. Serving my time on this ship is a small price to pay for that.
I'm not sure I ever set out to change the world with my one-man crusade against piratekind. In the foolish way of a young man who thinks he knows everything, perhaps I did. But in the end, all I managed was to help save them. The East India Trading Company may have been doomed to lose even without my involvement - after all, I was helping them at times - but either way, the pirates lived to pillage another day. Well, most of them. I'm not sure if the world is a better place for it, but then I'm not quite in the world any longer. All I can say is that the part of it I do inhabit, the places in between this world and the next, are better now. The reign of Davy Jones has ended and all those lost souls finally have someone to guide them on.
I will take my position seriously until it is no longer mine to hold. And after that, I can only hope the world I return to hasn't changed so much that Elizabeth is not there waiting for me. As long as she is there, I can honestly say I really don't care what's happened to the rest of it.