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Meta: On Captain Jack Sparrow and the Nature of Good and Evil
Author: djarum99
Disclaimer: not mine, no money coming in
A/N: Just some thoughts that have presented themselves in the course of writing in this fandom. This is where the characters as I see them come from; it is also the result of a very long work week, too little sleep, and Friday night delirium, so forgive me for any dogmatism or for stating the obvious. All of the writers in this community are exploring the things I’ve written about here (as well as fantastic variations on romantic love and smut, let’s not forget the smut), so I certainly don’t claim any originality of thought or philosophy. Psych bunnies are jumping, and the cotton is high.
Good: A subjective term, to say the least, with some core elements that hold true. In the context of human experience, it often means doing the difficult thing, opting for our second or third choice, ignoring self interest and choosing love in its broadest sense, from the personal to the spiritual. In DMC, Jack has a chance at escape; he might have made land as the kraken took the Pearl in the infamous scene in which the audience cannot see what the compass shows him. I think, and apparently most of you agree, he opted to forego “the thing he wanted most in this world,” to live, and made the hard choice. One of the most interesting things about DMC in my humble opinion is that we are not allowed to know if he would have carried it further and gone down with the Pearl of his own volition. TnT are willing to state that he might have considered it, but I think they also say that they don’t believe he would have made that choice. In my mind, Elizabeth’s actions resulted not only in Jack’s death and betrayal at her hands, but in forging a deep bond with him. In choosing for him, she defined him as the good man she needed him to be, the possibility she saw for that in him.
Evil: True evil, in my experience, is petty, mundane, unimaginative; it serves the basest of human purposes and is a hateful rejection of all the love and beauty that humanity is capable of. Serial murderers, killers of children, rapists, all seek to destroy rather than to gratify any form of animal hunger. Beasts like these are an anomaly in nature, exclusive to the human species. Evil is jealous, and fearful, of what it cannot understand or possess. What the majority of us struggle with on a daily basis (for the truly evil, there is no struggle), is the choice between accepting fear and risking love. Fear and love, like most things, exist on a continuum. We all have darkness in us, that yawning lonely abyss. It is the lifelong struggle to stay in the light, choose love, which defines us all. I don’t see any of the characters in POTC as truly evil. Evil is boring, in the end, and none of the glorious creatures in these films are that.
I view the metaphor of Davy Jones as a dark illustration of the aforementioned struggle. He is Jack’s antithesis, a man who suffered love’s inequity and painful price and chose to reject it in full, literally cutting out his heart. Jack embraces pain, joy and anything else life has to offer with a song in his heart and an eternally optimistic spirit. That spirit, ironically, may be the very thing that would have prevented him from electing to remain aboard the Pearl as the kraken attacked. He would always hope for just one more horizon. Jack knows his own darkness but often refuses to see his own light, and what we see in COTB and DMC is a man coming to terms with that. Jack is a true existentialist. “In the end, there is only what a man can do, and what a man can’t do.” I believe the conflict in Jack’s relationship with Elizabeth is a result of the battle they both face to define themselves. Her vision of what he can be leads her to choose for him. Her fear of what he shows her of herself, not only of her own darkness but of where love could take her, plays no small part in this. His desire for the rewards she speaks of for being a “good man,” paired with the consequences of his past dark choices, result in his undoing. Again, nothing original here, but there are other ways of looking at this and this was the version that resonated with me when I began writing these characters.
Returning from hell, and what a man might bring back: I’ve had the privilege of knowing a great many people who have walked through the fire and come out the other side. War, abusive childhoods, rape, all the forms of trauma and Job’s trials life has to offer. These things reduce some human beings to a stripped down state of fear, hatred, resentment and helplessness that they can never be completely free of. For an amazing number of people, however, tragedy can result in a desperate effort to connect to life, to love. They come out the other side scarred, but with a deep and lasting purity of spirit, of compassion for themselves and others deepened by what they have seen of its opposite. I don’t know what makes the difference in us between healing and stagnation, but it’s something I’ll keep trying to find.
As far as Jack and the state of his soul after being returned from hell, I know that there are other possibilities than the one I present in my own writing. I believe his quixotic spirit would win out, that it would draw him to that deeper connection (not necessarily with Elizabeth, but I like the complexity of their relationship). However, one of the beauties of writing in this community is the opportunity to see all points and probabilities explored. There are infinite possibilities for Captain Jack, as there are for us all.