And of course she's really standing with the pirate, and then Jack runs off and leaves her with Will as a placeholder.
I've just said about half of this over on gaudior's journal, but it doesn't count as plagiarism if it's oneself, right . . . ?
I'm still not convinced that Elizabeth is attracted to Jack so much as she is to the pirate's life that Jack embodies—which in its turn raises all sorts of questions about her attraction to Will. When she saw him for the first time, unconscious and adrift, she thought he was a pirate. She might have taken his medallion initially because she feared he'd be hanged if anyone else saw it and recognized what he was, but she kept it—and never told him she'd stolen it—because it was a link to that mysterious, adventurous world with which she associated Will and for which she always longed. At ten years old, she sang Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me . . . I'm very curious to see where her romantic loyalties will incline now that she's realized that she's capable of being a pirate herself, not just a pirate's lady.
As for Will, while he's not a character with whom I identify, he does intrigue me—a so far unalterably honorable man with a real talent for lawlessness, to which I do not think he has yet reconciled himself. He's no slouch in the adventuring department. He's stolen treasure from around Davy Jones' own neck and survived the Kraken twice; that's mythic like Odysseus. But while he may have acclimated to the idea that his father was a pirate rather than a respectable merchant seaman, I'm not sure that Will doesn't still think of himself as a blacksmith's apprentice who's in over his head. Which is true in one sense, but entirely false in another. And I'm not sure he'll last if he can't adapt mentally to who he's become.
That said, I'm not sure that he is a pirate. I cannot see him betraying anyone to their death with a kiss. But I can see him as the steadfast husband of a trickster pirate queen—if Elizabeth wants him; for himself, Will Turner, not for whoever she imagined he was or what she believed he stood for.*
I can only pray the scriptwriters don't chicken out in the 11th hour.
Yes. There are so many lovely possibilities for complication in the air right now, I would like these films to end as iconoclastically—and rightly—as they began. I say we sacrifice some studio executives to the depths just to make sure.
*And if, for God's sake, they talk. I'm not having the whole next plot arc turn on misconceptions à la The Scarlet Pimpernel that could be cleared up in fifteen minutes if each party only trusted the other enough to speak. There's enough angst to go around as it is, thank you very much.
no subject
I've just said about half of this over on
I'm still not convinced that Elizabeth is attracted to Jack so much as she is to the pirate's life that Jack embodies—which in its turn raises all sorts of questions about her attraction to Will. When she saw him for the first time, unconscious and adrift, she thought he was a pirate. She might have taken his medallion initially because she feared he'd be hanged if anyone else saw it and recognized what he was, but she kept it—and never told him she'd stolen it—because it was a link to that mysterious, adventurous world with which she associated Will and for which she always longed. At ten years old, she sang Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me . . . I'm very curious to see where her romantic loyalties will incline now that she's realized that she's capable of being a pirate herself, not just a pirate's lady.
As for Will, while he's not a character with whom I identify, he does intrigue me—a so far unalterably honorable man with a real talent for lawlessness, to which I do not think he has yet reconciled himself. He's no slouch in the adventuring department. He's stolen treasure from around Davy Jones' own neck and survived the Kraken twice; that's mythic like Odysseus. But while he may have acclimated to the idea that his father was a pirate rather than a respectable merchant seaman, I'm not sure that Will doesn't still think of himself as a blacksmith's apprentice who's in over his head. Which is true in one sense, but entirely false in another. And I'm not sure he'll last if he can't adapt mentally to who he's become.
That said, I'm not sure that he is a pirate. I cannot see him betraying anyone to their death with a kiss. But I can see him as the steadfast husband of a trickster pirate queen—if Elizabeth wants him; for himself, Will Turner, not for whoever she imagined he was or what she believed he stood for.*
I can only pray the scriptwriters don't chicken out in the 11th hour.
Yes. There are so many lovely possibilities for complication in the air right now, I would like these films to end as iconoclastically—and rightly—as they began. I say we sacrifice some studio executives to the depths just to make sure.
*And if, for God's sake, they talk. I'm not having the whole next plot arc turn on misconceptions à la The Scarlet Pimpernel that could be cleared up in fifteen minutes if each party only trusted the other enough to speak. There's enough angst to go around as it is, thank you very much.