This article is about a deceased person's spirit in visible form.. You may be looking for the non-corporeal essence of a being or entity.. |
- "You best start believing in ghost stories, Miss Turner. You're in one!"
- ―Hector Barbossa
According to traditional belief, a ghost was the soul or spirit of a dead person or animal, taken to be capable of appearing in visible form or otherwise manifesting itself to the living. Descriptions of the apparition of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to realistic, lifelike visions. Ghosts are generally described as solitary essences that haunt particular locations, objects, or people they were associated with in life, though stories of phantom armies or ghost ships.
History
- "'Tis well known that ghosts and spirits of the damned can menace honest mariners, trying to steal their souls."
- ―Lucius Featherstone to Cutler Beckett
When the Spanish conquistador Humbert "El Patron" Diaz forced the inhabitants of Raven's Cove to forge weapons for him, they sealed him, his crew, and his ship, inside his mines in the Cove. When the crew mutinied against him, El Patron and his men were cursed to remain inside the mines as ghosts and haunt them for all eternity.[1]
In the 1720s, when the young adventurer Jack Sparrow and his crew found the legendary Sword of Cortés on Isla Fortuna, they unintentionally summoned the spirit of the conquistador Hernán Cortés, the original owner of the Sword and the man who destroyed the Aztec Empire. The ghostly Spaniard tried to trick Jack Sparrow into doing his bidding for him, so he could make himself ruler of the Seven Seas, but with the few advices from the voodoo witch Tia Dalma, Jack was able to summon the spirit of the Aztec Emperor Montecuhzoma, who attacked and destroyed Cortés.[2]
When Jack Sparrow had to give his report to Cutler Beckett about how he dueled Christophe-Julien de Rapièr on the deck of his ship, the Wicked Wench, he lied that he actually fought against the ghost of his old fencing master from Marseilles.[3]
Shortly after the battle of the Isla de Muerta, a mysterious ghost ship sailed into the Port Royal harbor. The ship's crew of ghosts terrorized the inhabitants of the city until the blacksmith Will Turner made a sword and gave it to the ship's ghostly captain.[4]
During the War of Jolly Roger, when the forces of the East India Trading Company and the undead army of Jolly Roger fought a battle over El Patron's weapons left on Raven's Cove, the entire population of the island was wiped out. However, their ghosts soon began appearing to pirates who came to the island. Some ghosts were friendly, but others were hostile.[1]
When Elizabeth Swann sneaked onboard the Edinburgh Trader as a sailor, she tricked the superstitious crewmen into thinking that her wedding dress was a spirit to force them to sail the ship to Tortuga.[5]
Behind the scenes
- In Walt Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean, there is a ghost voice that repeatedly says "Dead men tell no tales".[6]
- When filmmakers made Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, they made a ghost story at the same time in making an epic pirate period film, which by itself would have been one thing.
- In the first screenplay draft of The Curse of the Black Pearl, when Will Turner asked how Jack Sparrow got off the desert island, Jack replied: "I didn't! My body's still there, rotting away, and I am but a ghost!"[7]
- Screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio originally conceived of Davy Jones and his crew as ghostlike creatures. Determined to come up with never-before-seen fantastical characters, director Gore Verbinski wanted them to be more specifically of the sea, with gravity and weight, as if the souls of shipwrecked sailors had fused with the detritus of the ocean floor.[8]
- In the non-canon comic The Buccaneer's Heart!, the ghosts of Blackbeard, Mary Reade, Bartholomew Roberts, and Henry Morgan help Jack Sparrow to defeat his former crew.
- Several ghosts appear in the novel On Stranger Tides, which was used as the basis for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.
- One of the original plot ideas for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides was to have ghosts.[9]
- In The King's Ransom quest in A Pirate's Adventure: Treasures of the Seven Seas the treasure is kept inside the fort that is haunted by the ghosts of Spanish Conquistadors.
Appearances
- Pirates of the Caribbean (ride)
- A Pirate's Adventure: Treasures of the Seven Seas
- Jack Sparrow: The Pirate Chase (First appearance)
- Jack Sparrow: The Sword of Cortés
- The Price of Freedom (Mentioned only)
- Legends of the Brethren Court: The Caribbean (Mentioned only)
- Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (First mentioned)
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Ghost Ship
- The Buccaneer's Heart! (Non-canonical appearance)
- Pirates of the Caribbean Online
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (Mentioned only)
- Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (Mentioned only)
- Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (video game) (Mentioned only)
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Master of the Seas
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
Sources
External links
Notes and references
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Pirates of the Caribbean Online
- ↑ Jack Sparrow: The Sword of Cortés
- ↑ The Price of Freedom
- ↑ Pirates of the Caribbean: Ghost Ship
- ↑ Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
- ↑ Pirates of the Caribbean: From the Magic Kingdom to the Movies
- ↑ Wordplay: Pirates of the Caribbean first draft screenplay
- ↑ Bring Me That Horizon: The Making of Pirates of the Caribbean, pg.165
- ↑ Disney Second Screen: Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides