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POTCOShark

Shark.

"Said I'll be lettin' you live, but the sharks may not be so charitable..."
Jolly Roger to a pirate, forcing him to walk the plank[src]

Sharks (superorder Selachimorpha) were a type of fish with a full cartilaginous skeleton and a highly streamlined body. The earliest known sharks date from more than 420 million years ago, making them some of the oldest living creatures in the world.

History[]

"Only the darkness saved us, for they sent out boats to kill those they found alive in the water. Hard to say which was worse, them or the sharks. We heard that devil crew laughin’ when men screamed as they were pulled under."
Hector Barbossa[src]

When the rogue pirates destroyed Hector Barbossa's ship, the Cobra, many members of his crew were killed by the sharks.[1]

In the graveyard of lost ships off the coast of Isla de Muerta, hammerhead sharks were among the large fish that resided there. When Jack Sparrow and his Motley crew travelled through the passageway, the crew watched the sharks from above in their stolen ship, the HMS Interceptor.[2] When Barbossa realized that it was Will Turner's blood he really needed to lift the Aztec curse, Elizabeth Swann was worthless to him, so he didn't hesitate to make her walk the plank, to face the sharks—or a slower death on a barren island.[3]

On his neck, the pirate Scrum wore a necklace that included a lucky shark's tooth.[4]

Undead shark

An undead shark.

"Kill the Sparrow!"
―Armando Salazar to his sharks[src]

The haunted waters of the Devil's Triangle were full of many dead creatures brought back to life as reanimated corpses. When the Spanish Royal Navy galleon the Silent Mary ended up trapped in the Triangle, she was slowly transformed into a ghost ship, and her crew acquired three sharks - a great white shark, a hammerhead shark and a mako shark - with which they terrorised the sea searching for the man they blamed for their terrible fate: Jack Sparrow. Several decades after her imprisonment in the Devil's Triangle, the Silent Mary and her crew of pirate hunters managed to return to the Seven Seas as ghosts. The undead Spaniards continued their original mission, hunting pirates on the high seas.[5]

Eventually, they tracked Jack Sparrow and his companions Henry Turner and Carina Smyth to the waters near Hangman's Bay, having just been abandoned in a small longboat by Sparrow's mutinous former crew. In order to dispose of them quickly, Salazar sent out the three sharks telling them to kill the Sparrow. Carina had already started swimming to shore when Henry attempted to join her, but when the latter went to jump into the water, he was greeted with the open jaws of an undead great white shark. Henry fell backwards, and when he and Sparrow stood up they saw that the three sharks were now circling them. The hammerhead lunged for the ship, ramming its head into the front of the boat. Henry fought the creature off with an oar, jamming the oar into its head and flinging it back into the water.[5]

Jack Henry shark

The great white shark jumping.

The great white then went in for an attack as Henry stumbled overboard, but Sparrow came to Turner's rescue, pulling him back aboard. The shark still attempted to devour Turner, leaping right over the boat getting seawater all over the pirates. Eventually, the two distracted the sharks by throwing Carina's dress into the sea. All three fish came crashing to the surface, biting the dress at the same time as Henry leapt overboard and swam for safety. Jack, however, got his leg trapped in a hold in the boat, and the mako shark attacked him. Sparrow threw a rope into the creature's mouth, and soon it turned away to swim after Henry. Thinking on his feet, Jack tied the other side of the rope to the boat so that the mako would drag the ship through the ocean. When it went in to consume Henry, Jack pulled the rope, turning the shark around and then grabbing Henry. The boat was then flung onto the beach, Sparrow and Turner along with it, as the sharks each swam back to the Mary.[5]

After the entire crew of the Mary were freed from their curse by Henry and Carina, the sharks most likely did as well, becoming free to roam the seas once again.[5]

Behind the scenes[]

"Why?"
"Sharks attack from below.
"
Elizabeth Swann and Jack Sparrow[src]
Cursed crew concept art

Concept art with sharks swimming among Barbossa's cursed crew.

COTBPSharkDeletedScene

A shark's fin in front of Elizabeth Swann.

Appearances[]

Sources[]

External links[]

Notes and references[]

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