Jack and Arabella were flirting?[]
As far as I read, I couldn't see any flirting from Jack so far, and I am already in the part of the novels where Arabella is with her mother again and left the crew of the Barnacle already. The flirting in question if happened was extremely hard to spot in the books, because Jack's relationship with Arabella seems to be shaped more as a friend/crewmate than anything else. Jack has an extremely high opinion of Arabella, which is expressed every time he says Arabella is his First Mate, but if he's done any flirting in the novels 1-7 or was otherwise interested in dating her, then it is very... non-visible? Yes, he and Fitz at times argued who will go with Arabella as Fitz was the one with the crush on her and Fitz was also the one who tried to get chummy with Arabella by treating her like a lady, while Jack treated her like a regular person, but in instances when they do argue, Jack doesn't seem to react in any way indicating romantic attraction or desire to be together with her in a dating sense.
"Dancing?" Fitzwilliam said with a sidelong glance at Arabella. "I would be most pleased if I could escort you tonight, my lady." He made a little bow and held out his hand. Despite herself, Arabella fairly glowed. "Absolutely not," Jack snapped. "As captain of this ship, I should be the one to take her. To protect her from you and the rest of these ..." He waved his hand searching for the word. "... scallywags what sail aboard the Barnacle. I do have rank to pull, you know." - The Age of Bronze, Chapter One.
In the above example, Arabella then tells them "I will actually go with Jean" and the only reaction to this from Jack is him glaring at the cat, which Jean allowed him to take to dance instead (and it is mostly because Jack just dislikes Constance with passion, while Constance seems to like him and Jean made fun of him for this before). Which makes me think that Jack fought with Fitz just for the sake of their rivalry and to be petty, and not because he really wanted to date Arabella or was interested in her. Once he even nearly kissed her by accident and reacted as if Arabella was not his type at all, and he was happy kiss didn't happen, but when she kissed him on the cheek once before, he had no reaction to it (it was a "goodbye" kiss as Jack was choosing to stay with Cortez, and she wanted to show him that she cares about him and told him that crew also cares about him, because she was worried about him), which is a complete different reaction than when he flirted with one of the pretty girls that escorted him and Fitz to Stone-Eyed Sam in Timekeeper or when he was winking at a mermaid in Siren's Song, or when he was complimenting some other woman. If Jack has done any flirting in Poseidon's Peak or was otherwise unhappy that Arabella dates Bill I don't know and will probably not know very soon, because this one novel is unobtainable to non-native English speakers who do not live in the USA, close to some library which may have this book.--Varis - The Sparrowness (talk) 07:34, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
- I read Poseidon's Peak and Bold New Horizons and changed the sections where it is implied that Jack and Arabella flirted, as it was nowhere in those books. The claim that he flirted because he called her "love" or "lass" or "Bell" was baseless, because the author of the books was more specific when they were implying that Jack was flirting with someone than this. And when it comes to Jack's reaction to Arabella dating Bill, he wasn't even upset that she run straight to Bill ignoring Jack's outstretched hands. He had no reaction to them kissing. He later teased her a bit about who she chose to date, but it was all in relation to Bill's doomlike approach to life, which Jack thought was completely not Arabella's type. Furthermore, he didn't make those comments to say that he was the one she was supposed to choose, as he was shown to be completely uninterested in her love life whatsoever. Varis - The Sparrowness (talk) 18:54, 19 June 2022 (UTC)