by N. J. Sorenson
© 2005
Apart from the rollicking, swashbuckling, take-you-for-the-ride-of-your-life-adventure storyline of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, and putting aside the obvious appeal of the world's sexiest pirate briefly (VERY briefly!!), what pattern emerges after numerous viewings, and countless discussions of plot device and character analysis, of musings as to motivation and ponderings of previous events, of anticipatory speculations of "where will the writers go from here?"
I have this little ritual. Every weekday morning I get settled into my chair in front of my computer with my Quaker Instant Oatmeal (strawberries and cream being the current fave) and open up my POTC music videos. I usually start off with “Drunken Sailor,” and end up with “The Boys Are Back.” But in between my video “bookends,” I will watch “Mystery Cat” or “I’m Too Sexy” or, in today’s case, “The Riddle.” (Music and lyrics are from “The Scarlet Pimpernel.”) Now I’ve seen these videos countless times (why do we never tire of either the soundtrack from the movie or those lovely images? Well, that’s a discussion for another day, savvy?) But today I saw the pattern, recognized the balance and symmetry of my all-time favorite movie.
Newton’s third law states: "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."
The statement means that in every interaction, there is a pair of forces acting on the two interacting objects. A force is a push or a pull upon an object which results from its interaction with another object. Forces result from interactions. Some forces result from contact interactions (normal, frictional, tensional, and applied forces are examples of contact forces) and other forces are the result of action-at-a-distance interactions (gravitational, electrical, and magnetic forces). According to Newton, whenever objects A and B interact with each other, they exert forces upon each other.
Equal and Opposite
The first, and most obvious, examples of this are the two male leading characters: Jack Sparrow and Will Turner. Let’s look at their opposite sides. Jack is a pirate, an outlaw. He lives life on the edge, in and out of scrapes, getting by through cunning, wit and oft-times bravado. He’s experienced, sly and savvy. Will is an earnest, almost prudish, young man apprenticed to a solid (if drunken) citizen. Will follows the rules, accepts his place and, in fact, stubbornly sticks to it even when invited to forget it for the moment, as when Elizabeth consistently requests he call her by her first name. Polar opposites, yes? And yet, through their frictional, tensional interactions, forces are exerted on each other, forces are put into play that affect other people, and ultimately decide the fate of each.
But while the two eventually resume their predictable, divergent paths, we see an elemental change in each man through the frictional interaction and force they exert upon each other. Will loosens up (and grows some facial hair! LOL), he learns to take risks to get what he wants, he breaks the rules and finally (yea!) stands up for himself. Jack, on the other hand, finds himself battling...um...pirates! He proves to be (surprisingly to the "establishment") a good man, a man of his word, really. While going after what he wants, like Will, he also pursues a course that is, in some ways, noble and unselfish.
Counterparts
Are Jack and Will the only representatives of balance in the story? Not by any means.
Easily spotted, we have two pairs of what are usually referred to as "side-kicks." We see the first two characters when Jack attempts to investigate The Interceptor. Murtagh and Mullroy are wonderful characters! They play off each other beautifully. And while appearing bumbling and inept, they prove their mettle in battle aboard The Dauntless at the end of the movie. Their pirate counterparts are Pintel and Ragetti...whose frictional interaction provides additional comedic high jinks. They are the piratical version of Murtagh and Mullroy, balancing the military sensibilities of M&M with a ruthless twist.
Commodore Norrington is everything an upstanding Englishman should be. He is bound by a sense of duty, an obligation of service to others, and in the end, a noble willingness to sacrifice his happiness for the woman he loves - thereby denying himself what he desires most. He not only follows the rules, he enforces them. Answerable only to the governor, he is the archetypical "good man." Countering the Commodore is Captain Hector Barbossa. He is as far from a good man as you can get. The only rules he follows are his own, and he is crafty enough to provide himself with enough loopholes in even those rules to ensure his success in every negotiation. Ruthless where Norrington is faithful, deceitful and conniving where the Commodore is honourable - he is the dark face in Norrington’s mirror - the menace of an opposite image.
Joshamee Gibbs and Weatherby Swann are not easily recognizable as counterparts. One is a former able seaman, turned pirate and the other the Governor of Jamaica. One, while in a position of ultimate leadership, seems almost always to defer to the younger man, the commodore - the other, with no distinction of class or station, easily takes over command when Jack fails to return to his stolen ship. And yet, in these seeming differences, we see a parallel.
And what of the main female character in the story? Is she merely the nexus, the means of connection for everyone, the catalyst of events, the center point of contact? Well, yes, she is all of these things, but she too has her counterpart. Unlike the other characters, however, her counterpart is not human. It is a ship. Elizabeth and the Black Pearl are opposites in fundamental ways - one animate, organic. The other inanimate, inorganic. Yet both are, to the principals, the ultimate prize worth dying for, the potential possession of which fuels their energies, consumes their minds, and ignites their passion. And, in the end, both "feminine entities" are transformed, evolving from fantasy images to flesh-and-blood/keel-and-a-hull reality.
Balance, in the literal sense, restores order. We see justice done, the evil pirates are defeated, the curse broken. And yet, the justice itself is balanced by mercy, for while one pirate captain dies the other is allowed to escape - and live.
However, one additional bit of symmetry emerges before the last note of music dies away and the movie screen goes black. We see two opposites, the living, breathing pirate captain with compass in hand, pursuing the horizon and freedom...and the undead monkey, holding a medallion that binds its owner with a vengeful curse. But both images provide a promise...there’s definitely more to come!
