Pirates of the Caribbean/Fridge

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Fridge Brilliance

  • The Spanish in On Stranger Tides invest a lot in sending an expedition (compared to the others) and making to the Fountain of Youth, which would have potentially given them the sort of power associated with immortal life, practically in one piece, what do they actually do? Destroy the damn thing for the "pagan temple" that it is. For all their zeal, the Spanish basically made their last hurrah as a great power with that act.
    • The Spanish hardly interact with supernatural phenomena as well. They never get to see mermaids themselves, and while they effectively share a room with zombies, a voodoo powered pirate and a magic fountain that grants (additional) life by the end of the movie, they never get to see evidence of their powers, so to speak. The only time this is vulnerated is when the 200+ conquistador is fished off by two superstitious fishermen, but he quickly dies when presented to the more "rational" king and his minion. So we have two additional examples of fridge brilliance here:
      • Magic needs to be believed first to exist in the POTC world. The Spanish don't believe in magic, so it vanishes before them.
        • Or he could've run out of time (at a suspiciously dramatic moment) just then.
      • Historically, the Spanish and Catholics in general were far less inclined to believe in and persecute witchcraft than Protestants. In fact in the 1600s the Spanish Inquisition declared that witchcraft was impossible, and that people claiming themselves or others to be witches were lying either out of ignorance or of malice.
  • In On Stranger Tides, Jack asks Angelica if he can use her trick of lying by telling the truth. Then you realize that he already has, when telling Murtogg and Mullroy why he's in Port Royal.

Jack: Alright, I confess. It is my intention to commandeer one of these ships, pick up a crew in Tortuga, then raid, pillage, plunder and otherwise pilfer my weaselly black guts out.
Murtog: I just said no lies!
Mulroy: I think he's telling the truth...
Murtog: If he were telling the truth, he wouldn't have told us!
Jack: Unless he knew you wouldn't believe the truth, even if he told it to you.

  • In Curse Of The Black Pearl, during Jack and Will's sword fight in the blacksmith shop, Will at one point improvised a weapon by grabbing a glowing rod from the forge. Sparrow, like anyone from a culture where metalsmithery was common, would be aware that steel in that condition is too malleable to stand up against a cold blade; one hard stroke would cut right through it. Nonetheless, Jack appeared genuinely spooked. But there's an entirely feasible explanation for his response: the (very painful) experience of being branded has left Jack with a phobia about red-hot metal. Not that he panics at the very sight of it; he had no trouble handling a similar glowing rod to get the donkey moving. But when somebody is coming at him with such a thing, all Jack wants to do is get away.
  • In On Stranger Tides, Jack leaves Angelica in the exact same situation he was in before The Curse Of The Black Pearl. On an island, her ship stolen by Barbarossa and with a pistol that has one shot.
    • Made more poignant since she used that one shot against the fellow who marooned her on the island. Unfortunately for her, her aim's not as good as Jack's.
  • The mermaids in On Stranger Tides have horizontal fins, which are characteristics of aquatic mammals, while actual fish have vertical fins.
  • Ragetti is very protective of his wooden eye, despite the fact it's mentioned to not fit properly and keeps falling out. Come At World's End, we find out why.
  • The romance between Phillip and Syrena is poignant because they're both the same. Phillip is a preacher among pirates, struggling to keep his faith and kindness intact while being surrounded by scoundrels. Syrena is a mermaid who doesn't share her kin's bloodlust, and she tries to save Phillip while the other mermaids are slaughtering the rest of the crew. They're both kind souls among unkind souls; they're great for each other.
  • As Chester A. Bum pointed out, why does Blackbeard need to gain immortality if he's got the ability to create Zombies?
    • Because that doesn't help him unless he wants to be a zombie himself?
    • It's mentioned that being "zombified" makes the person more compliant, so it's very likely that Blackbeard couldn't turn himself into a zombie and, if he got somebody else to, he'd be under their command.
    • He makes Voodoo zombies. They're not immortal so much as drugged slaves who don't feel pain. That's definitely not something Blackbeard would want for himself.
      • Right. On a related note, I can't remember if the one we saw stabbed in the chest who pulled the sword out was in any other scenes or not. If he wasn't, then he presumably died not too long after, because that looked fatal. Like the falsehood of the Instant Death Bullet, most wounds don't kill instantly so he could have fought on for a small period. Of course, if he was seen later on, then either they have really good medical services (doubtful unless Blackbeard uses some sort of other magic) or they're not true Voodoo zombies and just a new variation of the same ones we've seen throughout the films.
      • Jack calls Blackbeard "ressurrector of the dead" after learning about the zombies, implying they are actual reanimated corpses. At the same time, though, they're pretty clearly slaves to Blackbeard's will, so again, not something he'd willingly do or allow done to himself.
        • Also, think about that line a bit more. "Resurrector of the dead". Dead being the key word. The cook who Blackbeard kills after the mutiny is later seen among the zombies. By the looks of it, Blackbeard can only make someone a zombie AFTER they're already dead. Quite the problem if you're trying to AVOID death.
  • While it appears to be a beginning to a new trilogy with little connection to the previous three films, On Stranger Tides continues the themes of the third film, that is the "shrinking" of the world through the loss of its supernatural elements, in this case the Fountain of Youth and Blackbeard.
  • Why did Jack want the cursed treasure so much when it's implied he knew it was cursed, or at least knew the rumors? Cursed or not, he was probably looking for a way out of his deal with Jones, either by trading him the treasure or by hoping the curse would somehow make Jones unable to bind him to service.
    • On that line, I've always been bothered by the crew of the Black Pearl throwing Bootstrap Bill overboard and acting like they're done with it and will never see him again. He's under the same curse as all the rest of them, so he couldn't have been killed. Which leads to the question of why he is with Davy Jones' crew later on, if he didn't have death to fear at first.
    • Both counts are explained. They bound him to a cannon so he'd sink to the bottom, where the pressure was so great he couldn't move. They might not have been able to kill him, but they certainly put him in an And I Must Scream situation. He sold his soul to Jones not out of fear of death like most of his crew, but to get out of there. In his own words: "If there was any chance of escaping this fate, I'd take it. I'd trade anything for it..."
  • When Jack tosses his compass to Gibbs, he says "This will lead you to freedom." Now, that makes a bit of sense, because it would point him to a way away from White Cap Bay as opposed to wandering around in the jungle. Of course, when Gibbs shows up at the end with the Black Pearl in hand, he mentions the compass led him right to it. Now, that raises the question; why was he looking for the Pearl if he wasn't aware of it's actual fate? Then, as you're dozing off that night thinking of the movie, it hits you in the face- remember what Jack told Elizabeth when they were marooned in Curse of the Black Pearl about what freedom is?
  • Angelica might remind one of Elizabeth Swan or Anamaria, both physically and in her personality. She is dark, with an accent and a temper similar to Anamaria's, and she looks a little bit like Elizabeth. With Angelica being the one woman Jack ever loved, this may be why he found Elizabeth and Anamaria a bit attractive later in his adventures; they both reminded him of Angelica.
  • Though not outright said, a bit of thought reveals why the mermaids are so hostile to humans in general and sailors in particular: Humans were kidnapping, torturing, and murdering mermaids for their tears in order to use the Fountain. If anything is going to inspire a people to Disproportionate Retribution, it would be that.
    • The reason Syrena gives for saving Philip was that he was "different" from the rest of the crew in that he was a protector which would indicate that the previous humans she encountered were less than friendly. Its possible the mermaids have an ability to sense the intentions and goals of individuals and that they're helpful and friendly to those who are nonselfish and antagonistic to those with less altruistic goals. This can be supported by Syrena delivering the silver chalices to Jack when he was seeking them out to heal Angelica who'd been poisoned even though she had no way of knowing that he wasnt seeking to use them for himself.
  • The voodoo doll into the river scene. Wood as we know, floats. So as long as the doll didn't hit the rocks but instead landed in the water, its light weight would insure it bobbed to the surface. Thus as we've already seen how the doll can control what happens to Jack if it is bobbing along the surface of the water than he must also, even if the water shouldn't be deep enough to keep him from sinking to the bottom of it hard enough to die in the fall. Thus why he could only have survived the jump after the doll was thrown in!
  • The fountain of youth is an upright rock formation shaped like a circle (with its waters dripping down). An unbroken circle to represent eternal life.
  • Hoist the Colours, the song played throughout At World's End, at first sounds like a generic pirate tune. But watch the film a second time and you suddenly realise why singing that song in particular heralds a meeting of the Brethren Court. It's about the sealing of Calypso.

The king and his men
Stole the queen from her bed
And bound her in her bones
The seas be ours...

  • In Dead Man's Chest I found the group of people in the swamp in holding a vigil for Captain Jack to be bit odd, but then I remembered something from Jack's backstory: the reason he was branded a pirate was because he freed a group of slaves. The people in the swamps could very well be the slaves he freed and they're paying their respects to the person that saved them.

Fridge Horror

  • Take a good look at the Pirates of the Caribbean skull logo. Red scarf, plaits, the coins, the beads - yep, that's Captain Jack Sparrow. Or what remains of him.
    • Averted if you assume it's Captain Jack while he was under the Curse himself.
      • Dubious. Even under the curse, Jack's skull was covered by remnants of withered flesh. Most obviously, he still had eyeballs.
    • Nobody seems to remember the Redshirt who fell off the Black Pearl in the third film while still in the world of the dead. He's going to drift in that sea for all eternity.
    • Notice the voodoo doll hanging from the hair, yeah pretty creepy if you ask me
    • What about ol' Bill Turner? Why would Will want his father to continue suffering a Fate Worse Than Death?
      • If you're referring to the curse on the Flying Duchman, it was stated somewhere that the curse was broken when Elizabeth was there when Will got his one day ashore plus the fact that he continued its duties. Bootstrap stayed on as a willing, free crewmember.
      • Also, ol' Boostrap was initially rescued by Davy Jones from a Fate Worse Than Death strapped to a cannon at the bottom of the ocean. Being freed from service on the Dutchman might mean William the elder has to pass on to the realm of the dead if he leaves. Much better to make up for lost time with his son, both doing what they love doing best.
    • Speaking of the Pirates franchise, if you check out the Wikipedia page about Port Royal, it states at the end of the first paragraph, a number of horrors that descended upon the town starting and ending with two deadly earthquakes: one in 1692 and another in 1907. Fires, hurricanes, floods and epidemics were also in the mix. It almost makes some of the fates for the cast seem more pleasant than if Will and Elizabeth had gotten married and everyone lived out 'happy' lives in the town.
    • On Stranger Tides: Since the Black Pearl was sunk by Blackbeard, and Barbossa barely escaped, what does that mean for the rest of the crew, who were loveable characters in the first three movies ? Cotton and his parrot, Marty the dwarf, Pintel and Ragetti ? They probably all died when the Pearl was attacked...
      • If things went right, they were shrinked along with the ship. If and how they survive is Fridge Horror on its own.
    • In the third movie, the whole group of heroes end up quarreling at one point and holding guns to each other's heads. When they pull the trigger, they realize the guns don't work because the powder got wet. Even so: would they really have killed each other?? Jack is the first to pull the trigger on Barbossa, which is somewhat understandable as they were mortal enemies in the first movie. But the next person to try pulling the trigger is Elizabeth, pointing it at Jack! It would have been pretty silly for her to kill Jack at the end of the second movie, feel all guilty about it and go through all the trouble of getting him back from the dead, only to kill him immediately after they returned to the real world (the only explanation that would somewhat excuse her is that she already knew the gun wouldn't work, and pulled the trigger only pretending she wanted to kill Jack, in a sort of pouty way. But it's still really risky!)
      • Let's be honest. Elizabeth is a Manipulative Bastard , which makes her the only known predator of Jack's Magnificent Bastard.
      • Probably a case where, as above, they knew the guns wouldn't work or the writers Did Not Do the Research, as anyone even minimally familiar with flintlock black-powder weapons knows a sufficiently humid day will render them inoperable, let alone having been drenched in the sea.
  • In Dead Man's Chest, Elizabeth feigning and the three guys ignoring her is Played for Laughs. But think about it--that same move in Curse of the Black Peal would have almost certainly have worked. Norrington and Will both care for her, and Jack seems to have a compulsion to help in situations like that. The fact that it didn't work shows just how much the men have become obsessed with the Heart of Davy Jones, offering some nice foreshadowing as to their roles in the third film: Will would lose Elizabeth for his father, Norrington would lose Elizabeth to get his job, and Jack has become more self-centered than normal.


Fridge Logic

  • How exactly did the Peligostos get William into that cage without anybody escaping?
    • Sharp sticks and the fact that Jack's crew men aren't the most stalwart of companions?
  • In the first movie it was originally meant for Jack's compass to point only to the Isla de Muerta. The change in the second movie leads to some fridge logic in that after the mutiny Jack supposedly spent ten year looking for the Black Pearl, when presumably the compass would have been pointing directly at it.
    • The Pearl was headed for Isla de Muerta when Jack was using it in the first movie. To find one was to find the other.
  • Why didn't Barbossa cut the ropes instead of his leg? Short term solution, I know, but wouldn't you have at least tried that first?
    • For all we know, he did- but as you said, short-term solution; the whole ship was coming alive under Blackbeard's power, and we don't know how many ropes Barbossa may nor may not have cut before one grabbed hold of him. Alternatively, he simply panicked and did the first thing that came to mind- and note, he was apparently the only member of the Pearl's crew to escape that battle.
  • The after-credits scene in On Stranger Tides: It seems amazingly contrived that the voodoo doll would float all the way from White Cap Bay to the island Angelica was on, even more so to float directly to her. Who knows how far away they were from each other, and it would need an absolutely flawless set of conditions to do that. Maybe the spirit of Blackbeard from the world beyond guided it to her? I suppose with this franchise, that's certainly possible.
    • It's a voodoo doll- it's already supernatural. Perhaps it was trying to find its way back to its creator, but with him being dead and all, it went to the closest thing- his daughter
  • At the end of On Stranger Tides, why does it not occur to Jack or Gibbs to just try pulling the stopper on The Black Pearl's bottle first?
    • The stopper has been sealed in a different way, with some various magic runes or symbols, and they would have no idea what would happen, or Jack even realized what they were, and it was how he knew about his "Ritual" which he and Gibbs would need to perform
    • Gibbs may have already tried it while waiting for Jack; either it didn't budge, or did come out but didn't change the ship at all. Presumably, Blackbeard sealed it with Black Magic, so they need to undo the spell, not just pull the stopper/ shatter the bottle.
  • How could anyone forget the bit that Jack himself lampshaded in Curse of the Black Pearl? When one of his fellow prison inmates said that there were never any survivors from attacks by the Black Pearl, he questioned where the stories about it came from.
    • They were just that: stories. Pirates often spread rumours around. Plus, people exaggerate. We see how the Pearl, under Barbossa, raided Port Royal in the first film, so if this is a bench mark on how they conducted raids, it's possible there were survivor who exaggerated the effects.
      • I always took it to mean the ones spreading the stories were the cursed crew of the Pearl. Fridge Horror for any anyone who'd heard the stories.
  • In the fourth movie, if the Spaniards were intent on destroying the fountain from the beginning, why didn't they just destroy the chalices when they had them? They still could have gotten into the fountain, considering they managed it at the end, and destroying the chalices would have prevented anyone from using it.
    • Always figured they wanted to take the Chalices back to Spain as trophies. Their leader only decided to destroy them when he found the British soldiers and Blackbeard's crew at the Fountain and decided to make his point dramatically.
    • Or like Jack, they thought they needed them to get into the fountain.

Fridge Horror

  • In On Stranger Tides, Angelica takes all the years that Blackbeard would have had left, but Blackbeard had very little time left, since he was poisoned. And even if he wasn't, he was 70 years old at the time, and definitely didn't have many years left. So, Angelica must have died shortly after the movie ended.
    • Nope. She gets all the lives he had lived as well. It's said in the movie.
    • And the years he would have lived if "fate had been kinder".
      • Drinking from the fountain doesn't shorten your remaining lifespan just because you drank with someone else who doesn't have long to live. Doing it to a two yearold mouse instead of blackbeard wouldn't mean that you only had one year or so left to live. You'd just have three extra years from the mouse.
  • When Barbossa tells the story of how Blackbeard sank the Black Pearl in On Stranger Tides, the emphasis is on him and his escape, which distracts the viewer from realizing until later that Pintel, Ragetti, Mulroy, Murtog, Marty, Cotton and Cotton's parrot are all dead.
    • This troper insists they're just chilling in the bottle. With the monkey.
    • And the parrot's alive. First time Jack looks into it you see Cotton's parrot fly by Jack the Monkey.
    • Is that really better though? Being trapped in a bottle for God-knows-how-long?
    • Yes, because it means they might be able to get out eventually.
      • There's still some Fridge Horror even if they are alive in the bottle; who gets eaten first, Cotton's parrot, or the monkey?
      • Parrot. Monkey's undead- you're probably not going to get any nourishment from him.
      • But the Monkey provides an infinite amount of food due to the immortality.
      • Assuming, again, that you can get any nutritional value from something that's been cursed and undead for several years. Methinks that more likely you'd get very, very sick. I wouldn't chance it.
      • Actually, none of these options would occur. Remember how the Black Pearl crew's immortality worked? They don't regrow parts, and they can be easily disassembled...but the various pieces violently try to reattach themselves. Furthermore, if they took the monkey inside before eating it, it would be all fleshified and perfectly healthy to eat (well, as healthy as a normal monkey, anyway). So here's how I see this playing out. The crew, starving to death, decides to bite the bullet and carve up the monkey. They carve it, still fully alive and conscious, into multiple pieces, then presumably fry said pieces or boil them or something to kill all of the mites and fleas and bacteria and stuff (which I'm assuming are not undead). Bear in mind that these pieces are still alive and vaguely conscious, a la the arm that Governor Swan chops off in Black Pearl. After being bisected and boiled alive, the monkey's still-wriggling parts are devoured by starving pirates, at which point they're dissolved by stomach acid...or are they? The undead pirates can recover from stab wounds, so their cells must knit their way back together like the larger limbs. So after eating the monkey's still-living, boiled appendages, each pirate now has an acid-resistant chunk of food thrashing its way out of his intestines, tearing through the stomach lining, and trying to reunite itself with the rest of its body...which is doing the same thing, in someone else's stomach.
  • All those pirates captured at the end of Curse of the Black Pearl? They were hanged. Pintel and Ragetti only got prison because they were hanging around dressed as women during most of the final battle.
    • ... and? Barbossa's crew were, from what we see of them, unabashed criminal scum. Even Pintel and Ragetti (though they're endearingly inept scum and spared on account of being the comic relief). I'm not a big fan of the death penalty in real life, but I confess I'm failing to see the horror in a crew of fictional villains being hanged.
  • In On Stranger Tides, the fountain of youth's ritual steals the potential life of one person, and gives it to another, and while Blackbeard never said exactly whose life he was going to use, there just so happened to be a 14 year old boy that they had happened to kidnap.
    • It steals the years they lived, not their potential years.
      • It steals potential years too. Angelica clearly said(paraphrased) "years they have lived or would have lived."
  • Is it only me that has noticed the inherent horror of rooting for the pirates in Worlds End. Yes, the English are being led by a dick, but most of them are innocent and honest sailors, and when you think about it, the pirates are basically all just thieving and murdering scum! I say this, of course, but I still can't stop myself rooting for the pirates at the end.
    • It helps that except for a single raid at the beginning of the first movie, (and when not fighting for their lives and freedom) they all seem to be The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything.
    • Beckett is also thieving and murdering scum. He's just higher-class scum. It's a grey-and-grey morality situation, and we root for the pirates because a. we spend more time with them and b. Beckett's a Complete Monster who is trying to seize control of all the supernatural power of the sea for himself.
  • In the opening of At World's End, the hanging scene, where they're hanging everyone remotely associated with piracy, the fact that all Beckett has to do is say someone is a pirate and to hang them, no matter if they were. The real big bit of fridge horror was the kid who began the song; Hanging is potentially immediately fatal, as the sudden stop can(and usually does) snap necks. The kid, however, was on the small side, and probably didn't gain enough momentum in the drop to snap his neck. He strangled until he died.
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