Pirates Of The Caribbean: Why Jack Sparrow Is Cursed By The Black Pearl – Screen Rant

Although the Pirates of the Caribbean series is rich with pirate lore, Jack Sparrow violates a common seafaring superstition (& is cursed for it).

Thecentral plot device of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearlis a cursed pirate treasure, but the protagonist, Jack Sparrow, may have incurred a curse from another source based in real nautical superstition piratesbelieved in. While the film-by-film stories of thePirates of the Caribbeanseries tends to focusostensibly on a rotating pair of romantic leads, the unfailingly off-kilter Jack Sparrow is theconsistentcharacter around whom most of the action revolves.

In a variant on classic pirate tales, The Curse of the Black Pearldetails the return of stolen gold to break a curse ofghastly immortality put upon the mutinous crew of theBlack Pearl.The ousted Captain Jack Sparrow wasn't party to the theft, so he isn't cursed by it until he tactically allows himself to be in his final fight with Hector Barbossa. However, Jack's history with thePearlexposed him to adifferent supernatural danger.

Related: Pirates of the Caribbean: All 4 Captains Of The Black Pearl Explained

There is an established nautical superstition that it is bad luck to rename a boat.The belief posits that a ship iscatalogued by the gods under its first name, and changing it would be akin to hiding something from said gods, who would presumably become rather vengeful.Sparrow initially came by the Black Pearlfirst as a pirate ship under Captain Morgan, then later under his own command as a merchant vessel in the service of the East India Trading Company. In those days, it was still named theWicked Wench, but he rechristened it theBlack Pearl after Davy Jones saved it from being scuttled by Lord Cutler Beckett. Thereafter he was subject to all of the turmoil shown in the films, including his own (temporary) death and while an argument could be made that most of the trouble was self-inflicted, it also certainly smacks of bad luck.

The blending of real-world history, mythical superstitions, and modern adventure tropes is a hallmark of thePirates of the Caribbean series and the broader genre from which it borrows.An interesting twist arising from this fusion is that, while the original superstition warns that renaming a ship would upset the powers of the sea, it was in fact the legendary Davy Jones's resurrection of Jack's ship that inspired the change of moniker in the first place. Whether or not this means Jones was complicit in Jack's decision is left up to interpretation, but it does suggest that, in this particular instance, Jack's tempting of fate was enabled by powers greater than himself.

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Pirates Of The Caribbean: Why Jack Sparrow Is Cursed By The Black Pearl - Screen Rant