Captain Black Beard is a character who appears in the ABC fantasy-drama series Once Upon a Time. He is a pirate and an old enemy of Captain Hook.
History
Through some means, Black Beard comes to possess an item called a wishing star, which can grant a wish, but only if the user has a pure heart. Approached by King and Queen of Arendelle, they hand over his asking price in exchange for the wishing star.
Black Beard meets a thief named Snow White, who is running away from the Evil Queen, and hopes he can take her as far as possible from the kingdom. She offers some money in exchange for hiding as a stowaway on his ship, but the pirate asks her to pay up more in order to earn his discretion. As she thinks about her next move, Black Beard leaves.
In the Enchanted Forest, Black Beard takes leadership of Hook's former ship, The Jolly Roger, and imprisons Prince Eric on Hangman's Island. When Hook arrives to reclaim the vessel, they have a sword duel. The fight is interrupted by Ariel, who Hook is helping to find Eric, but her beloved is not on the ship. Black Beard offers to relinquish Eric only if Hook gives up on trying to take back the Jolly Roger, but the former pirate captain stiffly refuses. Instead, Hook binds Black Beard's arms and legs, gives a cut across the hand, and throws him to be eaten by sharks. This angers Ariel as Black Beard was her only hope of finding Eric. Unknown to Hook, she rescues Black Beard from death.
Later, Black Beard also regains the Jolly Roger, though the circumstances of this are unknown.
In a scheme, Prince Hans buys Black Beard's compliance with gold to corner Anna and Kristoff. When approached by the twosome, Black Beard agrees, in a fib, to sell them the wishing star for an equal amount of gold in his own weight. When the deal is struck, Prince Hans and his brothers trap Anna and Kristoff. Admitting to the charade, Black Beard then tells Anna how much she resembles her mother; recounting how her naïve parents came to him asking for the wishing star, but they failed to realize that the item can only be harnessed by a pure-hearted person. After Prince Hans sentences the pair to death, Black Beard orders a large coffer to be pulled onto the deck. He recalls how a past rival once made him walk the plank, and though death seemed certain, his life was saved by a mermaid (referring to Hook and Ariel). Jokingly, he jibs that the casket will ensure they die without "fin-terference". As Anna is forced into the coffer, she mouths off to Hans in the insistence that Elsa will escape from the urn and regain the throne from him, but to her shock, he reveals Ingrid's magic froze Arendelle and everyone in it for thirty years. After the casket is closed, Black Beard calls for his crew to toss it into the sea, which they promptly do.
A period of time after this, Elsa and her family return and reclaim the kingdom from Hans and his brothers. According to Ariel, as punishment for conspiring against Anna and Kristoff, Elsa shrank the Jolly Roger into a bottle, but unintentionally traps her.
Sometime later, Black Beard comes to possess another magic bean, which he stores in his pirate's hat. He returns to the Enchanted Forest again, and while he is in the midst of a card game with other pirates, Hook saunters up to offer a bag of jewels as payment for a bean. Black Beard scoffs at the jewels that he presumes Hook stole from someone, and even when the latter confirms they're Agrabahn gems, he laughs at Hook for going as far as sailing the seas in a desert of all places. Hook brings up the fact Black Beard has been without a ship since losing the Jolly Roger in Arendelle, a sore reminder that angers Black Beard, who tries to challenge Hook to a duel. Rather than that, Hook offers up the Jolly Roger to him if he bests him in a card game. Black Beard is intrigued by Hook's willingness to risk losing the ship himself, which the latter claims is only a risk if he loses. Accepting the deal, Black Beard nods to one of the pirate mates, who promptly grabs the pirate seated next to him and hurls him to the floor, in order to make room for Hook to sit at the table. After Hook has lost in the game, he leads Black Beard outside, confessing that the ship is actually in Storybrooke and if he wants his prize, he'll have to forfeit the bean to him now. Black Beard gives him the bean, but instead of waiting for Hook to return with the ship, he opts to go with him into the portal. Because of Gideon's magic preventing Hook from going home, the two pirates end up in Neverland, where a band of vicious Lost Boys chases after them, prompting Black Beard and Hook to run for their lives. They find a rowboat by the shoreline, however, Black Beard knocks out Hook before hurrying to the boat and rowing into the sea. Upon waking up, Hook furiously shouts over at Black Beard for betraying him, while the latter is unapologetic for his actions. As Black Beard continues rowing further away, he yells that, if Hook survives, he still owes him his ship.
Trivia
- In the series his name as "Black beard" instead of "Blackbeard".
- While possibly incidental, Blackbeard's appearance in Once Upon a Time greatly resembled his appearance as the Captain of the Wicked Wench in the original Pirates of the Caribbean attraction.
- Blackbeard is one of the few fully historic characters to have been a resident of the Enchanted Forest in Once Upon a Time, Davy Crockett did however make a cameo in later seasons albeit unnamed.
- In Once Upon a Time, Blackbeard has knives replacing the pistols typically strapped to his chest due to the Enchanted Forest not having invented guns.
- Blackbeard is the first and only character to have appeared in The Pirates franchise to make an appearance in ABC's Once Upon a Time. However, Jack Sparrow was mentioned when Emma was talking with Hook about sword-fighting.
- His clothes in the series are very similar to the ones of the Pirate Captain/Blackbeard from the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.
Gallery
See also
External links
Black Beard on Wikipedia
Black Beard on Once Upon a Time Wiki- Black Beard (Wish Realm) on Once Upon a Time Wiki
