Bargain

A bargain, deal or haggling is a type of negotiation in which the buyer and seller of a good or service dispute the price which will be paid and the exact nature of the transaction that will take place, and eventually come to an agreement. Optimally, if it costs the retailer nothing to engage and allow bargaining, he can divine the buyer's willingness to spend. A bargain is an agreement between parties concerning the sale of property; or a contract by which one party binds himself to transfer the right to some property for a consideration, and the other party binds himself to receive the property and pay the consideration.

History

The infamous pirate Captain Torrents was once press-ganged into service aboard Davy Jones' cursed ghost ship, the Flying Dutchman, but they struck a bargain, in which Torrents agreed to bring the Sword of Cortés and its scabbard to Jones within one year's time, in exchange for his freedom. To ensure Torrents kept to his word, Jones marked his chest with the symbol of Quetzalcoatl, found on the scabbard of the Sword itself. This angered the Aztec gods, who placed a curse on Torrents, who would be followed wherever he went by storms and lightnings. As a consequence of his deal, Torrents inexplicably had the power to control these storms, which grew in intensity when he became angered.^[1]

During his teenage adventures, young Jack Sparrow and his ragtag crew found themselves targeted by the merfolk of Isla Sirena. The siren song ensnared all the young crewmembers except Jack, who was brought before the mermaid leaders, Aquala, Aquila, and Morveren. The mermaids agreed to release Jack's friends in exchange for Jack's greatest treasure. Thinking that they were talking about the legendary Sword of Cortés, which he was searching for, Jack refused at first, but the mermaids replied, "Not all treasure is silver and gold." Jack accepted their terms, and left them the eye of Stone-Eyed Sam as collateral.^[2] Only when the mermaids let him leave their lair, Jack realized his greatest treasure was his freedom, and he had foolishly traded it away.^[3] Jack was able to escape his debt a few days later when he returned to Isla Sirena with the Sword of Cortés. He proposed another deal, a duel which would determine his fate. If he won, he would keep his freedom, the Sword, and the Eye. If he lost, the mermaids would take the Sword, keep the Eye, and hold Jack imprisoned forever.^[4] The mermaids agreed, and Jack fought the two Iguana monsters. Though he couldn't use the powers of the Sword against his opponents, Jack managed to trick the monsters into killing each other, winning the battle.^[5]

Some time later, Morveren, Aquala, and Aquila faced the possibility of a resistance from the rest of the merfolk, which they controlled only through the power of Poseidon's Trident. To preserve their position, the trio made a deal with Captain Torrents—he would guard the Trident and keep it out of the hands of the rebellious merfolk, and in exchange the mermaid sisters would share their sovereignty over the merfolk with him. Being a treacherous pirate, Torrents double crossed the trio and decided to rule the Seven Seas alone, using the Trident to take control over the merfolk army and ordering them to pillage and plunder all the oceans of the world.^[6]

When Cutler Beckett, the Director of West African Imports and Exports for the East India Trading Company, offered to promote Jack Sparrow to the rank of Captain, he also decided to give him command of the Marlin, the brand new square rigger that was supposed to carry slaves. Sparrow refused, however, because the honest seaman valued freedom over everything else. Knowing that Sparrow was an excellent operative and intending to gain his loyalty, Beckett offered him command of another ship, the regular merchant vessel Wicked Wench, which Sparrow accepted. The two men then sealed their bargain with a glass of claret.^[7] Approximately a year later, following Sparrow's allegedly failed quest to find the mythical island of Kerma and its ancient treasure, Beckett asked Jack to take a cargo of nearly two hundred slaves to transport them to the island of New Avalon for Beckett's superior Lord Reginald Marmaduke Bracegirdle-Penwallow. Jack at first refused, and even attempted to resign his commission, but Beckett warned him that in that case he would owe the Company money for the cargo of sugar destroyed in a pirate attack on the previous voyage. Beckett then promised that if Jack did that one delivery, he would never ask him to do something like that again, and would even sell him the Wicked Wench for just one shilling. After a short thinking, Jack stated that Beckett had himself a deal, but refused to shake hands with him.^[8] When Beckett later set his ship aflame and sunk, Jack made a dark and dangerous bargain with Davy Jones to raise his ship from the depths in exchange for Jack's body and soul to serve one hundred years aboard the Flying Dutchman.^[9][10] As Jack rechristened the resurrected and transformed Wicked Wench as the Black Pearl, Jack thought that he'd somehow get out of the hard bargain and figure himself out of the situation.^[11]

Some time later, Jack Sparrow led the mysterious Admiral Royce and his crew to the mouth of the Pantano River. When they arrived, Royce made a bargain with Jack, a 15-pound sack of gold in exchange for showing him the way to the voodoo mystic Tia Dalma. Jack took the gold, but warned Royce there was no guarantee they would find Tia Dalma. The admiral then revealed that he had a map that would lead him to his goal.^[12]

When Elizabeth Swann was brought aboard the Black Pearl to negotiate with Captain Hector Barbossa in a "parlay" during the attack on Port Royal, under the name Elizabeth "Turner", she used the Gold Medallion to strike a bargain. Her threat to drop it overboard made the captain cooperate, but she soon found out she was foolish to trust him as Barbossa sailed away, with Elizabeth still on board.^[13][14] Later, speaking of Jack Sparrow's quest for the Pearl, Joshamee Gibbs would tell Jack that Barbossa's "not a man to suffer fools, nor strike a bargain with one", in which Jack claimed to not be a fool. Later, as the Black Pearl began its chase on the Interceptor, Jack attempted to negotiate with Barbossa, offering to trade him the name of Bootstrap Bill's child and blood in exchange for letting Jack sail away on the Pearl while leaving Barbossa on a beach. However, Barbossa refused Jack's offer when the Pearl came close to the Interecptor and had Jack locked in the brig. After the destruction of the Interceptor, Will Turner revealed his bloodline to Barbossa, ruining Jack's chances for further bargain.^[15][16]

Following the recovery of the skull of Sam Johnson from a sunken galleon, Joshamee Gibbs was turned to stone when he put the last missing piece of bone into the skull. At the same time, the skull magically came to life, and Jack Sparrow made a deal with it - the skull would lead him to Captain Drake's fabulous treasure, and in exchange Jack would reunite the skull with the rest of Johnson's skeleton that was hidden with the treasure on Isla Cueva.^[17]

By the search for the Dead Man's Chest, thirteen years passed after Captain Jack Sparrow's dark and dangerous bargain with Davy Jones to raise the Black Pearl from the depths.^[9][10][11] While trying to settle his debt and escape servitude aboard the Flying Dutchman, Jack made several more bargains: one with Will Turner, and one with Davy Jones himself. Will Turner, who had previously struck a bargain with Lord Cutler Beckett in finding Jack's compass,^[18][19] agreed to help Jack find the Key to the Dead Man's Chest.^[20] In a terrifying bargain with Davy Jones, his one chance in haggling over price, knowing more than a bit about Jones's love for a good bargain,^[21] Jack Sparrow had to collect 100 human souls in three days, with Will Turner used as a "good faith payment" which left Jack with 99 more to go.^[18][22] If Jack succeeded, he would be a free man once more, but if he failed, he faced a life of slavery, serving Jones on the Flying Dutchman.^[23]

Before embarking on the venture to rescue Jack Sparrow from the Land of the Dead, the resurrected Hector Barbossa struck a bargain with the voodoo mystic Tia Dalma, who was really the sea goddess Calypso in human form; in return for bringing the pirate captain back from the dead, he'd summon a meeting Pirate Lords of the Brethren Court and release the goddess from her human bonds. Will Turner also made a bargain, in which Turner gets the Black Pearl so he could free his father, Bootstrap Bill. However, Chinese Pirate Lord Sao Feng turned on Will after dealing with the East India Trading Company, though Feng himself was betrayed.^[24] Having remembered all too clearly the bargain he had struck with Will Turner,^[19] Cutler Beckett then bargained with Jack, who had the compass, though Jack was not so eager to bargain. Simultaneously, Barbossa made a bargain with Sao Feng to escape EITC imprisonment. Later, to accomplish his own end, Will Turner bargained with both Beckett and Davy Jones in leading them to Shipwreck Cove. During the Fourth Brethren Court, when Barbossa tried to convince the assembled Pirate Lords to free Calypso, he said "Better were the days when mastery of seas came not from bargains struck with eldritch creatures, but from the sweat of a man's brow and the strength of his back alone."^[24]

During the quest for the Fountain of Youth, after Jack Sparrow learned of the Profane Ritual from Angelica, she showed him a cabinet-full of shrunken ships in bottles that Blackbeard kept aboard the Queen Anne's Revenge. Angelica made a deal with Jack that if he helped her, he'd have his pick, though knowing he'd want the Black Pearl in a bottle. However, despite later making a deal for the Chalices, Jack ended up having the Pearl retrieved by Joshamee Gibbs, who also left with a sack-full of ships in bottles.^[25]

At some point prior to the quest for the Trident of Poseidon, Hector Barbossa made a deal with the sea witch Shansa, which saved her from the gallows, and in exchange she cursed his enemies. During the search for the legendary Trident, Henry Turner made a deal with Jack Sparrow to help him escape from Saint Martin so they would find the Trident together. However, after their escape, Jack decided to imprison Henry and Carina Smyth so he could force them to lead him to the Trident.^[26] When Henry angrily complained, stating that they had a deal, Jack simply replied there was a slight modification to the plan.^[27] Some time later, Captain Barbossa made a deal with the ghostly Spanish pirate hunter Capitán Armando Salazar, in which Barbossa would lead Salazar to his nemesis, Jack Sparrow, and in exchange the dead would spare the pirate captain and his motley crew. Later, when Sparrow managed to find refuge on the island of Hangman's Bay, where the ghosts couldn't follow him, Salazar agreed to release Barbossa's crew so they could go on land and capture Jack for him. Once they found Sparrow, however, Barbossa revealed he never intended to honor his part of the deal, because his plan was to find the Trident of Poseidon and reclaim his rule over the sea. That night, upon the two pirate captains realizing Carina Smyth was Hector's long lost daughter, Barbossa threatened to cut off Sparrow's tongue, but the latter warned his old rival that he would have nothing to bargain with Salazar. Jack then attempted to negotiate with Barbossa, demanding his compass, 216 barrels of rum, and Jack the Monkey, in exchange for his silence. Barbossa refused Jack's deal, thinking that a clever young woman like Carina would never believe that a "swine" like Barbossa could ever be her blood.^[26]

Behind the scenes

Bargains and deals first appeared in Irene Trimble's junior novelization for the 2003 film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.^[14][16] The term "haggling" was first used in Trimble's junior novelization for the 2006 film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.^[18][22]

In Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio's early screenplay draft for The Curse of the Black Pearl, Will Turner suggested to Governor Weatherby Swann and Commodore Norrington to "strike a bargain" with Jack Sparrow to help rescue Elizabeth Swann from Captain Barbossa. Later, as Jack is forced to walk the plank and be marooned on a desert island, Barbossa said the reef is less than a league distant, "It's a square deal all around, and you can't hope for better".^[28]

In the "Not All That Big" deleted scene in The Curse of the Black Pearl, after being marooned, Elizabeth Swann accuses Jack Sparrow of planning to betray Will Turner to Barbossa in exchange for the Black Pearl. Jack denies her accusations, revealing that as long as Barbossa didn't know about Will, Jack had something to bargain with.^[29]

In Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio's original screenplay for Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Barbossa made a deal with Dragon Lady, the mysterious leader of the Chinese pirates. She agreed to give him the charts to Davy Jones' Locker and in exchange he was supposed to bring her Lang Si, a traitor who killed her brother some time earlier. However, the hooded prisoner brought to Singapore was actually Will Turner in disguise, which caused the battle when Sao Feng discovered the deception. Later, Feng's ship, the Empress, captured the Black Pearl off the Black Sand Beach. Will then revealed his deal with Feng, but Jack Sparrow and Barbossa made a different deal with the Chinese pirate right on the spot, promising to pay thirty doubloons to every member of Feng's crew, plus Elizabeth Swann for Sao Feng, on the condition that he returns her to them alive at Shipwreck Cove.^[30]

In Jeff Nathanson's 2013 early screenplay draft of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Hector Barbossa made a deal with the ghost of the British pirate hunter Captain John Brand. Barbossa was supposed to find Jack Sparrow, who caused Brand's demise in the Devil's Triangle sixteen years earlier, and deliver him to Brand. In exchange, Brand agreed to give Barbossa a large diamond called the Eye of Poseidon. Later, the witch Melia made a deal with Brand - she would help him leave the Devil's Triangle to find the Trident of Poseidon and in exchange she would rule the seas by his side. When Sparrow discovered Carina Smyth was Barbossa's daughter, he made a deal with the older pirate - silence in exchange for the Black Pearl, while Barbossa would get the Trident.^[31]

In the French adaptation of Elizabeth Rudnick's novelization of Dead Men Tell No Tales, when Jack Sparrow negotiates with Hector Barbossa to stay silent about Carina Smyth's parents, he demands his compass, Barbossa's coat, a lock of Barbossa's hair, 216 barrels of rum, Jack the Monkey and the Trident of Poseidon.^[32]

In the non-canon video game Sea of Thieves: A Pirate's Life, the player makes a bargain with the undead skull of the Cursed Captain. The player frees the skull from its gibbet and in exchange the skull tells them the history of the Sea of the Damned.^[33]

Appearances

• Jack Sparrow: The Coming Storm (Mentioned only)
• Jack Sparrow: The Siren Song
• The Price of Freedom
• Legends of the Brethren Court: Rising in the East
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Isles of War
• The Compass of Destiny!
• The Star of the Seas
• Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003 junior novelization) (First appearance) (First identified as bargain and deal)
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2006 junior novelization)
• The Guardians of Windward Cove
• The Dark Skull
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (junior novelization) (First identified as haggling)
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (video game)
• Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (junior novelization)
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End: The Movie Storybook
• Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
  • Pirates des Caraïbes : La Vengeance de Salazar
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales: Movie Graphic Novel
• Sea of Thieves: A Pirate's Life (Non-canonical appearance)

Sources

• Pirates of the Caribbean: The Visual Guide
• Pirates of the Caribbean: The Complete Visual Guide

External links

• Bargain on Wikipedia

Notes and references

1. ↑ Jack Sparrow: The Coming Storm, pp. 126-128
2. ↑ Jack Sparrow: The Siren Song, pp. 110-113
3. ↑ Jack Sparrow: The Siren Song, pp. 115-116
4. ↑ Jack Sparrow: The Sword of Cortés, pp. 64-66
5. ↑ Jack Sparrow: The Sword of Cortés, p. 72
6. ↑ Jack Sparrow: Bold New Horizons, pp. 65-66
7. ↑ The Price of Freedom, Chapter Four: Cutler Beckett
8. ↑ The Price of Freedom, Chapter Eighteen: Exodus
9. ↑ ^{9.0 9.1} Pirates of the Caribbean: The Visual Guide, pp. 50-51: "Jack's Bargain"
10. ↑ ^{10.0 10.1} Pirates of the Caribbean: The Complete Visual Guide, pp. 50-51: "Jack's Bargain"
11. ↑ ^{11.0 11.1} The Price of Freedom, Epilogue: The Black Pearl
12. ↑ The Compass of Destiny!
13. ↑ Pirates of the Caribbean: The Complete Visual Guide, pp. 20-21 "Elizabeth Swann"
14. ↑ ^{14.0 14.1} Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003 junior novelization), pp. 41-42
15. ↑ Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003 junior novelization), p. 86
16. ↑ ^{16.0 16.1} Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
17. ↑ The Dark Skull
18. ↑ ^{18.0 18.1 18.2} Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (junior novelization)
19. ↑ ^{19.0 19.1} Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (junior novelization), p. 99
20. ↑ Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (junior novelization), p. 57
21. ↑ Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (junior novelization), p. 18
22. ↑ ^{22.0 22.1} Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
23. ↑ Pirates of the Caribbean: The Complete Visual Guide, pp. 60-61 "Souls For Sale"
24. ↑ ^{24.0 24.1} Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
25. ↑ Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
26. ↑ ^{26.0 26.1} Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
27. ↑ Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales: Movie Graphic Novel
28. ↑ Wordplayer.com: PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL by Ted Elliott & Terry Rossio
29. ↑ Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl Deleted Scene: "Not All That Big"
30. ↑ PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD'S END by Ted Elliott & Terry Rossio
31. ↑ Dead Men Tell No Tales script by Jeff Nathanson, second draft, 5/6/2013
32. ↑ Pirates des Caraïbes: La Vengeance de Salazar - Le roman du film, p. 154
33. ↑ Sea of Thieves: A Pirate's Life