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Spirit

This article is about the non-corporeal essence of a being or entity. You may be looking for a deceased person's spirit in visible form.
Cortes vs Montezuma
"I say that we throw the dress overboard and we hope the spirit follows it."
"No! That will just anger the spirit, sir. What we need to do is find out what the spirit needs, and then just get it back to her."
―Bursar and Quartermaster[src]

Spirit has many differing meanings and connotations, most of them relating to a non-corporeal substance contrasted with the material body. The word "spirit" was often used metaphysically to refer to the consciousness or personality. The notions of a person's "spirit" and "soul" often also overlap, as both contrast with body and both are understood as surviving the bodily death in religion and occultism, and "spirit" can also have the sense of "ghost", i.e. a manifestation of the spirit of a deceased person.

History

"That dress. Where did you get it?"
"It was found aboard the ship. The crew it thought it was a spirit bringing some omen of ill fate."
"That's foolish."
―Will Turner and Bellamy[src]

At some point during the early 18th century, when the young adventurer Jack Sparrow and his crew found the legendary Sword of Cortés on Isla Fortuna, they unintentionally summoned the ghostly spirit of Hernán Cortés, the conquistador who destroyed the Aztec Empire and the original owner of the Sword.[1] The ghostly Cortés tried to trick Jack Sparrow into doing his bidding for him, so he could make himself ruler of the Seven Seas, but with the few advices from the voodoo witch Tia Dalma, Jack was able to summon the spirit of the Aztec Emperor Montecuhzoma, who attacked and destroyed Cortés.[2]

During the quest for Kerma, Jack Sparrow brought the long lost members of the Kerman royal family, Prince Shabako and Princess Amenirdis, back to the legendary island. When the island's regent, Queen Tiyy, learned from her children about the death of her husband, Pharaoh Taharka, at the hands of the rogue pirates, she wondered how could the gods receive his spirit without the proper burial rites.[3]

When Elizabeth Swann sneaked onboard the Edinburgh Trader as a sailor, she tricked the superstitious crewmen into thinking that her wedding dress was a spirit to force them to sail the ship to Tortuga.[4] During the quest to rescue Jack Sparrow and the Black Pearl from Davy Jones' Locker, the crew of the Black Pearl sailed through the Sea of the Damned, where they saw the spirits and souls of those who died at sea.[5]

Behind the scenes

Spirits were first mentioned in the 2003 film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.[6] Although the movie storybook and video game adaptation for Dead Man's Chest has Jack Sparrow visited by the ghostly spirit of Bootstrap Bill Turner when he received the Black Spot,[7] and the movie storybook described Davy Jones as an evil sea spirit,[8] the film itself portrayed the character as cursed undead crewmen.[4] Spirits first appeared through the spirit of Hernán Cortés in the Rob Kidd book Jack Sparrow: The Pirate Chase,[1] setting up a more prominent role in Jack Sparrow: The Sword of Cortés.[2]

In Jeff Nathanson's early screenplay draft of Dead Men Tell No Tales, the main villain was Captain John Brand, the restless spirit of a British pirate hunter who swore revenge on Jack Sparrow for the death of his brother Eric.[9] The character was eventually replaced with Armando Salazar.[10]

Appearances

Sources

External links

Notes and references

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Jack Sparrow: The Pirate Chase
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Jack Sparrow: The Sword of Cortés
  3. ↑ The Price of Freedom, Chapter Fifteen: Kerma
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
  5. ↑ Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
  6. ↑ Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
  7. ↑ Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (video game)
  8. ↑ Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest: The Movie Storybook
  9. ↑ Dead Men Tell No Tales script by Jeff Nathanson, second draft, 5/6/2013
  10. ↑ Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales