I think that's the really gorgeous thing about Jack, though--the writers' Jack and Depp's Jack--does he want Elizabeth? wait, is he baiting her to break her and Will up and take his opportunity with the latter? wait, did he really intend to betray Will to a lifetime of slavery and barnacles? wait, is he a completely ruthless amoral son of a bitch with no regard for anyone's life but his own? You just can't TELL. His behavior has proven consistently inconsistent, and the things he tries have effects at 90-degree angles from the original thrust. He plays billiards with life.
Young, innocent Will asks, in CotBP, if heatstroke is "the reason" for all that wobbly bad-boy swish and rumspice slurring, and Gibbs answers that reason's got nothing to do with it; but, really, the sway and the spinning is the only thing I can guarantee is coldly calculated: as Gibbs also says, Jack plays things closer to the vest now. Who the hell knows WHAT he's thinking?
And you're all right, I think: Captain Jack Sparrow is a lazy, opportunistic, brilliant (yet often dim) creature out to save his own skin, take what he can, and give nothing back. Would he do Elizabeth is given half the chance? Yeah, probably, if for nothing else but achieving (probably not for the first time) the trifecta of a) having someone ruined for all other men forever by the sheer blinding force of how good he is in bed; b) the obvious, you know, orgasm thing; and c) getting to see the pretty fireworks between her and her intended afterwards: God knows he says enough explosive stuff just to totally enrage people (as soon as they figure out what it means). And it's not like he's been proven exactly *picky* about his, ah, company. And if it drives Will and Elizabeth apart and Will wants a bit of revenge or a taste of what drove Elizabeth mad, well, then, so much the better.
But Elizabeth's possibly (*possibly*) very right to think that the driving force of most of Jack's decisions (right after the oh-so-immediate sense of self-preservation) is curiosity. You can count on a dishonest man to always be dishonest, you can count on an honest man to be generally honest with flashes of doing somethings incredibly stupid; but you can't count on a curious man for anything, and that's Jack to a T.
So we get to make it up. In a way, I think DMC affords every last fanficcer's mother's son (or daughter, as the case may be) an ENORMOUS opportunity to basically do whatever they want to with the characters. There is no way to tell what the hell's going on with any of the them, or how any of them will end up, or what fate any of them will choose, especially because we have no concrete evidence as to why they've done what they've done already. Why did Jack trick Will into paying his debt to Davy Jones? was he really all that wrong in saying that it would save Will's life? would he really have left him there forever? why, if he was so thrilled to have someone else pay his debt, did he try to talk Jones out of keeping him, TWICE? Why was he messing with Elizabeth? why was he messing with Elizabeth in full view of everyone on the crew? when Elizabeth messed back, was she teasing him, or teasing herself? does she want Jack, or does she want the selfish and utterly free life he represents? did she kiss him because she wanted to, or did she kiss him only to get him into that shackle?
The magic of Jack is that he might indeed be the aforementioned ruthless amoral son of a bitch, and he might be curious enough to try honor and see where it gets him (kissed and then dead, apparently), and he might be in love--with Will, with Elizabeth, with the *Black Pearl*, with freedom, with that horizon--but Jack's not going to tell us, and neither, suggests the end of the movie, is anyone else. Odd behavior and unjustifiable weirdness is not, in Jack Sparrow's case, necessarily a threat to a happy ending.
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Date: 2006-08-05 09:07 pm (UTC)Young, innocent Will asks, in CotBP, if heatstroke is "the reason" for all that wobbly bad-boy swish and rumspice slurring, and Gibbs answers that reason's got nothing to do with it; but, really, the sway and the spinning is the only thing I can guarantee is coldly calculated: as Gibbs also says, Jack plays things closer to the vest now. Who the hell knows WHAT he's thinking?
And you're all right, I think: Captain Jack Sparrow is a lazy, opportunistic, brilliant (yet often dim) creature out to save his own skin, take what he can, and give nothing back. Would he do Elizabeth is given half the chance? Yeah, probably, if for nothing else but achieving (probably not for the first time) the trifecta of a) having someone ruined for all other men forever by the sheer blinding force of how good he is in bed; b) the obvious, you know, orgasm thing; and c) getting to see the pretty fireworks between her and her intended afterwards: God knows he says enough explosive stuff just to totally enrage people (as soon as they figure out what it means). And it's not like he's been proven exactly *picky* about his, ah, company. And if it drives Will and Elizabeth apart and Will wants a bit of revenge or a taste of what drove Elizabeth mad, well, then, so much the better.
But Elizabeth's possibly (*possibly*) very right to think that the driving force of most of Jack's decisions (right after the oh-so-immediate sense of self-preservation) is curiosity. You can count on a dishonest man to always be dishonest, you can count on an honest man to be generally honest with flashes of doing somethings incredibly stupid; but you can't count on a curious man for anything, and that's Jack to a T.
So we get to make it up. In a way, I think DMC affords every last fanficcer's mother's son (or daughter, as the case may be) an ENORMOUS opportunity to basically do whatever they want to with the characters. There is no way to tell what the hell's going on with any of the them, or how any of them will end up, or what fate any of them will choose, especially because we have no concrete evidence as to why they've done what they've done already. Why did Jack trick Will into paying his debt to Davy Jones? was he really all that wrong in saying that it would save Will's life? would he really have left him there forever? why, if he was so thrilled to have someone else pay his debt, did he try to talk Jones out of keeping him, TWICE? Why was he messing with Elizabeth? why was he messing with Elizabeth in full view of everyone on the crew? when Elizabeth messed back, was she teasing him, or teasing herself? does she want Jack, or does she want the selfish and utterly free life he represents? did she kiss him because she wanted to, or did she kiss him only to get him into that shackle?
The magic of Jack is that he might indeed be the aforementioned ruthless amoral son of a bitch, and he might be curious enough to try honor and see where it gets him (kissed and then dead, apparently), and he might be in love--with Will, with Elizabeth, with the *Black Pearl*, with freedom, with that horizon--but Jack's not going to tell us, and neither, suggests the end of the movie, is anyone else. Odd behavior and unjustifiable weirdness is not, in Jack Sparrow's case, necessarily a threat to a happy ending.
the Scarlet Pervygirl