The week o' fandom continues ...

[veronica_rich]

In one of my previous non-real-life entries on the POTC sequel, stickfigurepeep made a couple of points about Elizabeth in the sequel that made me think about her character some more.


stickfigurepeep wrote: I can see her eventually (a long time after the films, mind you) becoming a sort of female version of Jack.

The problem is, Elizabeth wants to be that NOW and she's acting accordingly in all respects. She's not taking into account that Jack has been at this far longer than her and is better at it, so she's getting in over her head with the seduction stuff. She's also not taking into account that Will is a literal person who would probably not take his fiancee rubbing up against other men lightly, AND that she's doing all her come-hither up on deck in front of Jack's crew, some of whom know Will - what are the chances nobody would ever say anything to Will about her trying to jump all over their captain? Most are not going to understand it's only a tactic, not from a distance. She'd be far better off to treat Jack's come-ons with a sort of humorous forebearance and force him to negotiate as he would with any man, instead. It's that she reverts to sex as a weapon in just about every dealing of hers with Jack in this movie - and they didn't have that relationship in the first movie. See, THAT is what bothers me. She and Jack already understand each other, so why is she doing this? Does she really think even if he were to go as far as having sex with her, it would result in her getting what she's after? I previously gave her credit for not being that naive. (I firmly believe he allowed her to shackle him in the end because he was going to stay on Pearl ANYWAY and it was the fastest way to get her off the ship with everyone else.)

stickfigurepeep also wrote: (I've also been trying very hard lately to put aside my instant bias against female characters that get in the way of otherwise perfect slash pairings.)

I know this feeling. Being a woman myself, I try extra hard to find the positive in female characters, especially if they irk me, because I know it's necessary to keep improving their standing in cinema. Mostly, I like Elizabeth - but on her own. I like when she's fighting or disguising herself, or having to use her mind to do things (such as the ghost-dress and fuel to spell out "tortuga" on the ship deck). I even wrote a J/W series in which she had a pretty good role in helping them escape a couple of bad situations, AND I gave her a position in the world of some male power (probably anachronistic, at any rate).

It's when she's doing those old, tired "girl things" that she's annoying - and honestly, if a man were doing them, it would be annoying, too. Now I'll grant that her fainting during Jack's hanging was well-timed, necessary, and the only thing she had at her disposal at short notice; I'll even give her promising to marry Norrington to go save Will as a credit, because AGAIN, it was the only thing that would have worked at that moment. But throwing rocks and having a temper tantrum and pouting on the beach while the men fought was just childish - I saw it as less about getting their attention to solve the problem, than getting all their attentions fixated back on HER as the center of their respective universes. (And it's not like Will relegated her to an unimportant role; he asked her to guard the chest, which turned out to be a VERY important plot point, since if she'd actually done it, would've been hard to do against Jones's crew. We also see later that he trusts her enough to give her the gun to shoot past HIM to ignite the barrels of gunpowder on the Pearl.)

In fact - speaking of Will, the more I think about it, the more pissed I get at her for doing something that had a good chance of getting back to him as her being unfaithful to him. As someone else (I think it was Haleth) wrote about her being all hot for Jack on another thread I read a few days ago, "if she's so wet for a pirate, why not Will? He's doing a pretty good job kicking ass in this movie." I mean, the man fucking TRUSTS her to shoot a gun, he taught her to use a sword, and he never tries to put her in a box or treat her like a china doll - what straight woman among us WOULDN'T want someone who would treat us like an equal and still think of us as a lady?? Unless she just *likes* the head games Jack plays with her, and his ever-changing sense of loyalty ... I mean, what the fuck?

*ahem* Okay, I've gotten carried away. But the fact remains, I like Elizabeth enough that I think, frankly, that she should not end up with ANY man at the end of the third movie. If this whole story is about HER journey - as the writers seem hellbent on making it - then it needs to remain HER journey for a while. They need to show that she can pick a path and go with it on her own, without a husband, without a boyfriend, without a sugar daddy; otherwise, she's just another Disney princess saved from a humdrum life by a dashing hero (or anti-hero, as the case may be).

Comments

[heartofslash.livejournal.com]

Elizabeth should be the governor, Norrington should be the commodore (but with his scruffy beard intact so he'll get laid all the time), the governor should join the crew of the Black Pearl and be Gibbs' love slave, Will should be allowed to be as noble and daring and deadsexy as he wants, with whomever he likes, and Jack can get the Pearl back.

Problems solved. No need for third movie.

Except for the Chow Yun-Fat. I want me some piratical Chow Yun-Fat. *prrrowr*