Captain's cabin

Elizabeth Swann in the captain's cabin onboard the Black Pearl.

"Avast there, ye almost entered me private quarters."

―Pirate Captain

The captain's cabin, also known as the captain's quarters, was the personal quarters of a ship's captain. They were usually located at the stern of a ship, and were often spacious and elegant compared to the crew's quarters. Captain's cabins normally spanned the width of the stern, with large windows that afforded a view of the sea; some had a sternwalk balcony around the outside.

History

"Th' cannon's gone. Why is th' cannon gone?"
"Because I didn't fancy sleeping with a cannon. Here you go, Jack. Now sit down, and I'll get your shoes off."
"'M glad th' cannon's gone. Didn't look right in me beautiful cabin."

―Jack Sparrow and Esmeralda

Captain Edward Teague's cabin was spacious, notably aboard his pirate ship, the Troubadour. Troubadour was wide-beamed, and the cabin was almost as wide as it was long. The big stern windows allowed a lot of light to illuminate the cabin. It was furnished with unusual objects from around the world, especially those that reflected Teague's love of music. His beloved guitar was secured to the bulkhead by sturdy brackets, so it couldn't fall when the ship rolled. The cabin also boasted an unusually large captain's pantry. There was enough room for a man to step inside and close the door. Teague's son Jack Sparrow hid in the pantry more than once as a lad, eavesdropping on his father's conversations. An expensive wool rug from Turkey on the floor was occasionally used as a sleeping place by Teague's prison dog.

The captain's cabin of the pirate frigate the Venganza was large and richly furnished. Following the death of its original occupant, the Pirate Lord of the Caribbean Don Rafael, the cabin was used by his successor and granddaughter Esmeralda. On the left there was a working space, where a good-sized table held writing implements and stacks of maps and charts. Esmeralda had a dinner in the cabin with her old love interest Jack Sparrow following the attack on the merchant vessel the Fair Wind, on which Sparrow served as a first mate for the East India Trading Company. Esmeralda danced in front of Jack to the sounds of music and songs sung by crew on deck, who were celebrating the taking of their latest prize. After recalling the last time they were together, Jack and Esmeralda kissed and retreated to her big bed, where they spent the rest of the night.

Occupied in turns by Captains Jack Sparrow and Hector Barbossa over the course of their rivalry, the captain's quarters aboard the Black Pearl were grand and richly furnished. There was a glass skylight overhead, and a bank of large windows allowed the captain to look out and see the view from the stern of his ship. At night, the cabin was illuminated by an vast assortment of flickering candles and lanterns. A large, round table sat in the middle of the room, upon which the captain charted the ship's course or dined with guests. Two of the ship's cannons stood by their gun ports off to the sides, and the cabin could be converted into a gundeck in times of battle. When the Black Pearl was attacked by the cursed Flying Dutchman off the coast of Isla Cruces, cannonballs from the cursed ship tore their way through the cabin and stern windows, and the damage from the battle remained throughout the War Against Piracy.

Cutler Beckett and Jack Sparrow in the cabin of the HMS Endeavour.

Davy Jones resided in an enormous cabin aboard the Flying Dutchman, dominated by a vast pipe organ that appeared to have grown like coral from the deck of the cursed ghost ship. The cursed captain of the Dutchman sat at his keyboard for hours at a time, pouring all his sorrow into his mournful melodies. Behind the organ was a massive, arch-shaped window that stood the height of the cabin. After Lord Cutler Beckett of the East India Trading Company gained possession of Jones' heart, the Dutchman's cabin was occupied by EITC marines with muskets and cannons pointed at the Dead Man's Chest, in order to keep the captain under Beckett's control. Beckett himself remained aboard his imposing EITC flagship, HMS Endeavour, with the design of Beckett's cabin reflecting his vaunted view of himself as someone making over the entire world, which could be seen in the huge globe that’s in his cabin, kind of a counterpart to the big map of the world that's in his office in Port Royal, as well as toy ships and navigational devices on his desk which intentionally resemble instruments of torture.

The captain's quarters of the Queen Anne's Revenge under Hector Barbossa.

The private chamber aboard the Queen Anne's Revenge had a unique history. As the captain's quarters of Edward "Blackbeard" Teach, a space usually reserved for luxury, the captain's cabin of the Revenge was more like the den of an evil magician. Dark dreams and schemes emanate from this murky lair. Blackbeard's inner sanctum was where he stowed his potions and poisons, and all the paraphernalia of his dark arts. Lit by dripping candles and festooned with mystical artifacts, such as voodoo dolls and full-sized ships magicked into ships in bottles, Edward Teach's lair was designed to fill visitors with fear. As a result of defeating Blackbeard, Barbossa took possession of the Queen Anne's Revenge, and later changed the ship considerably as the captain's quarters was renovated and redecorated. Removing the floor of the captain's cabin and the ceiling of the cabins below, practically turning the interior of the entire stern castle into one large space with him as its only occupant. Though Barbossa kept some of Blackbeard's old aesthetics, the cabin was redecorated into a more grand setting, filled with treasures beyond most men's wildest dreams.

Behind the scenes

Overview

"Impressed ye be by the captain's cabin? And wondering ye be how he came about such elegant trinkets? Ha, ha, ha! I be telling ye. Called upon the Governor of Jamaica, he did, like a ruddy member of Parliament, and sweet-talked that wretched soul into..."

―Ghostly voice

The captain's cabin first appeared through the "Captain's Quarters" tableau with a skeletal pirate captain from Walt Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland. This would later be referenced through a scene with Jack Sparrow and Hector Barbossa in Ponce de León's cabin aboard the Santiago in the 2011 film Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.

The terms "captain's cabin" and "captain's quarters" have been used interchangeably throughout the screenplays. In Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio's early screenplay for Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, "captain's cabin" was mainly used for the Black Pearl, while "captain's quarters" was used for the HMS Dauntless, though "cabin" was used for the latter by Commodore Norrington and Elizabeth Swann. While "captain's cabin" was mainly used in the Dead Man's Chest screenplay, the term "quarters" was spoken once by Norrington in the At World's End screenplay. While the term "captain's cabin" was mainly used in the On Stranger Tides screenplay, Blackbeard spoke "captain's quarter" in his first scene, which cut from the film and retained in the junior novelization. In Rossio's original 2012 screenplay draft for Dead Men Tell No Tales, both "captain's cabin" and "captain's quarters" were used for the HMS Bonaventure. In Jeff Nathanson's early 2013 screenplay draft for Dead Men Tell No Tales, "captain's quarters" was mainly used.

Actor Geoffrey Rush created a rich and elaborate backstory for Hector Barbossa, to explain who and what he is, as the actor prepared for the role in The Curse of the Black Pearl, released in 2003. "I put together this story together that when he was about thirteen, Barbossa ran away to sea because he came from a background of poverty. And he would have been on ships where he would have seen very grand cabins and the captains living in spacious and elegant quarters. And he thought, that's where I want to be". Even by the 2017 release of Dead Men Tell No Tales, Rush still imagined how Barbossa became a pirate after seeing the captain's quarters as a cabin boy.

The Captain's Quarters is one of the sections that can be explored in the special feature "Below Deck: An Interactive History Of Pirates" originally included in the The Curse of the Black Pearl DVD release.

Video games

In the 2005 video game Kingdom Hearts II, the cabin aboard the Black Pearl is given the name "Captain's Stateroom". In the At World's End video game, the captain's cabin aboard the Flying Dutchman is given the name "Organ Room".

Discrepancies

In the 2006 German novelization for The Curse of the Black Pearl, when Commodore Norrington and his men board the HMS Dauntless, Jack Sparrow and Will Turner hide in the captain's cabin and swing aboard the HMS Interceptor. In the film Sparrow and Turner board the Interceptor from the bow of the Dauntless.

In the comic book adaptation of Dead Man's Chest, Bootstrap Bill Turner visits Jack Sparrow in the captain's cabin of the Black Pearl. Jack also takes the Letters of Marque from Elizabeth Swann in the captain's cabin, not on the main deck like in the film.

Appearances

• Walt Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean (First appearance) (First identified as captain's quarters)
• Climb Aboard If You Dare!: Stories From The Pirates of the Caribbean (First identified as captain's cabin)
• Jack Sparrow: The Age of Bronze
• Jack Sparrow: Silver
• The Price of Freedom
• Legends of the Brethren Court: The Caribbean
• Legends of the Brethren Court: Rising in the East
• Legends of the Brethren Court: The Turning Tide
• Legends of the Brethren Court: Wild Waters
• Legends of the Brethren Court: Day of the Shadow
• Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003 junior novelization)
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2006 junior novelization)
  • Fluch der Karibik
• Banshee's Boon
• Disney Adventures: "The Dark Skull"
• Disney Adventures: "The Eyes Have It!‎"
• Disney Adventures: "The Eye of Despair!"
• Pirates of the Caribbean: The Legend of Jack Sparrow
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (comic)
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (junior novelization)
• Disney Adventures: "The Haunting of Jack Sparrow!"
• Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (video game)
  • 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: At World's End (comic)
• Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (junior novelization)
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides Movie Storybook
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales Novelization
  • Pirates des Caraïbes : La Vengeance de Salazar
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales: Movie Graphic Novel

Non-canon appearances

• Kingdom Hearts II
• Kingdom Hearts III
• LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game
• Sea of Thieves: A Pirate's Life

Sources

• Disneyland: From the Pirates of the Caribbean to the World of Tomorrow
• Below Deck: An Interactive History Of Pirates
• Pirates of the Caribbean: From the Magic Kingdom to the Movies
• Bring Me That Horizon: The Making of Pirates of the Caribbean
• The Art of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides