Curse of the Devil's Triangle

The supernatural powers of the Triangle resurrect Capitán Salazar.

"For too many years the Triangle has cursed us. Condemned us to this Hell on Earth. The key to our escape is Jack Sparrow... and the compass which he holds."

―Armando Salazar to Henry Turner

The Curse of the Devil's Triangle, also known as the Devil's Triangle curse was a curse that fell on individuals who died within the borders of the Devil's Triangle, a mysterious area known to be haunted by supernatural forces. Capitán Armando Salazar and the crew of the Silent Mary were most notably resurrected as vengeful ghosts through the Devil's Triangle curse, a power they used in their mission to destroy every pirate on the high seas.

History

The Devil's Triangle as seen from the outside.

"The Sparrow took everything from me... Left me to rot in the filth of death..."

―Armando Salazar

The Devil's Triangle was a mysterious area in the Caribbean Sea, located west of the Windward Isles in the Lesser Antilles. Bordered by rocky formations and giant reefs, it seemed to be mapped relatively well, but it was named only "Uncharted Waters", and most sailors believed the Triangle to be just a myth. Not much is known about the origin of the Triangle's curse, but it appeared it was somehow related to the Trident of Poseidon, because it seemed every curse of the sea was held inside the Trident.

The powers of the Triangle engulf the Silent Mary.

During the early 18th century, the Spanish Navy officer Capitán Armando Salazar led a ruthless pirate hunting campaign against the pirates of the Caribbean, making a vow to rid the seas of all of them. At the end of the final battle, it seemed his mission was over, as his ship, the mighty Silent Mary, sailed alone through the smoke, surrounded with burning shipwrecks. However, one pirate ship, the Wicked Wench, captained by a young pirate named Jack Sparrow, managed to escape the disaster by sailing toward the nearby Devil's Triangle. The Mary followed the pirate vessel, but the Wench changed its course right in front of the Triangle's entrance. Unable to do the same, Salazar steered his ship inside, where she hit the numerous reefs which caused an explosion of gunpowder aboard the ship. Heavily damaged and burning from bow to stern, the Mary started sinking, while the explosions killed her crew. Salazar died when a falling yardarm smashed the back of his head, and his body fell overboard. As he was slowly sinking beneath the waves, Salazar was hit by the streaks of eerie red light, and he opened his eyes, resurrected as a ghost.

The cursed crew of the Silent Mary.

All of Salazar's crew members eventually returned from the dead, but at a terrible price. Their bodies were frozen in the moments of their deaths, all of them missing a limb or two, some even more than half of their bodies. A few of them became nothing more than floating fists, wigs, hats, and swords. They weren't just cursed to live after death, stuck on a ghost ship with various forms of wounds that would never heal; they were doomed to endure the eternal pain, feeling their own deaths over and over. The curse also locked the Spaniards inside the Triangle, unable to leave its borders. Crewing a ship that was more a skeleton than a seaworthy vessel, Salazar and his men spent years covered in darkness. The captain tried to keep the morale high by insisting on military discipline aboard the Mary, but the everyday lives of his crew were just joyless, endless nightmare. Many of them saw their imprisonment in the Triangle as Hell on Earth. However, Salazar would not give up hope for an escape, and he assured the crew their loyalty would be rewarded with blood, as none of them would rest until they have their revenge on the young pirate who caused their demise—Jack the Sparrow. Through unknown means, Salazar learned that Sparrow held the key to their escape, a magical compass that pointed to whatever its user held dearest.

The cursed crew is free once again.

One day the highest peak of the Devil's Triangle crumbled, revealing the shining sun behind it. As Salazar watched, the entire arch began to fall apart, rocks tumbling into the sea. The ship's wheel started turning on its own, the bow aimed toward the distant horizon, and the wind filled the remains of the tattered sails. Salazar realized the impossible had happened—Sparrow had given up the compass, and the object was retaliating by freeing every pirate's worst fear, the Silent Mary and her crew. Soon, not a single trace of the Triangle remained on the surface, and the ghostly crew was now free to roam the seas again.

The ghosts can't step on dry land.

The end of the Triangle did not mean the end of the curse, and Salazar and his men could now use their powers to continue their original mission—extermination of piracy. Now more dangerous than ever, they attacked and destroyed many pirate ships, without suffering any casualties of their own. Some of the ships they sank belonged to the fleet of Captain Hector Barbossa, a pirate who eventually made a deal with Salazar—Sparrow's life in exchange for his own. Their pursuit ended on the shores of Hangman's Bay, where the curse prevented the ghosts from following Sparrow on dry land. Barbossa and his men left the Mary, promising to bring Sparrow to Salazar, but that was just a ruse to embark on a quest of their own—to find the Trident of Poseidon and reclaim the seas from the dead.

Lieutenant Lesaro warns Capitán Salazar about the dangers of possessing a living man's body.

Salazar eventually realized the deception and sailed the Mary after the pirate ship, the resurrected Black Pearl. In a chase over the sea the Spanish ghosts managed the destroy the British Royal Navy warship the Essex, but the Pearl ran aground on Black rock island, which cost Salazar the lives of several of his crewmen who turned to dust when the parts of the ship where they stood ended up above dry land. Salazar had to retreat but not before capturing young Henry Turner. As the Mary turned its stern to its prey, Salazar possessed Henry's body, deciding to walk in his shoes and follow his enemies on land, despite the danger of staying trapped in his body forever.

The magic of the rubies on the island activated the Trident at the bottom of the sea and the waters of the ocean parted, revealing the way to Poseidon's Tomb. Just as Sparrow and Carina Smyth reached the Trident Salazar appeared and attacked them. The ghost captain eventually took the Trident which freed him from Henry's body. Quickly learning how to control the legendary weapon, Salazar used it to throw his hated enemy around like a doll, until Sparrow mockingly asked him to surrender. Furious, Salazar stabbed the pirate in the chest with the Trident, but to no effect, because the pirate was saved by the diary he was carrying in one of the inner pockets of his coat. Grabbing the prongs to prevent Salazar from trying to stab him again, Sparrow bought Henry enough time to strike the Trident with his sword, breaking the ancient weapon.

Salazar becomes a living human being once again, but not for long.

With the powers of the sea gone, the curse of the Devil's Triangle was lifted from Salazar and his men. The Spanish captain slowly transformed into his human form, and his men, who were watching the fight behind the walls of water, now stepped forward into the Tomb, to escape drowning. As the Spaniards celebrated the end of the curse, they noticed the walls of water around them closing, because the magic that kept them separated was not there anymore. Henry, Carina and Sparrow managed to escape the Tomb by climbing up the anchor chain of the Black Pearl, which was sailing on the edge of the right wall, but Salazar and his men all drowned. In a supreme irony of fate, for Salazar and his crew, the end of the curse also meant the end of their lives.

Behind the scenes

Aaron McBride's concept art of Captain Brand and his ghostly crew under the curse.

"Poseidon's brother Hades was charged with protecting the Tomb. And so he formed the Triangle - and enlisted the dead to patrol it. Locking them in forever."

―John Brand

The curse of the Devil's Triangle first appeared in media relating to the 2017 film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. While it was identified as the "Devil's Triangle curse" in Elizabeth Rudnick's novelization, the name "curse of the Devil's Triangle" appeared in the Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales: Behind the Scenes.

Jeff Nathanson's 2013 early screenplay draft revealed the origin of the curse. The Devil's Triangle was formed by Poseidon's brother Hades who was charged with protecting the Tomb of Poseidon, which was located on the islands around the Triangle. Hades enlisted the dead to patrol the Triangle, locking them in forever. Around 1740, the crew of the Silent Mary, led by Captain John Brand, fell under the curse, but managed to escape from the Triangle sixteen years later, after obtaining the Trident of Poseidon. Whether or not the origin of the curse is canon to the final version of the story is unknown.

Appearances

• The Brightest Star in the North: The Adventures of Carina Smyth (First appearance)
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales Novelization (First identified as Devil's Triangle curse)
  • Pirates des Caraïbes : La Vengeance de Salazar
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales: Movie Graphic Novel

Sources

• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales: Behind the Scenes (First identified as curse of the Devil's Triangle)