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Deity

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The Pelegostos Tribe once believed that Jack Sparrow was a god in human form.

The Pelegostos Tribe once believed that Jack Sparrow was a god in human form.

"Apedemak...he's your main god, right? Since ancient times, I suppose?"
"There are a number of lesser gods, but yes, Apedemak is special to us, and has been ever since my people left the city of Old Kerma in ancient Kush, just below the third cataract of the Nile."
―Jack Sparrow and Amenirdis[src]

A deity was a supernatural being considered to be sacred and worthy of worship due to having authority over some aspect of the universe and/or life, also defined as a god or goddess, or anything revered as divine.

Religions could be categorized by how many deities they worship; for example, some religions like Christianity accept only one deity (predominantly referred to as "God"), whereas other religions accepted multiple deities. Although most religions traditionally envisioned their god as omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, and eternal, none of these qualities were essential to the definition of a "deity" and various cultures have conceptualized their deities differently. Most deities may be referred to as male or female, depending on the religion or culture. Many cultures—including the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and Germanic peoples—had personified natural phenomena, variously as either deliberate causes or effects. Some Avestan and Vedic deities were viewed as ethical concepts.

History[]

"They intend to do Jack the honor of releasing him from his fleshy prison. They'll roast and eat him. It's a deeply held religious belief. Or, we figure, maybe they just get awful hungry."
―Joshamee Gibbs on the Pelegostos and Jack Sparrow[src]

Throughout human history, since ancient times as well as the days of myth and legend, there had always been deities, some being described as a god or heathen god, depending a person's religion or faith. According to the legend of Zerzura, the Heart of Zerzura rested in the hands of the god Apedemak, a god worshiped by the peoples inhabiting Kush and the natives of Kerma, as well as being worshipped under the name "Maahes" in Egypt.[1]

There had been hundreds of seafaring deities associated with the sea, notably in Greek mythology.[2] These sea gods include the Greek god Poseidon,[3][4] also known by Roman equivalent Neptune.[1] Triton was another legendary sea deity, with the Sword of Triton rumored to have been forged by the sea deity himself in the lost city of Atlantis, then passed from one ancient mariner to another,[5] until eventually falling into the possession of Edward "Blackbeard" Teach and later Hector Barbossa.[6] Calypso was an ancient sea goddess, the beautiful daughter of Atlas,[7] with every sailor and pirate knowing the stories of how she had once ruled the ocean with her powerful magic until the First Brethren Court captured and bound Calypso into human form, namely the voodoo mystic Tia Dalma.[8] Calypso's powers were only eclipsed by Poseidon himself, and only Zeus, chief amongst all gods, could command her.[3] After Davy Jones plotted with the Brethren Court in a great conclave to tear the rule of the seas away from Calypso, using an incantation to trap her in the human form of the voodoo mystic Tia Dalma, Jones viewed Calypso as the worst of the heathen gods, who "care for nothing and no one but themselves"[9] and "delights in cursing men with their wildest dreams and then revealing them to be hollow and naught but ash."[10][11]

Legend had it, regarding the cursed sword that gave Hernán Cortés the power to conquer the Aztec empire, that the sword made him unstoppable in battle and gave him strange powers, like convincing the Aztecs that he was the god Quetzalcoatl. Statues cast in solid, precious metals: dogs and jaguars and gods and birds of paradise.[12] The Aztecs placed 882 identical pieces of gold in a stone chest which they gave to Cortés, “blood money paid to stem the slaughter he wreaked upon them with his armies”. Instead of satisfying him, the gold merely fuelled his greed, so the heathen gods placed a curse upon the gold: any mortal that removes a single piece would become undead skeletons.[13]

During the search for the Dead Man's Chest, the infamous pirate Captain Jack Sparrow and the crew of the Black Pearl encountered the Pelegostos Tribe, a cannibal tribe on Isla de Pelegostos, who believed that Jack was a god trapped in human form and made him their chief. According to Joshamee Gibbs, the Pelegostos intended to do Jack the honor of releasing him from his fleshy prison by roasting and eating him, a deeply held religious belief. As Jack's crew made their escape, the warriors hesitated, not knowing whether to light the fire or run; it was their duty to release their god, but it was also their god that was commanding them to leave.[14] As their godly chief, Jack referred to the Pelegostos as his "children" as he escaped aboard the Pearl.[15]

Behind the scenes[]

Deities were first mentioned as through "God" and the "heathen gods" in media relating to the 2003 film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, the first installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy.[13] Although the term "god" was used throughout the franchise, the term "deity" was first used to describe the sea deity Triton in Pirates of the Caribbean Online.[5]

During the making of The Curse of the Black Pearl, there were conversations between director Gore Verbinski and writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio where they decided to make Jack Sparrow and Hector Barbossa two sides of the same trickster archetype,[16] with the inspirations of the idea being the Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef characters from the Western films by Sergio Leone, as the characters were "essentially gods compared to all these mortals." Elliott and Rossio continued that idea into At World's End, with Jack being the demi-god, to an extent, as Elliott stated, "He straddles both sides. Is he on the side of the gods—is he opposed to the gods?—is he on the side of the mortals? He's on his own side."[17] In a post on Wordplay, Rossio detailed having a conversation with Jocelyn Stamat regarding this interpretation of the westerns, and said the same interpretation works for PIRATES, where Barbossa, Jack, Tia Dalma/Calypso, and Davy Jones were the gods or demi-gods, and mortals such as Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann were just a backdrop to their dramas.[18]

In At World's End, the sea goddess Calypso was described as a "heathen god" by Davy Jones, the cursed captain of the Flying Dutchman.[10] According to Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, this was made to tie the trilogy's escapes from death to the same source, as well as a callback to Hector Barbossa describing the effects of the Aztec curse by the heathen gods mentioned in The Curse of the Black Pearl.[13][11] When asked about Calypso in relation to the influence of Greek mythology, Rossio said that the Calypso from literature was a minor deity, a water sprite, but due to her appearance in The Odyssey, she elevated to iconic status.[2] Regarding the heathen gods, Rossio said that any God not of Barbossa's faith would be deemed "heathen" and Calypso had nothing to do with the Aztec curse, but in this case, it seemed likely a specific reference to Gods worshipped by the Aztecs, namely Huitzilopochtli (the sun and war god) or Mictlantecuhtli (god of "the Underworld" Mictlan), and Itztlacoliuhqui-Ixquimilli (god of frost, ice, cold, winter, and punishment), the latter being Rossio's opinion.[19]

Appearances[]

Sources[]

External links[]

Notes and references[]

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 The Price of Freedom
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Wordplayer.com: SCRIPTS Message Board: Re: Character of Tia Dalma/Calypso, posted by Terry Rossio (March 31, 2020)
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 The Pirates' Guidelines, pp. 100-101: "Calypso, Goddess of the Sea
  4. ↑ Jack Sparrow: Poseidon's Peak
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Pirates of the Caribbean Online
  6. ↑ Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
  7. ↑ Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (video game): Story of Davy Jones and Calypso
  8. ↑ Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
  9. ↑ Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (junior novelization)
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Box Office Mojo: Interview: Ted Elliott & Terry Rossio on 'At World's End' - Archived
  12. ↑ Jack Sparrow: The Coming Storm
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
  14. ↑ Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (junior novelization)
  15. ↑ Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
  16. ↑ The Curse of the Black Pearl Audio Commentary with Screenwriters Stuart Beattie, Ted Elliott & Terry Rossio and Jay Wolpert
  17. ↑ Close-Up: Ted Elliott & Terry Rossio on 'Dead Man's Chest' - Box Office Mojo (July 8, 2006) - Archived
  18. ↑ Wordplayer.com: WORDPLAY/Archives/"Ends of the Earth" By Terry Rossio
  19. ↑ Wordplayer.com: SCRIPTS Message Board: Re: A few of questions about background lore, posted by Terry Rossio (June 17, 2025)
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