Ghost

"So tell me, what's become of my ship?" Warning! This page contains MAJOR spoilers from Dead Men Tell No Tales. Caution is advised.

This article is about a deceased person's spirit in visible form.. You may be looking for the non-corporeal essence of a being or entity..

Captain Armando Salazar and his crew of ghosts.

"You best start believing in ghost stories, Miss Turner. You're in one!"

―Hector Barbossa to Elizabeth Swann

According to traditional belief, a ghost was the soul or spirit of a dead person or animal, taken to be capable of appearing in visible form or otherwise manifesting itself to the living. Descriptions of the apparition of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to realistic, lifelike visions. Ghosts are generally described as solitary essences that haunt particular locations, objects, or people they were associated with in life, though stories of phantom armies or ghost ships.

History

The Ghost captain.

"'Tis well known that ghosts and spirits of the damned can menace honest mariners, trying to steal their souls."

―Lucius Featherstone to Cutler Beckett

When the Spanish conquistador Humbert "El Patron" Diaz forced the inhabitants of Raven's Cove to forge weapons for him, they sealed him, his crew, and his ship, inside his mines in the Cove. When the crew mutinied against him, El Patron and his men were cursed to remain inside the mines as ghosts and haunt them for all eternity.

When the young adventurer Jack Sparrow and his crew found the legendary Sword of Cortés on Isla Fortuna, they unintentionally summoned the spirit of the conquistador Hernán Cortés, the original owner of the Sword and the man who destroyed the Aztec Empire. The ghostly Spaniard tried to trick Jack Sparrow into doing his bidding for him, so he could make himself ruler of the Seven Seas, but with the few advices from the voodoo witch Tia Dalma, Jack was able to summon the spirit of the Aztec Emperor Montecuhzoma, who attacked and destroyed Cortés.

A few years after his teenage adventures Jack Sparrow served as a pirate aboard the Wicked Wench. During the battle off the coast of the mysterious Devil's Triangle, he tricked the notorious Spanish pirate hunter Armando Salazar into steering his ship into the Triangle where the ship was destroyed and him and all his men were killed and turned into ghosts. Due to the magic of Jack Sparrow's compass Salazar and his undead crew were unable to escape from the Triangle, and were forced to spend several decades in it.

When Jack Sparrow had to give his report to Cutler Beckett about how he dueled Christophe-Julien de Rapièr on the deck of his ship, the Wicked Wench, he lied that he actually fought against the ghost of his old fencing master from Marseilles.

The ghosts on Raven's Cove.

Shortly after the battle of the Isla de Muerta, a mysterious ghost ship sailed into the Port Royal harbor. The ship's crew of ghosts terrorized the inhabitants of the city until the blacksmith Will Turner made a sword and gave it to the ship's ghostly captain.

During the War of Jolly Roger, when the forces of the East India Trading Company and the undead army of Jolly Roger fought a battle over El Patron's weapons left on Raven's Cove, the entire population of the island was wiped out. However, their ghosts soon began appearing to pirates who came to the island. Some ghosts were friendly, but others were hostile.

When Elizabeth Swann sneaked onboard the Edinburgh Trader as a sailor, she tricked the superstitious crewmen into thinking that her wedding dress was a spirit to force them to sail the ship to Tortuga.

After Captain Jack Sparrow betrayed his compass, Captain Armando Salazar and his crew were released from the Devil's Triangle. The crew returned in the form of ghosts with the Silent Mary herself becoming a ghost ship. After the Trident of Poseidon was destroyed by Henry Turner, all the curses of the sea were broken. This resulted in Salazar and his crew becoming human and mortal once

Behind the scenes

• In Walt Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean, there is a ghost voice that repeatedly says "Dead men tell no tales".
• When filmmakers made Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, they made a ghost story at the same time in making an epic pirate period film, which by itself would have been one thing.
• In the first screenplay draft of The Curse of the Black Pearl, when Will Turner asked how Jack Sparrow got off the desert island, Jack replied: "I didn't! My body's still there, rotting away, and I am but a ghost!"
• Screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio originally conceived of Davy Jones and his crew as ghostlike creatures. Determined to come up with never-before-seen fantastical characters, director Gore Verbinski wanted them to be more specifically of the sea, with gravity and weight, as if the souls of shipwrecked sailors had fused with the detritus of the ocean floor.
• In the non-canon comic The Buccaneer's Heart!, the ghosts of Blackbeard, Mary Reade, Bartholomew Roberts, and Henry Morgan help Jack Sparrow to defeat his former crew.
• Several ghosts appear in the novel On Stranger Tides, which was used as the basis for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.
• One of the original plot ideas for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides was to have ghosts. Although the idea never make it into the final film, the ghosts ended up being featured in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, in which Armando Salazar and his crew are ghosts.
• In The King's Ransom quest in A Pirate's Adventure: Treasures of the Seven Seas the treasure is kept inside the fort that is haunted by the ghosts of Spanish Conquistadors.

The ghost of Captain Morgan, as imagined by Chris Schweizer and Joe Flood.

• One of the ideas for the Joe Books Pirates of the Caribbean comic book series was the ghost of Captain Morgan causing trouble in Tortuga during Jack Sparrow's crew's night out. However, the story was rejected by The Walt Disney Company because of the ghost element of Dead Men Tell No Tales.
• When he was asked by fans if Hector Barbossa could return in a possible sixth movie although perished at the end of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, producer Jerry Bruckheimer stated: “You never know with us. We always bring characters back because we love them.” Rush does not seem completely opposed to returning to the series because he says “[Barbossa] could come back like Hamlet’s father, as a ghost. Just to annoy Jack”.

Appearances

• Pirates of the Caribbean (ride)
• A Pirate's Adventure: Treasures of the Seven Seas
• Jack Sparrow: The Pirate Chase (First appearance)
• Jack Sparrow: The Sword of Cortés
• The Price of Freedom (Mentioned only)
• Legends of the Brethren Court: The Caribbean (Mentioned only)
• Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (First mentioned)
• Banshee's Boon (Mentioned only)
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Ghost Ship
• The Buccaneer's Heart! (Non-canonical appearance)
• Pirates of the Caribbean Online
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (Mentioned only)
• Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (Mentioned only)
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (video game) (Mentioned only)
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Master of the Seas
• The Brightest Star in the North: The Adventures of Carina Smyth
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales: Movie Graphic Novel

Sources

• Pirates of the Caribbean: From the Magic Kingdom to the Movies

External links

• Ghost on Wikipedia