Heathen God

Calypso was described as a heathen god who delights in cursing men with their wildest dreams, and then revealing them to be "hollow and naught but ash."

"The Heathen Gods care for nothing and no one but themselves, and she is the worst of them."

―Davy Jones concerning Calypso

A heathen god (also capitalized as Heathen God) was a term used to describe any deity of non-religious faiths, namely Christianity. It was a belief usually assembled with religious sects and rituals, as well as other competing entities or artifacts to which particular importance is attributed. Conversely, these gods may be regarded as "false gods" by followers of religions. Though there are few left who truly worship them, they remain a powerful force in the supernatural world.

History

"The Heart of Zerzura. It's a jewel...but not just a jewel. It's a shor—er, source of tremendous magical power. It's the source of all the power that keeps the island hidden. It rests in the hands of some heathen god, they say. An ape-god... No, wait. Not an ape. A kitty cat? Never mind that now. We'll know it when we see it."
"A kitty cat god is there? Holding a magical something? On an island that nobody can find?"

―Jack Sparrow and Christophe-Julien de Rapièr

According to the story of Davy Jones and Calypso, in the days of myth and legend, a sailor named Davy Jones fell in love with Calypso, the daughter of Atlas and goddess of the sea. When Calypso gave Jones the sacred task of ferrying the souls who died at sea to the worlds beyond as captain of the Flying Dutchman, as well as the agreement to set foot on dry land once every ten years, unless if this love was true to him, his task would be complete. However, when Calypso wasn't there for Davy Jones, 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. After this, Jones viewed Calypso as the worst of the heathen gods, who "care for nothing and no one but themselves" and "delights in cursing men with their wildest dreams and then revealing them to be hollow and naught but ash."

By the early adventures of young Jack Sparrow, Chantico was a known heathen god, the Aztec goddess of fire, and the patron of Isla Esquelética, manifesting herself in the form of a fire that never goes out, a flaming human form, and a volcano. Following the adventure in which Sparrow and Fitzwilliam P. Dalton III were tasked to fix the warping of time that had occurred with the Timekeeper, with the help of Tia Dalma, Chantico spoke with Dalma of how she may eventually be freed. Jack was also familiar with the legend of Zezura, in which the Heart of Zerzura was a jewel that rested in the hands of Apedemak, who he thought was "some heathen god" that looked like an ape or a "kitty cat" while speaking to Christophe-Julien de Rapièr.

Hector Barbossa told a ghost story about how the heathen gods placed a curse upon a stone chest of Aztec gold.

One notable legend of the heathen gods was their relation to the treasure of Isla de Muerta, in which Mexico's Aztec rulers placed 882 identical pieces of Aztec gold in a stone chest and delivered it to the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés as a bribe to stop him looting their country and stem the slaughter he wreaked upon with his armies. But instead of satisfying Cortés, the gold merely fueled his greed, and so the heathen gods placed a curse upon the gold: any mortal that removed a piece from the chest would be punished for eternity and suffer a living death, becoming a walking undead skeleton in the moonlight. Although Captain Jack Sparrow told the crew of the Black Pearl and his first mate Hector Barbossa the tale about the ghost story of the Aztec curse, the men laughed at the stories, with Barbossa having said, "Ridiculous superstition!" Ten years later, Barbossa told the same ghost story about the "terrible curse" to Elizabeth Swann, who also didn't believe it upon Barbossa's initial telling of the tale.

During the war between Lord Cutler Beckett of the East India Trading Company and the Fourth Brethren Court, as Will Turner told Beckett and Davy Jones about how Barbossa has summoned the Brethren Court for the purpose to free someone named Calypso, Jones stiffened, a new look twisting his features—fear. Although Beckett and Turner were unaware of this person called Calypso, Jones explained how Calypso was a heathen god. Following the meeting of the Brethren, and prior to the titanic battle that followed, the goddess was freed.

Behind the scenes

"One thing I'm really happy with—and it's a small, subtle thing—[relates to] one of the criticisms we've had with all the movies: [the assertion that] death has no meaning [because] nobody stays dead. In At World's End, there's a little thing that Davy Jones says that ties these escapes from death to the same source—Calypso, from the original Aztec curse, which refers to Calypso as one of the heathen gods, a callback to how Barbossa describes the effects of the curse in the first movie. It's one of those things that's there for somebody who might notice it. It's not necessary to get to understand but that was actually our intent—to make this temporary death state have a singular cause. Of course now that Calypso is free, that may not exist."

―Ted Elliott

The heathen gods were first mentioned in media relating to the 2003 film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, notably Irene Trimble's junior novelization, based on Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio's early screenplay draft, in which Captain Hector Barbossa described the effects of the Aztec curse. The term was first capitalized as "Heathen Gods" in the junior novelization for the 2007 film Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, though lower-cased in the film's subtitles in various home video releases.

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. 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. Rossio later 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.

Appearances

• Jack Sparrow: The Coming Storm (Mentioned only)
• Jack Sparrow: The Timekeeper (Mentioned only)
• The Price of Freedom (Mentioned only)
• Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (Mentioned only)
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003 junior novelization) (First mentioned) (First identified as heathen gods)
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2006 junior novelization) (Mentioned only)
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (comic) (Mentioned only)
• Pirates of the Caribbean: The Legend of Jack Sparrow (Mentioned only)
• 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) (First appearance) (First identified as Heathen Gods)
• LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game (Non-canonical appearance)

Sources

• Pirates of the Caribbean: The Visual Guide
• Pirates of the Caribbean: The Complete Visual Guide

See also

• God (disambiguation)