The term "in-universe" refers to information presented in the context of the Pirates of the Caribbean world itself, as opposed to "out-of-universe," information presented in the context of the real world. For instance, when Jack Sparrow and Will Turner fight in-universe, Jack attacked Will using soot and dust from the blacksmith shop, while out-of-universe, it was chocolate powder. Another example, after Hector Barbossa says "We named the monkey 'Jack'," Jack the Monkey smiles on purpose, while out-of-universe this was not planned and the monkey did this purely by chance. The monkey “Jack” is played by two capuchin monkeys. One is a 10-year old female named Tara, the other an 8-year old male named Levi.
"In-universe" also refers to works presented as if they were written by authors within the Pirates of the Caribbean world. To maintain the conceit that they come from within the Pirates world, such works omit mention of Pirates of the Caribbean as films or as a media franchise, maintain ignorance of information from later in the timeline than the books are allegedly written, and often posit a fictional "author" to be the in-universe creator of the work in question.
Major "authors" of in-universe works[]
- Joshamee Gibbs (The Pirates'
CodeGuidelines: A Booke for Those Who Desire to Keep to the Code and Live a Pirate's Life) - Thomas Faye (The Secret Files of the East India Trading Company)
- J. Ward (My Lyfe Amonge the Pyrates)
- Alex (Shadow Lord's biography)