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- "No need to be afraid, boy. Today is your lucky day. I always keep one man alive. One man to tell the tale."
- ―John Brand to Henry Maddox
John Brand was an officer of the British Royal Navy during the golden age of piracy. Accompanied by his beloved brother Eric, John Brand fought many battles against the Spanish, until fate separated the brothers, leaving John convinced Eric was dead. However, Eric was saved by the pirate crew of the Black Pearl and eventually become a pirate himself, until he was attacked and killed by John's ship, the Silent Mary. When he realised he had killed his own brother, Brand swore revenge on the man who turned his brother into a pirate - Captain Jack Sparrow. However, the confrontation with Sparrow led to Brand's downfall, and he was lost in the cursed waters of the Devil's Triangle where he became a restless spirit, waiting for a day when he could roam the seas again.
Biography
John Brand was an English captain who served the British Royal Navy as a pirate hunter along with his brother Eric. Brand commanded the warship known as the Silent Mary. One day, John and Eric were shooting against a Spanish galleon, but cannon fire rocked their ship and Eric was blown overboard, leading John to presume he had died by drowning beneath the waves despite his attempts to rescue him. However, Eric was rescued by the crew of the Black Pearl and Jack Sparrow, the ship's captain, taught him how to become a pirate despite his initial thoughts of holding him for ransom.
Eventually, Eric became a pirate of his own right and got his own ship. Unfortunately, John hunted his ship down and refused to accept Eric's surrender, destroying the ship and killing everyone aboard. It was just at that moment in which John realized that he had killed Eric. Furious for having killed his own brother, the only individual he loved, John hunted down the Pearl to the Devil's Triangle, but Jack Sparrow outsmarted him and had the Silenty Mary blown up, leading Brand to slit his throat with his own knife as he sunk. Death wasn't the end for Brand and his crew, however, as they resurfaced as ghosts, locked inside the Devil's Triangle to patrol the area formed by the Greek god Hades forever.
During the present day, John Brand and his ghostly crew murder all the crew of the Monarch minus Captain Toms' servant Henry Maddox, whom Brand allows to live to tell the tale of his massacre but not before apparently kidnapping a young woman named Olivia Cole and taking the Eye of Poseidon, a diamond recovered by Toms from a French ship known as the Courageoux which was once embedded to the Trident of Poseidon, a mystical artifact which guaranteees control over the Seven Seas to whoever possesses it and which can free Brand and his pirates from their prison. Sometime later, at Port Royal, the sea witch Melia warns Jack Sparrow and his dimwitted crewmember Scrum about facing the vengeful Captain Brand and his crew in order to get the Trident of Poseidon to restore the Black Pearl to its original size after it was shrunken by Blackbeard in the past. Melia additionally notes that Brand will use Jack's sword to slit his throat.
Aboard the Queen Anne's Revenge, Hector Barbossa is informed by Pintel and Ragetti about the destruction of the HMS Monarch, leading Barbossa to visit Henry Maddox at the hospital and asking him about his encounter with Brand. Desiring to get the Trident of Poseidon to rule the world, Barbossa sets course to the Devil's Triangle, allowing Brand and his crew to quickly kill some of Barbossa's crewmen, but Barbossa keeps half of the Revenge outside the Triangle so Brand can't hurt him. Threatening Barbossa, Brand allows Barbossa to tell the tale about how he became cursed in the first place, as Barbossa was present on the Pearl the day in which Brand and his crew died. Realizing that Sparrow is Barbossa's enemy as well and that Barbossa and his skeleton crew actually mutinied against Sparrow years ago because of Eric's death, Brand strikes a deal with Barbossa to give him the Eye of Poseidon in exchange of Barbossa bringing Jack Sparrow to him.
Barbossa does so and brings Jack to the Devil's Triangle, with Henry Maddox also joining the crew to rescue Olivia. Once at the Triangle, Brand and his crew attack Lieutenant Scarfield and his soldiers, who have brought Melia and Jack's former crew (including Joshamee Gibbs and Scrum) with them, when they come aboard the Essex. After the British no longer pose a threat, Brand refuses to hand the Eye of Poseidon to Barbossa until he kills Jack, who fruitlessly tries to hide behind the mast and to move the Revenge halfway across the Triangle's limits, but Brand manages to take Jack and prepares to slit his throat until Carina Smyth, Barbossa's secret daughter, stands up and orders him to let Jack go. Deducing that Sparrow and Smyth love each other, Brand threatens to kill the two, but Barbossa changes his mind and moves the ship to rescue Jack and Carina, leading Brand to order his crew to sink the Revenge. While everyone abandons the ship and jumps safety into the water in direction to Coffin Island, Jack retrieves the shrunken and bottled Pearl before Brand grabs him over the side, allowing Jack to steal the Eye of Poseidon from his enemy. Brand then tries to go after Jack by walking on the water along with some of his crewmembers, but fail to do so.
Later on, the crew of the Silent Mary retrieve Scarfield, his surviving soldiers and Jack's crewmembers from the sea. Though Brand intends to execute them all so they can join him and his crewmembers as ghosts, Melia intervenes and asks Brand to spare them for the moment, convincing him that she is on his side and that she had tricked Sparrow into going after the Map No Man Can Read and the Trident, requesting him to retrieve the Trident of Poseidon for her in exchange of giving him and his crew back their freedom. Deal done, Melia casts an spell and allows Brand and his crew to possess Scarfield, his surviving soldiers and Jack's crewmembers, with Brand possessing Scarfield. With their host bodies, Brand and his crew go to the Tomb of Poseidon and engage in a fight with Jack, Carina, Barbossa and his crew. During the battle, some of Brand's crewmen with their hosts get killed, but Brand engages in a fight with Barbossa and, still bitter at his betrayal, shoots him with Scarfield's pistol at the same time Barbossa shoots at him to ensure Carina's safety, but Barbossa fails to wound Brand and is hurt by the shot. Before Brand can shoot a second time, Jack mortally wounds Brand by stabbing him with his sword, yet Brand's crew engage Jack in a fight while Brand chases Carina and Henry. He eventually gets the Trident and takes Carina and Henry prisoners aboard the Silent Mary.
As all his crew leave their hosts bodies, Brand does the same and leaves the wounded Scarfield to slowly die from his injuries before using the Trident to flood both Coffin Island and the Tomb of Poseidon, seemingly killing Sparrow and Barbossa. Agreeing to rule with Melia, Brand declares the sea as their own and that every sailor, pirate or soldier is from him and his crew to kill until all oceans in the world turn to blood. However, Jack and Hector have actually survived thanks to the full restoration of the Black Pearl. Back on the Silent Mary, Brand engages Henry in a duel to kill him, but Olivia saves Henry, revealing the process that she had actually died the night the Monarch was destroyed. However, Brand's happiness comes to an end when Jack reveals himself to still be alive and well, with the intentions to claim the Trident. Brand stabs Jack with the Trident in the shoulder, but Jack still escapes and with the Trident. Brand brings the Silent Mary to life and walls of water are formed, revealing all of the shipwrecks caused by Brand in the Devil's Triangle while Jack and Carina go back to the Tomb of Poseidon to stop Brand. As all this happens, Henry manages to kill Melia aboard the Revenge.
In a last desperate attempt to kill Jack Sparrow once and for all, Brand takes Jack Sparrow's sword and tries to strike him with it, but Jack puts the Trident in front of him and the Trident gets cut in half, allowing the spirits from all of Brand's victims, led by none other than Eric, to crawl out from the dirt and surround Brand and his crew. Holding now the Trident, Eric condems John for killing all those sailors and soldiers and sinking their ships. Brand offers Eric instead the possibility to rule together the seas, but Eric assures John that they will be together forever, sending the ghosts to grab all of Brand's crewmen as punishment for their atrocities and pulling them into the blackness at the bottom of the Devil's Triangle, with Brand being the last one to be sucked down towards the Gates of Hell, ending his reign of terror over the Seven Seas once and for all.
Behind the scenes
- John Brand appeared only in one of the earlier versions of Jeff Nathanson's Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales script. Christoph Waltz was rumored to be considered for the role for some time.[2] However, the script was later rewritten and the character was replaced with Armando Salazar who was played by Javier Bardem.
- A British Royal Navy admiral named John Benbow appeared in Terry Rossio's 2012 draft of the Dead Men Tell No Tales script which was eventually rejected.[3] It's possible Brand was inspired by Rossio's character.
Appearances
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2013 screenplay)
Notes and references
- ↑ In the script the witch Melia explains that Brand was trapped in the Devil's Triangle for sixteen years. Since the main story is set in 1756, the beginning of the Seven Years' War, Brand had to die in 1740.
- ↑ Javier Bardem May Play Villain in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales - IGN
- ↑ Pirates of the Caribbean DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES Screenplay by Terry Rossio