Lightning

Lightning flashes in Calypso's maelstrom.

"The Caribbean abounds with gales and hurricanes. Aye, and a ghost ship is said to sail these waters, with her skeleton helmsman forever lashed to her cursed wheel. It is said that she can be seen sometimes in the light of flashing lightning, when the wind is screaming like the Devil himself was after Davy Jones."

―Unknown

Lightning was a natural phenomenon that occurred commonly during thunderstorms as well as other types of energetic weather systems. Lightning is an atmospheric electrical phenomenon and contributes to the global atmospheric electrical circuit. The three main kinds of lightning are distinguished by where they occur: either inside a single thundercloud (intra-cloud), between two clouds (cloud-to-cloud), or between a cloud and the ground (cloud-to-ground), in which case it is referred to as a lightning strike.

History

The dreaded Captain James Sterling summons lightning against his opponents.

At some point in the Age of Piracy, the legendary pirate Captain Torrents was cursed by the heathen gods to be followed by rain and storm wherever he went, with a static charge, like a blanket of lightning, covering the pirate's body. When young Jack Sparrow and the crew of the mighty Barnacle fought Torrents in stormy weather on Isla Esquelética, Jack tosssed some water at their enemy, well aware of the fact that water and lightning were not a good mix. After some crackle and sputtering and hissing a tremendous explosion knocked out Torrents. A few months later, Jack and Fitzwilliam P. Dalton III watched as the Flying Dutchman, a ghost ship famous in nightmares and horror stories across the Seven Seas, emerged from below the waves and came at the Barnacle, and a bolt of lightning flashed as Davy Jones, the cursed captain of the Dutchman, appeared on deck beside the boys.

Several years later, when Captain Jack Sparrow became an honest merchant seaman for the East India Trading Company, the EITC merchant vessel the Wicked Wench fell into a storm on her third voyage from Calabar to the Caribbean lightning bolts streaked the sky all around the ship. Captain Sparrow was worried about the lightning hitting a mast, but even worse was the possibility that it might hit the deck and travel, starting fires. If a fire started anywhere near the powder magazine, Jack knew there wouldn't be anything left except chum for the sharks. Around the same time, after returning from the dead by the Armada of the Damned, the legendary and dreaded Captain James Sterling had the power to summon lightning to attack and destroy his opponents.

Almost thirteen years after the EITC merchant vessel Wicked Wench became the pirate ship Black Pearl, eventually cursed, Captain Jack Sparrow pursued the Pearl aboard the Interceptor, a commandeered vessel of the British Royal Navy, while sailing through rain and lightning. More than once Will Turner had the feeling that the discharges missed the ship only by a hand's breadth. Over a year later, during the search for the Dead Man's Chest, lightning flashed as Lord Cutler Beckett and the East India Trading Company arrived to Port Royal, and later when the Black Pearl come across a scuttled ship in an archipelago before finding the Flying Dutchman. Lightning flashed as Davy Jones played his vast pipe organ while his crew worked aboard the Flying Dutchman, as well as immediately after Jones accepted Will Turner's challenge to a game of Liar's Dice. Following the release of the sea goddess Calypso by the Pirate Lord Captain Hector Barbossa of the Fourth Brethren Court, lightning flashed as a titanic battle raged between the Black Pearl, and the Flying Dutchman at the center of a massive maelstrom conjured by the enraged goddess.

Lightning inside the Black Pearl in a bottle.

Many years later, by the quest for the Fountain of Youth, Edward "Blackbeard" Teach kept a collection of ships in bottles, including the Black Pearl, which was sailing on captured stormy seas, along with thunder and lightning, when Jack Sparrow was shown Blackbeard's prizes by Angelica aboard the Queen Anne's Revenge. About one year later, after the escape from Saint Martin, as the Dying Gull sailed through the night, the young sailor Henry Turner noticed in the distance several flashes of lightning that were too patterned to be natural, which could mean only one thing—the dead, Armando Salazar's crew of the ghost ship Silent Mary, were chasing them. Later, as the Silent Mary pursued the restored Black Pearl during the voyage to the black rock island, Captain Hector Barbossa saw a lightning illuminate their pursuer, then ordered Mullroy and Murtogg to release the astronomer Carina Smyth so she could steer the Pearl to their destination.

Behind the scenes

Lightning was first identified in the soundtrack for Walt Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean, and first appeared in the Disneyland attraction through Hurricane Lagoon.

Appearances

• Walt Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean (First appearance)
• Disney Parks Presents: Pirates of the Caribbean
• Pirates of the Caribbean (2003 video game)
• Jack Sparrow: The Coming Storm
• Jack Sparrow: City of Gold
• Jack Sparrow: Dance of the Hours
• Jack Sparrow: Bold New Horizons
• The Price of Freedom
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Armada of the Damned
• The Island of Fortune
• Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
  • Fluch der Karibik
• Going Overboard!
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
• Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
• Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales Novelization
  • Pirates des Caraïbes : La Vengeance de Salazar
• LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game (Non-canonical appearance)
• Sea of Thieves: A Pirate's Life (Non-canonical appearance)

Sources

• Walt Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean: The Sound Track of the Fabulous Adventure (First identified as lightning)
• Pirates of the Caribbean: From the Magic Kingdom to the Movies

External links

• Lightning on Wikipedia