Poseidon

Poseidon
Biographical information
Gender	Male
Ethnic group	God
Family	Orion (son)
Also known as	Neptune
Statistics
Weapon(s) owned	Trident of Poseidon
Affiliation	Map No Man Can Read

"It's the sea god Poseidon. It's his trident. It's in a chamber somewhere below us. The trident is very powerful—it's the weapon of a god."

―Billy Turner

Poseidon was a mythical god in Greek mythology, presiding over the sea, storms, earthquakes and horses. He was the protector of seafarers, and the guardian of many Hellenic cities and colonies. In the Greek-inspired tradition, his Roman equivalent was Neptune, with both similar characteristics and mythology, like wielding a three-pronged trident. According to Plato's work, written about 360 BC, the legendary island of Atlantis was described as a naval empire and Poseidon's domain. By the Age of Piracy, Poseidon's trident would be the subject of the adventures of Captain Jack Sparrow, during his early teenage years and his later life.

Biography

Mythology

"Because I need to get off this island. To solve The Map No Man..."
"No Man Can Read. Left by Poseidon himself."

―Carina Smyth and Henry Turner

In the days of myth and legend of the Seven Seas, Poseidon and Neptune were among the seafaring deities associated with the sea. The legendary Trident of Poseidon, the weapon of a god, was a powerful artifact that bestowed upon its possessor all the power of the sea. Calypso was a goddess who ruled the seas with her powerful magic, though her powers were only eclipsed by Poseidon himself, and only Zeus, chief amongst all gods, could command her. Poseidon also had a son named Orion.

At some point, Poseidon would leave his Trident at a mountain called Poseidon's Peak. Poseidon had gotten the clever god Hephaestus to create hundreds of giant enchanted gems, all different colors of the rainbow, with each color representing one of the different types of merfolk. Gathering them deep within Isla Sirena, Poseidon created a magical link between his Trident and the gems, giving him the ultimate power over every mermaid, merman, and merchild on the Seven Seas. However, the ancestors of Morveren, Aquila, and Aquala managed to get the blue stones locked away in a special chamber designed by the goddess Calypso, making all blue-tailed mermaids immune to the Trident's charms.

Eventually, Poseidon supposedly left behind the Map No Man Can Read, an island covered in precious stones and jewels in a way that they looked like a perfect reflection of the heavens, was left by Poseidon himself. Poseidon's Tomb, a legendary place beneath the jewel-encrusted island at the bottom of the sea, was where Poseidon's Trident would eventually be placed. However, the fate of Poseidon himself is unknown.

Legacy

"By Poseidon's throne!"

―Fat Pirate

Throughout history, the sea deity known as either Poseidon or Neptune was a legendary figure in Greek mythology. By the Age of Piracy, a host of common exclamations, expressions, and idioms were all rooted from Poseidon and Neptune. Notable examples include "By Poseidon's throne", "By Neptune's ballocks", "By Neptune's beard", "By Neptune's trident", and "Neptune's nightgown".

Near the end of the early teenage adventures of young Jack Sparrow, he found Poseidon's Peak in his intention to find Poseidon's Trident with Billy Turner and the crew of the Fleur de la Mort, only to find Captain Torrents riding the chariot Jack and Billy found, and wielding the giant trident. After Torrents' death, the Trident was given to a merman named Tonra.

Aboard the East India Trading Company merchant ship Wicked Wench, when Jack Sparrow welcomed the slave Ayisha as Princess Amenirdis, she could not have looked more shocked if Jack had conjured Neptune's trident and waved it at her. When Jack Sparrow saw Koldunya, the ship of rogue pirate Boris "Borya" Palachnik, gliding slowly behind his ship at close range for a broadside, Sparrow thought if only he were Poseidon, able to suck a ship down into a maelstrom.

A drawing of the mythical god Poseidon holding a three-pronged Trident.

Eventually, through unknown circumstances, the Trident of Poseidon ended up hidden in Poseidon's Tomb. At least one lithograph depicted the mythical god of the sea holding a three-pronged Trident, where even in the simple drawing, the object's power was clear. Young 12-year-old Henry Turner spent his life studying the myths of the sea and had every inch of his bedroom wall covered with paper, with Poseidon being one that haunted his dreams and fueled his desire to learn everything about the sea. The search for the Trident of Poseidon was embarked by Captain Jack Sparrow, Henry Turner, and the astronomer Carina Smyth, who used the diary of Galileo Galilei to find the Map No Man Can Read.

Behind the scenes

Poseidon was first mentioned as an exclamation in the 2006 video game Pirates of the Caribbean: The Legend of Jack Sparrow. The name "Neptune" would first appear in the 2011 novel The Price of Freedom by A. C. Crispin. By 2017, Poseidon holding his trident would be pictured in the opening scene of the film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, also detailed in Elizabeth Rudnick's novelization.

In Terry Rossio's original 2012 screenplay draft of Dead Men tell No Tales, a version of a legend told by Syrena revealed that Neptune, known as the Sea Father, tasked the mermaids to keep his Trident safe, but they failed and it was lost, leading the mermaids to lose Neptune's favor. Following the scripts by Jeff Nathanson in 2013, Neptune became the sea god of the story.

While unconfirmed in the Pirates universe, Triton of Greek mythology is a Greek god of the sea, the son of Poseidon (or Neptune) and Amphitrite, who were not merfolk. Triton is usually represented as a merman, with the upper body of a human and the tailed lower body of a fish, and portrayed as the messenger or herald for the god Poseidon. However, while Triton being a merman in the Pirates universe is unconfirmed, Poseidon was depicted as a merman in at least one lithograph by James Carson, which appeared in opening scene of Dead Men Tell No Tales.

Appearances

• Jack Sparrow: Poseidon's Peak (Mentioned only)
• Jack Sparrow: Bold New Horizons (Mentioned only)
• The Price of Freedom (Mentioned only) (First identified as Neptune)
• Pirates of the Caribbean: The Legend of Jack Sparrow (First mentioned)
• The Brightest Star in the North: The Adventures of Carina Smyth (Mentioned only)
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (Picture only)
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales Novelization (First pictured)
  • Pirates des Caraïbes : La Vengeance de Salazar (Mentioned only)

Sources

• The Pirates' Guidelines

External links

• Poseidon on Wikipedia
• Neptune (mythology) on Wikipedia