The captain goes down with his ship

Jack Sparrow accepts his fate as the captain going down with his ship, as the Kraken drags the Black Pearl to the depths.

"Jack Sparrow, our debt is settled."
"The Captain goes down with his ship."
"Turns out not even Jack Sparrow can best the devil!"

―Davy Jones, Palifico, and Maccus

The Captain goes down with his ship was a naval tradition, one unbreakable rule of pirates and naval officers alike, in which the captain was expected to remain on board a sinking ship in order to save as many other lives as possible. In most instances, captains forgo their own rapid departure of a ship in distress, and concentrate instead on saving other people. It often results in either the death or belated rescue of the captain as the last person on board.

A most notable example being Captain Jack Sparrow and the Black Pearl, a pirate ship which originally served as a merchant vessel for the East India Trading Company called the Wicked Wench. When the Wench was sunk, along with her captain, Sparrow made a deal with Davy Jones to raise the ship from the depths, after which Sparrow named her the Black Pearl. Thirteen years later, both Jack Sparrow and the Black Pearl were once again sunk by Davy Jones, though both Sparrow and his vessel were later rescued from Davy Jones' Locker.

History

"I lost the Pearl as I lost my leg!"
"Lost the Pearl?"
"Aye. I defended her mightily enough, but she be sunk nonetheless."
"If that ship be sunk properly, you should be sunk with it."

―Hector Barbossa and Jack Sparrow

Captain Jack Sparrow went down with his ship, the merchant vessel Wicked Wench, when she was sunk by Cutler Beckett of the East India Trading Company.

Throughout the Age of Piracy, ships have sailed the seven seas, though some have sent sinking from the surface to the bottom of the ocean. It was the duty of a captain to go down with his ship, which was one unbreakable rule of pirates and naval officers alike, and that if the ship had sunk the captain should be dead. Jack Sparrow unintentionally went down with his beloved ship, the East India Trading Company merchant vessel Wicked Wench, when she was burned and sunk on the orders of Cutler Beckett, the EITC Director for West Africa. Sparrow ended up halfway to the Land of the Dead, where he made a deal with Davy Jones, the cursed captain of the Flying Dutchman and the supernatural ruler of the ocean depths, to raising his sunken ship, and in exchange Sparrow agreed to surrender his soul to Jones after thirteen years of captaincy. However, returning to a life of piracy and rechristening his ship the Black Pearl, Jack had no intention of honoring his part of the bargain.

At some point after the battle of Isla de Muerta, Jack Sparrow was imprisoned by Captain Oliver Randolph Pynce-Jones III aboard the British Royal Navy warship the HMS Achilles. Through the intervention of a mysterious masked man, known only as the Scarecrow, many conscripted sailors turned against Pynce-Jones and his loyal Marines. Freed from his chains, Sparrow fired a cannonball through the bottom of the ship, causing it to start sinking. Captain Pynce-Jones took his place at the ship's wheel, with water reaching his chest, loudly proclaiming that he would not fail his duty to his king, and sink with his ship. However, a marine then informed him that the ship had hit the bottom, because the cove was too shallow for the ship to be fully submerged, and there would be no going down with the ship that day. With a sigh, Pynce-Jones agreed with the soldier's statement.

Over thirteen years after Jack Sparrow's deal with Davy Jones, despite his attempt to avoid his blood debt by finding the fabled Dead Man's Chest and use the heart of Davy Jones as leverage, Sparrow ended up sinking with his ship once again to Davy Jones' Locker. Although Sparrow intended to escape the Kraken's attack on the Black Pearl, Elizabeth Swann shackled Sparrow to the mast of his ship, giving Sparrow's crew time to escape. As the Kraken enveloped the Pearl, Jack Sparrow accepted his fate and leaped forward at the "beastie" to go down fighting. Looking through his barnacled spyglass as the Black Pearl was dragged into the depths, Davy Jones considered Jack Sparrow's debt settled, with Palifico commenting "The captain goes down with his ship." Despite both Jack Sparrow and the Black Pearl being sunk once again, Will Turner, Elizabeth Swann, and rival pirate captain Hector Barbossa entered an uneasy alliance to rescue Sparrow and his vessel from the Locker.

Lord Cutler Beckett stays on his ship, the Endeavour, as it explodes around him.

During the Brethren Court's final stand against Lord Cutler Beckett, the Black Pearl and the Flying Dutchman destroyed the HMS Endeavour, the flagship of the East India Trading Company Armada. Although many officers and crewmembers escaped the destruction, notably Lieutenant Theodore Groves, the ship's captain, Lord Cutler Beckett, sank with his ship.

Years later, following an encounter with Edward "Blackbeard" Teach and the Queen Anne's Revenge, Hector Barbossa lost his right leg and believed the Black Pearl was sunk, then unaware of its fate as being encased in a glass bottle in Blackbeard's collection aboard the Revenge, which Barbossa himself didn't learn until later. When Barbossa, now a privateer for the British crown under King George II, explained to Jack Sparrow about the sinking of the Pearl, Sparrow pointed out that if the ship he loved dearly had sunk, Barbossa should be dead, gone down and sunk with it. Later, as the HMS Providence encountered three Spanish galleons in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, Captain Barbossa ordered his crew to prepare the ship for battle, and when he realized he was hopelessly outgunned, he swore to himself if his ship went down he would go down with it. However, Barbossa left the Providence when the ship was under attack, swarmed and pulled under by mermaids at Whitecap Bay.

Behind the scenes

The phrase was first mentioned by Captain Oliver Randolph Pynce-Jones III as "a captain must go down with his ship!" in the 2005 comic "Enter... the Scarecrow!" published in Disney Adventures. With the Kraken's attack on Captain Jack Sparrow aboard the Black Pearl, "the captain goes down with the ship" first appeared in media relating to the 2006 film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, notably Irene Trimble's junior novelization, though the phrase first appeared in the film.

In Jeff Nathanson's early 2013 screenplay draft for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, the main villain was Captain John Brand, an insane British Navy officer who was outsmarted and defeated by Jack Sparrow and sank with his ship, the Silent Mary, in the haunted waters of the Devil's Triangle.

In the 2002 film Return to Neverland, the sequel to Disney's 1953 film Peter Pan, Peter Pan tells Captain Hook that "a good captain always goes down with his ship" as an octopus sinks the Jolly Roger. However, Hook's response to Pan is "I don't want to be a good captain!"

Appearances

• The Price of Freedom
• Disney Adventures: "Enter... the Scarecrow!" (First mentioned)
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Ghost Ship
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (junior novelization) (First appearance)
• Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
• Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (Mentioned only)
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (junior novelization) (Mentioned only)
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides Movie Storybook (Mentioned only)

External links

• The captain goes down with the ship on Wikipedia