Trident of Poseidon

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Trident of Poseidon
Production information
Creator	Three Cyclopes
Type	Magical
Usage
Owner(s)	Poseidon Morveren Aquila Aquala Torrents Jack Sparrow Tonra Armando Salazar
Affiliation	Poseidon
Behind the scenes
First appearance	Poseidon's Peak
Last appearance	Dead Men Tell No Tales
Cause	Broken by Henry Turner

"I've read about a treasure. A treasure that holds all the power of the sea. The Trident of Poseidon can break your curse."
"Henry. The Trident can never be found."
"I found you."
"It's just a tale."

―Henry Turner and Will Turner

The Trident of Poseidon, also referred to as Poseidon's Trident and Neptune's trident, was the mythical weapon of the sea god Poseidon. The weapon of a god, the Trident was used to control the creatures of the sea, including the merfolk, as well as create thunderstorms and strong tidal waves. Near the end of Jack Sparrow's teenage adventures, the Trident fell into the possession of the feared Captain Torrents. After Torrents' death, the Trident was given to a merman named Tonra. Eventually the Trident ended up hidden in Poseidon's Tomb where it was found many years later by Jack Sparrow and Carina Smyth.

History

Early use

"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's Trident contained within it an intense magical energy capable of causing earthquakes, wrecking ships, and even summoning the Kraken. Whomever wielded it also possessed the ability to take control over the race of merfolk. 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 the Trident and the gems, giving him the ultimate power over every mermaid, merman, and merchild on the Seven Seas. However, over a thousand years prior to Jack Sparrow's teenage years, 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.

Control of the Merpeople

"Let me get this straight: the Blue-tails actually used the 'thrice-accursed' Trident of Power to control their own people?"
"They told us they got it away from Poseidon so no one could control them anymore. So they could be free."

―Jack Sparrow and Arabella Smith

Eventually, Morveren, Aquala, and Aquila managed to steal the trident away from an unsuspecting Poseidon, but instead of freeing the rest of their people, they used it to take complete control over their own race for themselves. The sisters hid the Trident under Poseidon's Peak, the place they kept the spoils of all their greatest wars, but once they learned of a resistance building against them among their people, decided they needed to place it in the care of a human to ensure it would stay out of the hands of other merfolk. The Blue-tails struck a deal with Captain Torrents, in which he would guard the Trident and share sovereignty over the merpeople with them, and they would be able to keep their status. However, once the sisters handed control of the Trident to Torrents, he swiftly made off with it—bent on retaining control of the Seven Seas all for himself.

In Torrents' hands

"Well, as long as you're talking about revenge and the Code, you must know that there is a very specific passage in the Code that mentions the Trident! No pirate shall have his own possession of the mythic weapon! It's too powerful and too dangerous."
"Well, who needs the Code anymore when you have a weapon this powerful?"

―Laura Smith and Torrents

With the power of Poseidon's Trident, Torrents commanded the merpeople to leave their home under Isla Sirena and pillage and plunder all the oceans of the world, giving him all the loot they found. The Blue-tails commissioned Jack Sparrow with the task of reacquiring the Trident from Torrents, and after an intense duel aboard the Fleur de la Mort, Jack managed to take possession of the weapon and blast Torrents into the sea, where thousands of infuriated merpeople were waiting to devour him. Rather than allowing the Blue-tails to resume their tyranny, however, Jack, taking advantage of his new position as king of the merfolk, chose to free them, putting the Trident in the keep of the merman Tonra and earning the merpeople's immense gratitude and reverence.

Salazar's revenge

"Power of the sea."
"What?"
"The power of the sea."
"To release the power of the sea all must divide. If the Trident holds all the power, then..."
"Then every curse is held inside."

―Henry Turner and Carina Smyth

At some point after Jack freed the merpeople, the Trident was hidden in Poseidon's Tomb, an underwater grave off the coast of an uncharted island. By this time, those who knew of the Trident believed it could no longer be found. However, it was also revealed that the Trident also possessed the power to break any curse at sea. Because of this, the Trident was sought by several parties: Armando Salazar to have his revenge on Jack Sparrow, Henry Turner to free his father from the curse of the Flying Dutchman, Jack Sparrow to save himself from Salazar, John Scarfield to secure the seas for the British Empire, and Hector Barbossa to reclaim control of the seas. With the aid of Carina Smyth and a diary given to her by her father, the island was located and the Trident revealed itself by parting the sea.

Armando Salazar holds the Trident.

However, Armando Salazar managed to claim the Trident first, using it to first free himself from Henry Turner's body after he possessed it. Holding the power of the sea, Salazar used it to torture Jack Sparrow by flinging the pirate around in the walls of the sea where he tried to drown and kill Sparrow. Using a clue from the diary, Carina and Henry deduced that the power of all the curses at sea was contained within the Trident, which therefore had to be destroyed in order to break them. Salazar was momentarily distracted while stabbing Sparrow with the Trident, allowing Henry to shatter the Trident with his sword. With the Trident destroyed, the sea began collapsing, where Salazar and his crew died shortly afterwards, having returned to normal human forms. Henry also succeeded in his quest to use the Trident to break Will Turner's curse, as he was now no longer bound to the Dutchman, though Will had at least one dream of a resurrected Davy Jones for unknown reasons.

Behind the scenes

"Imagine a Navy that could never be defeated. A nation that could never be conquered. To hold the Trident is to control more than the sea. It is to control the world."

―Captain Toms

• The Trident had been referred to by several names, mostly referred to as "Poseidon's Trident" or simply the "Trident" by those who knew of the weapon. It was also named the "Trident of Poseidon". The official summary of Pirates of the Caribbean: Jack Sparrow: Poseidon's Peak incorrectly calls it the Trident of Neptune.
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales featured the Trident of Poseidon as the sought-after artifact in the film. The rumors about the Trident appearing in the film started in 2013, with the Trident's appearance being officially confirmed through the film's synopsis released in February 2015.
• In Terry Rossio's original script draft for Dead Men Tell No Tales the Trident was called the Trident of Neptune. It was broken in several pieces and its powers came from three Pearls of Neptune, one of which was embedded into the hilt of the Sword of Triton. The primary antagonists of the planned movie - Queen Inez of Spain and the Sea Widow - intended to use the Trident for their own ends, while Syrena sought to return it in its full form to her species so that they may regain the favour of the gods.
• In Jeff Nathanson's earlier Dead Men Tell No Tales script drafts the Trident was originally decorated with a large diamond called the Eye of Poseidon. After falling into the hands of the ghost of the British pirate hunter John Brand the Trident was accidentally broken by Brand himself, which caused the ghosts of his victims to rise and drag him to Hell.
• In LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game during the battle for the Fountain of Youth Jack Sparrow finds and briefly carries a statute of a mermaid holding the trident.
• A similar weapon called the Trident of Dark Tides appears in the non-canon video game Sea of Thieves.

Appearances

• Jack Sparrow: Poseidon's Peak (First appearance)
• Jack Sparrow: Bold New Horizons
• The Price of Freedom (Mentioned only)
• The Brightest Star in the North: The Adventures of Carina Smyth
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales: Movie Graphic Novel
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales Novelization
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Gods and Ghosts M (Non-canonical appearance)