- "That thing has changed the course of history, Jack! Seen empires felled and entire fleets sunk beneath the waves! The Mongols and Koreans, the Spanish Armada... We'd see our throats slit eight ways by breakfast were any t' discover we so much as knew it existed, much less had it in hand."
- ―Joshamee Gibbs to Jack Sparrow
The Weather Gauge was a disk-shaped object said to possess a magical power to summon the wind.
History[]
- "The Weather Gauge?"
"Precisely, Mister Gibbs."
"But Jack, the Weather Gauge ain't been seen for more than a hundred years!" - ―Joshamee Gibbs and Jack Sparrow
The origin of the Weather Gauge is shrouded in mystery, but it was said the object changed the course of history due to its magical ability to summon the wind. It saw empires fall and entire fleets having sunk beneath the waves, including the Mongols, Koreans, and the Spanish Armada. It was considered extremely dangerous and many people would stop at nothing to get their hands on it. In unknown circumstances, the Weather Gauge ended up in a Spanish church deep in the interior of the island of San Silvestre in the Caribbean Sea. Over the years all the priests in the church fell prey to the jungle predators, and the place was forgotten by almost everyone. However, someone made a treasure map that led to the church, which was eventually obtained by the notorious pirate Captain Jack Sparrow,[3] who gave it to his friend Mutti for safekeeping.[2]
By the time of Jack's escape from Port Royal,[4] no one had seen the Weather Gauge for more than a hunderd years.[3] Jack's ship, the Black Pearl, eventually lost the wind only a few miles from Port Royal and Commodore James Norrington's British Royal Navy forces. Since Jack couldn't afford to wait for the wind, he retrieved the map from Mutti, after helping her defeat the bounty hunter Mackie Shackles.[2] Jack and his motley crew used a boat to reach San Silvestre, and after a few days of sailing the dreaded Los Pesadilla river, they abandoned the boat and continued their trek on foot, eventually finding the church. To their surprise, the place was inhabited by the insane conquistadors who were sent many years earlier to find out what happened with the priests. The fewerish Spaniards were worshiping a giant snake called the "Mother of Water" as a deity, and Jack misunderstood their talk of offering his body to the most beautiful creature to ever move across the Earth as an invite to make love to a jungle chieftess. When he stepped into the main hall Jack saw the giant snake ready to eat him, and realized what his fate was supposed to be. Quickly springing into action, Jack stabbed the snake into the left eye with a broken sword. As the wounded beast chased him around the hall, Jack saw the Weather Gauge hanging from the main column that supported the roof. Jack climbed up the column and retreived the Gauge, tricking the snake into breaking the column. As the entire building collapsed, the falling debris killed the beast, while Jack escaped with the Gauge at the last moment. Seeing their deity dead, the remaining conquistadors outside were scared into running away, leaving Jack and his crew alone with their prize.[3] The further fate of the Weather Gauge is unknown.
Behind the scenes[]
Chris Schweizer's early design of the four winds summoned by the Weather Gauge.
The Weather Gauge appeared in Mother of Water, the fourth issue of the Joe Books Pirates of the Caribbean comics series. In Chris Schweizer's planned continuation of the series, the Weather Gauge eventually ended up in the hands of Commodore James Norrington, who uses it to summon the four winds off Tripoli, connecting the plot to the story of the sinking of the HMS Dauntless during the pursuit of the Black Pearl from the 2006 film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.[5] However, since the series was cancelled after the fifth issue, it is unknown whether that story is canon or not.
Appearances[]
- The Guardians of Windward Cove (First mentioned)
- Smoke on the Water (Mentioned only)
- Mother of Water (First appearance) (First identified as Weather Gauge)
Notes and references[]
- ↑ Even though Mother of Water doesn't give the exact date when the Gauge was made, Joshamee Gibbs claims the object was used to sink entire fleets beneath the waves, inluding the Mongols, Koreans, and the Spanish Armada. The worst naval disasters in the ancient history of the Mongols were the two attempted invasions of Japan under Kublai Khan in 1274 and 1281 when the storms later known as the kamikaze destroyed both fleets. The "Spanish Armada" bit could be a reference to the Spanish Royal Navy fleet that sailed against England in 1588 and suffered a disastrous defeat, eventually losing half of its ships in storms while sailing back to Spain.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 The Guardians of Windward Cove
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Mother of Water
- ↑ The first issue of the Joe Books comics is set three days after the events of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.
- ↑ "One of the things I thought would be really fun to do with this series would be to use the POTC framework to do genre stories. So the second issue was a wandering gunslinger/samurai playing two gangs off each other story, the fourth issue was a Heart of Darkness riff, the fifth would’ve been a spy story, the seventh a heist caper, and the eighth a Kaiju story, with the four winds that Norrington calls up (using the weather gauge they're hunting for in the first few issues) in Tripoli serving as these giant, unstoppable beasts of destruction."