# Is Captain Jack Sparrow a Good Man? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 9, 2012, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-captain-jack-sparrow-a-good-man/612343 "2012-02-09T21:02:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2012, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-captain-jack-sparrow-a-good-man/612343/41 "2012-02-15T00:03:56Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > There are people who are neither good nor evil. Jack is not one of them. He is evil. He’s literally willing to damn a hundred men, who have done nothing to him, just to get out of his own obligations that he freely entered into. Yes, that’s evil. If you think that Disney would not portray a man that evil as successful, then you have a mistaken notion about what Disney will and won’t do. It’s a core Disney tenet that the bad guy gets what’s coming to him in the end. Ursula is gored by a ship’s mast, Captain Hook is digested by a kooky croc, and the almost-incestuous siblings in High School Musical lose their lead roles when they try to stop the quirky-but-hot outsiders from auditioning. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2012, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-captain-jack-sparrow-a-good-man/612343/42 "2012-02-15T00:20:14Z")
To accept that that’s a core Disney tenet, you have to start from the premise that Jack is, in fact, not evil. You therefore cannot use that tenet as evidence that he’s not evil, because to do so would be circular reasoning. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2012, 8:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-captain-jack-sparrow-a-good-man/612343/43 "2012-02-15T08:20:02Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > No, that’s Evil. I’m not sure where you’re getting chaotic for that. From [the Rules](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alignment_%28Dungeons_%26_Dragons%29#Chaotic_Neutral), of course. > [@](#): > > As for Rincewind, “I would like to state that I do not wish to volunteer for this mission.” “So what are you doing here?” “Volunteering. But I don’t want to.” Yes, Rincewind tries very hard to survive, and with the hand he’s dealt that’s a full-time job, but he makes as much effort as he can to not screw over others in the process. He just wants a nice, boring life. That’s what I meant about opposite endpoints. > [@](#): > > Jack, meanwhile, leads a life full of adventure, not because that’s the cards he’s dealt, but because he’s the dealer. I don’t think so. He wants the Pearl (it is, in fact, his only abiding motivator), and he wants adventure, but I don’t think he’s in control at all. And I think Jack’s internal conception of what it means to be a pirate is more akin to Captain Pugwash than Captain Blackbeard. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2012, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-captain-jack-sparrow-a-good-man/612343/44 "2012-02-15T18:23:10Z")
Here’s a question: Whatever Jack’s morality is, does he deserve a hanging? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2012, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-captain-jack-sparrow-a-good-man/612343/45 "2012-02-15T18:39:36Z")
> [@](#): > > Here’s a question: Whatever Jack’s morality is, does he deserve a hanging? Legally? Unambiguously yes. He’s a pirate, and the penalty for piracy is to hang suspended by the neck until dead. ---
**Author:** ![Acid\_Lamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Acid\_Lamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acid_Lamp)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2012, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-captain-jack-sparrow-a-good-man/612343/46 "2012-02-15T21:31:24Z")
I"m not certain he is evil by the standards of his world. In the first film he saves Elizabeth and then tries to reason with Will during the entire fight. Evil Jack would simply have let her drown, and assuming he found himself in the same situation with Will, just shot him in the face. Barbossa certainly would have done those things. Both of those situations were not of Jack’s doing either. Norrington insists on being a a prig, and Will wants to use Jack’s corpse as a stepping stone to high society. Considering the circumstances, his taking Elizabeth hostage is neutral, and his attempt to reason with the ill-motivated Will is actually _good._ He isn’t a good man, but he seems to be more a rogue than a truly evil man. He steals, Cheats, lies, backstabs, and plunders; but he seems to avoid killing when not strictly necessary, only takes shiny valuables as opposed to necessities, seems to have at least a personal aversion to rape, and rarely acts cruelly or violently at all, and never for pleasure. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2012, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-captain-jack-sparrow-a-good-man/612343/47 "2012-02-15T21:59:33Z")
Jack Sparrow is the pirate version of [Cugel the Clever](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eyes_of_the_Overworld). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-captain-jack-sparrow-a-good-man/612343.md?page=2)