He definitely makes it up as he goes along. That’s why he changes sides so often; he’ll always help whoever it’s most beneficial to help.
Does doing a few right things make up for a lifetime of wrongdoings?
Yes, but other people manage to go through this world without becoming evil. Although they are few and far between. I’d argue that Elizabeth’s dad is certainly a good man, in that he always tries to do what is right. I’d argue that the admiral from the first movie, while originally pursuing Jack for all the wrong reasons, eventually redeems himself as early as the first movie, when he gives Jack a head start.
Well, that was kinda weird, but we’re back at the club…
I think we like Jack Sparrow because he is enormously entertaining (and fictional). Johnny Depp really earned his big pile of money for those movies. I was at Disneyworld last week and the whole pirate thing is pretty big (merch!). I can’t imagine Jack Sparrow being half as popular if he did all those terrible things and was a dull log.
We like him for the same reason we forgive the pretty.
He’s the kind of character that is great fun to watch in fiction, but in real life I’d be helping Barbossa maroon him. Also, the character gets a lot more slack than he should because he is played by an attractive actor.
Nope, not good in any moral or ethical sense. Barbossa has him beat all to hell in terms of honesty, and if I were a pirate he’d be my choice for captain. Sparrow is entirely in it for what he can get out for himself and screw everyone else. Funny to watch when Bugs Bunny does it, but sucks to be his collateral damage.
Giving a known criminal a head start on escape is good? Elizabeth’s father is an apparatchik in the very same government that we see has no problem with hanging children. Elizabeth, herself, becomes a pirate and does her share of betraying others. Will is the only character that you could make a legitimate case is a good person, and he is something of a chump who gets taken advantage of by almost all concerned. I agree that Sparrow is doing no more than trying to survive in a snakepit of a world.
Just had a brief think on something tangential to this; The year after the first film came out, there were a ton of Jack Sparrow cosplayers at GenCon. I was helping to run a pirate-themed LARP, and one of them showed up, acting the part to the hilt. After it was all over, the consensus was that he was pretty, but a complete asshat. After reading this thread, I realized that, yeah, he was playing the part!
Letting Jack have a head start is the least he could do since Jack did, after all, save everyone.
Elizabeth’s dad never orders children to be hung. That only happens when a corrupt military official siezes power for the East India Trade Company.
I never said Elizabeth is a good person… She’s almost as bad as Jack. And I don’t know if I’d say that Will is a good person… His major motivation is wanting to get Elizabeth. He’s certainly honorable, in that he keeps his promise to his dad at all costs, but how often does he backstab Jack? Although, Jack IS trying to backstab him at the same time…
Now that I think about it, the PotC world really is very dark, especially for a disney movie.
No, that’s Evil. I’m not sure where you’re getting chaotic for that.
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. Jack, meanwhile, leads a life full of adventure, not because that’s the cards he’s dealt, but because he’s the dealer.
Jack is a pirate, he robs and commandeers merchant and passenger ships. People die no matter how careful you are in robberies, people get raped, not to mention the little fact you’re attacking innocents to steal their property.
Yes. Piracy was certainly prettied up for these Disney movies, which were enormously entertaining but hardly historical. In reality, pirates were generally cruel, amoral, violent and greedy. Jack Sparrow, as fun to watch as he was, seemed to be all of these things but cruel. Evil? Yes, I think so, in that his lifestyle was based on crime, disobeying the law and taking things (the bigger and shinier the better) that weren’t his. He was certainly less evil than Barbossa or Davy Jones, but that’s faint praise indeed.
Remember his past crimes being read out when he was about to be hanged at the end of the first movie? Even allowing for the hyperbole of 17th century English justice, this was no choirboy.
The world is not divided into good people and evil people. Just because the answer to the titular question is “No” doesn’t mean the answer to the opposite (Is Captain Jack Sparrow an Evil Man?) is “Yes.” Jack, like most of humanity, rests comfortably in the middle.
Think of it another way: would Disney really allow Jack to succeed if he was completely, irredeemably evil? Hell fracking no.
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.
