It’s interesting how The Curse of the Black Pearl begins with Elizabeth and Will, and only after we get introduced to Jack. They are all main characters, however that choice seems interesting to me. Additionally, the way he is introduced is like a second first scene of the movie, it could have begun with Jack on that boat, and it would have been a great beginning. But instead we begin with Elizabeth. And by the time we meet Jack we already know: that she is interested in pirates, the way everybody in her world treats pirates, the way she and Will met, the fact that Will came from a pirate ship, and the fact that there is a ghost pirate ship attacking other ships. And only THEN we see Jack on his sinking boat, the skeletons of pirates foreshadowing Barbossa’s crew and Jack’s entire goal: to find a ship. And then we learn that it’s not just some ship, but the Black Pearl, the Pearl that Elizabeth saw ten years ago. It’s clear to us that he and Elizabeth will meet, because they are the main characters, but even before they do we can see a connection between them.
At World’s End’s ending is also built the same exact way. It ends with Will leaving Elizabeth on the shore, their story that begun in cotbp is logically ended. That scene where she stands alone on the beach could have been the end of the movie. But instead they show us Jack, who is facing the exact same problem he was facing at the beginning of cotbp — his ship is stolen (by Barbossa, no less), and he sets out into the ocean on a small boat to get it back. That is the true ending of the story. It’s interesting how Jack, despite changing as a person throughout the story (he chooses his friends over his beloved ship, he sacrifices himself instead of running away, he sees Elizabeth for what she really is and most importantly, he gives up his dream of roaming the seas forever to save Will), he never changes as a, well, character. Elizabeth is a governor’s daughter in the beginning, and a pirate king at the end. Will is a smith, a simple honest working man, who ends up becoming Davy Jones himself. But Jack is exactly the way we met him when we part with him: a pirate chasing treasure (the black pearl).
It’s a very interesting consecutive storytelling choice that differentiates Elizabeth and Will from Jack. They are the main characters, and Jack is a secondary character more than a main one. They are the ones who get thrown into the story, into a world entirely different to their own, but Jack? Jack IS the world. Jack represents the ending age of piracy, the magic and the freedom of it. Jack is part of the story that Elizabeth and Will find themselves in. He changes as a man but he doesn’t change as a symbol, his role doesn’t change. That’s why the next two movies and their endings aren’t interesting or satisfactory to me, Jack becomes Elizabeth/Will and starts doing something outside of his initial fate. Him getting the Black Pearl at the end of cotbp is good because the movie itself has a happy ending for everyone. Will and Elizabeth are together, and Jack sets off to roam the seas, he’s still piracy, and they are still the main characters. At the end of dmtnt he observes them, they get their happy ending, but he sets his goal “beyond the horizon”. All of his enemies are dead and he has changed from a character representing the restlessness of piracy to a character with his own story apart from being a pirate in the Caribbean. He has his story and goals within the idea of him representing a pirate’s life, but the moment this unending way of life is lost on him, his own personality is lost on him.
