the Dalaverse

More on Jack, slightly elaborated from reeeeeally long commentage all up in fabu's personal space. I kind of forgot to talk about this whole part, but it's rather important, so here 'tis: The lead-in was what exactly was going on with Jack during the kraken attack...

I keep coming up with Jack abandoning the Pearl to save his own skin (going with it pausing its attack because they did injure itpretty badly). Tracking his logic to several motivations: for one, the kraken is a ship-killer first and foremost. It may be trailing Jack,but I don't believe it would abandon the Pearl in its jaws in order to chase Jack if he flees -- at least not before he might conceivably haveenough time to get to shallow waters. And I think Jack knows this; his terror of the kraken is such that he knows how it operates, and has maybe even seen it in action.

Secondly, a line of Tia Dalma's really struck me this time around -- "Land is where you will save Jack Sparrow." At first I thought I'd heard the phrasing wrong because shewas speaking directly to Jack, but now I think it's deliberate. If he runs to land when the kraken attacks, his life will be spared; however, when he consults the compass and it presumably points back to the Pearl and he really sees the damage the kraken is doing, he realizes that without his ship (and also without that decent action Elizabeth's always harping on about), and without the possibility to going back to the sea for fear of the kraken, he hasno life. The land saving Jack Sparrow is a paradox, because Jack Sparrow confined to land is not, in fact, Jack Sparrow.

So Jack hopping into that boat covers our 'pirate' territory,and Jack returning covers 'good man.' Also, his deliberately reversing a selfish act makes an even stronger contrast with Elizabeth's betrayal. And now that I think about the compass, it gets more interesting. Just as you could interpret Jack=freedom as Elizabeth's compass focus, when he consults it in the boat, Pearl=the right thing.

I do believe he intended to go down with the ship once he decided to turn back. He knows that the kraken is still after him, and deeper into the attack, the possibility of it following the boat before they can reach land (after it takes thePearl down) is much more likely. Otherwise his decision to return is pretty much an empty gesture, and while I believe Jack appreciates gestures, he'd never make one if he didn't think it was going to produce any result.

As a redemption, it totally works for me. This is when Jack's manic panic (and Johnny's manic performance) settles down, without losing the integrity of characterization.

Now working on Elizabeth and Norrington, and then I'll get down to the interactions between the main players, the little details I loved, the parallels with CoBP and with fic...zzzzzzzzzzz for now.

ETA: Oh, and I saw it again today.