and also some rum

[lotesse]

I think that, really, the thing that bothers me most about the tag scene with Will and Lizzie isn't the tangle it makes of the Flying Dutchman mythology, or even the fact that Lizzie isn't shown being her Pirate King self. Just because she walked over a hill with her boy doesn't mean she doesn't have a boat of her own. No, what bothers me is the whole "staying true" angle.

No one stays true in this verse, which is part of the reason why I think it's so much fun. Everybody's double-crossing everybody else, not out of hatred but because that's what they do; they're pirates. Jack will cheerily send Will off to the Dutchman in DMC, but the look in his eyes when Will is stabbed...he cares about him. Will matters to Jack. But that doesn't mean Jack isn't going to use him for his own ends.

The only one who isn't expected to act like that is Lizzie. She has to be true to her man. Which means that after losing her virginity she has to remain celibate for ten years, which happen to fall within a period of intense biological sexuality. Aren't you supposed to be getting down in your twenties? Girl has sex once, has a baby, and is alone and untouched for ten years? Bit of a rum deal, if you ask me. Jack certainly wouldn't have done it.

I want Liz to be able to raise her boy in a pirate collective, parenting and pirating and maybe getting a few orgasms courtesy of Jack--or Barbossa! Hello, snarky relationship with chemistry!--on the side. Friends with benefits, so to speak. She's married to Will, but he's not around, so let the girl have some pleasure. If it were the other way around, if Jack Sparrow had to stay true to his ladylove for ten years to free her from servitude, not only would he not do it, but the text would celebrate his not doing it. Whereas I feel like Elizabeth would be a Failed Wife if she put her own sexual fulfillment before Will's freedom.

Everyone gets to be polymorphously perverse in this verse except Lizzie. Bah. I think I'm ignoring Ted and Terry on this one. You didn't get it into your text, guys, and I don't like it.

Comments

[theprimrosepath.livejournal.com]

I watched the movie at the late showing on a Saturday night and the dorks in the screening room shut if off well before even the half-way mark in the end credits. I never saw the scene, therefore it doesn't have to exist for me. *hids head under blanket* I can't see you, lalala...

But I agree with what you've said. Compared to the growth of her character, everything she's done up to that point...suddenly playing the dutiful wife and waiting ten celibate years for her darling Will almost seems like a penance. As if she's the only one who gets punished for being a pirate.

[lotesse]

Ten celibate years. Can you imagine? One sexual experience and then ten years? You're right--it does feel like a penance.

[hyel.livejournal.com]

I like trueness. Trueness is good. Not to mention Jack's been true. We sincerely hope.

Seeing the movie the second time I noticed all the pirates saying goodbye to Mrs Turner instead of saying see you later to the pirate king. That's a more upsetting point.

[lotesse]

I like trueness too, but...

Maybe this is my own inner poly squeaking. I did two years long distance with the Boy when I first went away to college, and the agreement that we had was that as long as we were apart, messing around with other people was okay. I'm more poly-natured than he is, so we met somewhere in the middle, but I still feel like giving your partner permission to find satisfaction elsewhere can be a very real act of love, when you aren't around to be with them yourself. YMMV.

[hyel.livejournal.com]

This is true. Maybe Will did.

[lotesse]

Oh, and I saw the Mrs. Turner thing as a joke referring back to the fact that Elizabeth originally introduced herself to Barbossa as Miss Turner, and it was a lie then, but now it's true. If it had been anyone else but Barbossa talking, it'd bug me. But since it's between those two I think it's cute.

[melusina]

My position is that it's only canon if it makes it on the screen. If someone chooses to use the writers commentary to inform their fic, I wouldn't say that it *wasn't* canon compliant, but neither would I say that if someone ignored it.

I like the idea of Will being released from his service on the Dutchman through some more active means (on Elizabeth's part), but I'm also writing a story right now in which Elizabeth and Jack debate the meaning of "faithful." ::grin::

[lotesse]

I'm good with that :)