The 'Pirates Of The Caribbean' Series Doesn't Need Captain Jack Sparrow Anymore, Especially When It Has Elizabeth Swann

Who is the main character of the Pirates franchise? If you said Jack Sparrow, no one would blame you. He is definitely the most outsized character in the series. But he isn't, and was never intended, to be the main character. You simply have to re-watch Curse of the Black Pearl to see it. The first character we are introduced to? The only singing on a ship in the middle of a dark night? The one obsessed with all things pirate? Young Elizabeth Swann. She is the main character. The franchise just forgot.Let's examine the evidence. Not only is Elizabeth the first character we meet, standing alone on the bow of a ship as a child, she is the focus again as soon as the narrative shifts to its "modern day." The audience follows the now adult-enough-for-the-time-period Elizabeth as she awakens and goes about her life. It is at this point we are introduced to her main conflict: marry the man she's been told is her future or admit her feelings for her childhood friend. Will Elizabeth choose Commodore Norrington or Will Turner? Her kidnapping at the hands of Barbossa is the catalyst that kicks off the entire saga.Elizabeth Swann is also the character with the most defined story arc. Over the course of three films, she goes from a feisty but traditional bourgeois daughter to a literal Pirate King. Along the way, she discovers a lot of things about herself, including stuff she doesn't like about her calculating pragmatism. She saves pirates, is arrested, stows away on a ship to find her lover, engages in epic battles on the high seas, fights a bloody kraken, resurrects Barbossa from the dead, successfully pretends to be a literal goddess, gets married in the middle of a pitched battle, and ultimately convinces a hive of scum and villainy to make her their leader. That's a hero's journey, dammit.Of course, Disney didn't stick the landing. Instead they had Elizabeth revert to 18th-century gowns and mooning over her husband as she awaits his once-a-decade return. No. Bad Disney. Even within the narrative set up by Pirates, the forced separation of Elizabeth Swann and Will Turner when he becomes the new Davy Jones rings hollow. The original Davy Jones spent his entire movie finagling his way around the "only step foot on dry land once a decade" rule. You can't tell me a literal Pirate King wouldn't find a way to smash her man more than once every ten years. I refuse to believe that and if a single woman had been consulted during the scriptwriting process, that horrid ending — where Elizabeth Swann retires from piracy to remain faithful to her husband because if she sluts it up he'll never be able to break the curse — would have never seen the light of day.Which brings me to...

One thing the Pirates franchise has been especially good at is capitalizing on the vast mythologies that surround seafaring. Everything from cursed Native American gold and mermaids to sea goddesses and magical navigational equipment has shown up. Even the literal underworld! But it is merely the tip of the narrative iceberg.For all its flaws, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End did a fantastic job of opening up the world. The Pieces of Nine and Shipwreck Island introduced the Brethren Court. Pirates from different cultures around the world working together — well, following loose guidelines together — was a hook Disney never explored. At the end of the initial trilogy, the pirates of the world have declared literal war on the East India Trading Company. By default, this is a declaration of war against all legitimate trade and the countries that pay those sailor's salaries. That...isn't something that just goes away.How does Elizabeth balance her King duties with raising a child? Does she strap young Henry in a sling and continue her dangerous life? Everything about Elizabeth's personality up until this point would indicate yes. Would her husband, who literally ferries those who have died at sea, use his position of power to wring crucial information about shipping lanes and military movement to his wife? Survey says yes.Then there's the other pirates. What is piracy like in the South China Sea under the reign of Mistress Ching? What about Gentleman Jocard, a former slave. Do his crew target slaver ships in righteous vengeance? Or how about Ammand, the leader of the Ottoman pirates who cruises the Black Sea to free infidel (Christian) ships of their cargo? Or Sumbhajee Angria, leader of the Arabian Sea pirates and a literal Hindu priest? How does he blend those two sides of his life? Or Eduardo Villanueva, the pirate lord of the Adriatic Sea, splitting his time between the Philippines and the west coast of South America?Each of those characters would make a fantastic backdrop for a new film. Have the Pirate King go on adventures all over the world. Let her bring her children and her husband. Just because Will Turner can't step foot on dry land doesn't mean Elizabeth can't set foot on his ship. Or move the timeline up and allow young Henry from the latest Pirates film to uncover his mother's secret double life as the world leader of piracy. Give him a hero's journey that sends him all over the world looking to uncover what other tales his parents may have kept from him. Introduce audiences to a wide, diverse mythology built on the foundation of the original Pirates trilogy.Whatever Disney does, hopefully they at least know better this time than to ultimately reduce their hero to little more than a uterus with legs and infinite patience.