Musings, Essays & Articles

- 3 -

The new Pirates of the Caribbean movie, "Dead Man’s Chest", has initiated a certain amount of controversy.

First, it was a hoo-ha in the Caribbean where a local descendant of the Caribs – the natives who gave the islands their familiar name – objected to his ancestors being portrayed as savage cannibals. Apparently this was a wild and fanciful rumour put about by Christopher Columbus and his Spanish cronies circa 1492. The fact that most of the other islander descendants were all eager and willing to take parts in the movie as extras seemed beside the point…

Then, an eminent and respected authority on pirates walked the plank and voluntarily marooned himself from any association with these Disney movies. Acting as historical consultant for P.O.C. One, " The Curse of the Black Pearl" , he has allegedly loaded his cannons and fired a broadside at the production team responsible for making movies Two and Three, refusing to have anything more to do with the dastardly lot.

Why? Because the films do not reflect the truth about the lives of the various blackguards who were pirates.

The truth? In the seventeenth and eighteenth century pirates were the dregs of the Seven Seas. They were looters, rapists, murderers, thieves – add any other suitable word that has a similar meaning. Most of those who were caught were hanged. A few, those who were the better educated, and therefore slightly more respectable, made their fortune and retired to the quiet life. Sir Francis Drake and Henry Morgan are prime examples. Ah, but they were canny, they shared their spoils with the reigning monarch, so they were honoured. A knighthood for Drake, the Governorship of Jamaica for Morgan, who has retained his fame by naming a certain brand of rather delicious rum. Was Sir Walter Raleigh a pirate? Probably, but he came off poorly. He ended up beheaded. Well, he misjudged the bribe your monarch stakes didn’t he? All he brought home were potatoes and tobacco. To be a successful pirate you had to have nowse! Savvy?

Technically, you could argue Drake and Morgan were not pirates but privateers. They carried a Letter of Marque and were therefore acting in the King’s name when they looted, pillaged, raped and plundered. But they only did that to Spanish or French ships, the enemy, so their foul deeds were acceptable. Pirates, on the other hand did not give a Jolly Roger for what flag the ships they attacked carried.

Pirates never washed and were rarely sober, but then neither were the men of the Royal Navy. At one point Port Royal was known as the wickedest town in the world. God’s retribution put a stop to all that in 1692 when half of it sank into the sea during an earthquake, while the other half was reduced to rubble. The rich moved across the bay and founded Kingston. The poor? Well many of them with no home, no way to make a living, nothing left and no possibility of the modern concept of aid and compensation probably turned pirate.

Historians categorically place pirates as terrorists and condemn the romanticism surrounding the general conception of piracy. They criticise Disney for not making the movies reflect reality.

I have two questions:

1. Who is going to watch a movie of sordid louts pillaging, butchering and torturing, when the alternative is the gorgeous Johnny Depp re-creating his wonderful role of Jack Sparrow?

2. Has it escaped attention that skeletons do not remain alive, Aztec treasure is not cursed, and there is no such thing as a magic compass that does not point north? Nor is there a Kraken (Jack Sparrow’s Beastie). The Flying Dutchman does not exist and Davy Jones was played by the actor Bill Nighy – he wasn’t real either (Davy Jones that is, not Bill Nighy. He is real, I saw him on the red carpet at the London UK premiers of Dead Man’s Chest. I saw Johnny Depp too. Swoon! )

The Pirates of the Caribbean movies are fantasy. They are not meant to be real or taken seriously. That is why they are so popular, why the Lord of the Rings fired our imaginations, why we all love Star Wars and Doctor Who.

It is called escapism.

And let’s face it, us ladies of a certain, ahem, ‘mature age’ delight in drooling over Cpt Sparrow. Maybe reality has its place, but so, in the world of story, does the rose-coloured tint of romance.

We all know the reality, that the so called ‘Golden Age of Piracy’, roughly the 1690’s–1730’s was a sordid, stinking, debauched era. But wasn’t almost the entirety of society at that time? Do we really want to sit and watch movies or read novels that only portray the truth? If we want the truth we read non-fiction, right down to the nitty-gritty. I heartily recommend such books for those who want the reality of pirates.

I am an author of historical fiction; my personal brief is to write the ‘what might have really happened’. Take my novel Harold the King for instance, which I have recently re-published with BookForce UK’s Discovered Diamonds. It is the story of the Battle of Hastings from the English point of view – the lives of the people and the events that led to a battlefield seven miles from Hastings in October 1066. I do not claim my portrayal is exact history, this is a novel, but I did my research thoroughly and the book has been widely praised by Anglo-Saxon academics. I have paid particular attention to detail; the minutiae of everyday life in eleventh century England. Some of it I made up, but all of it is plausible.

It is possible there will be a movie of Harold. I am aboard the team as story consultant. Yes, when we have the funding to make it I want the movie to be as accurate as possible, no, I do not want it to be the Hollywood version of ‘Harold Wins at Hastings,’ but I fully accept there will be some, if not quite a bit, of poetic licence. Will I mind if the boundary is pushed too far? Ask me again when I get on set. But then 1066 is intended as a serious film, complete with the brutality and the gore of the rightful English King of England being hacked to pieces on a battlefield by the henchman of William the Bastard, a usurping tyrant. It is not meant to be a fantasy romp of fun, ideal for entertaining all the family.

What of my Arthurian Trilogy, the Kingmaking Pendragon’s Banner, and Shadow of the King? With these, too, I have tried to be as accurate as possible with my research and the small detail. I do horses and battles particularly well, I have been told. Horses, well, I’ve been around horses all my life. Battles? Don’t ask me how I know about battles. I suppose I must have learnt something from reading other peoples’ novels and watching good movies – whether real or fantasy. And I have discovered, writing a battle scene does wonders for easing a bad temper.

Had I followed the accuracy of the historian's directive, however, my Pendragon’s Banner Trilogy would never have been written, for Arthur very probably did not exist. I’m sorry, but there it is; that is the black and white truth, from Camelot to the Holy Grail, it's possibly all fantasy.

I am now worrying. Perhaps I have made a mistake with the writing of my latest novel, Sea Witch. It is a pirate story, I describe it as a sailor’s yarn. It has Tethys, the spirit of the sea and my pirate’s wench is a white witch. I have researched my facts, both nautical and historical, but my aim was to do something that was fun to write and read. My pirate, Captain Jesamiah Acorne, is a charming rogue – "in the sexiest pirate contest he give's Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow a run for his money! " He is handsome, a scoundrel, gets drunk on rum quite often and loves bedding his women – even down to cuckolding his half brother in his own house before commandeering his ship. He can and does kill. He admits to rape and calmly lets his crew torture their captives, but he is also loyal and brave. In short he is a hero.

And that is the crux of the matter.

Us ladies, and men too, probably, do not want to watch movies or read novels about everyday reality. We want fantasy heroes to fall in love with.

Even if they are pirates.