Daily Dialogue — August 3, 2016
SWANN: It’s not over.
TURNER: There’s still a fight to be had.
GIBBS: We’ve an armada against us. And with the Dutchman there’s no chance.
SWANN: There’s only a fool’s chance.
BARBOSSA: Revenge won’t bring your father back, Miss Swann, and it’s not something I’m intending to die for.
SWANN: You’re right. Then, what shall we die for? You will listen to me. LISTEN! The brethren will still be looking here to us, to the Black Pearl, to lead. And what will they see? Frightened bilge rats aboard a derelict ship? No. No, they will see free men and freedom. And what the enemy will see is the flash of our cannons. They will hear the ring of our swords and they will know what we can do. By the sweat of our brows and the strength of our backs and the courage of our hearts. Gentlemen, hoist the colors.
TURNER: Hoist the colors.
RAGETTI: Hoist the colors.
PINTEL: Hoist the colors!
GIBBS: Aye, the wind’s on our side, boys. That’s all we need!
SWANN: HOIST THE COLORS!
— Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2007), written by Ted Elliott & Terry Rossio; characters by Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio, Stuart Beattie and Jay Wolpert
The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Activism. Today’s suggestion by Will King.
Trivia: There was an actual council of pirates at one time in history. The Brethren of the Coast were a loose coalition of pirates and buccaneers, active in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico. They had a base on the island of Tortuga, off the coast of Haiti and in the city of Port Royal on the island of Jamaica. The Brethren were originally French Huguenots and British Protestants, but their ranks were joined by other adventurers of various nationalities including Spaniards and African sailors.
Dialogue On Dialogue: Commentary by Will: “This is a beautiful speech by Elizabeth Swann to rally the crew of the Black Pearl when all hope seems lost. But it’s also a callback to an earlier scene at the Brethren Court where Barbossa complained that by capturing Calypso the pirate kings had unintentionally changed their lives for the worse by taking away what had made them strong.
BARBOSSA: Better were the days when mastery of seas came not from bargains struck with eldritch creatures, but from the sweat of a man’s brow and the strength of his back alone. You all know this to be true.
When Elizabeth recalls those words in her speech, Barbossa, who just moments before had resigned himself to his fate, feels the sting of that earlier statement and, perhaps, realizes he had not lived up to what he had professed. It may be this realization that finally drives him to take the helm of the Pearl during the final battle against the Dutchman.”