While the Pirates of the Caribbean movies were never the most tightly written adventure series, the third in the original trilogy missed a vary blatant plot hole that derails Elizabeth and Will’s supposedly tragic ending. The Pirates of the Caribbean movies began life as light-hearted summer blockbusters, but the second and third movies in the series were surprisingly complex in their plotting. The third Pirates of the Caribbean outing, 2007’s At World’s End, was particularly dark, mature, and, at some points, outright tragic.
However, not all of the sad twists featured in At World’s End added up upon repeat viewing. For example, the Kraken was the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy’s most lethal monster at the end of the second movie, but in the opening scenes of At World’s End, it had already been killed offscreen by Davy Jones. As such, the beast couldn’t have been as unstoppable as it seemed—and this was not the only issue with Jones’ narrative arc.
In the tragic ending of At World’s End, Will defeats Davy Jones, but this is a pyrrhic victory. By killing the captain of the Flying Dutchman, Will becomes the new captain by default. As At World’s End closes, Will heads off to captain the Flying Dutchman for 10 years, ferrying the dead into the afterlife and leaving a pregnant Elizabeth behind. This ending is surprisingly maudlin for a summer blockbuster, but one of the many plot holes of At World’s End stops the moment from becoming too effective. After all, Will is taking over from former Dutchman captain Davy Jones, meaning he presumably operates by the same rules as Jones. The problem is that Jones was able to visit dry land whenever he felt like it.
Why Didn’t Will Steal Davy Jones’ POTC Trick?
Davy Jones was able to get around the whole “the Captain of the Dutchman can’t leave the sea” rule by simply standing in a bucket of water when he visited dry land. Why didn’t Will do this instead of abandoning his love interest and their child for a decade? The answer is that the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy needed a moving ending, particularly after the movies let their antihero Jack Sparrow get off scot-free. However, the internal logic is non-existent and Davy Jones standing in a bucket also makes his tragic backstory with Calypso equally hard to understand. Once Davy Jones appears on dry land once in the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, it is clear that the rule about the Flying Dutchman’s captain not returning to the human world is not a hard and fast one.
As such, Will and Elizabeth not thinking of this workaround is a strikingly silly contrivance, particularly when Will got his love interest pregnant before leaving for 10 years. There is no reason for the pair to stay apart and their distance was all that made the At World’s End ending poignant, meaning the original Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy’s sad ending is more nonsensical than tragic. While the fifth Pirates of the Caribbean movie did reunite the duo after 10 years, it was too little too late for many viewers since Elizabeth and Will never needed to be apart in the first place.
