History Main / Pirate

** Fred Perry, author of the comic Gold Digger, actually made a short animation sketch of the first part of said episode's song, featuring his Voltron Pirate Ninja Leprechaun characters. Apparently, he actually bought the rights to do it legally, despite it being a test animation, and yes that's a ninja doing pelvic thrusts with a katana/shovel strapped to his crotch.

* ''Series/{{QI}}'' did a segment on real life pirates and the differences from their fictional portrayals. For one thing, rules on pirate ships tended to be very strict, including "lights out at 8pm sharp", "no playing music on a Sunday", "no smuggling women aboard", any woman who ''did'' happen to be on board and was raped, her rapist "shall suffer present death", etc. It was also pointed out that the Captain only had authority in combat, and in virtually all other situations the Quartermaster was the one in charge, and most major decisions tended to be made democratically. Also, none of them spoke in the [[TalkLikeAPirate stereotypical pirate accent]].

** ChaoticEvil Brutes for some of the villains -- a lot aren't actually pirates -- but easily ChaoticGood Rogues for the Straw Hats and a few others. Oda states that there are two types of Pirates in the world of ''One Piece'', "Morgania" and "Peace Maine".
** In earlier depictions of ''One Piece'' ("Romance Dawn" and "Wanted" one-shots), pirates are described as being of two types: The "Morganeers", who are all about pillaging and looting, and the "Peace Mains", who are more about fun and games and beating the Morganeers for their loot. Oda intentionally avoided using those terms in the regular series, feeling they were a bit too on the nose. Although most ''One Piece'' pirates fall into one category or another early on, as the series progresses things get a bit more gray and some pirates straddled the moral line (although the Straw Hats remain staunchly in the second category).
** The Straw Hats are SO ChaoticGood that they're never even shown (successfully) stealing loot. Lampshaded in the Skypeia arc, when they tries to steal a bag of gold... except that the owners of said gold had just decided to give it to them as a reward. Luffy was a better thief when he was a vagrant. The exception to this rule is Nami, a rather shameless and highly skilled thief and con artist.

* ''VideoGame/FireEmblem'' Pirate is a very recurring character class in the series debuting in the first game, and is thus far exclusively male. The pirate class wears traditional pirate garb: striped shirts, bandanas, eyepatches, but exclusively wield axes instead of a cutlass, possibly based on pirates historical use of boarding axes. In gameplay Pirate is a GlassCannon with high HP, Strength, Speed, but low defense, and skill. They also possess the ability to WalkOnWater giving them a terrain advantage. They advance to TheBerserker class which keeps the terrain advantages, and usually the pirate thematics. Playable pirates are almost always the rogue kind, while enemy pirates are usually the brute kind. There may also be characters in the pirate profession but not in the pirate class. All TalkLikeAPirate.
** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemAkaneia'': The very first boss in the series, Gazzak is a brutish Pirate. Darros, a pirate from the same organization, ends up joining the protagonists to start a new leaf. Additionally one of the playable characters, Barst turns to piracy in his ending.

** ''VideoGame/RomancingSaa3'': Captain Black was a famous pirate that collected a huge amount of treasure, which he hid inside a series of caves in the peninsula near the resort of town of Great Arch. He went missing after that. Another famous pirate was Jackal who was renowned by his ruthlessness and cruelty. He too went missing some time prior to the events of the game.[[spoiler:It's revealed that Herman, the salty sea dog in Great Arch, is Black. An encounter with Abyss Lord Forneus cursed him and turned him into an old geezer. Likewise, Maximus is revealed to be Jackal. He's using his position as a high ranked member of the Divine Church to collect the divine relics and use their powers to TakeOverTheWorld.]]

** A couple of platformers pits the greedy anti-hero against Captain Syrup and her pirate minions.
** And the Shake King from ''Wario Land: The Shake Dimension'' is a pirate with very much similar minions to Captain Syrup. He's also more like an EvilOverlord and a viking.

[[RuthlessModernPirates Not those ones.]] [[DigitalPiracyIsEvil Not these, either.]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_Pirates And, uh -- not them.]]

[[RuthlessModernPirates Modern day piracy]] is less covered in fiction, with the 1979 Soviet film ''[[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0151987/ Piraty XX veka]]'' ("Pirates of the 20th Century", one of the first real Soviet "action" films) and the Japanese anime ''Manga/BlackLagoon'' being some of the few rare examples. So far, the pirates currently active off the coast of Somalia have been interested in money, not lives (indeed, their "business model" is based on extorting ransom from the shipping companies), but the entire meme of pirates is in danger of becoming a huge FunnyAneurysmMoment these days.

** Or even a [[EverythingsBetterWithMonkeys monkey]].

* Sporting [[BadassLonghair long hair]], often [[WildHair unkempt]] or in [[DreadlockWarrior dreadlocks]], and maybe a [[BadassBeard Badass]] SeadogBeard or [[BadassMustache Mustache]], which may be the source of one's [[CaptainColorbeard pirate moniker]].

[[RuthlessModernPirates Not those ones.]] [[DigitalPiracyIsEvil Not these, either.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/IceAge4ContinentalDrift'' involves Sid, Manny, Diego, Scrat, and friends all being captured by evil pirates (all portrayed as prehistoric predatory animals) whose ship is made from an iceberg, and they all must find a way to escape them and head back home.

* In ''ComicBook/BarbeRouge'', the titular character is a ruthless and much feared pirate. The comic however soon focuses on his [[MoralityPet adopted son]], who after some attempts at leading a honest life eventually becomes a {{Privateer}}, and more or less convinces his father to renounce his bloodthirsty ways. By the way, the pirate crew in ''ComicBook/{{Asterix}}'' are a parody of them, but [[WeirdAlEffect the parody is now much better-known than the original]].

* In ''Webcomic/EightBitTheater'', [[http://www.nuklearpower.com/daily.php?date=021029 Garland recruits pirates to help him against the Light Warriors.]]

* In ''Webcomic/DocRat'', [[http://www.docrat.com.au/default.asp?thisItem=842 one of Captain Kerpow's foes.]]

* In ''Webcomic/QuentynQuinnSpaceRanger'', [[http://www.rhjunior.com/QQSR/00005.html Quinn observes that sophonts always use the skull and crossbones if they are pirates -- even invertebrates.]]
* ''Webcomic/RustyAndCo'' face a [[http://rustyandco.com/comic/level2/level-2-6/ Land Pirate!]]
* In ''Webcomic/{{Sinfest}}'' [[http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=3341 Monique envisions herself as one.]]

** With the ''Legion'' ExpansionPack, the Rogue specialisation Combat, already something like the {{Swashbuckler}}, was changed to "Outlaw", with lots of its abilities changed to pirate-themed ones -- blunderbusses, ghost ships, parley, etc. It was pretty obvious, but [[https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/news/19955666 Blizzard seemed reluctant to admit the new theme was "pirate" more than anything else]].

* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'': Ork Freebooterz are Orks who have taken a life of plunder and pillaging. Their banner is the "Jolly-Ork", and many of them dress like stereotypical pirates. They straddle the line between the two types -- on the one hand, their flamboyance and piratical stereotypes, together with the way the Orks serve as the setting's CrazyAwesome comic relief, peg them as Rogues. On the other, being Orks, they're also violent, murderous thugs who'll raid, burn, and pillage as they please and carelessly slaughter anyone in their way, putting them more in the Brute category.

** The new series has pirates in "The Curse of the Black Spot". According to the crew, they are definitely of the Brutish variety.

* Parodied in a recent episode of ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'', where Cartman and his assembled gang meet the Somalian pirates (see the real life section below) and turned them away from modern piracy and fashioned them into pirates as seen in popular culture.

** [[{{Pirate}} Everythings Better With Pirates]]: University of York (York University is in Canada) in England recently held an election for student president. There were two sensible candidates and [[Creator/TomScott Mad Cap'n Tom]], who carried a duck named Brian on his shoulder, said 'Aharrr' a lot and promised cutlass training for all student officers. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztYapweHD3g Guess who won.]] Cap'n Tom has legitimate pirate credentials: he runs the UK branch of Talk Like A Pirate Day.

Both types are among TheOldestOnesInTheBook, and can, indeed, be found in the same works. In fact, piracy is a very old tradition that dates back to the Late Bronze Age in the form of the Sea Peoples, a confederation of raiders from Europe and the Middle East that frequently attacked Egypt.

Both types are among TheOldestOnesInTheBook, and can, indeed, be found in the same works.

** Swearing [[ClusterFBomb "like a sailor"]] to the degree that [can be gotten away with--which mostly consists of lots of "Son of a Dutchman!" or, in extreme cases, "Son of a double-Dutchman!"

* Skabb and his crew from the ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfSpyro: The Eternal Night'' serve as the main villains for a story arch early in the game. Ironically, Skabb himself is too [[DumbMuscle stupid to be captain]] so his [[PirateParrot two birds]] Scratch and Sniff are the real captains of the pirate fleet. Also ironic is Skabb ultimately meets his DisneyVillainDeath by [[spoiler: WalkThePlank after Spyro badly hurts him]].
* ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'':
** Zelda, going by the name of Tetra, in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker''. And this is pretty ironic, considering that Zelda's previous disguise was a [[CoolVersusAwesome Ninja]].
** There are also the subrosian Skelleton-Pirates in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOracleGames'' and the all-female Gerudo Pirates in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask''. Possibly including Jolene from ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaPhantomHourglass''.

* ''WesternAnimation/Mr.Benn'': In "Pirate", Mr. Benn donsa a pirate costume and helps the crew of a pirate ship, who are determined not to be pirates, turn their Captain into an honest man, and see that he gets a very different sort of treasure for his island: trees from a crew of gardeners whose ship the pirates pretend to capture, but actually rescue, during a storm.

* ''Machinima/GamingAllStars'': [[VideoGame/Rayman2TheGreatEscape Admiral Razorbeard and his henchmen]] (Who combine this trope with AliensAreBastards) appear in ''The Ultimate Crossover'' and ''Remastered'' as servants of the BigBad, while the self-employed [[VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry2DiddysKongQuest Captain K Rool and the kremlings]], and [[VideoGame/SoulSeries Cervantes de Leon]] show up in ''2''. The latter also includes heroic examples in [[VideoGame/MonkeyIsland Guybrush Threepwood]] and [[VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIV Edward Kenway]].

* ''TabletopGame/{{Talislanta}}'' has the Mangar Corsairs and the Gao-Din Sea Rogues. The former are marauding thugs, while the latter are roguish scoundrels.

* '''Marauding Brutes:''' Some pirates are major threats whenever they appear. Seeing the Jolly Roger on the horizon is bad news for the dashing, clean-cut heroes, who will soon have to deal with a wave of unwashed brutes intent on [[RapePillageAndBurn looting as much as they can]], killing the crew after prolonged torture to ensure they aren't holding back treasure and pure cruelty as well, and… ahem… [[RapeAsDrama "abducting"]] the women. Generally the easy go-to bad guys for anything in TheCavalierYears. These pirates are pure evil. They have, in fact, thoroughly earned their RealLife designation ''hostes humani generis'' or, in literal Latin, "enemies of the human race". Real Life pirates would often cultivate this kind of image to instil fear and terror in their victims and targets, making for surrender quicker and easier.