Jolly Roger

Captain Harlock flies his colors proudly.

"Never again will we fight under another's flag. We will keep on fighting only for what we believe in, under only OUR flag, as long as we live! Under MY flag!"

— Capt. Harlock, Arcadia of My Youth

A Jolly Roger (a term originating in British parlance) is a flag flown on a ship to indicate it is under the control of pirates. As such, it is associated in general with piracy and accompanies various other tropes about how pirates look and behave. In the modern day, it is often associated with those who engage in less literal forms of piracy, such as internet data theft.

The most famous image of the Jolly Roger consists of a white skull over a pair of Stock Femur Bones that are crossed in an X-shape, all on a field of black. This flag and variations of it were used by numerous pirates in real life, but many other designs were used, often featuring a skeletal or demonic figure engaging in piracy. One of the most common variants features crossed cutlasses rather than bones, which is more distinctly piratey; this has been attributed to Mary Read, Anne Bonny, and Calico Jack, among others. Because the real flags were made by individuals with limited textile expertise (i.e. pirates), they tended to include a certain amount of Stylistic Suck to their designs, not that anyone was likely to point this out to them. Additionally, in fiction, monstrous or alien pirates often use versions of the Jolly Roger with distinctly nonhuman features, such as fangs, horns, or additional eyes; this is especially common among Space Pirates.

A certain amount of Fridge Logic has to be addressed regarding the use of pirate flags: it may seem counterintuitive for pirates, who needed to capture merchant vessels for plunder and who were ceaselessly hunted by most of the world's governments, to announce their presence. A Jolly Roger would not have been aired most of the time, the ship instead posing as something more innocuous, only flying the true colors when its quarry was too close to escape. The idea was to rely on pirates' fearsome reputations, so that the prey ship's crew would surrender without a fight, reducing bloodshed on both sides. Alternatively, for more bloodthirsty pirate groups that did not take prisoners, the brazen appearance of their flag could sap the morale of the enemy.

Note that not all images of a skull-and-crossbones are examples of a Jolly Roger. Sometimes this image is used to invoke the threat of death in a more generic sense. Subtrope of Skeleton Motif. Hacked by a Pirate is a subtrope, in which the Jolly Roger is used to announce that a computer system has been successfully hacked.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Leijiverse:
  • Captain Harlock and Emeraldas both sport the skull and crossbones motif in their flag and respective vessels, the Arcadia and the Queen Emeraldas. The movie Arcadia of My Youth gives an origin story.^note One of many for both characters. The Leijiverse works on Multiple-Choice Past.
  • Queen Emeraldas: When Arfressian captain El Domain starts sporting the same skull and crossbones motif on his flagship, Emeraldas takes exception and tells him to remove the symbol, which only she and Harlock have the right to bear, or else! El Domain doesn't heed her warning. Emeraldas makes good on her threat, wiping out the Arfressian fleet after they try to kill her for El Domain's wounded pride.
• One Piece: Every pirate crew has a Jolly Roger or "Skull Mark" that is almost invariable based on the skull-and-crossbones design. In most cases, the skull is superimposed over the crossbones rather than above them. For instance, the Straw Hats have their skull wearing a straw hat.

Comic Books

• Wonder Woman (1942): The chest contains the treasure of the bloodthirsty pirate Captain Storm has Jolly Rogers carved into the ends, just to give it a little more skeletal piratey shorthand.
• The Beano: Depending on the Writer Danny of the Bash Street Kids in wears a skull-and-crossbones jersey because he's interested in pirates, or actually descended from pirates, rather than just as a general symbol of anti-authoritarianism. His surname is given on the Beano website as Morgan, presumably in reference to privateer Sir Henry Morgan.

Fan Works

• Shining and Sweet: While the flag doesn't physically appear, "Jolly Roger" is the name of the chapter that introduced the pirate-themed boxer, Princess Hook.

Films — Animated

• Ice Age 4: Continental Drift: Captain Gutt's pirate crew includes a badger called Gupta who basically qualifies as a living Jolly Roger due to the skull-and-crossbones pattern on his back. When he wants to alert potential victims to what's coming after them, he runs up the mast and holds onto it with his claws and teeth, letting his body wave in the wind.
• In Disney's Peter Pan, Captain Hook's ship flies the Jolly Roger. The Pirate Song "The Elegant Captain Hook" ends with crewmembers waving Jolly Roger flags.
• The Pirates! Band of Misfits: The Pirate Captain orders his crew to raise the Jolly Roger flag. One pirate asks to use the standard one and the other asks for an extra gruesome one with popping eyes. Additionally, Black Bellamy has a stylized skull-and-crossbones on his hat, with one eye bigger than the other, while Cutlas Liz has the skull-and-cutlasses version on her hat.
• Treasure Planet: The Space Pirates' flag features a menacing alien skull over what appear to be orbital rings in a cross pattern.

Films — Live-Action

• Down Periscope: Vice Admiral Dean Winslow tells Military Maverick Lt. Commander Thomas Dodge that if he can successfully complete a war game using the USS Stingray, a World War II-era diesel sub, against a modern nuclear sub, Winslow would grant Dodge command of his own sub. Winslow also tells Dodge to "think like a pirate". During the mission, the Stingray's Ragtag Bunch of Misfits, fed up with uptight Executive Officer Marty Pascal after his failed mutiny attempt, dress up like pirates and hoist a Jolly Roger atop the sub while it's surfaced to make Pascal "Walk the Plank" onto a waiting fishing trawler.
• Long John Silver: Silver's crew run up the Jolly Roger after stealing Mendoza's ship. This shocks Jim, who believes Silver's story of raising money so he can travel to England and defend himself against false accusations of piracy. Silver makes them strike the Joly Roger and raise the Union Jack instead.
• Pirates opens with the flag as background for the title.
• Pirates of the Caribbean has various flags showing, the most prevalent being that of the Black Pearl, which consists of a skull over crossed cutlasses, identical to the historical flag except for the addition of an eyepatch.

Gamebooks

• Early in Temple of Terror, the hero managed to pay his way out of Port Blacksand via ship, only to realize the barge he rented has a Jolly Roger on it's mast, and that he just unknowingly boarded a pirate ship.

Literature

• According to the Discworld Thieves Guild Diary, the skull-and-crossbones is the official mark of piracy, and the use of the skull-and-lobsters or skull-and-kittens is strongly discouraged by the Guild.

Live-Action TV

• Eyewitness: In "Monster", a Jolly Roger flag is briefly shown when the pufferfish is brought up, before it Match Cuts to some fugu and how Japanese eat it even though the flesh is poisonous, with soy bowls representing the eyes, fugu itself being the teeth, and chopsticks representing the crossbones.
• Once Upon a Time: Subverted. When Killian Jones (Captain Hook) takes over the Jewel of the Realm, he names the ship the Jolly Roger, but tells his crew to fly the crimson flag, and that "no quarter will be given" to prisoners. A bit of Shown Their Work on the part of the writers, as according to The Other Wiki, the Jolly Roger (or just a black flag) was flown to indicate that those who surrended without a fight would be shown mercy, while the red flag (the "blood flag") indicated no prisoners would be taken and everyone would be killed.
• Our Flag Means Death: Parodied. Stede has the his crew sew potential flags for the ship to use. Among the many silly and absurd designs is one with a cat on it.
  Frenchie: Actually, everyone knows cats are very evil because they steal children's breath.
• Storm Chasers: After his falling-out with Josh Wurman in season 4, Sean Casey removes Josh's instruments from the TIV2's mast (they had all broken during tornado intercepts anyway) and replaces them with a skull-and-crossbones flag he made out of a spare pillowcase to symbolize his break with Josh.
• Super Sentai team Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger has a logo on their uniforms and their pirate ship's flag, which has a skull shaped like a key and crossed swords.

Music

• Alestorm also features their own version of the Jolly Roger, solely replacing the skull with one stylized after their mascot, Jimmy McFucknugget (basically What If? Cthulhu became a pirate instead of an Elder God), as seen, for example, on the cover of 2014's Sunset on the Golden Age.
• Gooseworx: Pir8s's cover has Edaline's skull head with crossed music notes underneath forming a skull and crossbones.
• Running Wild's version of the Jolly Roger insignia features the face of Captain Adrian, their Metal Band Mascot (with an eyepatch and either a black bandanna or a pirate captain's hat) in place of the skull, as well as the bones crossing behind his head rather than below the skull, as shown, for example, in 1987's Under Jolly Roger.

Sports

• National Football League:
  • Almost since their inception in Oakland, the Las Vegas Raiders have used a shield variation of the Jolly Roger, with crossed cutlasses and a living man's head with an eyepatch and old style leather football helmet rather than the traditional skull and crossbones.
  • In 1997 as part of a major brand overhaul, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers adopted a red version of the Jolly Roger as their new primary logo, although the crossbones are replaced with crossed cutlasses and a football.
• Major League Baseball: The Pittsburgh Pirates used to have a logo of a scowling pirate with crossed baseball bats behind it to invoke this.
• College sports: The East Carolina Pirates introduced a Jolly Roger secondary logo in 2005; the skull and crossbones would become the school's primary logo in 2014.
• the fans of German football team St. Pauli wear a distinctive skull-and-crossbones design.

Tabletop Games

• Warhammer 40,000: Freeboterz, Ork Space Pirates who cross the inky black while fully Dressed to Plunder, usually fly the Jolly Ork, an icon depicting a grinning, tusked Ork skull, often with an eyepatch or a pirate hat, and prominently display it on their ships and personal iconography.

Toys

• LEGO Pirates: A common occurrence with these sets. Just about anything that has a ship, base, or even a simple rowboat is frequently accompanied by a Jolly Roger skull flag, whether it's on the sails of the ship's masts or even a small flag.

Video Games

• Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag: A variant is used that has a white skull at the base of a stylized A on a black background, combining the Jolly Roger with the Assassins' iconography.
• EVE Online:
  • The flag of Guristas pirates omits crossed bones or swords but adds rabbit ears to the skull. Presumably in honor of their founder and current leader, Korako "The Rabbit" Kosakami.
  • The banner of the Blood Raiders cult depicts a fanged, horned skull on a mottled red and black background, again omitting crossed swords or bones.
• FTL: Faster Than Light: In addition to their purple paint stripes, Space Pirate ships are decorated with tentacled, eyepatch-wearing Cthulhumanoid faces superimposed over crossed bones.
• Heroes of Might and Magic:
  • The Chaos/Asylum faction from the fourth game has Jolly Rogers on the sails of their ships, albeit on a red background instead of black to match with their aesthetic. The town doesn't have much to do with pirates, but Pirates are a Chaos-aligned neutral creature and their campaign in the base game is the story of a ruthless Pirate Girl.
  • The Horn of the Abyss Game Mod for the third game adds in the Pirate faction Cove. Naturally, their ships fly a Jolly Roger and there are Jolly Rogers all over their town screen.
• Jitsu Squad: The third level, Pirate Bay, have you fighting pirate mooks left and right as you attempt to infiltrate Captain Balthazar's hideout, and in the background, Balthazar's ship is visible, with his sails being huge, black Jolly Roger flags.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • In Wind Waker, Tetra's ship flies the Jolly Roger, signifying her and her crew all being pirates. The ship's main mast flag also has the imagery of cutlasses crossed, emphasizing the point.
  • Warships, a recurring enemy in both Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks, are little boats with only a cannon on them that fly a small white flag with a black skull and crossbones, a color-inverted Jolly Roger.
• Pirate Hunter, befitting a pirate-themed game, has a gigantic flowing Jolly Roger in the background of its title screen (and your titular hero in the front). In-game, occasionally the Jolly Roger symbol can be seen on Exploding Barrels — these are highly dangerous and can One-Hit Kill you if it explodes from a point-blank range, whereas barrels without the symbol will just deal some damage.
• Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire: Team Aqua, a villainous organization that seeks to expand the world's oceans and whose members dress like pirates, use as their symbol a stylized A, white on a black or blue background, with a rounded central part and "legs" ending in femur heads. This is prominently displayed on both their vehicles and on the bandannas worn by each member.
• Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew: Suleidy, a pirate, wears an outfit that includes a cloak that is seemingly crafted from a repurposed flag, prominently displaying a skull and crossed bones.
• In Skies of Arcadia, the player can choose between three flag designs made by the main characters once they acquire a base: Vyse's is a skull with an eyepatch over a cutlass, Aika's is a cat's head with pigtails chomping a gold coin, and Fina's is a winged dolphin.
• Sonic Colors: Sonic has to fight off a robot pirate ship in the Sweet Mountain Zone. The robot pirate ship has a Jolly Rodger flag with Dr. Eggman's logo on it.
• Them's Fightin' Herds: The Goatani Greats uses a goat skull and two crossed keys in place of crossbones for a jolly roger, as shown in Shanty's reveal trailer.
• Total War: Warhammer II:
  • Some of the faction icons for the undead pirates of the Vampire Coast are derived from Jolly Roger iconography, such as those of the Awakened (a skull surrounded by tentacles), the Dreadfleet (a vampire's skull, superimposed on three skeletal serpents), and the Pirates of Sartosa (a crowned skull flanked by three snakes on each side).
  • The roving pirate fleets that must be challenged and fought in a Vampire Coast campaign include the Boyz of the Forbidden Coast, orc pirates who use a simple skull-above-crossbones, and the Shark Strait Seadogs, who use a skull flanked by bat wings.
• World of Warships: The Jolly Roger flag is available as one of the many flag options that players can fly over their ships. In the "Naval Legends" series, the flag itself is most associated with the destroyer USS Kidd (itself added into the game after the video was made), in honor of the legendary pirate Captain Kidd. Notably, in Real Life, it was also the only US Navy ship allowed to fly the flag.

Webcomics

• Homestuck: Vriska, a character strongly associated with pirates, occasionally flies a black flag marked with a horned troll skull with seven small eye sockets where the left eye would be, matching her seven-pupiled eye, when captaining ships. This version is first seen during a flashback to her and Eridan's naval battles during FLARP games, and turns up again much later when she's searching for an ancient weapon in the dream bubbles.

Web Original

• CGP Grey discusses this in "How to be a Pirate", where he says that real pirates normally don't fly the Jolly Roger, and only unveil it after sneaking up on a merchant ship that they plan to pillage.
• Empires SMP Season 2:
  • Pirate Joe's Arch-Enemy, Skeletron, uses a banner based on the Jolly Roger — a white skull wearing a red bandanna over a black background. It's somewhat justified in his case since Skeletron is a living skeleton.
  • Zig-zagged for Pirate Joe himself.
    • The banner design MythicalSausage made for his empire, Eversea, was a Jolly Roger flag, but Pirate Joe disliked it at first as it reminded him of Skeletron. When he confronts Sausage on this, Sausage justifies his initial design by Breaking the Fourth Wall, lampshading the ubiquity of the Jolly Roger flag as pirate iconography. Pirate Joe ends up adopting a different banner for Eversea — one with an anchor design.
      Sausage: Well, the thing is — this is the thing. This is — you know, when you look up "pirate" in the Wikipedia, and you put "pirate flag" in — right next to [it], this thing shows up!
    • However, in spite of his differing flag/banner design, Pirate Joe eventually decides to reclaim the skull-and-crossbones from Skeletron and incorporates them into the design of his Elytra-wings.
• Orion's Arm: The symbol of Perseus Pirates, a historic virtual world simulating a setting filled with marauding Space Pirate bands, was a Jolly Roger with a spiral galaxy replacing the skull.

Western Animation

• In The Adventures of Puss in Boots Captain Two-Eyed Alonso (so named because he has an Extra Eye on his forehead and an eyepatch) flies a Jolly Roger with three eyeholes.
• The Deep (2015): The front of the Dark Orca submarine is painted to look like a skull with crossbones. Some of the crew wear it on their clothes, while the captain, Hammerhead, goes a step further and even has a skull-shaped tattoo.
• Jake and the Never Land Pirates: The three main characters are pirates, so it is obvious that the flag will be used on several occasions trougout the show.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: Parodied in the "Apples to the Core" song sequence in "Pinkie Apple Pie", where, in a scene where the Apples are dressed as pirates, their cart is flying a black flag with a shiny red apple in front of crossed femurs.
• PAW Patrol: A softer variant of the flag appears for the two pirate-themed villains. Rather than a skull and crossbones, the flag consists of a treasure chest and doggy bones.
• Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego?: Carmen commits a crime while sporting a Jolly Roger with a skull and a pair of crossed cutlasses.

Real Life

• The skull and crossbones symbol is used internationally to denote a substance which has acute toxicity (i.e., poison). In fact, the notion of using a skull and crossbones to symbolize death or something deadly actually predates the usage of the symbol by pirates by more than a century, and may be where the pirates got the idea from in the first place.
• British submarine crews fly a Jolly Roger after returning from a mission in which they sunk an enemy ship. This is a sort of Insult Backfire; before WWI, a British admiral declared submarine warfare "uncivilized" and said that any submarine crews should be hanged as pirates.
• During the Russian Revolution, some Anarchists in Ukraine flew a black banner with the Shull and Crossbones above a text reading "Death to all who stand in the way of freedom for the working people" in Ukrainian.

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