History Characters / PiratesOfTheCaribbeanMainCharacters

* JerkassHasAPoint: He is right that Jack performing one good deed does not absolve him of blame for all of his crimes (even if he is not aware of what these crimes entail or the circumstances of these crimes). This logic could be applied to anyone.

* GutturalGrowler: In the fifth movie he's slipped into this [[spoiler: as the Dutchman mutates him in his despair. This is gone when he is released.]]

* BeingGoodSucks: Norrington isn't without his flaws, but at heart he's a good man with a strong sense of morals and a respect for the rule of law. Unfortunately upholding these behaviors ended up costing him everything: he tacitly gave his blessing for Elizabeth to be with Will Turner in spite of his own love for her, and let Jack Sparrow get a head-start on his escape, which unfortunately meant that when he had to chase Jack down for being a pirate, he wasn't able to do it and tried to follow him through a hurricane, which cost him his ship and his crew, and he resigned his commission in disgrace. When he resorts to serving under Cutler Beckett to get his life back, he's clearly uncomfortable with the things Beckett is doing and ends up betraying him to help Elizabeth and her crew, [[HeelFaceDoorSlam which gets him stabbed in the heart]].

* HonorBeforeReason: He decides to give Jack a MercyLead at the end of the first movie and decides to chase him through a hurricane during the TimeSkip between the first and second films rather than give up the chase. Both instances cost him as his mercy results in him being given a warrant for his arrest and execution, and his determination to catch Jack causes him to lose his crew and position in the Navy.

* JerkassHasAPoint: He is right that Jack performing one good deed does not absolve him of blame for all of his crimes.

* MayDecemberRomance: Well, May-July. He met Elizabeth when she was still in her very early teens and he was nearly twenty, though [[YoungerThanTheyLook it's hard to tell that he's meant to be that young]].

* NobleTopEnforcer: To Beckett in the third movie because he's a corrupt merchant and he's an honorable officer. The unparalleled eye-roll he gives Beckett at every opportunity has to be seen to be believed.

* SympatheticInspectorAntagonist: In ''Curse of the Black Pearl'' he's lawful and righteous, just a tad misguided, and he is correct that Jack Sparrow is a pirate who has earned a hanging. It's just that he's not aware of the full story.

** A deleted scene from the end of ''Dead Man's Chest'' shows that when he brought Beckett the heart, he fully expected that Beckett intended to kill Jones right then and there; it never occurred to him before then that he intended to ''work'' with that monster.

* YouShallNotPass: Downplayed. He holds off Bootstrap for a few precious seconds by force of character, before dying.

* NobleDemon: A vagabond with the romantic soul of a poet, Barbossa's heart is as noble and honorable in ''spirit'', and not just the ''image'' of the GentlemanThief he strives to live up to.

** Regarding sword-fighting, Jack is said to be one of the weakest swordsmen in the franchise despite his proper education by a professional Italian swordsman. Barbossa, on the other hand, has never had the oppotunity to get a proper education, but had to learn on his own way.

* AllegedLookalikes: Several characters will comment on how he's a "spitting image" of his father. When "Bootstrap Bill" does show up, the two don't remotely resemble each other. [[JustifiedTrope Considering that Bill is now a sea creature, mistakes can be forgiven.]][[note]]He does ''somewhat'' resemble Bill's actor when he was a young man, enough for aging to make up the difference.[[/note]]

* BadassBystander: To Jack's surprise in the first film, that blacksmith's apprentice is not only blocking his path to freedom but puts up a good fight.

* TheBlacksmith: Will is the swordsmith variant.

* DenyingTheDeadParentsSins: He almost ''kills'' Jack for calling his father a pirate.

* HypercompetentSidekick: To the blacksmith he works for, Mr. Brown. Brown is a drunkard who doesn't do any of the work, leaving Will to do the work such as making swords.

* MasterSwordsman: The creators claim him to be the finest one in the franchise on a purely ''technical'' level. Unfortunately, all of the foes he faces in the saga make up for their lack of skill with ''their'' willingness to use dirty tricks.

%%* MrViceGuy
* NiceGuy: Will is one of the most decent and well meaning men you could ask for.

* TookALevelInJerkass: While he remains basically a good person he becomes alot more manipulative and underhanded in the sequels than he was in the first film.

* AllWomenAreLustful: A justified example when funneled through her almost SingleTargetSexuality for Will - Elizabeth, after a year-long engagement with Will where they confined themselves to sword training as their most strenuous physical activity, is ''dangerously thirsty'' for her fiancé.

* GoodBadGirl: Elizabeth is "so ready to be married" to Will Turner, and she ominously warns Beckett when holding him at gunpoint that he should remember that he robbed her of her wedding night.

* ManipulativeBitch: On the more heroic end of the scale, but she's more than capable of it when she perceives Will's life to be in danger. Hell, she even gets the better of ''Jack''. There is a reason he refers to her as Will's "charming murderess."

'''Jack:''' I'm deeply flattered, son, but my first and only love is the sea. \\

* AbusiveParents: He isn't one, but the Jack Sparrow book series indicates that his father, Admiral Lawrence Norrington, was one, and probably responsible for James' obsession with duty and honor. When James was swept overboard during a storm as a small boy, he was saved by a pirate- to which Admiral Norrington the elder responded that it would have been better for James to have drowned.

* BecameTheirOwnAntithesis: He goes from an honorable enforcer of the law in the first movie to less than even a proper pirate- alcoholic vagabond would fit better- in the second, after losing everything. When he gets his honor and status back, he quickly finds that the office he aspired to has become equally corrupt, and he struggles to live with himself under those circumstances as well.
* BeingGoodSucks: Norrington isn't without his flaws, but at heart he's a good man with a strong sense of morals and a respect for the rule of law. Unfortunately upholding these behaviors ended up costing him everything: he allowed Elizabeth to be with Will Turner in spite of his own love for her, and let Jack Sparrow get a head-start on his escape, which unfortunately meant that when he had to chase Jack down for being a pirate, he wasn't able to do it and tried to follow him through a hurricane, which cost him his ship and his crew, and he resigned his commission in disgrace. When he resorts to serving under Cutler Beckett to get his life back, he's clearly uncomfortable with the things Beckett is doing and ends up betraying him to help Elizabeth and her crew, [[HeelFaceDoorSlam which gets him stabbed in the heart]].

* BookDumb: He doesn't ''quite'' grasp the math and science behind Carina's thoughts, but is smart enough to realise that she's not a witch, so it seems that it's only maths and science he's not brilliant at.

* BornInTheWrongCentury: It's made obvious by the fact that the nebulous accusations of witchcraft have an awful lot to do with her being a woman with intellectual pursuits(it should be noted that witchcraft was actually not as big of a deal in the eighteenth century). (An astronomer's shop she runs into early in the movie blatantly forbids women to enter, for example.)

** Gibbs is genuinely shocked and saddened that Norrington tried to sail ''through'' a hurricane to capture Jack and his crew. Justified in that Gibbs served under Norrington.

* FriendlyPirate: Quite possibly the nicest crew member onboard the ''Black Pearl'', he has UndyingLoyalty to Jack and he's very kind and affable to people he comes across. One wonders, how someone like him even became a pirate to begin with.

* UndyingLoyalty: Whatever happens, he will never abandon Jack Sparrow. [[spoiler:This is subverted in the fifth film, where Jack has become way too drunk and incompetent that [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness even Gibbs decides it's time to leave for bluer seas]], though he was at least apologetic to Jack about leaving him, unlike the rest of the crew. It takes a bribe from Henry to get him to come back to Jack.]]

'''Voiced by:''' Patrick Floersheim (European French, first four films), Creator/PhilippeCatoire (European French, ''Dead Men Tell No Tales''), Creator/JesseConde (Latin American Spanish)\\

'''Voiced by:''' Creator/JesseConde (Latin American Spanish)\\

* UndyingLoyalty: Whatever happens, he will never abandon Jack Sparrow. [[spoiler: This is subverted in the fifth film, where Jack has become way too drunk and incompetent that [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness even Gibbs decides it's time to leave for bluer seas]]. It takes a bribe from Henry to get him to come back to Jack.]]

->'''Played by:''' [=Kevin R. McNally=]\\

[[caption-width-right:300:''"You best start believing in ghost stories, Miss Turner... you're in one!"'']]
[[caption-width-right:300:[[labelnote:Click here to see him under the Aztec gold's curse]]https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/skeletonbarbossapotc.jpg[[/labelnote]]]]

* CowardiceCallout: She delivers an impassioned criticism to Sao Feng overlapping with the YouUsedToBeBetterSpeech, citing how the other Pirate Lords of the Brethren Court are uniting to wage war against the East India Trading Company, but Sao Feng sits and cowers in his bathhouse instead. Sao Feng is insulted by her accusations, but simultaneously [[YouGotSpunk impressed by her boldness]], so he doesn't retaliate.

A young, dedicated naval officer and pirate hunter, James Norrington first appears as a teenage lieutenant escorting the Swann family on their crossing from England, and many years later, after his promotion to commodore, he proposes to Elizabeth after seeing SheIsAllGrownUp. Elizabeth's heart, however, belongs to Will Turner, and even Norrington comes to know it- when Elizabeth asks him to save Will for her sake, it sows the first seeds of doubt in her sincerity, and he ultimately settles for being a RomanticRunnerUp and [[IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy wishes Will and Elizabeth the best in their relationship]]. By the end of the first movie he considers Jack his WorthyOpponent, and gives him a day's MercyLead. His act of generosity couldn't have impressed the higher authority- letting an enemy go free was, at the time, a death sentence for a naval officer. This probably explains why he becomes so desperate to catch Sparrow that he pursues him into a hurricane, and his ship goes down with almost all hands. He resigns from the Navy in disgrace and flees before he can be court-martialed and ends up with a serious case of HeroicBSOD, dropping from noble officer to borderline AntiHero who is desperately looking for an opportunity to get his old job back and turning up again in the pirate stronghold of Tortuga as a filthy, drunken, unshaven mess. After Elizabeth prevents him from drunkenly attempting to kill Jack and fight off an entire tavern's worth of pirates, he ends up a deckhand on Jack's crew. When the party finds the key item of the sequels, the heart of Davy Jones, whose owner controls the seas, James -- seeing it as a free ticket back to his old, honorable life -- steals it and brings it to the new BigBad [[AristocratsAreEvil Lord]] [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Cutler]] Beckett as a token. He is given the new, higher rank of Admiral in the EITC's private armada and seems to have gotten his former status back, but it quickly becomes apparent that he, Jones and Elizabeth's father Weatherby Swann have become pawns in Beckett's game. He tries to use his position to subtly protect Governor Swann and look out for Elizabeth, and after learning Beckett had Swann murdered (and seeing the utter hatred Elizabeth feels for him after believing he was a part of it), he saves Elizabeth and her crew from Beckett's clutches, [[RedemptionEqualsDeath losing]] [[HeroicSacrifice his life]] [[YouShallNotPass in the process]].

* FourStarBadass: Very proficient at actually carrying out combat, not just ordering it- in fact possibly [[AuthorityEqualsAsskicking better than anyone he commands]].

* GuttralGrowler: In the fifth movie he's slipped into this [[spoiler: as the Dutchman mutates him in his despair. This is gone when he is released.]]

* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: In the first [[spoiler:and third]] movie, he gives up pursuing Elizabeth so she can be with Will.

* AsskickingEqualsAuthority: Implied in the first film. The ''Black Pearl'''s crew are five seconds from mutinying, until Barbossa draws his sword and asks who's willing to actually challenge him. They hesitate, and remember at that point they have almost CompleteImmortality!

* HotScientist: A beautiful young woman who is fascinated by math, science, and time. However, she is unable to get a formal degree at a university because she is a woman.

* AnAxeToGrind: Uses an axe as a backup weapon during the first film and can throw it with lethal accuracy, as [[MadBomber Jacoby]] finds out the hard way. The only reason Jacoby can live to tell the tale is due to the Curse.

* OncePerEpisode: In each of the first three movies there's a joke about her being naked. In ''Curse of the Black Pearl'' Barbossa relays to her that she can either wear a dress and dine with him or dine with the rest of the crew naked, in ''Dead Man's Chest'' the captain of the ''Edinburgh Trader'' notes that their female stowaway (actually Elizabeth, who is [[SweetPollyOliver disguised as a man]]) must be naked since they found her dress, and in ''At World's End'' she must disrobe completely and wear a simple bathrobe before meeting Sao Feng.

* SimpleStaff: Wields a pole during the climax of ''Curse of the Black Pearl''.