Line #194 Headscratchers/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanOnStrangerTides


1	* Why did Syrena come to the Fountain at the end to give Jack the chalices? The only one who was kind to her was Phillip. What loyalty did she have to Jack?
2	** She may have realized that out of all possible outcomes, Jack would find a way to screw things up royally for Blackbeard, the man who tortured her just to make her cry. She's probably pulling a minor BatmanGambit to ensure Jack tricks Blackbeard into killing himself with the chalices.
3	** Jack was also the only other person who was concerned for her when she was suffocating. Given some of the things she said it's possible she can tell who someone is deep down and knew that Jack though a pirate was still a good kind hearted person and simply wanted to reward him for that. It's also possible that she knew Jack wanted the chalices to revive Angelica.
4
5	* Why did Jack, the ''Queen Anne'' crew, and presumably Barbossa and his men have to go through the ceiling of the cave when there's literally an exit/entrance with stairs in the actual room containing the Fountain? Hell, the Spaniard and his men presumably found this easy route as well with how they manage to surround the pirates and privateers.
6	** It's a magic cave. Possibly the cave, the Fountain chamber, ''and'' the stairs wouldn't even be there if someone didn't go through the ceiling, first.
7
8	* How Blackbeard did become a powerful sorcerer?
9	** Magic works in the [=POTC=]-verse, as has been clear ever since we saw a certain crew of cursed pirates way back in the first movie. At some point, Blackbeard learned to use it. While it would've been interesting to learn the how and why behind that, the above is the only explanation that's absolutely ''necessary''. (Now, if this was an otherwise realistic pirate series, it would be a different story entirely).
10	** There's a bit of TruthInTelevision there, since the real life Edward Teach/ Blackbeard claimed to be a Dark Arts practitioner (though it's possible he just spread that rumor to make his reputation even scarier- he was good at that.)
11
12	* Blackbeard has the power to zombify his entire crew so they won't die. Then why didn't he just turn himself into a zombie instead of looking for the fountain of youth? He could have saved himself a tiring journey and his life (umm...kinda sorta).
13	** Blackbeard's zombies are his virtually-mindless undead ''slaves''. Even assuming he ''could'' do it to himself, why on Earth ''would'' he? This is already on the Fridge page, by the way.
14	** Also, if he really is a resurrector of the dead, then that means his zombies are people who were dead, and then brought back to un-life. So, how exactly do you propose that he, while dead, make himself a zombie? You know, being dead and inanimate and all.
15	** Theoretically he could teach the technique to someone else (Angelica?) but even assuming he could in the short time he had before the prophecy caught up to him, he'd still be under that person's apparently total control, so we're back to "why ''would'' he"?
16	** Also, these are ''[[HollywoodVoodoo voodoo]]'' zombis (that's not a typo), not the [[Film/NightOfTheLivingDead1968 Romero]] variety. That means that in all likelihood, their "deaths" were faked and they were just drugged/brainwashed into unquestioning servitude.
17	** Blackbeard can do real magic, so there doesn't seem much of a reason he couldn't create real zombies, especially since Jack (who has more experience with the living dead than he'd probably like) pegs them as such.
18	** Not to mention how one of the zombified officers gets run through by a cutlass during the mutiny, and simply pulls it out again. No blood, no lingering aftereffects, and he's still around for the hike to the Fountain despite what would've been a fatal wound for a living man.
19	** Blackbeard obviously ''did'' bring himself back from the dead (considering Jack mentions this is post his beheading), in a manner much more akin to what Tia Dalma did for Barbossa than a simple zombie ritual. Blackbeard doesn't want to be a zombie, he wants to be a living man... preferably a young, vital, eternally living man. Not a zombie.
20
21	* Back in the day, it takes ships about two or three months tops to cross the Atlantic Ocean. When Jack meets Angelica five days into the voyage (he mentioned it was five days because of the smell of the crew), she tells him that Blackbeard is destined to die in two weeks. ''How the bloody hell did they cross the Atlantic ocean in two weeks!?!'' The Queen Anne's Revenge is magical, and if it had been the only ship crossing then that would have been a little more believable. But the Spaniards and Barbossa were right behind them; Barbossa and the British got there the day after Blackbeard did, and apparently, the Spaniards were ''already there''.
22	** The comment on the crew might have just been a figure of speech. "Five days" meaning "These folks don't bathe in a damn long time".
23	*** Even if it was a figure of speech (it wasn't, since Scrum's surprise shows that Jack's right), Jack can't have been out cold for months on end. And that little montage of Jack working can't have been over months, either, otherwise he would have noticed Angelica a lot sooner.
24	** Jack didn't say five days, he said "at least five days". Presumably after five days of sweaty manual labor without anything to wash in but salt water, the crew are already as stinky as they're likely to get.
25
26	* How did the British expedition go so long without noticing the Spanish ships? and why was Gibbs the one to spot them?
27	** The ocean tends to be pretty big, and Gibbs had his eye out trying to pinpoint the exact direction they needed to go when he spotted the Spanish ships. He's kinda the navigator of the whole thing.
28
29	* So, is Angelica really the Blackbeard's daughter or not?
30	** Yes, she is. She was willing to die for him, remember? If she wasn't his daughter, why would she do that?
31	** It's teased near the beginning that she's not, but for the bulk of their interactions it's made pretty clear that, at the very least, she believes it and he believes it. It's possible that she's not, but as far as they're concerned Blackbeard and Angelica are indeed father and daughter.
32
33
34	* So, what was up with Ponce de Leon anyway? Did we ever get any indication as to why he was, you know, some sort of skeleton thing? It just seemed sort of there.
35	** It was just there to be eerie, mystical, and unexplained. My guess would be that he messed with the Fountain in some way and whatever god/spirit/force controls is punished him for it.
36	*** Presumably Ponce de Leon killed his entire crew and gained all their years, the gods/spirits didn't like that, and punished him with AgeWithoutYouth, and he decayed until only the skeleton was left.
37	*** On the theme park ride the movies are based on, there's an iconic scene of a pirate captain's skeleton still lying in bed. It was about the only memorable image from the ride that hadn't been used in the film yet, so they threw it in.
38
39	* Jack frequently speaks in the first movie about how mutiny is the worst crime any man could commit, that the deepest circle of hell is reserved for traitors and mutineers, etc. etc., and yet he goes ahead and stages a mutiny. Granted, he doesn't think Blackbeard is really there, but it's still a mutiny. It just seems out of character, even for him.
40	** Consistency and Jack don't go together very well and he is ''endlessly'' opportunistic, so he was just bitter about having been mutinied against and marooned, so he makes it seem like the worst thing in the history of piracy, but when a mutiny would serve his purposes, it's perfectly fine. In short, Jack is a hypocrite and a liar, both of which are very much in character.
41	** Remember one thing: mutiny is considered the worst crime one can commit, but usually you have a crew that signed on willingly and decided to betray their captain for their own benefit. Barbossa and the crew tried to cut Sparrow out because they were greedy, not because they were particularly dissatisfied. By and large, the crew of the ''Queen Anne's Revenge'' were press-ganged into service, and Jack was convinced they were being played by a charlatan. He just unfortunately turned out to be wrong. When you've got a crew of slaves which isn't getting jack (no pun intended) out of the deal, it's less a mutiny and more of a revolt.
42	** We should also probably keep in mind that in the first movie, Jack mainly says that sort of thing to the people who committed mutiny against ''him''. He tells them that mutiny is the worst crime ever and that they're going to hell because he doesn't like them very much and wants to say nasty things to them in the hope that it might make them feel bad.
43
44	* Why is Mr. Cotton's parrot still alive in the "Black Pearl" in a bottle? Jack the Monkey is understandable, but why the parrot?
45	** We don't know enough about how the process works to tell. Maybe the parrot survived the battle and simply got caught up in the spell?
46	** Judging by the weather in the bottles, they may simply have been frozen in time, repeating a few minutes until release from the bottle. The filmmakers would refrain from showing the crew to leave the question open and give the sequels more choice.
47
48	* The "profane ritual" was obviously established long before Christianity ever came to the Americas. Therefore, how the hell is it that it requires silverware made in Europe?
49	** Do we really know where the chalices came from? The Latin inscription might have been added later, and/or isn't actually Latin, but rather appears as whatever language the viewer perceives as being "mystical". Alternately, Ponce de Leon had the chalices made as part of an effort to make the Fountain more controllable, but it ''is'' usable (just unreliable) without them.
50	** It doesn't seem that it's the specific chalices that govern the ritual, but rather their origin- chalices given by a king, specifically. Kingship is often given a spiritual role as well as temporal leadership in many local religious traditions of the ancient world. Presumably chalices given by a chieftain would allow the ritual to work just as well.
51	*** As to how the latin inscription opens the door, perhaps one need only say "water of life" in some language they understand (remember, Jack knows at least a little Latin and Spanish, and probably knows something as common as that).
52	** The ritual isn't necessarily something ancient. Like with the Gold of Cortes from the first film, it could be something fairly recent- notice the chalices required come from Ponce de León. Perhaps he was the first to discover a way to unlock the fountain's potential and, through him, it's been unlocked ever since. Or maybe the fountain used to be easier to take advantage of, but the actions of de León inspired the powers to create new obstacles. He could've abused the fountain and killed thousands to gain immortality -- showing arrogance before the gods in a way that draws their fire. You notice the ultimate fate of Ponce de León in the film? That doesn't look like a guy the gods smiled on.
53
54	* Barbossa said the rigging of the Pearl tied him up, so he cut off his bound leg. Why didn't he cut the ropes?
55	** We don't know all the details, so he very well may have tried. Maybe he cut the first few ropes but more came, giving him no choice but to make a LifeOrLimbDecision.
56	*** But what would have stopped the ropes from picking him up again...?
57	*** Most likely it happened while he was being swung out over the side of the ship by said ropes, and by cutting off his leg Barbossa fell into the ocean before any more could grab him. That would explain how he wasn't aboard the ship when it was taken.
58	** The ropes may have been magically-enhanced, considering Blackbeard was controlling them. Alternately, if the ropes were around his ankle, he might not have been able to get a good chopping angle at them; the rigging lines on ships of the time were surprisingly tough and able to resist cutting.
59	** The ropes were probably mindlessly after Barbossa. He could cut them as much as he wanted, but they would keep coming till they got what they wanted (him). Barbossa had no choice but to ''give them'' part of him, at which point they left, tricked into thinking they'd killed him.
60	** Alternatively, he simply panicked and did the first thing that came to mind- and note, he was apparently the only member of the Pearl's crew to escape that battle.
61	** Ships' hawsers can be ''extremely'' thick, and Blackbeard's powers might have made them more durable than normal while they were animated. Plus, if Barbossa was hanging upside-down with the rope wrapped around his ankle, jerking about so he couldn't twist his body for more than a fraction of a second, he possibly couldn't reach any higher with a blade than his own knee.
62
63	* How would the Fountain of Youth have helped Blackbeard against Barbossa? If my understanding is correct, then the fountain merely extends your lifespan. It doesn't make you invincible -a sword to the heart would still have killed Blackbeard. They do mention using Barbossa as the sacrifice, but that means their plan essentially boils down to "let's kill him before he kills you" and they could have tried that with a gun rather than the fountain.
64	** The Fountain healed Angelica from being poisoned; it clearly has regenerative properties. They probably figured that Barbossa was fated to do whatever he was going to do to Blackbeard, but that they could then ''un''do it with the Fountain. Would have worked out that way, too, if Jack hadn't switched the chalices.
65	** Also, they probably thought "pagan mystic fountain" would be better at trumping Fate than a gun would. Presumably, however Blackbeard ended up "facing" Barbossa, Barbossa was going to kill him because Fate said so. Angelica mentions that the Fountain would give you all the years used by the sacrifice, and all the years they would've had "if fate had been kinder," so it's implied the Fountain's water has the power to outright change someone's fate.
66
67	* The mermaids don't have nipples, but they have breasts. So what are they? Mammals or fish (or something in between)?
68	** They're a magical creature that needn't obey the laws of science and reality. As to why they may have breast but no nipples, perhaps the breast make them more appealing to their choice of prey, Horny Sailors.
69	** They might have nipples under the GodivaHair.
70	** There were scales to cover them up. Maybe they have nipples when in human form (no scales)?
71	** Nipples would have been enough to up its rating. There's nothing thematic about it.
72
73	* Jack had to stand on a pirate's shoulders to reach the 'portal'. So how is it that all of the pirates made it through? (They should have had to leave one person behind...) not to mention that immediately afterwards, A small British regiment led by Barbossa comes in, then an ENTIRE Spanish army, gear and all manages to go through all at the same time.
74	** Who says ALL of them got through? Is it possible that some non-important guy got left behind and we just didn't notice because his presence didn't matter? Or, the last one could have jumped really high, or maybe found something to stand on, then jumped up from that. Or something.
75	*** They probably took turns helping each other up until there were only two of them left. At that point one of them gave the other a leg up... and held on really damn tight so that when guy A gets sucked through the ceiling guy B gets pulled along for the ride.
76
77	* The chalices are used to transfer life between Angelica and Blackbeard, so that one can live out the years of the other. But at the time they drink from the chalices, ''both'' of them are fatally wounded. Wouldn't the "years" transferred therefore be more like "minutes", since each is due to die very shortly?
78	** It was all the years they have lived and would have lived would be transferred. So Angelica got all the years Blackbeard was alive and all the years he would have lived.
79	*** The problem with that is...Blackbeard didn't have any longer to live. It was his fate to be killed by Barbossa, and Barbossa killed him. Angelica should have netted a whole couple of seconds of life from that exchange.
80	** Remember the part about all the years he had lived? The guy has lived plenty.
81	*** The person with the tear got all the years lived and all the years they would have lived had fate been kinder. Who knows how long Blackbeard could have lived if old Hector hadn't shown up with his poison-toad-sword.
82	** Either way, her current lifespan is undoubtedly much shorter than it was before, given how much older than her Blackbeard was.
83	*** No, no, no. First, you get the person's years ''added onto'' yours, not ''replacing'' yours. Second, you get all the years they had left, '''''plus''''' all the years they had already lived. You get their ''full lifespan'', from the day they were born to the day they would have died of natural causes ''in addition to'' your own full lifespan, again, from the day you were born to the day you would have died of natural causes.\
84	So in reality, it's probably ''better'' to drain the years from someone older, because then you're guaranteed to at the very least get the 60-70 years they'd already lived--for all you know, the strapping 20 year old you'd otherwise drain might be fated to die the next day of an inborn medical condition.
85	*** The Fountain doesn't give one invulnerability, just extended life/youth, so she can still be killed before dear old dad's life is used up. This is made rather explicit when Jack strands her on the island with the pistol. He doesn't think harm will come to her, but it sounds like it's possible.
86
87	* Two chalices are needed for the ritual used to make use of the fountain of youth. But why are those two specific chalices necessary? If the fountain is in the new world, then why do they have a Latin inscription on them? Where did Ponce de Leon get them?
88	** The chalices were necessary to get to the fountain. After that, it's not like they were carrying extra cups.
89	** Probably the bowls of the cups were found by Ponce de Leon, and he had the metalwork (Latin inscription included) added on to them.
90
91	* Why did the Spanish go to all the trouble of tracking down the Fountain of Youth in the New World if they had no desire to use it? If that was their plan all along, why did they bother to find the chalices? And why bother polishing them? Why not destroy them as soon as they acquired them?
92	** Didn't you listen to the guy's speech? They sought it out because they wanted to destroy it. Eternal life isn't something man is meant to have.
93	** That was sort of the original poster's point; they're out to destroy the Fountain, so why do they bother going and getting the chalices first? And once they have them, why do they bother polishing them and keeping them safe, as opposed to destroying them immediately? After all, as soon as they got them back from [whoever ended up with them after the MexicanStandoff], they just stamp on them and throw them into the water. If that was their intention all along, why wait?
94	** The chalices were the keys to the fountain. (Remember Jack standing in the cave, holding them together and reciting the words.) The Spanish didn't just want to destroy the keys, they wanted to destroy the fountain itself, so they needed to keep them. Granted there was no way to be sure that they'd need the chalices to get there, but at that point nobody knew.
95	** Yes, but he was just reading off of them. Standing there waving them around did nothing. He hadn't noticed the inscription until that point in time. The Spanish had already seen the inscription, so why did they need the chalices anymore. More to the point [[FridgeLogic if the chalices are the keys, why not just destroy them, thusly locking away the Fountain for good, and then just return home]]?
96	** There's no guarantee those specific chalices are necessary to make the fountain work. They were needed to get to the fountain, so they kept them. Also, they hadn't finished cleaning up the inscription at the time. The guy was still working when Jack and Barbossa first stole the cups, at which point they were probably more worried about thieves.
97	** Also, the Spanish leader was a LargeHam. He wanted everyone to ''know'' they were destroying the Fountain in God's name.
98	** The Spaniards knew that Barbossa was also coming for the Fountain, and that ''he'' needed the chalices for the immortality-ritual. Even if the cups had turned out not to be necessary to reach their destination, they were still useable as bait to lure the competing English expedition into a trap.
99	** They didn't destroy the chalices as soon as they got their hands on them because the chalices weren't the real target--the Fountain was. Even if they destroyed the way to get in, as long as the Fountain itself was untouched, there was still a possibility of someone using a metaphorical back door somehow to access it. These guys were on a holy mission in the name of God and country to destroy the "pagan temple"--that's not a job you just leave half-assed, not with that level of devotion to the cause. (Though why were theylovingly polishing the chalices up at the camp? They had Ponce de León's notes, so couldn't they have just gotten the inscription from them?)
100	** My theory as to the polishing is that they didn't originally intend to destroy the chalices, only the Fountain itself, without which the chalices are just fancy cups- they probably intended to take the chalices back to Spain and the king as a sort of souvenir/proof. However, when they found the pirates and British at the fountain, the Spaniard decided to destroy the chalices both to keep anyone from managing to quickly use the fountain while everyone is distracted, and to make their point dramatically.
101
102	* What happens to Jack's hat ?
103	** He lost it when he and Angelica dove into the water to escape the British soldiers. Almost as soon as he climbed back out of the water, he was hit with a dart and knocked out. By the time he wakes up on Blackbeard's ship, his hat is a long way away. For the rest of the movie, Captain Jack was hatless. He has it back in the next movie.
104
105	* How did the mermaids learn English? Doesn't seem like they'd be able to use it underwater...
106	** They're predators that hunt humans. Stand to reason that they'd learn the language in order to hunt more effectively. They can also walk on land.
107	** The mermaids have something of an accent, implying that they have their own language.
108
109	* Where and when did Ponce de Leone gain access to magic? Did he just ''find'' a pair of fountain-of-youth chalices and a reanimating map?
110	** Probably around the same time he ended up getting his ship stuck on top of a cliff. As for the main point, Blackbeard has a magic sword that controls his and other ship, not to mention his quite literal ships in bottles. The setting is a bit more fantastic.
111	** Yeah; while you'd be unlikely to just find a wizard for hire on the streets of London, magic and the supernatural clearly exist in the [=POTC=]-verse if you know where to look for it. Jack and Barbossa know, Blackbeard and Beckett knew, and it's not much of a stretch that Ponce de Leon did as well.
112	** According to legend (probably not actually true, but it fits in with the setting) Ponce de Leon was searching for the Fountain of Youth when he discovered Florida. If he really did spend time searching for the Fountain then he presumably learnt all the lore about it. The chalices were probably in some lost temple or other that he visited before setting off for the island, the pirates just get told they're on Ponce's ship because that's their last known location.
113
114	* At the end of ''Stranger Tides'', why does Jack bother performing the ritual as well as a pretty sweet BatmanGambit to save Angelica only to strand her on an island the same way Barbossa had stranded him? Both she and Blackbeard were going to die from poison sword wounds anyway. Sure Jack's not the [[ChaoticNeutral nicest guy in the world]], but this felt like an excessive [[KickTheDog dog kicking]].
115	** Weren't you listening? He said that it was a well travelled route, so ships were bound to go by. All she would need to do is start a fire to get their attention. He stranded her there because she would have killed him otherwise. So no, he is not dumping her there to die.
116	*** Yeah he gives her step by step instructions on how to survive and get help.
117
118	* What happened to the crew of the Black Pearl after Blackbeard captured it?
119	** Hopefully they're on the ''Pearl'' like the monkey.
120	** In "Dead Men Tell No Tales", we see no sign of Pintel, Ragetti, and Cotton after the ''Pearl'' is restored. Given that Marty, Mulroy, and Murtogg were elsewhere, maybe they left the ''Pearl'' before Blackbeard's attack.
121
122	* Why did Barbossa tear up the privateers charter? There's the whole "Free men! Life on the sea! Yo-ho!" routine, but that charter gave him a free pass to do whatever he felt like, ''protected by the crown''. He could have raided ships and plunder treasure for the rest of his life, as long as they weren't English ships. Why did he destroy his GetOutOfJailFreeCard? ''They hang captured pirates'', as the films have made abundantly clear.
123	** Well, Barbossa didn't complete the mission he'd been signed on for- claiming the Fountain of Youth for Britain- and got a navy ship destroyed and most if not all of its crew killed to boot. He didn't have much of a future with Britain ''anyway''. Besides, Barbossa may be willing to work with just about anyone to advance his own agenda, but he doesn't seem to have any more love when it comes down to it for the colonial powers than Jack.
124	** Besides, he now has the power to remotely control all ships within his sight. He doesn't need the protection of the British Empire anymore.
125	** Also, having returned to piracy, he had to reestablish his alignment. As Jack put it: "You sir, have stooped!". It was a clear message to all present that he had thrown himself in with their lot and meant it. He had just taken over a new crew after killing the previous captain (an evil bastard to be sure, but even so), so after showing the power of the Sword of Triton, he cemented their loyalty by showing that he was no lapdog.
126	** A letter of marque has an expiration date to it. Privateers had to attain a new letter of marque for each individual venture they went on; Barbosa's likely just covered hunting down the fountain. Forged letters weren't uncommon in the Caribbean, but the only benefit they really afford is making it easier to sell the pillaged goods.
127	** Plus, those letters were written for Hector Barbossa captaining the ''Redemption'', not for Hector Barbossa captaining the ''Queen Anne's Revenge.'' And a privateer vessel still has to follow Navy discipline- no skeletal figureheads or drunken revels with Tortuga whores or fang earrings. Barbossa just has more fun as a pirate.
128
129	* Right at the beginning of the movie, that one guard who was chasing Jack.. ''why did he put his sword and gun down''? You're chasing down a pirate escaping from the king. Was he afraid he was going to get his sword dirty?
130	** Weren't those Jack's "effects" he was carrying (at least, Jack steals them back immediately)? He probably put them down to have his hands free to use his own weapon(s).
131
132	* Is that hat that Barbossa got at the end a new one? Or did Blackbeard take Barbossa's hat as a souvenir after defeating the ''Black Pearl''?
133	** It's a new hat, it just looks a hell of a lot like his original.
134
135	* Why did Syrena bother to go to the Fountain of Youth at the end and hand Jack the chalices? Phillip is the only one who is ever kind to her and she has no loyalty to Jack. Why ditch the wounded Phillip and rush off to help Jack?
136	** Probably because, unlike Blackbeard or the rival royal expeditions, Jack never tormented Syrena or her sisters to try to extract tears from them. Letting Jack make use of her tear wasn't her favoring Jack, it was her saying "screw you" to Jack's competitors for the Fountain's power.
137	** Jack actually ''did'' stand up for Syrena a little, when he backed up Phillip's insistence that the lid of her water-tank needed to be opened a crack so she wouldn't suffocate.
138
139	* All mermaids are women, so they have to use humans to procreate... So, why don't they ever have male merbabies? By nature, roughly half of human descendants should be male, since gender comes from the father.
140	** Possibly they're like certain parthenogenetic lizards, and actually produce offspring which are genetically identical to themselves, but have to go through the motions of mating to stimulate the process. The male wouldn't contribute any genetic input, which would prevent them from becoming more human and less fish-like with every generation. Alternately, male offspring may simply be stillborn due to developmental errors.
141
142	* The after-credits scene: It seems amazingly contrived that the voodoo doll would float all the way from White Cap Bay to the island Angelica was on, even more so to float directly to her. Who knows how far away they were from each other, and it would need an absolutely flawless set of conditions to do that. [[WildMassGuessing Maybe the spirit of Blackbeard from the world beyond guided it to her?]]
143	** It's a voodoo doll- it's already supernatural. Perhaps it was trying to find its way back to its creator, but with him being dead and all, it went to the closest thing- his daughter.
144	** Alternatively, the doll shares a supernatural connection with Jack - maybe this shows that deep down Jack does actually want to be with Angelica? Or at least, a part of him does, and guides the doll to her.
145
146	* Why does it not occur to Jack or Gibbs to just try pulling the stopper on The Black Pearl's bottle first?
147	** The stopper has been sealed in a different way, with some various magic runes or symbols, and they would have no idea what would happen, or Jack even realized what they were, and it was how he knew about his "Ritual" which he and Gibbs would need to perform.
148	** Gibbs may have already tried it while waiting for Jack; either it didn't budge, or did come out but didn't change the ship at all. Presumably, Blackbeard sealed it with BlackMagic, so they need to undo the spell, not just pull the stopper/ shatter the bottle.
149	** Or they might already have tried it with one of the ''other'' bottle-trapped ships, to see if just doing the obvious would work, and the result... wasn't pretty.
150
151	* If the Spaniards were intent on destroying the fountain from the beginning, why didn't they just destroy the chalices when they had them? They still could have gotten into the fountain, considering they managed it at the end, and destroying the chalices would have prevented anyone from using it.
152	** Always figured they wanted to take the Chalices back to Spain as trophies. Their leader only decided to destroy them when he found the British soldiers and Blackbeard's crew at the Fountain and decided to make his point dramatically.
153	** Or like Jack, they thought they needed them to get into the fountain.
154	** They only know that the chalices are ''a'' way of reaching the Fountain. They don't know whether or not there might be others, so destroying the Fountain itself is the only sure way they can guarantee no one can use it.
155	** They regard the Fountain's very existence as an affront to God. Merely preventing people from using the thing isn't going to make it any less so, as permanently hiding its access-point from mortal knowledge certainly won't stop ''God'' from being aware that the place exists.
156
157	* Philip states that Syrena's beauty indicates she is "...one of God's creature and not one of those dark things that found no refuge on the Ark." Did he forget that the Bible states more than once that beauty does NOT equal goodness (something he would likely know, being a preacher and carrying a Bible with him at the time)? Or that Syrena's fellow mermaids were also beautiful, but bloodthirsty and vicious? Or that the Flood which made the Ark's construction necessary wouldn't have harmed mermaids (nor was it intended to target them) since they're aquatic beings?
158	** Philip has an obvious crush on Syrena. He says those things about her because he's trying to reconcile his feelings with his faith, not because he's trying to be logically-consistent about either.
159	** Perhaps their aquatic nature is tied to them being refused sanctuary on the ark. There must be some reason mermaids can assume a human form.
160	** The simplest explanation is that Philip's a really crappy preacher.
161
162	* So where was Blackbeard during the War Against Piracy? He's apparently regarded as TheDreaded even among other pirate, but he isn't even one of the Pirate Lords who ruled the seas, and he's nowhere to be found in the climatic battle against East India Trading Company's armada. The ''Queen Anne's Revenge'' and her crew would've been a valuable asset to the Pirate Fleet.
163	** He's probably considered a rogue element who can only be truly counted upon to serve his own interests, or the Court may have just assumed that he was already dead, considering that Jack mentioned the apparent circumstances of Blackbeard's death after they met directly.
164
165	* Blackbeard's crew becomes a DwindlingParty, especially after the mermaid attack. By my count, only Scrum, Ezekiel (the old guy), Salaman (the Indian guy), Garheng (the Asian pirate), Cabin Boy (the kid pirate) and two extras remain. Yet when the crew heads for Tortuga, there's suddenly an entire crew of around 40 men with them. Blackbeard would leave some behind to guard the ship (Gibbs and Jack mention this in the ending), but one would think the remaining crew are composed of zombies or about 5 men, which is enough to guard the ship, but not enough to actually steal it.
166
167	* Also, what happened to the zombies and British sailors? The zombies arrive at the fountain and fight the British, but dissappear afterwards. The Gunner and Quartermastrer get crushed by a pillar(as if that would be enough to kill them) while the Yeoman and Master-at-Arms disappear completely with no explanation. The British sailors were last seen carrying the bodies of their fallen comrades, but where would they go afterwards? Barbossa is once again evil and their ship is destroyed.
168	** [[AllThereInTheManual The screenplay states that all the zombies decomposed after Blackbeard's death]]. It can be assumed that this happened in the film too even if it wasn't shown onscreen, as there were no zombies in Barbossa's new crew. As for the British sailors, no idea.
169	** The sailors might have simply said "fuck it" and joined Barbossa in piracy. Royal navy was a very brutal institution to their sailors, this is how pirates got their manpower to [[MistreatmentInducedBetrayal begin with]].
170
171	* If Blackbeard really wanted to be immortal, then why didn't he go after Davy Jones and kill him? Being captain of the ''Flying Dutchman'' guarantees immortality as long your heart is protected. The possibility of the Flying Dutchman's crew defeating the ''Queen Anne's Revenge's'' crew is slim, considering that Blackbeard has the Sword of Triton and can use magic against his enemies.
172	** There are several assumptions there that don't hold up to scrutiny. For one, ''Dead Man's Chest'' shows that while the Flying Dutchman and Davy Jones are legendary in nautical folklore, the bit about him having a vulnerable beating heart locked away in a chest is far from common knowledge (notice no one, not even Jack, seemed to actually know this until Tia Dalma herself relays it to them). Secondly, even if Blackbeard knows about Jones' situation, "if you stab Davy Jones you become captain of the Dutchman" is basically known by nobody, to the point only Jones and one other character (Wyvern, the guy stuck to the wall who cryptically warns Will to not stab the heart because "The Dutchman must have a captain") seem to know it (even ''if'' Tia Dalma is aware of this she shares it with nobody in the cast and Bootstrap is explicitly unaware of that rule until some point after Dead Man's Chest as he also doesn't even bring up the possibility while Will plans to stab the heart). If even if go with Blackbeard somehow knowing all of this, how would he find the heart (remember, Jack & co only find it because they have a magic compass, which Blackbeard doesn't have)? Even setting aside ''all'' of that, how the Sword of Triton works against the Flying Dutchman is entirely unclear. Sure, the Sword works fine against regular ships and the Black Pearl (which ''is'' a cursed ship), but the Flying Dutchman is a semi-sentient, indestructible divine vessel powered by the chief deity of the setting, so it might completely NoSell the sword's effects. Even if you take the best possible outlook for Blackbeard (i.e. he somehow knows all the facts and his sword does work against the Dutchman), facing the immortal satanic figure of the seas who requires two separate elements (chest and key) to even be ''harmed'' is a much bigger gamble than simply going to Florida and drinking magical water.
173
174	* How did The Spaniard and his men avoid the mermaids in Whitecap Bay? When they arrive at the Fountain of Youth's cave, they have suffered no losses, whereas Blackbeard lost some of his crewmen while trying to capture the mermaids and Barbossa's ship was sunk down by the mermaids with little effort.
175	** Possibly the mermaids were sated after taking down the ''Redemption'' and didn't bother going after the Spanish. Alternately, the Spaniard led his crew to a landing point ''outside'' Whitecap Bay, and they trekked overland to the Fountain site.
176
177	* Upon discovering the Fountain of Youth, Blackbeard yells at Jack and tells him to not touch the water because only he can drink from it. But what if Jack touched the water? The water only affects you if you have the Chalices of Cartagena and a mermaid's tear. Does Blackbeard believe that if Jack touched the water the Fountain was gonna explode or what?

Context Headscratchers / PiratesOfTheCaribbeanOnStrangerTides