What was that?

I figure most people here who haven't actually watched any of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies at least know who Jack Sparrow is. So... did the people who made the movies intend to include the Trickster archetype?

My money's on "no". Possibly even, "Hell, no". Very few creative types think about the archetypes before or during the process: they just write it, then realize what they've done when they re-read. Sometimes not even then - when we're up to our necks in story, we often can't pull far enough back to realize what else we've tapped into.

In the Pirates movies, the writers and cast collectively tapped into a whole lot of mythic archetypes. You have the not-always-friendly wise older man who is also something of a father-figure (Barbossa) - and that's a relationship with more than a few echoes with Loki/Odin or Loki/Thor, especially in the third movie. There's the "crone" who is also a powerful sorceress (thingy/Calypso), the good man who turned to evil when his love was - he thought - spurned (Davy Jones), and of course, the Young Lovers (Elizabeth and Will, both of them so painfully earnest it's a good thing they have Jack Sparrow around to make fun of them).

Not a bad lineup for a series of films that never tried to be anything more than a whole lot of fun.

So, for your Thanksgiving fun today, let's have some "name the movie, character and archetype".

p.s Bonus points to the first person to name the movie quoted in the title!