Aiyee Ikea! and what a Will wants.
So I spent the day putting together a pile of Ikea furniture. A bookshelf/hutch thingy, a couple of stools and two bedside tables, and am I beat. My right arm and shoulder are sore, My right thand is practically raw (I just avoided blisters) and really, the bookshelf and bedside tables are not done yet. Oiy.
But all this relatively brainless physical labour allowed me to spend the day contemplating important stuff like, you know, PotC.
I keep reading about what Will wants, usually in the context of a different discussion, but never the less...
There have been reams written about what Jack and Elizabeth want, freedom, adventure, each other, but for Will it always seems to come down to this apple pie life of wife, kids, dog and a 'white picket fence'. I have to admit I don't cotton to the idea that this is what he actually wants.
Partially because this 'normal' life didn't exist during what ever freakin' time period PotC falls in and there is no way for Will to know he should want it, it's not like he's sitting about catching 'Leave it to Beaver' of 'Father knows Best' reruns on cable.
Will is likely pretty well versed in the 'normal' life of his times for someone of his station, which would be a lot of hard work and drudgery. With the possible exception of his mother having family money and them being quite comfortable back in England, Will has conceivably been mired in a 'normal life' for his whole life, which probably means he has worked in some form or another since he was old enough to do so. His mother may have even died because of this 'normal life'. I also suspect that Will worked as a cabin boy for some time after his mother died, and when he got to Port Royal he probably started working almost right away as Mr Brown's apprentice. So he knows all about hard work and drudgery and I'm not convinced that this is what Will wants.
But this life has left Will with a kind of desperation, low self-worth and some abandonment issues. I don't think before CotBP Will was expecting much from life, and was pretty much living day to day with no real long term plans or dreams, but he was hoping for more. When we first meet Will in CotBP, I think he wants two things, he wants Elizabeth, and he wants something different than what he has.
The Elizabeth thing is pretty darn obvious, but I'm not sure he's actually given the whole thing as much thought as he is given credit for. I think he just wants Elizabeth, any way he can get her. When he thinks of them together, he just sees them together, there are no kids, no house, no dog, just the two of them.
As for the other, I use something different here, because I'm not sure that "better" fits here all that well. After all, Will actually has a pretty good gig, a respectable trade that he is good at, he's young, good-looking and has curly hair, the local lovelies (and not so lovelies) along with their mamas (and possibly papas) are probably beating down his door. As far as 'normal' goes, this is on the high end. But ultimately, I think his head, and heart are somewhere else.
The first hint of this is the sword practice, no one spends three hours a day in sword practice if they don't eventually hope to put the skills to use. Will says he creates and practices with his swords because he wants to kill pirates when he meets them, something for which he has an actual reason (pretty good one too!), not just because he's some sort of 'goody-two shoes' who believes he should hate pirates because that's what the law and Royal Navy tells him he should do. Will lost a ship-full of people he knew, possibly liked, and maybe even considered family (if he had been working with them for some time as a cabin boy), to a Pirate attack, . And if he was a cabin boy, presumably on a respectable merchant vessel, he may have heard tales and been taught to hate pirates even before he suffered through a first-hand attack
Will is a man of action and he wants to be involved in things. If he really only wanted the 'Life' as described above, he would have done what the majority of the other Port Royal citizens did when The 'Pearl' attacked in CotBP, he would have run and/or hid. He wouldn't have grabbed his axe and a sword and waded into the fray, he would have avoided it. He wouldn't have worked so hard to be ready for this kind of thing in the first place. Every time he is presented with the opportunity to get out there and 'do' something, he jumps at it, not humming and hawing, no false 'but it's dangerous', he just ponies up and dives right in.
The second tell on this is actually his first want, Elizabeth. Why if all he wants is a 'normal life', would he aspire to such a woman? Why not just marry one of the local lovelies and have his wife, kids and toil? If he was content to sit back and take what life handed to him, he wouldn't dream of a woman who would change everything (she'd need to, there is no way he would subject her to his life).
The events of CotBP provides Will with his 'opportune moment' and he's all over it.
So why, if he's not content with his 'normal life' when we meet him, would winning Elizabeth turn him complacent?
When we first see him in DMC, it's fairly obvious that some things have changed for him, while he still presumably resides at the smithy (it where he is arrested) but his clothing and the ornate, aborted, wedding suggest an improvement of sorts. But the 'normal life' for someone of Elizabeth's class is pretty idle, not necessarily something Will would want either.
But he does have Elizabeth and something different that what he had. But that ends pretty quickly and he is once again off on a quest to 'save' Elizabeth. And through the course of DMC his is provided with a new 'want', the desire to save his father from an eternity on the 'Flying Dutchman'. And by the end this seems to be his 'only' option. He saw Elizabeth kissing Jack and appears to have, somewhat fatalistically, decided that she no longer wants him, that he has lost her to Jack. But he still has his promise to his father, and it's suggested that while he believes that the other shoe he may have been waiting to drop in regards to Elizabeth has in fact descended, he does still love her and will do what he can to make sure she is happy. Hence his agreement to go get Jack and the 'Pearl'. He needs/wants the 'Pearl' to chase down Jones and the 'Dutchman' and Elizabeth seems to want Jack.
I think that Will will have a big part in how AWE plays out. For all the compass spinning, flirting and 'sexual tension' that goes on in DMC I still think that ultimately the wants of both Jack and Elizabeth are still basically the same. Jack wants the 'Pearl' and his freedom. Elizabeth wants Will.
Jack was not pleased that Elizabeth chained him to the 'Pearl' and left him for dead and quite possibly any desire for her is as dead as he is supposed to be. And besides he never really decided he wanted her in the first place. For Elizabeth I think the bloom went of Jack's rose about the same time her charmingly wet fiance showed up on the Isla Cruces, when she found out that she was lied to and manipulated. She is further disenchanted when Jack rows away during the kraken attack. When she does chain him to save herself, Will and the others, she is also punishing him, but not because she's attracted to him, at least not only, but for what he did to Will, for lying and running, for not being who she thought/hoped he was.
So the point of all this. Will is the wild card in AWE, it is conceivable that if it ends J/E it will be because Will has finally decided what he really wants, that the things that have been driving him for the first two movies (Elizabeth) are no longer what he wants.
But all this relatively brainless physical labour allowed me to spend the day contemplating important stuff like, you know, PotC.
I keep reading about what Will wants, usually in the context of a different discussion, but never the less...
There have been reams written about what Jack and Elizabeth want, freedom, adventure, each other, but for Will it always seems to come down to this apple pie life of wife, kids, dog and a 'white picket fence'. I have to admit I don't cotton to the idea that this is what he actually wants.
Partially because this 'normal' life didn't exist during what ever freakin' time period PotC falls in and there is no way for Will to know he should want it, it's not like he's sitting about catching 'Leave it to Beaver' of 'Father knows Best' reruns on cable.
Will is likely pretty well versed in the 'normal' life of his times for someone of his station, which would be a lot of hard work and drudgery. With the possible exception of his mother having family money and them being quite comfortable back in England, Will has conceivably been mired in a 'normal life' for his whole life, which probably means he has worked in some form or another since he was old enough to do so. His mother may have even died because of this 'normal life'. I also suspect that Will worked as a cabin boy for some time after his mother died, and when he got to Port Royal he probably started working almost right away as Mr Brown's apprentice. So he knows all about hard work and drudgery and I'm not convinced that this is what Will wants.
But this life has left Will with a kind of desperation, low self-worth and some abandonment issues. I don't think before CotBP Will was expecting much from life, and was pretty much living day to day with no real long term plans or dreams, but he was hoping for more. When we first meet Will in CotBP, I think he wants two things, he wants Elizabeth, and he wants something different than what he has.
The Elizabeth thing is pretty darn obvious, but I'm not sure he's actually given the whole thing as much thought as he is given credit for. I think he just wants Elizabeth, any way he can get her. When he thinks of them together, he just sees them together, there are no kids, no house, no dog, just the two of them.
As for the other, I use something different here, because I'm not sure that "better" fits here all that well. After all, Will actually has a pretty good gig, a respectable trade that he is good at, he's young, good-looking and has curly hair, the local lovelies (and not so lovelies) along with their mamas (and possibly papas) are probably beating down his door. As far as 'normal' goes, this is on the high end. But ultimately, I think his head, and heart are somewhere else.
The first hint of this is the sword practice, no one spends three hours a day in sword practice if they don't eventually hope to put the skills to use. Will says he creates and practices with his swords because he wants to kill pirates when he meets them, something for which he has an actual reason (pretty good one too!), not just because he's some sort of 'goody-two shoes' who believes he should hate pirates because that's what the law and Royal Navy tells him he should do. Will lost a ship-full of people he knew, possibly liked, and maybe even considered family (if he had been working with them for some time as a cabin boy), to a Pirate attack, . And if he was a cabin boy, presumably on a respectable merchant vessel, he may have heard tales and been taught to hate pirates even before he suffered through a first-hand attack
Will is a man of action and he wants to be involved in things. If he really only wanted the 'Life' as described above, he would have done what the majority of the other Port Royal citizens did when The 'Pearl' attacked in CotBP, he would have run and/or hid. He wouldn't have grabbed his axe and a sword and waded into the fray, he would have avoided it. He wouldn't have worked so hard to be ready for this kind of thing in the first place. Every time he is presented with the opportunity to get out there and 'do' something, he jumps at it, not humming and hawing, no false 'but it's dangerous', he just ponies up and dives right in.
The second tell on this is actually his first want, Elizabeth. Why if all he wants is a 'normal life', would he aspire to such a woman? Why not just marry one of the local lovelies and have his wife, kids and toil? If he was content to sit back and take what life handed to him, he wouldn't dream of a woman who would change everything (she'd need to, there is no way he would subject her to his life).
The events of CotBP provides Will with his 'opportune moment' and he's all over it.
So why, if he's not content with his 'normal life' when we meet him, would winning Elizabeth turn him complacent?
When we first see him in DMC, it's fairly obvious that some things have changed for him, while he still presumably resides at the smithy (it where he is arrested) but his clothing and the ornate, aborted, wedding suggest an improvement of sorts. But the 'normal life' for someone of Elizabeth's class is pretty idle, not necessarily something Will would want either.
But he does have Elizabeth and something different that what he had. But that ends pretty quickly and he is once again off on a quest to 'save' Elizabeth. And through the course of DMC his is provided with a new 'want', the desire to save his father from an eternity on the 'Flying Dutchman'. And by the end this seems to be his 'only' option. He saw Elizabeth kissing Jack and appears to have, somewhat fatalistically, decided that she no longer wants him, that he has lost her to Jack. But he still has his promise to his father, and it's suggested that while he believes that the other shoe he may have been waiting to drop in regards to Elizabeth has in fact descended, he does still love her and will do what he can to make sure she is happy. Hence his agreement to go get Jack and the 'Pearl'. He needs/wants the 'Pearl' to chase down Jones and the 'Dutchman' and Elizabeth seems to want Jack.
I think that Will will have a big part in how AWE plays out. For all the compass spinning, flirting and 'sexual tension' that goes on in DMC I still think that ultimately the wants of both Jack and Elizabeth are still basically the same. Jack wants the 'Pearl' and his freedom. Elizabeth wants Will.
Jack was not pleased that Elizabeth chained him to the 'Pearl' and left him for dead and quite possibly any desire for her is as dead as he is supposed to be. And besides he never really decided he wanted her in the first place. For Elizabeth I think the bloom went of Jack's rose about the same time her charmingly wet fiance showed up on the Isla Cruces, when she found out that she was lied to and manipulated. She is further disenchanted when Jack rows away during the kraken attack. When she does chain him to save herself, Will and the others, she is also punishing him, but not because she's attracted to him, at least not only, but for what he did to Will, for lying and running, for not being who she thought/hoped he was.
So the point of all this. Will is the wild card in AWE, it is conceivable that if it ends J/E it will be because Will has finally decided what he really wants, that the things that have been driving him for the first two movies (Elizabeth) are no longer what he wants.