pirates
Fight on Isla de Muerta 17
"It's not a bad look, really. Eh?"
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"Stay still, mouse!"
"All right. A mouse that roars."
―A pirate and Tumen[src]

A mouse (mice) was a small rodent with a pointed snout, small rounded ears, a body-length scaly tail, and a high breeding rate. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse, which were also popular as pets, and certain kinds of field mice, which were common and known to invade homes for food and shelter. Mice were typically distinguished from rats by their size. The common terms rat and mouse were not taxonomically specific.

History

"My sister was never big on gumbo. It was always steak tartare for her, or nothing at all!"
"And now she enjoys eating live mice. Quite the refined palate."
―Jean Magliore and Jack Sparrow[src]

Like most rodents, mice and rats existed throughout human history. By the time of young Jack Sparrow's adventures as a teenage stowaway, Jean's sister Constance was cursed as a cat by the mystic Tia Dalma, and Sparrow once muttered that she enjoyed eating live mice.[1] As Left-Foot Louis's crew, Captain Laura Smith, and the crew of the Barnacle broke out in fighting in a mutiny on the Fleur de la Mort, Tumen had his long obsidian knife out while a frustrated pirate with a black eye patch and matching bandana kept lunging at him, but he was too fast and short for him. The pirate called Tumen a "mouse" as he roared at the boy to stay still. Tumen agreed, then quickly brought his dagger up to cut his opponent's hand, catching the pirate's sword as it fell, saying "a mouse that roars."[2]

Several years later, as a battle ensued between the rogue pirate sloop the Koldunya and the East India Trading Company merchant vessel Wicked Wench, one of the passengers aboard the Wench. As impatience quickened the steps of the Zerzuran princess Amenirdis, a slave known as Ayisha, as she headed for the ladder leading up from the cargo hold. Ayisha could feel something driving her onward, like boredom and frustration from being shut up like a mouse in a barley bin, though she didn't know.[3]

By the end of the quest for the Shadow Gold, near the Day of the Shadow, Diego de Leon and Spanish princess Carolina could hear the "scritchscritching" of tiny claws among the sacks and barrels around them on the merchant ship. Mice and rats didn't bother Diego anymore. He'd spent enough time with them on his other trips as a stowaway, including a short spell in the hold of the Black Pearl before Jack Sparrow had found him there.[4] Years later, around the time of the war against piracy, when Hector Barbossa's motley crew came into possession of Sao Feng's navigational charts, Joshamee Gibbs noticed a little black mouse painted on the map.[5]

Behind the scenes

"Now line up so I may collect your daily tribute."
"Tribute? We're starved, Captain. Yesterday we ate a rat."
"It was a very big rat. Luckily the ship is overrun with them -- and I charge very little for each."
―Jack Sparrow and a pirate[src] (2013 screenplay)

The term "mouse" was first used in Pirates of the Caribbean media through the souvenir book for Walt Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean, specifically in regards to Mickey Mouse, Disney's primary cartoon character.[6] Walt once famously said, "I only hope that we never lose sight of one thing—that it was all started by a mouse."[7] While a rat would make more appearances, the first in-universe mention of a "mouse" would be in the 2006 book Jack Sparrow: The Pirate Chase by Rob Kidd.[1]

In Terry Rossio's original 2012 screenplay draft for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, when Jack Sparrow gets the idea for the Sea Serpent to swallow its own tail and created the worm ouroborus, Jack said, "Remember. It's the second mouse that gets the cheese."[8] Rats, however, ended up appearing in Jeff Nathanson's early 2013 screenplay draft,[9] as well as the final version of the film released in 2017.[10]

Appearances

Sources

External links

Notes and references

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Jack Sparrow: The Pirate Chase, p. 20
  2. ↑ Jack Sparrow: Silver, pp. 73-74
  3. ↑ The Price of Freedom, Chapter Thirteen: "Red Flag... Ho!"
  4. ↑ Legends of the Brethren Court: Day of the Shadow
  5. ↑ The Pirates' Code Guidelines, pp. 95-96
  6. ↑ Walt Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean: The Story of the Robust Adventure in Disneyland and Walt Disney World
  7. ↑ Mickey Mouse - D23
  8. ↑ Wordplayer.com: PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES by Terry Rossio
  9. ↑ Dead Men Tell No Tales script by Jeff Nathanson, second draft, 5/6/2013
  10. ↑ Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales