Why Pirates Of The Caribbean's Aztec Gold Didn't Curse Elizabeth (Though It Did Curse Jack)

Pirates of The Caribbean: The Curse of The Black Pearl's Aztec gold has a terrible price, but that price wasn't exacted on Elizabeth Swann.

The first Pirates of The Caribbean film revolves around cursed gold, but the specifics of who the curse affects, and why, are confusing. Pirates of The Caribbean: The Curse of The Black Pearl follows a crew of pirates whose plundering of Aztec gold causes them to be struck with an ancient curse. When the pirates kidnap Elizabeth Swann, believing her to be the key to reversing the curse, Will Turner enlists the help of the crew’s former captain, Jack Sparrow, to rescue her. The film was a massive success on release, earning an Oscar nomination for Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow and making over $600 million at the box office.

Despite the film’s popularity, there are still those who left theaters with questions about the cursed gold, and how it interacts with the characters. While Elizabeth was in possession of one of the cursed pieces of gold, she did not find herself affected by the curse. Jack Sparrow, a member of the Black Pearl’s crew, likewise didn’t feel the effects of the curse until the film’s climax. Unlike some inconsistent blockbuster plots from the 2000s, Pirates of The Caribbean: The Curse of The Black Pearl takes care to actually answer these questions.

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The curse of the Aztec Gold in Pirates of The Caribbean: The Curse of The Black Pearl has carefully worded rules, as laid out by Captain Barbossa during his dinner with Elizabeth. "...So the heathen gods placed upon the gold...a terrible curse. Any mortal that removes but a single piece from that stone chest shall be punished for eternity." The curse only works on those who directly removed the pieces from the chest. Were this not the case, every person with whom the pirates traded the medallions along their travels would have been cursed as well.

Elizabeth may have been in possession of a medallion, but she didn’t remove it from the chest. She took it from the neck of a young, shipwrecked Will Turner to keep him from being recognized as a pirate; Will himself didn’t take the piece either, it was given to him by his father, Bootsrap Bill, a member of Barbossa’s original crew. The only reason the pirates thought Elizabeth would have any bearing on the curse at all is because she lied, saying that her last name was Turner in an attempt to hide her identity as Governor Swann’s daughter. The crew needed a Turner to reverse the curse.

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Another aspect of Barbossa’s tale that proved important was Jack’s marooning. The reason Jack did not initially find himself a victim of the curse along with the rest of the Black Pearl’s crew is that Barbossa incited a mutiny, expelling Jack from the ship before they reached the destination of the treasure. Therefore, Jack never removed a cursed medallion from the stone chest. Never, that is, until the climax of the film, wherein he covertly pocketed one during his showmanlike speech to the Black Pearl’s crew.

The removal of a piece was a risky move, one that showed a significant evolution in his trust of Will Turner. While the two began the narrative as reluctant allies, Jack’s ultimate plan relied on Will successfully returning his bloodied medallion to the chest at the crucial moment. If Will acted too early, Jack might have been killed by Barbossa; if he waited too long, both he and Elizabeth might have been killed by the immortal crew. It’s just one of the masterful ways Pirates of The Caribbean: The Curse of The Black Pearl blends character storytelling and narrative action to make it the best movie in the Pirates franchise.