Calypso

## Tia Dalma

* Tia
* Calypso

**Tia Dalma**, formerly
known as **Calypso**, is a character featured
on Disney's *Pirates of the Caribbean*.

She is portrayed by Naomie Harris in her human form.

Tia Dalma AKA Calypso is a beautiful, mysterious voodoo priestess and sea goddess with black teeth and blue lips, her hair in dreadlocks, and specks in Jamaican Patois. She has a natural talent for being playful, flirty, seductive, and sensual.

Tia Dalma/Calypso is portrayed as an ally to Jack Sparrow, trading with him, aiding in his rescue, and occasionally flirting. It is implied they shared a romantic history.

As the series progresses, it is revealed that as Calypso, she became romantically involved with Davy Jones, and their mutual betrayal is what led to both of their transformations. Calypso had charged Jones with ferrying souls of the dead, promising to meet with him again in ten years. However, when the time came, she was nowhere to be found. In retaliation, Davy Jones revealed to the First Brethren Court of pirates how to imprison her in mortal form, and carved his own heart out, creating the Dead Man's Chest. While still hiding herself as Tia Dalma, she recounts the story to Sparrow and his crew, describing Calypso as "changing, harsh and untameable as the sea".

**Dead Man's Chest**

When the events of Dead Man's Chest begin, Jack Sparrow returns to see Tia Dalma after many years, in need of her assistance. Pursued across the Caribbean by Davy Jones's Kraken, he plans to find the Dead Man's Chest. This chest contains Jones's heart, and offers the only means to kill him. When Tia Dalma saw Sparrow, she was pleased to see him, but she appeared to be more interested in Jack's companion, Will Turner, whose boyish good looks instantly charmed her. She starts flirting with him, and even touching his face with her hand. A series of trades takes place, leaving Jack with the location of the Flying Dutchman and a jar of dirt to protect him from Jones, while Tia Dalma gains possession of the undead monkey belonging to the late Captain Barbossa. She then told Jack and his crew about Davy Jones, in part, while answering Will's question about Jones' Chest and its key. Having told Jack what he wanted to know, and discovering that Jack was marked with the Black Spot, Tia Dalma gave Jack a jar of dirt, so that he would always carry land, where he'd be safe from Jones. At Will Turner's request, Tia Dalma helped them to know where to find Davy Jones' ship, the Flying Dutchman, divined through "reading" crab claws. Jack's crew left the shack to continue their search for the Dead Man's Chest, leaving Tia alone in her shack—or so they believed.

Later on, Jack's crew returns to Tia Dalma's shack after Jack is dragged to Davy Jones's Locker by the Kraken. Tia has apparently foreseen this eventuality. She felt bad the crew. Tia then informs the mourning crew that there is a chance to save Jack. She reveals that she has resurrected Barbossa, who will help lead the rescue mission.

**At World's End**

Tia Dalma joins Barbossa, Will, Elizabeth, and the rest of the Black Pearl's crew as they travel to Singapore. There, they infiltrate Sao Feng's headquarters to acquire the navigational chart needed to sail to World's End and Davy Jones' Locker, barely escaping the clutches of the East India Trading Company. On the journey, she explains to Pintel and Ragetti that Jack Sparrow cannot be resurrected the same way Barbossa was because Sparrow was "taken" by the Kraken while Barbossa died from normal, earthly causes. When rescuing Jack from Davy Jones' Locker, Tia Dalma uses her powers to command the crabs there to drag the Black Pearl from the white sands of Davy Jones' Locker to the sea. When he approaches her, she flirts with him and references their presumed past romantic relationship, so Sparrow lets her continue on with his crew. As the group searches for an escape route back to the mortal world, they encounter numerous souls adrift in the water. Tia Dalma tells the group the story of Davy Jones and Calypso, but does not reveal her identity. While caressing her locket, she reminisces that Jones was once human. When they get to the real world, they have a run in with Sao Feng and Lord Cutler Beckett. Tia Dalma smiles mischievously while Barbossa tells Sao Feng about the sea goddess, Calypso. When Jack Sparrow escapes from Beckett's ship, Tia Dalma smiles out of amazement.

Later, as the Black Pearl reached Shipwreck Cove, Tia Dalma specks to Barbossa regarding their bargain. At this moment, it is revealed that Tia Dalma is the sea goddess, Calypso, bound into human form and her true motives for resurrecting Barbossa and Jack are unveiled when it is learned that both are Pirate Lords of the Brethren Court. Each has their respective "Pieces of Eight" , the talismans necessary to free her. She resurrected Barbossa to obtain his piece, and rescued Jack because his Piece went with him to Davy Jones' Locker (even though she still likes him). She reminds Barbossa of her powers by gripping his hand and temporarily rendering it skeletal. She warns him that it was only by her power that he is alive again and that he must fulfill their agreement to release her, and if he failed, she would kill him. Barbossa then orders Pintel and Ragetti to take Tia Dalma/Calypso to the brig. Later on, Tia Dalma/Calypso and her estranged lover, Davy Jones, briefly reunite while she is locked in the brig of the ship. Calypso says she still feels deeply for Jones. She responds to his anger by saying that Davy Jones never would have loved her if not for her uncontrollable and unpredictable nature. Calypso also chastises him for abandoning his duty to ferry souls to the other world. It was because he neglected his charges that Davy Jones became a monster. Calypso is also furious that the Pirate Lords trapped her in her human form. Thus, her true motives are revealed: she plans to use her powers against the current court in revenge for the original act of turning her into a human. She will also fully give her love to Jones, and it appears they reconcile. When she touches Jones, he momentarily transforms back into the man he once was. Jones's parting words betray that his heart will always belong to her.

As the battle between the East India Trading Company and the pirates looms, Tia Dalma/Calypso restrained by ropes is brought on the main deck to be released. As part of an incantation, Barbossa burned the Pieces of Eight and, with the assistance of Ragetti. Before Calypso is fully freed, Will tells her that it was Davy Jones who betrayed her by revealing to the first Brethren Court how to bind her into her human form. Calypso became enraged, still in her Tia Dalma form, she began to change; she grew massive in size. As she grew, some of the ropes that were restraining her snapped. She became several stories tall in a matter of moments. Calypso's low cut dress did not grow with her, so she is left in a skimpy outfit showing her cleavage, bare shoulders, bare abdomen, and bare legs, but she was still restrained by the remaining ropes. Once she stopped growing, she looked down at the pirates. Barbossa approached and knelt before her, so did the crew. Calypso listened as Barbossa asks that she fulfill their agreement and use her powers to aid the pirates. There was a moment of silence as Calypso smiled about his supplication. She then yells out in her native tongue in a deep voice an incantation. Calypso then appeared to crumble. She broke free of the ropes and transformed herself into thousands of small crabs that engulfed the ship and fled into the sea, and were gone. Calypso's fury creates a violent maelstrom that becomes the battlefield between the Black Pearl and the Flying Dutchman. Instead of aiding a particular side, her wrath is directed both at the pirate lords for imprisoning her and at Davy Jones for his betrayal. She also gave "favorable winds" to both the pirates and the East India Trading Company Armada, thus enticing both sides to do battle. After Davy Jones was defeated, the maelstrom vanished and the weather was calm again.

**Reception**

Naomie Harris's performance as Tia Dalma AKA Calypso was praised by critics and fans calling her "coquettish, sensual, pleasure-loving, and extravagant".