Pintel and Ragetti

"*You can keep Barbossa. The belligerent homunculus and his friend with the wooden eye, both.*"
―Jack Sparrow[src]
**Pintel** and **Ragetti** are a pair of bumbling pirate mates. Eternally bickering and philosophizing, the two muddle their way from one situation to another, small minds in the middle of great events. Pintel is a short, stocky and bald-headed pirate. His cohort Ragetti is tall and lanky, with a wooden eye.

## History

### The Curse of the Black Pearl

The crew of the *Black Pearl* was originally captained by Jack Sparrow, until first mate Barbossa turned them against Jack and led a mutiny. They marooned Jack on an island and headed for the treasure of Isla de Muerta, but soon found themselves damned to a fate worse than hell. Cursed to live forever as the undead, the crew's only hope is to return all the pieces of the Aztec Gold and pay a blood debt to lift the curse. Only the moonlight shows them for what they really are—walking skeletons that cannot be killed.

Now after preying on ships and settlements for nearly ten years, their search leads them to Port Royal. Pintel and Ragetti are first seen when they invade the Governor's mansion and kidnap Elizabeth Swann, who the pirates believe to be Bootstrap Bill's child. Elizabeth is brought aboard the *Black Pearl* and taken to Isla de Muerta, where Barbossa's crew heap up all the plunder in the cave. But not everything in the cave is valuable; Pintel and Ragetti mistakenly bring a trunk of women's clothing. After Barbossa fails to lift the curse with Elizabeth's blood, Pintel and Ragetti are blamed for their misfortune, while Elizabeth escapes with the medallion. Barbossa and his crew reunite with a very much alive Jack Sparrow, whom Pintel tries to kill but Jack invokes the right of parlay.

In the sea battle between the *Black Pearl* and the *Interceptor*, Pintel and Ragetti man the cannons and fire the chain shot that brings down the *Interceptor*'s mast. The pair are later chosen to create a diversion while the rest of the cursed pirates walk underwater to the *H.M.S. Dauntless*, by dressing in women's clothing to distract the men aboard the ship. When the curse is broken and the pirates defeated, they are captured and jailed.

A running gag throughout the first movie involves characters surrendering themselves to Pintel and Ragetti while invoking the right of parlay. According to the story's premise, parlay guarantees that a prisoner will be escorted unharmed to the captain in order to conduct negotiations. At one point, Pintel snarls at his captives, *"If any of you so much as thinks of the word 'parlay', I'll have your guts for garters!".* Ironically, after they are captured, Pintel attempts unsuccessfully to invoke parlay himself.

There are also frequent gags involving Ragetti's wooden false eye, which causes discomfort and is often knocked out of its socket and has him frantically searching for it; one of Ragetti's professed desires is to have a *glass* eye. It is not known how he lost his real one, though in *At Worlds End*, it is revealed that the wooden eye is one of the nine "pieces of eight" the Brethren Court used to imprison Calypso in her human form. Barbossa, a Pirate Lord, gave it to Ragetti for safekeeping.

There are also jokes about the two characters' feelings of closeness. Whenever these are shown, they become embarrassed or angry, and the moment quickly passes; therefore director Gore Verbinski jokingly described the two as more of a "married couple". In a deleted scene, Pintel mentions that he used to date a eunuch.

### Dead Man's Chest

In the sequel, Pintel and Ragetti have escaped from jail and are rowing a boat to Pelegosto island, along with the dog who holds the keys to the jail cells. Ragetti has become somewhat religious, believing that since they are no longer immortal, they must take care of their immortal souls. When they find the *Black Pearl* run aground on the island, Pintel convinces Ragetti that taking the ship would be salvaging, and that salvaging would be saving it. Although they attempted to steal the *Black Pearl*, Jack Sparrow magnanimously, if unintentionally, allows them to rejoin his crew after escaping the cannibal tribe.

Later, when Jack is searching for Davy Jones's heart and a fight breaks out between him, James Norrington, and Will Turner, Pintel and Ragetti once again have an opportunity to steal something valuable; to convince his partner, Pintel tells Ragetti they will be "removing temptation from their paths" by stealing the Dead Man's Chest. They take it, but do not get far before Elizabeth catches up to them. Before they can do anything to her, however, Davy Jones's crew attacks and they drop the chest. When the *Flying Dutchman'*s crew overtakes them, they fight alongside Elizabeth, with whom they share the two swords that Ragetti and Pintel had. Despite their fighting success, they quickly hand their swords to Elizabeth and take off with the chest again, which they promptly lose. When the Kraken attacks the *Black Pearl*, both Ragetti and Pintel shed genuine tears of respect and grief over Jack's demise and join the pledge to resurrect their fallen captain.

The comic duo (especially Ragetti) can unexpectedly engage in erudite and intelligent discussions. In these discussions, Ragetti often proves that he is more educated than he appears, even though he is illiterate. When Tia Dalma says that something vexed Davy Jones so much that he abandoned land for an eternal life at sea, Ragetti asks whether this was "the dichotomy of good and evil", causing Pintel and Gibbs to give him astonished looks. The two also engage in a debate over the proper pronunciation of "Kraken", with Pintel saying he believes the correct pronunciation is "kray-ken" while most say "krack-en". Ragetti explains that the derivation of the word is from original Scandinavian, and thus should be pronounced "krah-ken". Pintel points out they are not Scandinavians, to which Ragetti retorts, "It's a mythological creature, I can calls it what I wants!". Ragetti also displays a knack for knowing things he should not, such as the reasons for which Jack, Will, and Norrington each want the heart of Davy Jones. This tendency had earlier appeared in *The Curse of the Black Pearl*, wherein Ragetti compares a ruse used by himself and Pintel to the ruse of the Trojan Horse.