Elizabeth Swann

**Elizabeth Swann** is a character from the *Pirates of the Caribbean* franchise.

## History

### Films

Elizabeth Swann was born in London, England during the 1700s as the daughter of the wealthy Weatherby Swann. Since she was a young girl Elizabeth was fascinated with pirates and in the 1710s her father was made the governor of Jamaica so they moved to Port Royal on the Caribbean island. On the passage they happened upon a ship which had been attacked by the supernatural pirate-ship *The Black Pearl* in search of an Aztec gold medallion upon it. The only survivor of the ship was a boy named William Turner who bore the Aztec medallion which Elizabeth stole from him as she feared her father's men might execute him for piracy.

Elizabeth grew up to be a beautiful but dissatisfied maiden who harboured a crush on William which she could not act on due to British classism. When she was proposed to by one Commodore Norrington she fell into the waters of asphyxiation from her corset and was only narrowly saved by the pirate Jack Sparrow. However when she was in the water, her medallion called out to the crew of the Black Pearl which came for her in Port Royal in search of the medallion. As it turned out, the crew was cursed by the Aztec gold and needed to return all the medallions along with the blood of their lost member "Bootstrap Bill" Turner, William's father.

The Pearl's captain Barbossa kidnapped Elizabeth believing her to be the daughter of Bootstrap Bill and intended on using her blood to appease his curse. This however resulted in William and his ally-of-circumstance, the still-alive Jack Sparrow to hunt down Barbossa with Jack intending on using William as a bargaining chip to win back his beloved Black Pearl and kill Barbossa with the single shot he'd been carrying since his marooning. This mission eventually lead to Jack sympathizing with Will and Elizabeth and choosing to truly aid them from Barbossa with this alliance leading to William using his blood to free the pirates from their curse so that Jack could shoot Barbossa in the heart, killing him. When Jack was arrested again by the British, Will and Elizabeth freed him and he set off as captain of the Black Pearl once more.

Will and Elizabeth decided to get married however this was interrupted by operatives of the East India Trading Company who had the pair arrested for piracy. To earn a pardon, William had to obtain Jack's magical compass for company chairman Lord Cutler Beckett. Elizabeth herself later escaped with her father's help and hunted down Jack herself only to find William was bartered off by him to the sea god Davy Jones. Elizabeth and Jack proceeded to hunt down the Dead Man's Chest which possessed the beating heart of Davy Jones so Elizabeth could earn Will's freedom and for Jack to escape a debt he owed Jones for Jones having brought Jack's ship *The Wicked Wench* back from the depths.

When Jack was sought after for this debt by Jones' pet the Kraken, Elizabeth decided to shackle Jack to the deck of the Black Pearl as a means of giving the ship's crew and herself a chance to escape. What resulted was Jack being killed by the Kraken and dragged to the underworld of Davy Jones' Locker. Following this, Elizabeth and her pirate compatriots teamed up with the goddess Calypso (in the form of sorceress Tia Dalma) to travel to Davy Jones' Locker and free Jack's soul.

The crew travelled to world's end and back to retrieve Jack as he was a member of a group known as the Brethren Court which Calypso needed to assemble for her freedom. On this adventure, Elizabeth was mistaken for Calypso herself and briefly kidnapped by Brethren Court member Sao Feng who wished to acquaint himself with the goddess. Feng was later killed by the East India Trading Company and left Elizabeth as his successor, making her the Court's Pirate Lord of the South China Sea. At the meeting of the court in Shipwreck Cove, Elizabeth was named Pirate King of the Brethren Court due to Jack voting her in as she wished to wage war on the East India Trading Company and British Empire.

As pirate king of the Brethren Court, Elizabeth lead the war against the East-India Trading Company and married William during the battle aboard the Black Pearl. However William was later murdered by Davy Jones only to be resurrected by Jack when he used Will's hand to stab the heart of Davy Jones, making Will the new immortal captain of *The Flying Dutchman*. Following this Jones was killed and Will left his now cut-out heart in the dead man's chest within Elizabeth's possession. She later retired to an unknown island with the chest where she and Will had a son and where they'd be visited by William one day every 10 years due to his curse.

## Appearances and allusions

### Fantasmic!

In this nighttime Disneyland show, Jack Sparrow appears fighting Barbossa and Barbossa's crew while attempting to save Elizabeth from them. The Black Pearl is represented by the Sailing Ship Columbia and his segment ends with him defeating Barbossa's crew as Barbossa and Captain X shout out Sparrow's name.

### Pirates Lair on Tom Sawyer Island

A portrait of Elizabeth appears within a treasure alcove in Dead Man's Grotto on Jackson Island in the Mississippi. Along with this is her diary and letters of marque with her Port Royal address written on it. This treasure is being protected by the cursed pirates Pintel and Ragetti from the films and on the same island is a blacksmiths' run by Will Turner.

It should be noted however that Elizabeth and the rest of the Pirates film cast are not mentioned at all within the St. Petersburg Journal article at the Raft docks that provides the island's "Tom Sawyer" framing device, which could imply these elements merely exist on the island as part of the imaginations of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, and anybody else taking part in their pirate games on the island.

### Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle for the Sunken Treasure

One of the boats used as ride-vehicles is named the, "Elizabeth Swann".

## Connections

### Oceaneer Lab

S.E.A. member Captain Mary Oceaneer is in ownership of several objects from the Pirates of the Caribbean films. Crates identify her excavating Shipwreck Cove, the pirate haven operated by the fourth brethren court. The Dead Man's Chest is also amongst the artifacts acquired by Captain Oceaneer for her collection aboard the RV Oceaneer Lab with Elizabeth being the last known owner of it in the timeline.