Could This Be The End Of Pirate-Themed Romances?
Thursday, November 27, 2008Posted in: Pirates not sexy
Unfortunately, probably not, but I can’t say I ever envisaged pirate heroes quite like these reprobates.
No siree, not my idea of dashing romantic pirate heroes at all.
Happy Thanksgiving to my American readers.
Tuscan Capo
November 27
3:27 pm
Yeah, scurvy-ridden outlaw degenerates just don’t cut the appealing man-about-the-underworld figure they once did.
😉
Have a happy one, Karen, whatever you’re into today!
Karen Scott
November 27
5:22 pm
Happy Thanksgiving to you TC!
West
November 28
7:09 am
Here’s my question- if your company is going to rerout oil tankers, because they are a prime target for pirates, what in the hell makes it seem like a good idea to announce the new route? How exactly does this make the “best business decisions ’08” category?
Also, I’ve never understood why pirates were considered sexy to begin with. They attack, they steal, they sink ships- what’s the sexy there? Anyone?
Karen Scott
November 28
8:14 am
I couldn’t agree more West.
Angelia Sparrow
November 28
2:19 pm
West, pirates got their cachet from privateers like Drake and Morgan who went against the Spanish for Good Queen Bess.
The hard-fighting rogue who only attacks enemy ships and returns the gold to queen and country, who comes back to land and cuts a dashing swath at court is a hard image to shake. (this is why most fictional pirate have a code of honor that didn’t exist among the real ones.)
May I suggest a double bill of Captain Blood and The Sea Hawk to clear matters up?
Pirates are sexy the same way cowboys and gunslingers are sexy. Hot in fiction, yucky in real life.
West
November 29
3:21 am
See, privateers I don’t have a problem with. They were just doing what they were told by their goverment.
Pirates are an entirely different matter, and I’ve never cared for pirate-based romances for that reason.
I have seen Captain Blood. I stil didn’t care for the “doing a bad thing for a good reason” excuse, even with the happy, hollywood-convenient ending. Just my opinion.
Persephone Green
November 29
6:45 pm
West, privateers were considered pirates – by their enemies. They were given the same treatment as buccaneers when captured by enemy navies.
I see a big difference between Cortés and L’Olonnais, for example, and de Graaf and Sir Walter Raleigh. They could all be considered ‘pirates,’ in that they used ships and stole from people, but that is where their similarities of modus operandi and ethics end.
The Robin Hood mystique of pirates was also popular among the French and the British (and many native islanders) because the conquistadors enslaved local populations and raped the lands (and often the women as well). Vice-versa when the French and British colonists captured territories and stirred up animosity among the various Taino peoples of the Caribbean. An easier way to look at it would be the bad guys stole from each other – they were all racist crooks.
Much of plundering of the Spanish galleons facilitated the fall of the Spanish Empire as the world’s military leader. The Spanish were well on their way to conquering and dominating the entire Western Hemisphere by the mid-16th century. Because of the various international disputes between France, Spain, Britain, and to a lesser extent, Holland, absolute power in the Caribbean Sea did not remain as a stable force for much of the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, and no single country was able to exterminate the Amerindians entirely (with the exception of Columbus and most of the Caribs, stupid jerk). Everyone was too busy fighting with each other to kill off the ‘natives.’ Caribbean history has many shades of grey when it comes to the morality of Europeans and their actions.
West
November 29
7:34 pm
I’m talking about a legal and moral standpoint. Which is what I base my reading on. I want ethical and moral characters, not just charming and likable ones. In this case-even though I don’t read pirate based books- privateers, even though considered pirates by their enemies, were just following orders. Pirates, on the other hand, were just commiting robbery as an occupation. And of course they were treated as enemies when captured- they were doing legally what pirates did illegally, costing pirates their booty without facing legal consequences. The pirates were probably pissed.
I still stand by my original statement- I don’t find piracy sexy.
Sohan
March 14
8:40 pm
“They’re Cows, We’re Pigs”, a 1997 “fictionalized history” book about life under the command of the notorious L’Ollonnais would be a good read for the piracy romantics.
A small but revealing resource about the torture methods employed by pirates: http://portfolio.agnesscott.edu/rscoggins/freshman/fall/fys/piratesresearch.doc
Not many chivalrous honorable colorful Robin Hood types here. Indeed, a man would be in big trouble if he were unfortunate enough to cross their paths. And a woman, well, heaven help her.