P is for Pirate

Pirates. Those crafty, rum-drinking, eye-patch wearing, dastardly fiends who sail the seven seas, striking terror in the hearts of all who cross their paths. I spent countless hours with a bandanna on my head and a wooden sword in my hand, a pillowcase Jolly Rogers tied to my bedpost, pretending I was the captain of my own pirate ship. 

Oh yeah, and they're cooler than ninjas. Just saying. 

P is for Pirate 

Dread Pirate Roberts (The Princess Bride) – I defy anyone who's ever seen or read The Princess Bride to not fall in love with Westley. The long-lost love of Buttercup, Westley's ship was captured by the famed Dread Pirate Roberts many years before, but rather than kill him, "Roberts" – who was really named Ryan – made him the new heir to the Dread Pirate title. Thus we learn that Dread Pirate Roberts is not really a person, but a persona, a dreaded scourge of the high seas whose very name inflicts terror upon anyone who hears it. 

Captain Jack Sparrow (The Pirates of the Caribbean series) – The hands down funniest pirate on this list, Jack Sparrow . . . excuse me, Captain Jack Sparrow, is smart, crafty, calculating, and all together insane. With a penchant for harebrained schemes that (for unknown reasons) always work out, Jack is without a doubt the worst – make that best – pirate of them all. 

Ragnar Danneskjold (Atlast Shrugged) – Once a philosopher and schoolmates with Francisco D'Anconia and the infamous John Gault, Ragnar is now a pirate of the high seas. He spends his days seizing ships from US Navy under the orders of the Bureau of Global Relief, returning the wealth that was stolen from those who rightfully earned it through their heard work and ingenuity. Not to be confused with Robin Hood, Ragnar merely sees this as restoring John Gault's followers, penalized for their brains and hard-earned fortune, to their rightful place. 

Captain Hook (Peter Pan) – Captain Hook is the one-handed nemesis of Peter Pan, the famed boy who never grows up. His greatest joys in life are plotting revenge and making Lost Boys walk the plank. With a black heart and unnatural hatred for Peter, Hook has exactly one weakness . . . his fear of ticking crocodiles. I love every depiction of him, from Dustin Hoffman in the 1991 film Hook to Dave Barry and Ridley Pearsons's Peter and the Starcatchers series. But I have one important question: What was Hook's name before Peter cut off his hand? 

Long John Silver (Treasure Island) – With a peg-leg and a parrot on his shoulder, Long John Silver is the antagonist in one of the most enduring pirate novels of all time, Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. By all accounts he's a smooth-talking, charismatic man; however, beneath his amiable exterior lies a villainous nature so black that even the "bloodthirstiest buccaneer that sailed" the high seas was afraid of him. 

And there you have it, my Top 5 favorite Pirates. What are some of your favorites?

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This post is part of the Blogging A through Z Challenge 2013. My theme (in case you didn't already guess) is character types and tropes. Stay tuned for the rest of the alphabet, and if you’d like to check in on the other participants, simply click here.