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Eye

️Mon May 06 2013

Ragettieyes — Ragetti next to a jar of eyes.

Eyes were the primary organs of the visual system. They provide living organisms with vision, the ability to receive and process visual detail, as well as enabling several response functions that are independent of vision. Most humans possessed a single pair of eyes located on their head, although some have visual impairments.

History[]

Through uncertain means, the pirate Sam lived his life without a left eye, and so when he put a finely polished onyx orb in the empty eye socket and became known as Stone-Eyed Sam.^[1] When young Captain Jack Sparrow and the crew of the Barnacle visited New Orleans, an albino Cajun attempted to sell the eye of a dead Voodoo priest to Arabella Smith, but without success.^[2] Years later, during the quest for the Shadow Gold, the voodoo mystic Tia Dalma introduced Alex, a zombie who had eyes that might have been brown once but were now filmy and clouded, staring fixedly into space.^[3]

Through unknown circumstances, prior to the auction on Shipwreck City, a wench named Oona lost an eye and began wearing an eyepatch.^[4]

Ragetti & Pintel vs spirits — Pintel accidentally stabs Ragetti, causing him to lose an eye.

At some point in his life, a pirate named Ragetti lost his right eye in battle.^[5]^[6] He received 300 pieces of eight as compensation.^[7] Though the wooden replacement "splinters 'somefink' terrible" according to Ragetti himself,^[8]^[5] it was given to him by Captain Hector Barbossa for safekeeping due to it being one of the Nine Pieces of Eight.^[9] While visiting Tia Dalma's shack, Ragetti noticed an iron-bound jar hanging from a rafter in a corner, full of dozens of staring eyeballs, and put a hand over his eye socket that was plugged with the wooden eyeball.^[10] For most, the grisly sight would be sickening, but for Ragetti the eyeballs are beautiful to behold. For as long as he could remember, Ragetti had longed to exchange his wooden eye for the real thing and maybe now his dream will come true,^[5] but he ultimately kept his wooden eye.^[11] Although both Pintel and Ragetti did intend to buy an eye made of glass that fits,^[8] Barbossa took back the eye during the meeting of the Brethren Court, resulting in Ragetti starting to wear an eyepatch.^[9]

After Joshamee Gibbs, Pintel and Ragetti react to Jack Sparrow being marked with the Black Spot, Sparrow claimed his eyesight was "as good as ever" to his superstitious crew.^[11] Years later, during the quest for the Fountain of Youth,^[12] Sparrow was hit by a voodoo dart by the Quartermaster, a large man who had eyes that were completely dead and white, with Angelica later describing him as "the man with no eyes" aboard Blackbeard's ship, the Queen Anne's Revenge. Following Sparrow's unsuccessful mutiny against Blackbeard's zombie officers, the Cook was zombiefied by Blackbeard's Greek fire, which was part of a voodoo ritual. Looking into the Cook's cold dead eyes, Jack knew it was a fate worse than death itself.^[13]

Behind the scenes[]

Eyes first appeared in Walt Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean.^[14]
When asked about some of the characters' health, screenwriter Terry Rossio said the likeliest cause of the yellow eyes is jaundice, a close cousin to scurvy; or, in the case of pirate captains Hector Barbossa and Chevalle, both considered ladies men, hepetitis.^[15]
Ragetti first appeared as a one-eyed pirate in the 2003 film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.^[8] Both the 2006 reference book Pirates of the Caribbean: The Visual Guide and the 2007 reprint version The Complete Visual Guide state that Ragetti lost his eye in battle.^[16]^[5] Ragetti was one-eyed in The Price of Freedom, which takes place years prior to joining the crew of the Black Pearl.^[17] However, in the short comic Six Sea Shanties: Strangers Bearing Gifts - A Tale of the Black Pearl, Ragetti loses an eye at some unspecified point after Captain Barbossa's crew aboard the Pearl fell under the curse of the Aztec Gold.^[6] This is a continuity error left unaddressed by The Walt Disney Company.
In Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio screenplay draft for Dead Man's Chest screenplay, Davy Jones was described as "Tall with dark eyes".^[18] Although the character's design had changed to blue eyes in the final cut of the film,^[11] dark or black eyes were retained in the film's junior novelization.^[19] Jones was described with "black eyes as soulless as a shark's" Visual Guide books.^[16]^[5]
In Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio's screenplay drafts for On Stranger Tides, Jack Sparrow first sees the zombie Quartermaster, described as "hulking, bald, eyes that are completely white", after being hit with a voodoo dart in London, England. Jack would point at the zombie and say either "You have frozen eyeballs" or "Your eyeballs are frozen." Later, aboard the Queen Anne's Revenge, Angelica describes the Quartermaster as "the man with no eyes" and known as eleri ipin, which means "witness of fate".^[20]^[21] The scenes were altered or omitted in the final cut of the film,^[12] though they were retained in the film's junior novelization.^[22]
In Jeff Nathanson's earlier Dead Men Tell No Tales script drafts the Trident of Poseidon was originally decorated with a large diamond called the Eye of Poseidon.^[23]