tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5196345880831321833.post8584904460587294745..comments2024-03-04T00:50:36.676-08:00Comments on Hook's Waltz: Defending BlackbeardM.F. Webbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11640523156105860066noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5196345880831321833.post-52526478608393455972015-10-09T18:29:08.769-07:002015-10-09T18:29:08.769-07:00Powers is always conscientious about his secret hi...Powers is always conscientious about his secret histories.<br /><br />I like the novel quite a bit, myself, and was saddened when the PotC franchise grabbed it mainly because it meant that the novel itself will now never be filmed (though I do like the film we did get, loosely connected to the novel as it is, so it isn't a total loss).faoladhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03691952430041394614noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5196345880831321833.post-45496031751481717732015-10-09T16:25:30.423-07:002015-10-09T16:25:30.423-07:00I'm struck that, compared with these other exa...I'm struck that, compared with these other examples, the greatest discrepancy here with Teach's real life is his youth in Jamaica. Heh.<br /><br />That book is in my TBR stack. Perhaps it's time to bump it to the top.M.F. Webbhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11640523156105860066noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5196345880831321833.post-30497778595099590392015-10-08T15:48:57.422-07:002015-10-08T15:48:57.422-07:00In the novel on which the fourth Pirates of the Ca...In the novel on which the fourth <i>Pirates of the Caribbean</i> movie is loosely based, Tim Powers's <i>On Stranger Tides</i>, Blackbeard's use of the lit matches is related to his magic, since Blackbeard had learned magic from "an old magician from England… [who] was trying out a heavy piece of resurrection magic. I don't think he was very skilled at it, but he had with him that day a sixteen-year-old boy who'd grown up among the free blacks in the Jamaica mountains, a boy who, though white, had been deeply educated in <i>vodun</i> and had, just the year before, been consecrated to the most fearsome of the <i>loas</i>, the Lord of Cemeteries, Baron Samedi, whose secret <i>drogue</i> is low-smoldering fire" (found in chapter 10). The sixteen-year old boy, of course, being Teach (Powers uses the spelling Thatch in the novel), and the matches are his "low-smoldering fire".faoladhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03691952430041394614noreply@blogger.com