Will Turner
Will Turner, full name William Turner, Jr., is a fictional character in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series, and is played by Orlando Bloom.
He is a blacksmith's apprentice working in Port Royal, and is in love with Elizabeth Swann. Will, while mild-mannered, is fiercely loyal to those he cares about, and is willing to risk everything when they, namely Elizabeth, are in danger. At his best, Will is heroic and courageous. Will can be preoccupied and brooding.
Template:Spoiler Will is the only child of the pirate, William "Bootstrap Bill" Turner. He strongly resembles his father, both in appearance and physical ability. However, his father was absent during his childhood in England, and Will grew up believing him to be a merchant seaman. After his mother's death, Will, age 12, journeyed to the Caribbean to search for his father. However, his ship was attacked and sunk by the pirate ship, the Black Pearl. Will, the only survivor, was rescued by Lieutenant James Norrington, an officer in the British Royal Navy. It was the young Elizabeth, 12, the daugter of Port Royal's new governor, Weatherby Swann who spotted him among the floating debris. Once aboard, Will is placed under her care. Elizabeth discovers a rather pirate-esque gold medallion around his neck, and to prevent anyone from thinking he's a pirate, she takes and keeps it.
It is implied that Will and Elizabeth develop a tentative friendship in the years between the initial flashback and the film's actual time period. This attachment gradually blossoms into romantic aspirations, but because of their class distinctions, Will is reluctant to openly reveal his feelings for Elizabeth.
In Port Royal, Will is now a blacksmith's apprentice and a craftsman of fine swords, although it is usually his oft-drunken master who receives credit for Will's exquisite workmanship. Will is also an exceptional swordsman but lacks practical fighting experience in real-life situations. Although technically superior, he is bested in a sword fight by Captain Jack Sparrow because Will insists on followng "the rules of engagement," allowing Sparrow to outwit him. Will later admonishes Jack, telling him that in a fair fight, he would have killed him. Jack tells him, "Then that's not much incentive for me to fight fair then, is it?"
Will learns that his father, nicknamed "Bootstrap," was actually a pirate on the Black Pearl, that was formerly commanded by Captain Jack Sparrow. When First Mate Barbossa and the crew mutinied and marooned Sparrow on a deserted island, Bootstrap protested. After finding an Aztec chest of gold, the pirates fall under an ancient curse that leaves them as 'walking dead.' Believing the crew deserved to remain cursed for betraying Jack, Bootstrap sent a piece of the cursed Aztec gold to his son, Will. In retaliation, Captain Barbossa had Bootstrap tied to a cannon (humorously enough, by his bootstraps) and thrown overboard. Ironically, Barbossa and the crew later discover they need blood from everyone who stole the gold, including Bootstrap, to break the curse. With Bootstrap at the bottom of the ocean, only Will can provide Turner blood.
When Elizabeth is kidnapped by Barbossa, Jack and Will commandeer a navy ship and head for Isla de Muerta to save her. Jack also plots to get back the Black Pearl and intends to use Will's blood to bargain with the cursed pirates. When Will learns Jack's true motive and his own role in lifting the curse, he bargains himself to Barbossa to free Elizabeth and the crew. In the end, Jack and Will lift the curse and Barbossa is killed and his crew is defeated. To repay Jack for helping him, Will saves him from the gallows. Will declares his love for Elizabeth and she for him. Jack escapes and sails off in the Black Pearl.
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Template:Spoiler Will returns with the other main characters from Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. His appearance in this movie is more pirate-like than in the previous film, and somewhat reminiscent of Errol Flynn's pirate characters. In Dead Man's Chest, Will and Elizabeth are arrested before their wedding by Lord Cutler Beckett, a man made wealthy from the profits of the East India Trading Company. Cutler wants Jack Sparrow's compass, and he offers Will and Elizabeth freedom if Will finds it.
Beckett has a Letter of Marque for Jack and wants him as a privateer for the East India Trading Company. While Elizabeth is in jail, Will searches for Jack. He finds him and the Black Pearl's crew captive on a cannibal-inhabited island. Will, Jack and the crew escape on the Pearl. Will tells Jack he needs his compass to save Elizabeth. Jack agrees to give it to him if Will can help him find the key to Davy Jones' chest. However, he finds himself tricked by Jack who strands him on a wrecked ship that he claimed was Davy Jones ghost ship, the Flying Dutchman. Jack hoped to offer Will to Davy Jones in order to settle their debt, but when Jones' ship arrives, he refuses. He wants 100 souls in exchange for Jack. After being enslaved by Davy Jones, Will meets his father, "Bootstrap" Bill Turner, now one of the crewmen on the Dutchman. Will plays a game of Liar's Dice to discover the location of the key to Davy Jones' chest. To help Will, Bootstrap joins the game and purposely loses, although is now enslaved to Davy Jones eternally. Will, however, is free to go. Will steals the key and promises to destroy the heart of Davy Jones hidden within the Chest, free his father and the crew of the Dutchman.
The Dutchman arrives at Los Cruces, the island where the chest is buried. Jack, Elizabeth, and the crew are also there. Will, who stowed away on the Dutchman, makes his way to the shore of the island and is reunited with Elizabeth. With key in hand, Will intends to open the chest and stab the heart to kill Davy Jones, but finds himself at the point of Jack's sword and is caught in a three-way battle between himself, Jack and Norrington, all who wish to claim the heart for their own purposes. Although Jack makes it to his boat with the Heart, Norrington steals it and flees, making his way back to Port Royal.
Will devises a plan to help the Pearl's crew escape from the Davy Jones' beast, the Kraken. He gathers all the gunpowder and (to the crew's dismay) rum on the ship, ties them in a net, and Jack shoots them in order to singe and fend off the Kraken. However, this only serves to anger the beast, and Will escapes the scene with what is left of the Pearl's crew, except for Jack, who was chained to the ship's mast by Elizabeth so the Kraken would no longer pursue them. However, the escape is not entirely satisfactory to Will, as he was made witness to a long and passionate kiss between his beloved fiancee and Sparrow. Naturally, this perturbs Will because he does not know that Elizabeth kissed Jack to trick Sparrow into going down with his ship. The state of the "love triangle" and the young couple's relationship is left unresolved.
Will and the others agree to venture to the World's End in an attempt to return Jack to life, with the one and only Captain Barbossa (returning from The Curse of the Black Pearl) at the helm, in what will be the next installment of the series.
Will and Elizabeth team up with Barbossa to find Jack Sparrow at World's End. The love triangle will also be resolved. Template:Endspoiler
Trivia
- Will is said to be the best swordsman in the movies by the screenwriters in a DVD commentary.
- Will Turner is believed to have been based on Guybrush Threepwood, the protagonist of the video game series Monkey Island. He is also said to be based off of Luke Skywalker in Star Wars.
- Will Turner appears in the Pirates of the Caribbean world, Port Royal, of Kingdom Hearts II. Crispin Freeman provided the voice of Will for the game since Orlando Bloom was unavailable due to the filming of Dead Man's Chest. Freeman was also the voice of Will in the video game Pirates of the Caribbean: The Legend of Jack Sparrow.
- Will Turner's final costume in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl is reminiscent of Errol Flynn. Another nod to Errol Flynn is when Turner uses his knife to glide down the sail of a ship in Dead Man's Chest.
- In Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl when he and Jack are fighting in the blacksmith's shop, you get a glimpse of Orlando Bloom's tattoo on his wrist (Elvish word for "nine" from Lord of The Rings) when he says "I practice three hours a day, so that when I meet a pirate, I can kill it!"
- Like Jack Sparrow and Elizabeth Swann, the other two principal heroes of the saga, Will's name is linked to birds. Whereas the others are more direct references, Will is named after the ornithologist William Turner.
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