A Flipping Coin

If you have NOT seen the movie Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End Please DON’T read this as it will gave away major plot things…*

A flipping coin; falling, spinning in darkness. There is nothing to look at but it. A most memorable image from the newest swashbuckling, seafaring, motion-picture: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. This emblem is merely supposed to show that someone is dead, but there is far more to this image than first meets the eye.
It is more than a piece of imprinted metal. It shows the whole theme of the movie. Oh, yes, there are scenes of sword fighting, and ships locked in combat, but the real theme of the movie is two values which cannot exist without each other.
When Will asks Elizabeth “If you make your decisions alone, how can I trust you?” Her answer is correct “you can’t”. This is a low point for the romance of the movie. Nether of our dear lovers are ready to trust each other. Elizabeth killed Jack, but did not tell Will, letting Will in despair thinking that his fiancée was in love with another. Will, to further his plans, choose to side with Beckett to try and rescue his father ‘Bootstrap’ Bill, from the Flying Dutchman and its heartless (literally) captain, Davey Jones.
And yet, if you care to look, Davey Jones is not all as heartless as he would like to appear. He loved a woman. Still loves her, in fact. A woman as untamable as the sea, because she was, in fact, just that: Calypso, a goddess of the sea. A long time ago Calypso gave her love a task. He was to ferry the souls of those who died at sea to their place of rest, and when he had completed ten years of that, if, when he came home, his love was waiting for him he would be free from the task. However, when he returned, she was not there, being as fickle as the sea, to which she belonged, she had betrayed him.
So he betrayed her and taught the counsel of pirates how to bind the goddess into human form. He also cut out his own heart to spare himself pain. Locking it in a chest he hid it on an island so that none could hurt him again. He kept his heart locked away.
But when he stabs Will, with the sword that Will himself made, the tide it turned and the curse has another chance to be broken. The heart of Davey Jones is in peril! Jack has it at sword point, but he knows he can’t stab it. Yes, he wants to live forever but he cannot stand to be bound to anything and he cannot abide contracts. He, in short, cannot be the captain of the Flying Dutchman.
But Will Turner already has a wife. Someone to stay on shore and stay faithful. With Jack’s help Will stabs the heart, and dies. Jack saves Elizabeth who is heartbroken, as the Flying Dutchman goes down. But then! The Flying Dutchman resurfaces with a new captain. William Turner, his heart now residing in the chest. He can spend one day on land with Elizabeth and then has to depart to do his duty: ten years of ferrying souls. Before he leaves her however, he gives the chest with his heart inside, into his wife’s keeping with the request “Will you keep it safe for me?” and she promises to do so.
But we are not left to wonder if Elizabeth will stay faithful. After sitting through all the credits we are treated to a short scene labeled “The Years Later”. Elizabeth and a young boy (apparently their son) are standing on a cliff watching as a ship comes in. You see Will standing on the rigging looking towards home. And as we pan back to Elizabeth’s face it is illuminated by “The Green Flash”. A sign that a soul (Will) is returning to this world.
He died for her; she remained faithful though ten years of his duty. And so: Self-sacrifice and Faithful-love are two sides of one coin. You cannot have one without the other.