"I Seek But One Thing" : Redemption, Forgiveness, and Ambiguous Endings in "On Stranger Tides"

[A couple of warnings: First, yes, I think waaaay too much about these things. I couldn't get this out of my head, so I figured I'd just write it down instead. Second, HERE BE SPOILERS. Proceed at your own risk.]

Today's Special: Neatly sliced green apples. Sorry, no rum (and don't ask why it's gone).

A young man lies in a jungle clearing beside a deep pool. His life blood is pouring out of him from a wound in his abdomen, a souvenir of a battle he wanted no part of. Desperate for some relief – any relief – he drags himself to the pool’s edge and splashes water over the wound. Suddenly, a mermaid appears in the pool below. She is the mermaid he helped capture (to his everlasting regret) and with whom he has fallen in love, and now she appears like an angel in his final hour. She sees his pain and promises that she can save him, but the young man wants only one thing: forgiveness. With a kiss, the mermaid draws the young man into the pool and guides them both along the dark passageways beneath the water.

And… then what?

The story seems unfinished. What becomes of the young man and his mermaid love? Does she truly save his life, or does she return to the man-eating ways of the rest of her kind? Does she grant him a quicker, more merciful death by drowning, or does she turn him into a merman so she he may live with her happily ever after?

The ending to the romance of Philip and Syrena in On Stranger Tides leaves a lot of questions unanswered. How you choose to answer those questions depends on how you interpret the rest of the movie – and there is more than one way to do that.

Redemption and Forgiveness

Redemption is a recurring theme throughout On Stranger Tides, and more than one character is in need of it. The main focus, though, is on two cases that play out side by side over the course of the film.

The first man in need of redemption is Blackbeard himself, the pirate that even other pirates fear. Given the enormity of his crimes, no one really seems to believe that this terrifying man is capable of redemption – no one except his daughter, Angelica. Having once been on the road to becoming a nun, Angelica was brought up to believe that anyone can be saved, no matter how sinful they once might have been. She also has personal reasons for believing that her father can be redeemed. While we don’t know a great deal about her life, we can assume that a child who grew up without a father likely had a difficult life full of disappointments and unkindness from others. Angelica desperately wants to believe that her father can be redeemed, and that he is, at heart, a better man than the others she has met in her life. She even convinces her father to keep Philip alive, as she believes the missionary might be able to lead Blackbeard onto the path of righteousness. Blackbeard, for his part, seems to have little interest in redemption, and only plays along with Angelica’s notions about his soul because his daughter is a powerful and motivated ally, and it is in his best interest to keep her happy. In the end, Blackbeard’s true nature is revealed: when he is given a chance to redeem himself by giving his life to spare his daughter’s, he chooses to kill her and save his own life instead. Were it not for Jack’s switching the chalices, Blackbeard would have allowed his own daughter to die for him.

The story of Philip and Syrena’s romance is also a story of redemption, and whether it contrasts Blackbeard’s journey or runs parallel to it depends on whether one believes that it is Philip or Syrena who is presented as in need of redemption.

Philip is a missionary, and, from what we see of his character, he not only preaches the Word but lives it as well. He refuses to take sides in the mutiny about The Queen Anne’s Revenge, despite the abuse he’s received from Blackbeard; he stands up for the rights of the oppressed and the imprisoned; and he faces death without fear, valuing forgiveness over his own life. However, even Philip has done something that he regrets: in the mermaid battle at Whitecap Bay, he stabs Syrena in the tail, effectively trapping her and making it easy for the pirates to capture her. The difference between Philip and Blackbeard, however, is that Philip actively seeks redemption, and he spends the rest of the film trying to atone for his sin by becoming Syrena’s champion and protector. When she is gasping for air in the glass coffin, Philip defies Blackbeard to save her life, even stealing a sword from the zombie henchmen to open the coffin lid. When Syrena gains legs and Blackbeard declares that she will “walk or die,” Philip takes a third option and carries her the rest of the way. And when Syrena is tied up to die, he tries not once but twice to free her, the second attempt (this one successful) happening while he was bleeding profusely from a mortal wound to his abdomen.

This contrast between Blackbeard’s indifference toward redemption and Philip’s active pursuit would seem to lend itself to the moral that redemption is not easily attained, and the one who is worthy of forgiveness is the one who has worked to deserve it. Blackbeard did nothing to deserve redemption, and therefore did not receive it. It stands to reason, then, that Philip, who has done everything in his power to atone for his sin, should be rewarded with forgiveness from Syrena and whatever healing powers she has at her disposal. One hopes that the film is not so cynical that it would put forth the message that no one can be redeemed, no matter how hard they try.

There is, as I said, another way to interpret the story of Philip and Syrena. If one believes that the focus of their tale lies in Philip’s belief that Syrena can be redeemed of the deadly nature of her kind, then their story forms a parallel to Angelica’s belief that Blackbeard can change his own nature. We saw how Angelica and Blackbeard’s story ended: despite her unwavering devotion to him, Blackbeard was never anything but a self-interested, selfish man, willing to destroy anyone in pursuit of his own interests. Perhaps Philip’s belief that Syrena is different than her kin is similarly misplaced, and the moral of both stories is that no one can fight against their own nature. Philip lets himself believe that she can be good because she is beautiful and because he is in love with her, but in the end, she is a mermaid, and nothing, not even the love of a good and honorable man, can change her nature. In the end, she acts as all mermaids act, and she kills Philip because that is what mermaids do, just as Blackbeard tries to sacrifice his daughter's life for his own because it is in his nature to serve only his own interests.

Death or Life

In weighing these two possible interpretations of Philip and Syrena’s story and how it contrasts or parallels Blackbeard’s story, I believe that the first interpretation is better supported by the film. Several scenes in the movie are dedicated to Philip’s pursuit of redemption: he saves her from suffocating in the glass coffin; he saves her again in the “Walk or Die” scene; he stands up in her defense when Blackbeard tries to harvest her tear the first time; and he tries twice to free her from her bonds, the second time while suffering from a mortal wound. In fact, half of Philip’s final scene is devoted to his quest for forgiveness. In contrast, comparatively little time is spent on the question of Syrena’s nature and Philip’s mission to save her soul. In one scene, he comments that she is beautiful but deadly, and then learns that she was trying to save him in the battle at Whitecap Bay, not attack him. Later, when he tries to free her the first time, Philip tells Syrena that she is different – an echo of the very same reasons Syrena gave for saving him. These are the only scenes that deal with the notion of Syrena’s redemption; when compared to the large number of scenes devoted to Philip’s redemption, I believe it is clear that the focus is on Philip’s quest for forgiveness rather than on a mission to save Syrena’s soul.

So what does this mean for the ending? I believe it means that Philip, having fought so hard to undo the damage he did when he used violence in the Battle of Whitecap Bay and helped capture Syrena, will receive the forgiveness he worked toward and asked for. Knowing that the man she loves is truly different from others of his kind that she has known, Syrena will do what she can to save his life. What exactly that entails remains a mystery. Hopefully, we’ll get our answers in the fifth installment of Pirates of the Caribbean.