Made ya laugh.

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THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS 2002, dir. Peter Jackson

The main issue with the Will and Elizabeth ending is, that it turns Elizabeth into Penelope after a story that largely had her in the role of Odysseus, which creates narrative dysjunction.

This isn't a question or complaint over whether or not "the rules" of the film should be treated as immutable laws and/or whether people are allowed to play with them in fan spaces. Elvy produces fanworks that reinterpret canon literally all the time--I'd say he does it MORE than he writes or draws within the absolute bounds of canon--so I think it's safe to say he fully gets that. He is also not arguing that Elizabeth and Will are absolutely stuck. The point of frustration has more to do with how many people fundamentally misunderstand those rules before they decide whether or not they fuck with them--and how that affects the way fans engage with the text itself as they watch the movies and produce criticism and analysis, which also has additional ripple effects of creating pockets of stagnation in the characters' fics and tags.

To address Elvy's original point, let's use the curse of the first movie to create a hypothetical comparison. How that curse in that movie works is if a person removes a coin from the Aztec chest, the taker is directly cursed by that act. To break that curse, the coin-taker must return the coin to the chest with their blood--and if multiple people have taken coins, they ALL must do this as a collective before any one of them can be freed from the curse. In theory, simple. However, it is not explained in one single lore drop, but broken up into several sources of information that the viewer must piece together gradually. So when it came out--and even today with new viewers who don't pay attention--there is a point of confusion where people think that the medallion curses ANYONE who EVER touches it, and somehow that means that when Jack is revealed to be a skeleton the revelation is that he too was somehow cursed the entire movie. That isn't what the movie establishes at all, but some people still come to that conclusion, not fully grasping the rules and backstory sprinkled throughout the film's canon.

And I want to emphasize: correcting people about how this curse works does not bar them from toying with different ideas for how the curse could be different, it just helps them understand what is actually going on in the movie.

Anyway, even though people do misunderstand this, it isn't a common enough misunderstand ingto make much of an impact on the fandom. But for our sake, let's imagine if it did. If people were constantly in the tags asking why didn't Jack turn into a skeleton sooner if he was one the entire time, claiming Jack's entire fight Will makes no sense since he was just immortal anyway, complaining how it ruins Jack's character for them because of how inconsistent it is, lamenting over how sad it is Jack lived out 10 years as a skeleton, filling his AO3 tags with fix-it fics going "AU: Jack gets to be a mortal human like he always should have been!" And all of this at volumes that create feedback loops pushing other efforts at unique or in-depth engagements with the work out of view. Individually, it wouldn't be exactly "WRONG" if people were posting things with their facts mixed up, but collective consequence of consistently approaching the source material from such a misguided angle would be the establishment of weird fanon that accidentally big chunks of the community from many from interesting, more informed and intentional explorations of the character like "WHAT IF Jack WAS a skeleton the entire time?" or "WHAT IF the curse turned everyone into skeletons, and Will and Elizabeth and Jack all got cursed?" or even more canon-aware takes that just explore "How did it feel to turn into a skeleton on the trust that Will would understand what had to follow?" etc.

That is what's going on here with AWE's ending for Elizabeth and Will. Fans keep reaching two extremely opposite misinterpretations of the source material that either trap Elizabeth in a miscast role of a landlocked housewife or erase their tragedy entirely by assuming there is no meaningful separation for them at all. Both are factually wrong, and that has ripple effects in how the fandom engages with their characters.

You're actually right about that last point that she isn't Penelope--which is why it's nonsense to insist that AWE's text turns her into that trope. It doesn't. And neither does Elvy, for that matter. (And as a tangent, there's a reason the fifth movie is treated by old fans as apocryphal bullshit: it has different writers and retcons multiple things in P1-3, not the least of which Elizabeth and Will's open-ended AWE ending and doesn't justify their drastic shifts in personality and behavior to total resignation.)

These are the canon rules of the Dutchman's contract, establishing how to free Will and prevent triggering his "trap" curse:

Will has to do the job for 10 years IN THE UNDERWORLD.

At the specific sunset ending those 10 years Elizabeth has to meet Will ashore somewhere in the MORTAL WORLD.

That's it.

Yes, technically Elizabeth must "wait for him" because years must pass. But waiting does not require passivity or stasis from her. There is nothing in the third movie's text at all that says she has to suddenly fix herself to land he left her as a part of her "waiting"--the original writers have even said this more than once. Will did not ask her to sign her life away to him, only to keep her husband's fate and love in mind while she lives it however she chooses. She is a pirate and the Pirate King, not only Will's wife. Her home is a gorgeous ship and it can sail wherever she has the will and means to sail. His heart is in a box that can be hidden, carried, defended in more places and means than one. Needing to meet him somewhere specific in 10 years does not mean she has to live at that point for those 10 years--the horizon conveniently is always there no matter where she goes, and "keeping a weather eye" is something sailors can do while they go about their business. She even is shown in her final shot standing next to a boat, with Shipwreck Cove in rowing distance, accessible to one of the biggest pirate harbors in their world after having declared war on the English's economic powers. She's got shit to do, and she CAN do it. And having a baby thrown into the mix doesn't mean she is suddenly on post-partum maternity leave for all 10 years either. Children grow up and are also portable, and people did sail with them--just because she would need to sail a little differently and avoid battles for his sake doesn't mean she suddenly could forever go nowhere or do nothing for herself.

All of this is true, as defined by the text of the third movie--that ending is not taking any of that away from her. Their tragedy is written an open door fans to explore how she or he could pursue change. And the writers of the original trilogy encouraged that line of thinking--it was part of the intent of the ending that their fates are open and ambiguous. If she was willing to go the lengths she did to resurrect Jack, it is obvious she go to similar lengths for her soulmate, that even with their separation and restrictions, she absolutely could do something about it.

But there are still SOME limits. Even if she has all that freedom, the canon ending is still meant to be at least somewhat tragic, however permanent or temporary is the part that's originally undefined. There are thematic and narrative things the story is trying to say by making them have that tragic separation, with equal measures of doubt and hope that they can pull through it. Him giving her his heart the way he does means what it does BECAUSE of that separation. And it is also specific and explicit to their separation that she cannot easily go on the Dutchman in the condition that the movie leaves them both.

The Dutchman is a ship of the dead, sailing the seas of the dead--Will is in a literally separate world. That world is only accessible for normal ships via a long, magically obscured journey that would shatter her ship to pieces at its end (shown by the journey of the Hai Peng). That world also has no food or drink for mortals to survive (shown when they almost die of thirst before the Up is Down sequence), so even if she makes it over there, there are physical limits to staying there without dying. That world also cannot be escaped without another vessel she can ride the green flash on at the exact point of sunset. Will could take her back, but then that would break the terms of the contract and curse him--which further dooms their hope of him coming back to her as a free man and partner. She could choose to simply stay with him, but then she would be dead. And if she dies, he cannot be freed from his contract with the Dutchman. And honestly, even if they just stayed dead together, what sort of existence or joy would that even it be? He isn't even wandering normal parts of the afterlife, he is working the passages of a state of limbo.

For ten years, she cannot access him easily. He cannot access her easily. That tragic fact is a KEY part of their canon ending. It sucks. It sucks for a reason.

BUT again: just because canon says she cannot stay with him aboard the Dutchman or simply go out and flag him down does not mean that canon says she cannot go on quests of her own to find new loopholes or magical solutions to their problems at all. Their separation is not anything like Penelope waiting for Odysseus unless you choose to make it so. Her canon-compliant story from that point is able to be far more like Orpheus and Demeter seeking Will's Eurydice and Persephone, if you understand what she can and cannot do.

@cyrannus95 I love that you asked this! Because this is a tangent and getting very long, I'm going to put most of the answer under a cut. And if anyone has extra questions, maybe direct it to my inbox so we're not hijacking OP's post further. (Or even better: I'm sure Elvy would love some asks about her thoughts on this subject herself!)

The shortest answer is that there is no answer--or at least there wasn't intended to be one, just like Inception's ending deliberately doesn't answer the question of whether or not Cobb makes it out of the dream.

The director of P1-3, Gore Verbinski, believed that because we are experiencing the moment when Will leaves from Elizabeth's perspective, and she herself does not know the answer to this question, the movie itself cannot take a stance on it. That's too omniscient. So the movie's answer is meant to be: we don't know. But there is hope.

Here's a quote from Ted Elliott, one of the writers, emphasizing this:

"Whether or not Will's service ends after ten years is beside the point of Elizabeth and Will's story, and any definitive statement, one way or another, actually dilutes the point of their story. The intention of the movie is to leave the question unresolved, to leave the audiences' understanding of Will and Elizabeth's future uncertain, because that is far more reflective of the circumstances the characters are in. They can't know, they can only have faith..."

Note: Wordplayer is the screenwriting website and forums of PotC 1-3's writing duo, Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, which is why I link back to it so much. They personally answered many fan questions over there, so these are their direct quotes.

It is because they don't know that it matters that they choose to remain committed to each other anyway. It's a very different choice than if they let each other go. Because it is an expression of love through faith and sacrifice. And this approach fundamentally meant that the audience is free to decide what happens after 10 years. (Which is another big part of why older fans got mad when P5 came out--it took away fans' ownership of the ending.)

Below the cut I'll continue explaining the two possibilities.

The main issue with the Will and Elizabeth ending is, that it turns Elizabeth into Penelope after a story that largely had her in the role of Odysseus, which creates narrative dysjunction.

This isn't a question or complaint over whether or not "the rules" of the film should be treated as immutable laws and/or whether people are allowed to play with them in fan spaces. Elvy produces fanworks that reinterpret canon literally all the time--I'd say he does it MORE than he writes or draws within the absolute bounds of canon--so I think it's safe to say he fully gets that. He is also not arguing that Elizabeth and Will are absolutely stuck. The point of frustration has more to do with how many people fundamentally misunderstand those rules before they decide whether or not they fuck with them--and how that affects the way fans engage with the text itself as they watch the movies and produce criticism and analysis, which also has additional ripple effects of creating pockets of stagnation in the characters' fics and tags.

To address Elvy's original point, let's use the curse of the first movie to create a hypothetical comparison. How that curse in that movie works is if a person removes a coin from the Aztec chest, the taker is directly cursed by that act. To break that curse, the coin-taker must return the coin to the chest with their blood--and if multiple people have taken coins, they ALL must do this as a collective before any one of them can be freed from the curse. In theory, simple. However, it is not explained in one single lore drop, but broken up into several sources of information that the viewer must piece together gradually. So when it came out--and even today with new viewers who don't pay attention--there is a point of confusion where people think that the medallion curses ANYONE who EVER touches it, and somehow that means that when Jack is revealed to be a skeleton the revelation is that he too was somehow cursed the entire movie. That isn't what the movie establishes at all, but some people still come to that conclusion, not fully grasping the rules and backstory sprinkled throughout the film's canon.

And I want to emphasize: correcting people about how this curse works does not bar them from toying with different ideas for how the curse could be different, it just helps them understand what is actually going on in the movie.

Anyway, even though people do misunderstand this, it isn't a common enough misunderstand ingto make much of an impact on the fandom. But for our sake, let's imagine if it did. If people were constantly in the tags asking why didn't Jack turn into a skeleton sooner if he was one the entire time, claiming Jack's entire fight Will makes no sense since he was just immortal anyway, complaining how it ruins Jack's character for them because of how inconsistent it is, lamenting over how sad it is Jack lived out 10 years as a skeleton, filling his AO3 tags with fix-it fics going "AU: Jack gets to be a mortal human like he always should have been!" And all of this at volumes that create feedback loops pushing other efforts at unique or in-depth engagements with the work out of view. Individually, it wouldn't be exactly "WRONG" if people were posting things with their facts mixed up, but collective consequence of consistently approaching the source material from such a misguided angle would be the establishment of weird fanon that accidentally big chunks of the community from many from interesting, more informed and intentional explorations of the character like "WHAT IF Jack WAS a skeleton the entire time?" or "WHAT IF the curse turned everyone into skeletons, and Will and Elizabeth and Jack all got cursed?" or even more canon-aware takes that just explore "How did it feel to turn into a skeleton on the trust that Will would understand what had to follow?" etc.

That is what's going on here with AWE's ending for Elizabeth and Will. Fans keep reaching two extremely opposite misinterpretations of the source material that either trap Elizabeth in a miscast role of a landlocked housewife or erase their tragedy entirely by assuming there is no meaningful separation for them at all. Both are factually wrong, and that has ripple effects in how the fandom engages with their characters.

You're actually right about that last point that she isn't Penelope--which is why it's nonsense to insist that AWE's text turns her into that trope. It doesn't. And neither does Elvy, for that matter. (And as a tangent, there's a reason the fifth movie is treated by old fans as apocryphal bullshit: it has different writers and retcons multiple things in P1-3, not the least of which Elizabeth and Will's open-ended AWE ending and doesn't justify their drastic shifts in personality and behavior to total resignation.)

These are the canon rules of the Dutchman's contract, establishing how to free Will and prevent triggering his "trap" curse:

Will has to do the job for 10 years IN THE UNDERWORLD.

At the specific sunset ending those 10 years Elizabeth has to meet Will ashore somewhere in the MORTAL WORLD.

That's it.

Yes, technically Elizabeth must "wait for him" because years must pass. But waiting does not require passivity or stasis from her. There is nothing in the third movie's text at all that says she has to suddenly fix herself to land he left her as a part of her "waiting"--the original writers have even said this more than once. Will did not ask her to sign her life away to him, only to keep her husband's fate and love in mind while she lives it however she chooses. She is a pirate and the Pirate King, not only Will's wife. Her home is a gorgeous ship and it can sail wherever she has the will and means to sail. His heart is in a box that can be hidden, carried, defended in more places and means than one. Needing to meet him somewhere specific in 10 years does not mean she has to live at that point for those 10 years--the horizon conveniently is always there no matter where she goes, and "keeping a weather eye" is something sailors can do while they go about their business. She even is shown in her final shot standing next to a boat, with Shipwreck Cove in rowing distance, accessible to one of the biggest pirate harbors in their world after having declared war on the English's economic powers. She's got shit to do, and she CAN do it. And having a baby thrown into the mix doesn't mean she is suddenly on post-partum maternity leave for all 10 years either. Children grow up and are also portable, and people did sail with them--just because she would need to sail a little differently and avoid battles for his sake doesn't mean she suddenly could forever go nowhere or do nothing for herself.

All of this is true, as defined by the text of the third movie--that ending is not taking any of that away from her. Their tragedy is written an open door fans to explore how she or he could pursue change. And the writers of the original trilogy encouraged that line of thinking--it was part of the intent of the ending that their fates are open and ambiguous. If she was willing to go the lengths she did to resurrect Jack, it is obvious she go to similar lengths for her soulmate, that even with their separation and restrictions, she absolutely could do something about it.

But there are still SOME limits. Even if she has all that freedom, the canon ending is still meant to be at least somewhat tragic, however permanent or temporary is the part that's originally undefined. There are thematic and narrative things the story is trying to say by making them have that tragic separation, with equal measures of doubt and hope that they can pull through it. Him giving her his heart the way he does means what it does BECAUSE of that separation. And it is also specific and explicit to their separation that she cannot easily go on the Dutchman in the condition that the movie leaves them both.

The Dutchman is a ship of the dead, sailing the seas of the dead--Will is in a literally separate world. That world is only accessible for normal ships via a long, magically obscured journey that would shatter her ship to pieces at its end (shown by the journey of the Hai Peng). That world also has no food or drink for mortals to survive (shown when they almost die of thirst before the Up is Down sequence), so even if she makes it over there, there are physical limits to staying there without dying. That world also cannot be escaped without another vessel she can ride the green flash on at the exact point of sunset. Will could take her back, but then that would break the terms of the contract and curse him--which further dooms their hope of him coming back to her as a free man and partner. She could choose to simply stay with him, but then she would be dead. And if she dies, he cannot be freed from his contract with the Dutchman. And honestly, even if they just stayed dead together, what sort of existence or joy would that even it be? He isn't even wandering normal parts of the afterlife, he is working the passages of a state of limbo.

For ten years, she cannot access him easily. He cannot access her easily. That tragic fact is a KEY part of their canon ending. It sucks. It sucks for a reason.

BUT again: just because canon says she cannot stay with him aboard the Dutchman or simply go out and flag him down does not mean that canon says she cannot go on quests of her own to find new loopholes or magical solutions to their problems at all. Their separation is not anything like Penelope waiting for Odysseus unless you choose to make it so. Her canon-compliant story from that point is able to be far more like Orpheus and Demeter seeking Will's Eurydice and Persephone, if you understand what she can and cannot do.

And that is spoken as someone who absolutely adores AWE. It is my favorite movie out of the trilogy (and to me there is only a trilogy, there is no other two movies, those never existed, I ignore them, I hate them, they are shit). But I also do very much understand the frustration people have with the way the ending in regards to the Dutchman happens, how it affects Elizabeth specifically, and the romance in general, and also how the movies communicate the function of it all.

Because first of all: most people do not watch those movies dozens of times. Most people who online voice discontent with this ending have, at most, watched the movies maybe three times. Chances are, they actually only watched them once or twice. People who watch the movies again and again are the exception, not the rule. People who also consume commentary, artbooks, and other assorted stuff of the franchise are even rarer.

And first of all, the fact of the matter is: because DMC does not communicate the whole logic behind the curse very well, the moment it is brought up as a complication for the "who is the next captain" plot early in AWE feels very jarring for most people. Because the reason of why the Dutchman is cursed exactly is hinted at in DMC, but it is not explained, so when "oh, but what about not being able to go on land, that sure would suck" comes up in AWE it feels out of nowhere. I do remember the discussion on the movie when it came out - being in the fandom back then. This entire thing feeling jarring to many was a big reason for why in the first few years after AWE came out, a lot of people were like "Oh, this movie is so bad". Which was quite frustrating as a big AWE defender, but... I do by now somewhat get the frustration people had. I mean, while I liked the movie a lot back then (mostly for the worldbuilding and Davy Jones and for Elizabeth being fucking epic), but even I do know I complained a bunch about how it was not well set-up, even though I knew that it was a known fact to the people working on the movie when they worked on it, given the two movies were shot back-to-back, so the general plot was lined out before, even if some details likely will have changed, because no screenplay survives the actual shoot unchanged. But we also know from the cut scenes of DMC that there were two scenes that at least somewhat set up the 10 years part to a degree in a way the theatrical release did not.

But for the general movie going audience... people who saw it back then often would have just seen DMC in 2006, and then AWE a year later. DMC does not communicate the mechanic a whole lot, and someone who only saw DMC in cinema back then, and then AWE a year later... was understandibly lost. Even today, when someone binges the movies... The set up is not done well.

And, from the perspective of the general audience: the Will/Elizabeth romance was a big narrative core. And of course a lot of what DMC and AWE are is kind of a result of the general "CotBP was written as a standalone, but now we got to do two sequels, but we already had a happy end so what to do now?" thing. Which largely for Will and Elizabeth meant the movies had to throw a wrench into that happy end, because... well, back then it was common understanding that a blockbuster needed a secondary romantic conflict to carry stuff. So, yeah, they needed romantic tension and could not just have Will and Liz be in a stable relationship. There needed to be at least one driving romantic subplot. And due to this, well... a lot of people who are and were invested in it felt kinda cheated out of the happy end they thought they were guaranteed, and that by a plot mechanic that was really not well set-up, or in fact even explained that well even in AWE. To a lot of people it felt like "tragic for tragedy's sake". You can argue about the validity of that reading. I personally do think that yes, it was planned ahead, the lore was just not well-communicated, which likely has to do with it being very ambitious movies that also were a big investment, meaning that in the final cut there were hundreds of people who made decisions in what the movie was in the end and at times people who are bound in the process think something is obvious that for the end viewer it is not.

Again: the average person reacting to a movie has not seen that movie more than three times, if even that often.

But lastly, well... Look, my personal head canon is also that Elizabeth spent those ten years having all sorts of adventures as a pirate and being fucking badass. But, I sadly also am a person who has been forced to do all the media analysis thing. And if a character has a big scene where they say good-bye to every other character, and then are last scene staring longingly at the sea, and then only have one more scene - a post credit scene - where they are still staring longingly at the sea 10 years later, what the movie communicates with this is: "This character has now spent 10 years staring at this sea." And, well, in the most charitable reading of the intentions of whoever made the decision to have this, it is because they were very aware of Elizabeth being the main character, and the traditional hero's journey (which is still being used as a blueprint in Hollywood as it is the baseline for the "Save the Cat" beatsheet that about 90% of all Hollywood movies are forced to adhere to, no matter how fucking bullshit that is) the hero does eventually return home being changed. So, the nice reading that does not assume "this is misogynist bullcrap" is "Liz is the hero and as such should return home". The, in my view, more likely truth behind it all is more along the lines of: "Some suit at some point late in development made the decision that ending a movie on a woman being empowered was not a thing you could do in 2007, so fuck everything the movies have done with this character to this point, she is gonna be good woman doing good womanly things like waiting on the shore for her hero and being a mom."

Like, again, I do not agree with this. I think it is bullshit. I think it is being untrue to both the story of the trilogy and the characters in question. But I also cannot look at what the movie presents - especially with the big "good bye" - and conclude that "actually the movie wanted to communicate that obviously she spent 10 years being the Pirate King and only returned to that shore with the kid to say hi to Will when he came back".

Again: in my headcanon that is also what happened. She was a pirate king and had a bunch of awesome adventures during those 10 years. Because her waiting at the shore is bullshit and always was bullshit.

But it also is what the movie does communicate based on how it sets her going to shore up, and how it frames it, especially given that the movie exists in the context of other media which always gave the baseline for a woman to, well, do that.

I hate this, yes. I headcanon it away as well. I think headcanoning it away is reasonable. But I also do know that a lot of people talking about those movies do not have elaborate headcanons, or have watched the movie a whole lot, or are even aware of deleted scenes, or the books, or really anything existing. Most people watch the movie once, and go "Well, the romance ending like that felt kinda unsatisfying" and "Elizabeth's story ending like this felt unfitting for it", and then they post it, and then that's about it.

And the primary question here is not what exactly makes viewers come to the wrong conclusion to begin with--dissecting the viewing experience is interesting, but it is a completely separate thread of conversation. We're discussing the fandom discourse itself and the processes of responding and interacting with it.

The point is: regardless of the reason, misinterpretation of the Will and Elizabeth plot point happens and it happens often. Pointing out the truth can add to the conversation in a way that enables infrequent viewers to make their own more informed decisions about what they think about it and engage with material differently, because fan chatter is capable of becoming repeated trivia.

For example, there's the deleted line from Beckett and Jack's parlay for Shipwreck Cove where they reference him refusing to participate in the slave trade. It has become such a viral "Did you know?" moment that it pops up all the time as something even casual viewers have become aware of. Or for another example: in the Lord of the Rings fandom, enough people have started to talk about why the question of using the Eagles to go to Mordor makes no sense, that it's not as commonly voiced of a "plot hole" as it used to be. It's possible for the same thing to happen with this ending, with explanation and discussion.

So we've explained, and hopefully more people understand.