Pirates of the Caribbean Wank
angua9, author of several TL;DR 'essays' on why Ron/Hermione R ment 2 B, wonders why POTC II grossed so much money.


The Jack/Elizabeth shippers credit the "chemistry" of the scenes with Jack and Elizabeth for Dead Man's Chest grossing much higher than Curse of the Black Pearl, and I think they have a point. To a certain extent, PotC 2 has benefited from the legendary "Titanic effect," where obsessed romantics go to see the movie again and again to get their erotic buzz.


So far so sane. But angua9 continues:


Why the J/E Shippers Scare Me
But back to the J/E shippers: I sense a situation building that may be second only to Harry Potter Book Six in the category of tumultuous shipper explosions. The J/E shippers may not be that big a percentage of the viewing audience (25% if this imdb poll can be considered representative), but some of them are hardcore.

The combination of deep emotional attachment to a pairing and well-founded anxiety over whether that pairing will actually prevail has had its usual effect. The fanatic Jack/Elizabeth shippers are, to put it bluntly, insane.



In only two months they have reached a state of vehemency, denial, and elaborate theorizing that easily bears comparison with the most extreme Harry/Hermione shippers at the very height of their illusions. There is no aspect of Harry/Hermione-type extremism that I haven't already seen among J/E shippers. I have already seen J/E referred to as a philosophy: according to a prominent shipper, "J/E is an ideological, philosophical idea." I have seen many declarations that J/E is the only thing that draws them to the PotC movies, that if Jack and Elizabeth end up together it will be one of the greatest (if not the greatest) love story in the history of film, while if Will and Elizabeth end up together the trilogy will be a worthless, hackneyed, cliché-ridden failure, betray all of the film's themes and Jack's character, destroy viewers' romantic idealism, make the third movie a financial flop, and instantly transform the glorious second movie into a meaningless waste of celluloid.


I greatly fear that the J/E shippers having more actuality behind their shippy fantasies will tend to make their response when (and, of course, if) their dreams don't come true even worse than it would have been if they'd had as little justification as J.K. Rowling gave the H/Hr shippers. I would like to count on the fact that they'll only have had ten months to build up their expectations, but considering how far and fast they've progressed already, that doesn't give me much hope. All in all, I expect them to explode in a veritable Calypso's Fury if the much-dreaded and vastly inferior Will/Elizabeth pairing comes to pass. I foresee them agressively spamming the Wordplayer boards with fierce denunciations and accusations of betrayal.


Which, ummm, could be kind of fun to watch, actually.


There is some bonus wank in the comments provided by the trusty duo vanceone and angua9, but that belongs more into hp_cornfield.


ETA: I got it from a mouse on the lol_meme.