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I'm talking about Captain Hook, well, other things than Captain Hook in Peter Pan
Chapter 14. This is my quick review of it and here we go. So I find it really
interesting that the name of Hook's ship is given in the book as Jolly Roger. I'm
familiar with Jolly Roger as being the flag of the pirates with the skull and
crossbones, the black flag. So I looked into that a little bit to find out a
little bit about it and I'll get back to that in a minute. I've also been intrigued
with Hook's history and who he is. I kind of assumed that maybe he was Jim
Hawkins from Treasure Island. However, because the book talks about him
interacting with Barbecue, who is Long John Silver from Treasure Island, but it
also talks about him interacting with Blackbeard. And this book was published
in 1904. I don't know when the book is supposed to take place. It might be
before 1904, but still it talks about these men as if they're real or at least
they're real for Hook. And I find that to be pretty interesting. So I've kind of
speculated about who Hook is. Again, I thought he was Jim Hawkins. And I think
maybe now he's not Jim Hawkins because he seems like he's more of a a little
bit more of a modern figure, a little bit more of a contemporary figure for
who. He seems like he's a little bit more of a contemporary figure and I
think that that's probably accurate. So I looked up Blackbeard the pirate as well
to kind of talk about that. And then I want to talk about... actually I'm gonna go
back to that real quick. So Jolly Roger, that name specifically is the the name
of the skull and crossbones. It's from the 19th century. It seems to be linked
to Barbary Pirates and that's definitely... well it looks like it's also from the
18th century maybe. Hmm. Anyway, it's also called the Death's Head flag but yeah
the Jolly Roger is supposed to be that flag with the skull and crossbones on it.
But Hook calls his ship that and I'm not 100% sure why. I tried to look it up and
I couldn't really find a good... I couldn't really find a good answer as to
why. So it just kind of leads us to speculate what was going on with that.
Apparently it comes from the French Jolirouge which means pretty red.
I don't think it means a beautiful red. I think it means like very red but I don't
know for sure. And apparently it was because... well the the online speculation
I saw was because either pirate ships were red back at the time or because
they would become... when pirates would board your ship it would become pretty
red with all the blood that they would shed. So I'm not exactly sure if that's
the case or not but I did find it very interesting that Jolly Roger is Captain
Hook's ship's name and I just thought that was kind of compelling. Hook seems
to be very much the iconic image of a pirate and I almost wondered if it was
possible that Jolly Roger came from him but no it's it's from before so that's
good to know. And then Hook's mysterious past seems to hint that he's a real
world person but then again it talks about him having dealt with Blackbeard
the pirate who kids would have heard of but he lived in the 18th century so 1717
I'm seeing. Let me just read a little bit about Blackbeard the pirate because you
know where does it put Hook in context? It says by the fall of 1717 Blackbeard was
operating off Delaware and Chesapeake Bays in conjunction with two other
pirates Benjamin Hornigold and Stead Bonnet or Stead Bonnet I don't know. In
1718 Blackbeard sailed the Queen Anne's Revenge to the Bay of Honduras on
November 22nd 1718 Blackbeard was killed in a battle off Ocracoke Island, North
Carolina by a British naval expedition personally funded by Virginia Governor
Alexander Spottswood. These dates indicate that Blackbeard was
active as a pirate from at least 1717 until his death in 1718. Wow one year and
he has that much of a reputation apparently his name was originally
Edward Teach and I don't know where the name Blackbeard came from so that's
really interesting I had no idea this guy had such a short-lived time as a
pirate I would have thought it would have been I thought it would have been
longer I thought it would have been older too to hear that he was operating well 17
let's see yeah those dates 1776 is when the America was created so he was
harassing the the British colonies it looks like which is kind of interesting
but the book you know is written and published in 1904 could have been from
somewhere near that time let's say the book supposedly took place at in 1900
that's still a long ways away and it's surprising that Blackbeard would have
been that old but then again you know how old is Peter Pan how old is Captain
Hook how long have they been there it's kind of unknown and I find that to be
pretty interesting the connections to the the public school that hook went to
them and like what his true identity is it's kind of strange and I don't know I
don't know what to do with that other than think that he's all the stuff about
his true identity it's just kind of mystique that buried through in there
and that's about it that's about it it's interesting how how cruel he is when the
boys refused to to join with him he's gonna make them walk the plank and he
has Smee tie Wendy to the mast to watch all her children die and he was he was
about to turn her face towards the plank so that she could watch them walk the
plank she watched all her children die when the tick talking of the croc
scared him off and then he went and hit it and ran away that's how the chapter
ends and then we learned that it's actually not the crocodile it's
somebody else mmm but it's interesting because she speaks on behalf of all
their mothers and she says that she hopes that her sons or that these boys
would die like English gentlemen and the defiance and the pride of a mother
that's on display through Wendy is really interesting and kind of it's a
really fun thing and it's it goes back to something I've talked about earlier
that there's this interesting spectrum of humanity shown there's these different
sides of men and women of the masculine and feminine of mothers and sons that
are shown in this book and it's really interesting because you know you would
think that oh no she's you know a mother she's a girl should be scared of this
but instead she does you know command them to to die like English gentlemen
which means like without whimpering without fear just go silently and die
because it's better to die with your pride than it is to die whimpering or
even to serve somebody and be bad be you know a dishonorable person and that's
like a really powerful statement and you know this book's silly and it's absurd
but then it has these things in it that are really interesting and really true
and really touch on things that are true in life and from life I find that
fascinating anyway that's it check out the backlog of the rest of the chapter
by chapter discussions I've had of Peter Pan so far we are rapidly nearing the
end of this book and I'm very excited to talk about it as a whole and I encourage
you to check out my website MJ Munoz where you can find all my other book
talks all my other discussions that I've been doing of this and other books as
well as the Fortress Fiction podcast where I have this is a kind of a new
thing where I'm talking about a book chapter by chapter previously I was
talking about a book as a whole and I've done ten or eleven other books before
Peter Pan and Peter Pan struck me as something that deserved to be talked
about in a bigger way and it's something I'd like to do in the future so go ahead
and check that out I'm producing or releasing these about five days a week
is the goal so we can get through a book pretty quickly but at a reasonable pace
and I have some room to breathe as well so I check that out I would appreciate
it and look out for me to announce my own books about magical bugs bad monsters
it'll be released soonish and that I'm working on and I'll have announcements
about that over on my site and hopefully you can also sign up for a newsletter to
check out all my stuff I plan to do a newsletter release once a week to catch
you up on everything that I've been publishing on the website everything
I've been writing myself even if it's not quite yet published so until next
time folks take care and be well and keep reading I hope you enjoyed that go
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