Elizabeth Swan
Throughout the trilogy, Elizabeth Swann is portrayed as a spirited, intelligent, and independent-minded character who often chafes at the restrictions her gender and social rank impose upon her. Early on in the first movie she is portrayed as someone who often fantasizes about pirates and life at sea. This fantasy may have been fueled somewhat by her association with another character, Will Turner, who twelve-year-old Elizabeth met when she and her father, Governor Weatherby Swann were en route to Port Royal eight years earlier. Will, also about eleven, was found adrift at sea, the sole survivor of a pirate attack. During his rescue, Elizabeth briefly glimpsed a mysterious ship slipping into the mist—a vessel foreshadowing her destiny.
The story continues eight years later, and Elizabeth is now a marriageable age. But in an era when matrimony is still a common means to forge strategic political alliances and advantageous social connections rather than joyful, passionate unions, she is expected to wed a respectable and prosperous man equal or superior to her in rank. Elizabeth prefers to marry for love, however, and it appears that she secretly harbors feelings for Will Turner. But Will, a common blacksmith, is an unsuitable match for such a well-born lady. And though Will loves Elizabeth, he knows his place and keeps his feelings deeply hidden. Governor Swann, meanwhile, desires that his daughter marry Commodore James Norrington, a respected Royal Navy officer who Elizabeth admires but does not love. Ironically, it is Norrington who sets events into motion that not only alter Elizabeth's fate, but also his own and Will's.
