Pirates of the Caribbean: Every Main Character, Ranked By Intelligence

The Pirates of the Caribbean movies boast a range of diverse main characters. Each has something unique that makes the movies all the better, with most of the characters appearing across multiple movies.

Some of the main characters are extremely brave, and some more cowardly. Some are good at being pirates, with that lawless selfishness needed to successfully plunder the seas, and others are just too pure. And, perhaps most notably, some are hugely intelligent and others just can’t seem to keep up with the cleverest of the main characters.

10 Bootstrap Bill

Bootstrap Bill was trapped with Davy Jones until he was freed by his son, drowned in the ocean and brought back to serve the Flying Dutchman under some sort of cursed life as what was essentially a pirate zombie. He might have been more together when he was alive but ultimately, the starfish attached to his face seems to have gotten through to his brain. He would often trail off mid-sentence and forget what he was talking about, especially when serving Davy Jones and although he loved Will, he wasn’t quick to catch onto his plans — like jumping into a gambling game for him when it was completely unnecessary.

9 Mr. Gibbs

Mr. Gibbs is loyal (ish) to Jack Sparrow, and a good crewmate to have because of his many years of experience at sea. Ultimately though, he spends most of his time drunk and seems to have damaged most of his brain cells. He’s not particularly quick on the uptake, though he makes up for this with other great qualities, and definitely isn’t the academic sort. Academia doesn’t define intelligence, but nothing about Mr. Gibbs does either.

8 James Norrington

James Norrington is the academic sort. He presumably worked hard to get to the position he’s in, and seems to have a smartass vibe which might actually suggest high intelligence. In the real world, however, it would seem he’s not smart in every way. His inability to be streetwise and pull himself together means he ranks pretty low in intelligence when considering every type of it — though his sacrifice for Elizabeth totally made up for anything else he was lacking in. He went down a hero.

7 Davy Jones

For such a badass villain, one might expect Davy Jones to have been super intelligent, but he loses so many points on this for being outwitted by Jack Sparrow on more than one occasion and for showing Will Turner exactly where he kept his key — when it was entirely unnecessary. His own arrogance was his downfall, and he wasn’t intelligent enough to reign it in.

6 Henry Turner

Henry Turner was able to figure out how to save his father from an eternity of misery and reunite his parents, so he gets points for that. Ultimately, he was still young though, without the life experience of most characters in this franchise which led to him making quite a lot of near-fatal mistakes.

The older he gets, the higher he might climb on an intelligence-ranking list though.

5 Barbossa

Barbossa is one of the smarter characters in the series. Points off, of course, for how he handled the cursed gold and the fact he was outwitted by the other main characters at the end of the first movie — but he commanded The Black Pearl pretty effectively and made a few clever moves during his time in the movies.

4 Will Turner

Will Turner didn’t start out in the movies as particularly smart. He made rash decisions due to his love for Elizabeth, and he had no experience outside of the port he worked at as a blacksmith.

But as he moved into becoming a pirate, his plans became well-formulated and he learned quickly about what was needed to survive in the world. His impressive adaptability and the fact he even outsmarted Davy Jones makes him a very intelligent man indeed.

3 Carina Smyth

When one considers Carina’s lack of life experience and notes how smart she is despite her youth, it has to be said — she’s so naturally intelligent, and it’s easy to tell from the way she doesn’t suffer fools gladly.

She also dedicated herself to studying astronomy and science, which truly elevated her own knowledge far beyond that of most. The life experience, she later gained thanks to her relationship with Henry.

2 Elizabeth Swann

Elizabeth grew up the privileged daughter of a governor and still gravitated towards the pirate life anyway. Overall, she’s one of the smartest characters around. She was outwitting Barbossa while barely a grown woman and went on to even trick Jack Sparrow into his death at the hands — or tentacles — of the Kraken. Clever but often manipulative, she made herself known as a woman never to be messed with. She even ends up as a pirate king.

1 Jack Sparrow

Although he has his weaknesses — like women, hence being tricked by Elizabeth — Jack Sparrow is not as stupid as he often made himself out to be in the movies. He’s actually very intelligent, able to get out of any troublesome situation and put himself back on top time and time again. Perhaps his constant act of being stupid was even just to force people to underestimate him, therefore putting himself at a constant advantage.

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