Conspiracy Theory - The real secret of monkey island.
What was the secret of monkey island?
The game is excellent, and after playing it, i start thinking in some interesting facts.
Ron Gilbert, the project leader had some influences:
- "on stranger tides" book from Tim Powers
- Disneyland's "Pirates of the Caribbean ride"
- Flying Duchman
- some other stuff
Well, in flying Duchman, The ship's captain is Hendrik van der Decken, who, in 1641
According to most versions, the captain swore that he would not retreat in the face of a storm,
but would continue his attempt to round the Cape of Good Hope even if it took until Judgment Day.
And it did ! the Flying Dutchman started to be a ghost ship that can never go home, and is doomed to sail the oceans forever
The Pirates of the Caribbean movie has many story topics from the flying Duchman as you know...
Cape of good hope (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_of_Good_Hope) is a reference to all Portuguese, it is in South Africa and it's the point that
divides Atlantic ocean from Indic Ocean.
Portuguese Bartolomeu Dias (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartolomeu_Dias) was the first man to pass the cape by sea,
it was in 1488 and he did the first part of the important task to discover the sea path to India.
He originally named the Cape of Good Hope the "Cape of Storms" it was a dangerous place full of storms and difficult conditions.
It was later renamed by Portuguese King D. João II as the Cape of Good Hope because of the opening of a route to the east.
The discovery of the passage around Africa was significant because for the first time Europeans could trade directly with India and the other parts of Asia
Later he went with Vasco da Gama (another important name) to India for the first time by sea.
... in The secret of monkey island (first and original story), LeChuck was a fearsome, bloodthirsty pirate. He fell in love with Governor Elaine Marley after being invited to the governor's mansion
(at the time, it was fairly common practice, although it has since become unheard of). She rebuffed his advances, telling him to "drop dead"... and he so he did; he became a dead ghost pirate...
...very similar to Davy Jones in Pirates of the Caribbean, He fell in love with Calypso, the "heathen god[ess]" of the sea who gave him the charge of ferrying souls which died at sea to the "other side.[24] Calypso gave Davy Jones the Flying Dutchman
to accomplish this task. Why Calypso gave him this charge is unknown. She swore that
after ten years she would meet him and they would spend one day together before he
returned to his duties. He kept to his charge for ten years, knowing he would see his love again.
Calypso however, after those ten years, failed to show up because of her capricious
nature (which had drawn Jones to her in the first place).[25] Enraged and heart-broken, Jones
turned the Pirate Brethren against her.
...and also with connections to cape of good hope... when Vasco da Gama and Bartolomeu Dias try to pass the cape, they found
a mythological character called "Adamastor"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adamastor
Adamastor is a Greek-type mythological character invented by the Portuguese poet Luís de Camões in his epic poem Os Lusíadas (first printed in 1572), as a symbol of the forces of nature Portuguese navigators had to overcome during their discoveries. Camões gave his creation a history as one of the Gigantes of Greek mythology who had been spurned by Thetis, now appearing in the form of a threatening stormcloud to Vasco da Gama and threatening ruin to anyone hardy enough to pass the Cape and penetrate the Indian Ocean, which was Adamaster's domain. Adamastor became the Spirit of the Cape, a hideous phantom of unearthly pallor:
The corresponding verses in the 1572 edition.
"Even as I spoke, an immense shape
Materialised in the night air,
Grotesque and enormous stature
With heavy jowls, and an unkempt beard
Scowling from shrunken, hollow eyes
Its complexion earthy and pale,
Its hair grizzled and matted with clay,
Its mouth coal black, teeth yellow with decay."
Camões, The Lusiads Canto V.
Thetis from the cape of good hope is the same/similar character as Calypso in Pirates of the Caribbean... ... and... Elaine Marley from Monkey Island ...
Well, it's just some facts ... the real secret of monkey island is out there...
I know what it is, do you?
Tiago
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