Tia Dalma, played by Naomie Harris, is a fictional character from the movie
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and a primary character in the
movie Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, in which a significant
amount of the plot revolves around her and her powers. It is revealed in At
World's End that she is actually the sea goddess Calypso.
Name The name implies several linguistic
possibilities stemming from Portuguese to Spanish.
Tia is both Portuguese and Spanish for "aunt". Dalma could be a reference to
the colloquial Caribbean Spanish del mar, "of the sea". It could also be a
reference to Spanish de Alma, or Portuguese da alma, which means "of the
soul". It could be derived from "Hypatia" meaning "highest, supreme"
Character history Little is known about Tia Dalma's past
before the release of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, except for an
association with Jack Sparrow at some point prior to his recruitment of Hector
Barbossa in Tortuga. It is also known that she was Davy Jones' lover, and made
him the captain of The Flying Dutchman. Jack also claims that she has tried to
kill him before, although she claimed "he enjoyed it at the time", which Jack
concedes to, admitting to having enjoyed it.
Before the Brethren Court confined her to a human body, she was the goddess
Calypso. Jack confessed to having "known" her at a time when they had been
"nigh inseparable" — Tia had provided him with his strange compass: a
mysterious device that pointed to what the user wants most. When Calypso was
captured, the pirates had tamed the sea, but also became less hardy, as regretted
by Barbossa. As she no longer had power over the sea, she turned to Obeah magic
to predict what it would do on its own. In the Jack Sparrow prequel books, Tia
Dalma is said to have transformed a girl named Constance Magilore into a cat. It
is also revealed that Jack has known her since he was a teenager.
= Dead Man's Chest= Tia Dalma was originally the goddess
Calypso. During this time, Davy Jones fell in love with her. Calypso gave him
the task of guiding the spirits of the dead lost at sea and Jones accepted the
task out of love for her. However, she scorned him when he returned to see her
ten years later. Feeling jilted, Davy Jones made a secret
agreement with the Pirate Lords. He showed them how to bind her to human
form using Pieces of Eight; and thus, at the first Brethren Court, the pirates
captured Calypso, and bound her to a human body. Her binding tamed the seas
and satisfied Jones's desire for vengeance. This entrapment could only be
reversed if the Brethren Court reassembled, resubmitted the original
nine Pieces of Eight they used to bind her, and burned them.
During her human sojourn she was commonly called Tia Dalma. She was
unaware of the crucial role that her former inamorato, Jones, had played in
her imprisonment. Little of Tia Dalma's past is known from
this point on, save for an association with pirates like James Sterling and
Jack Sparrow. By the time Sparrow turned 16, Tia Dalma was already established on
the Pantano River, and was considered to be the greatest mystic in the Caribbean.
She returned to Jack the eye of Stone-Eyed Sam along with two beads that
allowed him to summon the spirit of Montecuhzoma to defeat the phantom
Hernán Cortés. Later, during a meeting with the crew of the Barnacle, Dalma
professed to have divined something of Sparrow's future, and seemed to be aware
that the Chest of Cortés would play a part in his later life. It was during
this time that Dalma provided Sparrow with catnip; the means to return
Constance Magliore to her human form, after Dalma herself transformed the girl
into a cat. In the late 1720s, the Pharaoh Taharka
from the island of Kerma visited Tia Dalma in her shack, searching for a cure
for his ill son, Prince Aniba. Tia Dalma had the cure, but she demanded a
payment, and Taharka went to search for it. Taharka finally obtained the cure,
but he was soon killed during the rogue pirate attack. The cure was destroyed,
and Aniba died. It was thought that Tia and Sparrow
became lovers at some point during the latter's adult life—Jack confessed to
having "known" her at a time when they had been "inseparable"—and Dalma
provided him with his compass; a mysterious device that pointed to that
which its user truly wanted. Many years after she and Sparrow last
parted ways, he returned to her in need of her assistance. Pursued across the
Caribbean by the dreaded Kraken, he planned to find the Dead Man's Chest,
and in doing so taking control of Davy Jones's heart, resting within, and
ensuring his control over Jones and his Kraken. Although Tia seemed pleased to
see Jack upon his arrival at her shack, she appeared more interested in his
companion, Will Turner, to whose boyish good looks Tia was instantly attracted.
She told Will that he had "a touch of destiny", confusing Will as to what she
knows. Jack, with more than a touch of jealousy wanted to get straight to
business. A series of trades took place, leaving
Jack with the location of the Flying Dutchman—divined by Tia through the
"reading" of crab claws—and a jar of dirt to protect him from Jones, while
Dalma now found herself in the possession of an undead monkey belonging
to the late Captain Barbossa. Sparrow departed with his crew to track down
Davy Jones, leaving Dalma alone in her shack—or so they believed.
Jack's crew would soon return to Tia Dalma's shack, but this time without
their Captain. Jack had fallen to the Kraken, going down with his ship as the
beast dragged the Black Pearl down to Davy Jones' Locker. Tia had apparently
foreseen this eventuality, and informed the mourning crew that there was a
chance to save Jack. Their journey would take them to World's End, but, though
Tia would be joining them on their quest, they would need the leadership of
a Captain who knew the waters of World's End. With that, she introduced the
resurrected Barbossa to the stunned crew.
It appeared that Tia had been responsible, either partly or perhaps
completely, for Barbossa's return to the world of the living after Jack shot him
in the heart on Isla de Muerta a year earlier. Tia, seemingly more powerful
than any of the crew could have guessed, seemed set to lend her mystical aid to
the return of Captain Jack Sparrow at World's End.
= At World's End= Tia Dalma joins Barbossa, Will,
Elizabeth, and the rest of the Black Pearl's motley crew as they travel to
Singapore. There, they infiltrate Sao Feng's headquarters to acquire the
navigational chart needed to sail to World's End and Davy Jones' Locker,
barely escaping the clutches of the East India Trading Company. On the journey,
she explains to Pintel and Ragetti that Jack Sparrow cannot be resurrected the
same way Barbossa was because Sparrow was "taken" by the Kraken while Barbossa
died from normal, earthly causes, having been shot by Jack. When the crew finds
Sparrow on the shores of the Locker and ask him to join them in their quest to
defeat Jones he retorts that four of the crew had tried to kill him, and one
actually succeeded. Tia flirtatiously responds that Jack enjoyed her fury at
the time, which causes Jack to smile nostalgically, a hint that they might
have had a romantic relationship. As the group searches for an escape
route back to the mortal world, they encounter numerous souls adrift in the
water. They see Elizabeth's father, who says 'he feels dead' and that he is also
'proud of her'. Tia Dalma says 'she mustn't leave the ship'. Will then
restrains Elizabeth, and Tia Dalma explains that Davy Jones' duty as
captain of the Flying Dutchman was to ferry the souls of those who died at sea
into the next world, and every ten years for one day he could come ashore to be
with the woman he loved. Believing that his true love, the sea goddess Calypso,
had abandoned him when he did come ashore, he abandoned his duty and became
the monster he is now as a result. While caressing her locket, she reminisces
that he was once human. It is revealed that Tia Dalma is
actually Calypso, bound into human form, and that she is actually more powerful
than she first appeared in Dead Man's Chest. Her true motives for resurrecting
Barbossa and Jack are unveiled when it is learned that both are Pirate Lords of
the Brethren Court. Each has their respective "Pieces of Eight", the
talismans necessary to free Calypso. She resurrected Barbossa to obtain his
piece, and aided Jack's rescue because his Piece went with him to Davy Jones'
Locker. Upon arrival at Shipwreck Cove, she reminds Barbossa of her power by
gripping his hand and temporarily rendering it skeletal. She angrily warns
him that it was only by her power that he is alive again and to fulfill their
agreement or else Barbossa would be doomed with death if she did not become
released from her human bonds. Undeterred, Barbossa locks her in the
brig until she is to be released from her human shell. She and her estranged
lover, Davy Jones, briefly reunite while she is imprisoned. Calypso says she
still feels deeply for Jones, and meets his anger for her failure to meet him on
the appointed day by saying that Jones never would have loved her if not for
her uncontrollable and unpredictable nature. Calypso also chastises him for
failing his duty to ferry souls to the other world. It was because he neglected
his charges that Jones corrupted his mind and soul and became a monster.
Calypso is also furious that the Pirate Lords trapped her in her human form.
Thus, her true motives are revealed: she plans to use her powers against the
current court in revenge for the original act of turning her into a
human. She will also fully give her love to Jones, and it appears they reconcile.
When she touches Jones, he momentarily transforms back into the man he once
was. Jones' parting words betray that his heart will always belong to her.
As the battle between the East India Trading Co. armada and the pirates
looms, Barbossa burns the nine Pieces of Eight in an unsuccessful attempt to free
Calypso. It is Ragetti who releases her by properly whispering the incantation,
as if speaking to a lover "Calypso, I release you from your human bonds".
Before Calypso is fully freed, Will tells her that it was Davy Jones who
betrayed her by revealing to the first Brethren Court how to bind her into her
human form, enraging her. Bound by ropes, she grows to nearly sixty feet
high, towering over the crew. Barbossa asks that she fulfill their agreement
and use her powers to aid the pirates. Laughing, "Malfaiteur en Tombeau,
Crochir l'Esplanade, Dans l'Fond d'l'eau!". Speaking in a form of French
Creole roughly translated, Calypso is saying "To your graves wrongdoers, I
bend your path, to the depths of the sea", cursing the brethren court for
binding her into human form. Calypso breaks free, transforming herself into
thousands of small crabs that engulf the ship and flee into the sea. Her fury
then creates a violent hurricane and maelstrom that becomes the battlefield
between the Black Pearl and the Flying Dutchman. Instead of aiding a particular
side, her wrath is vented both at the pirate lords for imprisoning her and
Davy Jones for his betrayal. The extreme conditions of the storm neutralize both
the Pearl's speed and the Dutchman's firepower, permitting a fair fight.
Later, Jones' last word would be the name of his lover before he tumbled into
the abyss she created, becoming part of the sea at last.
Personality and appearance In Dead Man's Chest, Tia appears to be
quite mysterious and enigmatic. Her personality is flirty and playful, and
she likes talking in riddles, perhaps taking joy in allowing people to figure
things out by themselves. She speaks in Jamaican Patois with a typical West
Indian accent, pronouncing her "th"'s as "d"'s. The movie-based comic series of
the same name depicted Tia Dalma barefoot, which was seen in At World's
End. Tia Dalma's name is an anagram of Dalmatia, a region whose coast was a
haven for pirates when it was known as the Roman province of Illyricum and
prior to that, the pirate kingdom of Illyria, ruled at one time by the pirate
Queen Teuta. In At World's End, when she is finally
revealed as Calypso, she appears to be a stern but benevolent goddess, but if
roused to anger, her fury knows no bounds.
Other appearances In Kingdom Keepers, Tia Dalma appears
near the fifth book of the series, Shell Game, as a member of the Overtakers.
Having set up residence in Castaway Cay, she meets with Jafar, who had been sent
by the Overtakers to bring her aboard the Dream. Serving as the guardian of
the Overtakers' DHI server, she fights with Finn and Willa, only to be given a
death threat unless she released Finn's mother from Overtaker control. In the
sixth book, Dark Passage, she works with the witches Maleficent and the Evil
Queen to bring Chernabog out of his stupor and back to full power; she burns
a key flower and tricks Finn into fatally stabbing his best friend,
allowing Chernabog to lick the blood and fully awaken. She is knocked out, and
taken hostage by the Keepers. In the final book The Insider, Tia Dalma
escapes custody and searches through the maze, freeing Chernabog and the Evil
Queen, while collecting some of Maleficent's bones; she was horrified
that a powerful praticioner of the black arts had been killed. She manipulates a
supply driver for Disneyland to get herself and her allies to their new
hideouts. She originally leads the attack against the Keepers in Toontown,
but forfeits leadership to the Queen. Tia Dalma instead focused on the spell
needed to resurrect Maleficent. Notes and references
External links Tia Dalma at the Pirates of the
Caribbean wiki