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Pirate Booty: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|'''[[Only Sane Man|Sissy Pirate:]]''' ''"Uh, captain? Captain? I know we usually bury the treasure, but what if, this time, we use it to buy things? You know... eh... things we like."''
'''Captain:''' [shoots him, then looks at his other men, who furiously begin digging a hole] ''"[[Talk Like a Pirate|Ahhr!]] We'll dig up the treasure in seven yarr. I've drawn a [[Treasure Map|map]] on this cracker, which [[Pirate Parrot|Polly]] will [[What Could Possibly Go Wrong?|hold for safe keepin']]."''
|''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'', on why there is treasure buried ''everywhere''. }}
In media the goal of every [[Pirate]] is to [[Plunder]] shipping for the [[Inexplicable Treasure Chests|large wooden chests]] overflowing with gold, jewels and other valuable trinkets invariably carried by every vessel on the high seas. Mundane cargoes carried in the ships' holds are completely ignored as cackling buccaneers make off with their ill-gotten riches, which they then buried or hid in a cave on a remote island, with only a [[Treasure Map]] to remind them of the location.
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{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==
*
** First off, the [[MacGuffin Title]] of the manga itself actually refers to the fortune of legendary Pirate Gol D. Roger. Though the exact nature of this "fortune" is arguably the greatest mystery in the series. It's merely the prestige of having been the only one since Roger to make it to the end of the world that will make whoever finds it the pirate king. In all likelihood, the actual ''treasure'' as in silver and gold aspect of the One Piece is probably rather meagre. Speculations on what it could be range from a single piece of eight (It is ONE piece, after all) to a one piece bathing suit that Roger was fond of.
*** "Arguably", nothing. Oda has gone on record saying that the real meaning behind the name "One Piece" is his best-kept secret. The only real hints we get about what it actually is come from Whitebeard, who seems to imply that it does have genuine importance (ruling out the sillier or purely symbolic theories), but it is probably not the "silver and gold" kind of treasure either (at least not completely). Oda ''has'', however, gone on the record saying that One Piece ''is'' indeed a physical reward to be gained by whoever finds it and not some sort of spiritual or allegorical concept, such as "the journey is its own reward."
*** Seeing as Roger was one of the few able to read the poneglyph tablets and knew more than most about the Void Century and the three Ancient Weapons, one could theorize that One Piece has something to do with one or both.
*** The closest the protagonists ever truly came to finding out what it was came in the Sabaody Archipelago Arc when Usopp tried to ask Silvers Rayleigh about it. Luffy angrily interrupted, indicating that he did ''not'' under ''any'' circumstances want to simply be told about it, stating that such knowledge would defeat their purpose. It seems likely that someone will ''eventually'' find out what One Piece is, but it won't be that easy.
** The sky island arc is driven by the search for treasure as well, and after saving the entire island from civil war and evil overlords with god complexes, the Strawhats decide to steal a whole bunch of treasure from those people they just saved and make off in the night. Made hilarious by the fact that as they made their escape, they were pursued by the sky islanders who they thought were trying to stop them, but were instead attempting to give them a huge golden pillar worth many times that of the loot they'd stolen. To show their appreciation. The islanders eventually gave up and let the Strawhats think they were being all evil and
*** Note that this was [[The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything|the first time the Strawhats committed anything resembling a real act of piracy]].
** ''[[One Piece Gold]]'', the 13th movie, was all about greedy villains with [[Gold Fever]].
** In general, this trope is mostly averted as, while pirates do focus on treasure a lot, they're ''equally'' keen on spending it. The only two who really value treasure for its own sake are Nami (who has an obvious [[Money Fetish]]) and Buggy (and it's implied that that tendency is a big part of why [[Can't Catch Up|he's so weak]] compared to his former [[Heterosexual Life Partner]] [[Big Good|Shanks]]).
* An episode of ''[[Transformers Headmasters]]'' revolved around the Autobots and Decepticons trying to get a massive stockpile of energy hidden on a [[Space Pirate]] [[Planet of Hats|Planet]].
==
* ''[[Tintin]]'' in ''[[Tintin/Recap/The Secret of the Unicorn|The Secret of the Unicorn]]'' (a ship) and ''[[Tintin/Recap/Red Rackham's Treasure|Red Rackham's Treasure]]'' combines this with a [[Pirate]] [[Desert Island|treasure island]] and a [[Dismantled MacGuffin]] [[Treasure Map]].
== Film ==
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* In ''[[The Goonies]]'', Mikey finds a [[Treasure Map]] leading to the "rich stuff" of legendary pirate [[Getting Crap Past the Radar|One-Eyed Willy]].
* In ''[[Treasure of Swamp Castle]]'', the [[MacGuffin]] of the film is the treasure.
== Literature ==
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* ''[[Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea]]'' depicts Captain Nemo as salvaging sunken treasure. He justified it by saying that the treasure's former owners had been dead for centuries.
▲== Live Action Television ==
* We probably ought to mention the reality game show ''Pirate Master''. There wasn't any plundering involved, but all they really did was look for treasure.
* Justified in the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' episode ''The Curse of the Black Spot''—the pirate in question was [[wikipedia:Henry Every|Henry Every]], one of the very few pirates to actually get his hands on a cargo of gold and jewels (and the episode even specified that it was the Mughal's treasure).
** The [[Big Finish]] audio adventure ''[[Big Finish Doctor Who/Recap/043 Doctor Who and the Pirates|Doctor Who and the Pirates]]'' features just about every pirate trope, including buried treasure.
* The ''[[Bones]]'' episode "The Man with the Bone" was based on the [[wikipedia:Oak Island|Oak Island Money Pit]], rumoured to be a burial place of some of Captain Kidd's treasure (or maybe Blackbeard's.)
== Music ==
* The song "Pirates" by Emerson, Lake and Palmer, which squeezes just about every pirate movie
** NB The remix version on the ''Return of the Manticore'' box set has better sound quality than the original.
* Scottish pirate-metal band Alestorm.
== Video Games ==
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* Most of treasure in ''[[Dubloon]]'' can be found by digging, [[Guide Dang It|with varying levels of invisibility]].
* The missing man in ''[[Mystery Case Files]]: 13th Skull'' has been searching for pirate treasure. If you're playing the Collector's Edition, the Master Detective actually finds it still stashed in a locked cabin on one of Captain Crown's ships.
== Web Comics ==
* ''[[Servants of the Imperium]]'': The initial plot arc follows the party as they race to find the hoard of a crew of legendary [[Space Pirates]].
== Western Animation ==
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* One episode of the ''[[Donkey Kong Country (animation)|Donkey Kong Country]]'' cartoon brought Scurvy and his crew into the plot by having them trying to find some treasure they buried on Kongo Bongo's beaches. It turns out burying treasure is part of [[The Code]], article and section and everything.
* Shows up on ''[[Jimmy Two-Shoes]]'', when Lucius accidently digs it up.
== Real Life ==
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* On the rare occasions where a pirate ''did'' manage to get their hands on massive piles of gold and silver, they generally wound up becoming quite famous. For example, Francis Drake earned a knighthood and status as one of the founding heroes of the British Empire, largely by stealing Spanish treasure. Tons of it.
** Of course, he didn't bury it; he took it back to England. Where, predictably, most of his crew spent their shares of the treasure on drinking and whoring, also known as "the fun way" of putting said treasure into your sponsor nation's economy.
* Just [[Ripped from the Headlines|fresh from the headlines]]{{when}}: [[Adventurer Archaeologist|certain US company]] lifted from the seafloor the load of [[Wooden Ships and Iron Men|early XIX-Century Spanish frigate sank by English privateers]], worth about half a billion USD. The Spanish government went to courts, arguing that it's their gold (for added fun, one of the other claimants—who were quick to jump in for the cash—was Peru, apparently as the source of Spanish colonial gold). It seems this is not the first time something like this happens; Spaniards, as it seems, won this time, so, before finding an old treasure, best make sure nobody can track their lineage to original owners.
** Salvage laws can be so incomprehensibly torturous that there are several very valuable wrecks whose locations are known today that have not been recovered because the value of the booty would be
* A Letter of Marque is basically a government license to plunder and act like a pirate. It's even explicitly authorized in the US Constitution! Though, spoil-sports in the 19th century agreed not to authorize them any more, and it is considered a war crime today.
**For which advancement they substituted by using submariners on naval pay which were to small to carry prisoners, to fragile to stay on the surface long enough to collect a prize, and satisfied to fight for destruction rather then plunder.
* Real treasure of course often has a bunch of tough dudes guarding it, naturally enough. Which makes it a good idea to stay away from it. That is why the optimal pirate booty is simply slaves. It is fairly easy to gut a small coastal village and get away before the local [[The Patriarch|chief,]] [[The Sheriff|Sheriff]] or [[Feudal Overlord]] comes down with a posse,even assuming he exists and cares about the matter and has enough muscle to interfere. And slaves will sell well. Gold and jewels while glamorous are [[Sarcasm Mode|more important things]] then the freedom of strangers and hence will have a lot of attention paid to it.
* It is believed by some -- including a number of people who've spent their lives working on it -- that a massive treasure is buried on [[w:Oak Island mystery|Oak Island]], in Nova Scotia, Canada, protected by an elaborate set of traps. The earliest stories about it, dating to the 18th century, allege that it was gold buried by [[w:William Kidd|Captain Kidd]], although later mutations have turned the gold into the treasure of the Templars and even [[Public Domain Artifact#The Ark of the Covenant|the Ark of the Covenant]].
{{reflist}}
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