The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Difference between revisions

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They don't pillage. They don't plunder. They ''[[Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil|certainly]]'' [[Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil|don't rape]]. They don't invade [[Port Town]]s, kidnap beautiful maidens, battle the Royal Navy on the high seas, [[Digital Piracy Is Evil|broadcast without a license, or swap files on the intertubes]]... [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|and they've never been to Boston in the fall]]. The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything, in fact, seem to mostly just drift aimlessly on the high seas, drinking rum and possibly singing sea chanteys. If you ask them, they'll probably just tell you they [[Rule of Cool|like the way it looks on their resume]]. Or maybe they'll just tell you, "We don't do anything."

In general, a member of The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything is any character who, despite having a certain [[canon]]ical job, is rarely seen engaging in that job. They might indeed be a pirate who rarely goes out and steals treasure and raids ships—but they might just as easily be [[The Family for the Whole Family|mobsters who don't steal or smuggle]], [[Shouldn't We Be in School Right Now?|students who don't go to class]], [[Cheers|office workers who never seem to do more than hang out in bars]], or [[ninja]]s who just [[Highly-Visible Ninja|didn't get the memo about that whole "stealthy assassin" thing]].

In general, a member of [[The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything]] is any character who, despite having a certain [[canon]]ical job, is rarely seen engaging in that job. They might indeed be a pirate who rarely goes out and steals treasure and raids ships—but they might just as easily be [[The Family for the Whole Family|mobsters who don't steal or smuggle]], [[Shouldn't We Be in School Right Now?|students who don't go to class]], [[Cheers|office workers who never seem to do more than hang out in bars]], or [[ninja]]s who just [[Highly-Visible Ninja|didn't get the memo about that whole "stealthy assassin" thing]].

This may be because writers and fans are in love with the romanticism implied in a life of adventure and crime, but don't want to actually show the characters doing any of the myriad of things that makes thieves, assassins, mercenaries, [[Bounty Hunter|bounty hunters]], and other unsavory types pariahs in [[Real Life]]. This can result in a strange dissonance where the friendly, [[The Messiah|messianic]] nature of the characters is at odds with the [[Offstage Villainy|openly predatory nature of the professions]] they claim to engage in. May bring [[A Million Is a Statistic]] into play.