Tia Dalma - Pirates of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Pirates of The Caribbean: 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 the Calypso, and bound her in her bones. 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.