not-wholly-unheroic

[not-wholly-unheroic]

100% agree! Hook may be my fav but Smee is a very close second for all the reasons you just mentioned. Smee is often labeled as “stupid” (even by Barrie himself in the novel!) but I honestly feel like while he can be a bit absent-minded, Disney’s Smee is probably the most mentally stable, thoughtful, and indeed, wise character in the film. This often comes out especially well in the Jake series where Hook and Smee’s friendship is further developed. You really just can’t hate Smee. He’s such a kindhearted man, and Hook absolutely would not still be alive or functioning as well as he does without him.

Return to Neverland - My Favourite Captain Hook moments

[not-wholly-unheroic]

These are some of my favorite shots from the film as well. As others have noted in some of the reblog tags, one thing I love is that this version of Hook is legitimately scary at times. A lot of Hook fans seem to think of Disney’s version as a joke but you can’t tell me this guy wasn’t 100% ready to skewer Jane with a sword in some of these gifs. Look at the fear in her eyes when it suddenly registers that he is not playing. And look at him. He doesn’t hesitate. Just goes right from trying to cut her hand off to get the key back to “I will shish kabob you.” And he would have if she hadn’t moved fast enough. This man has killed children before.

…And this is why he’s so interesting to me because he’s so emotionally fragile at times when his fear levels are up, so human. He literally begs for his life at the end of the film. But he’s also a very dangerous man.

Return to Neverland - My Favourite Captain Hook moments

[not-wholly-unheroic]

It always bugs me SO MUCH when I see maps like the second one where things aren’t where they are supposed to be in film. Hook’s map is definitive. I don’t care what later Disney imaging says.

Notice the difference between these tow maps?

Description:

Cannibal Cove was an area mentioned in Peter Pan, but never visited. It was later renamed Pirates Cove in later adaptions and spinoffs, likely to avoid offending anyone with the thought of cannibals in children’s media, or because someone thought it was racially offensive (some art shows them as “natives”)

In Wasteland:

Well, there aren’t any actual cannibals in Disney media, so likely just the name of an area.

….Unless we go “Samurai Jack Metal Eaters scene” on all this…but let’s not.

[not-wholly-unheroic]

So, @constant-and-immovable and I were tossing around the idea of doing a side-by-side comparison of the novel and the play if we actually get enough interest in doing a book club since the book alone is pretty short. Maybe one chapter (and the corresponding part of the play) per week? Thoughts?

Kinda want to do a virtual Peter Pan book club similar to “Dracula Daily” but it’s only 17 chapters long so it would be super short… But it would be fun to go through the story with people who have never read the original for themselves and with others who have read it before but want to go back and take a closer look at it together. Would anybody actually want to do something like this?

[not-wholly-unheroic]

The intentional juxtaposition of Hook/Pan and Hook/George Darling is just so…*chef’s kiss*. Peter may be the boy who never wants to grow up, but Hook is what happens when a child is forced to grow up too quickly and really mentally isn’t as mature as they ought to be. He’s technically the grown-up in the story, but he is honestly very childish at times. Mr. Darling is too, for that matter. His hot temper and need to be in control are a cover for a lot of insecurities about his role as a husband, father, and the family breadwinner. George Darling is a toned down but more real-world version of Hook. BUT here’s the thing…by the end of the film, George does something neither Hook nor Pan does…he grows. He starts out the film obsessed with how he is perceived by society. He needs to be someone who “children fear and adults respect” in order to feel valued. But by the end of the film, none of that matters. Not his job at the office. Not his pride. Not the fact that they have a dog for a nursemaid because they can’t afford to hire anyone. Not the noise and chaos the children will inevitably cause when they come back home again…because without them, the silence in the house is deafening and all he wants is for his children to be home and safe and to know how much he loves them. Did I mention I really love George Darling’s character arc? And see this…this is why I need a redemption arc for Hook where he eventually adopts Peter and they help each other grow and heal and discover what’s really important…because if George is capable of it, then so are they.

so hook says "you die alone and unloved. like me." and peter says "to die will be an awfully big adventure." and hook says "you are a tragedy." and peter sobs and screams over tinkerbell's corpse and hook says "there's another in your place" and mr darling cries into the hair of his finally returned children

[not-wholly-unheroic]

No but see it’s more like this.

Smee is actually the protective one.

pinterest it's actually the same pics🙄

[not-wholly-unheroic]

I had an interesting Peter Pan dream last night that I REALLY wish I could draw some sketches from, but I have zero drawing talent so y’all are just gonna have to listen to me ramble and imagine it for yourselves. I don’t remember all of it but it was being told like a story. Almost like…when you’re shown a children’s book in a film, ya know? Like you can see the writing on the pages but the images are slightly animated. Unfortunately, I never got to the ending so idk what actually happened but there is a very vivid image stuck in my mind of Hook that was rather heartbreaking. There was an image of him flying (???) carrying a younger version of himself that seemed upset. Gradually, his adult self got lower and lower until he finally laid down in the water, floating on his back (almost Ophelia style) with his younger self seemingly asleep cradled to his chest. It was just… O W. If anyone who actually IS an artist wants to do something with that image, feel free to do so and just tag me because I desperately want to capture that image.

#Peter pan #Captain Hook #Disney villains #Captain Hook Disney #disney peter pan #Disney #dreams

[not-wholly-unheroic]

Kinda want to do a virtual Peter Pan book club similar to “Dracula Daily” but it’s only 17 chapters long so it would be super short… But it would be fun to go through the story with people who have never read the original for themselves and with others who have read it before but want to go back and take a closer look at it together. Would anybody actually want to do something like this?

#Peter pan #Captain Hook #jm barrie #novels #book club #wendy darling #tiger lily #tinkerbelle #tinkerbell #mr smee #the lost boys #lost boys

[not-wholly-unheroic]

sorry about my constant depressive episodes. its just that i have issues and also problems

#Hook @ Smee when he’s constantly using him as a therapist instead of a bosun

[not-wholly-unheroic]

characters with prey animal rage

#and this is why Hook is so….the way he is #the man definitely has some PTSD

[not-wholly-unheroic]

Why they not give him his stache?

#baby!!!! #but yeah someone needs to paint a lil Stache on him #I know they were going for the child look #but his face looks naked without it

[not-wholly-unheroic]

M dieron ganas de redibujar esos muñecos que hice hace unos meses akjnksgnkfg

#awwwww! they’re so cuuuuuute!!!

[not-wholly-unheroic]

Couple of hooks for tonight

[not-wholly-unheroic]

There’s definitely a Jake episode where something along these lines happens.

Hook and smee make a cake doodle

[not-wholly-unheroic]

Have you read Kelly Andrew's "Your Blood, My Bones"? I'm not reading any more retellings until I'm through with my rough draft (bless my editor for realizing that I need structured deadlines) but its a loose retelling featuring a Hook character who went to Eton.

I haven’t read that one. I’m a bit hesitant to just because it seems so far removed from the original storyline. I’m not big on most retellings that take place in a modern setting or that otherwise take away what I feel are critical elements to the story. The quick reviews and summaries I read didn’t seem to mention much about the Hook character and I’m not sure how or if characters like Tink, Tiger Lily, the Lost Boys, Smee, and the crocodile would show up at all. It just…sounds a bit too much like the names of the characters are the only thing fully connecting them to the original Peter Pan…and even the Wendy character is called “Wyatt” instead of Wendy. So much of what makes me love the original story is related to the context and the “feel” of each character. Taking them out of both London and Neverland, removing them from their historical context in the “real” world, and possibly eliminating many other important characters in the story just washes away a lot of what makes the characters feel like themselves, ya know? Is Hook who isn’t a pirate and has no crocodile or Mr. Smee really a Hook at all? Is Peter who doesn’t have a Tink or Lost Boys really a Pan? Is “Wyatt” who seems so dark and jaded about life really the same gentle, kind, motherly Wendy we all know and love? I don’t feel like they are. I may check it out at some point, but it probably won’t make the list of retellings I have at the top of my TBR list.

#kelly andrew #your blood my bones #peter pan retellings #Peter pan #Captain Hook #wendy darling

[not-wholly-unheroic]

Hook con ponytail me tiene mal aaaaaaaaaa

[not-wholly-unheroic]

Please tell me your serious thoughts on the Peter Pan crocodile!!

OH BOY. Alright. Okay. Hmmm

So there's a whole lot that I really can't disclose onto what I'm doing with it in The Novel because it plays a significant role in the prequel or sequel I'll tell my publisher I'm willing to write when they inevitably demand another installment, HOWEVER for the function of it as it exists within the story itself....

if I was directing a film or movie of it, I would want to keep it within semi-plausible parameters, but not make it a prehistoric croc.

It's a solid choice! To go with a living fossil like Sarcosuchus or Deinosuchus, because it's "real," but honestly...it's somehow less plausible than one that has simply managed to get to a fuck-off-big size.

Because yeah! I wouldn't want to be ANYWHERE near this thing!!! But I also don't think a kid chucking a hand in the water is going to be enough to bait one this size unless there's already blood/gore/bodies in the water that he's snapping at. True, this is not a story where logic prevails (hi, the acids in the guts of even a modern croc tend to destroy metals: jewelry, pieces of traps, animal tags, etc have all been found in them but VERY damaged/worn down. A clock is nothing, forget how you would hear it tick, it's just. anyway), however I'm not personally a fan of the "Somehow This Dinosaur Survived" genre of beasties, not when there are more things in heaven and in the earth.

SO.

Beyond the clock and the size, there is ...really nothing abnormal about it. The crocodile exhibits pretty standard behavior for a saltwater crocodile, the largest modern species (12-16ft is most common but some absolute monsters have measured in at nearly 20ft, and stories are everywhere about a mythic 25 ft)

If you grew up in the 1990s, you probably remember this guy wrangling them for tracking purposes. You can also see here what I was saying earlier: yes, they have an INSANE bite force, but their jaws aren't that tough otherwise--some rope, even around a big guy, is plenty to make the teeth less a concern. Then you just have to worry about their tails: solid muscle, which can propel them out of water like so:

Maybe he would have some more sympathy for the captain, given that he's also missing his right arm. If you've ever seen pictures of salties before, you've probably seen this one, or other pictures of him. This here is Brutus. He was, as of this image, estimated to be over 60 years old (!!!) and one of the largest living wild crocs. He's thought to have lost his arm to a bull shark when he was younger.

Bull sharks and salties do semi-frequently prey on each other: they both cross territories, though the sharks are primarily oceanic, and satlies (despite their names) are more common in rivers and brackish water. The reason they're called salties is that unlike most crocs, they CAN survive in saltwater. Again, we have a check in the box for old Tick-Tock, given that it seems to go inland on the island with some frequency.

If you've never seen a croc come out of the water before, it's Unnerving as hell. Watch any doc on the Nile, and you've seen a Nile croc (we'll get back to these) seemingly come out of nowhere and chomp onto a gazelle, but with salties it's somehow worse. The water just goes...still when they're gone. Like they were never there to start with.

Going off the book/play, a saltwater crocodile seems to be the most obvious, but again, we're running into size limitations. Reptiles never stop growing, and they certainly don't age the same way a mammal would, but they still do seem to have a lifespan under 100, and rarely break that 20ft limitation (with males typically getting larger than females of similar ages). It wouldn't be genetic impossibility to have one that had something going on in its DNA that made it BIG, at least not as unlikely as seeing a survivor from millions of years ago.

Plus, I do not care for the fact that the croc in the 2023 version seemed to eat anything that moved. It kind of defeats the purpose that this thing is after Hook specifically. And guess what? That's not impossible.

My only thing is...salties are my favorite, they're not related to dinosaurs but you look at this thing and the awe...

Look at him. He's a fucking dinosaur. The croc in the play/book/a film adaptation should, much like the ship, make you immediatley go "CROCODILE!" ...sleek, dangerous, fast, green, with fang like teeth. My brain always makes a crocodile green, and they're really not. None of them are. American alligators, the ones most prevalent in zoos when I was growing up in the US, are more often dark grey or even black looking in the water.

So that brings me back to this guy:

(that's a fish in its mouth, this individual is of a sane size)

The Nile crocodile. Confirmed man-eaters as well (I don't think I mentioned that, but salties are known man-eaters, there are some gnarly, tragic stories out there to complete with the grosses of shark attacks. Do not recommend research in this area), they're more known for this than their salty cousins. How much more well known?

Well. This guy is the responsible for more human deaths than we can even keep track of due to the remote locales they live. While I hate the idea of any wild animal being held up as villain, it's bonkers to me that we fear sharks as society rather than crocs since...Niles alone take down hundreds of people per year, instead of the 5-25 by all shark species combined.

True, they're freshwater beasties, but they can live in MILDLY brackish water. Its not something an animal can readily adapt to within its own life, but give a few generations to the ones that are currently invasive in Florida may eventually be able to cross to the Caribbean Islands.

They also have, and you can kind of see this in the skull structure, even weaker muscles for opening the jaws than salties.

You can put your hands around this thing's jaws (DO NOT. RECOMMEND.) and hold them shut.

More points in his box: Nile crocs had a uniquely nasty reputation in England following the Battle of the Nile in 1798, where crocs came rushing towards the violence and were picking off drowning and injured soldiers and eating bodies as they hit the water.

It was such a horrific sight that Nelson was presented with a gift sword that had one of the coolest design I've ever seen, though wildly impractical:

fabulous. look at that smile.

Anyway, the Nile Crocodile was the 'Jaws' of the mental menagerie of the Victorians. Barrie would have, when picturing a crocodile, very likely have been imagining one of these simply from how they became the stand-in for crocodilia in public consciousness.

Now it does lose some points not just for the saltwater issues, but because they only hit get around 15 ft, and Barrie's monster was big enough to eat a man whole even with some difficulty. In his notes for a silent film, he intended this be be shown on camera and it was frankly more traumatic than the 2003 film ending, of a mere snap of the jaws.

Side note: the 2003 crocodile is still under 30 ft, as is the 1953 one, it's just the skull/mouth proportions that make them seem MUCH bigger. Just like with sharks, the jaws of even a 20ft individual are going to be a LOT smaller than most people imagine.

The 2003 one works well enough, despite not seeing it very much (I have a WHOLE other essay on that--most of the set/props of the film we only get in small glimpses, giving it a dream/memory like quality where you fill in the blanks of a lot of what you think you're seeing. the croc included) but I kind of hate it's cartoony face:

Genuinely, what the fuck is this thing even supposed to be. I appreciate that it looks almost demonic, an exaggeration of a crocodile--just as the ship was an exaggeration of a pirate ship, everything on the 2003 Neverland was taken to story-book extremes, making it seem all the more like a dream/tied to the imaginations of the kids.

MEANWHILE...Their concept art was better; this thing at least looks more like a croc than...whatever that thing was.

And of course the 1953 one is goofy, the entire movie was...well. Cartoony. The SyFy crocodiles fail to really drive home the scariest part of them, that they're intelligent enough to stalk an individual to the death, same as the 2023 one did: despite the whole "no one is safe from this thing" element that should raise the stakes, its just...not the same. [Though I HAVE seen an adaptation where the crocodile was after everyone but Peter and his friends, since it was HIS PET...the whole adaptation kept trying to keep the show from being too scary but ended up being one of the most disturbing Peters I'd ever seen].

All in all, despite the fact that I firmly believe a monster-sized Nile was the original vision, I'd be going with a salty, but the first time we see it, it would be covered in a slick of algae or weeds, giving it the green look everyone always pictures/draws/designs:

this isn't Brutus, but the guy on the left has a damaged right paw too--it's actually a fairly common sight on larger crocs, to see missing paws/damaged limbs from their various encounters with other predators, trespassing crocs, or boats/traps.

I had also put some thought into the possibility of a Cuban crocodile, American crocodile, and the Orinoco crocodile--the last of which may have once had expanded territory into the Caribbean, and historically had sailors claiming to see 20ft ones, although they typically measure smaller (and lighter) than salties today, under 15 ft.

Still, all this is irrelevant because peak character design for Tick Tock has already been reached:

I still haven't seen the movie, and I don't give a damn that this stupid thing was designed to sell toys, I have one that lives on my work desk and my evidence for why he's the superior Tick Tock is simply that he is the Bestest Boy.

(concept art by Sona Sargsyan, I didn't see a credit anywhere for the concept art/promo image of the 2003 one)

Look at him. If this thing gave me those eyes and asked for a snack I'd start cutting off pieces of the captain myself. I mean not really, that's a bit bloody but you get the idea.

#excuse the language but yes #language #crocodile #tick tock croc