I’m going to offer another take on it which might be a wee bit controversial, but hear me out. I honestly think Jack Sparrow was a better love interest for Elizabeth than Will Turner. Of course, Will and Elizabeth were childhood crushes, and their dynamic worked okay in the first film but in later films as Elizabeth’s character progressed I don’t think they worked as a romantic couple. They lacked the chemistry and passion that Jack & Elizabeth/Keira and Johnny infinitely had, there was a distinct lack of trust, and generally-speaking their relationship was portrayed as one-dimensional. I felt they worked better as friends.

Will didn’t know the real Elizabeth that Jack understood: her fascination with pirates and adventure, her longing to be free of corsets, to be able to act with selfish impulse and not have to answer to anyone. This is what Elizabeth wanted, and Jack propelled these parts of her forward. In turn, Elizabeth represented to Jack a woman that was as untameable and unrelenting as the sea - he showed sincere and soft sides to her that he rarely showed to anyone else. They challenged each other and they were much more alike than people realised, hence why Jack said to her in the Curse of the Black Pearl deleted scene that they were “peas in a pod, darlin’.”

People always say the only reason Elizabeth kissed Jack at the end of Dead Man’s Chest was to handcuff him to the mast and therefore leave him to the Kraken. This is true, this was her intention. However, she wanted to kiss him long before that. In the ‘Curiosity’ scene, she literally says to him, “You want to know what it tastes like” to which he responds, “I do want to know what it tastes like.” You could argue this was part of the manipulation ploy, but literally the only reason they didn’t kiss was because Jack saw the black spot on his hand at the same time. There was no entrapments or handcuffing - they just wanted each other. When Elizabeth held the compass, it pointed to the thing that she wanted most at that time - which was Jack. The dialogue in these scenes, and with James Norrington’s observations on how she was acting, indicates this.

Elizabeth loved Will, and she chose to marry him. I think she felt it was the easiest option. Ultimately, Disney didn’t want to have Jack and Elizabeth as endgame, and you can see why.

Elizabeth is one of my favourite, strong heroins of all time; her “Hoist the Colours” speech in the moments before impending battle in At World’s End was epic and beautiful. I so wanted her to live out the rest of her days at sea as the true pirate she always was, and Jack would’ve given her that, in the same way he voted her the Pirate King. I personally think their potential as a couple was huge and pure magic. Savvy?