It still struck him when Governor Swann says to Will, “do pass my compliments on to your master”. But he also kind of liked Will’s even response that “a craftsman is always pleased to hear his work is appreciated”, which in no way indicates that he, in fact, made the blade, but lets the audience know that he’s accepting the compliment. He continued to watch the movie as Elizabeth came down the stairs in her too-tight dress. The fact that she’s genuinely happy to see Will is probably not lost on her father. And the fact that she calls him by his given name, instead of his sir name, is probably more than a little disconcerting to him as well. When she continues on to say that she’s had a dream about Will, Governor Swann’s interjection questioning whether or not it’s entirely proper for her to be talking about such things is further proof that he doesn’t consider Will to be an appropriate match for her. But, she seems not to notice as she says to Will, “how many time must I ask you to call me Elizabeth?” Of course, his response of “at least once more, Miss Swann, as always” is all the more humorous considering the by-play. And Governor Swann’s response of “there, see, at least the boy has a sense of propriety” is another reinforcement of the fact that he finds Will Turner an unsuitable suitor for Elizabeth. Will’s earlier propriety is more than matched by Elizabeth’s impropriety; of course, it’s partially negated by the fact that he calls her “Elizabeth” privately as she is leaving. But he still has the good sense, at least Governor Swann would call it good sense, to only do so privately. Still, that kind of thing could be rife with problems, considering he could easily slip up and call her that to her face. That he hasn’t is a testament to him always keeps his station in mind whenever he talks to her. And it’s not hard to believe that he could do so, considering the kind of smack-down, either verbal or physical, he could have gotten if he had ever forgotten his place. Still, it shows a little bit of defiance for his position that he would actually consider thinking about her as “Elizabeth” instead of as “Miss Swann” as he’s supposed to; and that, in turn, helps set up the rest of the film.
The fact that the blade is eventually destined to belong to Commodore Norrington has got to hurt, too; considering that Will has to know that Governor Swann is pushing Elizabeth at him. And Will has no reason to think that such a pairing isn’t going to happen. After all, marrying for love in those days would have been uncommon at best, especially for someone of Elizabeth’s position. She’d be expected to marry whomever her father wanted her to marry, and she wasn’t expected to have much of a say in the matter. Of course, most people mostly forgot this when they wrote about the time period, and didn’t seem to understand the severity of disobeying such a decision (in that time period) would have actually had; they might make faint reference to it, but they didn’t seem to really take it all that seriously. It wasn’t just running off with some neighbor kid and eloping, and then reasonably expecting your family to accept your decision. It was, in fact, a good way to get disinherited. Sure, some families, even back then accepted it with good grace and moved on without much trouble. But, those families were probably far outweighed by families that weren’t so forgiving. That kind of thing tore apart many a family, and caused severe damage in other ones. Even if they did eventually accept the decision, it usually didn’t come without some price being paid, the least of which being hurt feelings. And partial reconciliation was also a possibility, in which the family members only partially make up or only some of them do; which could easily cause more hurt feelings between those who did make up with the errant child and those who didn’t. Some people could hold a grudge for a long time, and that sometimes extended on for generations. There was more than one example of multi-generational feuds that he’d heard of, and some of them had to do with people who had been close before ‘the incident’ had occurred. ’The incident’ wasn’t necessarily about a forbidden marriage, but it certainly could be, and the concept still applied even if the specifics didn’t. One ‘bad’ decision could have long-lasting effects. The fact that it didn’t always happen that way, in no way invalidated the fact that it did indeed happen, and that it could be catastrophic when it did. So, he knew that if Will were a real person of that time, he’d have no expectation that Elizabeth wouldn’t end up with the Commodore.
At that point he got distracted by what was going on on-screen: Elizabeth gasping as she’s putting on her restrictive dress, the new one, the latest fashion all the way from London. He loved the line that the “women in London must’ve learnt not to breathe”, because he couldn’t imagine that her dress was in any way comfortable. He continued to watch her struggle with her maidservants to get into the corset, still amazed that people used to wear such things. Wearing things that maimed and disfigured just didn’t make sense to him; that extended to high heel shoes, particularly stilettos. It was bad enough that high heel shoes shortened muscles in the legs, but the undue pressure of stilettos was nigh on unconscionable. Such a tiny pinpoint for all the weight of the body just seemed to be barbaric to him. Just like the massive restriction of air supply by a corset seemed unthinkable to him. How could such things be considered humane, let alone be considered fashionable? It was almost a kind of madness he supposed.
Thankfully, the movie quickly cut to Will Turner, his breaking of the candelabra especially disconcerting considering he’s a blacksmith, and should know better than most the weak points of metal. But, the whole thing just went to show how nervous Will must be. But the contrast of that clumsiness to his expertise with the sword was probably the whole point of the scene; especially since it’s obvious that he’s the craftsman who made it. His pride fairly gleams as he describes the particulars, “The blade is folded steel. That’s gold filigree laid into the handle. … Perfectly balanced. The tang is nearly the full width of the blade.” And how Will shows that it is indeed balanced and then flips it in the air was still impressive, even after several viewings. It was truly sad that Governor Swann doesn’t seem to realize it, or possibly feigns ignorance for propriety’s sake. Was it really such a bad thing to acknowledge an apprentice’s work? Well, maybe it was, after all, all the work of the shop could easily have to be considered the work of the master; so that any work of the apprentice would be seen as belonging to the master. After all, the master’s reputation would be on the line if something were to go wrong with any of the apprentice’s work, so that work would have to be up to snuff. And that meant that it might be considered the master’s work regardless of who actually made it.
