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.
