Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, the fifth outing of the famous franchise, introduced audiences to Henry Turner. Played by Australian actor Brenton Thwaites, Henry was the principled and persistent son of the first trilogy's young lovers, Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann.
In a movie series made up of villains, pirates, and scalawags, Henry Turner is practically a saint. He's a devoted son determined to rescue his father and a respectful shipmate to Carina, his romantic foil in the film. Still, he makes some poor choices and gets the gang into some tricky situations. Here are the worst things he did, ranked.
He Kept Disobeying His Dad
Henry has buried himself in books ever since he was young. This made him an intelligent force to be reckoned with. It also made him headstrong. When he set out to sea in order to rescue Will as a child, he was deliberately disobedient.
When Will ordered him to return home, Henry refused. He was bent on breaking Will's curse and assured his father that he would never stop, that he would keep coming back even if Will threw him over. Even though it was wrong, he had the right intention at heart.
He Refused To Leave The Sea
During the same conversation aboard The Flying Dutchman, Will ordered Henry to abandon a life at sea. He wanted to be sure Henry wouldn't end up like him, but young Henry was adamant that he wouldn't stop acting like a pirate. And he never did.
Though he maintained his father's good-natured heart, Henry set out to sea as a teenager, joining different ships as he continued to study myths of the sea, all in an effort to set his father free. And, of course, he ended up fighting alongside the very man Will warned him to stay away from: Captain Jack Sparrow.
He Started A Scuffle With His Superior Officers
The first time viewers saw fully grown Henry, he had joined the British Royal Navy as a sailor. While aboard the Monarch, he recognized the infamous Devil's Triangle, which had sunken more ships than all the previous movies combined.
In warning the crew, he dared to give orders to the captain, who did not take kindly to such behavior. Then, Henry started a scuffle with nearly all the uniformed officers in a bid to stop the ship, but from the eyes of the Royal Navy, it made him a coward.
He Freed Two Convicted Criminals
Henry staged a prison break to free two criminals from the gallows as they were moments away from being hanged for their crimes. Okay, so while those "criminals" were technically the heroes of the movie (Captain Jack and Carina), it was one of the worst things Henry did in the eyes of the law.
The action-packed sequence gave audiences one of the series' best gags in the form of a swinging guillotine and the running ship-jargon joke between Henry and Carina. So, while it was totally unlawful, perhaps it was one of the best things Henry could've done for the movie.
He Was Holding Carina's Stern
Speaking of the ship-jargon joke, it accounts for one of the worst things Henry did: holding Carina's stern. He assured her he was holding her port, AKA the left side of a ship. But he got it wrong.
She does not take kindly to his hold on her nor his lack of understanding about a ship's directions. While the audience knows he's a respectful companion throughout the rest of the flick, Henry gets off to a rocky start with Carina because of his faux pas in this scene.
He Got Carina Captured
Earlier in the movie, Carina asked Henry to find her a ship and a crew in order to retrieve Poseidon's Trident. Henry successfully located Jack and company, leading to the aforementioned prison break. It turned out to be a bum deal.
While Henry's plan didn't technically backfire, it did result in having him and Carina taken aboard the Dying Gull as Jack's prisoners. Unfortunately for him, it was one of the worst things he could do in Carina's eyes, since she held him responsible for getting them tied up.
He Got Himself Kidnapped By Salazar
In a heated moment of the movie, Salazar's Silent Mary wages war with The Black Pearl. As both ships crash into an island, Salazar's crew panics, since they can't set foot on land. But Salazar presses on, taking the wheel of the Pearl from Carina.
In an effort to save her, Henry charges Salazar, but he doesn't make it far before the impact of the crash unsettles everyone. Salazar manages to grab Henry because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. This also sets one of the other worst things he did in motion.
He Turned Into An Aggressive Ghost
While technically Salazar inhabited Henry's body, the protagonists all believed Henry was attacking them. And, as previously mentioned, he wouldn't have been possessed if he hadn't have been captured for no good reason in the first place.
While inhabited, he nearly killed Jack, especially with the advantage of Salazar's swordsmanship on his side. The ghost of Henry terrified Carina, who thought he'd turned against them. In the end, Henry redeemed himself by breaking Poseidon's Trident, thus ending all curses throughout the sea. Not too shabby.
He Took Advice From Jack
The unscratchable itch: Jack argued that Henry is falling in love with Carina, something Henry adamantly refused to believe. But Jack continued to encourage Henry enough so that, by the end of the movie, Henry believed he must have feelings for her. And he acted on it.
He shared his thoughts about this itch with Carina in the final scene and, upon trying to kiss her, got slapped. Of course, it was an inside joke between them because of his recent possession, but it could have ended terribly for him. Listening to Jack is one of the worst things any Pirates of the Caribbean character could do, honestly.
He Angered Davy Jones
With the help of Jack, Carina, and Barbossa, Henry succeeded in his mission: he freed his father from his cursed connection to The Flying Dutchman so that Will would be able to live out his life on land as a normal human. And, because of Henry's heroic actions, Will and Elizabeth were reunited for the first time in 20 years.
But it also had negative consequences. The mysterious end-credits scene shows Davy Jones skulking through Will and Elizabeth's room, clearly out for revenge. Of all the things Henry did, this was clearly the most dangerous. It also becomes the set-up the next sequel.