Philip Swift is a faithful young man as well as a sentimental missionary. He serves as one of the deuteragonists (alongside his lover Syrena) of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.
He was portrayed by Sam Claflin.
What Makes Him A Scrappy?[]
- One of the major criticisms against him is that he's completely out of place in the setting of the series being a clergyman in a Pirate ship.
- In a franchise full of Anti-Heroes and Anti-Villains, Philip stands out as a character whose major personality trait is being the purest soul in the world and being someone who would prove Blackbeard unredeemable by both Philip declare him as such and Blackbeard considering to kill him to get to Syrena. Thus making him dull and with little to nothing to make him more memorable.
- He's seen as an attempt to be a Replacement of Will's role as The Straight Man to Jack Sparrow but as some viewers have pointed out, Angelica already fulfilling that Role, the two barely interacting and Philip lacking any personality or quirks to make the contrast funny, makes his addition completely pointless.
- The romance between him and Syrena is considered a poor replacement of the love story between Will and Elizabeth, which was already a divisive aspect of the original trilogy, but most fans would argue that pretty much every problem that they had with Will and Elizabeth was made worse with the pair or makes them appreciate the love story more in retrospective.
- The romance between Will and Elizabeth developed since they were kids and even then it took them a while to confess they are in love and even longer to get together. Meanwhile the two fall in love almost immediately despite Philip being the one that captured her and Syrena being a part of a herd of creatures that tried to kill him and his crew.
- Most of their scenes together involve the two characters recite quite corny and exaggeratedly sweet dialogue professing their love to each other which comes off as a poor contrast to Will and Elizabeth whose dialogue was more natural and had enough awesome moments to balance it out particularly with their wedding happening in the middle of the battle in the last movie.
- Neither of them interact much with Jack or any other member of the crew while Will and Elizabeth had very stablished relationships with the rest of the cast and their love story was a central part of the story while Philip and Syrena only exist for a minor subplot.
- Some fans also wondered what was the point of a second love story considering Jack and Angelica were already a thing and both characters were more important that Philip and Syrena.
- He ends up being defeated two times rather anticlimactically in the final act and ends up not participating in the final battle.
- Despise the movie ending in a cliffhanger regarding Syrena taking him to an unknown place to save him from his mortal wounds, neither creators or fans seemed to care about what happened to him and the character was completely dropped from later installments or expanded media with his final fate never being clarified not even by Word of God and the fandom mostly seems okay with it.
Trivia[]
- There was an attempt to rescue Philip from his Scrappy status. In the original script of the Dead Men Tell No Tales by Terry Rossio he was separated from Syrena, given a major role and arc and was turned into a useful ally for Jack Sparrow. Sadly the role was cut and the entire story was discarded so he remains as the franchise's biggest Scrappy.
- Is commonly argued that the poor reception to Philip and his fellow scrappy Syrena to be the major reason Will and Elizabeth started gaining a more favorable reception with the years and probably part of the reason they were brought back in the fifth movie.
 Scrappies
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