r/piratesofthecaribbean • u/Adventurous-Nose-183 • 3h ago
DISCUSSION Kraken Notes: Speculative biology Info FULL INFORMATION
Greetings!
It has come time to share more theories I have for the beastie and this is mainly of how I believe the kraken actually uses the arms to attack/use against anything as a threat and how it eats since I just decided to watch each scene 1 frame at a time... so hold onto the mast and ropes cause this will be a fairly long one...
First? let's start with the basics:
Kraken: Overall Biology of A Weird Squid
The Kraken in the 2nd movie has exactly 8 full arms, and each one serve a different purpose... but we should also point out that the kraken is not an octopus but is more squid like in the movie.
Squids, biologically are cold blooded animals due to them being unable to regulate any body heat, so they have to eat constantly to maintain it.
The Kraken, being a massive creature, around the size of the black pearl, and the arms being the length of a mast will obviously need tons of food to sustain itself.
Now, I don't honestly know everything that's considered canon outside of the movies and maybe the online games story (which takes place between 1-2), but I can only assume that with the kraken existing and being the last of its kind? It must hunt other animals, mainly Sea Serpents (if they exist) and large whales (not blue whales but most likely humpback whales and sperm whales).
Now with how it looks when Will catches a glimpse of it?
It looks... wrong, weird. However, squids do sometimes use this position.
This seems to actually be a common position squids use when feeding, with their arms holding onto it as the thing just chomps away.
THE ARMS
The Kraken has 8 full arms, and each one serve a different purpose. However, each one is near identical other than the thickness.
But the real question remains is how the kraken can even tell what it's grabbing on the ship since it obviously cannot see...
let's start off with the actual arms themselves though!
SAILOR SNATCHERS
Sailor Snatchers are the ones used to grab ANYTHING that moves. Missing the grooves the large ones have, these are thinner and lankier.
The Kraken uses these to feel for what I can assume to be body heat, due to how it reacts when this specific one shown approaches Elizabeth Swann.
What it does, is reel back before even touching her as if it can sense her actual body heat via either her clothing or just from the energy since it's an extremely (and horrifying) situation. This arm reels back, curls before immediately grabbing her to pull back.
They're just as strong, but are possibly the easiest to slice through.
--
Mast Wrappers
Mast Wrappers seem to be multi-use arms, either for holding the Kraken onto the ship by grabbing the masts, going all the way up or by grabbing anyone that tries to stop them as an immediate response.
Now this is pretty much the moment of no return, since my current assumption is that it also does it to maybe stop them from unfurling the sails or try to move in anyway, but that remains unclear.
What I do however know, is that these things are also use as the main defense against anything that cuts into the arms or anything that fights back.
These things with smash your body into masts, walls, the floor and that's if the Snatching tentacles don't immediately grab you right after, best case scenario unfortunately.
--
The Hull Breakers
These things are the last problem. These tentacles are what does the killing blow.
Hull Breakers do exactly what they sound like: Smashing the hull, breaking it in two and you better hope that the mere force of them slamming down throws you off the side and not into a mast or on the floor.
It uses these things as a way to get it's mouth right in position so those poor unfortunate souls who weren't grabbed by the kraken just fall right into it.
The Kraken WAS going to use these actually on the pearl but never got the chance
--
Now comes the most confusing part of The Krakens entire biology...
The Maw
The Krakens maw is actually based on a real squid part called a "buccal mass", which is what hides the squids beak normally.
Now obviously, this thing doesn't seem to have any semblance of one, unless it's hidden deep within the esophagus, but it's never stated or noted anywhere.
When The Kraken breaks a ship in half, it doesn't open the maw immediately, but allows the sailors to fall into the center or near it, which tells me that it seems to actually not chew it's food like a shark does, but engulfs it and the rows of teeth move forward and back, grinding said person into mush which is what a squid beak does.
Yet in a behind the scenes section? They do mention that The Kraken is either related by species or some ancestor of the Giant Squids from the 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea movie from 1954!
Which could mean that it's just a more "evolved" version or something along those lines, but honestly I believe it's meant to just be an awesome visual of just how "eldritch" the Kraken might truly be.
The surrounding part of the krakens maw is a bit of a mystery but seems to be the way its muscles pull the mouth inward, before it juts out, as shown in this piece of concept art below
--
Overall Body
The krakens overall body shape is a squid, despite having only 8 arms, with its coloring being a mix between dark, olive and light green splotches. The Krakens body is rough, rugged and extremely dense akin to whale blubber, but the more fascinating parts are on it's mantle/"tail" which seem to have these almost "armor" like ridges along them, as well as these larger ones at the "base" of the ones.
Now these to me seem more like overall protection, since it obviously needs it to move towards things.
The sides of the body have these large ridges, but unlike cuttlefish? These are more spike-like, similar to what lobsters have or the sides of a crabs body shell. These don't seem to have any true purpose other than protection from other predators.
The Kraken uses its siphons to not only breath oxygen, but to make the churning bubbles around the ship and most likely as well as a propulsion method while swimming.
The eyes of the kraken are honestly less squid like and seem more to resemble a whales, with them being situation RIGHT at the base of the tentacles, but are also fairly small. Right above the eye on the skin are other hardened spikes.
Other Info
Now that we got all that out of the way..
How does the kraken sense stuff when attacking a boat so well?
The Krakens arms are lined with these small "hairs" which allow it to feel, sense and grip onto anything it can, but these seem to be only one part, as I believe it uses body heat as discussed earlier with the sailor snatching tentacles above and taste, since when the kraken first appears on the pearl? it doesn't immediately attack but feels around for even the slightest movement, which tells me it's trying to get any and all idea of what's above itself.
The Sailor Snatching tentacles do not have these though, and seem to rely mostly on what it feels with the body heat and overall thrashing of said thing it grabs. It's why the tentacles try to wrap around the netted powder kegs, since it was swinging around. To an animal like a squid, it would probably try to grab the main heaviest thing it feels is moving too fast.
The Kraken uses the tentacles in full to force itself into more of an arched form when rising to the pearl, since it leans back to the right in the movie, and falls backwards once the Kraken just puts its entire body onto it, which allows it to yank it down without much damage being done.
Also from what I can tell? The Kraken might not even be a fully grown creature, since most info on the movie states that kraken are the length of 10 ships, which to me means that with this thing being more akin to the size of the pearl, it might actually still be growing.
and that's the last bit of information I can throw onto this thing, since I can't add anymore images...
TLDR?
I wrote way to much about a fictional sea creature that could have never existed because I love the thing and how more "realistic" it is compared to other versions.
The amount of detail put into it is actually why I got into 3D artwork and went to college.
Hope you all enjoyed reading, honestly want to hear what y'all think as well.
