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William B. Pordobel, better known as One-Eyed Willy, was the pirate captain of the ship, Inferno. He was Flemish from Flanders, a region in present day Belgium (Then the Spanish Netherlands).

Appearance[]

William was only born with one eye earning him the nickname “One-Eyed Willy”. He wore an eyepatch to cover it up.

Involvement[]

Once a court jester for the governess of the Spanish Netherlands, he was banished for telling off-colour stories and having practical jokes.[1] Following this, he started his own pirate crew and stole millions worth in treasure from the king of England, Charles I. Charles finally began retaliating, sending out the entire Royal Navy to take down the infamous captain, which erupted into a mass war. Willy ordered his ship to flee, trying to escape being killed in the process; while in a cave, the Navy began firing, hitting the walls and creating a cave-in, which sealed the Inferno into a giant cavern.

Before Willy and his crew perished, he had a series of intricate booby traps set up in the caves that led away, in hopes to kill those who attempted to find him or those who attempted to escape. After that, Willy killed all of his own crew members, except for the loyal ones he trusted, because he didn’t want them to get to his treasure. While this was a strong defense, it was not foolproof, as one of his crew escaped to the surface with his map and the two pieces that went with it: a doubloon and a copper medallion. The legend of One-Eyed Willy spread around the locals, eventually becoming part of local folklore.

He and the pirates he trusted the most, all died in his cabin on the Inferno. It is likely that he himself expired while sitting down, as his earthly remains were found in the captain's chair.

Willy sat in his chair for nearly three centuries before he was discovered by Mikey and the rest of the Goonies. When Mikey finds him sitting at the head of his treasure table, he is reverently deemed the "First Goonie", due to his missing eye. When Mikey says everyone should grab all they can, the Goonies begin looting the treasure. One of the Goonie's members Data attempts to take some gold and jewels from a scale, but Mikey baps his hand away, as Mikey notices, realizes, and points out that the scale itself will trigger another booby trap. Mikey remarks "Except for that. That is Willy's".

When the cavern began to collapse and open, he sailed away on his ship once again, to wherever the wind takes him.

Behind the scenes[]

In early versions of the script, One-Eyed Willy was meant to be asthmatic, like Mikey. This was dropped in the final version, as asthma was a relatively new medical discovery and would not have been fully understood in the times One-Eyed Willy was still alive.

In promotional images for the film, One-Eyed Willy often appears with a hat. This goes unseen in the movie, as he is depicted with a beige bandana.

Gallery[]

References[]

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