Pirate-Themed Fantasy Monologues Vol. 1
Looking for fresh Monologues for practice, auditions, or demos? Here’s 10 great pirate-themed monologues in a fantasy setting (Think: One Piece) to help inspire you! Great for beginning and seasoned voice actors and for those looking for something fresh for self-tapes!
Blood and Salt - Captain Maren Voss, Pirate Captain of the Crimson Tide
"You want to talk about loyalty? Then talk. I'm listening. Because the way I see it, you don't actually want to talk, you want to confess. There's a difference. (leans forward slowly) I've sailed with men who smiled at me at dawn and put knives in my back by dusk. I know the look. It's the eyes that go still right before someone does something they've already decided to do. Yours have been still since we left Port Varen. (stands, moving around the table) So here's what's going to happen. You're going to tell me exactly who you've been speaking to, exactly what you told them, and exactly how much they paid you. And if the number they paid you is more than what you owe this crew in blood and salt and shared years, then maybe... maybe I'll respect the transaction. (stops directly behind him) But if it's less? (long pause) Then you sold us cheap. And I have a very hard time forgiving cheap."
The Weight of the Flag - First Mate Davan Cruel, Aboard the Vessel "Sovereign Wreck"
"I remember the day you raised that flag. You stood on the bow in the rain like some kind of god and you said, 'We answer to no one.' I believed you. (exhales, almost a laugh) I gave up a pardon, did you know that? A full pardon, signed and sealed, sitting in a navy officer's hand. I looked at it, and I looked at your ship, and I walked away from it. (turns to face the captain) That was eleven years ago. Eleven years of fighting your wars, swabbing the blood off your deck, and burying men who followed you because you told them the sea was free. (voice tightens) And now you're sitting here telling me you're taking the governor's deal. That we're going to sail under letters of marque like hired dogs with fancy paperwork. (beat) I'm not angry. I want you to understand that. I'm not angry. I'm just... I need to hear you say it out loud. I need to hear the man who told me we answer to no one, say the words."
Every Ocean Belongs to Me - Lord Cassius Dread, Warlord of the Drowned Armada
"Do you know what it costs to build an armada? Not in gold. Not in ships. In belief. Every man on every vessel in this fleet looked at the world and decided that the old order was a lie. That kings and their navies and their trade routes and their careful little maps were a fiction, a story told to keep small men small. (walks slowly along the ship's rail, looking out to sea) I didn't conquer these waters. I reminded them of what they were before civilization put a name on them. Wild. Hungry. (turns back) You, though. You still believe in something, don't you? I can see it. Some code, some creed, some promise you made to someone who probably doesn't even remember your name. (soft, almost sympathetic) That's the thing about belief. It's a hook. And someone, somewhere, has always got the line. (crouches to eye level) I had that hook in me once. I cut it out. It left a scar. But scars don't bleed. (stands) And I haven't bled for anyone since."
The Law Doesn't Float - Commander Sela Vorne, Naval Pirate Hunter, Addressing a Captured Crew
"Let's skip the part where you tell me you're just fishermen. I've heard it so many times I could write it down and hand it to you. (walks the line of prisoners slowly) That one in the back, I've been chasing his captain for three years. That one on the end has six different aliases across four port registries. And you, (stops) you have the calloused hands of a man who's worked a line his whole life, and I genuinely cannot tell if that means you're innocent or just very experienced. (steps back, addressing them all) Here is what I can offer you. The truth. Not mercy, I want to be clear, I'm not in the business of mercy, that's for chaplains and mothers. The truth is this: the sea doesn't care about you. Your captain doesn't care about you. The flag you sail under is a piece of cloth and when this is over it'll be at the bottom of the harbor. (beat) But the law? The law remembers your name. It writes it down. And that means somewhere, in a ledger, you existed and you made a choice. (quietly) Tell me what you know. Make the ledger say something worth reading."
What the Deep Remembers - The Kraken of the Sunken Meridian, Speaking Through a Dreaming Sailor
"You are not the first to dream of me. (a long, resonant pause, the voice not quite one voice) They come down in their wood and rope and they drag their hooks through my ceiling like children scratching at a floor. I have watched your kind for longer than your kind has had words for long. (the tone shifts, almost curious) You are different, though. Most minds I touch go white with fear. Yours went... quiet. I found that interesting. (a sound like water filling a vast space) I have eaten ships. I have pulled navies to the floor and held them there while the light from above went small and then gone. I do not tell you this to frighten you. I tell you because you should understand the scale of what is choosing to speak to you right now. (closer, intimate) You are looking for something lost. I know where it is. I know where everything is. (pause) The question I am still deciding is whether you are worth the telling. Sleep a little longer. I haven't made up my mind."
The Tide Doesn't Beg - Sorra, Spirit of the Southern Current, to a Captain Demanding Safe Passage
"(a sound like wind across open water) You built a shrine. I'll give you that. Most of your kind stopped building shrines two generations ago. Decided you understood the ocean well enough to stop asking its permission. (a low sound, not quite a laugh) I watched seventeen of those confident men sink inside the same week. It was a busy week. (focusing, addressing directly) You want safe passage through the Narrows. You've brought silver and incense and a very sincere expression. I've seen the expression before. It usually appears right before someone asks for something unreasonable. (pause) Here is what the passage costs. Not silver. Silver is for merchants and nervous merchants at that. The passage costs honesty. Tell me one true thing you've never told anyone. Not a confession. Not a sin. A truth. Something real. (the wind shifts slightly) You'd be amazed how few people can do it. They open their mouths and out comes performance. Rehearsed pain. Borrowed grief. (quieter) Show me something that's actually yours, Captain, and I'll carry your ship through the Narrows on my back."
A Splendid Kind of Ruin - Idrys the Pale, Cursed Pirate Unable to Die, Speaking to a Younger Sailor Who Idolizes Him
"You've got that look. The look people get when they meet me and realize I'm real. Like I'm going to say something that explains all of it and makes the curse sound almost worth it. (sits down heavily) I'm going to disappoint you. I've had a hundred years to work out what to say and I still don't have anything that lands right. (looks at his own hands) The first twenty years were extraordinary. I won't lie to you about that. I fought things that don't have names. I sailed into storms that killed everyone around me and walked out the other side and it felt like being chosen. Like the universe had a plan specifically for me. (long pause) Then the people around me started getting old. And I didn't. And I had to start leaving ports before anyone noticed. And the thing about immortality is it's not dramatic, it's just... long. It's very, very long. (looks up) You want to know the secret? There isn't one. There's no lesson the sea is teaching me. No grand purpose I'm being preserved for. (quietly) I think I just fell through a crack in the world and nobody's come to pull me back out yet. (beat) So. Still want the life?"
Every Empire I've Burned - Queen Rael of the Free Atolls, Before Executing a Captured Admiral
"Your government sent three fleets to these islands before you. (holds up three fingers) The first one burned my village. I was nine. The second one burned the next village. I was fifteen and I burned it back. The third one took my brother. (lowers her hand) Do you know what they call me in your capital? I've heard a few. Sea-witch. Pirate Queen. The Ruin of the Eastern Reaches. (almost amused) I used to be bothered by the witch part. Now I find it flattering. It means they don't have an explanation for me that fits inside their system. (steps closer) I want you to understand something before we conclude this conversation. I don't hate your empire. Hate is exhausting and I have too much to build to spend energy on it. What I have is a very clear memory and a very long list. Your name has been on that list for six years. (looks at him steadily) I'm not going to make a speech about justice. Justice is a word empires use when they're winning. (quietly) I'm just going to finish the list."
Cartography of Grief - Navigator Emhel the Chartless, Who Erased All His Maps After Losing His Crew, Speaking to the Ghost He Believes is Still Aboard
"I know you're not really here. I want to be clear that I know that. (pause) I also know that doesn't change anything. (moves to the empty chair across the table) You used to sit right there when I was charting and tell me I drew coastlines like a man who'd never seen one. I always told you I drew them from imagination and they were better for it. You always laughed. (the laugh is remembered, not performed) We were three days from the island when the storm hit. I've gone back over the charts a hundred times. The signs were there. I was looking at the wrong ones. I was looking at the ones that told me what I wanted to see. (sits down across from the empty chair) I burned the charts. All of them. Eleven years of work. Ports and currents and depth soundings and sea-lanes and I put them all in the iron box and I burned them. People thought it was grief gone wrong. Maybe it was. (looks directly at the chair) But I keep thinking that if I don't know where I am... you might still be able to find me. (very quiet) It's a stupid theory. I know it's a stupid theory. (doesn't move) I'm still waiting, though."
The Last Rite of Deep Water - Sea Witch Yava, Dying, Transferring Her Power to an Unwilling Successor
"Stop pulling away from me. I have maybe ten minutes and you have an entire ocean of responsibility coming at you whether you want it or not, so hold still. (grips the younger woman's wrist) I didn't want it either. You think Dova chose me? She grabbed my ankle in a tidal pool when I was seven and I screamed for an hour. Not exactly a calling. (coughs) The power isn't a gift. I want to be extremely clear about that. It's a debt. The sea lends it to you and you spend your life paying interest in sleep and solitude and the particular kind of loneliness that comes from knowing things people haven't asked you. (grips tighter) But here is what it also is. Are you listening? (waits for eye contact) It is the sound the ocean makes before a storm when everything goes glass-still and the birds stop. It is the thing underneath the thing that sailors pray to when the official prayers stop working. It is real. (voice fading slightly) You're going to hate it for years. Then one night something will be dying in the water and you'll reach out without thinking and you'll bring it back, and you'll understand. (releases her grip slowly) Tell the sea I said it was worth it. It'll know what I mean."