Armando Salazar

Armando Salazar is the main antagonist of Pirates of the Caribeen: Dead Men Tell No Tales.

He is portrayed by Javier Bardem who also played Anton Chigurh, Raoul Silva and Felix.

Pirates of the Caribeen: Dead Men Tell No Tales
Not much is known about Salazar's early life except that he joined the Spanish Royal Navy, becoming an officer. He rose through the ranks, earning several high military decorations over the years until he became a capitán in command of the Silent Mary, a powerful ship of the line. At some point during his career Salazar made a vow to exterminate all the pirates on the high seas. He became so successful and famous that some of the stories of his pirate hunting expeditions claimed that he had hunted down and killed thousands of pirates.

One day the Silent Mary encountered a pirate fleet of ten ships. Despite being outnumbered the Spanish attacked the pirates, quickly demonstrating to their opponents that the firepower of the Silent Mary and the skills of her crew were far superior to those of all the ships and crews in the entire pirate fleet. The battle ended disastrously for the pirates with the majority of their fleet destroyed. As the Silent Mary sailed through the burning wrecks Salazar was satisfied with his latest victory over the outlaws that he intended to eliminate. When he noticed a few surviving pirates among the wrecks, flying the improvised white flag as a sign of surrender, Salazar calmly ordered his men to shoot them all giving them no quarter.

When his men finished their grisly task, Salazar took out his spyglass and glanced the last remaining pirate ship, the Wicked Wench. Still provocatively flying the black pirate flag, the Wench was sailing in the opposite direction in an attempt to escape. Not wanting to let a single pirate escape him Salazar ordered his men to change the Silent Mary's course and follow the pirates. The Spanish gave chase and followed the Wench toward a mysterious island shrouded in darkness, in an area called the Devil's Triangle. Believing that the pirates planned to escape through the giant tunnel that seemingly led into the interior of the Triangle, Salazar took the helm of the Silent Mary from Lieutenant Lesaro choosing to follow the pirates into the unknown waters. However, as the Wicked Wench approached the entrance the pirates threw ropes around the nearby reefs off the port side of the ship. The loop caught the reef, tightening, and causing the ship to swiftly turn to the left, as the helmsman, a young man named Jack Sparrow steered the ship in the same direction, changing the Wench's course at the last moment.

Knowing his men didn't have enough time to make the same maneuver and wanting to avoid collision with the pirate vessel Salazar kept the Silent Mary on her course, sailing straight ahead. As the Spanish sailed past the Wench Salazar glanced at Jack Sparrow one last time before the Silent Mary entered the Triangle. Sailing through the unknown waters the Silent Mary quickly hit the nearby rocks severely damaging the bow while knocking the entire crew off their feet. The impact resulted in a massive explosion from the amount of gunpowder on the ship which engulfed the ship in flames and burning alive its entire crew. Salazar was also killed in the explosion but his body fell overboard before slowly sinking to the bottom of the sea.

However, even death was not the end of Salazar. As his body begun to sink to the bottom of the sea, the body was suddenly struck by streaks of eerie red light, resurrecting Salazar as the undead by the mysterious supernatural powers of the Triangle where he was now trapped with his men who were brought back from the dead in a similar fashion. Unable to escape from the Triangle Salazar and his crew of the undead spent several years in a cave, plotting their revenge on Jack Sparrow.

Many years after their imprisonment in the Devil's Triangle Salazar and his men spotted the Monarch, a British Royal Navy warship, entering their cave. As the Monarch came to a halt, Salazar's men ran across the water, boarded the ship and launched a surprise attack. Due to their ghostly powers the Spanish easily slaughtered the British and even Salazar joined the fight, killing a few British sailors with his rapier. Finally he personally confronted the British commanding officer, Captain Toms, strangled him, and threw his corpse into the fire.

With the battle effectively over Salazar walked below deck finding a single young sailor locked in the brig. Noticing several wanted posters on the floor, Salazar stabbed one of them with his sword to bring it closer to him. Seeing the face of Jack Sparrow, the man who cost him his life on the poster. Salazar asked the young sailor if he knew the pirate. When the sailor replied that he knew Sparrow only by name Salazar and his men walked through the bars, shocking the sailor. Deciding to leave one man alive to tell the tale of his revenge. Salazar asked the sailor to find Sparrow and give him a message about death coming straight for him. Salazar and his crew then returned to their ship, leaving the Monarch to burn and sink.

Twenty-five years after their deaths and resurrections, Salazar and his men managed to escape from the Devil's Triangle, steering the Silent Mary into the open sea for the first time in years. Though the ship was now nothing but a wreck she was kept afloat by Salazar's magic. The Spanish eventually planned to find the legendary Trident of Poseidon, the mythical artifact which would give them absolute control over the seas so they could continue their mission and kill all the pirates in the world, starting with Jack Sparrow.

Free from the Triangle, Salazar and his men continued their anti-piracy campaign. Soon they encountered a pirate fleet commanded by Hector Barbossa, the Pirate Lord of the Caspian Sea. The Spanish quickly attacked and destroyed three ships in Barbossa's fleet, the Jonty Lark, the Golden Pheasant, and the Rising Phoenix. Though the rest of the fleet managed to escape, the message the undead Spaniards sent was clear - the dead have taken command of the sea.[1] Some time later, the Silent Mary encountered the Queen Anne's Revenge, Barbossa's flagship. As the Silent Mary approached the Revenge, Salazar used his magical powers to bend the bow of his ship backwards, opening the ship's hull like the jaws of a giant beast right in front of the pirate vessel, leaving the pirate crew stunned and unable to react. Salazar then leaped onboard the Revenge, landing behind Barbossa.