Captain Hook just didn’t like kids

I ask you to envision a place full of boys without parental supervision, noise, and the unending desire for some of the little guys to prove themselves by poking swords in your face. Sure, the Jolly Roger made him feel like a villain, but we all know this is the classic story of a man stuck in a world that was overrun by children. A tall, blue-eyed pirate with dark hair consumed with a drive for adventure, danger and tyranny—and not a woman in sight. Plenty of children, fairies, mermaids and “redskins”, but no women. What kind of place was this for a pirate? His aggression began as depression and escalated later to vengeful hatred. He had nothing to show for his years of skilled piracy, except the embarrassment of a missing appendage. How did he lose the hand? You guessed it- one of those kids. Of course, he couldn’t blame himself for being too close to a crocodile. He was the “boatswain of Blackbeard”, a man of the hour. At the bottom of his career, time was no longer on his side, and he was stuck with an underskilled crew in a land he “never” planned on being a part of. To add insult to an already injured ego, Peter shows up with Wendy and poor James was a little jealous that Peter could fly to find a girl and, well,he couldn’t. Crumbling under the pressure of securing a legacy, he went a little too far in trying to teach unruly kids a lesson. We can’t excuse his behavior, but we can understand the loss of hope, and maybe even mourn with him over the loss of what could have been if he had just let it go and sailed on to another land.