Takarajima Episode 19 Discussion

Now that Jim's adventure re-capturing the Hispaniola is over I'll comment on ways this series did things differently from that book; only two pirates are on board, Israel Hands and O'Brien (who wears a red cap; here "Red Cap" is a separate man). Rather than mysterious insanity, it's drukenness that causes them to quarrel and fight which kills O'Brien and wounds Hands. Jim comes across them after their fight when he boards the ship after cutting the anchor cables. As Hands is injured and cannot sail the ship, he makes peace with Jim in exchange for directions on how to take the ship to the other side of the island, where Jim deliberately wants to go to hide the ship from the other pirates. There's an interesting moment where Hands describes how he "never seen good come o’ goodness yet" which rather seems like a confession of untrustworthiness. Indeed, once the ship is beached at the north of the island he betrays the truce he made with Jim, who flees from him to the top of the mast and then shoots him dead as he follows with a knife, much like how in this series Jim struck him in the forehead with a piece of wood.

In the book there is no storm and Silver doesn't show up on the ship at all. I suppose this series added his appearance on the ship to keep the character prominent in the story; he's certainly the character from the original that has most entered the popular imagination so perhaps it was felt this adventure which doesn't include him at all should be changed. It's a little strange that it fakes out Silver's death only to reveal he's still alive only one episode later, but given that he wasn't on the ship in the original, I suppose they needed a way to get him off before Jim beaches the ship so Jim could run into him at the fort. It's a little awkward.

I can also mention how the conflict over the fort was much shorter in the book. After the ineffective bombardment from the ship's cannon, Silver comes to negotiate, as he did in this series, and a single assault by the pirates follows in which many of them are killed by the defenders. This serious failure casues the pirates to doubt Silver's leadership which comes to a head at the fort, as in this episode.