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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WizarDru" data-source="post: 1100014" data-attributes="member: 151">Well, having just spent some time reading up about Pirates, I can tell you that they were both more and less than the common romantic image.  It depends on the nation, location and year in question.  Pirates were very egalitarian...their leader was chosen as the most capable, similar to Mance, who isn't necessarily the strongest, overall.  Further, once they had set out on a journey, a contract was signed that all crew members abided by.  There were exceptions, but as often as not, they were followed. Pirates of the 17th century were vicious killers as often as not, while Pirates of the 18th century rarely hurt anyone.  Neither group tended to destroy their targets with cannon shot, since the ships were often the most valuable part of the endeavour, hence the reason they were called 'prizes'. That doesn't even include the fact that many so-called pirates were, in fact, privateers (ala Sir Francis Drake) who were politically motivated and intended to hamper ships of foreign nations and international commerce.  Which is probably more than you wanted to know. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /></blockquote>