Flipping through channels today, I saw that Titanic was on. That brought to mind a question I'm sure has been discussed before. I did a search for "Titanic" here but didn't see anything. So here she goes: Was Rose responsible for Jack's death? I have always maintained she was, in part to annoy my niece who loved DiCaprio, but also because Rose got off the damn lifeboat. Jack had enough street smarts to keep away from Cal long enough to do as he did with Rose to survive the sinking. Take the poll and please respond.
No, she wasn't responsible. The cold water was responsible. There's no guarantee he'd have found the floating bed frame. If he had, he'd have probably let someone else float on it. It was poor Jack's destiny to meet his maker and Rose's destiny to marry Mr. Calvert and have some kids. C'est la vie.
Doesn't exactly take into account the weight of the two people... I think the question itself is a bit of an imponderable. If Rose hadn't gotten off the lifeboat, Cal wouldn't have chased them belowdecks...no way to ultimately know where Jack would have ended up. He might have made it to one of the collapsibles, or he might have ended up crushed by a funnel, or might have ended up in the water but not near any usable debris, etc....
Due to the solidity of sea water being slightly less than that of a wooden gymnasium floor, they could only have both survived if they'd had the presence of mind to put Rose's lifejacket under the driftwood. And even if they'd tried to do that, Rose could easily have fallen in, and not had the strength to climb back up. Given how crafty Jack was written to be, it's entirely possible he considered this option and decided it wasn't worth the risk. If Rose had stayed on the lifeboat, Jack almost certainly would've still died. He might have fought Cal, preventing his single father gambit and indirectly killing him also, but whether he would've been clever or lucky enough to find a raft is a question known only to fanfic writers. A more interesting question, maybe, is whether Rose would've gotten pregnant if not for all the night's trauma. If so, I don't suppose that staying in the lifeboat would've been enough, but...
If they both were on the bed frame it would have sunk a little and they'd have been more exposed to the cold water even if it had stayed afloat. They both would have died. She lived because her temperature remained slightly higher. It wasn't her fault.
I guess you guys haven't seen the Mythbusters Titanic special. They proved if they were smart enough, both Rose and Jack could have feasibly stayed on the bed frame and both would have had equally high chances of surviving. [yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVgkvaDHmto[/yt]
No. It doesn't matter if they could have both fit. Jack chose not to keep trying after the first failed attempt, so his death is all on him.
Not exactly fair since Titanic had more lifeboats than they were required to have, and several left the ship without a full load.
Yes, I know. In the ridiculous overblown version of Titanic, they have 19 lifeboats. But they still wouldn't have been enough.
Moot. Rose was one of only 6 people pulled from the sea. And Rose only got saved because she had a whistle. Jack's no whistle having butt was doomed all along, if you ask me
Right, we shouldn't condemn the White Star Line for not making sure that there were enough lifeboats for all of their passengers. After all, the law didn't require it, and no corporation should ever be condemned for not taking obvious safety measures to prevent thousands of deaths if they're not compelled to by law. Corporations, after all, have no obligations to morality or human decency, only legal obligations. Saying they do would be "unfair." Equally ridiculous. The organization of the evacuation process was the responsibility of White Star. If lifeboats left without a full compliment, this too was the responsibility of White Star.
That episode demonstrates that they might feasibly have survived if they had had the time, capability, and knowledge of floatation dynamics to think about that. The Mythbusters team found a way to make it work in a lab scenario.
Exactly. It was a good episode but they "proved" nothing. A team of college engineering students also once determined that everyone on the ship could have survived if people had worked together to form a "ring" with the light boats and tied a bunch of the deck chairs, tables, and other floating devices together in the center of the ring. This would have created a large, massive, single flotation device that could have supported everyone on the ship. But, again, the problem with that is it requires dozens of people in a crisis situation to work together to formulate this plan to implement it and 1000s of people during this process to not panic. The movie probably could've done a better job of establishing that the debris couldn't support both Jack and Rose (as it is they both seem to try and climb on it at the same time which simply causes it to tip over rather than sink under the weight.) But I've always maintained that they both simply couldn't be on it at the same time. Switching out on the debris wouldn't be practical nor likely to do any good as only minutes in the water would have been deadly. The Mythbusters did nicely show that as shown in the movie the debris couldn't support two people at once (even if it was the right physical size) wood is buoyant but not THAT buoyant. Jamie and Adam were only able to get the debris to support both of them after modifying it by tying their lifebelts to the debris. Something that would have taken time (and thought) for Jack and Rose to do, something that likely didn't have going for them in arctic conditions in the early hours of the morning after having been running around for the last 2+ hours. (Not to mention not having the advantage of hindsight.) I do "agree", though, that had Rose stayed on the lifeboat Jack may well have survived as he would have found the debris and gotten shelter on it while she was in the lifeboat, Jack then later would have been saved when the lifeboat came back for survivors. But then there's the question on whether or not he and Rose would have been able to reunite and live happily ever after or if Rose would have gotten drug away by Cal or her mom. (We could also quibble, though, that if Rose stayed on the lifeboat then things might have been changed so much Jack may never have found the debris. Butterfly effect and all.) But Jack was a third-class male passenger. The odds weren't in his favor to begin with.
Rose didn't have a whistle either. It was the whistle of one of the Titanic's crewmen. She took from his body and used it. I do love how you put it:
It's "likely" that even without the whistle Rose (or Jack) would have been found as in the real sinking some survivors were pulled from the body field.
I haven't seen it since its theatrical run (school mandated for some reason), so I'm more than a little hazy on the details. I thought at the time they could both fit, but if it's me instead of Leo, and the perception is that only one person can make it, then the random chick that I'd gotten to know for all of one sea voyage is getting dunked into the drink until she stops moving, and I'm riding that debris. Would've been a much better ending too IMO. Granted, might not have grossed a billion plus that way.