So I guess the point of my rambling here is this: What exactly is the authority of the Code? My limited understanding was that it is more or less the rules set down by Wizkid’s rule arbitrator. But if that’s the case, why isn’t this printed on the cards or in the rules pamphlet that comes with the game itself?
The original purpose of the Pirate Code was to make the rules the same for tournaments and other officially-run events by Wizkids. Back when the game first came out, it was only meant to be a simple “beer & pretzels” game and was never intended to be supported at any sort of tournament level at all. The rules were intentionally left somewhat vague and open-ended, so people could easily adapt it to play however they wanted. The player base, at least the online portion, overwhelmingly demanded otherwise, so more and more official events were quickly created for it. However, because of how those original rules were written, it left the door open for players to find all sorts of creative ways to break the game. And they did, over and over again. The “Official Rules Arbitrator” position was created to deal with all of those issues and find ways to keep the game functional, without completely rewriting things from scratch.
The problem was that there was always somewhat of a disconnect between what the rules-writers did and what the Rules Arbitrator (RA) did to keep them working, and there was never really a good explanation for why. Over the course of the game’s full run the lead designers changed a few times, and some of the later ones were much more receptive to including things from the Pirate Code, but there was always still a reluctance to change the printed rules too much.
On the one hand, that was somewhat understandable, because the overwhelming majority of issues addressed in the PC deal with weird ability combinations and interactions that the basic rulebook doesn’t address at all. On the other hand, it meant that a lot of issues went completely unaddressed outside of the PC for most of the game’s run. Even the action limit didn’t make it into the rulebook until one of the last few sets, even though it had been an issue since the very beginning.
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TL/DR: There are so many wonky rules in the Pirate Code because there are a lot of ability combinations that create confusing situations, and also because players have found so many ways to break the game over the years.
Don’t bother trying to read through the whole thing (maybe just some of the more general sections), and definitely don’t feel like you need to memorize any of it. For casual games with just a friend group you can mostly get away with ignoring it entirely, but it can still be helpful as a reference when there are disputes about specific rules or when you’re not sure how two different abilities are meant to interact.