Is Kiri one with Eywa? Will the tulkun abandon their pacifist ways? Is there a future for Spider
and Quaritch? There is still so much story to tell at the end of "Avatar: The Way of Water."
Perhaps the biggest question in all of "Avatar: The Way of Water" is the one posed in the opening
narration: Who is Kiri’s father? Jake Sully tells us that after the death of Dr. Grace Augustine in
the first film, they discovered a child growing in the body of her comatose avatar. That child,
Kiri, is adopted by the Sullys upon her birth, but her actual origin remains a huge mystery.
Throughout the film, numerous characters, including Kiri herself,
speculate as to who her father might be. There are so few compelling answers that even Norm is
mentioned as a possible candidate. In reality, no one has any idea who the father could be.
Given that Kiri has strange and powerful abilities and feels so close to the natural world of Pandora
that she can "hear Eywa’s heartbeat," it’s possible that the whole father question is
a giant red herring. When Grace died, the Na’vi were trying to move her soul permanently out of
her dying human body and into her avatar. The process failed, but before she passed,
Grace told Jake that Eywa was real. Sometime afterward, the pregnancy was discovered.
Could Kiri be a creation of Eywa herself, the all-seeing goddess of Pandora? It’s
very possible. While Grace’s soul was too weak to survive a transfer into her Avatar, perhaps
Eywa was able to put a child in her instead. That would explain the unknown father, Kiri’s powers,
and why Sigourney Weaver plays both her and Grace. For now, though, we’ll just have to wait and see.
"Dad, I know you think I'm crazy,
but I feel her."
One of the most interesting new characters in "Avatar: The Way of Water" is Spider. He was
a human baby left behind on Pandora when the RDA was sent home. And as we’re told
multiple times throughout the movie, you can’t put a baby in cryosleep. While there are a few
other humans around for Spider’s upbringing, he prefers the company of the Na’vi. Like Kiri,
he becomes a member of the Sully family. He tries to fit in the best he can by adopting
the dress and customs of the Omaticaya. At times, he even paints himself blue.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about Spider, however, is that he’s the son of
the villainous Colonel Quaritch. This causes a good deal of drama when Spider is captured
by Quaritch and his cronies, but we never learn about his mother. Since Spider was just a baby
when the humans were sent back to Earth, he would have been born on Pandora shortly before
the events of the original film. That means that his mother would have been part of the RDA crew.
So where is she? Was she sent back to Earth with the rest of the RDA? And what was the nature of
her relationship with Quaritch? For now, at least, those questions remain unanswered.
At the start of "Avatar: The Way of Water," the Sullys are still living with the Omaticaya in
the forest. Neytiri has stepped up into her late father’s role as the clan’s protector, and her
mother Mo’at remains their spiritual leader. The community is torn asunder, however, when Quaritch
returns with a squad of avatar hitmen, all of whom have been sent to wipe the Sullys out.
We don’t get to spend that long with the Omaticaya before Jake and his family leave
to join the Metkayina. And after their departure, we never go back. This leaves the fate of the clan
completely uncertain, though there are some clues as to what might be going on back in the forest.
We’re told early on that the clan’s mountain hideaway is inaccessible to ordinary humans.
Quaritch can sneak in because he’s in an avatar, so with him and his squad hunting Jake, the
Omaticaya should be pretty safe. This theory is further supported by Norm’s
visit later in the film. Since he’s still stationed with the Omaticaya in the forest,
you’d think he’d mention if anything truly terrible were happening.
Of course, the main RDA force is still on the Omaticaya’s doorstep. General Ardmore is prepping
for full colonization of the planet, and the hunt for unobtainium is presumably still active. With
all that brewing and Hometree already destroyed, the Omaticaya may not be so safe for much longer.
Spider gets captured by the RDA pretty early on in "Avatar 2." He spends the majority of
the film in their captivity, primarily as a part of his father’s hunting party.
While he clearly despises his captors and rejoins the Sullys as soon as possible,
Spider also seems oddly helpful to the humans at times. In particular, he guides them to
the hidden home of the mountain banshees, allowing Quaritch’s squad to acquire mounts.
Why would Spider help his sworn enemies in this way? It’s possible that the humans
already knew about the banshee nest from Jake’s spying in the first film. Also,
Spider’s only alternative seems to be an absolutely brutal form of brain-scanning torture,
which looks like it might have killed him if he’d been subjected to much more. He does
resist helping the recoms on the reefs when they start burning Na’vi villages,
so the best explanation is simply that the poor kid doesn’t have any other choice.
However, things aren’t quite so simple. When Quaritch successfully claims his banshee,
Spider looks excited. He smiles at the sight of his father soaring through the sky. Simply put,
this makes no sense. Spider has always wanted to be a Na’vi,
and he completely despises his father. So why isn’t he enraged to see Quaritch successfully
bond with a mount? This should be a moment of outrage, of indignation that the villain of
the story gets to do something spectacular that Spider can never have. Unfortunately,
we don’t get enough reflection on this moment to fully understand what’s going on.
It’s no secret that Kiri is different than the other Na’vi on Pandora. She has an
uncanny ability to influence whatever natural forces are around her. Fish,
grass, trees, birds, all these and more seem to bend to her will. It’s
as if the very energy of Pandora flows through her into everything around her.
This makes it even more curious when, after bonding with the Metkayina’s
underwater spirit tree, Kiri has a massive seizure. During the bond,
she has a vision of her mother and asks her questions about her father. But just
as Grace is about to answer, she’s yanked away, and Kiri’s body starts to convulse.
Norm claims that the seizure is the result of epilepsy and that the tree triggered
hallucinations via electrical impulses in Kiri’s brain. But this is Pandora,
and nothing is ever that simple. The spirit tree is supposed to be a strong link to Eywa,
so maybe it’s that connection that causes the seizure. Kiri seems to be a conduit for the
power of the planet, so linking with it in such a strong way may have overloaded her.
Throughout the original "Avatar" and its sequel,
we only get hints at what life is like on Earth. From what is revealed, though,
it doesn’t sound good. Jake says in the first film that there’s "no green" left on his homeworld,
and General Ardmore says that the Earth is dying. The plans for a colonized Pandora show how extreme
things must be on Earth, with humanity soon intending to leave the planet for good. However,
we still haven’t gotten a real look at what things are like back home.
Supplemental sources like the mobile game "Avatar: Pandora Rising" and the official companion book
"Avatar: An Activist Survival Guide" offer a few more details. Corporate dominance,
environmental devastation, and constant warfare have effectively decimated Earth’s natural
ecosystem by the time the films take place. We also know from a handful of lines that classism
is rampant. The super-rich can afford miraculous surgeries and eternal youth with enough money,
while the masses are left to fight for survival on the planet’s desolate husk.
Going back to Earth seems counterintuitive to what the "Avatar" movies excel at,
which is showing gorgeous alien locales and exotic animals. Still,
a trip home and a closer look at Earth seem inevitable as the story moves forward.
When Quaritch returns to Pandora at the beginning of "Avatar: The Way of Water," he’s quickly
brought up to speed by General Ardmore. She informs him that the RDA’s main objective now
is no longer the mining of unobtainium, but the preparation of Pandora for full
human colonization. With the Earth rapidly dying, Pandora looks to be the best chance humanity has
for a new home. Of course, that also means ripping the planet away from its rightful inhabitants,
decimating its natural landscape, and being completely vile in basically every way.
"The humans are returning. They're hunting us."
The odd thing is that, later in the film, we see another,
very different part of the RDA’s operations, the hunting of the Tulkun. The hyper-intelligent
whale-like creatures are valuable for the fluid extracted from their brains,
which is said to "stop human aging" completely. Like unobtainium, it’s a valuable resource,
but not one that would likely benefit the majority of humans on Earth.
The RDA is pretty clearly two-faced, claiming to be fighting for the survival of the species
while using its immense resources to further enrich Earth’s elite. Their
duplicitous nature begs the question, who would actually get to come to Pandora if
it were colonized? The masses? Or just the rich, propped up by their hoarded wealth
and a healthy number of Na’vi slaves? Ardmore only has a small role in "The Way of Water,"
but she’ll likely be much more important and villainous in the following films.
One of the main storylines in "Avatar: The Way of Water" is the adorable friendship between Lo’ak,
Jake and Neytiri’s second son, and Payakan, an outcast Tulkun who saves his life. The tulkun
has been ostracized by the rest of his kind for rejecting their strict policy of pacifism.
Specifically, he led an attack on an RDA ship after his mother was killed by humans,
leading to the deaths of many other Tulkun and Metkayina Na’vi.
It’s a tragic story, but the timeline of it is pretty confusing. Humans only returned
to Pandora a year before the events of the film, and as far as we know,
the RDA’s operations during the first film had nothing to do with the sea. That means
that it would have only been a year ago at most that Payakan’s mother was killed,
but that doesn’t really make sense. We see that the Tulkun hunters target mothers with
young calves because they won’t abandon their kids. While never explicitly confirmed, it’s
implied that that’s what happened to Payakan’s mother. And yet, he’s a full-grown adult.
Maybe he was already fully grown when his mother was killed,
but that also creates some weird discrepancies. The Metkayina talk about him like he’s a legend,
someone they grew up hearing stories about. So was Tulkun hunting a thing during the
original "Avatar?" Is there something else going on here? Or is this just a plot hole?
After a long battle with Jake Sully at the end of "Avatar: The Way of Water," Quaritch
is strangled out and left to drown. Of course, the unkillable man makes it out once again,
this time saved reluctantly by his son. Spider doesn’t seek his father out. He’s looking for
the other Sullys when he comes upon Quaritch’s comatose body. Despite his hatred for the man, he
grabs him and carries him to the surface, allowing him to fly to safety on the back of his banshee.
Why does Spider do this? Well, there are a couple of explanations. Just moments prior,
he was under Neytiri’s knife, who threatened to kill him if Quaritch didn’t release Tuk. In a
surprising twist of fate, the villain agrees, showing that he does care for his son despite
his claims to the contrary. In addition to this recent display of affection, Spider
probably just doesn’t want to be responsible for his father’s death. Leaving him to drown
would basically be killing him, and killing your father is a big ask, even if you loathe his guts.
Spider hisses at Quaritch when he’s invited to flee with him,
choosing instead to rejoin the Sullys. However,
he doesn’t tell them what he’s done. Will Quaritch continue to torment the family,
putting blood on Spider’s hands? Or will this experience cause him to rethink his heinous ways?
Quaritch is about as cartoonish as a movie villain can possibly get. Stephen Lang is masterful as the
detestable baddie, spewing hateful monologues and cheesy one-liners in the same breath. And yet,
despite how over-the-top hateable the character is, there are hints that he could redeem himself.
In his first real conversation with Spider, Quaritch apologizes for being a bad father,
something that doesn’t make sense given that he was killed when his
son was just a baby. This whole scene is a pretty obvious manipulation,
and he even drops the same line he used on Jake in the original film.
"You've got some heart, kid, showing up in this neighborhood."
Spider doesn’t buy it, but he chooses to go with Quaritch rather than be subjected
to more of the RDA’s torture. However, by the end of the movie,
there’s at least a shred of begrudging loyalty between the two of them.
Calling it love might be a step too far, but there’s something there. Maybe Spider’s hatred
of him will be the fuel that makes Quaritch reflect on his past actions. Given all the
evil he’s done, though, full redemption would be a tall task. At the end of "The
Way of Water," Quaritch says that he and Spider "aren’t even the same species,"
and that line has more meaning than it may seem. Though he’s the one in a Na’vi body,
he clearly thinks of himself as human and his son as something else. Nonetheless,
he surprises himself and everyone else by actually begging for Spider’s life.
When Payakan leaps out of the water to attack the RDA ship at the end of "Avatar 2," you might think
that the rest of the Tulkun are close behind them. Sure, they despise violence and killing,
but they’ll make an exception to defend their home, right? Not exactly. Fortunately,
one Tulkun proves to be enough, because Payakan’s brethren never surface during
the final battle. Whether or not they’ll change their ways remains to be seen.
To be clear, there can absolutely be a role for nonviolent resistors in
instances of oppression. But when the very survival of your species is on the line,
that role can be hard to find. Humanity isn’t going to stop their conquest with a
few whales and a little bit of forest. They’re coming for the whole planet. And when they do,
a whole herd of Tulkun could be a valuable weapon in the fight for freedom.
Maybe Payakan can convince his community to break their rules just this once. At
the very least, it would be nice to see him readmitted into their ranks.
The first "Avatar" doesn’t provide a lot of details about how the Tree of Souls works,
but "The Way of Water" gives us some interesting new clues through the
Metkayina’s underwater spirit tree. We see multiple characters bond with the tree and
have curious visions. However, it’s still not entirely clear what they’re seeing.
When Kiri bonds with the tree, she sees her mother working in a lab. The two have
a conversation that’s quickly cut off after Kiri starts asking questions. Grace appears
to be yanked away from her, and Kiri starts convulsing from a seizure in the real world.
Later, at the end of the movie, Jake and Neytiri bond with the tree and see their
son Neteyam. This vision is different from Kiri’s because it appears to be a memory,
an echo of a moment at the start of the film that shows Jake training Neteyam how to fish.
Because Kiri never met her mother, her vision couldn’t possibly be a memory.
So what’s happening here? Are Jake and Neytiri actually communing with
their son’s spirit? Is Grace’s soul still alive in Eywa as a result of
how she died? The spiritual aspects of Pandora may never be fully explained,
which isn’t a bad thing. But in this case, it would be great to learn a little bit more.
The Na’vi rid their planet of humans at the end of the original "Avatar," but things
aren’t so simple in the sequel. The big action climax sees the RDA’s whaling ship destroyed,
but humanity’s operations back in the forest are presumably still going strong. So what’s
next for the RDA, and how will they respond to the battle on the reefs?
If General Ardmore is to be believed, more human forces are coming. She says that she’s been sent
to "tame this frontier," gesturing to Pandora at large. It’s to be the new home for humanity
if the RDA get their way, which would surely doom the planet. With the very survival of the species
apparently at stake, we’ve likely only seen a fraction of the military might that’s coming.
The Na’vi will have a big fight on their hands if the colonization efforts continue to gain steam.
How that fight takes shape, however, remains to be seen. Could humanity create a whole army of
avatar soldiers to adapt to Pandora’s environment? It seems likely. Could they start plundering the
spiritual energy of the planet in addition to its other natural resources? Also a possibility. The
future looks grim for the Na’vi, but with a united front, they still have a chance.
Though he’s a trained soldier, Jake Sully is running scared for most of "Avatar:
The Way of Water." When he realizes how great the danger to his children is,
he completely abandons his crusade against the RDA and dedicates all his energy to keeping his
family safe. Throughout the film, we see Jake humble himself to the Metkayina, Quaritch,
and others to protect his own. But by the end, he realizes that isn’t going to cut it anymore.
Jake says in the film’s closing narration, "I can’t save my family by running". This suggests
that he’s accepted Tonowari’s invitation to stay with the Metkayina, rather than flee again. The
death of Neteyam has changed Jake’s perspective, and he now knows that fighting back is the only
way to earn peace. However, he doesn’t give us many real clues about his next move.
"Let's get it done."
Staying with the Metkayina could have some benefits for sure, but so could moving on to
yet another Na’vi clan. If the RDA is to be fully defeated, Pandora needs to be united. Staying on
the move also isn't a bad idea, and it isn’t the same as running away. Whatever happens, the Sullys
have their work cut out for them, but they seem more than up to the task after "The Way of Water."