This article contains spoilers for Avatar: The Way of WaterIn the decade-long run-up to the release ofAvatar: The Way of Water, it was revealed that actor Stephen Lang, who played Colonel Miles Quaritch in the first Avatar,would be returninginAvatar’s four sequels. While Quaritch did die at the end ofAvatar, thanks to an arrow through the exoskeleton thanks to Neytiri, his story did not end with his human body’s death. It turns out that dying was only the beginning for Quaritch, who returns as a Na’Vi Avatar “recombinant” inAvatar: The Way of Water. Not only does Quaritchcome backin the sequel, but he begins a path towards redemption that will be followed through the forthcoming sequels.
New Body, New Quaritch?
In a moment that mirrors Jake Sully’s initial disorientation when first waking up in an avatar body, the Na’Vi Quaritch wakes up in a medical lab in a shock. But instead of being restrained by human scientists, he’s held by members of his crew, who are also now Na’Vi. A recording of human Quaritch, taken just a few hours before his own death, informs his Na’Vi self that the RDA made his crew create backups of their memories, to be grown in Na’Vi Avatars and shipped back to Pandora. Quaritch’s return begs the question: if he has the same memories, is the reborn Avatar the same Quaritch, or an entirely new person?
The movie is the first to question the validity of Quaritch’s resurrection. The Na’Vi Quaritch is the first to say that he isn’t the same person, though this is also to shirk a fatherly responsibility over his new captive Spider. In a particularly symbolic moment, he finds the rotted skeleton of human Quaritch, and crushes the skeleton’s skull. His enemies, however, still see him as the same Quaritch. Neytiri calls him “demon”, the same moniker she uses in the first movie.
The mere possibility of shedding his older, more violent human identity is at the crux of Quaritch’s redemption. A human Quaritch, outright responsible for the deaths of countless lives, and the destruction of the Na’Vi’s spirit tree, could never achieve redemption. But if the Na’Vi Quaritch isn’t the same person, he technically has yet to kill anyone directly.
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Becoming Na’Vi
The most symbolic aspect of Quaritch’s redemption might also be the most apparent: his appearance. Despite not being born on Pandora, Quaritch lives in a Na’Vi body, albeit with adifferent number of fingers. While this Avatar Quaritch is quick to don some XXXL military gear, he quickly finds himself slipping into more of a Na’Vi lifestyle, setting up his eventual turn to fight for theworld of Pandora.
After a brief firefight with Jake Sully and Neytiri, Quaritch tells his crew that to find the Sullys, they must think, act, and talk like Na’Vi. Soon after, Quaritch returns to the RDA military base barefoot, and covered in mud. This is the beginning of a visual change in Quaritch, from military to Na’Vi, that already begins to progress inAvatar: The Way of Water. As his proficiency at the Na’Vi language progresses, Quaritch is able to bond with his own flying Ikran. While his connection to Pandora and the Na’Vi is the least-explored thus far, it is not completely absent. In the final act, and at the height of battle with Jake Sully, Quaritch finally hisses like the other Na’vi. Quaritch does not connect with any other Pandoran life in the movie, but will have to in order to seek forgiveness from the planet.
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While he must align himself with Pandora in order to fully switch sides, the key to Quaritch’s redemption lies in the relationship with his son, Spider. Introduced early in The Way of Water, Spider is a human boy, first described as a stray cat by Jake Sully. Left behind when the humans left Pandora, since babies cannot enter cryosleep, Spider grew up around the Na’Vi, and yearns to be one of them. This creates a wealth of complications when Spider discovers his dead father, Quaritch himself, has been reborn as a Na’Vi Avatar. This Quaritch is living a reality that Spider yearns for, while also representing everything he hates. Quaritch saves Spider’s life, but kidnaps him at the same time. Here, Quaritch claims to be a different person altogether, not Spider’s father.
As Quaritch and crew aim to become more Na’Vi,Spider is the oneto show them the ropes of survival and culture. It creates a begrudging working relationship between Quaritch and Spider. In one scene, Spider seems to successfully act as Quaritch’s new conscience, as he convinces Quaritch to not order the slaughter of a Na’Vi village.As Quaritch overlooks a mission report, Spider runs underneath Quaritch’s arms, eliciting the same comparisons to a stray cat that Jake Sully began the movie on. Quaritch proves he cares for Spider in the final act of the film, when he releases Jake and Neytiri’s daughter Kiri in exchange for Spider’s own safety. It is a tense moment that puts Quaritch’s care for Spider above his hatred for Jake Sully. Spider then saves Quaritch’s life, and then abandons him for the Sully Family, but not before Quaritch calls him son. While Quaritch must fight for, and be forgiven by Pandora to be redeemed, even more important is a reconciliation with his son.
The messy, ever-shifting relationship between a father reborn and the son he abandoned is at the crux of Quaritch’s redemption arc for theAvatar sequels. It builds off of Quaritch’s original death at the end of the original Avatar, developing into a question of identity, complicated by a new sense of belonging, and will finally be realized when he makes amends with Spider. While he is not in Kansas anymore, Quaritch is on a yellow brick road.
