Pandora Avatar: The Moon, the Na'vi and Its Wildlife Explained

Humans work on Pandora through the avatar program, which lets them control Na'vi-bodied avatars.

In Avatar (2009), Jake Sully joins the program in place of his late twin brother. Dr. Grace Augustine, played by Sigourney Weaver, is among the humans in the program, and Grace Augustine is the character whose fate echoes through the sequels. In the climax, Quaritch exposes Jake's human body to the toxic atmosphere, which shows how little margin a human has without technology. Afterward, a ritual at the Tree of Souls moves Jake's mind permanently into his avatar body.

The human boy Spider, who grew up on Pandora, shows the other side of the problem in Avatar: Fire and Ash. His breathing mask fails and he can no longer use it safely, and Kiri later uses mycelia to let him breathe Pandoran air.

The forest of the first film is the Omaticaya's home, and its center is Hometree, the great dwelling built over the richest unobtanium deposit. The setting turns a resource dispute into a fight over a home.

When Jake sabotages a bulldozer, Selfridge orders Hometree destroyed. Jake confesses his role, and he and Grace are captured. The attack destroys Hometree and kills Eytukan. Trudy, played by Michelle Rodriguez, frees Jake, Grace and Norm, but Grace is fatally wounded in the escape.

The loss does not end the clan, though. Jake unites the clans against the RDA, and the final fight takes place at the Tree of Souls rather than at the ruins of the old home. The first film closes with the surviving humans expelled from Pandora.

Eywa is the force of Pandora that the Na'vi connect to through spirit trees, and the Tree of Souls and the Metkayina Spirit Tree are the trees the films show in that role. Each film brings that connection into the plot at a key moment.

In the first film, the Tree of Souls is where the last battle takes place and where the ritual moves Jake's mind into his avatar body. In the second, Kiri bonds with the Metkayina Spirit Tree and has a seizure that scientists diagnose as epilepsy. In the third, Kiri finally reaches Eywa, and Pandora's wildlife attacks the RDA forces while she stops Varang from killing Neytiri.

After the final battle, Spider connects with the underwater spirit trees and meets deceased Na'vi. Kiri introduces him to her mother, Grace, and the Na'vi formally take him in as one of their people. Grace, the first film's scientist who was fatally wounded in the escape from Hometree, therefore returns in the third film's closing scenes.

Pandora's animals are active participants in the story, from the creatures that attack Jake in the forest to the tulkun of the sea. In each film the wildlife changes a battle.

In Avatar (2009), Jake bonds with the great flying creature Toruk and uses that bond to unite the clans against the RDA. In the battle at the Tree of Souls, Pandora's wildlife joins the fight. The second film moves to the ocean, where Lo'ak befriends an outcast tulkun, Payakan, who was exiled by his own kind. Quaritch then hunts tulkun near Na'vi villages to draw Jake out, and Payakan attacks the RDA ship to start the final battle. You can read more about Lo'ak and his bond with Payakan on his own page.

In Fire and Ash, Lo'ak's efforts to bring the injured tulkun Payakan and Ta'nok before the council persuade the elders to reconsider their pacifism. Jake bonds with Toruk again and rallies the clans, and the tulkun and Na'vi ambush the RDA fleet. Ta'nok later kills the hunter Scoresby, played by Brendan Cowell.

The reef is the Metkayina's home, and it is where the Sully family hides in the second film. Jake leads the Omatikaya in a guerrilla war until Quaritch closes in, and the family flees to the reef people led by Tonowari and Ronal.

The Sully children clash with the local youths, which gives the reef section its social friction. Quaritch tracks the family there, seizes a tulkun hunting ship and burns Na'vi dwellings while interrogating the villagers. Neteyam is shot dead during the escape in the final battle, and after his funeral Tonowari declares the Sullys part of the clan. Jake concludes he can no longer run from Quaritch and the RDA, and the film ends with a decision to stand and fight.

The Avatar: The Way of Water page has the full plot and cast. For the clan overview, the Na'vi clans page places the Metkayina next to the other peoples.

The Mangkwan, known as the Ash People, are the Na'vi clan that Varang leads in Fire and Ash, and they serve Quaritch's purposes as much as they menace the Sullys. Their arrival breaks any idea of a single Na'vi front against the RDA.

They strike first at the Wind Trader convoy, burning its ships and scattering the Sully family. Quaritch earns Varang's trust by teaching her to fire guns, and the clan ends up carrying firearms and flamethrowers while he begins a relationship with her. In the climactic battle the Mangkwan help Quaritch turn the fight. Ronal is wounded and dies in childbirth, and Neytiri delivers her daughter Pril before she is captured.

By the closing scenes Varang, the Ash People and the RDA all remain threats, which leaves the story open for further films. Varang is played by Oona Chaplin, and her character has a page of her own at Varang.

Pandora works as the spine of the saga because each film reveals a new region and a new kind of conflict while the moon itself stays the thing at stake. In my opinion, that is the most disciplined choice James Cameron makes across the series.

The pattern is easy to trace. Avatar (2009) is a story about the forest and a single clan, with Hometree as the symbol. The Way of Water moves to the reef and asks what a refugee family owes a host clan. Fire and Ash then widens the lens to a clan that has learned to use human weapons, which turns the moon from a place under threat into a place with its own internal war. It could be argued that this is the strongest argument for the Mangkwan: they make Pandora politically complicated, not just ecologically beautiful.

The cost of the structure is that every film ends with the RDA still interested in the moon. Avatar (2009) ends with the Na'vi free but with Earth's interest unresolved, The Way of Water sets up a larger war, and Fire and Ash leaves the Ash People, Varang and the RDA as ongoing threats. That being said, the setting gives the series room to grow, and Avatar 4 is reported for December 21, 2029, though that date is not confirmed by the studio.

If you want to see how the three films compare, the Avatar movies ranked page gives a verdict on each, and the Avatar timeline shows where each region sits in the story.