James Cameron’s Avatar: Fire and Ash received a robust revenue this weekend with $345 million on its global theatrical release. Numerous positive reviews have surfaced on the internet over the past couple of days; however, it is undeniable that there is a surge of different reviews where people emphasise the recycled or copy-paste plots. Objectively, seeing the bigger picture, what they have stated is not completely wrong either. James Cameron, indeed, brings about grief and loss several times from the first instalment until the latest.
The key element of the Avatar saga is grief; grief is the substantial part, the world-building, and the main drive. In several interviews and press junkets during Avatar: Fire and Ash promotion, such as from The Hollywood Reporter to The Movie Podcast, James always expressed exploring grief as a universal human experience. He implied that he did not want to make a simple journey for his characters, not merely experiencing loss, then elevated to revenge, where it leads to the character completely forgetting about the loss by the next film.
The truth is, loss is always there, haunting you for the rest of your life, will always be plastered, and weighed on your shoulder until it comes back to ruin your mind.
As far as humans know, through meticulous scientific research, human beings experience several stages of grief. There are two different types: five stages by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and the seven stages of grief by David Kessler. For this purpose, I’m going to expand the Avatar saga in the famous five stages by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. As we learn these steps, we will learn and appreciate what each character has gone through from the first movie to the latest.
Spoiler Alert: if you haven’t watched Avatar: Fire and Ash
Through all three movies, we knew that Neytiri carried grief on her shoulder from the beginning; from the loss of her father by the sky people invasion, RDA destroyed her forest, to the pivotal moment where she lost Neteyam, her first son, in Avatar: The Way of Water.
What we’ve seen so far from her character is the collective anger that she had carried, and we called it female rage, but what we didn’t see is the stages that she had been going through. All we know she had lived a wonderful life with Jake Sully, her husband, and was full of love by the birth of her children at the beginning of Avatar: The Way of Water, but the extra vigilance towards her children whenever they hang out with Spider, the human boy, is always there. Well, we can’t blame her; she almost lost her home to the Sky People. She has reached the point of bargaining when they knew Quaritch went after them as they migrated and lived with the Metkayina clan; however, when Neteyam died, she resurrects her anger again, and all the collective hatred in Avatar: Fire and Ash.
In the beginning of Avatar: Fire and Ash, Neytiri becomes less proactive, until that one argument where she explains her frustration, and Jake retaliates that her anger, hatred, and silence is a cumulative, unreasonable anger toward the pink-skinned Sky People. Jake even brought up a topic of he was one of them in the argument. But, as we understand the stage of grief, Neytiri underwent a depression, which involves a great sadness, hopelessness, and despair.
If we put the stages of grief into Neytiri’s shoes, we learn to acknowledge ourselves that what she had undergone was only her grief mechanism. So, how did Jake Sully react to grief? How did Lo’ak react to the loss of his oldest brother? Every character experienced it differently.
We might change our sides and see Jake Sully as a character that we started to take a dim view of when the movie shows his parenting affects Lo’ak’s mental health, but that’s grief. We might take sides with Lo’ak to be recklessly proactive, to do whatever it takes, to prove his stance in front of his father,and that’s grief. And Neytiri, when she denied Spider as a part of her family, that’s also grief – until the final pivotal acceptance when she said “I see you” to Spider, minutes before Jake Sully almost ended Spider’s life.
There is no justification for whether what Neytiri, Jake, or Lo’ak did was noble. It was horrendous and affected their lives and the people surrounding them, but as we try to acknowledge what James Cameron really wants the audience to feel, which is to be compassionate and show their empathy to each character’s grief, then we might understand or even validate their misbehavior for being human, though they are Na’vi people.
It takes Neytiri almost a decade and a half after her father died, after her forest burned, then witnessing her own son die, and led to that tension where the famous female rage line was delivered, “A son for a son,” before she was truly accepting Spider as one of the people. We have to remember that before Neteyam even died, she even wanted to separate her kids from Spider, and that was from her collective anger and hatred, which was part of her grief; it took her years and years until she reached the part of acceptance and truly faced whatever obstacles were in front of her and her family.
At the end, if people said that the saga has a recycled plot, then you can say yes to them, and rant about the objective of what the father of Avatar wants the audience to immerse themselves in.
Another thing, for Avatar fans out there, if James Cameron wants to portray universal human experience on five stages of grief, then maybe we might know the closure of every Sully’s journey, especially how it haunted and affected our two narrators from the previous two, Jake Sully, and Lo’ak, in the third installment. Hopefully, they will both put their stances on acceptance at the end of the saga.
See you guys again in 2029, as we fly along with our Ikran in Pandora, Oel Ngati Kameie!
Bibliography :
- Elevate Psychologists. (2023, October 3). Difference between 5 stages and 7 stages of grief. Elevate Clinical Psychologists Sydney. https://elevate-psych.com.au/difference-between-5-stages-and-7-stages-of-grief/
- Rubin, R. (2025, December 21). Box office ‘Avatar: Fire and ash’ powers to $345 million globally, ‘Zootopia 2’ hops to $1.27 billion. Variety. https://variety.com/2025/film/box-office/box-office-avatar-fire-and-ash-global-start-1236613854/
- The Hollywood Reporter. (2025, December 17). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKdNPr7a5TI
- The Movie Podcast. (2025, December 20). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mv70Rkgn7xo
Yundira is an Indonesian writer crafting fiction and film articles in both Indonesian and English. Her fiction works have been published in Kaytell Ink, Livina Press, and Porch LitMag. She shares her thoughts on film and fangirling on TikTok @Starkackerman and Instagram @yundiraks. While she is currently preparing for her MA in Creative Writing, she always loves to show her fangirling side on social media —Punkrock!
