One Line Is All It Took To Sell Me on Avatar: Fire & Ash’s New Villain

James Cameron is taking the world back to Pandora this holiday season with the release of Cameron’s new sci-fi adventure, Avatar: Fire & Ash, and the movie’s villain already looks to be an extremely scary and formidable one. The third movie in Cameron’s epic Avatar franchise, Fire & Ash is set to take place a year after the events of 2022’s Avatar: The Way of Water, with human-turned-Na’vi hero Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), his wife Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), and their Na’vi family facing a new conflict with another Na’vi tribe, the mysterious Ash People. Additionally, Jake’s old nemesis, Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), is also back for revenge against Jake and his loved ones, which will inevitably escalate the conflict even more.

Lang’s performance as the utterly ruthless Quaritch promises to be a very high bar to meet for Fire & Ash‘s new antagonist, the Ash People’s leader Varang (Oona Chaplin). However, she has already gone a long way to accomplishing exactly that goal in the Fire & Ash trailer, in a scene with Varang holding Neytiri’s daughter Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) hostage. In the scene in question, Varang coldly sneers at Neytiri, “Your goddess has no dominion here”. With just that one line of dialogue from Varang, the Fire & Ash trailer has already sold her as the villainous equal of Quaritch.

There Is More to the Na’vi Religion Than We’ve Seen (So Far)

Varang’s cold-blooded line in the Avatar: Fire and Ash trailer has a number of layers to it that highlight what kind of villainess she will be and even some possible new details about life on Pandora. To begin with, Varang’s reference to Eywa’s lack of dominion on the Ash Clan’s territory (Eywa being the Na’vi goddess from the first two Avatar movies being referenced) really sells her as having no reluctance to kill her enemies and rub it in the faces of their families. Whether Varang is taking Kiri hostage or is ready to kill her right then and there, she clearly has no reluctance to do either, already setting her up as a chilling villainess in Fire & Ash.

Additionally, Varang’s reference to Eywa could reveal that the Na’vi are actually polytheistic. The previous two Avatar movies seemingly centered Eywa as either the sole or at least primary deity worshipped by the Na’vi, with the indigenous population of Pandora even having a direct link to Eywa through the planet’s vast forests and their ability to interface with the Tree of Souls. Varang’s line could suggest that the Na’vi’s religion is either polytheistic or that the Ash Clan prays to a different but equally powerful deity of their own. In turn, Varang’s suggestion that Eywa has no power in the Ash Clan’s territory is the first real restriction the Avatar franchise has placed upon Eywa’s power and omnipresence, which could hint at a far larger Na’vi cosmology than even what the first two Avatar movies revealed.

Avatar: Fire & Ash Focuses on the Na’vi’s Tribal Conflicts

While the first two Avatar movies based their conflicts on a humans versus Na’vi story, Avatar: Fire & Ash will be the first installment of the franchise in which Na’vi characters will have an antagonistic role. In Fire & Ash, the Ash People are a far more aggressive and war-prone tribe compared to the generally peaceful (but certainly war-capable) Omaticaya and Metkayina tribes seen previously. What isn’t immediately clear is what causes the Ash People to declare war on their fellow Na’vi, or whether they have always been hostile to other Na’vi, but it seems that the franchise’s bloodthirsty villain Miles Quaritch (hosting a Na’vi body since The Way of Water) plays a role in the conflict.

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While Quaritch is seen relatively little in the Fire & Ash trailer, he is shown arriving in the Ash People’s territory, holding up his hands to show that he is unarmed. Another shot shows Quaritch arriving with two unidentified characters in AMP suits. These could suggest that Quaritch, still vengeful over these two defeats at the hands of Jake Sully and his Na’vi family, might be the one to manipulate (or even potentially coerce) the Ash People into declaring war on Jake’s family and the Metkayina tribe. In any case, it seems that Varang is the one most easily won over by what Quaritch puts on the table, as seen in her chilling snippet from Fire & Ash‘s trailer.

Varang Already Seems As Ruthless As Quarritch

Despite the brevity of both Varang and Quaritch’s appearances in the Fire & Ash trailer, the former seems to be the first real contender to be as strong a villain in the Avatar franchise as Quaritch himself. It also bears repeating just how high a bar Quaritch is to meet as a villain after Lang’s performance as the psychotic military commander from the first two Avatar movies. The fact that Quaritch is still a returning villain in Fire & Ash means audiences will have two uncompromising villains side-by-side in the third Avatar movie, and in just one short clip, Varang might actually be even scarier than Quaritch in certain ways.

The fact that Varang not only seems prepared to murder Kiri in cold blood, but her invocation of the Na’vi’s own religion and deities as a taunt to Neytiri indicates how harsh and remorseless she seems prepared to be in Fire & Ash. Whether the story is rooted in a long-running conflict between Na’vi tribes, one that Quaritch sets into motion, or some combination of the two, Varang has already established herself as a terrifying villainess in Avatar: Fire & Ash with her cold delivery of just one line.

Avatar: Fire & Ash will be released in theaters on December 19th.