Avatar: Fire and Ash ending explained — is Pandora safe from Varang, is Jake captured and theories for Avatar 4 and 5 | Daily Reports Online
Warning: spoilers for Avatar: Fire and Ash ahead.
I almost don’t need to write out that spoiler warning – if you’ve seen Avatar: The Way of Water, you’ve seen Avatar: Fire and Ash.
What does Varang want from the other Na’avi clans?
As I’ve touched on, the Fire Na’avi are the latest addition to Fire and Ash, led by the ferocious Varang (Oona Chaplin). We first meet them when they attack the airships Jake (Sam Worthington) and family are travelling on, having decided to send Spider (Jake Champion) back to the forest.
After holding Jake and co captive before they break free, Varang joins forces with Quaritch (Stephen Lang) to try and capture Jake for good. Why is Varang open to it? She wants every other Na’avi on Pandora destroyed after her people and way of life were obliterated as a child. After that, she learned to use fire to her advantage, and the rest is history.
Quaritch supplies the Fire clan with guns and teaches them how to use them, so when the time comes for the Na’avi to fight the Sky People, they side with him. Varang also begins a romantic relationship with Quaritch.
A lot of Fire Na’avi die in the crossfire, but Quartich and Varang capture Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) and Tuk (Trinity Bliss) on the main ship. While we don’t see exactly what happens to Varang, we assume she’s either escaped or gone down with the Sky People as they’re pulled into the ocean’s vortex (more on this below).
Jake and Quaritch both get injured, but have one last hand-to-hand battle in a bid to try and take care of Spider. Neytiri and the children arrive as backup, and knowing he’s outnumbered, Quaritch jumps into the vortex and to his death.
Is Pandora safe from the Sky People?
For now, yes. As I’ve touched on, one of the main storylines is Jake being successfully captured by the human military that is left on Pandora. Quaritch is full Na’avi now, but is still leading the charge… at least until General Ardmore (Edie Falco) decides to relieve him of his duties once he gets too close to Varang.
Much like in The Way of Water, this results in an all-out sea battle between the Sky People, Fire Na’avi and the remaining Na’avi clans. Ardmore and her flank take to the sea in a fleet of ships, with Quaritch, Varang and the rest of the Fire Na’avi going rogue.
Meanwhile, Jake has enlisted all the other Na’avi clans to take up the fight to protect Pandora, with Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) able to convince the whale clan to join them after exiling Payakan (which is as sad as you’d think).
It’s the bloodbath to end all bloodbaths, with countless casualties in the process, including every human still left on Pandora, and Ronal (Kate Winslet), who is able to give birth just before succumbing to her injuries.
Not only is there still a way that Winslet can come back thanks to the spiritual plane, there’s now no direct threat to any Na’avi left on Pandora… which makes it difficult to predict where Avatar 4 will take things next.
Is Jake captured?
Yes and no. Not long after the Quaritch and Varang team up, Jake surrenders himself to stop the Fire Na’avi from destroying the home of the Metkayina clan, with whom the Sully family now live. He’s taken back to the military base where the humans celebrate victory, holding Jake in a huge glass box outside.
Obviously, this doesn’t last too long. There are three escape plans being devised separately that each unintentionally work together to free Jake. A disgruntled marine biologist defies General Ardmore’s orders and steals an artillery machine to break Jake out of the glass box, fed up with the human plan to extinguish the Na’avi from their home planet.
Meanwhile, Spider has also been captured and taken in for testing after Kiri’s (Sigourney Weaver) growing powers not only brought him back to life, but enabled him to breathe on Pandora without a mask. He knows he can’t be killed while the military figure out how his new biology can be replicated for mass use, so becomes a human shield for Jake to safely get across the base.
Neytiri has simultaneously dressed up as a Fire Na’avi to safely invade the base, and steal a military security tag in the process. She not only fights off Varang and Quaritch, but also rescues Jake and Spider from the base.
What about Kiri and Spider?
We’re only just starting to understand Kiri’s powers, and for most of Fire and Ash, Great Mother Eywa has shut Kiri off from accessing her entirely. This not only frustrates her, but leads to a huge family secret being revealed – Kiri doesn’t have a biological father. Hers was basically a Mary and Jesus type of immaculate conception, and we haven’t got to the bottom of why… yet.
This means that her powers to bring Spider back to life are highly sought after. Replicating how Spider is staying alive could mean humans take Pandora for themselves, finally learning the secrets of how to breathe Pandora’s (highly toxic) air.
Thankfully, they’re all wiped out before any of that can happen, so the attention is back on Kiri. In the final shot of the movie, she takes Spider to visit the ancestral plane (he can now connect on his own) where the spirits accept him as a true Na’avi.
Avatar 4 and Avatar 5 predictions
Avatar 4 won’t come out until 2029, and it’s anybody’s guess for what it will cover. With humans erased from Pandora and the Na’avi happy and safe, there’s literally no reason to have two more sequels. Every storyline has been neatly wrapped up, so we should expect a huge U-turn from what we’ve seen before.
While Kiri’s powers will likely still be explored in greater detail, the strongest Avatar 4 theory is that Jake will need to return to Earth some an unknown reason some years after the events of Fire and Ash. The franchise’s ultimate battle is between humans and the Na’avi, so this is the most logical way to continue that thread.
A quarter of Avatar 4 has allegedly been filmed, but Cameron reportedly still has reservations.
“If this is where it ends, cool,” Cameron told The Town with Matthew Belloni podcast. “There’s one open thread, I’ll write a book. I don’t think there’d ever be a version where there’s another Avatar movie that I didn’t produce closely. But in terms of it taking over my life, that’s a threshold issue for me.”
Personally speaking, I think the trilogy was enough and production should quit while it’s ahead. But given how much money it’s bound to make, more sequels feel likely.
For now, you can watch Avatar 1 and 2 on Disney+ globally, with Fire and Ash likely joining at some point in 2026.
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