Avatar: Fire and Ash Ending Breakdown: Who Dies, Varang and Quaritch’s Fate, and the Sequel Setup

Avatar: Fire and Ash closes with a finale that lands like a thunderclap, tying off old wounds while opening bigger questions. We break down the ending, the clues hiding in plain sight, and what it sets in motion for the Avatar universe.

If Avatar: Fire and Ash left you blinking through the smoke and sea spray, same. It’s a busy, bruising finale that pays off threads from the original Avatar and The Way of Water, then crams in new ones. Here’s the whole endgame, cleanly untangled.

How the endgame kicks off

Jake Sully is sprung from RDA custody by Neytiri, Spider, and scientist Dr. Ian Garvin. He heads back to the Metkayina and calls the banners: the RDA is back to slaughtering Tulkun for Amrita, a miracle goo that conveniently slows human aging. (Subtlety has never been their thing.)

Out at sea, Payakan is still a pariah among the Tulkun for being too willing to throw down. But with Lo'ak’s help, he pleads his case to the matriarchs: fight or be wiped out. It does not hurt that the only surviving member of his family has been mutilated and blinded by Scoresby’s crew. Meanwhile, Jake reclaims the Great Leonopteryx and goes full Toruk Makto again, orange thunderbird and all.

The ambush: Tulkun strike, Na'vi take the skies

The RDA and whaler Scoresby sail in expecting the usual massacre. Instead, the Tulkun attack first, capsize multiple ships, and suddenly it’s a real war. Na'vi riders flood the airspace and the skies light up.

Then the twist: the Ash People drop in. This Mangkwan clan — scarred by a volcanic eruption, violent, and long since turned away from Eywa — smash the momentum. Quaritch, who’s been grounded by General Ardmore for going off-mission, shows up anyway. And yes, Jake still has Quaritch’s human son, Spider, in tow. Awkward.

Eywa’s assist (but risky)

With the Na'vi getting steamrolled, Kiri makes a call you absolutely do not want your neurologist to hear about: she dives, connects her queue, and reaches out. Problem is, Kiri’s epileptic; this kind of neural link can trigger seizures. Spider follows and links up for the first time using the biological queue he grew after Kiri used her not-explained-yet powers to fuse him with Pandora’s ecosystem so he can breathe its air.

It still isn’t enough, until little sister Tuk joins them. Eywa notices. For a beat, nothing. Then the ocean erupts with Tsyong — the aggressive, squid-like hunters Lo'ak tangled with earlier — and they absolutely erase the RDA in the water. Humans drown or get eaten. Deep below, Payakan’s maimed family member clamps Scoresby in her jaws and drags him down. That’s one whaler who won’t be aging gracefully.

Kidnapping, a throwback scare, and a sky punch-up

Varang, the Ash People’s terrifying leader, snatches Tuk. The Sullys give chase. Jake and Lo'ak crash the party, and then Kiri delivers a very pointed scare that sends Varang scrambling — a cheeky nod to Sigourney Weaver’s past life in another James Cameron franchise.

Jake and Quaritch finally square off in a giant anti-gravity well. It’s a bruiser of a fistfight until Spider slips and nearly falls to his death. Both men pause to save him. Jake offers Quaritch a hand — a real chance to stop this — but when Neytiri and the others arrive, Quaritch panics and hurls himself backward into the inferno below. We last see him dropping into fire, yelling, and not like a guy begging for his life. Smart money says he isn’t done.

Aftermath: who lives, who doesn’t, and what it sets up

Spider later links at the Tree of Souls and sees the departed: Dr. Grace Augustine, Neteyam, and Ronal among them, gathered in a vision at the Home Tree. Ronal’s death hits hard — she takes a wound through the shoulder during the final battle, but Neytiri helps her deliver a baby girl first. That child is seen connecting underwater at the very end.

Payakan is welcomed back from exile. The Toruk takes a beating but claws back into the fight. The RDA’s local force? Wiped — sky, sea, and everything in between. For the Sullys, it’s a win. For Pandora, it’s a reprieve. For future sequels, a few doors are left very deliberately ajar.

Quick answers you probably want

• Who are the Ash People? The Mangkwan clan. Their land was destroyed by a volcanic eruption; they rejected Eywa, hardened up, and now raid other Na'vi. They first clash with the Sullys while ambushing the nomadic Wind Traders in an aerial sequence that also ropes in Quaritch.
• Who are the Wind Traders? The Tlalim clan, nomads who travel and barter across Pandora. After Spider’s breathing mask breaks early on and he nearly suffocates, Jake tries to send him to the human settlement via the Tlalim. The plan dies when the Ash People brutally attack them mid-journey, and the whole Sully family sticks together.
• Why can Spider breathe Pandora’s air? During that attack, Spider’s spare mask gets left behind and his tank runs low. Kiri begs Eywa for help, links, and performs a dangerous ritual. Lo'ak stops it to save Kiri, but it works: Spider becomes symbiotically fused with Pandora’s flora, can breathe without tech, and even grows a queue. That bond cannot be removed without killing him.
• Why does the RDA want Spider? If they can replicate his symbiosis, humans could breathe on Pandora. That unlocks total colonization — so the RDA plans to experiment on him to figure it out. In other words: disastrous for Pandora.
• Why does Jake nearly kill Spider? Cold math. If the RDA recaptures Spider and cracks his biology, Pandora loses. Jake takes him into the forest to do the unthinkable, but he can’t go through with it. Spider understands why Jake thinks he has to — which somehow makes the scene harsher.
• Why do the Tulkun fight back after being pacifists? Payakan returns with his maimed, half-blind relative to face the matriarchs and lays out the stakes. They vanish to decide. The next time we see them, they’re shredding RDA ships. Decision made.
• What happens to Scoresby? He’s dragged underwater in a Tulkun’s mouth and doesn’t come back up. Call it a watery, deserved end.
• What about the RDA overall? Between the Tulkun and Eywa’s Tsyong, their fleet and troops are basically obliterated in this theater.
• Does Quaritch die? Unclear. He drops into the flames after refusing Jake’s olive branch, and that’s it. Given his track record, don’t bet on a permanent exit.
• What happens to Varang? After Kiri’s scare, she bolts from the fight and is not seen again. Expect her to resurface.
• Why was Jake arrested and branded a traitor? Quaritch grabs him as payback for 2009: Jake was a human Marine who flipped sides to defend Pandora. Quaritch and Earth didn’t forget.
• What does Toruk Makto mean, and why is Jake called that? It’s Rider of the Last Shadow — the title given to whoever bonds with the Great Leonopteryx. Jake did it in the first film, does it again here, and even after the Toruk is wounded, it claws back into the fight.
• How does Eywa help? Kiri and Spider link underwater, Eywa turns to them, and then unleashes the Tsyong — the same squid-like predators Lo'ak wrangled earlier — to wreck the RDA at sea.
• Who do Kiri and Spider see in their vision? The dead, at the Tree of Souls: Grace, Neteyam, and Ronal, among others, appearing within imagery of the Home Tree. Eywa doesn’t speak, but the message is loud.
• What is up with Kiri’s powers and parentage? No biological father; she’s a clone born from Grace Augustine’s Na'vi body. She can interface with Pandora on another level — she saved Spider by binding him to the planet, and she can reach Eywa directly. How far that goes is still a question.
• What’s the deal with Neytiri’s bow? It was her father Eytukan’s. It broke in The Way of Water. The kids fix it; she uses it again here.
• So, does this set up Avatar 4? Soft yes. James Cameron has said he’d walk if this entry doesn’t perform, and if so he’d wrap the dangling thread in a book. The dangling thread is mostly Quaritch — and Varang — plus the terrifying prospect that Spider’s condition proves humans can fully colonize Pandora. The local RDA is toast, but replacements exist. The Sullys get a breather; the war isn’t done.