It’s very hard to watch Avatar: The Way of Water‘s opening scene without thinking Jake Sully is destined to die sooner rather than later. While many would argue that Pandora itself is the Avatar franchise’s main character, Sam Worthington’s Jake has served as lead protagonist across both the original 2009 movie and its 2022 sequel.
Worthington returns for the upcoming third entry, 2025’s Avatar: Fire & Ash, but James Cameron’s sci-fi saga isn’t stopping at a trilogy. At least two additional Avatar movies are in development, and if the Na’vi continue to deliver big box office bucks, it’s unlikely the IP will be given a well-earned rest after its fifth installment.
Avatar: The Way of Water proved that the franchise’s profitability isn’t holding Cameron back from making hard story calls, with the sequel killing off Jake and Neytiri’s son, Neteyam, in a surprisingly brutal turn of events. There are already theories that Jake could be next on the chopping block, and rewatching the sequel’s opening minutes, it’s difficult to see any other outcome for the Sully family.
How Avatar: The Way Of Water’s Opening Line Seals Jake Sully’s Fate
Jake Predicts His Own Future
Avatar: The Way of Water opens with “The forests of Pandora hold many dangers, but the most dangerous thing about Pandora is that you may grow to love her too much.” The line has various applications to Jake Sully’s arc throughout the Avatar saga so far, and primarily acts as foreshadowing for Neteyam’s death later in the movie. The loss is a steep, painful price in Jake’s war to save Pandora from the treacherous RDA.
A happy ending for Jake Sully is narratively impossible.
From another perspective, however, the line could very easily be setting up Jake’s own fate. The reference to Pandora’s “dangers” plays as a direct mirror of Quaritch’s speech from the first movie, back when Jake was a simple recruit landing on the moon for the very first time.
The rookies were warned of all the flora and fauna that could kill them should they step outside the RDA’s compound, and Quaritch’s facial scar is highlighted as a visceral demonstration of how badly things can go wrong.
Jake’s opening line in Avatar: The Way of Water almost acts as a response to that – correcting Quaritch by pointing out that loving Pandora is far more likely to prove lethal than a poisonous plant or a hungry animal. Because of that parallel to the advice he received from Quaritch in the first Avatar, it makes far more sense that Jake’s ominous warning in The Way of Water is actually a precursor to his own death, not Neteyam’s.
The line also puts James Cameron in a position where a happy ending for Jake Sully is narratively impossible. If a character openly spells out that the most dangerous thing about a place is falling in love with it, they’re highly unlikely to get a happily-ever-after in which they pᴀss away peacefully surrounded by family members at a ripe old age.
Avatar: The Way of Water‘s introduction sets the board in such a way that Jake’s love for Pandora must, one way or another, be the cause of his demise. The only question is when it’ll happen.
Why Avatar: Fire & Ash Is The Right Time To Kill Off Jake Sully
Jake’s Capacity For Intrigue Was A Three-Movie Deal
The biggest problem with James Cameron’s first Avatar movie was its lack of depth. Riding on a wave of three-dimensional euphoria and state-of-the-art CGI, 2009’s story left something to be desired. Essentially Pocahontas in space, Jake Sully felt like a cookie-cutter protagonist bordering on a white savior trope.
Avatar: The Way of Water, in fairness, rectifies that issue to a certain extent, redefining Jake as a more conflicted, layered, and (ironically) three-dimensional creation. And yet it would still be a gargantuan stretch to suggest that the character of Jake Sully contains enough depth and longevity to sustain five or more movies.
Fire & Ash is surely the point where Jake’s intrigue as the leading figure of a sprawling movie series expires. Avatar: The Way of Water already started establishing Lo’ak – another of Jake’s sons – as a potential replacement, but with Spider and Kiri also coming to the fore with fascinating personal arcs, Avatar shows signs of evolving into more of an ensemble piece.
All indications, including Jake’s opening words in Avatar: The Way of Water, point to the next movie being his swansong.
