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    • The Symbolism of Avatar

    Posted in: Popular Culture,Reviews by bill-o on December 24, 2009

    The 2009 motion picture Avatar is the clear box office winner in the United States and elsewhere this past week. Set on the mysterious moon Pandora in the year 2154, the film chronicles the story of marine Jake Sully and his interactions with the native inhabitants of Pandora, the Na’vi, through his avatar body.

    The film is getting the most attention for its fantastic special effects. Yet the symbolism behind the story is also worth paying some attention to.

    Avatar borrows from the symbols and ideas of many spiritual traditions. The name Pandora, for example, comes right from an ancient Greek goddess. I’ll focus here on a few of the symbols that I found notable.

    Harsh Disorientation. When Jake arrives on Pandora in his wheelchair, he is told more than once, and somewhat harshly, to watch where he is going. Colonial Pandora is place where the weak and broken must make way for the large and robotic. Other marines unkindly refer to him as “meals on wheels”, insulting him for his disability. (This is also an insult to the elderly: Many poor, elderly people in the United States depend upon the meals on wheels program to provide them with food.) They see Jake only as a liability and not as a asset.

    Home Tree. The Home Tree is the home for an entire clan of the Na’vi. Symbolic of the Tree of Life from, the Garden of Eden which in turn may have represented the unity of all humankind in connection to God. This tree represents Edenic humankind: The way that the world should have been before things went terribly wrong. Yet the knowledge of good and evil lies beneath the Home Tree, the valuable ore Unobtanium. The symbolism of Unobtainium is obvious (“unobtainable”). Yet the promise of the serpent of the garden, that Adam and Eve would become fully like God was also ultimately unobtainable. The Home Tree represents earth and the temporal, whereas …

    Tree of Souls. … the Tree of Souls represents the eternal. Once their earthly home was destroyed, the Na’vi can only retreat to the only place that they know where to go: to the Tree of Souls. This sacred place, where outsiders are prohibited, allows the Na’vi to reach out and touch their mother goddess and their ancestors souls via iridescent strands, which may symbolically be prayers (the natural touching the divine). The Tree of Souls is the place of finality.

    Diplomatic Solution? The corporate leadership on Pandora has charged Dr. Grace Augustine with finding a “diplomatic solution” re: the conflict between the colonists and the Na’vi. Grace is a spiritual word and that spiritual emphasis is given more weight with the name Augustine, the great Christian theologian of grace. The word grace means a gift and, even more specifically, a gift that enables someone to do something. At first, it seems as though that gift is Dr. Augustine’s avatars, which might enable a peaceful, diplomatic solution to be found. But a diplomatic solution is not seen in the film as something good or as something that is merely better than war. Rather, it is viewed as an evil in itself: An unwanted displacement of a native people from their home. It is, to put it somewhat theologically, a cheap form of grace. It is not the real thing (the real enabling gift, “grace,” of the colonists to the Na’vi), but it only poses as the real thing. And notice how Grace cannot make the transition into her avatar body: She symbolizes a grace that is not able to bring about salvation. Victory and salvation are the ultimate grace, enabling gift, for the Na’vi.

    Humankind Expelled from the Garden … Again. Like the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden (the eviction of humanity from the Garden of Eden), most of the humans are expelled from Pandora (a new Eden) at the end of the movie. The immediate cause of this expulsion was the loss of the battle to the Na’vi. Yet the deeper cause was the people’s failure to learn the ways of Na’vi on Pandora. This was because the colonists were more concerned with their provision and protection than with having genuine openness to others. This ending scene in Avatar symbolically confirms why Adam and Eve had to be expelled from the garden: They were spiritually out-of-touch with their Eden.

    Adam and Adam. Jake Sully is only able to access an avatar because his identical twin brother had died a violent death. The first man (“Adam” in Hebrew) was shot just a few days before embarking on his mission to Pandora, his brother Jake, another man (in this case, the last Adam), who is of the same image and likeness of his deceased brother, inherited the job. (Notice how another character in the beginning of the movie says that the avatar body looks like Jake, yet Jake says that it looks like his brother. Also, remember how someone points out to Jake that he and his brother have the same genome, the same biological likeness.) The second man becomes the replacement savior and lord for Pandora after the first cannot complete that mission.

    Fully Incarnated. The story of Avatar is, in reality, the story of a man, Jake Sully in this case, becoming fully mature. Jake (“Jacob”) Sully’s name may mean sullied trickster. Unlike the corporation’s leader, Parker Selfridge (“the selfish”), who is greedy and never matures, Jake changes from an immature young man (someone with a pure heart but acts like a small child; someone who is just a “poser” for his dead brother) into a mature man and then into a leader. He goes through ritual stages of rites of passage. Jake gets to the point in the middle of the movie where he cannot tell what’s the dream and what’s reality (his human life or his Na’vi avatar life). This is a hint to the movie goers that Jake is undergoing a fundamental change. The story ends with Jake becoming “fully incarnated” into his avatar body, leaving his human body behind forever at the Tree of Souls. He is then no longer an avatar but completely “one of the people”. Notice that this incarnational transformation occurs on Jake’s birthday, thus symbolizing a new birth.

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    14 Comments »

    1. Is there a symbolic connection between the Tree of Souls in the movie and the Well of Souls under the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem? Not sure if there is, but the similarity between the names is intriguing.

      Comment by bill-o — December 25, 2009 @ 12:36 pm

    2. I think you missed on two major symbolic tie-ins.

      First, this is a cowboys and indians movie in the ways of John Wayne and the old “oater” films. Except this time, the white man is evil and the indians are not. If that were the only item of note, I would highly rate the movie. The second thing, however, which is the parallelism drawn between the indian’s plight and Islam is the biggest issue. Cameron is trying to demonstrate that the European invasion of North America and the harm that did to the American Indians is somehow equal to the American war against Islamic extremists. The line “we will fight terror with terror” in the movie, spoken by the military commander, is a direct connection to the US’ War on Terror.

      Cameron’s failure is that there can be no connection. First, the Na’vi did not fight a war of terror. There were no attacks on civilian targets with the purpose of striking fear in the civilian population and thus driving state policy through fear. The Na’vi raised an army to respond to an army. This was a very traditional war movie. Is Cameron trying to say, then, that the Islamic extremists are fighting a just and traditional war against an imposing invading army? I think he is trying to show America as an invader in the world of Islam instead of the righteous defender of our homeland that we are.

      Comment by Michael Green — January 4, 2010 @ 1:43 pm

    3. Please also see:

      http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/politics-avatar-conservatives-attack-movies-political-messaging/story?id=9484885

      Comment by bill-o — January 6, 2010 @ 6:53 pm

    4. Sully comes from old English, meaning “from soil.”

      Another theme is definitely The meaning of civilization; as the movie progresses, the viewers begin to see the so called human “civilization” as a barbaric institution that is advance only in terms of weaponry and technology. The Na’vi can be considered as morally, ethically and culturally superior, as they are interconnected with their planet and each other, and do not condone methods of violence as humanity does.

      There is also the luscious scenery and coloration behind the movie, perhaps instantiations of the “Heart of Darkness” archetypes.

      Colonel Quaritch; perhaps the name is significant in the mnemonic sense; “itching for a quarrel.” This is just a theory.

      Jake, the name, can be used to describe partial paralysis of the limbs, but is also significant. Jake also has the biblical meaning of “one who supplants,” or “supplanter.” 2 a (1) obsolete : uproot (2) : to eradicate and supply a substitute for b : to take the place of and serve as a substitute for especially by reason of superior excellence or power.

      Trudy Chacon, the female pilot… “Tru” as in truth, and Chacon means Gecko in Spanish. Although she seems morally depraved at first and blends in with the militants, she is really in favor of Jake’s cause.

      Another theme is Interconnectedness; exhibited peacefully among the Na’vi with their animal counterparts, a bond of respect with their world. Humans, on the other hand, raped their world in order to build machines in which they were a part of.

      Comment by Jonathan — January 12, 2010 @ 7:17 pm

    5. RE: Comment 4. Sully comes from old English, meaning “from soil.”
      This further supports the “Adam” comparison in an earlier post by bill-o.

      Comment by Fred Seigneur — January 20, 2010 @ 3:08 pm

    6. For the meaning of the name Adam, please see:

      http://www.thinkbabynames.com/meaning/1/Adam

      This says that the meaning of the name “Adam” is “earth” or “man”.

      Comment by bill-o — January 22, 2010 @ 7:49 am

    7. how about when the home tree was destroyed and the Na’vi walked the path to the tree of souls, did anyone think of the connection between that and the trail of tears?

      Comment by canadadry — January 23, 2010 @ 1:34 pm

    8. I hadn’t thought about the Na’vi’s forced flight to the Tree of Souls being like the Trail of Tears. However, now that you mention it, I think that such a connection is a good one. The Cherokee were forced to go to a land that they had never been to, whereas the Na’vi fled to their sacred site, so that is a difference here.

      Comment by bill-o — January 23, 2010 @ 3:03 pm

    9. I think that there are several civilizations and symbolism represented here. The most obvious is the Na’vi’s resemblance to the Native American cultures. However, I believe that Ancient Egypt is also seen is the sphyx like qualiities and catlike traits of the Na’vi people. In addition, throw in the prehistoric like animals and birds and there is yet another civilization. Along with the biblical associations from above, does anyone see the correlation between Samson and the power of his hair and the power of long braid of Na’vi?

      Comment by Debbie H — February 8, 2010 @ 9:17 pm

    10. Jake’s fall into the river, marking the beginning of his transition into the Navi world, brought to mind one of the tropes of the ancient novel discussed by Margaret Anne Doody in “the true story of the Novel”, ie water as marking the start of a journey or transition.

      I thought the appearance of Neytiri in the forest, preceded by the viperwolves made reference to Artemis or Diana, in the ancient greek pantheon the daughter of Zeus and Leto, the huntress, in ancient novels symbolized by the appearance of her dogs in the forest then her, with bow. Except the dogs in this case are wild, not domesticated hunting dogs, and she kills the dogs to prevent them from hunting the man.

      Why call the movie avatar? James Cameron has mentioned wanting to get a mythical feel to the movie (cant recall where)so the reference to the hindu meaning of the word is there, but why in the title? Perhaps reference to “second Life” which has become the more common usagein our society, which in turn is perhaps a reference to the actors having their ” avatars” appearing on screen through the use of performance capture. Use of the word as the title to the film though suggests it is fundamental to the author’s objective. Does the title refer to the scientists having their avatars on Pandora, the actors having their avatars in the movie, or even, (just a thought) are we being gently presented with a suggestion that the audience is seeing the avatar in the hindu sense, of a deity becoming incarnate in our world, for example, Artemis appearing, not just to Jake on Pandora, but to us here in our movie theatres?

      The realism of the performance capture literally opens Pandora’s box- a new window into the imaginations of others, symbolised as another world.

      Comment by Matt Felgate — March 21, 2010 @ 9:06 pm

    11. I really want to knw if there ponytails have some sort of sexual symbolic symbolizm. I haerd somthing like that and found it very interesting.

      Comment by jessica — May 1, 2010 @ 11:10 pm

    12. It struck me that there are three significant trees in the bible that have a connection with Avatar. The bible begins and ends with a tree and then there is a tree in the middle (the cross). The people of Pandora exist in a world that closely resembles Eden until a new evil makes an appearance. Sully chooses the cross (suffering embraced for the salvation of others.) as a way to deliver from evil and restore the people to Eden. Things will never truly go back to where they were, but the tree, like the tree of Revelation has life within it that heals and restores. In Revelation 22 we read: On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yeilding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. In the bible the tree has healing for the peoples of all nations, not just one people.

      Comment by Dianne Astle — May 3, 2010 @ 11:34 am

    13. look up the definition of avatar, where does it seem to originate from? Cameron is not talking about Europeans in North America, he’s talking about Europeans in India. And on the most subtle level, a re-telling of, according to the Hindus, the very first blue avatar: Vishnu.

      Comment by kp — May 13, 2010 @ 3:11 pm


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