Going Back To The Leaked Script. Do You Think Spider Knows That Kiri Saved Him? Or Does Anyone Know?

Going back to the leaked script. Do you think Spider knows that Kiri saved him? Or does anyone know? Because it could be possible that he was unconscious when Kiri performed the miracle. And was anyone around? I only say that because Mo'at told Kiri not to tell anyone that she was the one who saved Spider that night. Which could be hinting that no one saw her do it.

Great questions, anon. Here's what I think:

Just going off of the leaked script, I think the only people who actually witnessed what happened are Kiri, Spider, Jake, and Quaritch. Kiri and Spider obviously because they were there, and Jake and Quaritch because in the script we see Jake reference a "miracle" that Quaritch witnessed tonight that should open his eyes to how special Pandora is. Even if Spider is unconscious during the actual event, I think everyone would explain what happened once he woke up since he would understandably be confused when he can breathe. It's also possible Lo'ak and even Tuk were there since in the scene right after Norm and Neytiri arrive and it says Neytiri embraces her "children" plural. They also probably tell Neytiri and Norm because naturally they're going to want answers when they see Spider breathing without his exopack. And I'm sure they also tell Mo'at about it when Kiri goes to speak with Eywa.

So the list of people who likely know what happened to Spider are: Kiri, Spider himself, Jake, Quaritch, Lo'ak, Tuk, Norm, Neytiri, and Mo'at.

As for who knows that it was KIRI who saved Spider rather than divine intervention by Eywa, that's a different story. From the way Jake and Quaritch and then later Mo'at talk about the event, it sounds like everyone believes Eywa did it. According to the leak, Mo'at says "I do not understand this, why the Great Mother would save the boy (presumably Spider) and deny you now" to Kiri. This is when Kiri seemingly confesses to Mo'at that she saved Spider herself and Mo'at urges her to keep it a secret.

Based off their conversation, I believe that all the important characters know WHAT happened to Spider, but only Kiri and Mo'at know WHY it happened. Everyone else assumes it was Eywa's intervention, but Kiri and Mo'at know the truth and keep it secret, likely to protect Kiri from judgement by other Na'vi and interest from the RDA. I don't think Spider himself even knows. We have no idea exactly how the miracle happens to him, but I imagine it will be somewhat traumatic and involve him suffocating a little bit before he gets saved.

As for HOW Spider gets saved, we still don't have any information on that, but I believe that however it happens, it's going to look something like the scene when the Na'vi tried to save Grace. Like, Kiri will connect her kuru to the ground and make the little roots connect with Spider's body and do... whatever the hell it is they do to him to make him breathe the air. So to the onlookers, like Jake and Quaritch, it will look like Kiri is asking Eywa to save Spider and Eywa obliges, but only Kiri herself will know that she did it all by herself. That's where the confusion comes from.

@nilnether that's a great analysis, and actually I think that may be a better explanation for why so many people found Spider off-putting. He absolutely does break the fantasy. Back before I deleted tiktok, I remember seeing so many people talking about how they hated him for being annoying and trying to insert himself into the Na'vi world, and those same people would have self-insert Na'vi characters. They hated him even though they fantasized about the exact same thing he's trying to do. He's a reminder that only the lucky few like Jake get to actually immerse themselves in Pandora, and the majority of people are stuck as humans. By extension, he's a reminder that Pandora itself is just a fantasy.

And yeah definitely wouldn't have wanted any racism added into the mix. I'm just glad that the Avatar fandom is so small that Jack Champion and other actors can't be harmed by fans. It would break my heart to see the Avatar cast get treated like some Star Wars actors were treated by their fans...

Do you have any thoughts on the fact that in first scenario Spider was supposed be from Mexico and his name was Javier?

I don't think we ever had any real confirmation of original-Spider's ethnicity or nationality, but when his name was first announced as "Javier Socorro" a lot of people assumed he would be Latino Hispanic (from a Latin American country) instead of White Hispanic (from Spain) like he ended up being. That meant he very well could've been Mexican, or at least half-Mexican on his mom's side since I think he was always intended to be Quaritch's son. I believe they changed his first name to "Miles" to make the connection to Quaritch more obvious.

If Spider had been Mexican, it wouldn't have really changed anything in The Way of Water. He's still a human, and being a different color wouldn't change the way the other characters perceive him. The only thing that would've been different is that he wouldn't have had the nickname "monkey boy/monkey mascot," since having Sigourney Weaver and Stephen Lang calling a Hispanic kid monkey would NOT have gone over well.

Even though making him a different ethnicity wouldn't have changed the movie itself, I actually think it might've changed the way he was perceived by the audience.

This is a thought I've had in the back of my head for a long time, and this question finally gave me a reason to type it all out. But before I get into it, I do want to say that I am white and American, so I'm speaking from the perspective of a white American when I make this analysis of Spider's character and how he was perceived by American audiences. Now let's get into it:

Spider was a pretty controversial character. A lot of people hated him, but there was also a minority of people who really loved him too (me lol). Some people hated him because they felt like Neteyam's death was his fault or because they didn't like that he saved Quaritch in the end, which are reasons that wouldn't change because of his ethnicity, but there were also people who hated him because of his appearance. Spider was often described as "feeling out of place" and off-putting to some viewers. After I saw the Way of Water with my cousins, one of them (he is also white) told me that he hated Spider. When I asked him why, he shrugged and said, "he's a white boy with dreadlocks!" like that was the only reason he needed.

Now I'm just speculating here, but I think a small part of the reason why so many people can't stand Spider might be because he is white. Not because of racism against white people, but because of the context in which Spider exists as a white person. The Na'vi are very obvious allegories for indigenous American, African, and Maori people, and the RDA is a very obvious allegory for European colonizers and US corporations that exploited those groups. I can't speak for the rest of the world, but in America there are social controversies over white American people taking items that are culturally significant to other groups and wearing them as costumes. I know there's a lot of controversy over what is and isn't cultural appropriation, but when it comes to specifically white people wearing specifically Native American clothing, it's generally regarded negatively since most Native American people have said it's disrespectful because the clothing has cultural and spiritual significance.

And then we have Spider, who is not only white, but is also the son of two people who actively harmed the Na'vi, and he wears Na'vi clothing.

In the context of the Avatar movies, it makes perfect sense that Spider would dress and act the way that he does. He was raised alongside the Na'vi so it's all he knows. If you were going to fit Spider into the greater allegory of Avatar, he is similar to the historical figure, Olive Oatman. When Oatman was a child in the 1800s, her family was killed by a group of Native Americans, and she and her sister ended up being taken in by the Mohave people. She lived with them for several years before returning to a white settlement, and during that time she was assimilated into the Mohave tribe, wearing their clothing and receiving traditional tattoos. (Her story is super interesting, you should totally read more about it!). Spider is like a sci-fi version of Oatman, since his parents were killed by natives and he ended up being taken in by them and assimilating into their culture. In the context of modern day culture, a white woman getting Mohave tattoos would be considered appropriation, but in the context of Oatman's situation, it makes sense. Same thing with Spider. In-universe, adopting Omaticaya culture makes sense.

However, if you look at Spider through the lens of modern American cultural context, he looks an awful lot like a white kid dressing up in the traditional clothing of a culture his people harmed. If Spider had been raised on earth and was actively benefiting from the RDA's exploitation of Pandora, then what he's doing would be considered appropriation. But he wasn't. Even though that's not what Spider is, the association is still there. So when people see this "white boy with dreadlocks" as my cousin put it, they feel like there's something wrong with what they're looking at because they associate his appearance with cultural appropriation. I think if Spider had been cast as Latino, he might have been received a bit more favorably by the audience.

Once again, this is all just speculation, I don't really know if Spider's perception would've been different if he'd been a different ethnicity, and I acknowledge that most of the hate Spider received had to do with his character actions. However, I do believe that American audiences may have been partly influenced by the concept of cultural appropriation, which is where that feeling of Spider being "off-putting" comes from. I think it's definitely where my cousin's dislike of him comes from, since it's not about anything he did, but rather how he looks like.

After the RDA granted him the funds for his "personal project" – provided that the results would push along project Phoenix – Dr. R first experimented with existing Avatar technology. Using the prototype that would later develop into the Soul drive, he tried to infuse an empty body with her memories and personality. But whatever woke up in that tube wasn't his daughter. It came out wrong. It opened its eyes and screamed, thrashing around wildly. He had to get his colleague to help sedate it and put it back in the tube.

The first test was a failure. But Dr. R wasn't about to give up. He wiped her memories, modified the Soul drive prototype and tried again. This time it didn't scream, but crawled backwards, crying in fear. It didn't seem to recognise Dr. R at all. And so he did it again. And again. Over the years, as the body in the tube grew up, it was infused with the essence of Dr. R's daughter and then wiped hundreds of times until he got it right. Until the dead-eyed, smiling blue creature finally called him "papa". He took it around the lab, played games with it, taught it about Pandora, even took it for walks outside the base to breathe some fresh Pandoran air and unplugged it at bedtime. Or whenever he needed to stop one of its violent outbursts.

Dr. R's findings greatly contributed to project Phoenix, allowing the first Recoms to see the light of day, but he still wasn't happy. As much as he wanted to believe it, his experiments didn't really bring back his daughter. All he had was an alien in a tube that vaguely resembled her and could only recall memories he had painstakingly inserted into her mind. An alien that instantly turned into a limp, empty body whenever he unplugged the Soul drive prototype from the machine. Ironically, the RDA regarded this as a problem that needed to be fixed at first – it's why the first Recom squad had their memories transferred into their bodies permanently, rendering the Soul drives useless after the fact. But after seeing how that whole situation turned out, the RDA approached Dr. R again to develop a more versatile, controllable solution: the Plug'n'play project.

That night, when he went to unplug her, she didn't faint. She just shook her head. His colleagues later found him lying on the ground, unconscious, bleeding. The Soul drive prototype was gone, and so was she.

Do you plan to write a sequel to Lucky Number Five and Special Treatment? It was very good. I'm not telling you to write it now, I don't want to rush it, I'm just wondering 🌸

I would really like to continue both of those one shots! I wrote them to be standalone stories to give me a break from working on my comic, Common Enemy, but I've had so many requests to continue them and I definitely want to! But right now Common Enemy comes first, and that is going to take me awhile to finish, ngl. I won't make any promises about continuing the one-shots, but do know that there is a desire to continue them, it just won't happen any time soon.

I feel like this trying to balance all my WIPS!

His weakness. A tiny human made from the same DNA he was made from. A human who made him see. The power this boy holds over him.

You just made me want to rewatch Monsters Inc. I loved it when I was younger! Could you share a small piece of the comic or tell us if you are planning anything specific in the continuation of the last one-shots? I'm currently fixated on these 3 things haha

I loved that movie when I was a kid too!

And I do want to continue my one shots, Special Treatment (the one where Spider, Kiri, and Lo'ak are taken by the Ash Clan and Quaritch) and Lucky Number Five (the one where Jake officially makes Spider his ward), but that will come after I finish the comic. I have an idea for what to do with Lucky Number Five. The next part will focus on Jake taking Spider home where Neytiri will see the hair braided on his arm, realize what Jake has done, and confront him about it and try to get him to take it off before the rest of the village sees, because it's a binding contract so once everyone sees it will be too late to take it back. But to be honest, I'm not to sure what else to do with Special Treatment. I've gotten suggestions for little moments and scenes, but I'm not sure where I want to take the overarching plot, so if anyone has any suggestions I'd appreciate it!

I am also thinking about trying my hand at a long-form fanfic again sometime in the future. Something I learned about myself while working on Blood is Thicker Than Water is that I lack planning skills, so I've been doing research on story structure and how to plot longer stories without them expanding out of control. I do have an idea for a long fic that's been brewing in the back of my head for a bit. Not gonna go into too much detail, but here's a fun little summary I came up with for it.

Spider wakes up one morning to good news and bad news:

The good news? Pandoran air is no longer deadly to him, and he has a kuru. He can now live freely in the forest and connect to the world around him just like he's always dreamed of.

The bad news? He woke up in a lab in someplace called "Bridgehead" and he can't remember how he got there. Plus, there's a strange avatar hanging around who keeps telling him he's his father, but Spider isn't sure if he can trust him.