Warning: Spoilers ahead for Avatar: The Way of Water.
While Avatar: The Way of Water has a lot of storylines that the Avatar sequel left hanging, the fate of the exiled Tulkun Payakan needs to be central to Avatar 3’s story. While Avatar: The Way of Water’s historic box office success may not have come as a shock to some industry commentators, the Avatar sequel’s story was not necessarily what fans or critics expected from director James Cameron’s second cinematic journey to Pandora. Initially, Avatar: The Way of Water’s story of Jake Sully and his Na’vi clan fending off human colonizers seemed like a straightforward follow-up to Avatar.
However, in Avatar: The Way of Water’s surprisingly slow second act, the sequel’s action moves to the shorelines of Pandora as Jake and his family hide out among the Metkayina clan. It is during this leisurely-paced midsection that Avatar: The Way of Water’s most unexpected plot thread comes to dominate the story of the Avatar sequel when Jake’s wayward but well-meaning son Lo’ak strikes up an unlikely friendship with the exiled Tulkun, Payakan. A species of intelligent whale-like creatures, the Tulkun are closely linked to the Metkayina clan, but they have exiled Payakan for using violence to protect his mother against human hunters years earlier.
Payakan’s Fate Isn’t Addressed In Avatar 2’s Ending
Throughout Avatar: The Way of Water’s story, Lo’ak comes to understand Payakan’s story and defends the Tulkun, arguing that he did nothing wrong by defending himself and his family. In a tragic sequence that kicks off act 3, Avatar: The Way of Water’s villain Quaritch partakes in the pitiless hunting of a Tulkun mother and baby (a real-life practice favored by whale hunters). This further reinforces Lo’ak’s argument that Payakan’s use of self-defense was well warranted and made it pretty satisfying when the gargantuan Tulkun saves Lo’ak, Jake Sully, and the rest of the Na’vi from human marines and their avatars by capsizing their vessel.
It is clear that Payakan didn’t die while taking down the whaling vessel, but he is only briefly seen in the ending at Neteyam’s funeral. There is no guarantee that he recovered from his extensive injuries, particularly when the Tulkun had already sustained injuries during his first encounter with whale hunters. While Avatar 3’s Neytiri story will no doubt take up a lot of the sequel’s runtime, Avatar: The Way of Water’s sequel still needs to clarify whether Payakan survived and, if so, whether the Tulkun forgave him and ended his exile. This plot could prove pivotal to later Avatar sequels since the Tulkun would be an invaluable ally to the Na’vi.
Why Payakan Was Exiled By The Tulkun Before Avatar 2
Payakan was exiled in the first place because he used violence to try and save his mother from hunters, which goes against the way of the Tulkun. However, the Tulkun (like the Metkayina clan) have seemingly avoided interaction with human colonizers until now. As such, the peaceful beasts might soon realize their passive resistance won’t work against bloodthirsty villains in an all-out war. While Spider’s Avatar: The Way of Water subplot did humanize Quaritch somewhat, he and the marines are still violent colonizers who are happy to indiscriminately murder and terrorize the native Na’vi to gain control over Pandora.
Meanwhile, the hunters are even more unambiguously monstrous, treating the Tulkun as animals to be hunted despite Avatar: The Way of Water’s Metkayina clan explaining that the animals are more advanced and intelligent than Na’vi and humans. There is no way that passive resistance will allow the Tulkun to defeat the human threat to Pandora. If they accept his and forgive Payakan’s indiscretions, they could become valuable allies in this fight against an existential threat to the planet. However, Avatar: The Way of Water’s ending never clarifies how the rest of the Tulkun feel about Payakan’s actions and where they stand on the prospect of a war with the Sky People.
Avatar 3 Must Address Payakan’s Story
Not only did Payakan use violence again, but this time, his intervention was successful and saved all the heroes. As such, it will be interesting to see whether this matters to the Tulkun now that they need to navigate a war with the Sky People, and Avatar: The Way of Water must explain whether the uniquely peaceful species accept that their tactics need to change or insist on keeping Payakan distanced from their clan. Of course, this is only one of many subplots from Avatar: The Way of Water that Avatar 3 needs to expand on, but already, it is one of the most promising stories in the Avatar mythos.
