Warning: The following article contains spoilers for Avatar: The Way of Water.
After 13 years, the sequel to James Cameron’s Avatar, Avatar: The Way of Water has been released. The movie picks up where the last film left off with Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) leading the Na’vi against the humans. But that’s not all, we find out that Neytiri and Jake Sully have had children.
With that being said, it has been a while since our last visit to Pandora, and James Cameron might have wanted to shock us by killing one of the main characters. Out of all the characters, Jake Sully would have been the prime candidate for a death in the film, as James Cameron has no problem killing his male leads (see Kyle Reese in The Terminator). So let’s take a look at the movie and let you know if Jake Sully dies in Avatar: The Way of Water.
Does Jake Sully survive the events of Avatar: The Way of Water?
Even though Jake Sully finds himself in danger multiple times, he does manage to survive the events of Avatar: The Way of Water. Toward the end of the film, he does almost drown after fighting Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang) in his recom form. But after, his son Lo’ak swims to him and manages to teach him “the way of water,” and Jake makes it out of the wrecked ship gasping for air when he gets to the surface.
At the end of the film, Jake proclaims that it is time for the Na’vi to fight back against the humans, and to bring the fight to them after protecting themselves and hiding for the majority of the movie, setting up an epic Avatar 3. Sure, Cameron has a history of creating badass female characters, and it would have been cool for Neytiri to come into her own after Jake’s untimely death, but there’s enough room for that in the sequels to come.
Major spoilers for the film below.
It is not as if everybody makes it out of the film alive though, as Jake and Neytiri’s eldest son, Neteyam dies after catching a stray bullet from one of the Marines. This enrages both Jake and Neytiri so they were able to take out the rest of the Marines with relative ease, including Colonel Quaritch, who was unfortunately saved by his son, Spider.
So, even though Jake Sully does not die in the movie, there is more than a good chance that he might die in the war to come. But for that we will need more sequels, so experience Avatar: The Way of Water while it is in theaters now.