The MVP's of Avatar: Fire and Ash

Welcome back to my first blog of spring 2026! Over the past several weeks, I have been developing my film taste, following watches from some of my new favorite movies like Good Will Hunting, Brokeback Mountain, and more. However, for this week’s blog, I just saw Avatar: Fire and Ash in the theatres, and I wanted to share some of my thoughts about the characters and the movie overall.

Before I get into ranking the characters and determining the MVPs of the movie, I just wanted to share my overall opinion of the movie, and beware, this blog will contain spoilers from the whole trilogy!!!

I have to say Avatar: Fire and Ash was genuinely the most visually stunning movie I have seen of all time. Like I was very impressed by the CGI in 2025’s Frankenstein, but the picture every second of Avatar shocked me time and time again. The scenery from the natural land, the fluidity and smoothness of visuals like water splashing, and the fine details like single strands of hair or single water droplets made the movie so engaging that it was fun to watch, even if you have little care for the story.

As a whole, I really think the Avatar trilogy is some of the best fantasy of the last twenty years, it has great worldbuilding, and I think the narrative is timeless. While I love Avatar, I did have many problems with the story in the third part. The movie was pretty long and had multiple big scenes, so, in my opinion, it can get pretty overwhelming when you glance at it from afar. The length makes it a little hard to process, and it might be saturated with too much content, but I personally really like this movie because when you look at the characters and scenes on an individual level, there’s so much to reflect on.

What made the movie good for me was not the storyline, but instead it was the development of the characters and their relationships. I felt like the preceding movie Way of Water had few major themes of environmentalism and belonging, but this movie, Fire and Ash had many smaller themes about the characters and how they handle conflict. That being said, I have many opinions about which characters I loved, liked, and hated in the movie.

Tier list before writing this blog:

D tier

Spider is just easily my least favorite character in the movie. He didn’t do anything but almost die a million times, get captured a million times, didn’t do any significant fighting, and then was given huge recognizability and merit by the end of the movie, turning all the attention towards him when it should have been somewhere else. I understand that the last part was most likely the director’s choice, but he still didn’t do anything but be a token that got passed around.

C tier

C tier is the ultimate neutral zone because Tonowari, Rotxo, and Aonung didn’t have much screentime, so they didn’t do anything significant except help fight in battle.

B Tier

I have a few opinions on each character in B tier. First, Jake Sully I’m disappointed in you because you were a terrible father, especially towards Lo’ak. Clearly in this movie every member of the Sully family dealt with the grief of the oldest son Neteyam dying in different ways, and how Jake handled it was the most hurtful. He dealt with the death of his son by being avoidant, and it hurt me internally to not see him offer any solace to Lo’ak. I mean seriously for a family that was supposed to be built on togetherness, why the heck did the death of Neteyam feel so taboo and absent of honoring his death? That’s just a cycle of trauma waiting to happen.

Miles Quaritch gets sent to B tier too. In fact, I wouldn’t mind if he were C tier or even D tier. Quaritch just makes me endlessly mad because he has some of the worst character development I have ever seen. Seriously he gets put in an avatar body, he sees how the Navi live, love, bleed, cry, and with good writing, he could have good character development, but instead he just spews violence and hatred for no reason and he’s stupid. Tbh, he might be ruining the whole series. Now I'm officially sending him to his own F tier.

Tier list during writing this blog:

Okay so Verang is in B tier because she could have been so great, but the writing did her extremely dirty. She was such a powerful, independent character who could have done so much, but the story made her just a sidekick or a tool for Quaritch’s evil actions. I hope the next movie gives her justice. She did crazy in battle though

A tier

A tier is when we finally get some real ones. We see Kiri deal with a lot of hardship and sadness in the movie, struggling with her identity and coping with the loss of her brother, so it was really great to see her shine in more moments. She was always saving everyone and getting them out of danger, and she ultimately was the reason the Navi finally turned the tide and defeated Quaritch at the end. I wish she had more screentime, but I'm excited that the door is open to explore her power and connection with Eywa in the next movie.

Tuk really doesn’t play much of a role except for being a sweetheart and being cute. I think seeing her scared and confused during stressful moments was really effective at pulling the audience’s emotions, and even with little screentime her presence added a lot to the story.

Last in the A tier is Tsireya, and like Tuk, she didn’t really do much but add emotional depth to the story. She was just a super strong and kind character whose relationship with Lo’ak added more to the movie.

S tier

Finally, I’m on to the S tier and the characters I really want to talk about. I don’t care what anyone says, the mothers Neytiri and Ronal are the strongest characters in the series. I swear Neytiri’s pain hit the hardest and was the most heartbreaking when it was on screen. Neytiri deals with the grief of Neteyam through her spiritual connection with Ewya and unlike Jake actually comforts her children. Did we forget also about how she fought through pain and injury to protect her family, how Ronal fought while carrying a baby, and then Neytiri fought more while shielding Ronal’s newborn baby? Neytiri and Ronal don’t even get half the credit they deserve!!!

Lo’ak is objectively the best character in the movie, and I have so much to say. Lo’ak processes the grief of losing his brother Neteyam through anger and guilt, blaming himself for his brother’s death. While dealing with his grievances he reaches out to his father for comfort, but Jake is avoidant and cold. Lo’ak is just a kid who was forced to grow up quickly!! You can see how he struggles internally to be the new role model to his younger siblings, and he struggles with guiding everyone and worries about making the same mistakes. The nighttime beach scene killed me. As if his sorrow about Neteyam isn’t enough, the story doubles down and makes Lo’ak feel even more alone by outcasting him for his bond with Payakan the Tulkun. Ultimately, he is the reason the Tulkun fight and aid them in what looked like an impossible battle, and he didn’t get enough credit for it. Lo’ak is just young, misunderstood, and alone, and Jake needed a longer apology to him.

What made this movie so good was definitely the characters and the visuals. The characters feel so real, and the visuals add to the emotional depth and amazement. However, the story definitely felt like a rinse and repeat of the second movie Way of Water. I wish the movie had given more credit where it was due and had done something bolder, but the character development still made me more attached to the series than I ever was before.

Thank you for reading my blog!

Caleb G / Industry Insider