Elliot Kessler

“Avatar: The Way of Water” was, well, an “Avatar” sequel. It was more about the spectacle, the effects, and the world that James Cameron invented rather than the story and characters. There was a lot of potential for the story, and I expected a lot more after the movie’s beginning. But unfortunately, like the first film, the story quickly fell flat. However, the characters were written well, and they were, I think, the second-best part of the movie.

I’ve dabbled in visual effects and animation. I understand how some of the effects work and how revolutionary this film is technology-wise. However, I won’t pretend to be a filmmaker for the sake of this blog post. Instead, I will look at “Avatar: The Way of Water” from a writer’s perspective.

If you follow my Instagram account (link at the bottom of the page), you know I’ve already done this in a recent post on that account. However, that post was more of a broad overview of the film, about what I liked and disliked about the film. However, I want to focus on the characters in this post. Cameron did many things right with the characters, and I want to explain how to create good characters using this movie as an example.

Spoilers for both “Avatar” movies. Ye hath been warned.

Needs and Wants

Every character has to have motivation. If they don’t, nothing happens, or they are pulled through the story like a Disneyland tourist, neither of which are exciting options. Motivation is what gives a character purpose. It drives them to make their choices and pushes the story along. If a character isn’t actively working toward a goal and is being pushed along the plot instead, then there’s not much point to the story.

Luke would have been much less interesting if he didn’t want to learn to become a Jedi. Batman would be pretty boring if he didn’t have a quest for vengeance.

Every good character has something they want. However, every great character also has a need. In “Inception,” Cobb wants to be with his wife again, but he needs to move on and free himself of guilt. In “Avatar: The Way of Water,” Spider wants to hate his father, but he needs to make peace with him and forgive him to move on properly.

Wants and needs are the foundation for good character work. However, the best part about a character is why they can’t have both. The ending of “The Sign of The Four,” a Sherlock Holmes novel, illustrates this well because it is both a good novel and has the greatest character in all of fiction.

By the novel’s end, Watson has met a girl, and they get together, another detective must take the credit for solving the case rather than Holmes due to the circumstances explained in the novel, and Holmes is left with his bottle of cocaine. This is beautifully tragic. Holmes is a desperately lonely man. He longs for company, but instead seeks the feeling of intimacy within his drug addiction. He needs Watson’s friendship but finds it much easier to indulge in his self-destructive habit. That habit disgusts Watson, and Watson finds companionship elsewhere. Holmes was met with a choice. He could work to achieve the friendship and companionship he longs for or use drugs to simulate companionship—his need and his want, respectively. Unfortunately for him, he consistently chooses the latter.

Backstory

I have heard many people who want backstories for their favorite characters. When a movie for a popular franchise comes out and a new fan-favorite character is introduced, fans often beg for the character’s backstory in a spin-off movie or show. Sometimes, the studios indulge the fans, but rarely are the backstories as good as fans imagine they will be. That’s because fans already have expectations for character backstories. They already have a story woven in their minds that they expect to play out on the screen or the page, but this never happens.

I am not the biggest fan of backstories. Most characters are better when their creators don’t spell out every second of their lives. If the characters’ backstories were more interesting than their main story, then their main story should have been that backstory to begin with.

I experienced this recently. I won’t reveal the details here because I would spoil the story, but in my book, I realized that the story I was telling and the main character’s backstory were almost the same. Some details changed, but it explored the same aspects of the character and didn’t add anything new. I found that the character would be much better if I cut the backstory and let the story I was telling be his backstory.

This isn’t to say giving characters history is bad. It can work very well when executed properly. Look at Spider from “Avatar: The Way of Water.”

I think Spider is the most interesting character in the entire film. His situation is unique, unfortunate, and tragic. In the film, we learn that Miles Quaritch, the villain from the first film, had a son named Miles Socorro, who was given the nickname Spider. Spider had to stay behind when the RDA left Pandora in the first film because he was too young for cryostasis, and he was raised by the scientists that stayed on Pandora and Jake. He was practically part of the Sully family, but Neytiri always resented him because of his father.

His relationship with the avatar version of his father, Quaritch, is complicated because of his backstory. So is his relationship with Neytiri. The best scene in the film was when Quaritch was holding one of Jake’s daughters with a knife to her throat (I can’t remember which one, so clearly, it doesn’t matter). While Quaritch demands that Jake put his weapons down and give him what he wants, Neytiri sneaks up behind Spider, Quaritch’s son and, essentially, Neytiri’s adopted son, and holds a knife to his throat. She threatens to kill him unless Quaritch lets her daughter go free. At first, Quaritch says he doesn’t care about Spider. But after Neytiri cuts Spider’s chest and nearly slits his throat, Quaritch lets Neytiri’s daughter go.

This scene was powerful. Spider will never be the same again, and Neytiri has begun a downward spiral. The man Spider grew up believing was evil was the one that saved him, and the woman Spider grew up seeing as a mother threatened his life like the villain he thought his father was. This event is likely what leads to Spider’s choice to save Quaritch at the end of the film, which was another powerful moment, but nowhere near the level of this scene, and this scene wouldn’t be as good as it was if it wasn’t for Spider’s backstory and the backstory of his father.

While I don’t enjoy long descriptions of useless backstories that don’t come into play in the story being told, I believe that backstory has its uses. It can be used to create emotionally intense scenes and cause characters to question their identity and beliefs, which is the best use of backstory.

Flaws

Another of the best ways to craft a character is to add at least one flaw. With Neytiri, it was her perception of Spider. With Kiri, it’s her epilepsy. With Lo’ak, it’s his longing to be like his brother. These flaws create external and internal conflicts that are personal to the characters. The conflict exploits the character’s greatest weaknesses, hitting them where it hurts.

For example, look at Peter Parker from “Spider-Man 2.” He wants to live his life but can’t do that while being Spider-Man. His flaw is that he is tired of being a superhero. He must choose between being Spider-Man and being Peter Parker. Again, we come back to the concept of needs and wants, but it is seen within the flaw of the character because every aspect of the character is woven together. Everything connects, and no aspect of his character can exist without the other.

Conclusion

There are many other ways to write great characters. Everyone has unique methods, and everyone has unique preferences. But these are the traits I have seen in the most fantastic characters in fiction that make them enjoyable. Surprisingly, James Cameron used many of these aspects of great characters in “Avatar: The Way of Water.” The characters were unique and thrown into situations only those characters could be in. That scene with Neytiri holding a knife to Spider’s throat stuck out to me while driving away from the theaters, and it will continue to influence how I write characters and their relationships with one another.

Thanks for reading! Have a fantastic day.