Aonung

Aonung is a fifteen-year-old Na'vi hunter/free-diver from the Metkayina clan and the eldest son of the clan leaders, Tonowari and Ronal, and Tsireya's brother. When the Sully family arrived at the reef village, his father assigned him to help the Sully children adjust to the reef lifestyle. He obeyed his father grudgingly. Aonung initially intimidated Lo'ak and Kiri for being different, along with his friends. But as the threat of the RDA looms larger, Aonung sees the bigger picture and finds friendship with the Sully children.
==Biography== 
=== Meeting the Sully family ===
Aonung was among the crowd that greeted Jake Sully and his family when they arrived to the shores of Awa'atlu. While observing the forest Na'vi, he and his friend Rotxo were amused at the tails of Lo'ak and Neteyam, comparing them to a child’s. This earned him some reprimand from his sister Tsireya.
Once his father, Tonowari, granted the Sully family uturu (a Na'vi tradition that states that any refugee seeking refuge must be granted safe harbor), he assigned Aonung and Tsireya to teach the Sully children the ways of the Metkayina. Aonung initially protested at the task, but his father was firm on his decision, leaving his son the only option to obey.
=== Teaching the Sully children ===
Ordered by his father, Aonung and Tsireya taught the Sully children how to free dive. While diving underwater in the reef, he and Rotxo were confused as to why the forest Na’vi did not follow, despite their frequent signing to follow, unaware that they did not understand the Na'vi sign language. Aonung also taught them how to ride the ilus. When Lo'ak fails to properly ride the creature, Aonung and his friends laugh at his expense. 
Later he and a gang of his friends found Kiri looking at the sand under the water. Noticing her bizarre behavior, Aonung called her weird and began to harass her about her human heritage. This eventually led him and his friends to enter a physical fight with Lo'ak and Neteyam. When Jake asked Neteyam about the fight, he said that they looked a lot worse than him and his brother, seen by Aonung possessing many bruises.
Lo'ak later apologized for hitting Aonung. He accepted Lo’ak’s apology and invited him to hunt with his friends outside the reef. Lo'ak refused because his parents have told him not to go there, but Aonung convinced him and he reluctantly accepted. When they arrived at Three Brothers Rock, Aonung told Lo'ak to call the fish, but then he and his friends abandoned him there as revenge leading Lo'ak in mortal danger by an Akula.
That night, Aonung was scolded by their parents for taking Lo'ak off the reef after they found him, though the latter was led back to the village by a tulkun who saved his life. Aonung was surprised when Lo'ak blamed himself instead of him, which earned Lo'ak his friendship and respect.
The next day, Aonung heard Lo'ak explain how the lone tulkun saved him. Aonung replied that no tulkun lives alone, but Tsireya soon realized that Lo'ak was talking about Payakan, an outcast. Aonung explained that Payakan had killed several Na'vi and other tulkuns further south years ago, but Lo'ak refused to believe that Payakan is a murderer.
When the tulkuns returned home, Aonung was seen swimming with one of the creatures on his ilu along with Neteyam, Kiri, Tuk and Rotxo. After the migration, Aonung along with Neteyam, Tsireya, and Rotxo witnessed Lo'ak bond with Payakan, though Lo'ak was later scolded along with Tsireya by Tonowari and Ronal for doing so with the outcast tulkun.
=== Skirmish at the Three Brothers ===
When his mother's spiritual sister and her calf were killed by the Sky People and his father declares war, Aonung seemed to agree. Jake convinced them not to attack the Sky People and to tell their tulkuns to leave so that no other tulkuns would be harmed.
Aonung, Tsireya, Rotxo and the other Sully children followed Lo'ak who went to see Payakan to warn him of the whalers. Upon returning to the Three Brothers Rocks, Aonung helped to remove the tracker from Payakan that marked him as a hunting target for the SeaDragon. They fought to get the tracker out of his skin and they eventually succeeded. Then they quickly moved away from the SeaDragon on their ilus. Aonung managed to escape being captured along with Kiri and Rotxo, although the humans were able to capture Lo'ak, Tuktirey, and Tsireya. Later, he witnessed with Rotxo how Kiri managed to defeat a Mako Submersible by controlling and using her bond with Eywa to control the underwater flora and fauna.
When Kiri was captured by Lyle Wainfleet's banshee, both he and Rotxo looked on in dismay at their inability to assist her as she was dragged out of the water by the soldier and brought to the SeaDragon. 
After the battle, Aonung attended Neteyam's funeral to pay his respects with Tsireya and Rotxo. He comforted his sister by caressing Tsireya's shoulder during the funeral.
== Personality ==
Initially, Aonung seems to hold prejudice towards the forest Na'vi for not having the similar physique that the ocean Na'vi have. He often insults the older Sully children for their weaker endurance underwater, and finds amusement at Lo’ak’s initial struggle taming an Ilu. Similar to his mother Ronal, he makes racist and xenophobic comments at Kiri, calling her and Lo'ak freaks and not true Na'vi.
Despite his frequent bullying, he eventually takes accountability for his recklessness. When Lo’ak lied about the extent of his bullying, Aonung was impressed and seemed to be more open to the Sully siblings. He doesn’t hesitate to help Tsireya and the Sully children when rescuing Payakan from the RDA. He ironically becomes saved by Kiri's strange powers later on.
Due to being skilled in hunting and diving, Aonung is well-liked and admired by his peers, usually seen in company of his best friend, Rotxo.https://www.avatar.com/pandorapedia/ao-nung Aonung enjoys bodysurfing and plunge-diving through the reef wall tunnels during changing tides.Avatar: The Way of Water: The Visual Dictionary page 103
As the only son of the clan’s leaders, he would be pressured to meet his parents’ high expectations, masking it with reckless behavior. He rarely speaks up in the presence of his parents, especially during the latter’s scoldings.
== Relationships ==
* See Aonung/Relationships.
==Trivia==
* In the original script, he was known as Nu'ung.
* In the original script, he apologizes to Kiri for his behavior before while they are hiding in an airbell from the RDA, causing her to point out the awkward timing:
** Aonung: "Kiri, I am sorry I was such a skxawng, before."
** Kiri: "You want to talk about this NOW?"
* Also in the original script, Rotxo calls Aonung "cuz", raising the possibility they are cousins in the final film.
* Some sources including the film credits list his name as "Aonung", but Avatar: The Way of Water: The Visual Dictionary and The Art of Avatar: The Way of Water list it as "Ao'nung". His Pandorapedia URL is also "ao-nung".
** Joshua Izzo clarified Ao'nung was how it was originally written, but it is canonically Aonung.https://www.reddit.com/r/Avatar/comments/18rmk2s/which_avatar_books_are_actually_lore_accurate/
* Joshua Izzo confirmed that Ronal is Aonung's birth mother, despite theories that he is the son of Tonowari and another mother.
* Aonung is very similar to Tsu'tey. Tsu'tey made disparaging remarks at Jake for being an avatar. After a tough challenge where Jake befriends an animal with Tsu'tey's group (the banshee bonding), the two eventually became allies. Aonung makes rude remarks at Lo'ak for having avatar DNA, but after an incident where Lo'ak follows Aonung's group and winds up bonding with an animal (Payakan), the two become friends.
* It can easily be theorized that Aonung's toxic xenophobic bully-like behavior may be him being influenced by his mother Ronal and how she treated the Sully family when they first arrived.
* Although there is no explicitly known named gay Na'vi in the Avatar series yet, Neteyam and Aonung became an extremely popular fan pairing soon after The Way of Water was released, causing the two characters to be adopted by LGBTQ+ Avatar fans.https://www.reddit.com/r/Avatar/comments/11e0xgf/why_did_people_decide_that_neteyam_and_aonung_are/https://www.reddit.com/r/Avatar/comments/161mrye/what_is_your_opinion_on_people_shipping_neteyam/https://www.reddit.com/r/Avatar/comments/10est0t/aonung_and_neteyam_an_explanation/ "Aonunete" is the fan made name for this paring. This pair became so popular to the degree that they have thousands of fanarts, "Aonunete" has over 160 million TikTok views and the pairing has just as much fanfiction as Jake and Neytiri on the site Archive of Our Own.
* Some fans have also made the ship of Aonung and Kiri because of their way of acting and interacting by being close to her during the film, even calling her called "Kirinung", however, they do not have as much fanfiction "Aonunete" but despite that the ship of Aonung and Kiri is super popular on Tumblr and also has stories in AO3 as well as in Fanfiction.
== Memorable quotes ==
==References==
es:Aonung
fr:Aonung
pl:Aonung
ru:Ао'нунг
Category:Na'vi
Category:Characters
Category:Avatar: The Way of Water
Category:Avatar: Fire and Ash