Jake Sully/Synopsis

== Avatar ==
===On Earth===
Jake Sully was born and raised on Earth and grew up hearing about Pandora, a small moon orbiting the gas giant Polyphemus in the Alpha Centauri System. Though nothing is known of his childhood, he joined the Marines as an adult for the hardship involved and a cause to fight for. He suffered a spinal injury in an unnamed war while fighting in Venezuela. The injury was severe, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down.
Since his veteran benefits are not enough to pay for the surgery to repair his spine, he has no choice but to live out his life in a wheelchair. After a night of drinking, Jake starts a bar fight with a man who strikes a woman. After breaking up the fight, the bouncers throw him out into the street where he is approached by two RDA agents. They confirm his identity and inform him that his identical twin brother, Tom, had been killed in a mugging. His brother was one of the selected few scientists chosen to participate in the Avatar Program and one of even fewer avatar "drivers." Tom had trained on Earth for three years in preparation for a tour on Pandora. He represented a significant investment on the part of the Resources Development Administration due to the inherent link between the pilot and the avatar he controls, as well as the enormous cost of creating an avatar. Since Jake is genetically identical to his brother, he can link with the avatar, saving the company the cost of creating a new one. After being offered significant compensation, which will be enough to pay for his operation on his legs, he apprehensively agrees to take over his brother's contract and is put in cryosleep for the trip to Pandora.
===Arrival on Pandora===
After five years, nine months and 22 days of travel, Jake awakens from cryosleep aboard the ISV Venture Star as it orbits above Pandora. Jake, along with the other new arrivals, disembarks from a Valkyrie shuttle at Hell's Gate, where he has his first contact with Pandora's hostile climate. Upon landing, Jake and the other passengers are briefed on the use of exopacks: personal rebreather units that filter the toxic Pandoran atmosphere. Exopacks are required for survival outside of internally pressurized RDA facilities.
When he enters the RDA facility, Jake meets Colonel Miles Quaritch, a seasoned ex-military officer who is in charge of Pandora's entire paramilitary defense force. In a security briefing for the new comers, he explains to them all the dangers of Pandora, stressing that the biggest threat is an indigenous population of humanoids called the Na'vi. He makes it clear that he is not willing to tolerate any resistance from the Na'vi and has very little patience for the scientists working on the avatar project.
===The Avatar Program===
Jake meets Norm Spellman, a biologist who arrived on the same rotation as he did and was also a friend of his brother. Jake is later introduced to Dr. Grace Augustine, a botanist as well as the leader of the Avatar Program. The avatars are genetically engineered human/Na’vi hybrids which are controlled remotely by avatar "drivers". Using the avatars, Grace and her team have made considerable progress in teaching some Na'vi the English language as well as learning the Na'vi language and culture. However, Grace is not pleased with RDA administrator Parker Selfridge's decision to use Jake to replace his brother’s avatar position, as she will have to spend time training him in Na’vi culture and language as well as teaching him how to control his avatar. Quaritch, however, sees this as a valuable opportunity and decides to take advantage of Jake's military training, giving him the task of finding out all he can about the Na'vi, pretending to be in league with the avatar team, and reporting his findings to the RDA. In return, Quaritch tells Jake that if he succeeds, he will see to it that Jake gets the surgery needed to regain the use of his legs.
Returning to the link room with Norm, Jake is prepped by Grace to link with his avatar for the first time. When Jake first enters his avatar, he begins to move about, trying to get a feel for his avatar. Realizing that he finally has the use of his legs for the first time in years, he immediately gets up and starts trying to walk, much to the dismay and annoyance of the lab team. He is told to sit back down or he will be sedated, but he refuses and heads for the exit. He runs from the lab, enjoying his first chance to do so since being paralyzed. He ends up at the Avatar Compound, where he meets Dr. Grace Augustine's avatar. Grace is impressed by his motor reflexes, which were far above the standards expected of a first time avatar driver.
===First Contact With Pandora===
Grace brings Norm and Jake (as security) on an expedition to retrieve samples of Pandoran flora. Trudy Chacon is their assigned pilot for the expedition along with Lyle Wainfleet serving as additional non-avatar security. Jake, Grace and Norm visit Grace's closed school. Upon seeing bullet holes in a wall, Jake asks Grace what happened, but she changes the subject and the three continue on with the expedition. While Grace and Norm study the wildlife, Jake wanders away and, while playing around with the nearby flora, stumbles across a group of hammerhead titanotheres, a rhinoceros-like animal species. However, the titanotheres flee from a thanator, a terrifying land predator. Jake runs for his life from the thanator, losing his equipment and weapon in the process. He narrowly escapes death from the predator by leaping from the top of a cliff into a river below. After failing to locate Jake, the avatar team is forced to abandon the search for him as night operations were deemed too dangerous by Quaritch.
As Jake travels through the forest of Pandora alone, Neytiri, the princess of the Omaticaya clan, discovers his presence and prepares to kill him with her bow. However, just before she releases her arrow, a woodsprite, a pure spirit from the Tree of Souls, lands on the tip of her arrow. Taking this as a sign from Eywa, the godlike spirit of the forest and deity of the Na'vi, she eases her bow back and lets Jake live. She continues to follow him until darkness falls. Jake creates a torch using a makeshift spear, his coat, and sap from the trees. When he lights his torch, he discovers he is surrounded by a pack of viperwolves. Jake fights until he is pinned by a viperwolf, at which point Neytiri saves him, having to kill several viperwolves in Jake's defense. Jake tries to communicate with Neytiri as she speaks over the dead viperwolf, but she seems to ignore him and walks away. Jake pursues Neytiri and tries to thank her for killing the viperwolves, which angers Neytiri. She tells him that the unnecessary killing of the creatures is not something to be grateful for. Jake asks Neytiri why she saved him. Her response is that Jake has a strong heart and no fear. Jake follows Neytiri, but she rejects him, as he is one of the Sky People (the Na'vi term for humans) and cannot go with her. Suddenly, dozens of woodsprites appear and land on Jake's body. Neytiri, amazed, recognizes the woodsprites' actions as a sign and decides to take Jake to her village to allow Mo'at, the Omaticaya clan's Tsahìk (spiritual leader), to interpret the will of Eywa and decide what should be done with Jake.
===Becoming one of "The People"===
When Jake and Neytiri arrive at Hometree, the massive tree that the Omaticaya clan lives in, Jake meets with Eytukan and Mo'at, the leaders of the clan and parents of Neytiri. Jake also meets with the finest warrior and leader of the Omaticaya clan's hunters, Tsu'tey, who is betrothed to Neytiri and chosen to one day become the future clan leader. Jake presents himself as a warrior with the intention to learn from them. Tsu'tey insists on killing Jake but Eytukan wishes to find out more about the warriors of the Sky People. Mo'at, as the spiritual leader, orders Neytiri to teach Jake how to be one of The People. Reluctantly, Neytiri submits to her mother's command and teaches Jake about the Na'vi culture and language.
Back at Hell's Gate, Jake reports to Selfridge and Quaritch on information about the natives. Quaritch seems impressed and claims that he wished that he "had ten more like you (Jake)". Grace becomes aware of their interest in Jake's information and arranges for the avatar team to be transferred to a remote camp in the floating Hallelujah Mountains in order to continue their program without military involvement. Jake knows that Grace disapproves of Quaritch and Selfridge's interference and that is why she moved the team. Jake continues to check in remotely with Quaritch over the next three months, though check in become less and less frequent. It is during this time that Jake receives instruction. He is taught the Na'vi language. While learning how to ride Pale, a direhorse, he fails tremendously with Tsu'tey and another hunter watching. He is taught how to walk and hunt silently. During this time, Jake's relationship with Grace also improves. Grace and Jake become friends, and Grace comes to the point of even putting Jake into his bunk after a late night video-log contribution and forces Jake to eat, even if he does not want to. Grace tells Jake about the slaughter at her school where many young Na'vi were killed by RDA soldiers, including Neytiri's sister, Sylwanin, and the pain that it brought her. Norm also tutors Jake in the Na'vi language. Jake and Neytiri's relationship grows and an attraction between the two develops.
Following a successful hunt in which Jake makes his first clean kill after stalking a hexapede and performing a ritual, Neytiri, greatly impressed, tells Jake that he is ready to choose his own banshee (ikran). Led by Tsu'tey, he and two other Na'vi hunters undertake the ritual of Iknimaya and climb the path to the banshee's nest. There, Jake learns how to bond with (tsaheylu) and control his banshee, much to the annoyance of Tsu'tey. Once Jake masters his banshee, he joins Tsu'tey and the other young hunters, along with Neytiri, on several flights. He participates in a hunt for sturmbeest and elegantly kills one of them with his bow, proving himself as a "stone cold aerial hunter". Later, he and Neytiri fly together and, on a hunt, are attacked by a great leonopteryx, known to the Na'vi as toruk ("last shadow"), and narrowly escape. That evening, Neytiri explains the significance of the toruk and tells him of her great-great-grandfather, the mighty Toruk Makto (Rider of Last Shadow). She talks about how he was the last of only five Toruk Makto in the history of their tribe, how he delivered The People from the time of Great Sorrow, and how much she admired him.
At the end of the three months, Jake reports back to Quaritch as ordered. The Colonel informs Jake that his assignment is over and he is to be transferred immediately back to Earth to receive his promised surgery to restore the use of his legs. However, Jake is now more concerned with the welfare of the Omaticaya and especially the welfare of Neytiri, whom he has fallen in love with, than his desire to walk again. He is now reluctant and wary of his fellow humans trying to exploit the moon’s resources. He convinces Quaritch to give him more time in order to convince the tribe to relocate peacefully. He tells the Colonel that once he completes that night's ceremony, he will be made part of The People (an honor never granted to an avatar before) and that they will trust him. That night, Jake undergoes the ceremony where Eytukan makes him one of their own and forever a part of The People, with Grace and Neytiri looking on. Neytiri takes Jake to one of the clan's most sacred places, the Trees of Voices, a holy place where he can connect to the trees and hear the voices of all the spirits of deceased Na'vi. Neytiri tells Jake that now that he is one of the Omaticaya people, he can carve his bow from the wood of Hometree and he can choose a mate, and suggests a few different Na'vi women. Jake tells her that he has chosen her but Neytiri must also choose him. She informs him that she already has and becomes his mate. Once they are mated to each other, they are mated for life. After Jake returns to his human body, he realizes the predicament he put himself in.
===The Destruction of The Hometree===
After spending the night with Jake, Neytiri is awakened by a huge bulldozer. She watches it destroy the Trees of Voices. Neytiri tries to wake Jake, but he is in his human body preparing to enter his avatar. Neytiri drags Jake's avatar body slowly while pleading with him to wake up. When Jake finally awakens, he tries to stop the bulldozer by standing in front of it. It stops momentarily but starts up again when Parker Selfridge orders the driver to keep going. When it starts again, Jake grabs a rock, climbs to the top of the bulldozer and smashes the array of cameras, disabling the vehicle and narrowly avoiding the gunfire from the patrols. Jake and Neytiri return to Hometree, where Eytukan and Tsu'tey are preparing a war party to avenge the loss of the sacred trees. Jake is confronted by Tsu'tey when he realizes that Jake and Neytiri have mated. Tsu'tey attacks Jake in a fit of rage, attempting to kill him. Jake is able to subdue him and is about to explain his original mission to the Omaticaya, but before he can, Jake and Grace's avatars collapse when they are suddenly sent back to their human bodies by Quaritch, who learned from the Hell Truck's video log that it was Jake who destroyed the cameras. Tsu'tey angrily reminds the clan that Jake is one of the Sky People, but Neytiri stops him from killing Jake's avatar.
When they are brought back to Hell's Gate, Grace tells an unbelieving Parker that the trees and plant life make up a huge network like the synapses of a human brain, and that the Na'vi can access all the information within this network, and so the trees must not be destroyed. After some extensive persuasion, Jake and Grace are allowed by Parker to return to their avatars for one hour to try and get the Na'vi to evacuate. Jake and Grace beg the clan to leave because the Sky People are coming to destroy Hometree, but when Jake reveals his mission, and that he knew that the RDA would attack, the clan is outraged. Neytiri, heartbroken at Jake's revelation, furiously rejects him. Eytukan orders them to be bound and prepares the Omaticaya warriors for the defense of the Hometree. A large strike force led by Quaritch drives the Na'vi from their home with gas and incendiary rounds, consuming Hometree in flames. A desperate Mo'at releases Jake and Grace from their bindings and pleads with them to save her tribe. As the Na'vi begin to flee, Quaritch orders his strike team to switch to high-explosive missiles and to open fire on the roots of Hometree, causing it to collapse onto many of the fleeing Na'vi. Eytukan, who was evacuating the Na'vi that were still inside the burning Hometree, is impaled by a piece of wood sent flying by the rocket explosions. Neytiri finds him, and Eytukan gives her his bow, telling her to defend the clan before succumbing to his wound. Jake finds them and tries to comfort Neytiri, but she rejects him again and leaves with the surviving Omaticaya.
While leaving the ruins of Hometree, Jake and Grace are forcefully returned to their real bodies and placed under arrest for treason along with Norm, who assaulted one of the marines who was trying to disable the link units. Trudy and Dr. Max Patel rescue the avatar team from prison. Before they get outside, Jake asks Dr. Patel to stay behind and be his man on the inside. Trudy hijacks her Samson and flies them to safety, but not before being fired upon by Quaritch. He fails in stopping the avatar team from escaping, but shoots Grace in the stomach. The team flies the camp container holding the avatar link units from Site 26 into hiding near the Tree of Souls, where the remaining Omaticaya have fled to safety.
Jake returns to his avatar form at the ruins of Hometree. His banshee finds him amidst the ashes and Jake decides that the only way to regain the trust of the Na'vi and save Grace is to "take it to a whole new level". They fly at high altitude until they find the great leonopteryx, at which point Jake leaps from his ikran onto the back of the leonopteryx and bonds with it, becoming the sixth Toruk Makto. To the initial panic and astonishment of the Na'vi, he lands at the Tree of Souls, where the amazed Omaticaya people, including Tsu'tey, recognize him as Toruk Makto. When Neytiri sees him, she knows who Jake has sided with, and is grateful to see him return. Jake reaffirms his love for her and says "I See you", a Na'vi greeting. After earning the respect of Tsu'tey, now the clan leader, who agrees to help him stop the Sky People, Jake then makes a plea to Mo’at to save Grace from dying. The Na'vi attempt to place Grace's spirit within her avatar body permanently, but her wounds are too great and she passes on. Before she passes, she tells Jake that she can see Eywa and that she is with her now.
===The Final Battle===
Having earned back the tribe's trust, Jake asks for Tsu'tey's permission to speak and that it would honor him if he could translate his words to the Na'vi. Jake encourages them to fight back against the Sky People.
He rallies the Omaticaya clan, and they ride with him as he flies out to gather all the tribes for a final attack, just as the previous Toruk Makto did. Jake later makes tsaheylu with the Tree of Souls and asks Eywa to look into Grace's memories and see how humans destroyed Earth, and to intervene to keep them from destroying Pandora as well. Neytiri overhears him and tells him that Eywa does not take sides, she only maintains the balance of life on Pandora.
Surveying the Na'vi with satellites, Quaritch learns that other clans have converged with the Omaticaya at the Tree of Souls and decides to destroy them and their holy ground to put an end to their defiance once and for all. A huge military fleet commandeered by Quaritch approaches the Tree of Souls, using the Valkyrie shuttle as a makeshift bomber and mining explosives as "daisy cutter" munitions to destroy the tree. Thousands of Na'vi warriors led by Jake and Tsu'tey take to the skies and attack the fleet, while Norm Spellman rides with the cavalry on the ground. The Na'vi forces on the ground are easily defeated by human infantry and their powerful AMP suits, and suffer heavy losses, including Norm, whose avatar is shot. In the skies, a massive air battle ensues between the human air fleet and Na'vi hunters riding banshees. The Na'vi inflict some casualties on the humans with their initial strike, managing to take down several human gunships. However, the humans' superior firepower sees them inflict heavier casualties on the Na'vi, and they look to resume their bombing run.
Quaritch, flying in his Dragon Gunship, notices Jake's toruk and gives chase. Before Quaritch manages to shoot down Jake, however, Trudy dives in with her Samson and strafes the Dragon. An enraged Quaritch turns his attention to her, which allows Jake to escape. Trudy valiantly fights back, but her Samson is no match for Quaritch's gunship, and she is shot down and killed. Tsu'tey boards the Valkyrie in the hope of preventing it from dropping its payload, but after killing or incapacitating several humans inside the Valkyrie's cargo bay, he is gunned down by a human soldier and falls from the shuttle. Jake calls both Tsu'tey and Trudy but neither answer. He makes contact with Neytiri, who, with her ikran dead, is getting ready to attack the RDA ground forces single-handedly. Jake pleads with her over the communication collar not to, but before she tries; a stampede of hammerhead titanotheres attacks the RDA ground forces, trampling infantry and smashing AMP suits, followed by viperwolves which attack the infantry more accurately. Neytiri is further surprised when one of Pandora's deadliest creatures, a thanator, allows her to make tsaheylu with it and ride it. The human ground forces break and retreat in panic. In the skies, swarms of wild ikran descend on the surviving RDA gunships, pulling the craft off balance and ripping door gunners out of their stations until only the Valkyrie and Quaritch's Dragon Gunship remain.
The Valkyrie, approaching the Tree of Souls, prepares to drop its payload, but in the ensuing confusion created by the wild ikran attack, Jake leaps onto the Valkyrie, throwing a grenade into one of its engines before it can drop its payload of mining explosives. The grenade detonates, causing the Valkyrie to collide with a nearby rock, shearing of the left wing and sending the it into a steep dive. The pilots are unable to compensate for the lost of thrust and the ship crashes into the ground and explodes. With all RDA ships except Quaritch's destroyed or in retreat, Jake attempts to destroy the Dragon Gunship the same way he destroyed the Valkyrie. Quaritch, seeing Jake land on the gunship before he manages to throw his two grenades, turns the ship sharply to starboard, nearly throwing Jake off. One grenade is lodged in a small air vent and detonates, ripping a hole in the Dragon's armor, resulting in a few hydraulic-based control failures and exposes the interior crew to Pandoran atmosphere. The falling Jake manages to grab onto one of the Dragon's missile racks. Jake pulls a missile off of the rack and heaves it into the rotor blades of the Dragon's front starboard engine. The resulting explosion destroys the engine and sends the Dragon into an uncontrollable spin. Jake falls from the ship and lands safely in the jungle, breaking his fall with the huge leaves on the trees. Quaritch also escapes his gunship, manning his personal AMP suit and jumping from the ship's cargo bay, fully intent on making a one-man assault on the Tree of Souls.
Stumbling upon the camp containing the avatar link units by chance, Quaritch attempts to destroy Jake's human body, but before he can do so, Neytiri and her thanator attack him, successfully destroying the GAU-90 cannon for Quaritch's AMP suit. However, Quaritch overpowers and kills the thanator with his AMP suit knife. As he prepares to kill Neytiri, pinned under the thanator's body, Jake arrives to challenge him. The two fight fiercely in close quarters. Jake uses the rifle bayonet for the GAU-90 to fend off the blows of Quaritch's AMP suit. Jake manages to break the AMP suit knife and destroys the AMP's glass canopy, but Quaritch puts on an exopack. The Colonel taunts Jake, asking him how it feels to betray his own race, before turning and attacking the avatar link unit with the suit. Jake manages to fend off Quaritch before he can fully break open the camp, but a window is broken, which allows Pandoran air into the link units. His human body struggling, Jake is easy prey for Quaritch, who is preparing to slit Jake's throat with his own knife when Neytiri kills Quaritch with two shots from her father's bow. She then tries to wake Jake's avatar, to no avail, while Jake struggles inside the link unit to grab an emergency rebreather. Finally remembering that he is a human, she rushes into the link unit and places an exopack on Jake's now-unconscious human body, saving him again. As Jake wakes up, he says "I See you" to Neytiri and gently strokes her cheek. Neytiri repeats it back to him; the greeting now takes on new meaning as she is seeing and talking to Jake's human body for the first time. After reconnecting to his avatar, Jake and Neytiri are brought to Tsu'tey, mortally wounded, by a group of surviving Na'vi warriors. Tsu'tey passes leadership of the Omaticaya clan to Jake and requests that he end his suffering. Jake is reluctant, but is assured by Tsu'tey that he will be remembered, as Toruk Makto will be his last shadow, and honors Jake by calling him a brother. Jake remorsefully euthanizes Tsu'tey and recites a prayer for him.
===New Life As A Na'vi===
Having put an end to the RDA's occupation of Pandora, Jake makes his last log entry on August 24, 2154, explaining that the humans were sent back to Earth by the Na'vi, except for a few (the scientists of the avatar program), and that he has decided to stay in his avatar form permanently. Returning to the Tree of Souls, he undergoes the consciousness transfer from his human body to his avatar body, and awakens to a new life as a Na'vi, marking August 24 as his "birthday", the day where he truly becomes a Na'vi, a part of The People. At this point, Jake's avatar opens its eyes after the transfer, proving that it succeeded.
== Avatar: The Way of Water ==
Category:Synopsis