General Colonel Miles Quaritch

General **Colonel Miles Quaritch**was the main antagonist of *Avatar* and the chief of security of Hell's Gate on Pandora. Having no regard for indigenous lifeforms, especially the Na'vi, and considering them all expendable, he directed the destruction of the Omaticaya Hometree and led the SecOps forces in an attempt to destroy the Tree of Souls. He was killed when Neytiri shot him twice through the chest with her father's bow.

## Biography

### Before Pandora and First Days

Before his tour of duty on Pandora, Quaritch served in numerous military engagements without injury, most notably three tours in Nigeria with First Recon.

On his first day on Pandora, an encounter with the wildlife dealt him a trio of trademark scars to the right side of his head and face. Given the option to return home for reconstructive surgery he opted to stay on Pandora. With his impressive record, he was eventually chosen as the chief of security of Hell's Gate.

### Chief of Security

   Colonel Quaritch was the chief of security for at least two years. [1] He was responsible for the security of the Hell's Gate facility and its personnel, which necessitated keeping the Na'vi in check. He had his own Dragon Assault Ship, which was personalized with an orange-colored Chinese dragon painted below the cockpit.

Quaritch impressed Jake Sully deeply and made Jake a bargain that, in return for intel on the Na'vi, he would talk to the RDA corporate executives and get approval for Jake to receive the expensive treatment for his spinal injury, which would return the use of his legs. However, as time passed, Quaritch began to question where Jake's loyalties lay, believing his contact with the native culture to be distancing him from humanity. When Jake, in his avatar form, attacked and damaged a bulldozer after the RDA had destroyed the Trees of Voices, Quaritch personally went to arrest him by force. Quaritch proceeded to use one of Jake's video log entries, in which Jake lamented the hopelessness of convincing the Omaticaya to leave Hometree, along with the report from Lyle Wainfleet that the Na'vi had retaliated for the destruction of the Trees of Voices by burning the bulldozers and killing the squad of troopers on patrol. Furious, he lead an air assault on Hometree under the apparent promise of relatively humane treatment of the natives. First firing gas, then finally incendiary missiles after the Na'vi began launching salvos of arrows. Quaritch used several salvos of rockets to bring the Hometree down, actions which still resulted in the deaths of many Na'vi, including Neytiri's father and clan leader, Eytukan. When Jake, Grace, Norm and Trudy fled, Quaritch was the first to act. Maskless, holding his breath and warning the personnel to put their exopacks on, he kicked the emergency door of the Operations Center open. He marched out of the building, attempting to stop the avatar team from escaping Hell's Gate by emptying an assault rifle and his Wasp sidearm at the fleeing rebels, fatally wounding Dr. Augustine.

### Assault on the Tree of Souls and Death

Quaritch led the Assault on the Tree of Souls against the Na'vi in his Dragon Assault Gunship. While the Na'vi's numbers appeared to give them the advantage, Quaritch's heavily armed soldiers quickly dispatched the lightly-armed Na'vi, despite some losses. During the battle, while pursuing Jake, his gunship was attacked by Trudy's Samson, allowing Jake to escape. Quaritch's gunship was able to outgun and sufficiently damage the Samson before destroying it with a missile, killing Trudy in the process. Advancing unopposed towards the Tree of Souls, the tide of the battle is unexpectedly changed when Pandora's wildlife, seemingly at the direction of Eywa herself, attacked the RDA forces in mass. With all escorts distracted or destroyed, Jake was able to board the Valkyrie shuttle containing two "daisy cutter" bombs, and destroyed it, leaving only Quaritch in his Dragon gunship. Despite Quaritch's best efforts, Jake still managed to inflict catastrophic damage to the gunship, causing it to lose control. Boarding his AMP suit, Quaritch leaped from the Dragon before it crashed, saving himself. Now alone, he advanced to the Tree of Souls. Quaritch stumbled across the module containing the link pod being used by Jake, but was attacked by Neytiri riding a thanator before he could destroy it. He lost his 30mm rifle, but killed the thanator with his AMP suit knife, leaving Neytiri trapped beneath her slain mount. Jake's timely arrival caused Quaritch to focus on him, saving Neytiri in turn. Using the bayonet of the wrecked AMP suit's rifle, Jake was able to deflect Quaritch's attacks in a fierce bout of melee combat long enough to destroy his AMP suit knife and land a piercing blow to the glass canopy.

The damage to the AMP suit canopy reduced visibility to near-zero and allowed toxic Pandoran air into the suit, forcing Quaritch to don an exopack. Realizing Jake's same weakness, Quaritch made a break for the module and managed to smash a window and an empty link unit open before resuming combat. This exposed Jake's human body to the toxic air, interrupting the link between Jake and his avatar, allowing Quaritch to subdue Jake. He picked up Jake by his hair, intending to use Jake's own dagger to cut his avatar's throat in a symbolic act of retribution for his betrayal. However, before Quaritch could do so, Neytiri, who had taken the time to free herself from under the thanator's carcass during the fight between Jake and Quaritch, fired two arrows into the Colonel's chest, ending Quaritch's life.