Is [SPOILER] Really Dead In Avatar: Fire And Ash? What We Know So Far

Contains spoilers for "Avatar: Fire and Ash"

Stephen Lang's Miles Quaritch is a hard man to kill — in fact, his almost miraculous endurance has become an in-universe joke within the "Avatar" franchise. First, after literally dying in the original movie, Quaritch returned for the sequel in a full avatar body to continue wreaking havoc on Pandora. Then, when he should have drowned to death at the end of "Avatar: The Way of Water," he's saved by his son, Spider (Jack Champion).

"Avatar: Fire and Ash" ends with yet another theoretical death for Quaritch. After another climactic duel with Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) on a collection of floating rocks crumbling in a massive gravity well, Quaritch is caught dead to rights, with Neytiri holding him at bow-point. Because Jake clearly believes Quaritch can be brought over to their side, he has her hesitate just long enough for Quaritch to throw himself off the rock, laughing like a maniac as he plummets into a literal pit of fire.

Is he dead? Almost certainly not. James Cameron has invested far too much time into his long-term character arc for the colonel to die off-screen in such a ridiculous way. But how will Quaritch make it out this time? While his fate seems pretty sealed by his leap of doom, a major character like Quaritch wouldn't be killed off so unceremoniously, and there are a couple of ways he could be saved.

First and foremost, Quaritch has a banshee, and it's reasonable to assume that the animal could swoop in and save him before he hits the water or fire below. It's also possible that Varang (Oona Chaplin), the Na'vi villain of the film who strikes up a relationship with Quaritch, could dive in on her own banshee and rescue him. 

Like Quaritch, Varang meets an unclear ending in "Avatar: Fire and Ash" — she's defeated, but certainly not killed. Their relationship is one of the film's more interesting arcs, leading to Quaritch even adopting the dress and body paint of Varang's Mangkwan clan at one point. Surely, this thread will be continued in "Avatar 4," if that movie still ends up happening.

Why would James Cameron leave these characters' fates so vague? It may be a safeguard against the possibility that "Fire and Ash" doesn't make enough money to justify producing two more films. The first two "Avatar" films made billions of dollars, but each entry has also been incredibly expensive to make. Cameron has even said that he's open to writing a book to wrap up the story if "Fire and Ash" doesn't find a similar level of box office success. The second and third films were originally conceived of as one, and were produced in tandem, but "Avatar 4" and "Avatar 5" are less set in stone. Should they not get made for some reason, viewers could imagine Quaritch dying at the end of "Fire and Ash" — even if we all know he made it.