"The Growth of Jake Sully"

I missed class last Thursday, but one thing we didn't spend too much time discussing on Tuesday was the development of the protagonist, Jake Sully. Although this intellectual and cultural development may not have been as prominent the first time I saw "Avatar," I believe, after deeper analysis, it's not just character development, but rather, a symbol of "new birth." As "Avatar" progresses, Jake changes from an immature young man, to a more mature man, to a leader or "hero" figure of the Na'vi. Jake goes through many ritual stages of rites of passage (ex: obtaining a flight partner- an "Ikran") and gets to a point where he cannot easily distinguish between experiences from Pandora and experiences from his "Earth life." I found myself favoring his Na'vi life as the movie progressed and found myself bummed out when his scenes as a Na'vi in Pandora were temporarily over. Toward the end of "Avatar," Jake becomes fully incarnated into his Avatar body, leaving his human body behind at the "Tree of Souls;" He is no longer an Avatar, but rather "of the Na'vi people." this also occurs on Jake's birthday, which is highly symbolic of this concept of "new birth." An additional aspect of development that I noticed is that "Sully" actually means 'to tarnish' or 'to taint,' and that's what Jake had to do in order to achieve his "new birth;" he had to taint the mission he was assigned to in order to protect the Na'vi, find love, and eventually live as a Na'vi.