Say what you want about Avatar: Fire and Ash — it’s a retread of The Way of Water, James Cameron has run out of ideas, there’s too much Spider (Jack Champion) — but you cannot deny the greatness of the Tulkuns, AKA Pandora’s version of whales. They’re big, they’re majestic, they’re both cetacean in nature but somehow also have four eyes. Each Tulkun bonds with a member of the Metkayina, a clan of oceanside-dwelling Na’vi, and they call each other spirit brothers or sisters. Avatar: Fire and Ash introduces a new and completely ingenious detail regarding our friends the Tulkuns: this time some of them are wearing clothes and jewelry.
“I’ve seen an animal wearing clothes and jewelry before,” you might be saying. Okay, congrats, but you’ve never seen a creature this fictional and this huge wearing accessories. Big gold hoops! Long majestic cloaks. Does this affect their ability to swim? Doesn’t matter; they look incredible. Tulkuns are, per James Cameron’s Avatar Wiki, the largest creatures on Pandora and three times the size of even the biggest blue whales. When you see one of these guys wearing an earring, you have to imagine that the earring is the size of a car.
Those are PIERCINGS on an ANIMAL. Photo: 20th Century Fox
Prior to seeing Fire and Ash, you may think that the Tulkuns wearing clothes is a good thing, but actually, to see the Tulkuns in their garb portends something bad. All is not well with the alien whale community since The Way of Water. Payakan, the Tulkun bull who bonded with Jake Sully’s son Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) in the last film, is on trial for being violent towards humans. Yes, the humans were hunting innocent Tulkun for the anti-aging liquid in their brains, but per Tulkun laws, they are not supposed to resort to violence in return. When Payakan goes to trial, he’s forced to meet with the patriarch and matriarch of his clan — both of whom are wearing capes and other accessories to denote the formal nature of their council. In that sense, it seems like the Tulkun approach to clothing (capes, robes, and so on) is kind of like how lawyers (“barristers”) in England wear wigs to go to court.
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The novelty of seeing Tulkuns wearing articles of clothing is one of those great details from the twisted mind of James Cameron — the type of artistic decision that inspires more questions than it can answer. For instance: Who is making the clothing the Tulkuns wear? Who is piercing their ears? Are those ears? Because the earrings and clothing on the Tulkuns are to scale, does this mean they have to get new accessories every few years? How many Na’vi does it take to get a cape on a Tulkun? There are no satisfying answers to these questions, but wondering about it is half the fun of Fire and Ash. It’s just a shame that their outfits are only ceremonial and serious. Hopefully we’ll get to see what they wear to parties in the next movie.
