Go Back to Kansas: Avatars II: When Qwaritch Takes Revenge

Hello, and welcome back to Fanfic Masochism.

Let’s talk a bit about Avatar.

No, the other Avatar.

The other other Avatar.

GOD NO! JAMES CAMERON’S AVATAR!

Thank you! Why do people always have to argue over names?

Anyway, when it first came out I thought that Avatar was a great movie. Everything about it just seemed to… click. Granted, I was about thirteen when it came out, going on a sci-fi binge, and not incredibly well versed in movies and media, so it’s understandable that I’d enjoy it. I watch it now and… well, it’s not terrible, but it’s not the be all end all of films, or science fiction media in general.

At least it looks pretty.

Anyway, some people were quicker to this realization than I was, and quite a few people outright hated the movie, mainly for it’s lack of original plot and over-reliance on 3D and special effects. And of course there are those that thought the heroes were rather bland, which is understandable when you have a villain like Col. Miles Quaritch.

Oh, that’s our subject today: Quaritch. Or rather, Avatars II: When Qwaritch Takes Revenge by hunterjeanmidna, a “lovely” piece of fiction that is about… Qwaritch taking his revenge. Really, it’s My Immortal as written by a crazed Quaritch fanboy (who turned out to be a troll, but that’s neither here nor there), so expect lots and lots of bad.

As to be expected, spoilers.

I’m reading from the revised version, which has a lot of character bios that I’m just going to skip over. Basically, it’s all the characters from Avatar (with Qwaritch as the hero), along with Master Cheef and Samus Arin.

No, those are not misspellings on my part.

The prologue opens with Parker Selfridge, the Corrupt Corporate Executive who was in charge of the mining operation on Pandora. He’s gotten dumped on because of his involvement, and because he didn’t get any of the Unobtanium.

Not including the 20 years prior that the Pandora mines were in operation. I did my research.

"I could get the SecOps dudes again" he said aloud as he was watchin Survivors "But that didnt work well last time."

Because Survivor is popular enough to last into the 22^nd century!... Oh, and Parker was beginning to regret getting the mercs by the time they started firebombing the place.

…

So I’ve watched the movie enough times to memorize that fact. Sue me.

So, Selfridge begins to draw his plans together and we cut to Arizona (why Arizona? Who knows.), where Kernal Miles Qwaritch (HE’S NOT DEAD OK! PRETEND NETYRI DIDN’T KILL HIM OK!) is watching lesbian flicks and generally chilling out.

Ignoring the fact that he’s doing something as pointless as watching lesbian flicks (remember, he’s a merc; he should be out looking for his next job), YOUR ENTIRE JUSTIFICATION FOR HAVING HIM BE YOUR MAIN CHARACTER IS THAT WE SHOULD JUST PRETEND THAT HE DIDN’T DIE?! If you’d given us a better explanation as to how he survived I might have accepted it better, but just asking us “Oh, pretend that the creator screwed up and you should accept my word as law, ‘Kay?” is really stretching it. And it’s made worse when it’s mentioned less than two paragraphs later that Qwaritch had been speared by the Navis (not Na’vi, Navis. Make all the Legend of Zelda jokes you want). SO THIS STORY CONTRADICTS ITSELF IMMEDIATELY AFTER IT CHANGES THINGS!

Oh joy, this will suck.

Qwaritch is pissed that he can’t watch his porn (why don’t you just bring it with you for the five year journey), but he’s pissed at the Navis more. He hops in his personal spaceship and-

…

…

THIS ISN’T THE FREAKIN’ JETSONS, WHERE EVERYONE HAS THEIR OWN PERSONAL SPACESHIP! AVATAR’S SPACE TRAVEL IS JUST A TOUCH OVER REALISTIC, WHERE IT TAKES YEARS TO GET FROM POINT A TO POINT B, AND YOU HAVE TO BE FROZEN DURING THAT TIME!

YOU CAN’T BREAK THE BASIC LAWS OF THE UNIVERSE YOU’RE WORKING WITH!!!

So he gets in his spaceship and rides off to kill Navis. It’s a long trip so he listens to Guns ‘n Roses (specifically, the song John Conner was listening to in Terminator II, which the author “helpfully” points out) before landing on Pandora, where he’s immediately attacked by Navis. He dispatches his attackers quickly and moves on to link up with his men.

A Sargant ran at him “KERNAL QWARITCH THANK GOD YOU’RE HERE! We were just chillin when all of a sudden the Navis ran in an started shootin everybody with arrows an spears an flyin on birds an shit! They killed a buncha the soldiers an we killed some but there too powerful ,Qwaritch!”

If it was a small contingent, that’d make sense, but if it’s really as bad as it’s made out to be wouldn’t the humans be able to hold off the majority of the Navis, considering that a few dozen of them took down a thousand strong cavalry charge before the planet decided to get angry?

Anyway, Qwaritch gets in his mecha robot and goes off killing Navis and Nazis (seriously, He took out his knife an cut its head off but the Nazi rider jumped into the robot an tried to kill him but he shot it with a shotgun an the Navi exploded everywhere… Heil Ewah?)

So he keeps fighting and… okay, this fight scene is really lame. I can basically sum it up thusly: Navis charge Qwaritch, Qwaritch kills them, rinse and repeat a few times. There is little to no variation in how the attacks happen, no real description of tactics and strategy, just mindless, pointless carnage.

A good fight scene is not dependent on the number of bodies left at the end, but by how the heroes and villains interact with one another; each strike, each dodge, each hit needs to make sense, and there needs to be a certain level of risk for both sides. Yes, Boring Invincible Heroes can work, but there’s a key word in there: Boring. If one side just mows down the other with little difficulty, I’m not going to be engaged and won’t care about the outcome because it’s obvious. I want to see the hero work for his or her victory, and overcome the threat in such a way that is worthy of their status as a hero.

This… isn’t that.

Qwaritch kills more Navis when who shows up? Why, Master Cheef of course!

Why? There’s no real reason for him to show up. If you wanted to write a Halo crossover where Master Chief kills Na’vi, just go ahead and do it without just throwing him into the universe with no explanation.

They go and kill more Navis when Samus Arin shows up… and for some reason, Samus is a dude. Here’s the bio that I skimmed over because of boredom:

An galaxy bounty hunter like Boba Fett or Han Solo. Samus is a real tough motherfucker now. He blew up a buncha aliens an survived several brushes with corruption by Metroid an Phazon an can get Metroids offa his head by rollin into a ball an droppin a bomb an is one of Qwaritch's best homies. Has a big secret.

Big secret, huh?...

Shouldn’t that be two big secrets?... I’m going to hell for that.

So, you should guess what they go about doing when Jake Jak Sully shows up with Navis. He dies less than two paragraphs later.

…

…

The worst part of it is that this comes right before Qwartich, Master Chef, Samus and Netryi have an orgy.

No, I’m not kidding.

Why do people have to glamorize sex, and when they do why do they have to do it badly? Orgies and porn are not what I consider engaging; if anything, I find it rather childish. I won’t go into a big long filibuster about how porn is for immature adolescents who are still insecure about their position in life (… and I realized I did just that. Bad reviewer! No biscuit!), but if you just throw porn and sex around like their freaking baseballs I’m not going to respect you all that much.

...

If I ever decide to review 50 Shade of Grey (since it started out as a Twilight fanfic), this is going to suck.

So, the day is saved and all the heroes go home (after the aforementioned orgy). Thus ends part 1 (originally the story was four or five separate fics, but we’ll do them all right now).

Part two opens with Jak waking up after being killed.

…

…

Moving on…

He and Neytri reunite and counter attack, and…


An then the Navis went to war. There were these 2 securety guards havin sex with a Navi prostotute (she didnt want to so it was rape an theyre bad men) but our heros ran over an chopped his head off just as he was about to come an get the Navi pregnant with a human baby.

HOW DOES THAT EVEN WORK?! NA’VI ARE NOT LIKE HUMANS, THEY HAVE SEX WITH THEIR LITTLE USB BRAIDS (again, did my research)! EVEN THEN, HOW THE HELL COULD THEY PRODUCE A HYBRID CHILD? THESE ARE TWO ENTIRELY DIFFERENT SPECIES SEPERATED BY MILLIONS OF MILES THROUGH SPACE AND THOUSANDS OF YEARS OF GENETIC ISOLATION TO GO WITH IT! THEY SHOULD BE GENETICALLY INCOMPATIBLE!... unless there’s something James Cameron didn’t tell us.

Also, a prostitute is generally someone whose entire job is about selling themselves to people to have sex. Of course, we don’t get full context here, but still, she was asking for sex and they delivered.

Really going to Hell for this.

We cut back to Earth, and what’s Qwaritch busy doing? Having an orgy, of course.

Whatever. Qwaritch doesn’t want to go back until he hears that Jak is leading the charge. Then he drops everything and swears that he’ll get revenge.

FOR WHAT?! YOU KILLED THE GUY IN THE LAST PART! HE’S THE ONE WHO SHOULD BE TAKING REVENGE!!!

Whatever, not like this story cares about such things as logic.

So, the Navis (plus Tsu’Tey Mohawk dude) go about killing things when Qwaritch shows up again. They fight (terribly) and Qwaritch gets the advantage over them because he is so strong and powerful…


"YOU THINK YOU CAN KILL ME NAVI BITCH" shout Qwaritch! "I MAY HAVE HAD SEX WITH YOU BUT YOU WONT WINN! I WILL KILL YOU ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Make a note: draw fanart of Navi killing Quaritch.

"I cant believe I'm gettin paid to do this" said Qwaritch" I LOVE watchin Navis die!!!" When he was on earth he watched Disrtct 9 an heared the quote by that Koobus guy an liked it so he used it on Jak.

Funny, considering the similarities between Avatar and District 9.

But Qwaritch’s revenge doesn’t last long before the Navis jump on him and literally rip him to pieces. After all this, the Navis go home to watch Watchmen.

THE BOOK IS BETTER!!!1!11!!!1!

Part 3 begins with a note that, with Qwaritch dead, there’s nothing the Navis have to fear… or is there?

For you see, while on earth Qwaritch got in touch with a scientist and had him grow Qwaritch a Navi Avatar, so that if his human body died he’d be able to inhabit this new one and go back to killing Navis.

THAT’S NOT HOW THE AVATAR SYSTEM WORKS! IT REQUIRES A NEURAL LINK TO A STILL LIVING PERSON!

Better yet, here’s a picture of Qwaritch and the scientist.

Know who that is? Jake. As in Jake Sully, the guy WHO QWARITCH IS TRYING TO KILL! And Jake wasn’t a scientist; he was an ex-Marine that got roped into the Avatar Program because his twin brother got mugged/murdered and the company didn’t want to throw away a very expensive Avatar.

DID THE AUTHOR DO ANY RESEARCH WHEN WRITING THIS STORY?!


"Oh shit" said Qwaritch "I'll have to replace that lamp but I cant go to Lowes or Home Depots because Im a Navi now!"

WHY DO YOU CARE ABOUT A STUPID LAMP?!

Anyway, he tries to cheer himself up but his usual hookers are scared of him. Bummed out, he decides to have a date with Rosie Palms before realizing he has no dick.

…

…

…

I need something cute to save me from the stupidity:

This is Hugo. He is adorable

Okay, I feel better now.

Back on Pandora Natry and Jak have Navi sex with their USB Braids.

When suddenly Qwaritch arrives. Using his Super Navi language skills that he picked up from using Rosetta Stone, he’s able to infiltrate the Navi society under the guise of “D'leah”. Everyone automatically accepts this new arrival, because there’s no way he can be a spy or anything.

Ignoring that Jake’s entire mission in the first half of Avatar was to SPY ON THE NA’VI, AND THEY KNEW HE WAS A HUMAN PILOTING AN AVATAR!

So Netryi shows Not-Qwaritch around Hometree and takes time to point out the Navi harem room-

WHAT?!?! A HAREM ROOM?!?! WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING, AUTHOR?! THAT IS ONE OF THE STUPIDEST THINGS I HAVE EVER READ, AND I READ LEGEND OF DUMBASS SKYE!!!

I get it now; this story is nothing but an adolescent power fantasy, a bad adolescent power fantasy. Screw plot and logic, all the author cares about, and probably what he believes everyone should care about, is sex and violence. Sex has no weight without a relationship to back it up, and wanton violence for the sake of wanton violence is pointless and hollow. If everything was fleshed out and expanded upon, I might tolerate this story better, but no, we’re stuck with childish sexual fantasies and action.

And seriously, a harem?! Again, did the author watch the damn movie? The Na’vi chose one mate and bond for life, much in the same way they bond with their dragons Ikran THEY’RE DRAGONS! We don’t see Etukan trapesing around with a bunch of chicks, and we don’t see Netyri suggesting that some of her friends join in when she and Jake bond. Oh sure, you can try to justify that “Just because it wasn’t in the movie doesn’t mean it’s not true”, but at least try to expand upon that justification. I can suggest that Princess Celestia was really the God-Emperor of Mankind in a past life, but I’d actually show how that’s possible instead of just saying “IT’S SO TRUE!!!1!111!!”. Frostfyre7 can suggest that the Doctor met up with the crew of Serenity sometime between scaring Donna away and meeting Martha, but she shows us how that’s possible (and it’s awesome; go read it if you're into Doctor Who and Firefly/Serenity (Warning: Contains Spoilers to the movie) ) instead of just saying that it happened and leaving it at that.

Tl;Dr, changes to canon work best when they can be justified and works within the universe, not just because the author says that it’s so.

Let’s just get this over with.

Not-Qwaritch is having doubts about his plan to kill Navis since the sex is good. He talks about it to Netryi, who says she’s loyal to Jak but if he wasn’t around she’d jump the bones of anyone that was nearby.

Funny, she never showed anything like that in the movie.

"I've gotta go to Jak. We're gonna have sex plus I'm scared of the dark an there are evil birds up here who eat Navis for dinner an bite their heads off an give them to there babies."

…

Pop Quiz: when did Netyri first really interact with Jake after he arrived on Pandora?

Point goes to the idiot sponge (now do us all a favor and let your series die out).

So, Netriy and Jak have sex and… Qwaritch watches and masturbates to it.

Like this, but stupid

 

Then we get forced backstory about how Qwaritch was in cub scouts and he killed a bear after taming it and…

WHY ARE YOU TELLING US THIS! IT HAS NO PLACE IN THE STORY, ESPECIALLY WHEN WE’RE ALREADY FOUR PARTS IN!

Oh, and then Trudy shows up.

BUT SHE DIED!

Trudy’s angry that Qwaritch tried to kill her, and Qwaritch is shocked to learn that it was her that he was shooting at.

QUARITCH KNEW IT WAS HER WHEN HE KILLED HER IN THE MOVIE!!! HE EVEN SAID “LIGHT HER UP” WHEN THEY STARTED THEIR FIGHT, AND HE SAW HER GETTING THE HEROES OUT OF THE COMPOUND!

Whatever, they have sex, and Master Chef and Samus show up again to blow stuff up. Qwaritch has second thoughts and talks them down, and then everyone leaves happily… Until Selfridge gets pissy and sends the Galactic Empire to go kill the Navis.

No seriously, he sends AT-AT walkers to go blow up Hometree. Please, stop ruining Star Wars.

So, they fight, and that takes a lot of time and a lot of stupid. Selfridge’s side loses now that Qwaritch is on the side of the Navis, and after the humans lose everyone goes back to Hometree for orgies. Guess who shows up now? Grace Augustine, of course.

BUT SHE’S DEAD! I DON’T CARE IF JAMES CAMERON SIGNED HER ON FOR AVATAR SEQUELS, SHE’S DEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

She survived somehow because the Tree downloaded her into a new body. She forgives Qwaritch for killing her and everyone lives happily ever after until the Imperium of Man invades forty thousand years in the future in my dreams.

This story sucks. It’s nothing but badly written sex, badly written violence, plot holes big enough to drive a tank through, and even more badly written sex. None of the changes to canon are justified in any way, they just are, and the characters are about as bland as the color beige. If some time and effort (and if it wasn’t a troll fic) were put into it, it might be interesting, but it’s just… guh.

Maybe it can be enjoyed for the same reason we enjoy reading My Immortal or Full Life Consequences, but even those make a bit more sense than this fic (which isn’t saying much).

(I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Legend of Korra, The Last Airbender, Avatar, Halo, Metroid, Firefly, Star Trek, Warhammer 40K, SpongeBob, or 60s Spider Man. And I most certainly don't own this fic. My girlfriend owns Hugo)

(I have nothing against The Jetsons. It was just proof of concept...besides,  The Flintstones is better)