A scientist stays objective -- we can't be ruled by emotion. But I put ten years of my life into that school. They called me sa'nok. Mother. That kind of pain reaches back through the link.
Doctor Grace Augustine (Na'vi name: Kìreysì) [5] is a major supporting character in Avatar and the protagonist of the Avatar: Adapt or Die comic series. She was one of the original 20 avatar drivers.
Grace worked for the RDA as an xenobotanist and xenoanthropologist in charge of the Avatar Program. She was fascinated by the Na'vi and empathized with their plight. She was a legend to the scientific personnel as the author of a comprehensive book on Pandora's plants. She was responsible for bridging a peace with the Omatikaya clan and established a school where the clan could interact with humans up until its closure in 2152.
In 2154, she tutored Jake Sully on the Avatar Program. Having arrived on Pandora three decades before him, Grace was reluctant to accept him on her team due to his lack of training and qualifications for the program. Due to Jake's presence, relations with the Omatikaya clan improved and Grace was allowed back into the village.
Grace was born sometime between 2097 to 2098, and she was a teenager during Pandora's early colonization. At the age of ~twenty-years-old, Grace left Earth in the approximate year of 2118.
She arrived on Pandora as a young woman in 2124, 30 years before Jake and Norm. Despite being in her early twenties at the time, Grace was considered to be a prodigy and a wunderkind, as she already was an experienced and respected botanist. She was eager to explore the plants of Pandora, eventually writing the book on the unique botany that she discovered. She was considered a living legend in the Terran scientific community, and her work developed Pandoran cures for Earth diseases. She also began to become intrigued by the wonder and wisdom of the Na'vi.[6]
Grace joined the Avatar Program and she co-wrote an avatar's owner manual with Dr. Richard Carter.[7] Around the year 2136,[8] Grace was given her own avatar.
Grace seemed to always have sympathy toward the Na'vi and was at the forefront of establishing a peaceful relationship between the RDA and the local Omatikaya clan, eager to learn about the Na'vi and in turn, allow them to learn about humans so that the two species could coexist safely. Grace formed a friendship with Mo'at, the tsahìk (spiritual leader) of the clan. Several years after her arrival on Pandora, Grace proposed the idea of a schoolhouse to Mo'at, where humans and Na'vi could interact and learn from each other. Mo'at was initially skeptical and discussed the idea with the olo'eyktan of the clan, Eytukan, who was equally apprehensive of the idea.
Grace playing basketball with the children.
The two leaders decided to let the children of the clan, including their daughters, Neytiri and Sylwanin decide if they wanted the schoolhouse. The children requested to visit Hell's Gate, to which Grace obliged. She toured with the children around the base, teaching them how to play basketball and letting them observe the humans' mining operations. Grace was optimistic about their future together, and after returning to the Omatikaya hometree, the Omatikaya children agreed to the idea of a schoolhouse.
The following day, optimistic about their future together, Grace attempted to return to the Omatikaya's hometree but was turned away by Mo'at. She learned that the children had fallen ill with a mysterious sickness since departing from their Samson escort and set out to do her own investigation. Parker Selfridge, however, offered that the sickness may solve the issue of the Na'vi's interference with the RDA's operations, which appalled Grace.
Grace disgusted by Selfridge's nonchalant attitude about the Na'vi suffering and dying.
Despite Parker's protests, Grace set out to deliver some samples and medicine to the Omatikaya, but her avatar began to fall ill as well. Grace found her, delirious and unconscious, and announced that they needed to seek out the help of Pandora's skilled botanists, the Tawkami clan, for help with the illness. Grace collapsed and was unlinked from her avatar shortly after arriving at the Tawkami clan, and one of the clan's botanists, Mireya, agreed to help Mo'at investigate a treatment for the illness. As Grace emerged from her link unit back at Hell's Gate, a scientist informed her that something had gone terribly wrong with the other avatars; they had light blotches on their backside, prompting Grace to call for a quarantine of the avatars. Grace theorized that the sickness could be the result of the avatars being deprived of something, rather than an overexposure.
Grace and the other scientists decided to search Hell's Gate for a possible cause for the illness. Although they were intercepted by Parker who was not pleased with them leaving the base, they left anyway. During a patrol, they found a concerning stream of black oily liquid, but Grace was not entirely convinced it caused the sickness. She and her pilot scanned the area from above in a Samson, revealing that the stream of black liquid had spread far into the forest. Grace deduced what has caused the sickness: the toxic black liquid seeped into the water and was absorbed by plants and animals, afflicting any Na'vi who consumed them.
Grace and Mo'at developing a cure.
Grace's team collected a sample of the black sludge and ran an experiment on it. Grace deduced that the goo was not just a toxin, rather it used up essential nutrients which the body cannot replace quickly enough. Now with the cause of the illness identified, Grace needed to find Mo'at and her unconscious avatar in the forest. She arrived at the Omatikaya hometree and was found by a furious Na'vi, who blamed Grace for the sickness, but he was dissuaded by Mo'at when she returned with Grace's avatar in tow. Mo'at trusted Grace to make a widespread cure and came with her to the lab of the humans. After helping to create a cure with Mo'at, the cure was delivered to the Na'vi, greatly improving relations between and humans and Na'vi, as well as Moat's faith in Grace.
Grace showing Na'vi children an old book from her home planet, The Lorax by Dr. Seuss.
In 2142, the Na'vi agreed to the building of the schoolhouse where Grace taught English and human customs to the children. She taught both Neytiri and her older sister Sylwanin, the then tsahìk-in-training of the Omatikaya clan. Grace was viewed in a maternal manner to the children, who called her "sa'nok", meaning "mother" in the Na'vi language.
Unfortunately, ten years after its opening, in 2152 the schoolhouse was closed and all humans (including avatars) were exiled from the Omatikaya clan's territory after a tragic shooting incident by SecOps mercenaries. In 2154, Grace explains to Jake Sully that Sylwanin had become angry about the clearcutting of the forest and stopping going to school. One day, she and several other young hunters set a bulldozer on fire and retreated to the school for protection. The troopers followed them and opened fire on the school while Grace and her students were inside, killing Sylwanin and the hunters; Grace was able to get most of the kids out.
As a result, the event caused Grace great guilt over their deaths, losing her school, and her exile from the Omatikaya clan - who decided that any interaction with humans at all (sadly including Grace as well) was too dangerous.
Arrival of the New Avatar Drivers[]
Grace impressed by Norm's fluency.
In 2154, the ISV Venture Star deployed shuttles to Pandora, carrying soldiers, technicians and new additions to the avatar team. Among these were Norm Spellman, a xenoanthropologist, and Jake Sully, who was a stand-in for his twin brother, Tom Sully, who was killed by a mugger on Earth. Grace was sharp with the newcomers, particularly so with Jake, whom she saw as incompetent and an attempt by Selfridge and SecOps to militarily hijack her program. She made it clear that she was displeased and that she considered Jake's brother, Tom Sully, to have had skills far more valuable and useful than those Jake had. Bringing Jake up-to-speed required a tremendous amount of effort on her part and that of Dr. Max Patel, the technical support officer.
Grace also made her feelings about RDA administrator, Parker Selfridge, abundantly clear for the benefit of her team. She not only disagreed with Selfridge's principles and agenda, but also his impatience and methods regarding negotiation or pacification of the native Na'vi.
Grace and Jake's first avatar encounter took place in the avatar's outdoor recreation area's garden next to the longhouse, shortly after Jake took control of his avatar for the first time. She tested his motor control by tossing him a spartan fruit, to which he gloriously enjoyed.
That evening, Grace oversaw the coordination of putting all the avatars to bed and the securing of the longhouse. As she walked by Jake's bunk, she noticed Jake inquisitively looking at the delicate moving tendrils located at the end of his braided kuru. She implored Jake to not play with it, indicating that his sensitive neural queue could be damaged and should be left alone.
First Expedition with the New Avatars[]
Grace going on an expedition with Norm and Jake.
After breakfast the next morning, Grace takes Norm and Jake out on a routine expedition to gather samples of Pandoran plant life. During their flight onboard Samson 16, Trudy alerts Grace to a sturmbeest herd. Grace thanks her and then points out to Norm the bull, a dozen cows, and some juveniles. Not long after stepping away from the Samson and encountering a passing group of non-threatening prolemuris, Grace expressed how Jake's twitchy and overzealous Marine mentality while carrying a weapon made her nervous.
Grace reminiscing at the school.
Grace leads the team to her abandoned schoolhouse that now only served the function of being an offsite storage location for scientific research equipment. While inside the school, Grace reminisced over how intelligent the children were and felt sad upon seeing the unused books scattered on the floor, such as The Lorax; placing the fallen books back upon their shelf. Norm asked Grace why the Na'vi don't return and she replied that they learned as much about humanity as they needed to. Jake noticed several bullet holes in a chalkboard and asked about what happened (although the answer was obvious). Grace dodged answering the question, instead redirecting the conversation to pointedly ask Jake one of her own questions about if he was going to help them, as they had a lot of work to do.
After leaving the schoolhouse and walking to a location somewhere else out in the forest, Grace gave Norm hands-on instruction involving root signal transduction and the collection of samples. Jake, being uninterested, slipped away to explore and began to curiously play with helicoradians. This disturbance led to a freak encounter with a herd of nearby hammerhead titanotheres. The noise alerted Grace, causing both she and Norm to abandon their activity to rush towards Jake and hide behind a nearby tree, attempting to stay out of view from the agitated creature. Jake looked towards Grace, asking about what he's supposed to do. Grace advised Jake to not shoot the animal as its armored hide was too thick, and to hold his ground in response to the titanothere's territorial threat display, which ultimately works. The scene however is interrupted by the appearance of a deadly prowling thanator, alarming Grace at the incredible peril they were all now in. As the thanator turns its attention toward Jake, Jake again asks Grace what to do. Grace gives a panicked answer to "Run, definitely run!". In the ensuing chaos, the thanator pursues Jake's avatar, separating him from the group, while Grace and Norm run the opposite way and manage to seemingly evade anymore trouble in their return back to the Samson.
Grace, Norm, Wainfleet, and Trudy searching for Jake.
By Grace's insistence, the team while aboard Samson 16 remained for as long as possible in the surrounding area performing an aerial search. As sunset approached, Trudy had to make the difficult call to return to Hell's Gate and suspend their search until morning due to Quaritch's order disallowing night-time flight-ops. Grace was convinced that Jake's avatar wouldn't survive the night. When Jake finally exited his link, much to the relief of the avatar team, Grace was astonished when Jake told her that he managed to infiltrate the Omatikaya clan and that Neytiri would be personally mentoring him.
Grace retelling the story about Jake's thanator chase.
The following morning at breakfast, Grace is sitting at the table lively recounting the tale of their outing, with several staff members around her listening intently. Grace herself was still not able to fathom how the Omatikaya had decided to choose Jake of all people.
Grace, although apprehensive of Jake being chosen by the Omatikaya clan, assisted him with his training.
After she learned from Max that Jake was colluding with Quaritch and Selfridge (by giving them information about the structure of the Omatikaya's hometree), she relocated the team to Site 26 way up in the Hallelujah Mountains to intentionally separate them. Grace however continued to be friendly toward Jake. Although Jake remarked that this was only because Grace needed a way back into the Omatikaya clan, she demonstrated genuine care for him, worrying over his eating habits and even lifted him into his bunk on night after he fell asleep in front of his video log camera.
Grace showing Jake the school photo.
One night, after Jake does a 16-hour link, Grace heats up a packaged burrito for him and softly implores him to eat it. She has been taking care of his nutritional needs for his neglected human body. Seeing his continued weight loss, she voices her concern as his boss and as someone who might even consider being a friend someday, giving his head a quick caress. Jake asks Grace what happened at her school, and she finally reveals that there was a massacre where a group of young rebel Na'vi hunters were followed to the school and killed by RDA troopers, detailing how Sylwanin was the first to die quickly followed by the others; having been shot in the doorway right in front of her sister Neytiri. While holding back tears, Grace admits the deep pain it caused her, especially as they called her "mother" in their language. She warned Jake to try not to get too emotionally attached to his life as an avatar.[9]
Grace and Tsu'tey reunite, remembering Sylwanin.
Due to Jake's progress in learning how to become a member of the clan, he was able to sweettalk Mo'at into allowing Grace to re-enter the Omatikaya hometree, much to the delight of some of her former Na'vi students, including Tsu'tey. Tsu'tey initially hid from her out of nervousness behind some foliage, calling Atan over to ask him about her presence in the village, before revealing himself to speak to her. Grace was glad to see him, and asked if he remembered his English lessons, which he did, and demonstrated his English to Grace. He also called her sa'nok, meaning "mother", the term of affection that he and the other school students had used for Grace. He expresses his concern over Jake to Grace, and though she empathizes with him, she tells him that Jake may yet surprise them all.[10]
Grace proud of Jake being accepted.
The three months that Quaritch allocated to Jake goes by quickly. During that time, Jake completes each of the Omatikaya's rites of passage for their warriors (to ride, to hunt, and to fly), to which Grace then proudly, seemingly on the verge of crying, witnesses Jake's acceptance ceremony as a full member of the clan at the Omatikaya hometree.
Grace concerned about a retaliation towards the RDA.
This moment of happiness doesn't last, as the next day is full of turmoil following the RDA's bulldozing of the Tree of Voices. As the clan prepares to gather a war party (ordered by Eytukan) led by Tsu'tey to make a retaliatory attack against the Sky People's machines, Grace tries to interject saying it will only make things worse, however since Grace doesn't have full clan status unlike Jake, Tsu'tey reminds her that she does not have permission to speak here. After Jake and Neytiri arrive moments later, Tsu'tey shoves Jake to the ground, with which Grace as well as the entire clan then shockingly learn that Jake is now mated with Neytiri. Grace watches the altercation unfold from the sideline, standing next to Mo'at, Neytiri, and Eytukan, as Jake fights off Tsu'tey and stands his ground.
Grace's avatar falls unconscious.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to her, Quaritch invades Site 26 with a small SecOps squad. Norm protests and is physically shoved out of the way as he informs Quaritch that interrupting a link-in-progress is very dangerous. Quaritch ignores this protocol and slams his hand down on Grace's link unit's emergency shutdown button anyway, before moving on to Jake's link unit where he does the same. At the Omatikaya hometree, Grace's avatar collapses without warning and is quickly followed by Jake's avatar doing the same due to their links disconnecting. Upon jarringly experiencing an unexpected forced link exit, Grace is confused as she doesn't know what's going on or why.
Grace is angry at Quaritch's interference. She, Jake, and Norm are handcuffed and airlifted via Samson back to Hell's Gate.[11] At the Omatikaya hometree, both Grace's and Jake's inert avatars are lifted and carried upwards into the structure of the hometree. Neytiri and a male warrior oversee the bodies.[12]
Grace trying to meditate the RDA.
While at Hell's Gate, the trio are taken to the Ops center in which Quaritch plays back the video feed of Jake's avatar beating on the dozer's camera. Grace rubs at her wrists resulting from previously being restrained by flexcuffs. She tries to mediate with Parker, but Quaritch barks an order at her to "shut [her] piehole". Grace snaps back an "or what?" reply at him and then tells Selfridge that he needs to "muzzle [his] dog". Parker steps in directing both of them to "take it down a notch". Jake says to Quaritch that he should listen to Grace if he wants to keep his people alive. This opens the floor for Grace to then explain to Selfridge (and to everyone else in the room listening) the preliminary findings she's observed from her research which shows that each tree of Pandora acts as a neuron, in which the collective of all trees across Pandora behaves like a giant brain that the Na'vi can access to upload and download data (memories) at sacred sites like the one he just destroyed. She tries to instill in him that this is the true value of this world, much to Selfridge's ignorant disbelief. Quaritch then plays one of Jake's video logs where he admits that the Omatikaya will never leave their hometree and that trying to convince them has been a waste of time. Grace shakes her head at how Jake's video log just condemned the fate of the Omatikaya, and places her hand on Jake's shoulder as a form of support.
Grace tries to reason with Parker, however Parker has had enough and pulls the metaphorical plug on the entire Avatar Program, shutting it down. He then orders the SecOps troopers in the room to escort the trio to gather their belongings, as everyone involved with the program is to be sent back to Earth on the next shuttle.[13] Grace objects, saying that he can't do that. As she approaches Selfridge who's now standing in front of his office door, troopers (including Wainfleet) block her way. Grace is completely powerless, being left stunned and speechless as she turns to look back at Jake.[14]
Following the Omatikaya's retaliatory nighttime raid destroying the dozers, the next day Quaritch convinces Selfridge to "pull the trigger" and attack the Omatikaya's hometree. As Quaritch has pilots mobilize for an airstrike, Trudy rushes to the SciOps module. In the biolab, the entire room is busy with activity as staff move about with files and crates. Grace is sitting at a work station, having just opened a brand new bottle of alcohol and poured some of the amber liquid into a glass. SecOps troopers are all around the room and give out orders for staff to get their things packed. Grace downs the contents of her glass and laments to Jake about how they (Selfridge and Quaritch) never wanted for them to succeed, having bulldozed a sacred site on purpose to trigger a response, fabricating a war in order to get what they want. Jake frustratingly comments similarly about how if someone is the enemy, then it's considered justifiable to take things from them, and tosses a book onto a small collection of items on the floor next to Norm. Trudy arrives and notifies the trio of Quaritch's imminent gunship attack on the Omatikaya's hometree. The news horrifies Grace.
Grace immediately gets up and goes to the Ops center followed by Jake. As she confronts Selfridge, he becomes irate and yells at her that the Omatikaya "can move!". Grace pleads to Selfridge about how there are families consisting of children and babies living within the hometree. Jake supports her by telling Selfridge that he doesn't want that kind of blood on his hands and asks that Selfridge let him try to talk them out. Selfridge along with several troopers escort Grace and Jake to the link room, giving them one hour to try to convince the Omatikaya to evacuate.
At the Omatikaya hometree, Grace and Jake's avatars awaken somewhere upstairs. When they do so, an unnamed warrior runs down the central column to notify Eytukan and Mo'at of this development. He is quickly followed by Neytiri leading Jake and Grace.[12] Jake desperately tries to warn the clan about the impending attack, as Grace stands by him. Jake then revealed his true mission, to which Neytiri feels immense betrayal. Grace speaks up to help defend Jake, but it does nothing. Eytukan then orders for both of them to be bound. Grace tries earnestly to warn them of the impending danger.
Grace held hostage by an Omatikaya warrior.
After being strung up outside, Jake and Grace yell at the Omatikaya to flee, however all of them decide instead to stand their ground (ignorant to the RDA's firepower capabilities). When the RDA arrive, Quaritch sees both of the avatars tied up which signifies to him that diplomatic negotiations have failed. Quaritch starts the assault with deploying gas canisters into the base of the hometree. While the smoke does cause the Omatikaya inside the hometree to exit, when the warriors in response shoot arrows at the gunship, Quaritch escalates by launching incendiaries into the hometree to burn it up and further scatter the people.
Grace begs Mo'at not to harm Jake.
At witnessing the carnage the RDA wrought on the Omatikaya hometree, Mo'at desperately pleads with Jake to help the people before setting both he and Grace free of their bindings. Jake then leads Grace and Mo'at away. Moments later, Quaritch orders the pilots to launch high explosive rockets at the base of the hometree's west support columns. The initial blast knocks the trio off their feet. Jake then both shoves Grace and pulls Mo'at over a downed log to take cover from the blasts' shockwaves and flying debris. When the explosions subside, the hometree begins to fall. The trio run away to gain distance, with Grace glancing up at the hometree several times to keep track of its fall. Right as the hometree's crown is about the hit the ground, the trio change direction, with Jake grabbing Grace to pull her back a few feet. As the trunk hits, the ground beneath them rumbles and shakes, knocking them off balance multiple times; Jake continues to aid Grace to safety, by helping to pick her up to get her back on her feet, and guide her away. As the felled hometree settles, the trio observe the tragic scene with severe anguish at the magnitude of devastation and resulting loss of life.
The Omatikaya check on Grace's avatar after she collapses.
After the Omatikaya hometree's destruction, Selfridge orders the troopers to pull both drivers out of their links. Conflict erupts in the room as Norm tries to protect Grace by blocking her link unit controls, shoving the troopers aways and punching one of them. Norm however is quickly overpowered and arrested, being flexcuffed to a nearby rail. Jake and Grace's link units are deactivated by emergency stop causing their avatars to collapse lifelessly to the ground.[15] In the link room, Grace is forcefully being held back and restrained by two troopers as she yells at Selfridge, labeling him a murderer. Back at the hometree, her avatar is brought along with the Omatikaya to the Tree of Souls (a decision enforced by Mo'at's order [16]), pulled along on a makeshift sledge.[17][18] Conversely, Jake's avatar is left in the ashes of the burning hometree.
Escape From Hell's Gate and Death[]
Norm, Jake and Grace imprisoned by the RDA.
After being incarcerated by the RDA, sometime during the night Trudy Chacón and Max Patel free Norm, Jake, and Grace from their holding cell. All five of them hustle through the ground floor corridors towards an exit leading out to Trudy's Samson 16, with Norm and Trudy running ahead of the other three. As Grace, Jake, and Max reach the external airlock, Grace immediately goes to the airlock's stored exopacks while Jake tells Max to stay behind to be an inside man.
As Norm removes the protective covers and Trudy begins to spool up the aircraft, they are ambushed by a guard threatening them to turn off the engines and exit. Jake and Grace then arrive with Jake pointing his pistol at the guard, telling him to get down and put his hands over his head. At the guard failing to comply, Grace approaches the trooper and orders him to do as Jake says. Following this, the guard lays down on the tarmac with his weapon.[19]
In the Ops center control tower, an operator notices this situation on a security camera feed at her station. She alerts Quaritch, and as he comes over to her station, the operator enlarges the feed. They watch the trooper run away and the group focus back on the Samson. At the Samson, Norm and Grace help lift Jake into the aircraft. Enraged by the break-out, Quaritch snatches an assault rifle from a trooper, and without grabbing an exopack, he storms outside of the Ops center onto an exterior catwalk overseeing the airfield. He fires the AR at the Samson as Grace loads Jake's wheelchair and then climbs up and into the Samson while Trudy takes off. When the magazine runs out, Quaritch switches to his Wasp sidearm. As the team celebrate successfully managing to escape Hell's Gate, Grace clutches at her side; her bloody hand and clothing revealing at some point during the barrage of gunfire that she suffered a bullet wound to her upper right torso either from a direct hit (likely as she stepped up on the Samson's skid to climb in) or by ricochet.
A dying Grace expresses to Jake her fears that the Na'vi would refuse her.
They fly to Site 26 and load Grace and several supplies from the residential cabin into the link shack. Trudy (with Norm in his avatar acting as a spotter) airlifts the link shack, heading toward the Tree of Souls. Inside the link shack, an injured Grace is lying down on the bed of her link unit. Jake tends to her, giving her a shot of morphine and inspects her bloody bandages. She's severely pale and the amount of soaked-up blood is alarming. Jake tries to comfort and reassure her by telling her that the clan can help her. Grace weakly rebuffs his claim by reminding him that she's a scientist and doesn't believe in fairytales. She also questions why the clan would help them, to which Jake doesn't have an answer.
Dawn breaks as they arrive at the Tree of Souls and land. Jake links up with his avatar, awakening at the Omatikaya's destroyed hometree. He mounts his banshee and at some point during the day, locates a toruk and becomes the sixth Toruk Makto. That evening, Jake arrives on the toruk at the Tree of Souls to seek Eywa's help, informing the tsahìk that his friend Grace was dying. Mo'at agrees, telling Jake to bring her.[20]
The Na'vi try to transfer Grace's consciousness permanently into her avatar body.
It's nighttime when everything is ready. In preparation, both of Grace's bodies had been completely stripped of all clothing, with Grace's human body only wearing her necklace along with some vines wrapped around her for modesty. As the clan await with their queues attached to the roots next to them, Norm carries Grace's avatar body while Jake's carries Grace's human body. Jake speaks to Grace to get her attention. When she wakes, Grace is bewildered by the Tree of Souls, wishing she was in a better condition to still collect samples. After both bodies are carefully laid upon the tree's hearth, in a trance-like state, Mo'at leads the clan through a chant-like prayer in the hope that Eywa would permanently transfer Grace's consciousness into her avatar body. Unfortunately, Grace succumbed to her fatal wounds before the process could fully complete.
Grace tells Jake she is with Eywa before dying.
Moments before she passed away, Grace told Jake that she was with Eywa. While Grace's consciousness did not successfully transfer to her avatar, the neural link created when the tendrils of the Tree of Souls interfaced with her human body allowed her full memories to be uploaded into the 'organic computer' of Pandora's ecosystem: the Pandoran Neural Network.
The pain of Grace's death emboldens Jake to take up the mantle of the sixth Toruk Makto. Impassioned by Grace's death as well as by the deaths of other clan/family members and the loss of their hometree, the Omatikaya clan join Jake in rallying other clans to fight back against the RDA.
The next night, Jake begs Eywa for help in the upcoming fight against the RDA by asking Eywa that if Grace was with her, to access Grace's memories, as they would reveal how Earth's ecosystem had been catastrophically decimated by humans (having killed their "mother"); a terrible danger that Pandora now faced.
The following morning, Ewya answers Jake's plea and sends Pandora's wildlife to help the Na'vi in the Battle of Ayram Alusìng; successfully ousting the RDA from the exomoon. This alliance between the Na'vi and the other wildlife against humanity and their destructive machines is the creation of Pandora's protective "immune response"; where if humans linger for longer than 10 minutes in any given area (especially in the Hallelujah Mountains), Eywa's forces will attack them.
Grace's pregnant in-vitro avatar being visited.
The SciOps staff return Grace's avatar (now permanently in a vegetative state due to Grace's death) back to being in-vitro in an amnio tank, in which it will forever remain as such for as long as it continues to live.[21] Not long after, they learn that the avatar is mysteriously pregnant (the father, if any, remains unknown).[5]
One year after the battle, Grace's avatar gave birth to a baby girl named Kiri. Grace's hybrid Na'vi daughter is adopted by Jake and Neytiri, and is raised as one of their own alongside their three biological hybrid children.
Since the age of being a child,[22] Kiri is seen to always wear Grace's necklace as a way to remain close to her mother.[5]
As Kiri grows up and becomes older, she begins to visit the amnio tank storage area (containing dormant in-vitro avatars) located within the biolab at Hell's Gate. When possible, she would leave her family to go there to watch old video logs (made by Grace, as well as by Jake) [23] and would softly talk to Grace's dormant avatar floating behind the glass. She feels a connection to Grace even though they have never met, and is inspired to be somewhat of a botanist herself because of Grace; always learning about plants and adds what she discovers to her clothing, so that she may describe them to others who become curious.[24]
When the RDA returns to Pandora in late 2168, the less-than-half of the staff at Hell's Gate who refuse to surrender decide to evacuate alongside the Omatikaya clan; fleeing to High Camp up in the Hallelujah Mountains as a last defensive stronghold.[25] The avatar staff who relocate to High Camp bring along with them Grace's avatar.
Kiri visiting Grace's avatar.
Around a year later in late 2169 / early 2170, Kiri visits Grace's avatar in the High Camp Biolab and watches an old video log of Grace from her time at Site 26 that was made only days before her death.[26]Miles Socorro and Lo'ak speculate who Kiri's father is and joke that it could be Norm due to Norm's frequent presence in the lab with Grace, as well as both he and Grace having a lot of eye contact in the video footage.
Kiri embracing Grace's spirit in her vision.
Within the following months after the Sully family flees High Camp and seeks uturu with the Metkayina clan, Kiri connects to the Spirit Tree in the Cove of the Ancestors, entering the Spirit World. In Kiri's vision, she's in a lab and sees the spirit of her biological mother Grace in her human form sitting in a rolling desk chair looking through a microscope at a sample. Grace senses that she isn't alone and pivots to turn around. Grace recognizes Kiri as her beautiful daughter and stands up. She's happily surprised to see her, however notes that Kiri seems to be emotionally troubled about something and reaches out towards her. Kiri without hesitation rushes forward to hug Grace, and Grace soothes her by stroking Kiri's back while telling her that "It'll be okay".
Kiri visiting Grace in the Spirit World.
Halfway through the embrace the scene shifts, and Grace has now somehow fluidly become her avatar form, along with both mother and daughter now standing within the commons of the Omatikaya hometree. After the hug concludes, they separate slightly but still remain in physical contact by holding onto each other's forearms. Grace inquires about what's bothering Kiri. Kiri then asks Grace about why she's different from everyone else, about what the Great Mother wants from her, and lastly about her father's identity. Grace tries to answer but struggles to get any words out besides "Oh, my darling" while shifting her grip to hold Kiri's hands within her own. The vision then distorts and Grace lets out a yell, with Kiri screaming after her, as she's suddenly yanked backwards away from Kiri by an unknown force, separating the pair from each other as both of them are engulfed in a blinding white light.
The connection has inexplicably caused Kiri to suffer from a major seizure. After Kiri finally awakens sometime later that day in the evening with the help of Ronal, she begins to sob as she remembers what happened and the feelings it evoked (including the profound sense of loss resulting from Grace seemingly being taken away from her).[27]
Grace was an intelligent, bold, outspoken, and hard-working scientist with a fascination for Pandora's flora and fauna. Her favorite Pandoran animal was the fan lizard.[28] Grace can be viewed as being a "glass half empty" type of woman; Selfridge having commented on her cynical and ungrateful outlook at having received a former Marine instead of a researcher for an avatar driver, saying she should consider herself lucky that Jake wasn't "some oral hygienist or something." However, when in her avatar form, Grace seemed more enthusiastic about her work and more cheerful and kind instead of being irritable. Her human irritability though seems highly likely to stem from nicotine withdrawal symptoms after spending long amounts of time in a link unit, hence her immediate crankiness upon waking and demanding for her cigarette. She's seen to be pleasant otherwise with employees who work directly alongside her in her science department.
One of Grace's notebooks.
Grace was quite intelligent, and was able to correctly deduce the truth about the Pandoran neural network using her own science, though for better or for worse, she seemed to keep her theories to herself, concerned the RDA would metaphorically "crucify" her and think she's crazy. As a scientist, Grace had a skeptical nature and was possibly an atheist, claiming she was not one to believe in fairy tales. Her primary concern was with her work. She demonstrated her dedication to the study of Pandora and the Na'vi early and often; this dedication often manifested itself as hostility towards Colonel Quaritch and Parker Selfridge, who did not share her enthusiasm. As a result of this hostility, it was considered by many outside the Avatar Program that Grace was little more than an introverted and lonely scientist who loved plants more than people.
When first introduced, Grace can be interpreted as having blunt, rude, and standoffish behavior. She had a noticeable negative bias towards military members due to the RDA's actions. While Grace has a backbone, she also made condescending remarks about Jake's intelligence, belittling the paraplegic young man, as she assumed him to be another unuseful trigger-happy moron that would further interfere with her work and damage the Avatar Program's relationship with the Na'vi. Although he traveled across the galaxy to assist her team, she refused to reciprocate his handshake at first meeting. Although she lacked the information Tom had died, when Jake told her, she immediately changed the topic to Jake's work experiences, instead of expressing her condolences. Grace was not entirely callous towards him though, as she attempts to help lift him into the link unit his first time, but is refused by him. She also tries to understand his mindset at coming to Pandora (a hostile landscape) without any training whatsoever, and is a bit taken aback at his resilient response of "Maybe I was sick of doctors telling me what I couldn't do", as the term 'doctors' included scholars like her too, not just medical professionals.
Grace's attitude towards Jake greatly changes after he nearly dies in the forest, and she seems to feel some guilt and responsibility over this. She previously told Jake he should relax a bit, and for unclear reasons, Jake did not know how to handle a thanator and a titanothere, apparently uneducated about Pandora's fauna which may be Grace's fault. After Jake's avatar is separated from the group during his first expedition, Grace doesn't give up on him and has Trudy fly in a search pattern overhead which lasts until sunset (flight-ops curfew), regretful at the prospect of his avatar being dead by morning. When Jake finally awakens in his human body after a potentially traumatic night surviving in the forest, Grace leads his recovery, checking his pupillary response and patting his face, keeping a hand on him at all times, telling him reassuringly "There you go" and "You're okay" before sitting him up and asking Jake if his other body was safe; receiving a smiling chuckling laugh in response.
Grace happy to be reunited with the Na'vi children.
Despite her somewhat aloof nature, Grace's compassionate side can also be seen in other ways. She appeared to be very fond of and close to her Na'vi students, who seemed to show the same feelings toward her; this was demonstrated when they dragged her unconscious avatar body to the Tree of Souls with them after the destruction of the Omatikaya hometree. Grace harbored great guilt for the school shooting deaths, commenting, "That kind of pain reaches back through the link." Ever since then, she became more emotionally distanced during her work on Pandora.
Grace not seeing the bigger picture; she is a smoker damaging her own body and she is wrong about the RDA's involvement in the poisoning incident.
Grace can be interpreted as a bit naive and illusioned about corporations such as the RDA, not being able to see the bigger picture sometimes. When Mo'at pointed out humanity could have poisoned the Na'vi, Grace was immediately dismissive to the idea despite that this was later discovered to be the truth. However, Grace was unaware of the illegal dumping of the black sludge; she was correct that the illness wasn't intentional harm by the RDA or a biochemical weapon created against the Na'vi. Instead, the dumpings were done by a pair of RDA employees out of sheer ignorant disregard for proper disposal methods; Selfridge was also unaware of these dumpings, believing the sludge was being collected and contained, thus not the cause of the illness - influencing Grace's investigation, forcing her to look for a different source.[29]
Grace's character's growth and arc revolves her around being able to tap into her seemingly repressed compassionate side that has been hardened due to the RDA's actions, and realize that she can not judge the hearts of all military men; a major theme of the Avatar series is that generalizing entire groups of people can be wrong. She had two major conflicts. One of them is her not being hypocritical and admitting she can be wrong, and living in accordance and harmony with the values of her ideals. Grace wants other people to understand and empathize with the Na'vi, an example of her hypocrisy when it comes to her treatment of Jake and SecOps, and she learns how to meet people where they are better. Jake also points out her hypocritical ways; Grace was a smoker and she told Jake he needed to look after himself, causing him to take a cigarette from her mouth and say she can lecture him when she looks after her own body first.
Grace beginning to treat Jake with respect.
The other conflict is her inability to heal from her traumatic experiences and guilt as to what happened with Sylwanin, still feeling the pain of the incident two years later after being being ostracized from the clan. She views Jake as a second chance at redemption, and while Jake suspects she is only being nicer to him in order to try to find a way back into the clan, it becomes evident that Grace begins to view Jake less like a tool and more of a human being who deserves respect. Grace is able to grow a fondness for Jake and looked after his welfare, ensuring that his human body kept eating. Jake's accomplishments are able to give Grace a more optimistic view of human nature before her death.
Grace is sometimes mentioned by characters, as well as mentioned in a collectible audio log and a collectible note. She is most frequently mentioned by scientist Alexander Tremayne.
Gameplay[]
Near the very beginning of the game, right after the player first arrives at the Resistance HQ, just outside the main entrance, two NPCs can be overheard talking to one another, mentioning how Jake and Neytiri adopted Augustine's kid as well as commenting about how they did not understand how Kiri's conception was possible to happen.[35]
During the main quest A Hidden Weakness, the Sarentu rescues Anqa Salaam and Alexander Tremayne from a cave hideout at Eywa's Regard where RDA forces are patrolling. As Anqa and Alex walk back from the cave along a dirt path to their parked Samson, they talk to each other, and right before they get there, Alex says "Must check Dr. Augustine's research on this...". This occurs before the player completes the objective "Wait by the campfire while Priya analyzes the data from Teylan".
If the player waits in the area as both character's go about their business by the Samson, the dialogue will loop, and Alex will eventually repeat this specific line of dialogue.
Note: There is a possibility that this may be random dialogue spoken by the character, and not specifically tied to this mission setting.
Return to Hell's Gate by Hajir Beshara (excerpt): "I've also accessed some of Doctor Augustine's work. The research she was able to do even while under the RDA only adds to my shame. She was working to understand Pandora while I was working to corrupt it."
Canonicity Notice The contents of this section are non-canon to the Avatar franchise (source).
Grace as she appears in The Game.
Grace makes appearances in Avatar: The Game for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 and is voiced by Sigourney Weaver. Her avatar model can also be found through datamining, despite it not appearing in this version, possibly hinting she would have appeared alongside René Harper, Jerome Epstein and Anson Langley. In this game, it is shown that Harper was originally in charge of the Avatar Program, and Grace took his role after his death.
She is shown at the very beginning greeting protagonist Able Ryder as they arrive in a Valkyrie shuttle en route to Hell's Gate, warning them about Pandora's many hazards. If the player allies with the RDA, she is shown at the very end, congratulating Ryder's victory against the Na'vi through the RDA's seizure of the Tree of Souls. This can be seen as strange compared to her characterization in the film.
Grace warning Ryder that people may not be who they seem in a missable scene.
There is a hidden scene where Grace will talk to Ryder one more time. In the Command Tower where Dr. Monroe and Commander Falco are located, there is a large screen showing Earth. The OPS Halo Stations in front of the screen has the option to inspect, and Grace will appear on the screen. This begins a dialogue between Grace and Ryder. She will criticize Ryder for their fight with Harper and say things may look black and white, but that once Ryder starts to get used to it and focus, they will see things for what they really are. This can hint towards the option for Ryder to side with Na'vi for a last chance towards the end of the game. This will only work if Ryder sides with RDA, because joining the Na'vi will forever stop Ryder from entering Hell's Gate.
Another audio log on the screen from Grace can be heard after Grave's Bog: "Today Dr. Harper brought me to meet the leaders of the Tipani clan. This was my second visit. On my first visit, they'd refused to see me. Of all the clans we've contacted on Pandora, the Tipani are by far the most resistant to human interaction. Even avatars have been rejected. So around 10 years ago, we came up with a plan. We'd create avatars that combine human DNA with Tipani DNA. That's how Dr. Harper arrived on the program. He was our first guinea pig I guess you'd call him. To be honest, I was never 100% that this plan would work. It was too simple. But it did work. Harper's avatar was welcomed into the clan. So today, Harper brought me to meet the clan's Tsahìk, a Na'vi called Sänume. She remembered my first visit, but it was clear that she had little interest in me. Harper, on the other hand, was treated as a near-equal. It amazes me that they're able to pick up on the subtle differences in our avatars. They must be deciphering patterns in the body pigmentation that we haven't even decoded yet."
Canonicity Notice The contents of this section are non-canon to the Avatar franchise (source).
Grace telling Rai'uk not all humans are evil.
In the Wii/PSP edition of Avatar: The Game, Grace appears and is also voiced by Sigourney Weaver. In the time before Jake Sully arrived on Pandora, Rai'uk of the Anurai clan was a Na'vi warrior who sought revenge on humans for destroying his village. In level 8, Rai'uk meets a young girl named Sylwanin (Neytiri's sister) from the Omatikaya clan who seeks his help because a "Metal Village" (Hell's Gate / RDA) is destroying her village. She tells him about the humans in Na'vi bodies called avatars who teach the Na'vi their ways, and Rai'uk agrees to meet her at one of the schools. At the school, Sylwanin introduces him to Grace Augustine who's currently in her avatar form. Rai'uk criticizes Grace, calling her a 'false demon' who is trying to make his world into hers, but she calmly tells him that not all humans are the same and that she feels his pain. Rai'uk leaves, still vengeful, but pondering what Grace said and wondering if she is right. Rai'uk respects her after his visit.
Canonicity Notice The contents of this section are non-canon to the Avatar franchise (source).
In the mobile game, Grace is in radio contact with Jake as he goes in his first mission. She also encouraged him to make contact with the natives, especially with Neytiri. Grace informed Jake of the explosives in Na'vi villages near the mining complex. Later when Jake searched for the captured Ni'awve clan leader, Tse'huk, he asked Grace to search for where the Na'vi prisoners were held. Grace found out that Neytiri also was captured and was held along with Tse'huk in an unobtanium mine. After Jake had reached the Sacred Soul of Pandora, Grace moved Jake's body to safe location, because Quaritch wanted to shoot Jake. Jake told Grace to keep his body safe and broke contact.
Canonicity Notice The contents of this section are non-canon to the Avatar franchise (source).
Grace meeting with Ryan and Sylwanin.
Grace made an appearance in the iOS/Android game near the end. After Ryan Lorenz had saved Sylwanin, Grace and Moran arrived in a Samson. They told him that he was in trouble and that they needed to go to the Tree of Souls. This was also the moment where Grace and Sylwanin met, or at least in this game, since this contradicts Grace knowing Sylwanin since she was a child in Adapt or Die. Sylwanin was impressed by Grace's knowledge of their customs.
Canonicity Notice The contents of this section are non-canon to the Avatar franchise.
Commander Information[]
Grace was one of the controllable Commanders in Avatar: Pandora Rising before its cancellation. She was available to RDA players as a Scientist.
Biography[]
"Dr. Grace Augustine is not only the leading Xenobotanist and Xenoanthropologist on Pandora but also the head of the RDA Avatar Program. Of all the humans stationed on Pandora, she has the deepest connection with the Na'vi and does everything in her power to respect their ways and culture. Simultaneously, she must also balance the needs and desires of the RDA, who underwrite all of her scientific endeavors."
Unclear canonicity The information on this page comes from Avatar: Reckoning, a cancelled video game. Information and elements from this game are under questionable canon status.
Grace is mentioned in a dirt-soaked memo, reading, "Dr. Grace's research is wonderful, I really admire her. I'm going to learn from her from today. Let's start by remembering the year she was born."
Trivia[]
Character Appearance and Creation[]
Grace's necklace.
Grace Profile
Grace Augustine profile video.
Grace's avatar appears to wear a necklace that Sylwanin wore while alive. Similarly, Kiri wears the same necklace that Grace's human form wore.
As an avatar, Grace wears a Stanford shirt, suggesting she may have attended or taught at Stanford University in California, although it can also be seen as a reference to her actress, Sigourney Weaver, who attended Stanford.
Grace's avatar resembles her human form far more than other avatars. Her avatar form lacks a typical, flat Na'vi nose and has facial structure and traits very similar to her human form.
The Winston designers had the most difficulty incorporating Sigourney Weaver's features into their avatar design, partly due to the fact that her avatar was supposed to be eighteen years younger than Grace appears in her live-action scenes. Rather than go off current reference, the artists imported fifteen-year-old photographs of the actress. "To de-age Grace's avatar," said John Rosengrant, "we took pictures of Sigourney Weaver from Alien 3 [1992] and brought them into ZBrush. Then we started sculpting and pushing things around to create her avatar." Artists found that the avatar was not suitably recognizable as Sigourney Weaver once they added the broad Na'vi nose, because it was so at odds with Weaver's naturally slim, patrician nose. After exploring several options, the designers finally decided to give Grace's avatar a more human-size nose than her avatar colleagues, justified by the logic that the mix of human and Na'vi DNA could result in any number of different facial-feature combinations.[38]
In James Cameron's original concept, Grace was named Grace Shipley, (whose last name was subsequently changed to "Augustine" in direct response to Sigourney Weaver's casting, as the last name "Shipley" was reminiscent of a previous character Weaver portrayed named Ellen Ripley in the Alien films [39]) while her role as head of the Avatar program was originally assumed by Dr. Brantley Giese, a character omitted from the final film. Also in the original scriptment, she survives the consciousness transfer and is reborn as a Na'vi.
Compared to all of the other cast members, Sigourney Weaver never had to audition for her role, as she was directly offered the part by James Cameron himself having made a personal phone call to her. The idea to cast her happened immediately after the last minute script reduction merging of Shipley and Giese (which occurred during the casting process for Avatar), when he realized that Sigourney would be a perfect fit for the role.[40]
After Sigourney accepted the role, both she and Cameron collaborated on Grace Augustine's look which included the decision for the character to have red hair and freckles.[41]
Human Grace has a tattoo centered on the ventral side of her right forearm. It can be briefly seen for only a few seconds here or there, such as near the beginning of the movie in deleted Scene 35A "Breakfast with the Scientists", the 'storytime' breakfast scene following Jake's first night at the Omatikaya hometree, and later when Grace is dying at the Tree of Souls in her last moments as she reaches up for Jake.[42] It can also be partially viewed in some still photos of the character. It's difficult to tell what image the tattoo is of or supposed to represent, though the general shape may suggest it is of a tree with a large crown full of dense foliage like that of an oak tree or potentially a type of leaf.
The World of Avatar: A Visual Exploration claims Grace's avatar is 10 feet or 330 cm tall, which is the result of incorrect conversion. 10 feet actually converts to 304.8 cm, while 330 cm approximates to 10.83 feet. Even the smaller of both values would make Grace's avatar taller than the recom of Miles Quaritch, the avatar of Jake Sully, Neytiri, and even Tonowari.
Joshua Izzo later clarified both heights in the book should be considered an error, and Grace's avatar is closer to Neytiri's height.[43]
Neytiri's height is 8' 7". Conjecture: Visually, Grace looks to be taller than Neytiri, closer/a little shorter to Jake's height at 8' 11". A median height between both known character's would be 8' 9", however this guesswork comparison is while Grace's avatar is seen wearing combat boots, which can add a couple inches to a person's height. Grace's avatar is briefly shown barefoot while at the Avatar CompoundLonghouse, however it's difficult to get an accurate height reference point in comparison to other avatars.
In Avatar: The Way of Water, Grace's avatar looks to be more than just a foot (12") taller than her daughter Kiri, who at 14-years-old is 7' 7", however, again Grace's avatar would be wearing combat boots. Also, this moment can be an unreliable measure as the scene occurred in a spirit realm in which mental representations (i.e. Grace's human height and surroundings) can and were seen to be depicted differently compared to reality.
In the pre-release screenplay of Avatar on page 51, Grace calls Mo'at the "Queen Bitch" which suggests Grace resents Mo'at somewhat for being exiled from the clan. This greatly contrasts Adapt or Die which depicts them as being allies.
There are some foreshadowing lines regarding Grace in the film, for example:
Grace, looking at a display showing the Tree of Souls: "I would die to get samples there." - She does, in fact, die there.
Grace to Miles Quaritch: "Or what, Ranger Rick? You gonna shoot me?" Quaritch: "I can do that." - Quaritch ends up mortally wounding her with his sidearm during the Avatar team's escape from Hell's Gate.
Grace's smoking has been one of the criticisms thrown at Avatar by some anti-smoking organizations, who said that Grace set a bad example for young children who might see the film, despite that it is rated PG-13 for multiple reasons. James Cameron argued that Grace smoking was not an endorsement of smoking, and was meant to depict it as negative, specifically as a way of representing Grace's neglect and lack of care for her human body.[44][9]
Sigourney Weaver did not actually smoke on set, however, as she is not a smoker. She acted out the motions of smoking with a toothpick [45] and the cigarette was added in digitally in post-production, which can be observed in some deleted scenes from the film.[46]
The only known scene that was filmed with a physical prop cigarette was the initially deleted then restored scene of Grace and Jake at Site 26 in which Grace ties to get Jake to eat food and then she tells Jake about the schoolhouse shooting. This can be seen in some behind-the-scenes footage [47] and can be audibly heard with how muffled Grace's speech is as she talks to Jake due to the cigarette being held between her lips. (Speculation: A physical prop may have been used during this scene compared to others, as Jake had to grab the cigarette from Grace's mouth and throw it into a nearby sink. A digital cigarette may have also been used otherwise throughout the rest of the film to help insure continuity as a real lit cigarette would continuously burn and be different lengths across multiple takes.)
At Hell's Gate, Grace's preferred link unit is number 4. At Site 26, her designated link unit is number 2. After being shot, Grace is transported laying down on this unit as Site 26's link shack is relocated and placed near the Tree of Souls. Not long later, this unit is smashed by Quaritch in his AMP suit as he searches for Jake's human body during the film's end fight. Had Grace not previously been shot and died, instead alive and actively using the link unit, she most certainly would have likely been heavily injured from blunt force trauma / impaled by interior parts of the machine resulting from the impact - potentially dying from those sustained injuries instead. In TWoW fifteen plus years later, as the first recombinant squad investigate the site, the recom Zdinarsik checks out the shack's interior, temporarily opening the lid of the damaged unit.
According to the RDA video logs, Grace (as Augustine, G.) is listed as the P.I. (program instructor) overseeing researcher Sully, J.; her ID# 013 SGQ 023.
A filmed deleted scene involves Grace sitting up in a link unit in the link room at Hell's Gate. When this scene takes place can be narrowed down from the character's clothing and location, which places the scene early on in the film during the segment of Jake's first link-up with his avatar. After all of the avatars are put down to bed in the longhouse, Grace having just finished her link (in the process of exiting, having just sat up) says to herself "Same old sack of bones".[48][49]
A parallel is that in Avatar, Grace is called "Buttercup" by Quaritch in deleted extended scenes titled 164-172 "The Challenge" as Quaritch invades Site 26. In response to being cuffed and physically forced out of Site 26, Grace yells at Quaritch "You tin pot dictator!". In The Way of Water, during the attack on the SeaDragon, Grace's daughter Kiri is snatched out of the ocean by Recom Wainfleet on his banshee and dropped on the deck. As he apprehends her, he calls her "Buttercup". Kiri retorts by saying "I'm not your buttercup, perv!" Human Lyle Wainfleet was present during the Site 26 raid fifteen plus years earlier and heard Quaritch call Grace "Buttercup".
It's unknown if Recom Wainfleet actively recognized Kiri as being biologically related to Grace, or if he was under the assumption of Kiri being truly one of Jake and Neytiri's half-breed offspring - a biological sibling to Lo'ak. Either way, it creates a callback / 'history repeats itself' moment by the screenplay writers; where both mother and daughter share a similar experience of being called "Buttercup" by a Marine right before they are handcuffed and forced to go somewhere they don't want to.
The Way of Water begins with Jake saying, "The forests of Pandora hold many dangers. But the most dangerous thing about Pandora is that you may grow to love her too much." This is a reference to a quote said by Grace in James Cameron's Avatar: An Activist Survival Guide, though it is written, "There are many dangers on Pandora, and one of the subtlest is that you may come to love it too much."
According to the information labels seen on the monitor screen, the video of Grace that Kiri is watching while visiting the High Camp Biolab is log entry #351. The timestamp is LST: 20:09:44. It was recorded at Site 26 in the year 2154 during the three months Grace spent at the location during Avatar. The specific month and day are unknown.
After spending 30 or so years on Pandora, this number of log entries averages to 11.7 logs per year (an entry every 31.2 days) so practically once a month. This is a stark contrast compared to Jake making a daily log entry, where in the three months after his arrival, at the end of the movie his last log entry was #98. Had Grace made a daily log, by the time she died, she would have made over 10,950 log entries.
Speculation: Based on the presumed average frequency of when Grace makes a log entry, plus the topic of her current research results showing signs of a "global response" and "awareness" (which continuity wise matches with what she told Parker Selfridge about what they/she thought they knew about the trees being a global network uploading and downloading data/memories before he ignorantly laughed in her face), log entry #351 may very well have been the very last log entry Grace ever made before dying.
Grace's memory can recognize Kiri as her daughter.
It is peculiar that the Grace seen in Kiri's vision is aware Kiri is her daughter, because Joshua Izzo has stated that Eywa works like a read-only hard drive, even pointing out that the deceased need to be reminded they have died over and over again every visit. Kiri and Grace both seem to have a special relationship with Eywa that seems to overcome this limitation.
Kiri embraces a taller human Grace in her vision, however, Kiri is much taller than human Grace in reality (Kiri at age 14-years-old is 7' 7" while human Grace is 5' 11" - a difference of 1 foot 8 inches. For comparison, human Grace in actuality would be the same size as Spider, just 1 inch shorter than him, as Spider is 6' 0" at age 16-years-old.). This can be explained due to them meeting in a non-corporeal mental world and how Kiri mentally envisions her mother as being taller.
Grace's height goes through a 3-phase subtle conversion process from between being represented as human, to an intermediate human, and then as an avatar. When Kiri meets Grace, as she approaches Grace's spirit who's sitting in her chair, human Grace is normal sized, even after Grace becomes aware of Kiri's presence, turns and greets her. When Grace stands, her size has now instantly proportionally increased to make human Grace a lot larger, now bigger than Kiri. As the scene setting transitions from a biolab to the ground level of the Omatikaya hometree (with 'natural' tree trunk column archways designed aesthetically similar to that of a church), Grace now in her avatar form is even taller by several inches (having now leaned down into the hug), before standing up straight at her full supposed avatar height.
Jake's songcord has a white button from Grace's lab coat as part of it, representing how much her death affected him.
The placement of this signifier on Jake's songcord is slightly chronologically out of order, as it's erroneously located after the signifier Jake had chosen to represent the "Big Battle". Grace died before the Battle of Ayram Alusìng, meaning that the lab coat button should be positioned between "Becoming Toruk Makto" and the "Big Battle", as Jake became Toruk Makto to convinince the Omatikaya clan of his loyalty in order to try to save Grace.[50]
„Those things are not who we are. Yes, they are in us... but they are in you, as well. Learn how to live together in harmony with this beautiful world. How to SEE beyond our differences. How to SEE beyond this exterior, beyond this body.“- Grace to Rai'uk.
„I SEE your pain, I do. It is the same pain that I would feel if you hurt someone I loved. It is the same pain any being would feel if they had to live what I SEE you have lived.“- Grace to Rai'uk.
„You're Dr. Harper's problem. You disappoint him, and that becomes my problem. So I got three words for you: Don't screw up.“- Grace to Ryder.
„File away fantasies of a tropical vacation. If you go cowboy like the rest of these jarheads, you'll be dead inside 2 weeks. I guarantee this planet is the most hostile world you've ever seen. But you keep an open mind, and she'll reward you in ways you can't imagine.“- Grace to Ryder.
„I've worked for René Harper for nearly 10 years. Who the hell are you? Some new recruit having a bad day. You have no idea what he's been through.“- Grace to Ryder.
„You know, things can seem pretty black and white when you first get here. But be careful. It's a bit like walking into a dark room. It takes time for your eyes to adjust, and then you start to see things as they really are.“- Grace to Ryder.
„Who's got my goddamned cigarette? Guys! What's wrong with this picture?“- Coming out of her link unit.
„I mean, they're just pissing on us without even the courtesy of calling it rain.“- To Jake upon first meeting.
„Parker, you know, I used to think it was benign neglect, but now I see that you're intentionally screwing me.“- Arguing with Parker Selfridge.
„So you just figured you come out here, to the most hostile environment known to man, with no training of any kind, and see how it went?“- To Jake.
„Run, definitely run!“- Shouting to Jake when he sees the thanator.
„For reasons I cannot fathom, the Omatikaya have chosen you. God help us all.“- To Jake.
„Yeah, that tends to happen when you use machine guns on them.“- To Selfridge when he complains relations with the Na'vi are worsening.
„Don't make me force-feed a cripple.“- Ordering Jake to eat food in his human body.
„Oh, shit!“- When the Omatikaya discover that Jake and Neytiri mated.
„Or what, Ranger Rick? You gonna shoot me?“- To Quaritch when he tells Grace to shut her pie hole.
„The wealth of this world isn't in the ground, it's all around us.“- Explaining to Selfridge the importance of Pandora.
„There are families in there. There are children. Babies! Are you gonna kill children?!“- Grace trying to persuade Parker to delay the Omatikaya hometree strike.
„Crap... this is gonna ruin my whole day.“- After being shot by Miles Quaritch.
„I need to take some samples.“- At the Tree of Souls, shortly before her death.
„I'm with her, Jake... she's real.“- Moments before her passing.
„Maybe I'm just losing it out here, but I'm seeing real evidence of a systemic response on a global level. I can't... I won't use the term "intelligence." It's, um... maybe "awareness" is a better word. It's like the entire biosphere of Pandora is aware and capable of this cognitive response. Oh, crap, I can't say that. They'll crucify me.“- In her video log.
„My beautiful daughter. I'm so happy to see you. But you look troubled. Shh... shh... my sweet girl. It'll be okay. Shhh... What is it, baby?“- To Kiri.
„Oh, my darling...“- Before her meeting with Kiri ends.
↑There is the potential for Grace to have been born in 2097 if her birthday occurs anytime after May 19. If true, this means it is possible that she may have been 51-years-old at death had her birthday occurred during the three months featured in Avatar.
↑Due to not aging during cryosleep, Grace is physically equivalent to those born ~6 years later during 2104.
↑Actual avatar height unknown. Due to a conversion error, Grace's avatar was incorrectly listed as 10' tall. Joshua Izzo claims that Grace's avatar is closer to Neytiri's height; Neytiri is 8' 7".
↑Avatar screenplay, page 102: "GRACE Parker, we have to talk, like rational people. SELFRIDGE Well, I’d cherish that, but unfortunately you’re out of here on the next shuttle. All of you. I’m shutting down the Avatar Program, effective now. ON JAKE, GRACE AND NORM, speechless."
↑Avatar screenplay, pages 110-111: "Elsewhere in the smoky Hell, Grace slumps unconscious. The crying kids pull at her. Mo'at, leading a group of Omatikaya, comes upon the scene. She grabs the kids and pulls them away, leaving Grace’s avatar helpless in the path of the flames. She hesitates, then -- MO’AT (subtitled) Bring her."
↑Avatar: The Way of Water screenplay, page 19: "TIME CUT -- VIDEO IMAGE -- HUMAN GRACE talking to camera. It is one of her science VIDEOLOGS, recorded in the SHACK when she was there with Jake -- only days before her death."
↑Avatar: The Way of Water screenplay, page 85: "CU KIRI -- disoriented. Then she REMEMBERS -- the terror, the PROFOUND SENSE OF LOSS. She begins to sob."
↑Avatar screenplay, page 13: "DR. GRACE AUGUSTINE sits up in her link, stretching and cracking her neck after a long session. She's fifty, with a strong face and fiercely intelligent eyes."
↑Avatar screenplay, page 22: "In the next chair Grace sits up, yawning and cracking her neck as the scared tech runs to her with a lit cigarette. GRACE (looking down) Damn. Same old sack a’ bones."
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