#I also have a soft spot for redeemed baddies with moral complexity

[dirtytransmasc]

I loved him as an antagonist, I loved how conflicted he was, how you could watch his eyes at anyone given moment and see half a million thoughts going through his head. he was fighting to be who he was expected to be, who he wanted to be for spider, who he wanted to be for himself, and who he was supposed to be. every decision he made would fight at least one of those parts of himself, so there was never truly a time he seemed comfortable or fluid in action.

I like that his morals are all over the place because of this, I love that he is super receptive to his surroundings, who he's around, that he changes to what best suits his current task (and the people it takes to do that task)

I love how fatherhood and his need to love and protect spider even when it's making him soft, even when it's making him show mercy (to a degree), even when it's ruining him, he can't let this kid go, he's willing to put down any mission and motive for him (again, to a degree, he definitely tries to shake this hold the kid has over him but failed)

I also like how he has the potential to be one of those villains who develops enough that they are no longer a villain, but they can never fully redeem what they did, so they're not really on the good guys side either (that's personally what I'm rooting for).

I don't mind spider saving him, spiders overall arc is tied to family, connection, love, parenthood. while Quaritch isn't his biological father, he is the clone of him, and he loves that boy unlike his original. he is butting heads with Jake Sully twice as much cause of the kid. Quaritch is tied to spider and I'm excited to see how that pans out because of the complexity they bring out in each other.

Im ngl, I really like how Quaritch's character was handled as an antagonist.

I like how his RECOM was explained. It wasnt just "youve been revived" and it made sense to copy consciouness and personalitiy before a dangerous mission. Makes me wonder if everyone got a copy or uf the RECOM program still was experimental.

Quaritch's entire arc slowly got personal rather than starting and ending in some revenge quest, which I was afraid of happening as it would have ruined his character for me. He was first just a ruthless soldier completing a mission, loyal to the RDA, but his attiutude changed when he saw his son involved in Na'vi affairs and loyal to them and distustful of other humans instead.

Quartich was completing his mission but stakes in gradually affected his identity in many subtle ways, like when he wanted to capture an ikran with his bare hands like Jake, watched his fight and death by Jake and Neytiri on the AMP body cam footage, and then ultimately proclaiming to kill Jake's family after Neytiri threatened to kill Spider. Quaritch seeing himself in 4 different perspectives thru his log footage, his RECOM body, his corpse in the AMP suit, and through Spider was very interesting because grappling with identity influenced how his motives changed on his mission to kill the insurgency leader (Jake Sully).

It was overall interesting to see how his humanity and empathy gradually got in the way of his task, like when he stopped Ardmore from further torturing Spider in interrogations, when he first spared Spider him by utilizing him as a translator and offering him protection from RDA cruelty, and when he saved Spider from Neytiri's wrath when he held Kiri at knifepoint. He even had to stop himself when he felt his cruelty was too far when Wainfleet asked if they were gonna "waste" a clan's tsahìk after killing an ilu to intimidate information out of them (but his "kill that animal over there" line was soooo corny LMFAO).

I was expecting him to be cartoonishly evil and revenge driven but I dont think he was. Im not very satisfied with Spider likely returning his character again since he saved him from drowning (I dont want Quaritch to be a main anatagonist again lol), and I personally dont want him to have a redemption arc specficially (the things he did were irredeemable lol), but I'm suprisingly satisfied with his return and arc in AWOW.

How did yall feel about Quartich's role as an antagonist?