Warning: Spoilers ahead for Avatar: The Way of Water.
In Avatar: The Way of Water, the once unstoppable Avatar villain Quaritch is handily beaten by Jack Sully early on, but there is a reason for this apparent plot hole. The world of Avatar is complex, and the lore of director James Cameron’s immersive world can get quickly knotty. As such, plot holes are always likely, and one early scene in Avatar: The Way of Water seems to suggest a narrative issue. However, it has an implicit explanation that justifies the twist.
In Avatar, Stephen Lang’s Quaritch is the primary antagonist from whom Jake Sully defends the Na’vi. There are plenty of other Marines, but Quaritch is a stone-cold killer with a personal vendetta against Jake who he feels has betrayed his trust by siding with the Na’vi. Quaritch returns in Avatar: The Way of Water as an avatar, and, despite his extensive combat experience, most of his team of avatars gets wiped out fast by Sully and the Na'vi early on in the film. However, there is a reason that it takes Quaritch a long time to improve his competency in Avatar: The Way of Water.
Quaritch’s Avatar Has Way Less Experience
While Quaritch may have a lot of experience with killing, he has effectively no experience living as an avatar. In the character’s Avatar: The Way of Water introduction, he violently lashes out at his fellow marines when he sees they are now Na’vi avatars and reacts to his transformation with muted horror. While Quaritch doesn’t make his discomfort in his new body too obvious, he still treats the Na’vi as savages to be brutally oppressed throughout Avatar: The Way of Water, proving that he doesn’t care for Pandora's Na'vi species even when he becomes one.
After many of Avatar: The Way of Water’s supporting villains are swiftly wiped out during their first face-off with Sully’s family, the scene is not as unlikely as it might seem. Quaritch has the benefit of surprise, since Sully doesn’t know he and his marines have arrived at Pandora, and he does successfully take the Sully children hostage. However, Quaritch and his marines have been in their new bodies for a matter of days (or maybe a few offscreen weeks), and they’re up against native Na’vi and the legendary warrior Jake Sully. Thus, it makes sense that they’d lose their first fight badly, even with the element of surprise on their side.
The Na’vi have spent their entire lives in nine-foot-tall, lithe alien bodies, while Quaritch and his marines are still learning how to navigate their new existence. Murderous fury powers Neytiri’s story in this scene, proving that the character could kill most of Quaritch’s team without a struggle. However, their military experience, combined with her desperation to ensure the safety of her children, could account for the characters making it out of their first showdown with the Sully family alive.
Why Quaritch Survives His First Fight
There are two reasons that Quaritch makes it out of his face-off with Jake alive, and both are vital to the story of Avatar: The Way of Water. For one thing, he’s just that tough. The character doesn't give up until he's brutally murdered in the original Avatar, and he refuses to give up any earlier in Avatar: The Way of Water. This makes his surprising decision to retreat at the end of the sequel intriguing. This could be the gung-ho character finally taking a step back, but it could also be a tactical choice. Among other questions Avatar 3 needs to answer, the franchise needs to decide whether to follow through on Quaritch’s unlikely redemption arc.
The second reason Quaritch survives his fight with the Sully family, unlike many of his marines, is that he might be more compatible with his new Na’vi body than he lets on. This interpretation is reinforced with a scene later in Avatar: The Way of Water where Quaritch earns the begrudging respect of Spider by risking his life learning to ride a mountain banshee and ultimately succeeding. Whether he likes it or not, Quaritch might be a natural Na’vi like Jake Sully, who will discover, as the Avatar franchise continues, that he has more in common with them than his human superiors. It is also possible that the Avatar: The Way of Water villain may just be un-killable.