Miles Quaritch
Miles Quaritch is a male film character who features in Avatar.
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Biography
Origin
Miles Quaritch was a male human born on Earth in the 22nd century. By adulthood, he came to serve as an infantry officer in the United States Marine Corps. He saw combat in numerous Earth military engagements without injury, most notably three tours in Nigeria with the Marines' First Reconnaissance Battalion.
On his first day on Pandora, an encounter with the wildlife dealt him a trio of trademark scars to the right side of his head and face. He was given the option to return home to Earth for reconstructive surgery but opted to stay on Pandora. With his impressive record, he was eventually chosen as the chief of security operations on Pandora. Quaritch was the chief of security for at least two years. He was responsible for the security of the RDA operation and its personnel, which necessitated keeping the Na'vi in check.
Pandora
Quaritch was impressed by Jake Sully and made Jake a bargain that, in return for intelligence on the Na'vi, he would talk to the RDA corporate executives and get approval for Jake to receive the expensive treatment for his spinal injury, which would return the use of his legs. However, as time passed, Quaritch began to question where Jake's loyalties lay, becoming suspicious that his contact with the Na'vi to be distancing him from his humanity and mission. When Jake, in his avatar form, attacked and damaged a bulldozer, Quaritch personally went to arrest him. Quaritch, based upon Jake's video logs, which lamented the hopelessness of convincing the Omaticaya to leave Hometree, along with the report from Corporal Lyle Wainfleet that the Na'vi had retaliated for the destruction of the Trees of Voices by burning the bulldozers and killing the squad of troopers protecting them, came to the conclusion that the Omaticaya were a threat to the RDA's operation and could not be peacefully convinced to vacate their hometree. Quaritch personally led the operation that destroyed the Omaticaya's Hometree, first launching non-lethal gas canisters to force out the Na'vi, then ordering the destruction of the tree using missile strikes. Despite the attempt to flush out the Na'vi with gas, this operation resulted in the death of a number of Na'vi, including the Omaticaya's Clan Leader, Eytukan. When Jake Sully, Grace Augustine, Norm Spellman and Trudy Chacon escaped custody, Quaritch was the first to act, moving outside of the Operations Center without an exo pack, attempting to stop their escape by firing on their SA-2 Sampson with a CARB Submachine Gun and his Wasp sidearm. He fatally wounded Dr. Augustine, but failed to stop the team from escaping Hell's Gate.
Quaritch devised the assault on the Tree of Souls as a means to permanently sever the Na'vi's connection with Eywa and to decisively end the Pandoran War. He personally led the operation against the Na'vi in his Dragon Assault Gunship. While the Na'vi's numbers initially appeared to give them the advantage, Quaritch's heavily armed and well trained SecOps soldiers quickly dispatched the lightly-armed Na'vi, despite some losses. During the battle, while pursuing Jake, his gunship was attacked by the rebel Trudy in a stolen SA-2 Samson, allowing Jake to escape being killed. Quaritch's gunship was able to destroy the Samson and killed Trudy. Advancing relatively unopposed towards the Tree of Souls, the tide of the battle is unexpectedly changed when Pandora's wildlife, seemingly at the direction of Eywa herself, attacked RDA forces in mass. With all escorts distracted or destroyed, Jake was able to board the Valkyrie shuttle containing two cluster bombs, and destroyed it, leaving only Quaritch in his Dragon gunship. Despite Quaritch's best efforts, Jake still managed to inflict catastrophic damage to the gunship, causing it to lose control. Boarding his AMP suit, Quaritch jumped from the Dragon before it crashed.
Now alone, Quaritch advanced to the Tree of Souls, where he stumbled across the module containing the link pod being used by Jake, but was attacked by Neytiri riding a thanator before he could destroy it. He lost control of the GAU-90, but killed the thanator with his AMP suit knife, leaving Neytiri trapped beneath her slain mount. Jake's timely arrival caused Quaritch to focus on him, saving Neytiri. Using the bayonet of the wrecked GAU-90, Jake was able to deflect Quaritch's attacks in a fierce bout of melee combat long enough to destroy his AMP suit knife and land a piercing blow to the glass canopy. The damage to the AMP suit canopy reduced visibility to near-zero and allowed toxic Pandoran air into the suit, forcing Quaritch to don an exopack. Realizing Jake's same weakness, Quaritch made a break for the module and managed to smash a window and an empty Link Unit open before resuming combat. This exposed Jake's human body to the toxic air, interrupting the link between Jake and his avatar, allowing Quaritch to subdue Jake. Quaritch picked up Jake by his hair, specifically his queue which is why Jake made an intense scream of pain. Quaritch intended to use Jake's own dagger to cut his avatar's throat in an act of retribution for his betrayal of humanity. However, before Quaritch could do so, Neytiri, who had taken the time to free herself from under the thanator's carcass during the fight between Jake and Quaritch, fired an arrow into the Colonel's chest. Although the one arrow would have probably been more than enough to kill him, Neytiri decided to fire a second arrow anyway, then hissed at him while guarding Jake.
Before he died and his AMP suit fell, Quaritch had an expression of sheer horror, with his mouth agape and his eyes fixated in one direction. For unknown reasons, but likely due to the animosity of his actions, the Na'vi did not give Quaritch a proper burial. For over a decade, his body was simply left to rot in the forest of the old battlefield, consumed by the nature and the animals of the forest. This would leave only a skeleton remaining, although his skull's exopack managed to remain unshattered. Despite being universally hated by the Na'vi as well as his own son growing up, the RDA propped up Miles Quaritch as a revered war hero who sacrificed his life to protect humanity from the Na'vi.
Recomb
Overview
Personality and attributes
Quaritch has been hardened by a tough military life. Despite that he has fought with honor, it is said that he has been "without ever really having a cause worth fighting for." This suggests that he was not alleged to any one nation or country on Earth, and that he realized humans fighting each other on Earth for resources was, ultimately, pointless and detrimental to humanity as a whole. On Pandora, he finally found a cause he finally believed in: the survival of the human race, which he feels far outweighs the livelihoods of the Na'vi. Quaritch, however, became influenced by the greed of his corporate employers such as Selfridge, manifesting in his strong desire to obtain unobtanium.
Powers and abilities
Quaritch was an outstanding soldier and a deadly opponent in combat. He claimed to have survived three tours of Nigeria without a scratch. Quaritch was an expert marksman, managing to fatally wound Grace Augustine during the avatar team's escape from Hell's Gate. He's also shown to have a high tolerance for pain, easily ignoring his shoulder when it was set on fire. His prowess in close range combat was also considerable as it took the combined efforts of Jake and Neytiri to finally defeat him. Quaritch was an expert with his AMP suit, which made him even more lethal due to the protection the suit provided. He killed Neytiri's thanator during their encounter, stabbing it several times with his AMP suit knife.
Notes
- Miles Quaritch was created by James Cameron and was portrayed by actor Stephen Lang where he featured in the setting of the Avatar universe.
In other media
Video games
Appearances
- Avatar:
- Avatar: The Way of Water:
External Links
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