I’m so sure that what’s going to happen with Spider to let him breathe without his mask is that the kind of roots that covered Jake when he did his consciousness transfer are going to cover Spider and go into his circulatory system (maybe inside the lungs) and allow him to breathe, maybe while fusing with the dendrites. Trees on Pandora would take in atmospheric gases to produce oxygen, like on Earth, and this would allow Spider to simulate breath in Pandora’s native environment.
I’ve been thinking about this concept as a longtime fan of the first film where I had a Tommy lives Jeytiri AU where Jake comes to Pandora as they want to study the brainwaves of an identical twin that links into an avatar and one that doesn’t (had Tommy lived, they would likely have suggested something similar as studying identical twins under different environments, with one control, is SUPER common).
My concept was that Jake and Neytiri would be able to make a different kind of “tsaheylu” with each other by going to the tree of voices and the tree roots connecting to his brainstem the way we see during his and Grace’s consciousness transfers. This would also allow him to get oxygen directly from the roots.
As a sidenote, I wouldn’t necessarily put this in my concept, as I think Jake’s disability is central to his character, but I also don’t see why if Eywa has the ability to do this, she couldn’t “re-route” the neural pathways leading to his paralysis around the damaged parts of his spine.
still thinking about this
