“I would never speak against my husband in front of that woman.”
A defence of Neytiri’s anger at the Metkayina
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Someone called me hypocritical and hateful towards Neytiri, which is funny given how many of my moodboards exist purely to worship the woman. So let me be clear up front: this is a take in her favour. I think her anger in the Metkayina scenes is one of the most justified reactions in the entire trilogy — and the films give us two lines that prove it. None of what follows means I think Jake is evil or that he doesn’t love her. It means he failed her in one specific moment, and the text knows it.
It comes down to two lines. The first is when Jake and Neytiri arrive at the Metkayina clan, and Jake says:
“I apologize for my mate.”
Neytiri immediately tells him not to. He ignores her.
When I first saw this, I read it as pride. And Neytiri is proud — of her people, her family, her faith, her home, her children, and yes, her mate. But the third film recontextualises the whole moment. When Neytiri rejects the bomb arrow Jake made, he asks, “You agree with Ronal?” And she answers:
“I would never speak against my husband in front of that woman.”
That line makes the earlier scene hit completely differently.
Is it partly about her dislike of Ronal? Sure. But it goes deeper. Neytiri has a fierce sense of public loyalty. She might disagree with Jake privately. She might be furious with him. She might think he’s flat-out wrong. But she would never speak against him in front of Ronal — never give that woman the satisfaction of seeing a crack between them.
Which is exactly why Jake apologising for her in front of Ronal feels so wrong. He gives Ronal the division Neytiri would have died before showing.
And Neytiri is proud of Jake as Toruk Makto — not for the status, but because that’s her mate. He drove off the Sky People. He won the first war. He gathered the clans when no one else could. Jake may see the role as something he’s tried to leave behind, but Neytiri knows what it meant. Without it, the clans never gather, the Sky People may never be driven off, and the Tree of Souls — along with far more of her people — could have been lost.
And it isn’t just a title. Being Toruk Makto marks Jake as chosen by Eywa — the goddess Neytiri worships and loves. So when Ronal says, “Looks like Eywa has abandoned you,” that is not a petty insult. She’s not just insulting Jake, or their children. She’s insulting Neytiri’s faith. The idea that Eywa chose Jake. Her family, her beliefs, and everything she has already sacrificed.
And it comes from a woman who hasn’t yet had to fight Neytiri’s war, hasn’t lost her home twice over, and who is also Tsahìk. Honestly, it deserved more than a hiss — though I’ll admit “it deserved a slap” is me being dramatic.
So for Jake to turn around — knowing what Neytiri has given up to follow him, knowing what she’s lost, knowing that even after all of it she’s still proud of him — and apologise for her like she’s a child who can’t speak for herself? At the very least, I hope she gave him the cold shoulder for days.
And remember: Tonowari and Ronal weren’t strangers. They were at the war councils after the first war. They knew who Jake was. They knew who Neytiri was. They knew what Toruk Makto meant. Which makes Ronal’s words even more loaded — this isn’t Neytiri being rude to people offering sanctuary. This is Neytiri standing in front of another Tsahìk while her family is inspected, judged, and spiritually insulted. And then her own husband apologises for her reaction.
That’s why the later line matters so much: “I would never speak against my husband in front of that woman.” Neytiri gives Jake a public loyalty he doesn’t return in that moment.
I’ll say it again, because the people calling this “hateful” will skip it otherwise: this doesn’t make Jake evil, and it doesn’t mean he stopped loving her. He’s scared. He’s trying to keep his family alive. He believes making them acceptable to the Metkayina is the only way they survive.
But Neytiri is surviving too. She is grieving. She is displaced. She has left her forest, her people, her home, everything familiar — and now she’s being asked to bow her head to a woman who just implied Eywa abandoned her family.
So no. Her anger isn’t hateful, and it isn’t irrational. It’s faith. It’s pride. It’s grief. It’s love. And Jake should have backed his mate instead of apologising for her.
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