Avatar 3 concept art reveals hidden details about Wind Trader and Ash Clan storylines

This week, 20th Century Studios dropped a bombshell by revealing new details about Avatar: Fire and Ash, the upcoming third movie in James Cameron's landmark science fiction saga. Set on the lush alien moon of Pandora, the Avatar movies tell the tale of the nature-attuned Na'vi aliens, who clash with the humans of Earth eager to strip-mine their lush planet for resources.

The third Avatar movie is slated for release this December, and it will introduce a slew of new characters and factions. The other day, we got our first glimpse at Peylak (David Thewlis), the chieftain of the Tlalim Clan (also known as the Wind Traders), who ride around Pandora on giant jellyfish creatures. We also got to see a new war machine for the human forces of the RDA, along with teases for the Mangkwan Ash Clan, a group of intense Na'vi who serve as one of the primary antagonists of the film. It was a lot.

But what if I told you I'd unearthed even more details about Avatar 3? These new bits of artwork sent me down a rabbit hole that led to some previously released concept art. A few of the images have been widely publicized, such as the jellyfish-like blimps of the Wind Traders. Others I'd never seen before. And several of them contained clues for the plot of Avatar: Fire and Ash hidden in their metadata, clues which shed light on some of the storylines and new locations we can expect to see in the movie. The details I want to examine come straight from Disney's media site, so these are legit and not sourced from leaks or anything like that.

Let's get out the magnifying glass and see what we can parse ahead of our next trip to Pandora.

The tulkun whales and Metkayina Na'vi will grow closer in Avatar 3

Much of the information I've gleaned about the artwork in this article comes from the filenames themselves. Since they're concept artworks, there's no guarantee that the images in the final movie will reflect what we see here. But I still think it's worth discussing, because it seems like these pieces of artwork were made to show specific scenes or aspects of the movie.

Above is a piece of artwork by Avatar lead creature designer Zachary Berger, titled "Lagoon Tulkun Celebration." It shows a gathering of the sentient tulkun whales in a bioluminscent lagoon, with small boats bearing Na'vi floating among them. It looks like there are buildings on the righthand side as well.

Avatar: The Way of Water ended with the Metkayina Na'vi, the main tribe of aquatic Na'vi we spent time with in the movie, defeating the human RDA forces and destroying their ship the SeaDragon, which was killing tulkun in order to harvest their valuable whale oil. Even though that battle was laced with tragedy thanks to the death of Jake (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri's (Zoe Saldaña) son, Neteyam (Jamie Flatters), it was still a victory for the Metakayina and tulkun since it temporarily set back the RDA's plans to harvest the whale creatures. Perhaps that's cause for celebration?

The Metkayina and tulkun have an intertwined symbiosis that stretches back generations, but by the time of The Way of Water they're no longer bonding the way they once did. We saw that begin to change with Payakan and Lo'ak (Britain Dalton). In Fire and Ash, it looks like the ties between the Metkayina and tulkun will have been strengthened.

The Wind Trader clan will visit the Metkayina at their reef

Avatar: Fire and Ash will introduce at least two new major Na'vi factions: a friendly one called the Wind Traders, and a hostile one called the Ash Clan. The Wind Traders travel Pandora in caravans of giant floating jellyfish-creatures, and according to Avatar costume designer Deborah L. Scott, their arrival is a joyous occasion: "[W]hen they come into our movie, everyone’s excited to see them. It’s like the circus is in town.”

But where exactly will we see the Wind Traders appear? The above concept art contains a hint. The filename for the image is "Windtraders Reef Dusk." If we didn't already know the Wind Traders were going to meet up with the Metkayina or another similar water clan of Na'vi from the watery image itself, that's a pretty good confirmation. Those water-based clans of Na'vi live on reefs in the Eastern Sea of Pandora. Since the Metkayina are the largest of the reef clans, it would make sense for the Wind Traders to pay them a visit, or perhaps for all the clans to gather at a predetermined central location.

We also get another look at the Wind Trader jellies above, in a piece of artwork which names them "Windtrader Gondola[s]." As in the previous image, we see a group of them sailing over an island-dotted seascape. The evidence that we might see the Wind Traders visit the Metkayina or another water clan feels pretty strong.

My guess is we'll see the Wind Traders visit the Metkayina early in Fire and Ash, in a moment of joy before things go sideways later in the movie. “They’re nomadic traders, equivalent to the camel caravans of the Spice Road back in the Middle Ages,” James Cameron told Empire. “And you know, they’re just fun. Like all Na’vi, they live in a symbiosis with their creatures.”

Here's one last look at a Wind Trader gondola, flying through a location labeled "Rock Spires." That could just be a descriptor for the towering mountains, or it could be an actual location similar to the Hallelujah Mountains in the first Avatar. We don't have enough to go on, beyond the fact that we're probably going to see the Wind Traders soar through multiple locations on their breathtaking creature-vessels. “If you’ve got any nautical blood in your veins, you’ll want to be on [their] ship,” Cameron teased.

Since the Wind Traders are traveling nomads who may possess rare items or artifacts, I imagine their visit to the Metkayina could be a good time to introduce some sort of deep lore which will ripple outward through the movie. I have a theory about the specifics, thanks to new information about the Ash Clan.

Can the Ash Clan recover from calamity?

The other new Na'vi faction we'll be meeting in Avatar 3 is the Ash Clan, or the Mangkwan. Production designer Dylan Cole explained to Empire that “[the Mangkwan] had a natural disaster befall them, and that sort of helped shaped their culture." Before this natural disaster, their culture was much closer to the Omatikaya Na'vi we met during the first Avatar film. To go from that lush jungle lifestyle to the bleak village we see in the concept art above is hard to imagine.

What exactly happened to the Mangkawn? Cameron and company are keeping quiet, but considering they're a fire-based clan of Na'vi, I wouldn't be surprised if a volcano or something similar were involved.

But even more intriguing than what befell the Ash Clan is what they might want. In a new piece of concept art for the Ash Clan village released this week, we see the ruined husk of a hometree:

The hometree, if you don't remember, is the giant tree where the Omatikaya Na'vi lived in the first Avatar. That hometree was destroyed by the RDA fleet and collapsed. The Mangkwan's hometree appears to have been similarly destroyed; it almost looks like the Ash Na'vi are living in the shadow of its charred remains.

Time to put on my tinfoil hat. Before Avatar 3 got the subtitle Fire and Ash, its working title was Avatar: The Seed Bearer. Even with the title change, I imagine whatever plotline gave the film the working title will still be relevant. If so, the big question is: what seed are we talking about? My theory is that it will be a seed for a new hometree, perhaps one that the Wind Traders found somewhere. That's the sort of thing that the Ash Clan might want, if it presents a hope of restoring their desolate homeland.

But they wouldn't be the only ones who would want a hometree seed. After all, the Omatikaya also lost their hometree. If the Wind Traders happened to roll up to the Metkayina reef village with a seed like that, Jake and Neytiri might get ideas about bringing it back to their people. But I doubt they'll get the chance.

A battle will happen at the Cove of the Ancestors involving the Ash Clan

Our next piece of concept art shows a fleet of Ash Clan warriors riding into battle on their flying beast mounts. Tellingly, the filename for this artwork reads, "Cove of the Ancestors Aerial Battle."

The Cove of the Ancestors is a holy site for the Metkayina and other reef clans which houses their spirit tree that links them to their ancestors. If a fight is going to go down there, it's probably going to be a bloody, emotionally fraught affair.

As it happens, Empire just ran article about a massive clash that's coming in Avatar 3. Production designer Ben Procter teased, "we’re going to see an airborne and water-borne battle for the ages, as the Pandoran forces and RDA clash in a really interesting environment." There's no guaranteeing that this is the battle at the Cove of the Ancestors, since the RDA is nowhere to be seen in this artwork, but it's a safe bet that it will involve both "airborne and water-borne" warriors since it's at a holy site for the water-based reef Na'vi.

Whether this is the huge battle or not, it seems likely that the Ash Clan will attack the Cove of the Ancestors. Perhaps they want to get the hometree seed for themselves? Or perhaps they have some other motive we can't even begin to guess at. The leader of the Ash Clan is Varang, played by Game of Thrones alum Oona Chaplin (Talisa Stark). She sounds severe enough that she might lead her warriors to battle for any number of reasons.

“Varang is the leader of a people who have gone through an incredible hardship. She's hardened by that,” Cameron explained. “She will do anything for them, even things that we would consider to be evil."

Empire names the flying creature above a Nightwraith, which is Varang's mount of choice. We don't have official confirmation, but I think that means it's pretty likely the Na'vi with the red headdress who we see in the above two images is Varang. No Avatar movie has yet featured an antagonistic clan of Na'vi. I'm really curious whether there will be some sort of redemption storyline for the Ash Clan, especially knowing that they've weathered an immense natural catastrophe.

"One thing we wanted to do in this film is not be black-and-white simplistic,” Cameron added. “We’re trying to evolve beyond the ‘all humans are bad, all Na’vi are good’ paradigm."

The RDA is coming back to harvest the tulkun "on an industrial scale"

The last piece of the puzzle is the above image of a new RDA vessel, the Factory Ship, which Procter revealed is "essentially a moving oil platform that is designed to capture and process the tulkun on an industrial scale." It also carries armies around, so it's one part industrial ship and one part troop transport.

Whether this massive ship will take part in the battle at the Cove of the Ancestors or a different one, humanity is going to be back in the mix causing problems on Pandora again in Avatar 3. But with Cameron's tease that the Avatar franchise is trying to break out of the formula that "all humans are bad [and] all Na'vi are good," I don't think there's any guarantee that humanity will be a solely malignant force in the film. We'll see when the movie comes out.

When does Avatar: Fire and Ash release?

While we have far more questions than answers at this point about the third Avatar movie, we won't be waiting long to see how it all pans out. Avatar: Fire and Ash is slated to release on December 19, 2025.

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