James Cameron Explains The Title Of 'Avatar: Fire And Ash' And How It Relates To Conflicts In Ukraine, Gaza, And Sudan

James Cameron recently shared why he chose Fire and Ash for the title of his third Avatar film.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Cameron said, “So, the film is called Fire and Ash for a specific reason. It seems kind of obvious, ‘Oh, fire, fire people, ash people, right?”

However, he explained there was more depth, “But I found that title through a process that went: When I had written this line for Lo’ak, our storyteller, and he says, ‘The fire of hate leaves only the ash of grief.’ That’s half the equation. The other half of the equation is that grief, that loss, that trauma fuels the fire of hate, and it just loops endlessly, right.”

From there Cameron pointed to real life examples of this philosophy, “And we see it in Ukraine, we see it in Gaza, we see it in all over the [world]. We see it Sudan. There’s so many things that become generational. They just propagate through time. And it’s all, ‘Those guys hurt us therefore we must fight back.’”

Interestingly enough, while Cameron claims that the line from Lo’ak is only half the equation, it’s he who is missing half the equation. His analysis about the fire of hate leading to the ash of grief is quite true and stems from “disordered loves” as St. Augustine describes them in The City of God. However, there is an antidote to it and it is Jesus Christ, St. Augustine explains, “The peace of the celestial city is the perfectly ordered and harmonious enjoyment of God, and of one another in God. The peace of all things is the tranquility of order. Order is the distribution which allots things equal and unequal, each to its own place.”

In fact, St. Augustine rejects the cyclical nature that Cameron insinuates is part of the natural order, “There may be peace without war, but there cannot be war without some kind of peace, because war supposes the existence of some natures to wage it, and these natures cannot exist without peace of one kind or other.”

Nevertheless, St. Augustine does observe the two cities, one earthly and and one heavenly, and expertly differentiates between the two:

Accordingly, two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self. The former, in a word, glories in itself, the latter in the Lord. For the one seeks glory from men; but the greatest glory of the other is God, the witness of conscience. The one lifts up its head in its own glory; the other says to its God, ‘You are my glory, and the lifter up of mine head.’ In the one, the princes and the nations it subdues are ruled by the love of ruling; in the other, the princes and the subjects serve one another in love, the latter obeying, while the former take thought for all. The one delights in its own strength, represented in the persons of its rulers; the other says to its God, ‘I will love You, O Lord, my strength.’ And therefore the wise men of the one city, living according to man, have sought for profit to their own bodies or souls, or both, and those who have known God ‘glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened; professing themselves to be wise,’ — that is, glorying in their own wisdom, and being possessed by pride — ‘they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.’ For they were either leaders or followers of the people in adoring images, ‘and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever.’ But in the other city there is no human wisdom, but only godliness, which offers due worship to the true God, and looks for its reward in the society of the saints, of holy angels as well as holy men, ‘that God may be all in all.’

Cameron’s observations appear to be solely on the earthly city and are devoid of the heavenly. He can only identify problems, but he fails to see the larger and deeper picture. Not to mention the answer to the problems that he’s seeing.

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