Mo'at's tswin??

Started by hì'ia tuté, April 14, 2012, 01:26:51 AM

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hì'ia tuté

(sorry if this has already been discussed, but I couldn't find a topic about this so...) Has anybody noticed Mo'at's tswin?? It's like... two braids that come from the back of her head, over her shoulders, then combine into one single braid in front of her, in a sort of Y shape... no other Na'vi has a tswin like that... I know she is Tsahìk, but Neytiri is to be Mo'at's successor as Tsahìk and she has only one tswin...

Does anybody know the reason for Mo'at's Y shaped tswin?

Kamean

In my opinion, she entvine her tswin in one queue only.
Tse'a ngal ke'ut a krr fra'uti kame.


Seze Mune


Seze Mune



In this picture, she appears to have braids going down her back as well.  Perhaps someone can do a screenshot which shows Mo'at from behind, as when she's speaking with Jake or chanting at the Tree of Souls?

Seze Mune

The return of Toruk Makto

You can see a Mo'at here, but I can't get any clear glimpses of her back...

hì'ia tuté

More pictures of Mo'at... I found places where you could see her back and the full length of her tswin in front... in the weird Y shape...

I don't know why they made her tswin like this but I think J.C. needs to explain the purpose.

Seze Mune

I can't really tell from the frontal view what the end of her tswin looks like. I suppose someone could make the claim that instead of braiding hair over her tswin, that beading and other fibers were braided into it.  But that would make it fairly awkward for sleeping if she couldn't remove the tsahìk apparel.

Imho, it makes the most sense to assume the dual braid is a shamanic symbol and only one of them contains her tswin.  Since Neytiri is slated to assume her mother's position in the clan, I suppose we can wait until that happens in Avatar 2 or 3 and see what the team does with that.

hì'ia tuté

I sort of assumed that the hair naturally grew in the braided form over the tswin because when we see the Avatars for the first time, after they have fully matured, they already have a braided tswin (they've been in the containers of liquid for 6 years so nobody could have braided it for them... so I figured it grew that way naturally)

Seze Mune

Quote from: hì'i tuté on April 15, 2012, 12:43:50 AM
I sort of assumed that the hair naturally grew in the braided form over the tswin because when we see the Avatars for the first time, after they have fully matured, they already have a braided tswin (they've been in the containers of liquid for 6 years so nobody could have braided it for them... so I figured it grew that way naturally)

I admit, that's an odd and unexplained feature of the film.  At no time do we see any Na'vi without the braid on the tswin.  However, there are times when we see Na'vi with braided or unbraided hair, so we can assume that if hair on the same person (Neytiri) can be either braided OR unbraided, that the Na'vi know how to braid their hair.  Therefore, it is possible that Mo'at may have grown out some of her hair for the sake of having a twin tswin to mark her status.  Does that make sense?  
???

Ningey

It would nevertheless be worth figuring out if this is a trait common to all (or at least many) sahìk or if this is unique for Mo'at.
The possibility to braid one's hair in such a fashion that the tswin looks as if it had two branches (although it would actually be in only one of the branches since the Na'vi only have one) doesn't sound that far-fetched at all.


"Sawtute ke tsun nivume - fo ke kerame!"
-- Neytiri te Tskaha Mo'at'ite

"There are two things that are infinite: Human stupidity and the universe. However, I'm not yet sure about the universe."
-- Albert Einstein

"He who gives up freedom for security deserves neither and loses both."
-- Benjamin Franklin

Seze Mune

I agree.  It is an interesting question, and a very good catch by the OP.  I don't remember seeing any other identified tsahìk in the film (besides Mo'at and Neytiri), so there doesn't seem to be anything to compare it to.  Perhaps it could be seen as one way to distinguish between the actual tsahìk and the tsahìk numeyu?

Blue Elf

Fantastic perception (+1 for great eyes!!)! Still wondering that even after 2 years we can find something new in the movie! I tried to see it again yesterday, but was too tired, so I was able to see only half of the movie and didn't enjoy it... :( I'll try again next weekend and check this detail in deep.
Back to topic: as we know, tswin is not just queue of hair, but it also contains nerve threads used for tsaheylu. So probably Moa't has one real tswin and second one created just from hair.
Another question is - if Na'vi can unbraid their tswins, is nerves inside of tswin have some cover different from hair or not. If not - then it would be possible to create more real tswins. But I don't believe it is true, hair is IMO weak protection of such sensible body part...
Oe lu skxawng skxakep. Slä oe nerume mi.
"Oe tasyätxaw ulte koren za'u oehu" (Limonádový Joe)


Seze Mune

Hmm. It doesn't appear that hair grows from nerves themselves, so the Na'vi must have a dermis which covers the nerves for protection.  We don't know if the braided hair on the queue grows from the scalp or from the neural sheath itself.  Because all other life forms with neural whips have only skin (not hair or feathers) as protection, it's logical to assume this is also true for the Na'vi and that the braid is a cultural affectation on their parts.  But then again, who knows?

Does the scene where Tsu'tey's queue is amputated show anything which might explain this?  Personally, I have refused to watch that part.

Niri Te

 We haven't loaded that out take into our DVD, and won't do so unless we can see a scene where Quaritch's body is lifted out of the Ampsuit by HIS "Tswin", and has it cut off
Tokx alu tawtute, Tirea Le Na'vi

P.A.'li makto

QuoteDoes the scene where Tsu'tey's queue is amputated show anything which might explain this?  Personally, I have refused to watch that part.
There's no such scene in the film, only in the script, as far as I know. (Let me know if I'm mistaken!)

facebook: soaia leNa`vi

hì'ia tuté

#15
I have the collector's edition and you never actually see Wainfleet cut off Tsu'tey's tswin... I don't remember actually being able to see the severed tswin either during the scene, but I haven't seen that part as often as I have the theatrically released movie either. *pops in the CE DVD to see if Tsu'tey's Tswin is visible* yeah... you never see his severed tswin.. they very carefully kept all his hair going down his back, and he's leaning against a rock, so you can't see it. However.....


it looks  like to me, the hair is attached to the nerves the way it falls and I don't recall seeing a hair tie of any sort on the end of the tswin... (I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure there's nothing keeping the braid together on the tswin). Speaking as a girl who has had long hair, for a braid that thick, it does not stay braided tightly together without some kind of hair tie around it, so if my eyes have not deceived me, and there is in fact no hair tie around the end of the tswin, then I would say the most logical leap of why the braid does not simply loosen and fall apart is because the braid is attached to the nerves, in which case, it might not actually *be* hair, at least not in the way that we think of hair. I've always thought that it had a slightly different texture compared to the rest of the Na'vi's hair. The hair of the Tswin, to me, seems coarser and thicker than their other hair. This is especially evident to me when Neytiri has her hair unbraided (except for the tswin) during the love scene. (I took a screen cap of a close up of Neytiri after Jake and Neytiri linked tswins so  you can see the tswin and her hair close up)

Alyara Arati

Having long hair myself, I'd noticed the lack of ties at the end of the tswin and had wondered about that.  The only thing I can think of, and that isn't terribly satisfactory to me, is that maybe Na'vi hair will, if left to itself, form braided coils of various sizes, in the same way that if you twist two cords tightly and then hold them together, they'll wrap around each other naturally when released. :-\
Learn how to see.  Realize that everything connects to everything else.
~ Leonardo da Vinci

Ningey

#17
The point is that any nerve strands cannot support anything else by themselves. They would be too fragile for one part, and for another, they would need some tissue containing blood vessels for nourishment, support, and protection, though.
What we see from the end of the tswin actually would be the "loose" ends that can attach themselves to other nerve strands, but they would most likely be protruding from some sort of tissue tube (for want of a better term). So we can safely assume that the hair covering the tswin grows from the skin surrounding the nerve strands and the protective tissue.

However, one point that also made me wonder is why the swin of the avatars are braided already. To me this sounds like either a plot hole or fridge logic, depending on when the problem caught one's attention.


"Sawtute ke tsun nivume - fo ke kerame!"
-- Neytiri te Tskaha Mo'at'ite

"There are two things that are infinite: Human stupidity and the universe. However, I'm not yet sure about the universe."
-- Albert Einstein

"He who gives up freedom for security deserves neither and loses both."
-- Benjamin Franklin

Seze Mune




Perhaps it's just my eyes which have deceived me, but I *think* I see highlights between Neytiri's thumb and the first knuckle of her first finger which suggest something encircling the tswin just under the part where the hair falls away.  To me it looks like a bit of string, or whatever they use to make their necklaces.




This seems to show where the queue connects to the head, and suggests that the hair and ornaments are braided over it...

Seze Mune



another picture of Mo'at's tswin