Neytiri and Sylwanin - twins?

[Ashen Key]

I was reading through a PDF of the Pandorapedia from the blu-ray, I came across the section on Na'vi families. I mentioned that the Na'vi women tend to have between one and ten children, often widely spaced apart.

Now, I do know that the implication is that Sylwanin is older, but in the photograph that Jake is holding when asking about the school (which makes it seem a deliberate prop-choice)



the girl between Grace and Neytiri looks roughly the same age as Neytiri. My own private theory is that Neytiri and Sylwanin are fraternal twins (which in turn makes an interesting mirror with Jake and Tommy, with Neytiri being the next-shaman while Sylwanin was the really out-there, physical warrior), but I was wondering what other people's thoughts were.

[Woodsprite]

Seems like Sylwanin was younger... going by these pictures:



They don't look like twins there.

[Ashen Key]

Sylwanin can't be that young if she was old enough to be a hunter by the time she died - not with Neytiri being in late adolescence in the movie. I figured those girls were other girls in the clan.

[Woodsprite]

That's the thing; I don't believe Neytiri was 18 in the film. People all over here say she is, but the fact is that she doesn't look 18. She looks somewhere around 26, and Jake looks 30. The script was changed a lot during the filming process.

Perhaps sylwanin was about 17-18 when those pictures were taken. I dunno. But in both pictures, she looks like the same girl. Even in the picture you gave, she's wearing the same clothes she is in the first picture I posted.

EDIT: THEN AGAIN... Sylwanin is standing on the ground next to the stairs, while Neytiri is standing about three or 4 steps up from Sylwanin. Thus, maybe she just looks younger than Neytiri there because she's standing at a lower elevation.

[Ashen Key]

Originally Posted by Woodsprite

That's the thing; I don't believe Neytiri was 18 in the film. People all over here say she is, but the fact is that she doesn't look 18. She looks somewhere around 26, and Jake looks 30. The script was changed a lot during the filming process.

Perhaps sylwanin was about 17-18 when those pictures were taken. I dunno. But in both pictures, she looks like the same girl. Even in the picture you gave, she's wearing the same clothes she is in the first picture I posted.

EDIT: THEN AGAIN... Sylwanin is standing on the ground next to the stairs, while Neytiri is standing about three or 4 steps up from Sylwanin. Thus, maybe she just looks younger than Neytiri there because she's standing at a lower elevation.

Neytiri looks 18 to me? I see a lot of girls who are 18 and look older, younger. She ACTS like late adolescence, too. And I can't see the girls in the three pictures being the same - they have different faces. And the bottom one you posted, the girl is clearly a child compared to Neytiri, who looks the same as she does in the movie.

And yeah, I'd go with looking younger because she's standing on the ground in that - Neytiri also seems to have a wider face, and not be as slender. You're right about the same clothes. But I wouldn't say that the girl in the right-hand picture, hugging Neytiri, is the same one.

[Woodsprite]

Well in that case, I don't think we can really say which picture has Sylwanin in it if they're all different.

Although I do think the first picture I posted and the one you posted are of the same girl, since they're both wearing the same necklace, top, and loincloth.

[Ashen Key]

Originally Posted by Woodsprite

Well in that case, I don't think we can really say which picture has Sylwanin in it.

*grins* I know. As I said, I was guessing it was Sylwanin because of Jake holding the picture when her backstory is revealed. Given how finnicky Cameron is about his shots, I thought it was deliberate it was THAT picture, and not just another one more of the school, or of the lots of the kids.

And yeah, looking at them again, I'd agree they are the same girl. But Neytiri goes through the movie looking older or younger depending on her expression - one point, she looks as old as Mo'at just in her expression, another, when she's laughing at the fanlizards, she looks so much younger. So, hard to say older or younger (one pic suggests one, the other the other) which is also why I was guessing twins. Looking your age is tricky anyway, but I can see them being fraternal twins.

[Woodsprite]

Omg you're right! Didn't think about that. Now I'm all confused..

[Fighter-of-Wars]

Sorry, but I was always under the impression that she was older than Neytiri, not younger or same age. I figured that because she was the one chosen to be with Tsu'tey and when Sylwanin was killed Neytiri was next in line.

Also she was the one that went out with the other hunters and set fire to a dozer while Neytiri was still in the school, because Sylwanin came to the school for protection and Neytiri saw her shot.

I would think that being older she would be the one being chosen to go with Tsu'tey, attacking the dozer.

Maybe I'm wrong in all of this, I don't remember where I heard that she and Tsu'tey were planned to be married or whatever (Maybe back on AF somewhere) but that was what I had thought.

[Empty Glass]

Originally Posted by Fighter-of-Wars

Sorry, but I was always under the impression that she was older than Neytiri, not younger or same age. I figured that because she was the one chosen to be with Tsu'tey and when Sylwanin was killed Neytiri was next in line.

That's what I always thought too. I can't back this statement up at all, but I'm inclined to believe she's in the photo in the original post and is not the younger-looking girl standing with Neytiri.

[Raptor]

The biggest problem I have with those photos is that Neytiri looks exactly the same as she does in the rest of the film. The photo view angle and perspective morphs her appearance a bit, but there's no doubt that she looks almost exactly the same. As for Sylwanin, I agree with Fighter-of-Wars that she is implied to be older since she was already a hunter while Neytiri was still attending school.

[Woodsprite]

But it's not like "attending Grace's school" was a hinderance to Na'vi life skills they had to learn. It's like going to highschool while also learning to drive; the two are unrelated.

Ashen pointed out that Neytiri does indeed look young and old throughout the film. Certain shots make her look certain ways. In Sylwanin's case, we've only got two pictures of a Na'vi girl that are both taken with Neytiri. We're assuming it's Sylwanin, but even the SE and CE don't reveal that it's her. We just get an oral backstory from Grace; that's it.

We don't even know if Tsu'tey was supposed to pair with Sylwanin; that's a presumed story that has been mentioned over and over by us and us alone that we all (including myself) believe it's true, when it's just as theoretical as the day it was first suggested. This is why I'm anticipating the prequel novel so much.

[X.,.Pandora.,.X]

Originally Posted by Woodsprite

Seems like Sylwanin was younger... going by these pictures:



They don't look like twins there.

Neytiri is about 16 here o.O

[Fighter-of-Wars]

Read a little in the script, there is nothing concrete but a little light on the situation.

TSU’TEY
(subtitled)
Neytiri was promised to me! Everything is
changing. Everything is being destroyed!

CLOSE ON PICTURES -- Grace posing at the school with various
grinning children. There is one of her with two lanky girls,
a younger Neytiri and an older girl who looks much like her.

[Ashen Key]

I always took the fact that Neytiri looks so much like her movie!self here that the shooting didn't happen that long ago. And from the way Grace said, so authortively, that Neytiri was the next shaman, and that she was engaged to Tsu'Tey, I assumed that that Neytiri was ALWAYS going to be the next shaman - otherwise, Grace was making a lot of assumptions about a clan dynamic when the clan isn't talk to her anymore.

And yeah, I know in the script it says that Sylwanin looks like an older her....but the girl in the picture doesn't look like an older her. Lanky, yes, but not older.

As for the hunter thing, the two Na'vi going along with Jake to get their banshees really don't look that old - maybe 14, maybe 16ish. It's not like Grace's school would be like how we would go to school, probably a more casual thing a few times a week, if that.