Symbols in Avatar music

[IkranMakto]

I've been thinking a lot about the music in Avatar. I want to figure out which melodies stand for which characters, concepts, moods, themes, settings, and ideas.

Now there's a melody often heard in all of the tracks. Like in Becoming One with Neytiri it can be heard from 4:02 - 4:50. It's also the melody of the chorus in I See You, the Avatar theme. It can also be heard briefly in Jake Enters his Avatar World from 3:48 - 3:55. These are the time I can recall. The main theme often represents a main character and I'm trying to figure out if it stands for Jake or Neytiri.

[Empty Glass]

I've thought a lot about this myself but I haven't been able to decisively conclude whether or not certain melodies are meant to correspond with certain characters or moods. I don't think that theme you mentioned is meant to represent either Jake or Neytiri explicitly. It might just be something to represent Pandora as a whole.

There's one motif I've always wondered about - it's a quick succession of four notes, the first three rising in half-steps (?) before the last one goes down in pitch. It's heard several times in "You Don't Dream In Cryo," it's heard slower and used as melody at 5:24 in "The Destruction of Hometree," and heard exactly the same way in middle of the battle after Neytiri's been shot down and is witnessing the carnage around her. I've hypothesized that this motif has something to do with humans and that it also evokes danger, but I can't be 100% certain if I'm correct on this. It's possible that James Horner didn't intend for every character and concept to have its own strict musical representation, not like the way this is done in some other films or narrative pieces of music.