Varang's Nightwraith In Avatar: Fire & Ash Had A Far Less Intimidating Name Behind The Scenes

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One of the central antagonist characters in James Cameron's 2025 blockbuster "Avatar: Fire and Ash" is Varang (Oona Chaplin), the leader of a Na'vi tribe called the Mangkwan. The Mangkwan live on the edge of a Pandoran volcano, and their village had previously been wiped out in a volcanic cataclysm. The destruction of their village have hardened the Mangkwan, leading them to reject the peaceful togetherness offered by Eywa, the earth goddess that lives inside the planet. Varang now leads her people into combat, destroying other villages and killing other Na'vi. She's the most interesting thing about Cameron's new film. 

Varang, like many of the characters in the "Avatar" movies, has mastered the art of flying on the backs of the local dragon-like animals, called ikran. Indeed, Varang has managed to tame and ride a particularly aggressive and more vicious subspecies of ikran called a Nightwraith. The Nightwraith has larger wings than most Na'vi dragons, and sports feather-like protrusions that allow for more dextrous flight. It has big, vicious fangs, giving it a vague Lovecraftian look. It also has red, black, and gray markings, which matches Varang's chosen fashion sense. 

Off-camera, though, the Nightwraith had a much more gentle name. In Joe Fordham's new book "The Making of Avatar: Avatar, Avatar: The Way of Water, Avatar: Fire and Ash," it was reported that one of the film's creature designers, Zach Berger, along with the rest of the creature design crew, colloquially referred to Varang's Nightwraith as "Ashley," a riff on the fact that she was employed by the Ash People. Ashley makes the dragon sound a lot more friendly. When James Cameron heard his crew referring to the dragon as Ashley, he reportedly cracked up laughing.

The design of the Nightwraith began when Cameron and producer Jon Landau asked Zach Berger to make a threatening new Pandoran dragon worthy of a badass villain. The creature wasn't named in the script, so Berger started to tinker around with designs, ultimately coming up with the toothy, four-winged creature seen in the final version of "Fire and Ash." Berger described the process: 

"Jim and Jon decided we need a new creature for Varang. [...] She got a badass new creature, another flying creature that, initially, did not have a Pandoran name. We referred to her among our crew as 'Ashley'-because she's part of the Ash People. We gave her her feather-like dragonfly wings, similar to the ikran, but Ashley is like a peacock, so she had a whole bunch more of those. We also gave her a big horn, like the beak of a hornbill bird, that she can use in battle. Her coloration is natively black, red, and white."

It seems that calling the dragon "Ashley" made Cameron giggle. He associated the name with young women raised in California's San Fernando Valley, usually associated with shallowness and an obsession with fashion. It wasn't until later that someone suggested "Nightwraith." As Cameron said: 

"Somebody said 'Ashley' and I laughed my ass off. The incongruity between the Valley Girl name and the absolute ferocity of this creature. From that moment on she was Ashley. Of course, much later we had to come up with a more suitable name, and somebody suggested Nightwraith, which sounded appropriately badass."

Incidentally, the Na'vi name for a Nightwraith is Ska'avum. "Ashley" was, to be perfectly clear, never any kind of official, canonical name. It was just a cute nickname for the crew.