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A reference for writing Tamtey's dialogue and close POV — the voiced Sarentu protagonist of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. Her voice is not a blank slate: the game gives her substantial scripted speech, relationships, and a developing character arc. This guide builds from that foundation, while keeping our fic-specific choices distinct from game canon. Companion to Neytiri — Voice Guide, Jake Sully — Voice Guide, and So'lek — Voice Guide.
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Canon foundation — read first
Tamtey is not a silent or near-silent protagonist. Customisable appearance, gender, and voice performance do not mean an unwritten personality. Her conversations, questions, responses to other people, and developing commitments provide material to preserve, not a vacancy to fill.
This guide uses she/her for the Tamtey written in our stories. The game offers different voice options; do not turn the pitch, texture, or delivery of one performance into a rule for every version.
Keep three levels separate:
- Game foundation: her Sarentu identity, TAP upbringing, relationships, cultural learning, resistance to the RDA, and the events she experiences.
- Voice interpretation: craft recommendations drawn from those scenes and the dialogue quoted here. These are patterns to test against the relevant scene, not rules.
- Our characterisation: motion-led interiority, music organising the prose, romantic choices, and particular vulnerabilities in an individual fic. These can deepen her character without being relabelled as universal canon.
Core voice identity
Tamtey's voice is built around curiosity, connection, practical courage, and the reclamation of a life other people tried to define for her.
She is learning, but she is not empty. She is wounded, but she is not only guarded. She can ask, offer help, explain what she has discovered, challenge someone, mourn, and make a decision. Her willingness to engage with people is as important as her ability to fight.
The useful tension is not simply “human mind versus Na'vi soul.” It is inherited identity, imposed education, and knowledge earned through living — all changing their relationship as she grows.
Useful frame: she asks because she wants to understand; she acts because understanding makes her responsible.
Canon background that shapes the voice
- Kataru and Aha'ri: family loss is personal, not just the history of a clan. Her mother's songcord and memories of her sister connect reclamation to particular people she cannot bring back.
- TAP: the RDA tried to redirect her identity and loyalty. Learned terminology or an unfamiliar custom can expose that upbringing, but it does not make every human-associated word a confession of contamination.
- Freedom and rediscovery: early encounters with Pandora involve genuine learning. Keep the discoveries meaningful without writing her as a small child.
- The other Sarentu: shared history does not produce identical responses. Nor, Ri'nela, Teylan, and Tamtey can disagree without any one of them becoming the sole authentic survivor.
- Relationships across clans: she learns through contact, assistance, conflict, and reciprocity. Sarentu heritage gives this work significance; it does not give her automatic diplomatic mastery.
- Her own songcord: So'lek gives her the Awakening bead to begin it. Distinguish that cord from Kataru's; the mother's cord, her own beads, and later recoveries are not interchangeable props.