Pando is a plant of Avalonia featured in Disney's 2022 animated feature film Strange World as the true main antagonist.
While initially used to improve the living conditions and modernize technology within Avalonia's human civilization, it was eventually revealed to be a parasitic form of life that was slowly killing its host, a massive turtle-like creature upon which Avalonia rested.
Background
Physical appearance
Pando is a green plant with a large skinny stem in the center of the three leaves. Below the plant's leaves, is a enlarged stem covered in green pods which glow and generate electricity.
Effects
Pando is capable of absorbing electricity from its host's heart and generate that energy into its own.
Usage
Due to Pando's pods generating electricity, the pods are used to power up anything the people of Avalonia used in their daily lives. The pods can power up a vehicle's engine, help provide electricity to people's homes, and act as batteries to certain devices such as a coffee maker.
Role in the film
While a teenage Searcher Clade ventured through an ice cave with his father and Callisto Mal during an expedition to make over the mountains and find what is beyond, he notices a bunch of the pando plants growing behind some ice. Curious of the plant, Searcher goes to touch the plant, only to be zapped by its pods. His yelping in pain causes giant icicles to start falling down where Searcher and the expedition team to barely make it out of the cave alive. However, Searcher is able to find more the Pando plants where he shows them to the expedition team where they decide that the plant is a good discovery to make, leaving Searcher's father, Jaeger to continue exploring the mountains alone.
Years later, Pando and the energy it created had been used to completely improve the quality of life within Avalonia's civilization. Various amounts of technology were created and used by the citizens of the kingdom, all of which is powered by the pods from Pando. Meanwhile, Searcher Clade had started farm, one of many, for the plant and became a national hero for being the one to discover it.
However, Pando was not the miracle everyone thought it to be. In actuality, it was not generating energy all by itself but leeching it off the heart of a gigantic turtle-like creature where Avalonia lies on its shell. This revealed Pando was really a parasitic lifeform that was slowly killing its host. At this point, the creature's immune system started attacking Pando at the heart in an effort to save the former and in response to this, Pando began rerouting its energy in order to protect itself and keep the body defenses at bay. The immune system was relentless in its attacks as it gradually weakened Pando and eventually, this led to the plants up top in Avalonia to start dying out.
Unaware of Pando's true nature and believing it to be sick, Searcher Clade alongside his wife, son, Callisto, and crew of explorers set out to find the source of Pando in order to maintain the energy it provided. This led to the discovery of the Strange World which was the inside of the creature's body and Searcher reuniting with his father, Jaeger Clade who joins the expedition so as to achieve his own goals.
However, once Pando's true nature is revealed, the Clades along with the creatures that are inhabiting the inside of this beast destroy the root of it, causing all of the plants on the surface to die out.
Trivia
- The name "Pando" is of Latin origin meaning "I spread".
- Pando is also the name of a real-life organism which shares an interconnected root system.
- Pando is a metaphor for fossil fuels, which in the real world have brought humanity great comfort and prosperity, but at the same time are slowly destroying the planet.
- A cut character by the name of Petey Pando was the mascot of the Pando in Avalonia. While he may be cut out of the film, the image of him can be seen in the billboards around Avalonia.
- The plant's name is also shared with a character from the fictional "Crowbar Jones" movies created by the character Grizzly Bear (aka "Grizz") from the Cartoon Network series, We Bare Bears.
- If one looks closely onto the package of Pando, they cay see the text "WDAS61" engraved on it. This is a reference to Walt Disney Animation Studios.
- Pando is similar to marijuana and other drug plants where humans use them to bring themselves comfort and peace when using drugs actually destroys their body's cells and slowly kills them.
- It is a pun on the animal Panda.
v - e - d  | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|