Spoiler
warning up front: I’m talking
specifically about the ending of Moana
today in full detail. Consider yourself
warned.
In
their quest to return the heart of Te Fiti to its rightful place, Moana and
Maui come up against several baddies eager to claim the heart for
themselves. Our heroes Mad Max their way out of the clutches of
the kakamora and use their wits to evade the sinister-yet-shiny Tamatoa. But by far, their most formidable foe is the
volcano demon Te Ka, who’s set up camp in the border islands around Te Fiti and
is determined to take the heart from them at all costs. I’d wager more than one little kid at the
theater has wept in fear seeing Te Ka’s looming figure and terrifying
destructive power. At first, the movie
sets you up to expect a titantic rematch between Te Ka and Maui in which the
demigod vanquishes the demon once and for all, and then things take a different
turn when it looks like the key will lie in Moana’s intelligence, bravery, and
sailing prowess to slip past Te Ka and out of its reach.
But
that right there is where the film flips your expectations again. Having gotten past the monster, approaching
the island she’s traveled so far to get to, Moana is gobsmacked to see that Te
Fiti isn’t there. It’s straight-up
vanished from the sea, leaving only an off-color lagoon taking its shape where
it formerly lay.
And
Moana realizes what’s up. As Maui
fierces battles Te Ka, the demon is distracted by the glow of the heart as
Moana holds it high above her head. It
locks eyes with her, and Moana speaks to the ocean that has been her ally
through this adventure: “Let her come to
me.”
Because
Te Ka is Te Fiti. When Maui stole her heart all those years
ago, the lush island of serenity became a fiery monster of rage, yowling as it
tried to burn down the sky in order to recover the lost part of itself.
The
waters part to allow Te Ka passage to Moana.
She, the demon that was once Te Fiti, doesn’t understand what’s
happening yet. It only knows that
there’s nothing it won’t destroy to get its heart back, and it races and roils
along the dry bed of the sea toward the chief’s daughter who waits for her,
unafraid. As the monster bears down on
her, Moana sings, “I have crossed the horizon to find you. / I know your name.
/ They have stolen the heart from inside you, / But this does not define you.”
I love
this so, so much. Since I saw the two
movies in fairly quick succession, I was struck by the similarities with the
Obscurial in Fantastic Beasts and Where
to Find Them. Te Ka is not a villain
– she’s an unbridled force of pain and fury, unable to be who she is without
the heart she so desperately needs. This
is such a sophisticated idea, that darkness can be born of loss, that anger or
grief can reform us into something we can no longer recognize as
ourselves. And, too, I love that the day
isn’t saved by a battle, or even by outsmarting the “bad guy.” It’s saved by compassion, by a young woman
holding her ground while fire descends and saying, something awful was done to you, but don’t let it make you into
something awful. Let me help you find
your way back to yourself. Gorgeous,
gorgeous, gorgeous. Disney has been
knocking it out of the park lately, and the resolution to this story ensures
that it will stick with me for a long time.
Late to comment and obviously watched it when it came out but its a beautiful reminder of a worthy concept. Thank you for writing it.
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