Gaius Scaevola

I love Moana because it accidentally exposes the evil of its own worldview. On the surface Moana “fulfills her destiny” by going on a girl boss adventure and saving the day, restoring the balance of nature, returning the heart of Te Fiti. But the villain is the feminine itself. And there’s no masculine order. It’s completely absent. The story becomes a symbolic case study of exactly what happens when you remove masculine order. Maui is an inconsequential child in the story, a mere plot point, neither hero nor villain (no more relevant than Moana’s pet chicken). The blight. The death. The lava monster Te Ka is the archetypal “devouring mother”, which is the true villain. Te Fiti is Te Ka is the point of the story. And even after “restoring balance”, Moana puts a conch shell on top of the stack of stones symbolizing the generations of her family. You can’t stack anything on top of the shell. And this ends her family. Moana is now Te Ka, they leave the island as if Te Ka destroyed it. The entire culture and civilization on that island is dead. And the new “feminine” people (Te Ka) go out into the sea, into aimless chaos, not a single person left on the island. No tradition, no art, no culture, nothing is preserved. Moana becomes exactly like Te Ka, the devouring mother. Note that Te Fiti rested, she stays in one place and nurtures life (exactly as the masculine order of Moana’s father was doing). Te Ka is on the move, devouring life and never nurturing life. Most explorers return home, and map out the world in relation to their home. But not Moana. She’s not exploring, she’s simply taking her people into permanent chaos. I’ve honestly never seen a better depiction of the devouring mother archetype than Moana. It’s quite brilliant.