The Messed Up Origins™ of Moana | Disney Explained - Jon Solo

this video is brought to you by the disney collect app [Music] what is going on solo fam my name is john solo and yes i'm growing a beard are you happy i acknowledged it now listen i understand that in the three years of doing this show i've always been pretty clean-shaven and that it's a bit jarring to change it up like this but i just wanted to try something new honestly i always held off on growing any kind of facial hair out of fear that it would just look like an old toupee was glued to my face but at the start of december i just said screw it let's see what this thing can do turns out it doesn't look half bad and i say half because it seems like half you love it and the other half are ironically reacting like those little babies when they see their dad clean shaven for the first time regardless it's not going to be here forever it'll get to a point where i think it's either annoying or ugly then i'll shave it off and start from scratch then it'll grow back and i'll shave it again tis the circle of life as king mufasa once said but actually i'm here to talk about another disney film that slowly climbed its way up my list of favorites moana for those who are new here we've done two episodes breaking down the mythology that inspired the movie's plot one comparing the mythical maui to disney's maui and another comparing the goddesses that served as inspiration for te ka pele but today i want to close out this moana miniseries by dissecting the deities that te fiti the ocean spirit and even moana herself may have been inspired by those of you who like weird mythology that's filled with violence and incest are in for a real treat today but first i gotta say thanks to our sponsor and friend of the solo fam the disney collect app so if you're anything like me a disney fan who loves collecting memorabilia from all my favorite movies then the disney collect app was pretty much made for you it's an app that allows you to collect virtual trading cards featuring all your favorite disney characters and i mean all of them whether they're from disney's earliest cartoons your favorites from when you were a kid or even their newer films if the character has a name they probably have a card building your collection is also super simple there's new missions to complete every single day and week an arcade where you can earn bonus cards through making wishes and even a store where you can buy packs with a certain theme you know i picked up that john ratzenberger collection as soon as i saw it then you can use the cards you collect to complete sets craft them into rare cards or even trade them with disney fans around the world like me i'm also excited to announce that we're partnering with disney collect to bring you another exclusive set this time with a moana theme it features some real cool never before seen art of the characters a die-cut set inspired by maui's tattoos and a custom animated tattoo set which has got to be my favorite disney collect released the set with the solo fam specifically in mind so it's only polite that you go check them out just follow my download link in the description then find the moana collection in the central store and make sure you add me on there so we can do some trade username is real john solo and my profile picture is dumbo because he's the cutest and we're back you know sometimes i feel like sponsor jon really hogs you guys now for those who haven't seen moana since the last time we did one of these episodes let's do a quick review of the plot according to the creation story that grandma tala tells in the early days of the earth there was only ocean until the goddess tefiti emerged her heart had the power to create life and she shared it with the world spawning humans and giving us land to build our homes on earning her the epithet mother island one day the trickster god maui steals her heart which causes her to lose all of her love for mankind and soon everything she created for us becomes infected with a plague and rots away but never fear the ocean itself chooses a powerful young maiden named moana to be the savior of her homeland and with the help of maui the ocean spirit and even her chicken heihei she restores the heart of te fiti and lives happily ever after i think the best place to start this breakdown off would be with the origins of te fiti the mother island as grand matala calls her in my estimation there are two polynesian goddesses that resemble her the most papa hanamoku also known as mother island and haumea another earth deity who's also the goddess of fertility in childbirth depending on where you're asking those two goddesses may be combined into one but we're going to talk about them individually first papahanaumoku or papa as she is thankfully called she's basically been around since the very beginning worshiped all across polynesia as a primordial force of creation with the power to create life and heal she's the wife and consort of the sky god wakiya and they personify creative female power and creative male power respectively anyone else noticed the similarity with gaia and uranus and the greek creation myth interesting how so many of these creation stories start with the union of the earth and sky similar to how te fiti created the islands in the movie in hawaiian mythology papa gave birth to the islands after being impregnated by wakiya and their children went on to be known as hawaii maui oahu and kawaii giving birth to islands that had to hurt huh well after that process was done and the islands were born they decided to have another child and their daughter huoho kukalani was born and get this that's not even her full name no her actual name is that and it could be translated to she who sets the stars in heaven and adorns the celestial regions honestly i think i'd rather say that every single time than even try to pronounce it the original way anyway there is one particularly weird myth that their new daughter is known for and it definitely gives off greek mythology vibes on account of the incest you see as huojo got older her father wakiyah became enchanted by her beauty but because she was still young and because he was terrified of angering his wife papa he had to come up with a plan to secretly seduce her one day he orders a priest to take papa on a journey to another island and while she was gone he had intercourse with her daughter which led to her getting pregnant as you'd expect when papa returned home and found out about this she was furious but all of that anger was drained away after huo ho's son was stillborn papa took it upon herself to name the baby haloa which means eternal breath and then buried it facing the rising sun in the east and then from the spot he was buried sprouted the taro plant which was very important to hawaiian diets back in the day the story isn't over yet though later on waki and huoho have another baby they also name haloa and in some regions he's considered the first of the native hawaiian people so there you go a bit more complicated than te fiti just rising out of the ocean and waving her hands around but similar enough that i think they definitely could have taken inspiration from it and to take it a step further i want to touch on the concept of aloha aina which was definitely mispronounced it can be translated to love of the land and is a concept slash way of life that pervades many aspects of hawaiian culture from the spiritual to the social and even scientific the belief is founded upon a sense of being connected to all living things and many hawaiians embrace it with the intention of improving the well-being of their homeland and its many children the goddess papa is a central figure to this movement as she's the one who is being abused by mankind and i can't help but see a connection between this and maui's ignorance when stealing her heart sounds to me like it could have been the seed the movie's final plot sprouted from and as great of a spot as that would be to wrap this section up we can't forget the other goddess who may have influenced the te fiti character and that's how mia the goddess of fertility in childbirth it should be mentioned that depending on who you're asking she and papa may be the same goddess which makes sense because there's some overlap in their domains and they're both some of the most ancient deities that hawaiians worship but when she's not being conflated with papa hamiya is said to be the wife of the god kanaloa and mother of many important deities like pele hiyaka and namaka something i want you to remember for next section according to myth she carries a magical stick called the makale which attracts fish and helps produce food it also gives her the ability to transform from a wrinkly old woman into a pretty young thing which is useful for reproduction purposes see apparently every couple hundred years or so haumia will return to her homeland and marry one of her children or grandchildren to create the next generation of humans then she'll stick around for a few more generations which ultimately leads to them discovering her identity and her storming off in anger then after some time passes and when everyone who can identify the goddess is either dead or too old to remember she'll come back as her younger self and the cycle repeats again not this movie as you can see that myth is also a bit more complicated than what we're told in moana and there's actually one more story that explains the important role how mia had in human reproduction one day the goddess overhears the daughter of a famous hawaiian chief crying out in pain while in labor and after checking in on her she discovers the only way humans gave birth was by cutting open the stomach of the mother like a c-section the goddess proceeded to make the chief's daughter a pain potion out of flowers from the connie cowy tree and after drinking it she was able to push the baby out and ever since then that's primarily how humans have given birth so that was the mythology behind the polynesian goddesses who inspired te fiti but our work is not done yet so if you watched my last moana episode where i explained how pele the volcano goddess was the inspiration for taka then you should remember me mentioning her sister namaka goddess of the ocean and considered to be her polar opposite we talked about how pele and namaka never got along due to them embodying conflicting elements and how pele slept with namaka's husband this led to the sea goddess hunting her sister down and beating her half to death multiple times and as a consequence of lava and water combining during their battles the hawaiian islands grew in size i am sad to say that's pretty much the only myth that namaka is known for and there isn't much if any mythology about her that i didn't already cover in the last episode but while researching for this one i found myself on a fascinating train of thought see originally when i started writing this video i was under the impression that namaka was the inspiration for te fiti because the two were opposites of pele and taka respectively but as you can tell from the previous section i no longer believe that to be true now i think that the ocean spirit who guides moana to her destiny was namaka and if you're willing to hear me out i want to make my case that's right we're getting back into the old cartoon conspiracy theories today so for starters there's the obvious connection to the water if namaka or a disney-fied version of her does exist in moana's universe then she's no doubt responsible for the ocean's behavior which means she's the one who chose moana to return to fity's heart but then that leaves us with the question why would she get involved well judging from the movie's epic final battle i get the vibe that just like in the mythos the volcano goddess doesn't really get along with the ocean goddess i mean because of their very nature she can't even touch her without feeling extreme pain on top of that papa the goddess that inspired te fiti is often combined with haumea the mother of namaka and pele so what if in moana's universe te fiti is the mother of the ocean spirit and when the ocean saw that its mother was being taken over by this vengeful destructive being she was motivated to help now some of you might point out that te fiti's heart was initially lost in the ocean and if it really wanted to help it could have just returned it to her if the ocean's so smart why didn't it just take the heart back to te fiti itself the ocean straight up kooky dukes but remember the ocean is fundamentally incompatible with her fiery alter ego if she didn't have somebody else deliver the goods taka could have become so angered by namaka's possession of her heart who knows what her reaction would have been she could have tossed it aside as a way of saying i don't need your help or been so infuriated that her rival had it that she took her vengeance out on the humans her heart was stolen for with an eruption that blocked out the sun i think that namaka knew the safest way to restore peace to her mother's soul would be if the original thief and his would-be benefactor returned it themselves and apologized and since moana was the most capable for the journey she was chosen now to reiterate this is just a theory i came up with while researching for this episode but i'm just saying if disney needs any ideas for where to take the moana series they're launching in a couple of years i think this would be a great starting point for expanding the universe i mean come on how cool would it be if we got to see even more disney characters inspired by polynesian deities even if there are a few deviations away from the source material i think the majority of viewers would be ecstatic to see even more beautifully animated characters from that culture speaking of there is one more character i want to talk about before we wrap this episode up and that's moana herself what you didn't think that we'd close out the moana series without talking about the character it's named after did you so for the most part moana is a completely original character no god or goddess has served as direct inspiration for her creation that being said there's another water goddess named moana nui kalahua who has her own interaction with maui that i think may traumatize some of our younger viewers i don't want to hype it up too much but if you thought it was mean for maui to throw her off the boat or moana to stick a blow dart in his butt cheek you may be better off skipping this part so moana nui kalahua or as i like to call her moana was a polynesian water goddess who appeared as a fish or mermaid depending on the telling and was responsible for guarding the kae channel between the kawaii and oahu islands one day she catches maui fishing in her waters which she does not appreciate at all and because like maui she's a bit of a troublemaker she decides to play a prank on him by taking his magical fishing hook and sticking it into a submerged rock well after maui realized what happened he was furious and not one to be outpranked pursued moana in revenge after catching up to the goddess he grabs her by the tail and pulls her onto the shore where she slowly but surely suffocates and dies that's right in the original myth maui kills moana and honestly i think we should be allowed to deal with tick-tock pranksters in the same way the part i find funny about this though is that despite murdering her in a way that had to be just miserable he did still respect her along with the other gods so he built the shrine in her honor and buried her moana's spirit was then transformed and from the spot she was buried sprouted the aolia lahua which is one of hawaii's most sacred trees you know word on the street is there were nine different versions of the moana script before it was finalized and i can't help but wonder if any of them ended like this i mean obviously not but the idea of having something so savage animated by the geniuses in disney studio sounds so awesome to me i'm low-key still holding out hope that they'll buy the mortal kombat franchise i mean kano was in wreck-it ralph so my dreams aren't dead yet anyway on that note i do want to wrap this episode up so make sure you comment any and all of your thoughts down below and answer me this which of the polynesian deities that we've talked about has been your favorite was it the over ambitious maui the jealous and spiteful pele the warm and loving papa or one of the many others when you're finished letting me know make sure you also hit those like and subscribe buttons to get more content like this in your sub box and recommended feed if you haven't yet i've gotta ask that you follow me on social media to stay updated on messed up origins news like what new videos are coming out next and when you can expect them and of course follow gunther on instagram because he's about as close as a dog can get to sharing dna with heihei i'll see you folks again next week when we dive into some norse mythology as always my name is john solo and remember john shot first [Music] you

Channel: Jon Solo

Views: 1,522,375

Keywords: messed up origins, jon solo, jon solo mythology explained, jon solo disney explained, jon solo messed up origins, messed up origins moana, messed up origins maui, messed up origins te ka, messed up origins te fiti, polynesian mythology gods, polynesian mythology maui, polynesian mythology moana, namaka, papahanaumokuakea, hawaiian mythology, hawaiian mythology pele, pele and her sister, hawaiian creation story, moana series trailer, moana series disney plus, jon solo moana

Id: nm-IbYLG3tU

Length: 15min 17sec (917 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 21 2021