Matangi

Matangi is the secondary antagonist turned into supporting protagonist in Disney's 2024 animated feature film Moana 2. She is an eccentric, bat-themed entity who serves as an enforcer for Nalo, the God of Storms.

Background

Physical appearance

Matangi is a tall woman with rather dark olive skin, a small beauty mark beneath her left eye, and long, wavy and black hair that is tied back into a tight high-ponytail with a decorative hairpiece. She doesn't seem to be fully human due to her purple eyes, vampire-like fangs, and the fact that she has a rather slim, almost bony figure which is a sheer contrast to the other characters' stockier/muscular builds. Her eyes occasionally appear brown but sometimes glow, and she moves likes a bat. Above her left knee, she has a tattoo that goes up her leg.

She wears a strapless black dress with orange trimmings and a decorative sash with a seashell band around the waist. To go with her bat motif, she sports a cape with a pattern of bats all over it, and it also features an orange feathered collar, seemingly to invoke the neck fur of a flying fox.

Powers and abilities

Matangi possesses supernatural abilities, some of which are vampire-like. She can scale walls, move at superhuman speeds, and has quick agility and reflexes. She can also fly and levitate, and control a massive colony of bats to do her bidding.

Trivia

• Matangi is based on Leutogi, a princess-turned-goddess associated with Samoan Flying Foxes.
• "Matangi" is the generic term used throughout Oceania to designate the breeze and/or wind^[1]. It is present in the majority of Polynesian languages, in different forms (ex: Reo tahiti: Mata'i, Gagana Samoa: Matagi, 'Ōlelo Hawai'i: Makani). Wind is one of the primordial elements in ocean navigation, but also in the cult of the first Polynesians^[2]. According to Teuira Henry, in Tahiti Ratairi was the god and father of the wind, and Temuri was its mother and goddess^[3].
  • Matangi is also the name of a Hindu goddess of wisdom, arts, the spoken word and supernatural powers.
• Matangi's voice actress, Awhimai Fraser, also voiced Elsa and Dolores Madrigal in the Māori dubs of Disney's previous films, Frozen and Encanto. She also plays Maia on the New Zealand kids show, Toi Time.
• The movie never addresses if she is a demigoddess or another supernatural humanoid being. She calls herself simply a "guardian", but she may have been lying; she seems to be subtly manipulating Moana throughout her whole sequence with her.
• Her actual alignment and motivations are never exactly stated. Though she is serving a penance with Nalo, stuck at an island, and makes it sound like she's not happy to be there when talking to Moana, she darkly flirts with Maui and seems to quite enjoy scaring him. She seems a rather neutral figure, though menacing, as she did want Moana to find the island so she could go free, but lied to Nalo about it and also enjoys the general darkness.
• It's shown at a post-credits scene, she is most likely still stuck with Nalo, as he claims she has another penance to give.

Gallery

Screenshots

Miscellaneous

References

External links

• Matangi on Moana Wiki