- “♫ I've been stuck a thousand years just fading, wading through the fears. This giant clam gets real old, my dear. So come real close I'll let you know how you can get out of here. ♫”
- ―Matangi singing "Get Lost"[src]
Matangi is the secondary antagonist turned into supporting character in the Disney's 2024 animated feature film Moana 2. She is an eccentric, bat-themed demigoddess and Nalo's enforcer seemingly against her will.
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[]
As a demigoddess, Matangi possesses supernatural abilities. Some of which are vampire-like. She can scale walls and has quick agility and reflexes. She can also fly and levitate. Furthermore, she is most likely immortal, given that she has been trapped in the clam for one thousand years and hasn't aged at all since then.
Role in the Film[]
Moana 2[]
TBA
Quotes[]
- " If you try to reconnect the people of the ocean, you will be destroyed!"
- "There's always another way to get where you need to go. You just have to think a little... different."
Trivia[]
- The name of the character (Matangi or Matagi) is the generic term used throughout Oceania to designate the breeze and/or wind. It is present in the majority of Polynesian languages, in different forms (ex: Reo Tahiti: Mata'i, Gagana Samoa: Matagi, 'Ōlelo Hawai'i: Makani and Te Reo Maori). Wind is one of the primordial elements in ocean navigation, but also in the cult of the first Polynesians. According to Teuira Henry, in Tahiti, Ratairi was the god and father of the wind, and Temuri was its mother and goddess.
- Matangi's voice actress, Awhimai Fraser, also voiced Elsa and Dolores Madrigal in the Māori dubs of Disney's previous films, Frozen and Encanto.
- The visual differences between Matangi’s appearance in the promo art and the film’s trailer suggest that she is capable of altering her form.
- Matangi is the second secondary antagonist in the Moana franchise who speaks after Tamatoa.
- Technically, it's never explicitly stated exactly what race of being Matangi is. It is certain that she's not an ordinary human, judging by her bat-like appearance and supernatural abilities, but she is never once said to be a demigoddess during the film.