Who is Nalo? The Mythological Origins of Moana 2’s Villain

Every good movie needs to have a very bad bad guy. So, with Moana 2 being a great movie, it makes sense that it stars a super nasty villain, one who delights in causing chaos for our plucky band of heroes. Nalo is just such a super nasty villain; in fact, he might just be the evilest of evil-doers ever to grace a Disney animated adventure.

Now, you won’t find any spoilers for Moana 2 in this blog, instead we’ll just be looking at the actual Myths behind Nalo, the god of storms; astonishing stories first told by the Polynesian people centuries ago. These tales were adapted by Disney to create their villainous vision of Nalo.

Nalo enjoys being a big scary storm cloud most days. Image from Moana 2.

In Māori mythology, the god of storms wasn’t called Nalo, he was named Tāwhirimātea. He wasn’t just the god of storms either, but the god of all weather; including thunder, lightning, and that annoying rainy drizzle you get on a Sunday morning. Tāwhirimātea is the son of Papatūānuku, the earth mother, and Ranginui, the sky father, and is the second eldest of seven siblings. Problem is, Tāwhirimātea freakin’ hates his six brothers (they may or may not have broken his favourite Transformer). To be fair, Tāwhirimātea had good reason for hating his bros, as they were intending on killing their – and his – parents. Apparently, they were fed up with their mum and dad for making them live in a dark cramped space between the earth and sky. Which is a bit like you planning on assassinating your parents because your bedroom is a bit small.

Anyway, to save his parents, Tāwhirimātea spends all his time chasing and attacking his brothers. He does this by lobbing his own children at them. But don’t worry, that doesn’t mean he flings a multitude of small crying babies at them, instead his children are things like clouds and the wind. Indeed, so carried away did Tāwhirimātea get with his child tossing, that the dark rain clouds he hurled at his brothers caused flooding down in the land below, leading to the creation of the oceans.

Our heroes take on Nalo in fish-form.

Now, I know what you’re thinking, Tāwhirimātea doesn’t sound particularly evil. Which is why Disney merged Tāwhirimātea with Whiro - the Maori god of evil - to create Nalo. Whiro’s full name is Whiro-te-tipua, and he is one of Tāwhirimātea’s six brothers. He’s probably the guy who suggested offing Mum and Dad in the first place. Whiro-te-tipua is the lord of darkness and all evil, with the Maori people imagining he looked like an enormous lizard. Hanging out in the underworld, Whiro-te-tipua eats people after they die and are buried. Each time he has a human midnight snack, Whiro gets stronger. This is a bit like the way Nalo gains strength by severing the connection between people and the ocean, only, you know, with more corpse chewing. Once Whiro is powerful enough, he’ll be able to break free from his prison and rampage across the Earth, destroying everyone and everything. Which is so Nalo.

So, there you have it, Nalo is a combination of the Māori gods Tāwhirimātea and Whiro-te-tipua and is all the more terrifyingly awesomely evil because of it!