Even for a show that’s led and created by Jason Momoa, there might be a tad too much of him in the first episode of Apple TV’s Chief of War. It wouldn’t have stood out in the otherwise decisive and solid setup that has its heart in the right place—keeping the story of Hawai’i close to its roots. But the problem is, almost all the anecdotes that get us familiar with the late 18th-century Hawaiian culture and traditions have Momoa at the center of them. That kind of takes away from the spontaneity, is all. But other than that, Chief of War does a promising job at setting the stage for a powerful shift in the political and spiritual landscape of the Islands of Hawai’i in the late 18th century. We haven’t met all the key players yet. But history remembers Ka’iana at the heart of the change. And so does Chief of War.
Spoiler Alert
Why did Ka’iana leave Maui?
The part of Hawai’i’s history that the narrator unveils for us owes a lot of its significant movements and positive shifts to a very real Hawaiian warrior, Ka’iana. He was a rare chief who saw the world outside of his native islands and learned about people and politics beyond his comfort zone. The Ka’iana we get to know in Chief of War has secluded himself from what he is most known for—winning battles for the King of Maui. It’s almost as if he’s in a state of disillusionment. He’s learned to be quiet about his dream of a Hawai’i where the four islands aren’t always at each other’s throats. He now prefers to use his strength where it matters—braving the sea and catching sharks to feed his family. The native awa root taints the water with its sedative qualities, but that can only do so much when it’s a relatively large shark. Considering how spiritually charged sharks are believed to be in native Hawaiian culture, it makes sense that Ka’iana’s sister-in-law, Heke, sees it as a good omen that Ka’iana managed to catch a big one. But the prayer that Ka’iana whispers to the shark has less to do with spiritual respect and more to do with who he is at his core. By appreciating the shark’s sacrifice for their sustenance, Ka’iana proves that he doesn’t take life for granted, animal or human. That can’t be a quality he has in common with the majority of the powerful people around him. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have had to leave his home island of Maui with his wife, Kupuohi, his two brothers, Namake and Nahi, and Namake’s wife, Heke. It couldn’t have been easy for them to reject the privileges of belonging to the family of King Kahekili’s chief of war and live far less dignified lives on the shore of Kaua’i. But Ka’iana’s not too far removed from his origin. He still has the cape and the headgear that speak of his stature. But his ali’i lineage isn’t something he likes to cling to. In fact, he’d rather people see him as an outcast than the son of Kahekili’s former Chief of War. And it’s only when Kahekili, the King of Maui, sends his men to bring his most skilled warrior back home that we get to know why Ka’iana left in the first place. As a weapon at Kahekili’s disposal, Ka’iana took more lives than he saved. He’s transcended his fellow men’s greed for the pride they derive from invading and killing. He may not know how he can do his part as the bringer of unity and peace yet, but he knows that he doesn’t want to kill in the name of power anymore.
Is King Kahekili lying about the prophecy?
The king’s reputation seems to precede him. Before we even meet Kahekili, we can paint a reasonable picture of him just by the nature of his “request” to Ka’iana. His men haven’t darkened Kaua’i’s shore with a respectful request. Instead, they’re here to threaten Ka’iana into bending to the King’s will. It’s evident from the way Kaua’i’s nobles feel so small around the men Maui’s king has sent that Kaua’i can’t match Maui’s hostility. Revered as the voice of the gods the people worship, the kings and queens define the very identities of their islands. So Maui’s tendency to dominate and intimidate can be chalked up to the way King Kahekili prefers to rule. That’s what made Ka’iana leave the king’s army in the first place. Being a killing machine who worked to bring his king the pride that he so desperately craves ate away at Ka’iana’s soul until he couldn’t take it anymore. But at the same time, he knows the price he’ll have to pay for disobeying the king’s orders. So when push comes to shove, no matter how much it may bother Ka’iana, he really has no choice but to respect the king’s summons. His strength is only compounded by his family’s support. But a couple things are clear from the way the King’s council badgers him every chance they get. They’re jealous of his grandiose strength. And they hate him for taking that away from their arsenal. So it really is only Ka’iana that the king and his people are interested in. And when you see him take down Nui, the very smug Maui warrior who’s been trying to get a reaction out of him, you know why the King wants him back. There’s this ancient prophecy at the heart of it all. Something that was foretold generations before Ka’iana and Kahekili came into being. A burning star draped in a feathered cape would indicate the coming of a king who would bring the four islands of Hawai’i together. Ka’iana’s longing for peace has been synonymous with his wait for the prophesied king. So the mention of the prophecy from Prince Kupule is bound to grab his hopeful attention. But something’s amiss about Kahekili’s narrative. He claims that his seers have seen visions of a vicious attack on them from the kingdom of O’ahu. But going by the peaceful dynamics between the political powers of Maui and O’ahu, it doesn’t make sense for O’ahu to want to disturb the harmony. O’ahu’s young King Hahana isn’t supposed to harbor any wish to invade Maui unless Maui were to draw first blood. So Ka’iana has reasons to question the King’s claims. He’s killed for Kahekili’s greed. So he knows just how far Kahekili needs to stretch his dominance in order to quench his thirst for power. But when the prophecy is brought into the conversation, and Kahekili sounds confident about his ability to be the king who’ll unite the islands, Ka’iana’s too hopeful to turn a deaf ear. Kahekili knows that, in order to bring O’ahu to its knees, he’ll need Ka’iana on his side. He once let him slip through his fingers. But he’s learned his lesson since then. He now knows that the only way he can count on Ka’iana’s support is if he convinces him that, paradoxically, this war will lead to peace. And by bringing the prophecy into the mix, he’s basically trying to manipulate Ka’iana into getting him the Kingdom of O’ahu. If it wasn’t for Nahi’s naive faith in the King, Ka’iana would’ve probably followed his gut and stayed out of the whole ordeal. But hope gets the better of him. He’s unable to trust his own knowledge of the king’s actual priorities. So despite knowing very well that Kahekili has never been a flagbearer of peace, Ka’iana questions his own instincts in favor of his faith in the prophecy.
Will Ka’iana go against Kahekili?
Ever since he met with Kahekili, Ka’iana has been in two minds, for sure. But he was still inclined to go with his guts until Kahekili decided to use the most effective tool on him. Ka’iana didn’t totally buy his story about O’ahu’s high priest conspiring to take over Maui and instigating the young king. But that only made Kahekili take his mind games up a notch and hit Ka’iana where it’ll hurt him. From the moment Ka’iana has come back to Maui, Kahekili has put on very gaudy shows of how much he misses Ka’iana’s father, his ex-chief of war. You know how little Kahekili values the memories of the man he says was his best friend when he uses his death to manipulate his son. Ka’iana’s father died in service of Kahekili’s greed. Kahekili believes that that’s why Ka’iana left his army in the first place. That’s why he’s come up with the idea of marionetting Ka’iana through his grief. He pulls out his strongest weapon when he figures that Ka’iana isn’t taking the bait. He’s set up a whole traumatic experience for Ka’iana to take a walk through. By claiming that O’ahu’s High Priest has desecrated his father’s bones in an ancient ritual to spark a war, Kahekili wants to get a rise out of Ka’iana. But while it does hurt him to revisit this pain, Ka’iana doesn’t fall for the greedy king’s machinations right away. He’s slowly pulled into it, sometimes even by fate. Taula, the white-eyed prophetess who speaks the visions that the gods send her, reaffirms Ka’iana’s faith in the ancient prophecy. He’s told that his time to join the fight for peace is knocking at his door. And that he needs to take his father’s hand and follow along. So it gets practically impossible for Ka’iana to deny the possibility that Kahekili might be the prophesied king, especially when Kahekili sends his father’s war club to him, which his wife believes is the same as his father’s hand. For him, it’s almost as though fate itself is pushing him to believe in this war. If there’s even the smallest chance that Kahekili can bring the warring islands together, Ka’iana has to do everything in his power to make that happen.
The first mistake Ka’iana makes is deciding to have complete faith in Kahekili. He’s found a way to invade O’ahu and keep the bloodshed to the minimum. Since their fight is with the High Priest, Ka’iana wants to capture him and spare young King Hahana. If King Kahekili’s fleet waits at the Waikiki shore and distracts the O’ahu army, Ka’iana can conquer the Temple of Refuge and make King Hahana surrender. This would be the way to go if Kahekili wanted to keep the violence and death in check. And since Ka’iana wants to know if Kahekili is the king who will work for peace, and he’s already agreed to do his part, he doesn’t want doubts to cloud his mind at this stage. But it doesn’t feel right when Ka’iana, his wife, and his brothers assault the O’ahu shore that leads to the temple. Necessary killing comes easy to warriors like them. But as they go further into the woods, and Ka’iana gets a vision of the prophetess, Taula, now with eyes all black and ominous, he looks visibly dazed. His father’s war club in his hand is an indomitable weapon. But when he sees that the people they’re killing are defenseless farmers, the blood on his father’s club doesn’t inspire him to think of a better future. The vision of Taula was probably his conscience checking in and reminding him that what he’s doing isn’t the right way to go. But it’s too late by the time Ka’iana realizes that Kahekili has played him like a fiddle. It was never Kahekili’s plan to take over O’ahu in a relatively calm, less tragic way. He never meant to wait by the shore of Waikiki. He’s always taken up his weapons for a singular purpose—the purpose of glory. He’s vicious enough to beat a harmless child to death in front of his father the moment he steps onto the island of O’ahu. The revolting glee on Kahekili’s face terrifies even his son, Prince Kupule. Honor isn’t a big priority when it comes to Kahekili’s achievements. He’s disrespectful enough to taint the hallowed grounds of the Temple of Refuge, a sanctuary to the people of O’ahu, with the blood of innocent people. And if I do say so myself, he even gets a concerning amount of thrill out of it. Ka’iana has been manipulated into backing a king whose sole purpose behind waging this war was to broaden the scope of his authority. Kahekili wants to rule by fear. Peace is the farthest thing from his mind when it comes to the plan he has for the islands. To Ka’iana’s horror, Kahekili saws the young king’s throat open with the weapon that Ka’iana made for him as a gift.
In Chief of War episode 1’s ending, King Hahana dies an excruciating death at the hands of someone he trusted, someone he even looked up to and idolized. The fundamentals of Kahekili’s power come from people’s faith in his connection with the gods. Named after the Hawaiian god of thunder, Kane-hekili, King Kahekili wanted to be seen as a god himself. He had one half of him tattooed in their traditional ink to resemble the god of thunder. But the only part of being hailed as the voice of God that he understands is power. Ka’iana’s tears for the people he’s killed in yet another pointless war make one thing clear. Kahekili is not the prophesied king. Ka’iana will soon come to know that the sign that the prophecy was about to take place, which was probably a comet in the sky that he had seen as a kid, wasn’t false. There actually is a king who’ll bring the four islands together under one rule and end the age of brutality forever. In the pages of Hawaiian history, King Kamehameha’s name glows as the brave unifier of the warring islands. He’s bound to show up in Chief of War soon and fix Ka’iana’s dwindling faith in the prophecy. Until then, Ka’iana is going to have to figure out how to hold off Kahekili. Price Kupule may wear a friendly face, but I don’t think he has Ka’iana’s best interest at heart.
