There’s nothing quite as heartbreaking for a pacifist king than to see his people pay the worst price for his fight for peace. But there’s also nothing worse for a kingdom facing multipronged attacks from ferocious forces than an indecisive king. Kamehameha has a lot to learn in his quest to fulfil the elusive prophecy. But the first thing he needs to be sure about is his own vision and the ability to be rational in the face of extreme pressure. In the 8th episode of Chief of War, Ka’iana and the Prophesied King are lost in a sea of grief. But they better get their hands on the rudder soon. The danger of Hawai’i being crushed between Keoua’s fury, Kahekili’s madness, and the Europeans’ violence is all too real.
Spoiler Alert
Why is Kamehameha in two minds?
The shores of the outer villages of Kohala take the slaughtered native people’s blood into the sea, and there’s almost this sense that they’re becoming one with the Pacific in their end. Agony has overtaken the entirety of Kamehameha’s district. To Ka’iana’s horror, Waine’e, the unlikely friend he made on his trip to Zamboanga, has lost her life in the attack by Metcalfe. Mangled bodies and the cries of the people who loved them pierce Kamehameha’s ears and heart. This could’ve been avoided had he taken Ka’iana’s warnings seriously and done something to deal with the Europeans. But Kamehameha chose to embody the example he’s trying to set–he wants a Hawai’i where people don’t kill people. But people died anyway; his people. That doesn’t mean he’s immediately crossed over to Ka’iana’s side. Not as long as Moku has his ear. On the shores holding the dead, Kupuohi could somehow hold Ka’iana back from going at Kamehameha’s throat. But he ends up lashing out at Kamehameha at his court anyway. And you know how men tend to resolve things. It ends with a fight between Ka’iana and Moku, and Moku threatening to stab Ka’iana. But it ultimately resolves nothing. Moku doesn’t think the tragedy that has transpired is Kamehameha’s responsibility. He can conveniently pin this on Ka’iana because he went rogue and attacked Metcalfe on his ship. Moku has convinced himself and planted the idea in Kamehameha’s mind that the blood of his people is on Ka’iana’s hands. He thinks the English only retaliated because Ka’iana attacked them first. A divide between Ka’iana and Kamehameha can only inflate Moku’s power in Kamehameha’s court. So it makes sense that he’d be so keen on maligning Ka’iana. It has somewhat worked on Kamehameha. He doesn’t want anything to do with Ka’iana anymore. And because Ka’ahumanu speaks for him, he wishes to do away with her counsel as well. In the court of men, Ka’ahumanu’s power threatens even her own father into being so insecure that he wants her to doubt herself. But Ka’ahumanu is not a puppet in his hands. She knows better than to take her father and her husband’s rejection of her ideas to heart. Her priority is a united, peaceful Hawai’i. And if she has to muffle the pain of being tossed aside and rejected and still pick herself up and do the right thing, she has the strength to pull it off.
Does Keoua attack Kohala?
Now that Kamehameha no longer stands with him, Ka’iana and his family have lost their way again. Namake may still believe in the prophecy and wait for the gods to tell him where to go, but Ka’iana knows what has come to these lands. He doesn’t want to spend any more time in Kohala, and he’s put his foot down about everyone following him back to Kaua’i. But this time, oddly enough, the person who’s against this decision is Nahi. He’s always followed Ka’iana without question. But Nahi has never abandoned people when they’re in need of courage and support, and he sure as hell has never seen Ka’iana run from a challenge either. So he’s quite taken aback to see his warrior brother cower in fear. Nahi will follow his own virtues this time. Heke didn’t want to leave either. So I bet she’s happy to see that the man that she’s fallen for shares the same empathy for the people who’ve died and their kin. But one thing does scare Nahi. When Heke’s ceremonial planting of a bulb echoes with her grief over the people who are gone, it makes Nahi wonder how she’d deal with it if something were to happen to him in the war to come. And while Heke may not even want to believe that war is about to come, it’s already arrived. Kupule’s romantic partner and counsel has finally talked some sense into him. He’s agreed to seek support from the Maui chiefs to take his father’s place in the kingdom. Kupule has come to this place after a long, excruciating wait for his father to wake up from his nightmarish version of the prophecy. But by now, Kahekili is too far gone to come back. He’s an absolute madman as he destroys the altar he’s made for the god of thunder. He’s so hungry for murder that these bones have lost their spiritual value to him. He wants new bones for his altar. And he wants them madly enough to even stab his own son when he tries to calm him down. Kupule’s chances don’t look good. And even though Kahekili’s immediately overcome by regret and fear, he can’t undo the damage he’s done–not this, and certainly not the devastating ordeal he’s set into motion by sending Opunui to fight alongside Keoua. They’ve taken over the sacred Niu grove in Kohala and captured the overseer. Keoua never intended to fight a clean war. So it makes sense that his first act is the desecration of a sacred place by having his men ax down trees. It’s really unfortunate that Nahi and Heke were resting close by. When they’re inevitably captured by Keoua’s men, Heke runs, and Nahi proves that fear isn’t a word in his dictionary. He takes on a diabolical warrior like Keoua alone, and even though he knows that this is not a fight he can win, he truly gives it his best shot. But Keoua has only excelled in the physical skills of fighting. He is the farthest thing from a respectable warrior. He could’ve finished off Nahi in a second. But he wanted to send a terrifying message through his painful death. So he kept him alive until he crushed his head with a stone. And while he does let Heke go so that she can tell Kamehameha about his arrival, I don’t think Opunui let her go unharmed. By the sight of her state as she washes herself in a stream, and Opunui claim that he had his own message to send when he accompanied her, I think he forced himself on her. War is at Kamehameha’s doorstep. And Ka’iana and his family have been hit by unthinkable tragedies. This is hardly a state that inspires a whole lot of rational thinking. But that’s just the need of the hour.
Do Kamehameha And Ka’iana Join Hands?
Ka’ahumanu has kind of made her peace with the possibility that she’ll always be in a tight spot when it comes to the advice her husband seeks from her. There’s this pressure to tell him what he wants to hear, and there’s the responsibility Ka’ahumanu has to her home and her people. So when Kamehameha inevitably comes around and asks her if he’s made a mistake by not aligning with Ka’iana, Ka’ahumanu keeps her mouth shut. She knows better than to make her husband doubt herself. She knows that he’ll go with what he thinks is best. So she’d rather not get into a conflict with him now. And when Keoua strikes first, and Kamehameha needs to give an answer to his cousin, he isn’t in denial about the war he has to wage anymore. But he’s made up his mind about not including Ka’iana’s red mouthed weapons in his arsenal. His army will fight the old fashioned way. And he believes that, with the war god on his side, he will beat Keoua without Ka’iana’s help. There’s no way Ka’ahumanu is naive enough to agree with this. And she’s not the only one having trouble trying to get her stubborn husband to listen to reason.
In the 8th episode of Chief of War, Kupuohi wants to take another shot at her marriage with Ka’iana. They’ve always been stronger together. And after going through a terrible wake up call and realizing that Ka’iana was right about the Paleskin, Kupuohi knows that the only way they’re gonna make it is if they combine their strengths. It gets practically impossible for Kupuohi to talk any sense into Ka’iana when Keoua kills Nahi. A grieving Ka’iana knows only vengeance. He’s gearing up to go fight Keoua alone, and the only people he wants to take with him are his family. The only person who’s able to make him recognize the unthinkable consequences of the mistake he’s about to make is Ka’ahumanu. She reminds him that no matter how much pain he’s going through, trying to face Kau and Maui alone would be a suicide mission. But there’s one more person who needs a reality check. Kupuohi isn’t a representative of her husband when she shows up at Kamehameha’s court. She wants to share her truth with the Prophesied King and hopefully keep him from making a terrible mistake. What convinces Kamehameha that he should believe her is the confidence she says it with. As a warrior and a wise woman, she knows that the war god alone can never win Kamehameha’s war. Through Ka’iana, the red mouthed weapons are the blessings Ku has sent for the Prophesied King.
In episode 8’s ending, Kamehameha and Ka’iana come to a much needed understanding. They both realize that while their drives and motivations might be different, their singular goal of a united Hawai’i can only be achieved if they work together. Kamehameha has had his fair share of trouble hearing the gods. And now he thinks that maybe his god is speaking through Ka’iana’s red mouthed weapons. The gods may be granted all the credit by men, but the kingdoms they’re trying to save and unite would be nowhere if it wasn’t for the sound minds of the women advising their chiefs. Ka’ahumanu and Kupuohi may just have saved a lot of lives. The gods may not speak to them, but they’ve protected the prophecy from the follies of men. Speaking of gods, Keoua is favored to win by his worship. He’s sacrificed the overseer of the Niu grove to his god. And its growling eruption in the ending of episode 8, is a sign that his god has blessed him. But the overseer did tell him that the gods who protect the sacred grove will kill anyone who disrespects it. So alongside their mortal representatives, the gods will be fighting their own war in the final episode of Chief of War.
