MovieChat Forums > Whale Rider (2003) Discussion > Holding onto the whale

Holding onto the whale

posted 18 years ago by Nezernator-1
6 replies | jump to latest

I know that Pai didn't die in the end of the film, but why did she feel she had to?
Just before she is about to go under with the whale she says "I wasn't afraid to die", holding on until she passed out.

[–] gkearns 18 years ago

I don't believe Pai felt she had to die. What she did was put her whole being into trying to get the whale to turn around and head out to sea again. After the tribe, chanting loudly, had tried forcibly to turn it around - and failed, she approached it, touched it lovingly, talked to it softly, and gently urged it to move with her little heels, as you would with a horse. The whale responded and did turn around and move out to sea. Moving away from the beach she realized she might drown, and looking back, murmured reasurringly as if to her grandfather, "It's all right, Paka. I'm not scared to die." This so he wouldn't be frightened for her.

Gordon

I'm Nobody! Who are you?

[–] Nezernator-1 18 years ago

Thanks, I didn't think much about it at first until my dad brought it to my attention.

[–] guy_anisimov 17 years ago

in one part Paka says that if this one whale will move all will follow, did they follow in the end?
i remember when her father's brother turns around and says that the whale is gone we still can see all the others laying on the shore...
any ideas?

[–] przgzr 17 years ago

Also, after she was repeatedly rejected by her grandfather, this was the way she was proving herself (and her grandfather who she still loved) how courageous she was, that she was capable of all those things she was forbidden to do, expressing the feeling of injustice that she suffered after being expelled from the group. This is a reaction of a proud and strong person who was harmed.

[–] 17 years ago

[deleted]

[–] ayh123 13 years ago

It seemed to be an attempted suicide. She could have let go and tried to swim back to shore. But she felt her grandfather was never going to accept her, and the whales represented so much of her spiritual home; she wanted to go back because she didn't think she was helping her village, and she might help by leaving. I mean I don't think this was a logical decision she made, but one borne out of a lot of grief. Her grandfather really made her feel that she shouldn't be alive anyway.