If the Ocean has spent ~15 years setting up Moana to restore the heart of Te Fiti, and if the primary obstacle to making that happen is Te Ka, a lava monster weak to water, why doesn’t the Ocean run interference on Te Ka the first time Moana encounters her? Like, do the exact same thing Maui did in the climax with the whale splashing and the cutting off of appendages with the fish hook, except the Ocean is too big to be meaningfully retaliated against and has an indefinite supply of water with which to keep Te Ka at bay.
Unrelated note, at some point WordPress started attaching the clock to my current time zone, which is why a few weeks back we stopped updating at noon for GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) and started updating at noon for GMT (GLORIOUS MOUNTAIN TIME). I’m traveling this week, so expect to see the update schedule bounce around a little bit.