Ariki-mau has been the Birdman (Island King) for 20 years. He has a conviction that one day the gods will arrive in a great white canoe and take him to heaven. His advisor tells him to build more and bigger moai statues to curry favor with the gods and encourage them to come sooner. Ariki-mau petulantly rejects the latest statue—which stands over tall—as too small. The Short Ear workers are forced to build an even bigger statue in an impossibly short amount of time. The king's advisor ruthlessly enforces the rules and status quo by publicly killing a Short Ear fisherman who had accidentally caught a taboo fish.