Alright, I had a long introduction to a thread starting a breakdown of #OnyxEquinox episode 1, but I lost it and honestly, my mind just can't focus on anything except THAT scene.

So screw it.

Let's go over THAT scene.

(Mute me if you want to avoid spoilers!)

If you're new around these parts, welcome! You might want to give these threads a read because I'll be referring back to them often. https://twitter.com/ClickyPenned/status/1277387550303203331

These are four gods. Teōtl - god (singular). Tēteoh - gods (plural).

Youngest to oldest in *human* form:
Quetzalcōātl, Tezcatlipōca, Xīpe Totēc, and Huēhueteōtl**

**May not be Huēhueteōtl

Quetzalcōātl is easy. We see him and Tezcatlipōca transform throughout their extended conversation together.

However, as I brought up in a previous trailer, we also see that Quetzal has picked a young, poor boy whose main possession is a conch shell.

https://twitter.com/ClickyPenned/status/1302024888438239232

Tezcatlipōca is also pretty easy (if you weren't familiar with him before, I bet you are now!) - he picks a human that has attire the most similar to his regalia, and as he transforms, he gains his telltale facepaint, damaged leg, and smoke.

(Also I'm pretty sure his literal human avatar is wearing a belt FULL of conch shells, which is like, the pettiest but funniest thing he could pick to mess with Quetzal.)

If you've watched the episode, I bet this guy made you double take! He was by far the biggest surprise of the four (at the moment).

This is (very likely) Xīpe Totēc.

Often translated to "Our Lord, the Flayed One."

Xīpe was the god of maize regeneration (growth, harvest, death, rebirth) - his skin sloughed off the way maize sheds its husk, or individual maize kernels must lose their pericarp before consumption.

He was also the god of goldsmiths and merchants.

You'll recognize him because he's almost always depicted as wearing loose skin, shown as "extra" hands on his wrists or "cuffs" around his ankles.

He is arguably the most significant god almost NEVER shown in media.

To see him in an anime is - quite frankly - stunning.

The fourth one is a little odd because I think (??) someone made a mistake.

This figure *looks* and *acts* like Huēhueteōtl (as much as a vague three minute scene can show).

However, he is credited as Huītzilōpōchtli.

(thanks to @Majora__Z for pointing this out!)

While it is possible that this is Huītzilōpōchtli, it would be a very unusual depiction for him. Huītzilōpōchtli is almost always shown as a young warrior. Like Quetzal, he *should* be growing feathers in this scene (hummingbird and/or eagle feathers).

Huītzilōpōchtli also has stripes on his face similar to Tez, and he's usually armed with all his weapons (the shield, the atlatl, arrows).

So it's not implausible, but it would be an unusual choice for this scene, since the transformations for the others are clearer.

So I'm going to guess (??) that someone writing the credits made a small mistake here. The official account lists Cástulo Guerra as the voice of Mictlāntēcuhtli, so I think someone mixed up their gods here, and maybe wrote Huītzilōpōchtli when they meant one of the other two

So let's look at Huēhueteōtl, "the Old God."

Huēhueteōtl is the god of fire, volcanoes, the hearth, and lime/limestone. Alongside Quetzalcōātl, he's one of the oldest gods in the chronology of the pantheon, and alongside Xīpe, he's rarely depicted in media.

However, like Xīpe, he was one of the most important gods on a day-to-day basis, since the hearth was the center of every home.

In OE Ep 1, this figure begins to burn from his core (his center), and he draws ash from the hearth. He also starts to "explode" until he burns away.

So I would be surprised if this character was meant to be Huītzilōpōchtli: he's missing all of Huītzilō's characteristic symbols, and seems more representative of Huēhueteōtl.

(Huēhueteōtl is often shown with large earplugs, but many gods are, so I don't think that counts?)

Now, the conversation:

I've discussed the significance of blood and bloodletting in previous threads, so I don't really want to cover that again.

So let's talk about some new details:

1) Mictlāntēcuhtli destroyed Danibaan (Monte Albán).

This was a surprise. This is a VERY unique reinterpretation of Mictlāntēcuhtli. Most traditional depictions show him as a skeleton, sometimes with organs falling out of his chest. A famous image of him comes from the Codex Borgia (pic 3), showing him opposite Quetzalcōātl.

Just to be clear: reinterpretation and redisign are more than okay in my book - I'd flat out encourage it. Though there are boundaries and limits, I don't think those apply here (in my personal assessment).

Something that's important to point out which may be lost on some viewers is that OE's version of Mictlāntēcuhtli very, *very* deliberately gives him the colors of life itself:

Turquoise and red.

Both colors are emblematic of life - turquoise for water and plants, red for blood, fire, and sunlight (Tōnatiuh is perceived as being red-bodied).

So linking these colors to Mictlāntēcuhtli is a really cool part of this redesign.

2) "His brother serves Mictlāntēcuhtli."

A reference to Xolotl, nāhualli and twin to Quetzalcōātl. I've discussed him before, but I did find it veeeeery interesting that he was brought up in the first episode.

When I was explaining things to my partner, I described the relationship between Quetzalcōātl and Tezcatlipōca as "less like Thor and Loki, and more like Loki 1 who is generally nice to humans (but still a trickster) and Loki 2 who is less nice to humans (and also a trickster)."

So when Quetzal said that he wanted to "imprison" his brother (Xolotl) in Mictlān, my alarm bells went off. This, plus the bet, plus picking "the lowest of the low" - everything reads that Quetzal is setting up some sort of trick on everyone (in a "good" way).

3) Let's talk about the Olmecs.

So, most peoples living in the Postclassic were aware that "other people" had come before them. These other groups were often enveloped in myths that attempted to link them to the previous Suns.

There are several versions of the Legend of the Suns, but the biggest one says that the people of the Postclassic lived during the Fifth Sun (Tōnatiuh in Nahuatl).

Previous peoples, such as the Olmecs and the Teotihuacanos were part of the earlier Suns.

In OE, it appears that the story is writing that the Olmecs were the gods' first attempt at humanity. It also appears that they attempted to defy the gods with some sort of technology.

"God-repellant obsidian."

Okay, okay, this is where I have to tap the brakes (just a teeeensy bit):

Obsidian is volcanic glass. It is very hard and very brittle, and it creates super sharp edges when it fractures.

Obsidian was very significant in Mesoamerica: it was abundant, easy to work and create beautiful (but functional) pieces, and very portable.

You *can* find it as large boulders, but you would be very hard pressed to make a monument out of it.

But - and I cannot stress this enough - OE is a fantasy story.

And I think it's really cool that technomagic being created in the show is based on materials that actually meant something powerful and magical (instead of falling onto some tired trope like "unobtainium.")