The series opens with an eagle fighting a snake. It ends the same way.
During her fight with Acat, Maya mutters "I hate snakes." Of course she does, she's an Eagle warrior, and the Legend of Tenochtitlan depicts an eagle fighting a snake. Even better, she ends up being the Great Eagle of the prophecy who ends up clashing with Lord Mictlan in the form of a two-headed snake.
Also, in Real Life, birds of prey like hawks and eagles hunt and eat snakes, which foreshadows that Maya will eventually kill Lord Mictlan.
Rico also demonstrates that, while he doesn't explicitly hate them, he is scared of snakes. In Real Life, snakes will gladly take the opportunity to kill and eat poultry birds, so it makes sense that the Rooster Wizard of all characters is frightened by them.
Acat is written to be a Shadow Archetype to Maya ("Maya if she embraced her dark side," to quote Gutierrez), so it makes quite a bit of sense that Zatz fell for her initially but stopped feeling the same way once she started acting more cruel.
Out of all of the Dark Gods, Cipactli, the Goddess of Crocodiles, comes across as the kindest and the one whose the least willing to harm Maya and her friends. This makes sense from a symbolic standpoint; Maya and her friends are all children (at least to Cipactli, because they are teenagers and she's a goddess) and crocodiles are notorious for being very protective mothers.
In the Popol Vuh, Vucub and Cabrakan were father and son, so far it has not been revealed if the series is also, but there is a clever reference that both are related being both gods made of gold
Why would Cabrakan, of all the Gods, be married to the Crocodile Goddess? In the Popol Vuh, Cabrakan used to spend time with his brother Zipacna, who was a giant crocodile, this is a nod to the original mythology by Gutiérrez
While not a super obvious comparison, Maya's evolution in her leadership skills directly contrasts with that of Lord Mictlan's. Maya and Mictlan both start off the show quite prideful and loving the thrill of fighting, but Maya is enamored by the glory of it all, while Mictlan does it to sate his bloodlust. However, Maya eventually grows to be more mature and kind to those around her, develops gratitude for their help, and ultimately ends up sacrificing herself to protect the people who are still alive. Lord Mictlan's goals remain entirely selfish, as he sends other gods after Maya first instead of doing it himself, ultimately betrays his pantheon by eating their hearts to get stronger, and eventually rejects both his wife and the last shreds of humanity he once held. Lord Mictlan and Maya commit a Taking You with Me moment, but while Maya's was a noble sacrifice, Lord Mictlan's was a desperate last attempt to achieve power.
As if to push the symbolism further, Both parties' romantic lives are also sharp contrasts to each other. Maya's story includes finding new love with Zatz, both are quite young at fifteen and seventeen respectively, and the two develop a long committed romance as the Sun and the Moon, which will presumably last forever. Meanwhile, Lord Mictlan's marriage to Lady Micte is quite long due to both being ancient gods, but is noticeably rocky due to her infidelity and his cruelty towards her child, and eventually the two split because of Lord Mictlan's refusal to back down from his desire to sacrifice Maya, and this leads to the eventual destruction of both (which, unlike Maya and Zatz, is not treated like a Together in Death scenario).
Intentional or not, there are also parallels to be drawn between Mictlan and Micte's relationships and Cipactli and Cabrakan. When Mictlan and Cabrakan are introduced in their respective scenes, both of them are violent, ill-tempered gods who are willing to kill in order to get what they want. Cabrakan even came close to sacrificing Maya for himself. But unlike Mictlan, who rejected Micte's pleas to change his violent ways, Cabrakan pledged loyalty to Maya at the end of the battle and died fighting for her.
Likewise, both Cipactli and Micte have some issues with their respective husbands. But while Micte is fearful of her Mictlan, enables his blood lust and goes along with it in order to protect herself, Cipactli isn't afraid of Cabrakan. Instead, she tries to act at his voice of reason, frequently calls out his bad temper and recklessness, reminds him of the threat Mictlan poses over them, and stands her ground when she speaks out against sacrificing Maya and lets the girl go, no matter how much it angers Cabrakan.
This culminates in the finale where Micte eventually drops her Lady Macbeth act, attacks Mictlan when he threatens Maya, and unsuccessfully persuades him to end his war and pursuit of Maya. Cipactli and Cabrakan on the other hand fight Mictlan's minions side-by-side with each other after pledging loyalty to Maya, and sadly even die in battle by Mictlan's together. Cabrakan's casual comment about him and Cipactli seeing the god of counseling also proves they were willing to work out their marital issues.
Originally, Maya's father was convinced that he was the Eagle Warrior and his three sons were the Jaguars of the prophecy. It later turns out that this is not the case when Maya discovers the correct version of the prophecy. But the old one still does apply in a sense; When Maya takes one last stand against Lord Mictlan, her three brothers' spirits come back and give her the last boost she needs to reach the mouth of the snake. Considering that she is the Eagle Warrior, her brothers still ended up fulfilling their part of the prophecy, even if it was relatively small compared to what they were told would happen.
Jorge revealed on his Twitter that Lord Mictlan is one of Xibalba’s brothers. Considering that Mictlan was much more evil than Xibalba (and El Chamuco, who by all accounts is a Satanic Archetype) that he was willing to sacrifice an innocent girl, take Zatz's left eye when he was a baby, slaughtered an unholy amount of humans and gods alike to power himself up more, and even murdered his wife, he most likely was not the best brother of any year..
To make it worse, Jorge revealed that Lady Micte is the sister of La Muerte and La Noche. One can only imagine their reactions to learning of their sister’s death at the hands of her own husband, who just so happens to be the brother of theirs...
At the very least, it was confirmed that La Muerte was utterly devastated and might have even grew some fear towards her husband, leading to Xibalba...taking some actions to make sure he'd never be able to hurt or kill her.
La Muerte, Xibalba, and The Candlemaker were present during Lady Micte and Lord Mictlan's wedding, the former two possibly being the ones to have signed as witnesses and the third acting as officiant. Given what ultimately becomes of the couple, it might be possible that all three might be kicking themselves in the asses for participating in the wedding or even not stopping it.
First, La Muerte and Xibalba suffered the loss of their respective sister and brother in one of the most horrible ways imaginable, then eventually comes the exile of their eldest child, Sartana, because she might have killed one of their other daughters. Considering just how old they really are, and everything else that Jorge Gutierrez has revealed about them so far, what other tragedies could those two have gone through that we're not aware of?
Same goes for La Noche and El Chamuco, although only Jorge knows how differently they handle things than their siblings do...
Yet another entry for Xibalba and a certain someone else: Xibalba hears of his brother murdering his own wife, and then time passes and Xibalba ends up losing his favorite daughter (not fatally, but still) because of her love interest. Everyone keeping up with the Mexopolis lore knows very well that Puma Loco is going to be fucked when he dies, but this just adds on a whole new level to Xibalba's wrath...
A thought mixed with curiosity and potential horror. It turns out that at some point, Maya and Zatz will be reborn as Maria and Manolo from The Book of Life. This is very sweet...but it was said that they were turned into the Sun and Moon so that they can dance together forever. Did someone else eventually take their places, or will some great disaster happen that the Sun and Moon themselves will get destroyed? Doesn't help that the Moon in this series looks distinctly different from the others in Jorge's works.
It could be a case of becoming avatars as is the case with Hindu Mythology. We know Jorge is quite a fan of Cultural Chop Suey...
Even so, the circumstances for why Maya and Zatz eventually descend and reincarnate, notably since they seemed perfectly happy with their fate (Maya particularly no less than ecstatic), remains to be seen. Though, it's as likely to be for lighter reasons as it is for darker ones.
When telling Maya about her true origins, Queen Teca said she was so furious with King Teca’s infidelity that she stabbed him, and clearly stated that it wasn’t the last time. What happened the other times that triggered such a violent response?
It is revealed in Chapter 7that Mictlan forced the Teca army to kill the Jaguar Brothers, and before the battle in Mictlan's throne room, Xtabay does an impression of one of the Jaguar Triplets pleading for his brothers not to kill him. This means King Teca witnessed his own sons kill each other and was powerless to stop it. It's a wonder that the poor man still managed to maintain his boisterous attitude after going through such trauma.
that Lord Mictlan is one of Xibalba’s brothers. Considering that Mictlan was much more evil than Xibalba (and El Chamuco, who by all accounts is a Satanic Archetype) that he was willing to sacrifice an innocent girl, take Zatz's left eye when he was a baby, slaughtered an unholy amount of humans and gods alike to power himself up more, and even murdered his wife, he most likely was not the best brother of any year..