Ravens are seen as omens of ill fortune and death in many cultures, and in the case of Edgar Allan Poe's famous poem, the loss of a loved one. Both figures associated with Maya Wei's death resemble the raven. Spirit, who was present at her crash and can turn into a giant flying black shape, is in mourning for her. Canaletto, who actually orchestrated the crash, resembles a monstrous black bird and tries to break Eva's will with this revelation, just as the bird from the poem did to the narrator with one word: "Nevermore."
When he finally meets his lifelong pawn, Canaletto rather bluntly states she is destined not to defeat him. Whether the guy is clairvoyant or just really good at predicting individual behavior, he's right. In the end Eva doesn't defeat Canaletto-Jordan does. To rub salt in the wound, Jordan is someone the cosmic crow never considered important to his plans-he sabotaged Rick, banished Sul, broke down Eva, and yet the one who thwarts him is the worst pilot in the entire race and a rather important detail his predictions left out!
When Don Wei sees the Avatar manifest on Alwas to address the six remaining pilots, he snidely remarks,"Guess we're not in Kansas anymore." The Avatar himself is a riff on the Wizard, as he's also a seemingly all-powerful and commanding being who can grant any wish, when his actual form is a wizened, eccentric old man who soon must leave his position behind.
The Wei family's troubles are likely far from over. With the government forcing them to keep quiet about the race on Oban, pretty much nobody except the Earth Team knows that Jordan became the new Avatar. Don Wei would likely have to break the news to Jordan's family that he died during the Great Race and possibly face a huge lawsuit for the tragic loss of his gunner. It's even worse on the family's end, since for all they know Jordan is dead on some lightyears away planet, unaware that he's become the most important creature in the universe.
Spirit is shown to be quite aggressive and ruthless against his racing opponents, and a later flashback shows that he'd crash other racers even before Maya's fatal encounter. Since an alien ambassador would have diplomatic immunity on Earth, Spirit might've gotten away with other such incidents. With that in mind, it's possible his Single Tear after facing Eva wasn't so much at remorse for Maya's death,but the realization that she was a mother with a child.
The process of selecting the next Avatar is fraught with this, even putting aside the fact that the Great Beings are okay letting just about anybody become the closest thing to God as long as you brave the Great Race Of Oban. Imagine you've made it all this way across the galaxy and survived a series of deadly trials and races, only to discover that one wish they promised you was a lie, and you've been transformed into a godlike being that will outlive all your loved ones and are doomed to spend the next thousand years as a figurehead for a race of apathetic Abusive Precursors. All that power in the palm of your hand, and yet there's so little you can actually do with it. And given how evil one of the previous Avatars turned out, it implies two things: either Canaletto was a sociopath to begin with and no one realized until too late, or the raw power and responsibility ''really'' went to his head, to the point where he decided the best way to fix the universe was to erase it. It doesn't help at all that the new Avatar is an 18 year old kid who's already quite paranoid and trigger happy.
