History NightmareFuel / Aztec

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The rituals described by the book in rich detail are fascinating but oh, so many them belong here:

The same applies to executions seen in the book:

But wait, there's more!

* The fate of [[spoiler:Chimáli]] can be seen as this: he's [[GroinAttack castrated]] and his [[EyeScream eyes]] and [[TongueTrauma tongue]] are cut out.
* What the soldiers choose to do to the settlers and especially the [[WouldHurtAChild children]] after the death of [[spoiler: Mixtli's daughter, Nochípea]] is an unending source of nightmare fuel. We'll leave it at that and given what you've read so far on this page, that should tell you [[UpToEleven something]]. Oh but [[FalseReassurance don't worry]], whatever dark things you may imagine won't come close to what actually happens in the book.

* The detailed description of the Inquisition-era "heretic burnings" at the stake. Mixtli describes one he watches late in his story, and the reader gets to read about Mixtli's own burning in ''Aztec Autumn'', including the sights and smells.

* What the soldiers choose to do to the settlers and especially the [[WouldHurtAChild children]] after the death of [[spoiler: Mixtli's daughter, Nochípea]] is an unending source of nightmare fuel. We'll leave it at that and given what you've read so far on this page, that should tell you [[UpToEleven something]]. Oh but [[FalseReassurance don't worry]], whatever dark things you may imagine won't come close to what actually happens in the book.

** Oh, but it ''is'' described, [[ChekhovsGun earlier in the book]]. Mixtli's wife did not attend the ceremony, as she thought [[{{Foreshadowing}} bad vibes]] might get into her milk while she was pregnant. You must have blocked it out for being too traumatizing. The sacrifice is chosen and spends several days being raped by as many people as are eager to have a piece; heterosexual sex only, because it's a fertility rite. If the sacrifice is hesitant, a temple priest holds her down and does the honours first. Then the sacrifice is led up the stairs of the temple, playing a song on a flute. When she (or he) reaches the top, she is seized and bent over the sacrificial altar. Her heart is cut out and her head cut off. The priests then take the pieces into the temple and flay the skin from the body. The smallest priest dons the skin like a suit, wearing the skin of one thigh as a conical cap, and dances back out, waving the thigh bones as a blessing wand. He has spent days taking psychoactive drugs so he can dance with abandon, often for several days. He taps the audience members who get close with one of the wands. The flayed skin is called something like the "garment of gold" because by the third day it has turned yellow, rotted and crusty in the heat, and smells so bad no one wants to get close for a thigh bone blessing.

There's a reason nobody will judge you if you choose to skim or skip over these parts of the books. [[DeliberateValuesDissonance]] is very much in effect here.

* The ritual that [[spoiler: Nochípea]] stood sacrifice to. It is never explained in details how it was carried out but we know it entailed the dismembering of the child. Why? Because we see a priest wear the parts, including her tipíli over his tepúli, while he performs a puppet show with her thighs.

* Oh, and said last victim? Mixtli believes that [[spoiler:Pactli]] was likely flayed ''alive'' because the condemned kitchen workers had nothing to lose and no love for him.
* Then there's Mixtli's execution of the priest who foolishly sacrificed [[spoiler: Nochípea]]. Mixtli has the man staked out, still wearing the girl's flayed skin, and repeatedly drenched in a substance that causes the skin to shrink as it dries in the sun, causing him to slowly be crushed to death inside of it. Particular mention must be made of the way that the constricting skin forces blood into the priest's penis, until it becomes so overloaded with blood that it '''[[GroinAttack bursts like an over-inflated balloon]]'''.

* The rain ritual which features music, plenty of dancing, a [[DoubleTake giant tub]] and the sacrifice of two slave children, each about four. Before the ritual, the two children, a boy and a girl, are well-cared for and well-fed. But at the ritual, they are supposed to cry and not smile so the priest pinches them until they bawl because it's believed that the more they cry, the more thunderstorms will come. The attendees begin to cry as well but that's not the end of the ritual. A priest then approaches the children and paints a mask on their face that he [[FalseReassurance tells]] them is so they won't get water in their eyes when they swim in the sacred water. After a bit of chanting, the two children are lifted up to the tub and the priest swiftly daubes the olí paint over their mouth and nose. See, as Mixtli explains, the sacrifices have to die in the water but not because of it. So the two children suffocates as they helplessly splash in the water. By the way, their proud parents are watching the whole time and were the ones who gave them up to be sacrificed.

* The fate of [[spoiler:Chimáli]] can be seen as this: he's [[GroinAttack castrated]] and his [[EyeScream eyes]] and [[TongueTrauma tongue]] are cut out. He ends up having to survive by prostituting himself to the men sailing the garbage barges for one cocoa bean.

There's a reason nobody will judge you if you choose to skim or skip over these parts of the books.

The rituals that the book describes in rich detail are fascinating but oh, so many them belong here:

* A special shout out to the death of [[spoiler:Jadestone Doll]] as described by Mixtli. Ho boy, as [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil bad]] as [[CompleteMonster she]] [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness was]], that is still one horrifying death.

* The fate of [[spoiler:Chimáli]] can be seen as this: he ends up castrated, robbed of sight and speech, confining him to a miserable existence. He ends up having to survive by prostituting himself to the men sailing the garbage barges for one cocoa bean.

* The fate of [[spoiler:Chimáli]] can be seen as this: he ends up castrated and robbed of sight as well as speech confined to miserable existence and having to prostitute himself to survive to the men sailing the garbage barges for one cocoa bean.

* The fate of [[spoiler:Chimáli]] can be seen as this: he ends up a castrated, mute and blind beggar who has to prostitute himself for one cocoa bean to the men sailing the garbage barges to survive.

* A special shout out to the death of [[spoiler:Jadestone Doll]] as described by Mixtli. Ho boy, as [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil bad]] as she [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness was]], that is still one horrifying death.