As much as Mixtli's life is weaved from loss, sorrow and regret, it is not bereft of humor and neither is Mixtli in his old age for that matter.
- Mixtli, in his old age, loves to exposit about his sexual escapades and talk about his nipple theory even after repeated reactions from his offended audience that makes it clear that they don't want him to and don't enjoy him doing so. At first, it can be mistaken for Values Dissonance but the fact that he keeps doing it gives the very strong impression that Mixtli is doing it deliberately because he's too amused by their reactions not to. It becomes a running gag throughout the whole book. Not that the reader minds.
- Speaking of old man Mixtli, there is also the way he makes digs at his audience including at their prudish attitude and hypocrisy before feigning ignorance and pretending to be confused as to why they're suddenly upset.
- The story Mixtli tells of how his boyhood friend Chimáli once had to wear a pumpkin over his head because of a bad hair day and kept stumbling around and into everything because he couldn't see.
- When Mixtil is so overwhelmed with joy over seeing Blood Glutton again, he throws his arm around the man much to Blood Glutton's dismay:
- Blood Glutton: [when Mixtli embraces him] Unhand me! Are they enlisting cuilontin now? To kiss the enemy to death?!
- What makes it better is that Blood Glutton don't recognize his former pupil at first so from his perspective, he's getting glomped by some random soldier from out of nowhere.
- Zyanya and the slaves' reactions to Mixtli's eagle knight attire after his promotion.
- The man whose head Mixtli dumps a bucket of frogs over turns out to be the leader of the Aztéca. Thankfully, he takes it in good humor and thinks it's a nice break from the usual monotony of his life.
- A minor one when said man's name amusingly turns out to also be Mixtli.
- Everything about this one:
- Mixtli: But I knew that moment to be a historic moment, and I stood transfixed in a sort of awe, to hear and remember, as I do to this day, the emphatic words of a strange new being who might very well be a god: “I swear by Santiago, I am sick of fucking bald cunts."
- Also, the Bishop's reaction that immediately follows:Mixtli: Ayya! You startled me, your Excellency. You leap with such agility for a man well into his age of never."
- Another laugh at the Bishop's expense comes in one chapter prelude, where he sends a missive to the King of Spain talking about how another priest recently unearthed some Christian iconography from an Aztec shrine, which he believes is proof of an ancient priest coming to these lands long ago... only to then have to redact his statement when he learns the entirely mundane truth from Mixtli, that it was taken from one of Cortez' men when they first arrived and just was left there during the invasion, leaving him looking like an idiot who put myth above common sense.
