YMMV / Maya and the Three

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Cabrakan's attempt at sacrificing Maya: Was it nothing more than a greedy power-grab on the level of Lord Mictlan's, or did he genuinely view it as a necessary evil and act out of desperation to protect himself and his wife against a bloodthirsty tyrant before he could turn on them?
  • When Micte finally turned against Mictlan in the final episode and Mictlan asked her why she'd do this to him after he'd forgiven her for her affair, was it just gaslighting, or was he genuinely attempting to reach out to his wife?
• Angst? What Angst?:
  • Zatz's reaction to Acat's death is left unknown, especially since she refused to out his location. While it's not alluded to in the series, Word of God does mention that Zatz did find out about Acat's execution and felt awful about it.
  • In a similar vein, there is also King and Queen Teca losing Shield, Lance, Dagger, and Maya throughout the course of the series. They do mourn all of them, and circumstances do soften the blow, but the loss of four children is still an extremely devastating pain that's no doubt being held back compared to what was shown. There are hints that the Queen's heartbroken, but she hides it behind her regal demeanor.
    • Same can go for a good chunk of the Teca population when their army gets slaughtered by Lord Mictlan.
• Awesome Art: Jorge Gutierrez and Sandra Equihua are back at it again in cooking up amazing character designs and visuals for the series that are nothing short of their previous works. Credit also needs to be extended to the animators at Tangent Studios, especially as this was the last work before the studio's closing.
• Complete Monster:
  • Lord Mictlan is the bloodthirsty god of war hellbent on destroying humanity. Initially wanting to kill a newborn Maya for being the product of his wife Lady Micte's infidelity, Mictlan only spares her so he may sacrifice her when she's older in order to gain immense power. Come present day, Mictlan personally slaughters the Teca army and sends several gods to bring Maya to be sacrificed, gleefully mutilating and killing those who fail or oppose him. Despite claiming to love Micte, come the final battle, Mictlan ignores his wife's pleas to abandon his plans to destroy humanity and furiously attacks her. When the heroes start to gain the upper hand against him and his army, Mictlan kills his loyal underlings and devours their hearts in order to strengthen himself.
  • Xtabay, the Goddess of Illusion, is one of Lord Mictlan's underlings and his most sadistic. Xtabay invades Picchu's village, having her army slaughter everyone in his village and murdering Picchu's parents. Xtabay allows Picchu to live solely for him to live with the fact he condemned his people to be massacred and fall into despair. Participating in Mictlan's campaign to destroy humanity, Xtabay returns to haunt Picchu by psychologically tormenting him with illusions of her murdering his parents and his failure to protect his people. In the show's finale, Xtabay helps Mictlan's attempt to destroy all four kingdoms, starting with Teca.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • Queen Teca mentioned she was so angry at King Teca for cheating on her that this was the first time she ever stabbed her husband. The two of them recall this memory fondly, with King Teca even cheerfully stating he can still fit his finger in the wound.
  • In the final battle, husband and wife Cabrakan and Cipactli become two of many casualties. After Mictlan kills them both, he clinks their hearts together like wine glasses and snarks "'Til death do you part, lovers" before eating them.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: Some fans argued that the ending of the series can be perceived as this. Not only do the King and Queen seem unfazed by the deaths of their children, but also the large casualties that occurred throughout the story were shrugged off quite fast.
• Fanfic Fuel: Since Jorge himself 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. One can even take it a step further in imagining how they reacted if they knew of Lady Micte's true intentions for marrying Lord Mictlan and whether or not they tried to stop her or even encouraged her.
  • Here is a (highly spoiling) tidbit from an eagle-eyed fan that was given a nod by Jorge...
• Friendly Fandoms: With Onyx Equinox, another show based on Mesoamerican cultures. Helps that the creators of both shows are friends.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Rico insisting that the word for people who do heroic things should be "dead" becomes less funny when two of his True Companions, and an enormous chunk of the overall cast (heroes and villains alike), wind up dead.
• Heartwarming Moments: Has its own page.
• Idiosyncratic Ship Naming: Zatz/Maya has two; "EagleBat" and "Dancing Eclipse".
• Iron Woobie: Rico, Chimi, and Picchu all qualify with each having one hell of a Dark and Troubled Past yet still having the strength to move forward to change their fates.
  • Zatz too, given he was forced throughout life to serve the tyrant that at the very least ripped out his right eye and killed his father right in front of him yet still had the courage to help the above and Maya.
  • Even Maya herself can count to a lesser extent. Compared to her companions, her life was peaceful and even privileged given her royal heritage (even more so than Zatz), but everything was ripped away from her for something that genuinely wasn't her fault, made even worse in that multiple times she's treated like it was, along with all the Half-Breed Discrimination. Despite this, Maya never lets despair get the best of her and remains The Determinator throughout the quest.
  • King and Queen Teca must contend with Lord Mictlan killing their three sons, pursuing their daughter to use her as a Human Sacrifice, waging war against their kingdom, and deal with an unplanned pregnancy on top of that. King Teca is definitely suffering from serious PTSD after his first failed battle against Mictlan, and Queen Teca jumps back in battle years after hanging up her armor while she's pregnant.Yet both of them still take charge and face the dangers head on to protect their kingdom and Maya.
• Jerkass Woobie: Acat might be a contender for this. She's a shamelessly ruthless antagonist who enjoys weakening and toying with opponents before battling them, but given Zatz treated Acat like a burden rather than trying to fix or end their relationship properly, fell in love with Maya as easily as if he wasn't currently dating someone else, eventually dumped Acat for Maya before getting to know her, and doesn't say a word about Acat when she disappears, the reason for that being she was executed by Lord Mictlan and didn't even rat Zatz out for helping Maya... it's not hard to feel at least a bit bad for her.
• Moral Event Horizon
  • Xtabay crosses it when after being spared by Picchu, she goes on to massacre his village, only letting Picchu live so she can rub it in his face that his mercy caused the death of his family.
  • Lord Mictlan crosses several lines through the series, but he definitely reaches the point of no return in the final battle when the tides start turning against him. Rather than back down or admit defeat, he kills all of the gods allied with him to the shock of both them and his enemies, eats their hearts to gain more power, and transforms into a massive destructive double-headed serpent.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Everything about Lord Mictlan; from his grotesquely muscular appearance, his deadly ambition to become the most powerful god, specifically pursuing Maya because she is the illegitamate demigod child of his wife, Lady Micte, and King Teca, and all of his other Ax-Crazy tendencies such as brutally murdering his underlings on screen and eating their hearts.
    • His Villain Opening Scene at the end of Chapter One has him relishing to Micte what a delicious sacrifice Maya would make and how he can already taste the fear of the Teca Army coming to conquer him.
    • When King Teca and the rest of the army charge at Mictlan in Chapter 2, he simply laughs before the screen cuts to black. We later learn that Mictlan had single-handedly slaughtered the entire Teca Army off-screen leaving only King Teca and Chiapa as the sole survivors, much to Maya's horror.
    Maya: You fought all the gods?
    King Teca: It was just Lord Mictlan...
  • The pair of creepy children who are actually Cipactli and Cabrakan, two of Mictlan's god minions, luring Maya and Rico to a trap under the guise of giving them direction to the Jungle Lands.
    • In the same episode, Cabrakan, god of earthquakes, goes against Mictlan's orders to bring Maya to him alive and decides to sacrifice the girl for himself. The worst part of it is how he tries justifying this to Maya as he's tying her up. Even his assurance that he'll give her a quick death is very unsettling. Even
    Cabrakan: I'll be a kinder god than Lord Mictlan! This is for your own good.
    Maya: For my own good?! I'll be dead!
    Cabrakan: I'll be sure it's quick and painless, little one. (Starts sharpening his dagger)
    • Even Cipactli's protests against Maya's sacrifice is less out of concern that an innocent child is about to get slaughtered and more about what Lord Mictlan would do to them if the ritual fails.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: La Gran Bruja is meant to be a Broken Bird and Sour Outside, Sad Inside about the fact that her father sacrificed his life to help Rico control his powers, while being envious that El Gran Brujo had adopted Rico in the first place. Doesn't change the fact that she is an utter Jerkass towards Maya and Rico, and the latter is especially bad when she and Rico are siblings by adoption and the whole situation could have been avoided if she and the other tribe members had stopped mocking the kid when he's already having trouble with basic magic, causing him to hit a Rage Breaking Point. It's even stupider when Maya has to point out that this problem involves all the tribes, and that if the humans fail, it's apocalypse season. La Gran Bruja, in a fit of spite, orders Rico to accompany Maya on her quest after sending Maya on a Snipe Hunt to find the "rooster wizard," guilting him about his previous failure and bluntly saying he's not a good wizard. Rico forgives her because he is a Nice Guy, but still.
  • Even more so when you learn from the series’ art book that she’s Rico’s aunt.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Just take one look at the show's CG, and you'd be forgiven for thinking it was a movie because it's nothing short of movie-quality.
  • Special shout out goes to some characters appearing to pop out of the screen during some of the battles.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: This family show is about a demigoddess princess who is the product of an affair between her mortal father and goddess mother (both of whom are married and cheated on their respective spouses), being pursued by a monstrous godly tyrant who wants to sacrifice her to gain infinite power and has no qualms brutally murdering other people to get what he wants, on screen. And that's not getting into the several major character deaths and the fact that the main characters are all teenagers going up against full-fledged, bloodthirsty gods.

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