YMMV / Memories of the Eagle and the Jaguar

• Accidental Innuendo: In the second book, Kates recalls how she was being wooed by Isaac, until Joseph Cold came and "charmed her with his magic flute".
• Anvilicious:
  • Greed is bad, environmentalism is good.
  • Western cultures have more to learn philosophically from non-white cultures than vice versa.
  • Women Are Wiser, which is hammered down so often through the books that it might deserve to be on top of the list.
• Captain Obvious Reveal:
  • In the second book, it comes to absolutely no surprise that Judith Kinski works for the bad guys; if not because she looks and acts like a classical Bond Girl, at least because her discoveries about the Gold Dragon are always reported by the Specialist to the Collector right after she makes them. The only real shock might be that she is the Specialist herself, instead of another agent working for him like Armadillo.
  • In the third, Kosongo, Mbembelé and Sombe being the same person is very obvious from the start. Not only the three are described very early to have the same bodybuilder body type, but Kosongo is mentioned to have the same arm scars and bands as Mbembelé, and is nowhere to be seen in his own palace whereas Mbembelé is always there. Sombe might be a slightly harder guess given that he only appears a bit at the end, but once Kosongo was unmasked it was clear that Sombe would be probably yet another alias of Mbembelé.
• Contested Sequel: The third book is very divisive. Some consider it a great trilogy finale due to its interesting premise, fast pace and spirituality, while others consider it a Cliché Storm of classical "adventures in Africa" stories that also feels underdeveloped and rushed.
• Designated Hero: The Kingdom of the Golden Dragon is presented all-positively as a stronghold of Asian virtue against the decadence of the West, overlooking the little detail that it is effectively an absolute monarchy, complete with isolationistic, totalitarian and theocratic overtones, whose king is openly xenophobic and secretly hypocritical about it (two typical traits of real life third-world dictators). The only reason the country is in the side of the angels is that a megalomaniac intends to steal its national treasure to rule the world from the shadows, which would be much worse than a little dictatorship lost in the Tibet. Some passages even make the kingdom sound just like North Korea, including TV being restricted, foreign culture being literally forbidden, and "happiness polls" being published to show how happy citizens are. The only justification for all this nonsense seems to be that the country's official religion is Buddhism, as Buddhists here are apparently supposed to be omnibenevolent (though this seemingly doesn't apply to China, which is portrayed as unambiguously tyrannical despite having a huge Buddhist population in real life).
• Esoteric Happy Ending:
  • The third book ends with the heroes overthrowing king Kosongo and reinstating the previous queen, Nana-Asante. That's it, they have not brought democracy nor re-connected Ngoubé to the Kenyan government, they have merely changed a Sorcerous Overlord by another. And although it can be argued that Nana-Asante at least isn't backed by military insurgents nor interested in slavery like Kosongo was, in the last pages of the book she has already decided to restrict the missionaries' influences over the tribe and instate a sexist social order with flimsy justifications. At the end of the day, the natives are again forced to trust the goodness of a chieftain(ess) they have no power to resist against.
  • Also, for Angie. Apparently, Ma Bangesé's prophecies are quite real, as Alexander and Nadia encountered a supernatural three-headed monster as she said. Now, when one recalls she also prophesied that Angie would die eaten by crocodiles...
• Informed Wrongness: In general, the trilogy treats poverty differently depending on who addresses it. When criticized by western characters, some non-western character will inevitably reply with a defense of sobriety and non-materialism, underlining that their supposed poverty is just a confusion with fact that they don't need as many things to live as foreigners need. However, when pointed out by non-westerners themselves, it is always to lament how evil globalization empoverished and exploited third world countries until leaving them in ruins. The only exception is made when Alexander tries to do mass charity in Golden Dragon, almost ending up dying under a mass of people, and even then, the Aesop stated is that you cannot change the whole world with good intentions.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: One of the most typical complaints about the trilogy is how the plot structure tends to be rather similar in all the three books, down to the same plot twists about the villains' identity.
• Narm: Armadillo being such an American stereotype might make him hard to take seriously, even if most of it is a deliberately stereotypical disguise.
• Spiritual Adaptation: So much that it is not even subtle. A story about a nerdy, bespectacled western boy and his exotic, darker-skinned female friend who is in tune with nature, Speaks Fluent Animal and carries along an intelligent animal companion, all of them traveling to faraway regions of the world and discovering ancient civilizations with lost supernatural powers? And the girl is named Nadia of all names?
• Values Dissonance: The books have a strong anti-racist message, but it's hard not to think the portrayal of Africa and its inhabitants in the third book could be considered quite racist itself after the culture wars of The New '10s, even if it is very much Truth in Television (one might even argue it actually falls short). The usage of "pygmy" in the title to begin with is seen as offensive today.