Fate Grand Order's Misuse of Aztec Mythology

The consequences of skimming wikipedia

While I would consider myself a fan of the Fate franchise, there are many aspects to its portrayals of mythological and historical characters I take issue with, especially in Fate Grand Order. For this I’m focusing on the portrayal of Aztec culture, since I fear that there is a higher probability of the game genuinely warping people’s perception of it due to general ignorance of Aztec culture.

For context Fate is a franchise that revolves around the concept of summoning historical and mythological characters, referred to as heroic spirits. Fate Grand Order is a free to play game that lets players summon from a vast roster of these heroic spirits. One of them is Quetzalcoatl, whose portrayal in the game provides most of the issues elaborated on here.

(The Aztec god Quetzalcoatl in Fate Grand Order, the design alone already has some big problems.)

To start with, the game’s depiction of Quetzalcoatl, who is depicted as a woman for reasons that only get worse the more they’re examined, is against human sacrifice and said to have always had this stance. This is maybe a conclusion you could reach after a quick skim of Quetzalcoatl’s wikipedia page, an incorrect conclusion that is.

Quetzalcoatl received human sacrifices like every other Aztec god. Cortez was never thought to be Quetzalcoatl, and the mythology to give credibility for that claim was invented after the fact. In other words, this trait is a conquistador invention, not an Aztec one.

Paired with the Cortez equals Quetzalcoatl myth is another false claim, that the Aztec gods, or at least Quetzalcoatl, were white. Which does not line up with their actual depictions in Aztec culture.

Furthermore, the myth used as a basis for those claims isn’t about the god Quetzalcoatl. It’s about Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl, a mythologized Toltec ruler. Note that I said Toltec, not Aztec. It just so happens that the Toltecs were a subject of Aztec historical revisionism, seeking to exaggerate their greatness as the Aztec’s predecessors. Which would naturally include myths about Toltec rulers.

Unfortunately, Fate Grand Order unquestioningly repeats the historical myth of Cortez being mistaken for the white skinned god Quetzalcoatl and takes a myth with clear political objectives at face value. Meaning the main Aztec character is defined by propaganda rather than the actual Aztec religion.

Furthermore, the game does not understand what the term Mesoamerica means, as Quetzalcoatl is described as a ‘South American goddess.’ Later the game made a version of Quetzalcoatl themed around Samba, rather than using an actual Brazilian character.

One part of the game’s story that has yet to be released is stated to be set in South America. The chapter’s name is ‘Nahui Mictlan’, Mictlan being a name for part of the Aztec underworld. Meaning that by South America the writers most likely mean Mesoamerica once again.

Imagine a scenario in which every section of a game has a name showing it will be based on the mythology of the part of the world it’s set in, and then the British section appears to be about Valhalla, with the writers having previously called Odin a British god. That’s essentially what this is.

I loathe making accusations like this, but at this point it’s clear the writers of Fate Grand Order never once cared for where Quetzalcoatl is actually from, only that it is south of the United States. South and Central America have been blended together too often for the opposite to be true.

Unfortunately, the disrespect to Aztec culture goes beyond geography. As mentioned before, Fate Grand Order depicts Quetzalcoatl as a woman despite the mythological figure being male, something it has done for many historical/mythological figures with varying justifications. And the justifications used for Quetzalcoatl are among the most questionable.

Originally a male deity.
Upon its manifestation, it obtained an existence as a female deity.
Maybe she ended up being pulled towards the image of Venus = the goddess of beauty (Aphrodite), due influence of the existence of the planet Venus, which she was regarded on the same light as for a long time - or so she herself says.

-Quetzalcoatl’s profile as translated by Master of Chaos on the forum Beast’s Lair.

I have one question after reading this, why is an Aztec god’s manifestation influenced by Ancient Greek culture, a culture that never interacted with the Aztecs? The Greek deities in Fate Grand Order have nothing to do with the Aztecs, while the one featured Aztec deity is defined by Greek views of Venus rather than Aztec views of Venus.

I also find it telling that the Shinto concept of bunrei is mentioned by name in another part of Quetzalcoatl’s profile, yet ixiptla, an aspect of the actual religion Quetzalocatl is from, is at best vaguely alluded to, possibly unknowingly. I find it doubtful that the writers would ever name drop an Aztec concept in their description of a Shinto deity, or say write something along the lines of this about a Shinto deity.

Originally a female deity.
Upon [Amaterasu’s] manifestation, it obtained an existence as a male deity.
Maybe he ended up being pulled towards the image of the Sun = the god of war (Huitzilopochtli), due influence of the existence of the sun, which he was regarded on the same light as for a long time - or so he himself says.

-A parody of the Quetzalcoatl profile quoted earlier in this article, written by me.

It’s difficult not to see a hierarchy of mythologies at play here, whether consciously enforced by the writers or not. And it’s clear who goes on the bottom level of that hierarchy. Which is only reinforced when looking at other supporting material for Fate Grand Order.

The Yucatán Peninsula is the place where a meteorite fell and caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, and a mythological system was cultivated above this plateau, concealing the “bestowed ‘blood’ from an outside astronomical object.” The first generation Kukulkan (the name of Quetzalcoatl in Mayan Civilization) was an existence who possessed elements (bacteria and microorganisms) of this outside astronomical object, or so it was told.

-Fate Grand Order Material IV’s profile on Quetzalcoatl, as translated by Clyton on the forum Beast’s Lair.

Kukulkan and Quetzalcoatl may fit into the same broad archetype of Mesoamerican god, but they are different gods from different cultures. Treating Kukulkan as some prototype of Quetzlacoatl not only treats Mesoamerican cultures as interchangeable, it also has some obvious and unkind implications about Maya culture.

As a point of contrast, the game has Sigurd and Siegfried, two names for the same hero, who are treated as distinct characters that are capable of coexisting. Yet two Mesoamerican deities of the same archetype from different cultures can’t be presented as different characters or even equal forms of the same character.

And while Aztec gods are presented as alien parasites (from a region already subject to unironic ancient alien theories), Hindu and Shinto deities are allowed by the game’s narrative to simply be gods with no elaborate nonsense attached.

The parasite aspect appears to be a twisted reference to the concept of ixiptla, humans who embody/impersonate deities. Except I find it rather doubtful that a woman would be chosen as Quetzalcoatl’s ixiptla when what we know of the selection for ixiptla indicates strict requirements for matching the god’s image.

More importantly, it is consistently brought up within Fate Grand Order that gods are too powerful to fit within the heroic spirit summoning system. Artemis for example has to hijack the summoning system to trick it into thinking she’s Orion, and the plot highlights how if she could use her full divine power things would be much easier, but due to said hijacking she’s stuck merely copying everything Orion could do perfectly.

This is never discussed in regards to Quetzalcoatl, who is apparently weak enough to fit neatly as a heroic spirit where gods from other mythologies have to go out of their way to cram themselves into the mold of a heroic spirit to help save humanity.

Ixiptla are a perfect technicality Fate Grand Order could have used to add Aztec deities to the game without needing a new loophole each time. The mixture of humanity and divinity for an ixiptla lends itself to the exact themes the story explores, as well as the potential of exploring different ixiptla of the same deity. And this is all ignored to the game’s own detriment.

Quetzalcoatl isn’t the only deity Fate Grand Order mangles, as it manages the impressive feat of having the worst depiction of Tezcatlipoca I’ve been subjected to without a single appearance. The reason why can mercifully be summed up in one screenshot.

(Screenshot taken using this video.)

This statement is so wrong I simply do not know where to start in explaining how it is wrong. There’s no Aztec source saying outright ‘Tezcatlipoca isn’t evil’ because nobody was on the other side of that argument pre-contact. So I’ll simply reuse a quote that I used in a prior article.

Quetzalcoatl’s and Tezcatlipoca’s respective attitudes regarding human sacrifice have also been used to place these deities in strong opposition: the “peace-loving” Quetzalcoatl facing the “bloodthirsty” Tezcatlipoca. But this caricature does not hold up well under a careful scrutiny of sources.

Tezcatlipoca, Trickster and Supreme Deity, ‘Enemy Brothers Or Divine Twins’ Guilhem Olivier trans Michel Besson p 77-78

Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl are not sworn archenemies, they are polar opposites. Polar opposites that worked together to create the earth and give humanity music. Does giving humanity music sound like the act of an evil god, is giving up a foot to help create a world for humanity evil?

The dynamic between Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca is nothing like the Ahura Mazda and Ahriman or Abel and Cain dynamics they get shoved in by fiction. Their relationship is more akin to something like Lupin III and Inspector Zenigata.

Demonizing Tezcatlipoca is also rooted in colonialist narratives. Portraying the god Toxcatl is dedicated to as “the epitome of evil” comes suspiciously close to justifying or downplaying the Toxcatl Massacre. After all, a festival to an evil god sounds like something that should be stopped. That’s how the conquistadors justified it.

Then for some reason the game associated Tezcatlipoca primarily with spiders, claiming he even takes the form of one. Tezcatlipoca has many animals he is connected to, the jaguar, horned owl, coyote, and turkey, a spider is not among them. Needless to say he has never been depicted as a spider either.

There is one myth in which Tezcatlipoca has a tangential link to spiders through using a spider’s thread to descend the heavens. Which is not the same as being a spider or turning into one. And the myth in question is the same one mentioned earlier about Topitlzin Quetzalcoatl.

I didn’t realize it until I was writing this, but the entirety of the game’s depiction of Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca appears to be based on that single myth. There is nothing the game says about them that isn’t found in it, nothing from their theft of the sun’s musicians or even the legend of five suns. In fact every other piece of mythology and culture has something that pokes a hole in the game’s depictions.

In total what we have is a depiction of the Aztec gods that fundamentally does not understand them, treats them and their culture as inferior to others, and uses a myth on two levels of propaganda as its only source. Although the writing might have token anti colonial sentiments, its portrayal of Aztec culture is never truly in disagreement with how the conquistadors portrayed them.

At this point the Fate franchise has too rotten of a foundation to build anything of merit with in regards to the Aztecs. As a fan of Fate (even with glaring issues like this) and Aztec mythology I sincerely hope the two never intersect again, and that the writers forget the teases they made for Tezcatlipoca appearing directly.

I can only hope that one day I’ll see Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca appear in a work of fiction and not fear it being the conquistador versions of them.