Five Guidelines for Writing Tezcatlipoca

Respecting the smoking mirror

I’ve always had an interest in writing stories about mythology, my earliest ideas were built around that. Anything that brings up mythology tends to at least briefly catch my eye. Because of that I’ve developed some strong opinions on mythological media, mainly wishing that more of them put more effort into research.

Just because there is no canon doesn’t mean it’s impossible to be wrong about mythology. There’s a difference between a myth changing over generations and a modern writer making things up. Homer and Rick Riordan are not equal sources to base an understanding of Greek mythology off of, even though Percy Jackson and the Olympians was key to shaping my interest in mythology and I owe much to Riordan.

In order to write stories about the Aztec god Tezcatlipoca that portray him faithfully, I’ve been putting considerable effort into researching him and Aztec culture. Research that I’ve shared here before, but is in no way complete.

But research is a road that goes ever on, there is no end point. And as a writer what’s most important isn’t being able to instantly recall every fact, it’s understanding the key points of Tezcatlipoca as a figure. So I’ve decided to write and share five guidelines I’ve developed for depicting Tezcatlipoca and judging how other works use him, principles to keep him truly recognizable rather than a lookalike or impostor.

1. Tezcatlipoca is not evil or soft.

This shouldn’t need to be on the list, but it’s difficult to find a depiction of Tezcatlipoca with no demonization involved. If your premise is Tezcatlipoca trying to destroy all humanity or some other generic supervillain plan you’re not using Tezcatlipoca, that’s the devil or Nyarlathotep cosplaying as him.

If you want an Aztec god who can actually be compared to Jesus, Telpochitli, the aspect of Tezcatlipoca as a young man, was syncretized with Jesus and different saints after the conquest. We know this thanks to how mad some missionaries were about it, since it meant they hadn’t completely destroyed every last trace of Aztec religion.

There was a ritual known as ‘the straightening of a heart’ where a person would confess their wrong doings to Tezcatlipoca (and Tlazolteotl) to be absolved. He is known to be a friend of children and honored in the feast for dead children, one of the traditions from which the Day of the Dead sprung.

However, if Hades and Loki are anything to go by, whenever media collectively gets over the need to turn a random deity into a devil stand in the pendulum swings hard rather than balancing out. Instead of making more nuanced depictions the demonization instead flips, where now the trend is to make Loki a poor misunderstood good guy and Odin an evil dictator.

In many ways Tezcatlipoca was also a spook. He was associated with evil sorcerers who worked at night and as Yohualtepuztli he’d appear to travelers as a headless corpse with an open chest, rewarding those with the courage to grab his heart. Those who harmed a slave on the day One Death were killed for harming one of his beloved children.

Fearsome is different from evil. It bears repeating that Tezcatlipoca is a nuanced deity, he isn’t always fearsome, but it is a core part of him. If you can understand that dichotomy in Batman you can understand it for Tezcatlipoca.

2. Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl are not Cain and Abel.

When Quetzalcoatl is done poorly, as he often is with uncritical usage of the white savior version of him, Tezcatlipoca can’t be portrayed well. The two are closely connected, they’re brothers who contrast each other. And their complex relationship is often reduced to them being arch enemies, painting Tezcatlipoca as some god of violence and evil as opposed to the pure Quetzalcoatl.

This ignores that they cooperate as often as they fight. The earth is the result of them teaming up to slay a monster, music was brought to humans by Quetzalcoatl with the assistance of Tezcatlipoca’s servants (who had been ordered by him to aid Quetzalcoatl).

Saying that one is evil and the other is good misses the point entirely. They’re both gods that were actively worshipped, equal and opposing forces who shape the world in a sometimes explosive way.

If you want a model for how to portray Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl’s relationship, look to the likes of Lupin III and Inspector Zenigata rather than Cain and Abel. The ‘rivals who regularly team up for a greater cause’ dynamic is so popular that it’s confusing how a mythical duo that could reasonably be argued to fit into it always gets turned into something far less fitting in fiction.

While Tezcatlipoca has connections and overlaps with just about every other Aztec deity, Quetzalcoatl is by far the most significant relationship. Quetzalcoatl is vital for understanding Tezcatlipoca, and vice versa. Even if a work only invokes one of them, the other will be defined in absence through their counterpart.

3. Aztec gods (including Tezcatlipoca) care about humans.

People who try to compare Aztec mythology to cosmic horror miss the entire point of it, and religion in general. Cosmic horror is about life being meaningless and higher powers being apathetic to humanity at best, religion/mythology is about infusing life with meaning and giving cosmic importance to human actions.

The relationship between humanity and gods is a reciprocal one in Aztec culture. It was through the sacrifices of the gods that the modern world came to be, so it is repaid with sacrifice. And while the festivals do feature the classic to the death sacrifices, there were also rituals where people merely offered some of their blood to the gods, not a fatal amount.

Through ixiptla, referred to as either impersonators or literal embodiments of a deity, many members of the Aztec pantheon had a direct physical presence in society. While the most notable part of their role is being sacrificed to that god/themself, that’s not all ixiptla did. The ixiptla of Tezcatlipoca would wander the streets at night playing his flute and be invited to banquets hosted by nobles.

Additionally there were sacred bundles containing objects closely connected to the gods, adding to the physical nature of their presence. For example Tezoco’s sacred bundle for Tezcatlipoca had his leg bone.

Gods like Tezcatlipoca are deeply invested and involved in human affairs, they are not apathetic or malevolent overseers.

4. ‘The Enemy of Both Sides’ doesn’t mean he loves violence.

One of Tezcatlipoca’s more well known titles, Nec Yaotl, is commonly translated to Enemy of Both Sides. Some people run away with this to say Tezcatlipoca is some amoral killer who balances the body count of both sides of a war, which is not what it means.

Killing is not even the main objective of an Aztec warrior. What advances the status of an Aztec warrior, what gives them honor, is taking captives. An Aztec warrior with a high body count would be considered clumsy and ineffective, unfavored by the gods. So using Tezcatlipoca’s association with war to make him some edgy ‘boy I love killing’ character is outright ignorant of what wars he was overseeing.

Also, Tezcatlipoca isn’t even the main war god. Huitzilopochtli, patron god of the Mexica, the fifth/current sun, and warrior god, is right there people.

When Tezcatlipoca is called Nec Yaotl, it’s because he’s to thank and blame for good and bad luck. He’s the reason a warrior is able to claim a captive and the reason that same captive later escapes. The lord of the smoking mirror giveth and he taketh away. How I’ve come to view it is that the whims of fate are his whims.

5. Tezcatlipoca was a figure of political importance.

The reason there are so many myths of Tezcatlipoca screwing over the Toltecs isn’t because he’s Snidely Whiplash, it’s because the Toltecs were a past political power. Aztec propaganda played up the role of the Toltecs in history to make themselves look better as their successor, an effort that western historians fell for at first. Mythology was part of that effort.

Tezcatlipoca marks the change of eras, so he was inserted into the fall of the Toltecs as part of mythologized history, which includes the frustratingly famous incident with Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl. You may know it as the one where Quetzalcoatl is white, anti human sacrifice, and leaves saying he’ll return one day, all of which are post conquest inventions.

Speaking of the conquest, this quality of changing eras is part of why Tezcatlipoca was invoked by at least one rebellion against the Spanish. I don’t believe it’s a coincidence the god whose festival was turned into a massacre by the Spanish, who was syncretized Christian figures, who was invoked by people actively resisting Spanish rule, is the one people aggressively demonize.

There was also a strong connection between the tlatoani (monarch) and Tezcatlipoca, including the latter being considered responsible for selecting the former. Guilhem Olivier argues in ‘Mockeries and Metamorphoses of an Aztec God’ that the ixiptla of Tezcatlipoca also acted as a substitute for the tlatoani in the Toxcatl sacrifice. He’s as much a symbol of imperial power as he is a subversive ender of empires, perhaps even one because he’s the other.

What I’m getting at here is that Tezcatlipoca is not a character from a novel where the copyright expired like Dracula or Dorothy. Gods aren’t from a culture, they are culture. How they’re portrayed inherently says something about how we view that culture. That is why poorly done demonized portrayals of Tezcatlipoca make me mad, they don’t merely disrespect him, they play a minor role in maintaining narratives still used to justify the actions of the conquistadors.

To understand and properly portray a deity like Tezcatlipoca in all his nuances and facets is not a matter of just reading the few surviving myths, it’s understanding his role in history, in festivals, in daily rituals. It’s a journey that has no end. But reaching the end isn’t the point of the journey, it’s making the effort to keep walking, to keep learning.

Optional Response Prompt: Are there any mythical figures or fictional characters you feel are commonly misrepresented/misunderstood? Also, would you like to see this as the first of a series of posts about different figures?

Sources used

Olivier, Guilhem. Mockeries and Metamorphoses of an Aztec God: Tezcatlipoca, “Lord of the Smoking Mirror.” Translated by Michel Besson, University Press of Colorado, 2008.

A Book of Creatures. “Yohualtepoztli.” A Book of Creatures, 19 May 2017, abookofcreatures.com/2017/05/19/yohualtepoztli/.