| “ | If it is to be, it is up to me. | „ |
| ~ Maya’s catchphrase, motto and most famous quote. |
Princess Maya, or simply just Maya is the titular main protagonist of the 2021 Netflix series, Maya and the Three. She is the daughter of King Teca and Lady Micte, the enemy-turned-lover of Prince Zatz and the princess of the Teca Kingdom.
She is voiced by Zoe Saldana, who also played Neytiri in Avatar, Gamora in Guardians of the Galaxy, Maria Posada in The Book of Life, and many others.
History[]
In the Mesoamerican-inspired kingdom of Teca, the young Princess Maya yearns to be an Eagle Warrior like her mother. However, when vengeful gods threaten all of humanity, Maya journeys to find the three prophesied warriors who can save the kingdom.
Personality[]
Maya is the free-spirited daughter of King and Queen Teca, who longs to be a great Eagle Warrior like her mother. After a family tragedy, Maya learns that she is the Great Eagle Warrior destined to slay Lord Mictlan, the God of War alongside three great heroes. Likewise, the adventures, triumphs, and failures she has throughout the story transforms her from a prideful, selfish teenager into a mature, wise leader who knows when to admit her wrongs.
Biography[]
Past[]
Maya was born as the child of King Teca and the goddess of death Lady Micte. The latter initially planned to sacrifice her so she can become strong enough to overthrow her husband, the bloodthirsty god of war Mictlan, but after she gave birth to her, she grew to love her daughter, but when Mictlan discovered her, he intends to do the same thing to her, not just to gain more power, but also because a demigod child of death was the one being capable of killing him.
Fortunately, Micte is able to convince her husband to spare her until she turns 15, Mictlan agrees so, but has her agree to grow up without knowing her demigod heritage. A depressed Micte allows the forest spirits to bring Maya back to King Teca and his human wife Queen Teca, where she would be raised into the kingdom of Teca alongside her triplet half-brothers. Though despite her mother not allowing her to fight, Maya yearned to be a warrior like the rest of her family, which put her at odds with her other mother.
War with the underworld[]
Eventually the day of her 15th birthday, along with her coronation to officially become princess, had come at last, but just before the festivities can continue, an unexpected guest riding a skeleton fire-breathing tiger appeared: that guest being Zats, the demigod son of the bat god Camazotz & Mictlan's herald. He tells her parents along with everyone else attending; the leaders of the other kingdoms among them, about Maya's true heritage and his intentions to sacrifice her, and despite yearning to help, her mother forces her to stay back while her father & brothers fight Zatz and to stone golems he summons, and lose terribly.
When King Teca says he challenges Mictlan for his daughter's life, Zatz agrees but warns them that when he hears this, Mictlan and his pantheon of dark gods will ravage the world in fury and leaves. Scared and angry that they believe that Teca had angered the gods, the other kingdoms refuse to help them fight and even more so when Maya says that they must fight for them.
Uncovering a prophecy[]
With no allies left to fight with them, Maya's father gets their entire army prepared to journey to the location & destroy the divine gate, the gate that connects the human world & the underworld where Mictlan and the other dark gods live. But after sometime, Maya decides to sneak out and join her father & brothers, only to find her injured father with Zatz who returns the weapons of her now-deceased brothers, when Maya sadly asks her dad what happened, he tells her that their entire army were wiped out by just Mictlan, which makes her angrily swear to avenge her brothers.
After a funeral honoring her brothers, Maya discovers a message from her brothers regarding to an age-old prophecy; misconcepted by the Tecas that referred to her father & brothers, heading to the library, Maya discovers that the prophecy was about an Eagle and a Rooster, Skull, & Puma; with the eagle being her & each warrior coming from the other kingdoms respectively, with her parents blessings, Maya sets out to fulfill the prophecy with her family's Jaguar Chiapa in tow, unfortunately the jaguar was deeply traumatized from the battle against Mictlan and now runs at the sight of any battle.
Enlisting the three warriors[]
Along the way, Maya gets ambushed by Zatz's girlfriend Acat, where she gets an unexpected surprise when her sword suddenly glows gold, after a grusome battle through the forest, Maya loses sight of Acat and manages to arrive at Luna Island, the home of wizards, she attempts to let the Grand Bruja to join her quest, but she turns her down which leads her to turn to Rico, an outcast due to his uncontrollable magic to help her, while weary at first, Maya soon gains Rico's trust when he successfully helps her defeat the married god couple Cabrakan & Cipactli.
Afterwards Maya, Rico, & Chiapa head to the Jungle lands where she learns from its current ruler, the Widow queen, that the one from the jungle lands she seeks is the archer in the jungle Chimi; she was shunned by the kingdom due to her pale white appearance & grew a distrust of humans because of the widow queen's father burning down her home and killing her animal family. While initially distrustful at first, Maya & Rico earn her trust when battling the twin gods Hura & Can.
Later on, Maya and the others soon arrive at the Golden Mountains, home of Barbarians, where they discover that the Barbarians are intending to leave to avoid getting killed, at Maya's behest, the barbarian princess tells them the perfect candidate to the Puma warrior of the prophecy: a man named Picchu, who has been fighting at the mist due to losing his parents because he showed a villainous bandit mercy, after an accidental battle, Picchu agrees to join them in hopes of dying a hero's death.
Despite having found all 3 warriors from the prophecy, Maya is torn with guilt because rather than planning to destroy the gate, she intends to kill Mictlan, something she blurts out to the others during a fight with Zatz, the others are obviously angered by this but they are forced to put this issue on-hold when they discover that Teca is once again under attack by Mictlan's stone giants, jumping into the battle alone, Maya is soon cornered by the giants but is soon rescued by the others, though they are stil mad at her. Later, Maya learns that her human mother is once again pregnant with a baby, before coming out of the castle to confront more evil gods sent by Mictlan to capture her, one separated-turned-united battle later, Maya is able to kill one of the gods during the fight, thus proving her capabilities & why Mictlan fears her.
After the other gods flee the scene, Maya says she understands if her friends won't forgive her, but is assured by the others that she's not perfect while also saying "if we can't forgive you, how can we ever forgive ourselves". Later on, during the celebrations, Queen Teca advices Maya to just destroy the gate once they get their, but despite giving her word, she's still content with killing Mictlan & getting revenge on her birth mother.
Entering the underworld[]
The next day, with newfound confidence and a perfect team, Maya and the Three journey across the land to the location of the divine gate, and unlike the Teca army, they actually make it. Upon finding it, they find it unresponsive, after several tries, they finally get the gate to activate, only for it to grow an entire body for itself and try to kill them (thus revealing another reason why no human ever returned alive), a crazy battle later, Maya finally activates it portal capability and they all head down into the underworld. Upon arriving, they are greeted by Zatz, who while at first believing he's come to capture her, due to him falling in love with Maya, reveals he willingly wants to help her kill the god of war.
After a long journey throughout the underworld, the four arrive at Mictlan's temple where they are soon cornered by the dark gods & Zatz's father is killed, before he can sacrifice her, Mictlan decides to show Maya what really happened in the battle between him & the Teca army; being the god of war, he instigated the army to fight each other, which is something he does to Maya's friends as well, fortunately, with her luck, Maya manages to break her comrades from Mictlan's grip before going against the god himself.
Despite Maya and her friends best efforts, Mictlan manages to overwhelm them all before grabbing Maya by the head and locking her on an alter to sacrifice her. But to her own surprise, Micte secretly gives Chimi a dagger to stab Mictlan in the back, but despite Maya wanting to stay to ensure he's dead, the others along with Micte run back to the gate with the other underworld gods chasing them. Just as they're cornered by the gods, Picchu sacrifices himself to save the others & destroy the gate to buy his newfound family time, because a very-much alive Mictlan reveals to him he could simply rebuild it.
Preparing her kingdom for battle[]
Taking refuge in a nearby cave, Maya cries for Picchu's sacrifice and blames herself for his death, but she is comforted by the others considering he got his wish & reciprocating Zatz's feelings for her. But believing that there's no prophecy, Maya tells her friends to warn their kingdoms to evacuate while she & her kingdom prepare to stop Mictlan. While recuperating, Maya learns that her god mom really does love her & sings her favorite lullaby before heading back to Teca.
After gathering up all the female warriors & personally leading the army into battle, Maya, her god mother, and the Teca army watch as the Divine gate marches towards the gates of Teca as Mictlan and the other evil gods arrive to destroy her kingdom and "end the day with [her] sacrifice". But to her surprise, the other kingdoms, after being convinced by her friends, arrive to help Teca fight, thus restoring Maya's faith in the prophecy, as it really foretold that all the kingdoms would stand against evil.
The Final Battle[]
With a newly-made alliance (& sharing a kiss with Zatz), Maya and the others head into an all-out battle between Mictlan & his forces, who later summons an army of skeleton conquistadors & a group of bone giants to aid him. In the heat of battle, with some help from some gods who are now helping Maya, the latter fortunately gets the upper hand in the battle, but things soon take a turn for the worst when Mictlan mercilessly devours the heart of all his godly allies and seemingly blows up into a pool of gold, which gives Maya enough time to evacuate the children & meets her newborn twin siblings.
However, after they finish evacuating everyone, they witness Mictlan arrive in his final & ultimate form: a colossal flying serpent, with a fire-breathing head on each end. Determined to finally kill the god of war for good, Maya has her friends keep Mictlan distracted for her to finish him for good. After a grusome battle with her sadly witnessing Zatz's death, Maya gets unexpected help from the spirits of her brothers & Picchu before entering Mictlan's body.
Fulfilling the prophecy[]
Now inside Mictlan's body, Maya runs down his belly with Mictlan's other head right after her, Maya spots Mictlan's dark heart, but just before she reaches it, Mictlan's other head severely burns her, despite this, remembering all the ones she loved, Maya is able to use all her remaining strength to reach Mictlan's heart & plunge her sword directly through it, disintegrating him & his army, ending the god of war's reign of chaos once & for all, & ultimately fulfilling the Teca prophecy after all, though she dies during the explosion caused by it.
With Mictlan gone for good, everyone he killed (including herself & Zatz) are revived as spirits and are reunited with their loved ones, and as a reward for their heroism, all the good gods let Maya become the sun & Zatz joining her as the moon, allowing them to dance for all eternity & as a bonus, Maya is able to live other lives with Zatz.
Powers & Abilities[]
- Fighting: Maya is a strong fighter who prefers to live life as an Eagle Warrior rather than a locked-in diplomat and even escapes into combat in her opening scene. Her primary weapon is an eagle-themed macuahuitl known as the Eagle Claw that lights up on occasion, especially if she's fighting a god, since it is crafted from the blood of the gods.
- Superhuman Strength: Being a demigod, Maya possesses divine strength that surpasses that of even gods. She has divine strength that allows her to create powerful blows to opponents. She could send enemies flying and also even injure gods.
- Superhuman Durability: Maya possesses tremendous resilience from injuries that could kill a normal human. She could take blows from godly beings without any injuries proving her extreme resilience. This makes her impossible to kill and injure making her a worthy opponent.
- Superhuman Reflexes: Maya could react to projectiles and attacks very fast allowing her to dodge and avoid the attacks of her opponents.
- Superhuman Agility: Maya possesses great agility allowing her to leap great heights and distances and make different acrobatic moves without any difficulty.
- Regenerative Healing Factor: Maya could heal from fatal injuries far more faster than a normal human being. She is able to heal from broken bones, albeit suffering pain from her bones going back into its place.
Quotes[]
| “ | Long, long ago, when magic turned the world, in a time some cannot remember, but our hearts will never forget, in a kingdom past the ferocious pumas of the Golden Mountains, just above the deadly skulls of the jungle lands, and just below the magical roosters of Luna island, resting above an ancient secret lake, was the legendary kingdom of Teca. There, the ancients told of a great prophecy that a mighty Eagle & three courageous jaguars would vanquish the dark lords of the underworld. But know this, though prophecies give hope, the battle will still be fought, and victory rides on the shoulders of heroes! | „ |
| ~ Maya's opening monologue |
| “ | This is going to be glorious! | „ |
| ~ Maya as she prepares to fight in the ring |
| “ | I am Princess Maya, Teca Eagle warrior | „ |
| ~ Maya as she confronts Acat in battle |
| “ | Let's go kill the God of War. | „ |
| ~ Maya to her friends as they enter the underworld |
| “ | It's God smashing time! | „ |
| ~ Maya as she confronts Mictlan for the first time |
| “ | I am the wrath of Teca! | „ |
| ~ Maya during her final battle with Mictlan |
| “ | I am the Eagle warrior!Maya as she travels through Mictlan's body | „ |
| “ | Because of my sacrifice, the celestials, in all their wisdom, granted me the greatest of honours, I became the sun, and my true love? Well, he became the moon. We get to dance together forever & ever, and every day at dusk and dawn, we all get to see each other | „ |
| ~ Maya's closing monologue |
Trivia[]
- Jorge R. Gutierrez confirmed that Maya later reincarnates into María Posada from Book of Life and Manny Rivera from El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera.
- Maya & Zatz's story ending with them becoming the sun & the moon respectively is similar to the ending of the story Brother and sister who became the Sun and Moon.
External Links[]
- Maya on the Near Pure Good Wiki
- Maya on the Maya and the Three Wiki