Ghost Legionary: Yes, it killed us all, but I'm glad you like it.
In a small village in 19th century Mexico, 14-year-old Leo San Juan has lived his whole life being able to see and speak with ghosts and spirits. With his fellow townsfolk unaware of his strange abilities, Leo finds himself mostly shunned by everyone as a freak. The main bright spots in his life are his sweet old grandmother Toñita, his compassionate teacher and local holy man Friar Godofredo, and the girl of his dreams Marcella, a charmingly enigmatic newcomer to the neighborhood who is similarly ostracized by the town for allegedly being a witch. As for his spectral companions, Leo finds himself dealing with three curious supernatural characters: the friendly but cowardly ghost of a Spanish knight named Don Andres; an aloof phantom of a 17-year-old girl in unusual attire named Teodora, who wields a strange, luminescent rectangular device of great knowledge and distraction; and a goofy, rainbow-colored fantastical creature known as Alebrije.
One day however, Leo's life is turned upside-down when a gaggle of ghoulish-looking monkeys attack his home, stealing the souls of his fellow villagers and unleashing a Zombie Apocalypse starting with Leo's little part of the world. Finding sanctuary in the cathedral, Leo quickly learns from Friar Godofredo that the ancient Aztec god Quetzalcoatl has awoken in one of his fouler, world-destroying moods, and those nasty little monkeys (called Horrorosos) are trying to summon him from his prison so he may cleanse the world and create it anew. Fortunately, with a little help from his trio of ghost buddies, Leo manages to thwart Quetzalcoatl and avert a divine apocalypse. Hailed as a hero, Leo is finally accepted by everyone, gets a kiss from Marcella, and lives the rest of his life happily ever after...
Actually, scratch that last part.
Quetzalcoatl's efforts to enter our world may have been stopped by a kid and a trio of spirits, but that doesn't mean he's given up. Just as it seems everything's looking up for Leo, the feathered serpent god pulls the entirety of Leo's hometown and everyone in it down into his cosmic prison, leaving behind only a barren plain. Leo, Don Andres, Teodora, and Alebrije only barely manage to escape the god's wrath, taking off in an old airship and fleeing for parts unknown.
And that's Episode 1.
To recover his home and loved ones, Leo must seek out The Brotherhood, a global cabal of scholars and mystics dedicated to preventing the return of Quetzalcoatl. Unfortunately, not only is Leo short on clues, but Quetzalcoatl's thwarted emergence has emboldened malevolent supernatural entities from around the world known as Legends. From the Jersey Devil to Baba Yaga, these mythical beings have begun terrorizing people on an unprecedented scale, some acting on their own accord and others as servants of Quetzalcoatl. As Leo and his phantom companions travel the globe in search of The Brotherhood, they must face these legendary monsters while also occasionally receiving some unseen help from two tiny Calacas serving a mysterious force. Will Leo be able to find The Brotherhood and save his village, or will Quetzalcoatl escape his prison and be free to destroy the world as we know it?
Thus goes the premise of Legend Quest, a 2017 Mexican cartoon based on the Mexican animated horror-comedy movie franchise Las Leyendas (which is also the show's Spanish title) created by Mexican animator Ricardo Arnaiz. Produced by Ánima Estudios like its parent films and developed by James Krieg and Jose C. Garcia de Letona, Legend Quest expands upon the original movies' focus on famous Mexican monster stories to a much larger scope of world mythology. As the first TV adaptation of Las Leyendas, it is often interpreted by fans as a Distant Sequel to the movies, but it can also be thought of as an Alternate Continuity, for it changes many elements of the films to better fit the new story being told and is otherwise an entirely standalone work.
The series made its debut on Netflix on February 24, 2017, becoming the streaming service's first original animated series from Latin America. In October 5, 2019, it was followed up by its second season titled Legend Quest: Masters Of Myth. Season 2 not only featured an updated animation style, but also Retooled the series premise, depicting Leo and his supernatural friends as a team of monster hunters capturing Legends for The Brotherhood. Masters of Myth also introduces a new story for the heroes to follow, but unfortunately, it was also the last season of the show, with the Las Leyendas franchise returning to its original movie format afterwards. Whether Anima Estudios will revisit the idea of adapting their movies into a television show again remains to be seen.
Legend Quest provides examples of:
- Action Girl: Teodora, Akihito's Vizier, Marcella, and a de-powered Baba Yaga.
- Adapted Out: Several notable characters and elements from the film series are conspicuously absent from either season of the TV show.
- In the movies, Leo had an older brother named Nando, but in the series, Leo's family consists entirely of him and his grandmother Toñita, with no mention whatsoever of any other relatives (Leo's parents were explained in the first film as having died when he was young, but the show never touches on this). However, in the later entries of the film franchise, Nando joined the military as he and Leo grew up, so this might be the case for him in the show as well.
- Toñita had a bakery called Panaderia San Juan in the movies. This is wholly unmentioned in the series, and subsequently, the bakery's sole employee, a large and joyful black woman named Dionisia (who also acted as Leo and Nando's nanny) is also absent from the show.
- Teodora had a small Mister Muffykins-type dog named Chichi in the movies.
- The movies also featured a fourth ghost rounding out Leo's circle of friends in the form of Xóchitl, the spirit of a young Indigenous girl who was formerly a maidservant for Teodora's family and was implied to have a crush on Leo. Her character seems to have been replaced in the TV series with Marcella, who shares a number of her traits.
- A Dog Named "Dog": Alebrije is both the name of a character and his species. He is said to have a real name, but it's too hard for humans to pronounce, and thus is not known.
- Advanced Ancient Acropolis: Downplayed. The Aztec civilization has been around for over 10,000 years if one pieces together the series internal timeline, given Quetzalcoatl was sealed by Aztec priest some 10,000 years ago, though they're likely much older considering they existed before Quetzalcoatl remade the world. Their technology from thousands of years ago was incredibly advanced for the time, though seemed to never reach modern levels.
- A Fool for a Client: Played with. In Season 1 episode 2 "Jersey Devil", the protagonists are accused of witchcraft. At the trial, Don Andrés represents the protagonists. Including himself.
- Age Without Youth: When she was still a regular human, the witch Nu Gui found a magic flower whose essence granted her immortality, but didn't stop her from aging.
- All Myths Are True: The Big Bad is Quetzalcoatl and his Dragon is Baba Yaga. Other creatures come from Classical Mythology, Chinese Mythology, Japanese Mythology, and European folklore, among others.
- Alternate Continuity: The Netflix series requires no knowledge of the original films to get any understanding of it, with many of the characters being radically altered from their movie counterparts. Masters of Myth likewise seems to be a reboot of sorts, as it alters the backstory to the main characters.
- Alternate Species Counterpart: In Masters Of Myth, Marcella's Similar Squad has a unicorn who's the analog to Alebrije in Leo's team.
- Anachronism Stew:
- Crops up, though the show tries to avoid it whenever possible. Teodora's smart phone is the biggest offender until it's revealed exactly why she has it over a hundred years before it will be invented.
- The Bactus in "Tooth Fairy" are supposedly from Finnish Mythology, but actually get their name from a 1948 Norwegian children's book.
- When they arrive in New Jersey, the characters are nearly burned at the stake as witches after the town minister (or what initially appears to be the town minister) notices that Leo has the power to talk to the dead. While there are accounts of witch-hunts in New Jersey, and, unlike what happened in Salem, possibly did involve trials by fire, the concept would have been seen as outright barbaric in the 1800's. To put this into context, historians even believe the aforementioned accounts were urban legends because they were reported at a relatively late date. Then again, the point of the show is about urban legends being true, and witches do exist... and it's soon revealed that a witch had been impersonating the town minister all along and deliberately tried to kill Leo.
- In addition, while it is hard to pin-point exactly when it converted from a Protestant colony, New Jersey is a relatively Catholic area. Catholics would not automatically associate speaking with the dead with witchcraft, since many saints had visions of the dead, including other saints, the souls in Purgatory, and even the damned.
- Ancient Tradition: The Brotherhood.
- And I Must Scream:
- When Mister Madara transformed the gang sans Leo into puppets, they were still conscious and aware.
- From what Marcella says, before she learned how to use Astral Projection, Teodora was aware of everything going on around her while in her coma, but unable to wake up or communicate with anyone.
- Antagonist Title: Used twice: Legend refers to the Big Bad's army, and each of the episode's titles (sans 1 and 13) are of the creatures the team faces within said episode.
- Appearance Is in the Eye of the Beholder: Alebrije's form changes depending on who's looking at him. He sometimes appears as a variety of animals (goats, beavers, etc.) or as a completely different supernatural entity entirely (an imp, a triplecorn, etc.), apparently the specific form depending on something in the nature of the person. Every form he's seen as, however, still has his same color scheme, leading the viewer to note the weirdness of his appearance.
- Art Shift:
- Occurs Once per Episode, usually in service of explaining the origins of the Monster of the Week. Nine examples are found in this video👁 Image
. - The second season, Masters of Myth, has a different art style than season one.
- Occurs Once per Episode, usually in service of explaining the origins of the Monster of the Week. Nine examples are found in this video👁 Image
- Art-Shifted Sequel: The art direction of the show is much more angular than that of the films.👁 Image
- Astral Projection: Teodora, at least as everyone except Marcella knows her, isn't a ghost - she's her soul projected from her comatose body in the present.
- Badass Normal: Besides a heightened spiritual sensitivity that allows him to see spirits and a role in a prophecy that turns out to be incredibly unhelpful to everyone that isn't the Big Bad, Leo is an otherwise normal teenager. He remains as such for most of the first season until the finale where Quetzalcoatl rips the soul from his body, which allows him to use his new ghostly powers to communicate with the dormant Quetzalcoatl egg and rouse the new god from slumber.
- The Bad Guy Wins: A tentacled creature destroys Earth in the seventh episode of season two, and the heroes have to travel back to fix it.
- Badass Preacher: Friar Godofredo. The Power of HIS FIST compels you!
- Batman Gambit: It turns out that the legend that Quetzacoatl can be killed by destroying the Esfera was planted by Quetzacoatl himself to trick both the heroes and his Dragons with an Agenda.
- Beautiful Void: The inside of Yggdrasil, otherwise known as the Nexus, the hub of a massive temporal Portal Network.
- Big Bad: A foul-tempered Quetzalcoatl who wants to wipe out mankind so he can start fresh.
- Big Good: Catrina, who commissioned Finado and Moribunda to help Leo in his quest and recruited Teodora's astral form to do the same. Ironically enough, Quetzalcoatl becomes this after he is reborn.
- Black Comedy: The show alternates between being morbidly terrifying and morbidly hilarious.
- Blatant Lies: Marcella isn't buying Nu Gui's flat-faced attempt to convince her she's not about to become the sacrifice needed to awaken the Terracotta Army.
- Bloodless Carnage: Teodora looks pretty good for someone who was creamed by a truck.
- Brainwashed: Marcella, under the thrall of Baba Yaga and Nu Gui's summons spell. Subverted in that Marcella willingly had herself put under in an attempt to get revenge against the witches for what they did to her mother.
- British Teeth: Played with, the problem is evil tooth fairies.
- Brought Down to Badass: When Baba Yaga tags along with Leo and company to raid an Aztec temple for the Esfera, she informs them she'll be just as helpless as they. Instead of being reduced to a feeble old hag, however, she proves to be a strong, athletic, and a powerful fighter, allowing her to readily survive the ordeal and steal the Esfera for herself.
- Camp Straight: Alebrije, who is flamboyant in appearance and speech while having a keen sense of empathy.
- Children Are Innocent: While the Vodnik can steal souls from just about anybody, he prefers doing so to children as their souls are purer than those of adults.
- Common Tongue: Subverted. Everybody speaks the same language, but orthography foreign to a character can confuse them. When confronted with Japanese kanji, Leo mistook it for symbolic gibberish.
- Cool Airship: The protagonists get around the world with the Sky Ship, a Magitek zeppelin partially made from a sunken Spanish galleon.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Teodora towards Leo, especially after he's smitten with Marcella. Teodora treats it like Leo's dumping her for Marcella. She drops it a bit after learning about Marcella's Dark and Troubled Past, but still gets jealous when she sees Leo and Marcella together.
- Creepy Doll: Mr. Madera, but creepy would be an understatement.
- Creepy Good:
- Dr. Blackpulp, who dresses in black, has a generally hostile demeanor, and is an agent of the British crown.
- The sugar skulls aiding Leo and the group from the shadows, and the mysterious skeleton woman who sent them and Teodora.
- Cute Ghost Girl: Teodora but she's not really dead...
- Cute Mute: The twins, Finado and Moribunda, a pair of diminutive sugar skull-headed children who help run the ship and are eerily capable at seeking out clues about the Brotherhood that their taller allies often miss.
- Cute Witch: Marcella.
- Cutting the Knot: Baba Yaga can't escape the witch trap the heroes put her in during Episode 5, but she can still control her house so she escapes by having it walk off with her still tied up inside it.
- CPR: Clean, Pretty, Reliable: In order to save Marcella after she was magically sacrificed, Teodora possesses the girl's body and makes Marcella perform CPR on herself.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Marcella has quite the doozy. Her mother was one of the most powerful witches in the world, but unlike most witches seen in the series was a good person. When Nu Gui and Baba Yaga came to her to try to recruit her to their coven, she told them to leave. This resulted in a battle that left Marcella's home in flames and her mother completely catatonic. Marcella has been secretly caring for her mother for years as well as dealing with her awakened witch powers.
- Dark Secret: Marcella, thanks to inheriting her mother's powers, is among the most powerful witches on Earth - company which includes Baba Yaga and Nu Gui. She also inherited her mother's part in their witch's coven, meaning whenever a member casts a summons spell, she is uncontrollably and unconsciously drawn to join them.
- Deader than Dead: Ghosts petrified by the gaze of Medusa's phantom crumble into dust when exposed to sunlight. Not even killing her brings back those slain this way.
- Deus ex Machina: Finado and Moribunda, children sized sugar skulls who are rarely seen and only act when the team is out of options, like getting their airship back to them when they left it behind on another continent.
- Dirty Coward: Don Andrés during his life. He scammed towns into giving him money for protecting them from non-existent supernatural threats and when he finally met a real supernatural threat, turned tail and ran away. He at least regrets his decisions and grows into a Lovable Coward as a ghost.
- The Dog Bites Back: Once liberated, the souls of the children (and Alebrije) the Vodnik kidnapped gang up on their former captor and drown him to death before they return to their bodies.
- Doing Research: The protagonists frequently look up information about the legendary monsters they encounter, and how to defeat them. The Book of the Brotherhood provides most of the information.
- The Dragon: Baba Yaga.
- Dude Magnet: One episode shows a trio of ghostly Roman boys vying for Teodora's attention.
- Even Evil Has Standards: In the Season 1 finale, Nu Gui, recently enslaved by Quetzalcoatl, gives Leo the only weapon capable of destroying the Esfera and begs him to fulfill his part of the prophecy and free her kind.
- Extreme Omnivore: Fenrir can eat just about anything. Worlds, gods, and unfortunately for Don Andrés and Teodora, ghosts... and astral projections.
- Fake Ultimate Hero: Don Andrés fought the supernatural while he was alive in the sense that he turned tail the moment he met an actual monster.
- Fire-Forged Friends: After the battle with Nu Gui and Baba Yaga and the resulting mind meld, Teodora finally comes to understand and befriend Marcella.
- Fish out of Temporal Water: The gang briefly, when visiting Teodora's time. In particular, Leo mistakes a security guard for a soldier while Alebrije spends several minutes fascinated by a light switch.
- Foreshadowing: There's quite a few for Teodora not really being dead (unlike in the films). Such as her talking about a coma when Leo is trapped in his dream (courtesy of the Nicht Mart), saying she knows what it's like, or the sight of her in a hospital bed in Yggdrasil. A small one not easily noticed is the fact that she has a bluish-green glow while every other ghost has a white glow, and how easily she can interact with physical matter while Don Andrés has much more trouble with it, even complaining to Teodora in episode 1 that he needs help opening books.
- Fourth Wall Psych: Teodora angrily turns to the screen and says "We're trying to have a private moment here!" when she awakens from her coma and embraces her mother. She's really talking to a man who just came in with a letter.
- Fed to the Beast: The heroes decide to punish Baba Yaga for betraying them and trying to kill Teodora's comatose body in the 21st Century by leaving her at the mercy of Fenrir, repaying the debt they had to the beast in the process.
- Gondor Calls for Aid: For the final battle, Don Andrés and Alebrije manage to summon Thomas Decatur, the Ghost Legion, Akihito and his army, and two more Brotherhood airships.
- Good Shepherd: Most of the priests and religious figures throughout the series are generally portrayed as heroic figures, such as the Aztec Priest who sacrificed themselves to seal away Quetzalcoatl, Friar Godofredo who fought to protect his town from evil and Prince Akihito who eventually used the spiritual power of the Sword of Dawn protect his kingdom.
- Great Big Book of Everything: The book of the Brotherhood Leo inherits from the kidnapped Friar Godofredo. And to a lesser degree, Teodora's smart phone.
- Guile Hero: Leo shows shades of this when captured by the Vodnik.
- Henshin Hero: Akihito gains the ability to transform into an armored giant after unlocking the power of his ancestral sword.
- Holy Burns Evil: Friar Godofredo's holy water manages to burn and stagger the soulless zombie villagers, and cause Quetzalcoatl a smidgen of agony.
- Hypocrite: The Vodnik was a toy maker who eventually got fed up with the impure souls of adults and changed himself into a frog-like monster with dark magic, however the Vodnik himself is excessive cruel (such as eating Leo's pretzels out of malice, although that was part of the plan) not to mention the fact he steals children's souls.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Leo's greatest wish is to retire from heroing and grow up like a normal boy. Unfortunately, not only does the call know where he lives, a temporarily-defeated Quetzalcoatl decides to drag Leo's home town with him.
- I Owe You My Life: The reason the new Quetzalcoatl decides to postpone the end of the world and why he travels to the present day to wake Teodora from her coma.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Almost every episode is named for the Monster of the Week.
- Ink-Suit Actor: Episode 12 gives us a few examples. The Hospital Security Chief is a caricature of Gabriel Vera Bárcena, the show's Production Designer. The nurse that develops a relationship with Don Andrés is one of Line Producer Anaí Tirado Miranda. And while he doesn't physically appear (only appearing in Teodora's backstory), It is clear that Teodora's Dad is a caricature of series creator José Alejandro García Muñoz.
- Internal Reveal: While the audience has known since Episode 1 that the sugar skull twins, Finado and Moribunda, have been helping our heroes in their quest, it takes until Episode 10 for their presence to be revealed in-universe - and even then, only Leo knows about them.
- Invisible to Normals: Ghosts. However, they can (with concentration) manifest in such a way that even people not as spiritually sensitive as Leo can see them.
- I Thought Everyone Could Do That: Happens in Episode 11 "The Chilan" when Alebrije finds a portal of Yggdrasil.Marcella: Wait a minute. You can smell magical spaces?Alebrije: You can't?
- It Will Never Catch On:
- Everyone's opinion of Leg Ball (soccer).
- Inverted when the people of New Jersey believe that Thomas Decatur's inventions will turn their town into a paradise; Teodora sarcastically wishes them good luck.
- When Don Andrés says "Any landing you can walk away from is a good one", Leo retorts that saying will never catch on.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
- Teodora is a proud and snarky specter, but she cares deeply for her friends.
- Baba Yaga takes advantage of this trait by lying to her about Leo entering Medusa's lair (telling a similar lie to Leo himself) in attempt to have the pair walk into a deathtrap that will kill them both.
- Upon realizing Marcella isn't faking her death, she decides to set aside her jealousy and possess her body to save her - keep in mind Teodora's own physical body is deteriorating rapidly at this point.
- Leo himself can be rather hard to deal with in spite of his good nature.
- Dr. Blackpulp is pretty rough and seems villainous, but he's a genuinely good person who only wants to protect London and its citizens from evil.
- Akihito's Vizier is very gruff, disrespectful to most people, and willing to threaten others with violence, but she's still a heroic person who protects innocents from danger and has good intentions at heart.
- Teodora is a proud and snarky specter, but she cares deeply for her friends.
- Kaiju: Fenrir and later, Alebrije thanks to Baba Yaga.
- Kid Hero All Grown Up: Leo's a teenager now, retaining much of his courage and heroism from his childhood, but gaining some irritability and neuroses with age.
- Kicked Upstairs: In Season 2, Leo's team is "promoted" to a job filing paperwork. Leo and Teodora bemoan that the new job prevents them from hunting monsters, but Don Andres and Alebrije are able to find some enjoyment in it. Later the same season, Marcella's team is handed the same fate, with similar reactions.
- Knights and Knaves: To rescue Alebrije's soul (and those of its other victims), Leo must interrogate the Vodnik with a magic potion that will compel the creature to answer three questions. The catch being that only two of the answers will be true with one of them being an outright lie. Given the simplicity of his objective, Leo elects to get around this obstacle by asking the same question thrice.
- Last-Second Word Swap: In "Golem", a security guard spotting the titular monster is clearly about to say something not very child friendly.
- Guard: Hooooly sh—-awarma!
- Lighter and Softer: Nominally so as while there's still plenty of death and mayhem, the show has a lighter tone than the film trilogy that inspired it.
- Lovable Coward: Don Andrés and Alebrije.
- Love Triangle: While Leo and Marcella like each other, it's also implied that Teodora may have feelings for Leo as well. Leo himself has also shown an attraction to Teodora.
- Magic Versus Science: An overarching theme of the series is the usage of technology with mystical know-how to combat supernatural threats. For instance, the Jersey Devil was driven away from New Jersey by its militia's cannon fire, but because they didn't know that it was because their ammunition had Cold Iron in it, their more advanced cannonballs (faster and more accurate) were completely ineffective. Then again, it's only through the invention of the cannon that mankind was able to find a way to hit it in the first place.
- Medieval Morons: Averted. While the party (until now) lived in a small Hispanic village, nobody is actually stupid. They're simply ignorant of most of the world, with Don Andrés and Teodora acting as Mr. Exposition as needed.
- Mental Time Travel: How Teodora's astral projection wound up in the late 19th century.
- Metaphorically True: Marcella said she wasn't a witch-in-training. Not that she wasn't a witch.
- Morality Chain: Leo is sometimes too willing to complete his quest of saving the world from Quetzalcoatl that he might end up sacrificing his comrades to accomplish that goal. Teodora, however, is not going to let Leo abandon his friends and implores him to find another way.
- Morphic Resonance:
- No matter how someone sees Alebrije, he still retains his color scheme. Don Andrés also recognizes him by a birthmark when Baba Yaga transforms him.
- Baba Yaga can use her powers to disguise herself, but cannot remove the shackle that binds her to Quetzalcoatl.
- My Greatest Failure: Don Andrés abandoning Steinau to the Mart. He manages to set things right a few hundred years later with the help of his friends and in a fit of humility, doesn't even stick around to soak up credit for the deed.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain!: The new Quetzalcoatl would have devastated mankind as the snake god always does when it's reborn, but the scheming of his previous incarnation to kill him and wipe out the human race for good delayed that. When Leo saves him from this fate, he's so grateful that he decides to spare the current epoch of humanity until his next life.
- The Nose Knows: Alebrije has an acute sense of smell.
- No-Sell: The Gorgon's gaze has no effect on Teodora because she's not a ghost, but rather her mind's astral projection.
- Omnicidal Maniac: Quetzalcoatl might want to (catastrophically) remake the world, but Fenrir just wants to eat it.
- Our Alebrijes Are Different: Alebrije, obviously. He is a magical creature that has an outstanding sense of smell, and likes eating.
- Phoneaholic Teenager: Teodora, but her smartphone gets the gang out of some sticky situations. This trope is also what led to her coma - she was paying more attention to her smartphone than the semi-truck barreling towards her.
- Prophecy Twist: Only the Lion can Destroy the Serpent. The prophecy is, by itself, completely true and it's what the Brotherhood has been trying to actualize and what Quetzalcoatl's minions have been supposedly trying to prevent. The twists lie in the CAN part of the phrase and how Leo choosing to kill the Serpent he is destined to slay is exactly what the current Quetzalcoatl wants, since he'll cease to exist if the new incarnation is born.
- Raised by Grandparents: Leo is being raised by his abuela Rosa.
- Religion of Evil: The Brotherhood, who worship a moon goddess, in the second season. They seem to be an evil counterpart to Christian monks, although they have female "brothers," who still identify as "brothers." The finale implies the original Brotherhood was a benevolent group of cryptozoologist monks. Upton formed his own cult after they rejected the moon goddess as a "monster."
- Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Quetzalcoatl is also known as "the Serpent." Usually a benevolent deity, he is in full end times mode by the time the show starts. His subsequent reincarnation is much less so and even repays Leo twofold for saving his life.
- Retool: Oddly enough, between S1 and S2. Leo's and Marcella's relationship is far more antagonistic, and the series treats them as if they didn't have feelings of affection, trust, and camaraderie for each other during the events of S1. Then the Brotherhood who the team was trying to find in S1, became the antagonists of S2, but the most jarring is the change of the ventriloquist dummy Mister Madera, who everyone in S2 suddenly acted as if they didn't meet him in S1, and he was provided a brand new origin story.
- Revenge Before Reason: Marcella's rash attempt to get revenge on Baba Yaga and Nu Gui for rendering her mother catatonic fails catastrophically.
- Sacrificial Lion: Friar Godofredo.
- Scooby-Dooby Doors: Episode 10 has this with Leo and the Sugar Skulls running from Mister Madera.
- Secret Handshake: Alebrije and his cousin Evaristo are shown to have this in Episode 9 of Masters of Myth.
- Secret-Keeper: Marcella and Teodora become this for each other about Marcella's mother and Teodora's comatose state.
- Sequel Hook: The first season ends with the recently revived Teodora receiving a letter from Leo begging for her help with the current problem he's facing.
- Season 2 ends with Godofredo interrupting Teodora's vacation to tell her that they have a problem. Cue Leo floating midair, shooting Eye Beams.
- Serial Escalation: Leo's previous adventures usually dealt with monsters that would, at worst, destroy the city they were in if left unchecked. Now, should he fail to stop Quetzalcoatl, the entire human race would be made extinct.
- Sharing a Body: Teodora possesses Marcella's dead body and performs CPR on it in an attempt to bring her back to life. She succeeds and ends up mind-melding with Marcella as she begins to regain consciousness.
- Shipper on Deck: Abuela Rosita thinks that Marcella is Leo's girlfriend.
- Ship Tease: Leo gets this a lot with Marcella, but he's also gotten more than a bit with Teodora, such as dreaming about her saying he was cute while looking at him with adoration. Marcella, also, gets a bit of this with Akihito in episode 8.
- Leo and Teodora start getting more of this in season 2.
- Shout-Out: Friar Godofredo punches a zombie while yelling "The power of my fist compels you!" Additionally, both he and Baba Yaga imitate the "You shall not pass!" scene from The Lord of the Rings.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Teodora and her family, who were brutally murdered in the films.
- Friar Godofredo too, who dies at the end of La Leyenda de la Nahuala, though his ghost becomes a semi-recurring character in the sequels.
- Spirit Advisor: Catrina.
- Stable Time Loop: A stunning variant occurs in Episodes 6-7 of Masters of Myth. Episode 6 ends with Teodora suddenly disappearing right as Team Legend has entered the Yggdrasil cave. Then in Episode 7, when Leo, Don Andrés, and Alebrije end up in 2019, We find Teodora perfectly fine... until Leo trips over her. Turns out the reason Teodora disappeared from Leo's side in the 19th Century was because Leo would accidentally rouse her from her astral projection trance in 2019.
- Sleep Paralysis Creature: In the episode The Mart, the Team Legend heads to Germany and face the Nitch Mart, a malevolent creature who had been haunting a city for decades by invading the villagers' houses at night and inflicting nightmares to feed off their fear.
- Steampunk: The airship, which is powered by special coal and has a gramophone-based holographic projector, and Thomas Decatur's inventions, especially the tank.
- Take That!: Teodora makes a bunch of sarcastic jokes towards New Jersey in the second episode.
- There Can Only Be One: There can only be one Quetzalcoatl at a time. When the new Quetzalcoatl is born, the previous one ceases to exist. The current Quetzalcoatl's plan is to kill the next iteration of himself before he's born so he can finally remake the world and destroy most of humanity.
- The Sixth Ranger: Marcella joins the group midway through the first season as its sixth member.
- Sixth Ranger Traitor: Marcella appears to be this when she's revealed to be a part of Baba Yaga and Nu Gui's coven, but she was actually under the control of her coven's summons spell, and only joined in the first place to try and find a method of revenge against them.
- Thousand-Yard Stare: Teodora gets a couple of these in Episode 11 when her physical body's condition suddenly worsens.
- Talking Is a Free Action: Averted. The heroes set up a witch trap around Baba Yaga while she was using her cauldron to communicate with Quetzalcoatl during the fifth episode.
- Targeted Human Sacrifice: Baba Yaga and Nu Gui try to expedite bringing the latter's terracotta soldier army to life by sacrificing a powerful witch, in this case, Marcella. This shortcut winds up backfiring on them since the spell requires the life force of the victim to continue working and the moment Teodora brings Marcella back to life, the entire army crumbles to dust.
- This Is Gonna Suck: When Marcella has a brief moment of lucidity during her coven's ritual to awaken the terracotta army, she realizes her coven sisters will be using her as the final ingredient. She reacts about as well as you'd expect:Isn't there usually a sacrifice involved?
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: Marcella and Teodora.
- Tsundere: Teodora tends to act nonchalant about her friends but deep down she really cares.
- Two Girls to a Team: Goes from The Smurfette Principle to this once Marcella joins the team.
- Unwitting Pawn: Many of the Legends are being tricked by Baba Yaga to antagonize the Ley Line each of them is situated on to weaken the barrier holding Quetzalcoatl back.
- Villain Teleportation: The Vodnik can travel between bodies of water of any size regardless of physical connectivity; from lakes to puddles.
- Was Once a Man: The Vodnik used to be human, but transformed himself via dark magic.
- The Web Always Existed: Averted. When Teodora is physically transported to the past instead of astral projecting, the lack of the internet in the late 19th century renders her smartphone mostly useless.
- Wham Episode: Episode 9, "Nu Gui". Marcella turns out to be a witch, involuntarily betrays the team, gets killed off briefly as a sacrifice, and is revived by Teodora, who mind melds with her to reveal how Marcella inherited her powers, while also flashing back to her corporeal body which turns out to be in a coma in the 21st century.
- World Tree: Yggdrasil, a tree that houses a portal to the Nexus.
- Xanatos Gambit: Quetzacoatl's plan almost reaches this stage. After he manipulated the legends to let believe people stabbing the Esfera killed him, all he had to do was further convince the heroes to destroy it (with the implication that he can't directly hurt his own reincarnation). If the heroes catch on to his trick? Just use your almighty powers to make them destroy it.
- Your Soul Is Mine!: Several of the monsters encountered, like the Vodnik or Mister Madera, have the ability to take people's souls.
