History Main / FeatheredSerpent

* ''ComicBook/PrimalWarriorDracoAzul'': Angered by Eric's blasé attitude towards collateral damage in a simulated battle, Ekchuah puts him in a simulated match against the plumed serpent wind-god worshipped by many Mesoamerican civilizations--though Eric mainly refers to it as its Aztec name Quetzalcoatl despite its destructive behaviour being more in line with the Mayan interpretation K'uk'ulkan.

In modern fiction, feathered serpents are most commonly treated as [[ATypeOfOne a type of creatures rather than as a singular deity]]. Due to having originated as a deity "downscaled" to a species of beings, these serpents are often treated as very magical, holy, or celestial entities. They are also commonly associated with tropical and jungle biomes, and with societies based off the Aztecs, Mayans, or [[{{Mayincatec}} generic mashups of precolombian civilizations]].

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Feathered Serpents, also known as Plumed Serpents or Quetzalcoatls, are supernatural entities featured in many [[UsefulNotes/PreColumbianCivilizations Mesoamerican cultures]], starting from the Olmecs (this makes this trope OlderThanDirt). Its name at the time was likely meant to represent [[LiminalBeing the dual nature of the entity]]: its feathers were meant to show its divine nature for showing the ability to fly, while the fact that it's a serpent represents its human nature with its ability to creep on the ground among other animals of the Earth. This was very common among Mesoamerican deities. Nowadays, though, this trope mostly gets used due to RuleOfCool.

Note that a character or creature being called a Feathered Serpent or Plumed Serpent or being named after the [[TropeCodifier Trope Codifiers]], the gods Kukulkan, Q'uq'umatz and Quetzalcoatl, does not automatically make them a case of this trope. It's the image that's important, not the name. Thus Quetzalcoatl from ''WesternAnimation/GodzillaTheSeries'' (who is more or less a {{Kaiju}} ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeopteryx Archaeopteryx]]''), and another Quetzalcoatl from ''Literature/TheSecretsOfTheImmortalNicholasFlamel'' (who is pretty much human in appearance aside from having a feathered tail and forked tongue) are ''not'' examples of this trope.

Related to BasiliskAndCockatrice, which could be considered an Old World equivalent appearance-wise, and the more recent phenomenon of FeatheredDragons.

* The Elder Tempest, the [[ElementalEmbodiment elder elemental]] of air and storms takes the form of a feathered serpent wreathed in [[ShockAndAwe storm clouds and lightning]].