Literature / The Crocodile God

Baybayin translation: Ang Buwaya Anito.

“I am the son of voyagers, the crocodile-god, I break the ships in my teeth. Do you remember me?”

—Haik

The Crocodile God is a Troper Work by Sharysa, initially posted on HitRECord, then her social-media, the Inkshares website, the Inkitt website, and finally to Wattpad. Like many of her works, this is an Urban Fantasy that's heavy on the fantasy.

The story begins when Mirasol, a Filipino-American woman, finds a Filipino-Australian man called Haik half-dead on the beach. She takes him in after his emergency-room stay is finished and soon finds out that he's the Tagalog sea-god Haik, once loved but almost forgotten, and has had a relationship with her across many lifetimes.

Things get complicated when Haik is revealed to be an undocumented immigrant, and traumatized from his lack of followers. Plus traumatized from a LOT of other things, with the main cause being Spain's colonization.

Tropes in the first draft:

• Ascended to Carnivorism: It's mentioned in the bleeding-heart dove's myth that the toothed whales used to be herbivores, until the sharks betrayed them and they went on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge. The orcas were feared by the ancient Tagalogs for being especially vicious about it.
• Become a Real Boy: Averted in the story of how some of the sambar deer turned into stonefish. The prince of the sambar tribe asks a human datu to marry him, but when she rejects him because he's not human, he kills a little boy wearing a gold bracelet and eats his flesh to change shape. The gods are horrified and give him three shots to repent and become human the proper way:
  • As he gets to the datu's village, he finds everyone in deep mourning. When he asks who died, he finds out that the little boy with the bracelet was actually the datu's NEPHEW. He just changes from the flashy clothes he arrived in to subdued mourning attire and waits for it all to blow over.
  • That night when he's staying at the datu's home, he finds out he can't eat meat—just smelling it makes him nauseous. He pretends his mother was Hindu and raised him vegetarian, but he knows it's really because the gods refuse to change his deer-soul into a human one unless he tells the truth.
  • After the mourning period is over and he marries the datu, he asks for tattoos. They start out normal, but when they heal, they become scenes depicting how he ate the datu's nephew. The prince wears heavy clothes to hide them, but when the monsoons end and tropical summer begins, he's forced to take his shirt off, which is how the datu finally discovers the Awful Truth and pushes him into a reef to drown. When the sambar-tribe finds out what their leader's done, half of them try to drown themselves as well, but Haik turns them into fish out of pity. The rest of them shrink into the small deer of the current Philippines as atonement.
• Big Damn Heroes: Courtesy of the other gods in the last official chapter.
• Born Under the Sail: The ancient Tagalogs were frequently called "people of the rivers and seas," and Haik naturally turns this up to eleven as their sea-god descended from the Maori.
• Brought Down to Badass: After Haik was forced by the Spaniard to take back his claim that his children with Mirasol would be gods, their next two children are mortals... Who shapeshift and have Super Not-Drowning Skills. Later on, Banog ends up taking a lot more from Haik's bird/wind-deity cousin Lumawig.
• Canon Welding: The author is patching together Filipino/Tagalog mythology with Polynesian myths, so this version of Haik is an Expy of Paikea and Maui.
  • Continuity Snarl: In mythic fashion, it's not a perfect "Maui = Haik" equation: Haik has Paikea's origin with Maui's voyaging skills and a sister called Hina, but is only one of three gods with Maui's aspects; Bathala created the Filipino islands and coconuts (though unlike Maui, Bathala cut his hair to make a rope to pull the islands up). Meanwhile, Haik's cousin is called LuMAWIg and has the trickster/bird-shifter aspects of Maui.
  • Over time, the Tagalogs forgot Haik/Paikea's origins as an ancestor of the Maori, since his own name (haik for "daytime") refers to him coming from the east, but they still remember he's from a place where "the rivers are full of jade," referring to the South Island's cultural significance as "the land of greenstone."
  • Haik has gone native among the Tagalogs, but a ballad excerpt notes that his followers started calling him Langa-an's nephew at some point.
• The Chooser of the One: The whales. Haik notes that they could have just left him to drown when his brother tried to murder him, but instead they brought him to the Philippines, which is why he calls them his brothers. When he asks Mirasol to marry him in the newly-colonized Philippines, the whales' arrival is precisely why he says their children will be gods. In the present day, Mirasol has a Prophetic Dream where Haik left to keep her from getting hurt by ICE. Later on, when Haik offers to leave to get ICE off her trail, Mirasol tells him to stay with her... and their demigoddess daughter comes roaring out of the earth as a dragon.
• Dark Is Not Evil: It's repeatedly stated that crocodiles weren't a bad symbol in native Tagalog society, as they were thought to be dragons or gods; later on, Haik mentions that crocodiles protected the Filipinos from river-demons (and presumably sea-demons as well, since saltwater crocodiles are abundant in the islands). Haik not being the whale-rider anymore and only using his "crocodile" title doesn't mean he's no longer a good person—he's just extremely depressed and traumatized.
  • It's also noted that Human Sacrifice (which the ancient Tagalogs practiced in dire circumstances) and even eating other people isn't necessarily evil, but depends heavily on the situation. The sambar-prince pissed off the gods not because he ate a person by itself, but because a gigantic horse-sized deer murdered a defenseless little boy just so he could turn human and marry a woman who already rejected him, and then he refused to feel bad about it.
  • The kraken's arrival in the spirit-world's ocean scares the pants off of Mirasol, but he's a Gentle Giant that the normal cuttlefish call "Kuya" ("big brother" in Tagalog). They summoned him to get Mirasol back to shore, and he also returns Haik's heart.
• Death of a Child: The North Wind finds a human boy dead on Mount Pulag and thinks he got lost, so he heads out to find his parents. When he finds out the parents abandoned him on purpose and aren't even grieving, he loses his shit.
• Death of the Old Gods:
  • A constant point thanks to Spain's colonization of the Philippines, and given a personal spin of parental concerns as noted above. The literal death of Haik and Mirasol's whale-goddess daughter is the biggest reason for Haik's Despair Event Horizon, as he'd already lost a lot of OTHER family members. The trope is also Played With in that Haik isn't dying so much as lonely without followers, and constantly marginalized and abused.
  • The MAIN Tagalog pantheon is certainly subject to this, but there are spirits older than them who aren't.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: Existing Tagalog beliefs are fused with Mythopoeia of a heavy Polynesian flavor, which results in this. The real-life islanders were indeed more relaxed about sexuality and viewed LGBT people as magically gifted, but they also used a lot of Corporal Punishment thanks to their feudalistic society and practiced Human Sacrifice. Also, anyone who didn't have blood ties to you was a "foreigner," which seriously annoys Haik's Samoan brother-in-law.
  • Mirasol's other past-life husband can't wrap his head around Catholicism's "weird" sex rules: Noblewomen Can't Have Sex, Ever until marriage, and yet noblemen betrothed to them are freely allowed to have sex with their maids, or go to prostitutes. He muses that in Tagalog culture, a betrothed couple can just have sex with each other since they're gonna have sex anyway, and that regardless of social status, a man who boinks another woman during his engagement is deemed to be having an affair.
  • Lola the dragon sheds light on why Haik's volcano-god grandfather was so abusive to him and Lumawig: Being one of The Old Gods who grew up with humans and spirits routinely fighting and killing each other, you couldn't show vulnerability for too long because it was seen as weakness, and the volcano-god may have thought his own grandsons were going to kill him for getting too old... which implies that kinslaying was NOT a special crime when they were young.
• Despair Event Horizon: Haik and Mirasol both went through this after their first daughter's stillbirth. Mirasol notes that Haik shows signs of PTSD since he's still in so much pain over it centuries later.
  • This also happens in the myth of how the bleeding-heart dove got its "wound" of red feathers. The bird was once a large, prestigious fighter, but after a bloody war where he received a near-fatal chest wound, his feathers grew back red since his soul had been wounded as well as his body. At the end of the story, he shrinks to a dove's size and his red feathers evoke a Wound That Will Not Heal to reflect his emotional pain.
  • When Mirasol dreams that the gods are mobilizing in a gigantic balangay to rescue them, Haik's response?
  "I thought they were dead."
• Dinosaurs Are Dragons: The Asian-type dragons of the story are repeatedly called "the crocodile's ancestors," and the author notes on Facebook that she based her Filipino dragons on ancient crocodilians.
• Divine Date: Between Haik and Mirasol, across numerous lifetimes.
• Divine Intervention: The ICE officers throw Haik off the corvette into the open ocean, where a huge amount of sharks and squid have arrived. Even if Haik wasn't too depressed to fight back up to surface, he's still losing air and getting dragged under by the sheer numbers of squid. And then his cousin casts his fishhook.
• Eating the Enemy: Being the crocodile-god and a dragon-shifter, Haik has a tendency to turn into one of those and eat people who make him angry, such as those who shoot his wife and unborn child, or molest his sister. Also, Haik is a "brother" to all the whales, including the orcas, who the ancient Tagalogs feared as vengeful "sea-wolves."
• Empathic Environment: Whenever Haik gets to the sea, the tide comes in.
• Eternal Sexual Freedom: Downplayed Trope and justified. In the newly-colonized Philippines, the indio islanders are more relaxed about premarital sex than Christian islanders and the Spanish, partly because marriage ranges from "a formal ceremony" to just "agreeing that you're married and moving in with each other" as in cohabitation/common-law marriage (especially among the lower classes). Mirasol assures Haik that her Spanish employers don't notice what she does outside of work, and while the mistress of the house worries about Mirasol having sex before marriage, Mirasol just starts taking medicinal tea to keep from getting pregnant. The REAL issue with marrying Haik is cultural, since her master pulls a gun on him the moment he spots his extensive tattoos.
• Ethnic God: Haik, obviously, and the rest of the Tagalog pantheon by extension.
• Fan Fic Fuel: Invoked Trope since Tagalog mythology was nearly obliterated in the Spanish conquest; everything Haik tells Mirasol only gives her a whole list of unanswered questions, and with ICE on the hunt for them, they have no time to talk about everything.
• Generation Xerox: Haik's cousin Lumawig is a demigod with a gigantic eagle tattoo on his chest, and was fostered by the monkey-eating eagle as a boy. Haik and Mirasol's son Banog is ALSO a demigod with an eagle-tattoo on his back (pretty notable since Haik himself is a sea-god). Banog means "kite/falcon..." and is a local name for the monkey-eating eagle. Bonus points since they're both the youngest of their siblings. The similarities are openly stated by Haik, when he watches Banog jump across a river carrying TWO children on his back.
• Gods Need Prayer Badly: Played With—it's not so much literal prayers that Haik needs, but followers to foster relationships with. He also points out the difference between people believing in him, and people believing him when he says he's Haik.
  • It's noted by Lola the dragon that The Old Gods are Anthropomorphic Personifications of nature and don't need worship like the younger gods do, even if they like getting food and attention.
• Here There Were Dragons: Haik begins a story like this; he clarifies later that the dragons aren't gone, but much fewer in number.
• Headbutt of Love: The Maori hongi takes the Filipino name of ungngo in the story. The dragon that Mirasol meets in Chapter 12 reminds them that ungngo is the Ilokano term for it, while Tagalogs use halok.
• Holy Is Not Safe: The whale-goddess is a cheerful and friendly Disabled Deity, who might not be threatening herself—but if she calls for help on the ocean, she's got a lot of Sea Monster family members who are very, VERY dangerous.
• Hope Is Scary: After their first daughter's stillbirth, Haik is stuck in the same painful life-patterns of finding and losing Mirasol because he's used to that kind of pain and doesn't want to risk MORE of it.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Haik is a Maori man who was adopted by the Tagalogs, while Mirasol is five feet tall.
• Human Sacrifice: Mirasol's first life as a datu's daughter nearly ended by being ritually drowned as an offering to Haik. It's also noted that Haik commonly received human sacrifices in precolonial times; a Kalinga shaman jokes that she'd love to get rid of some people she hates by offering them to him, and in a later life, a teenaged Mirasol asks if Haik eats the people who are offered to him.
• I Know Your True Name: Haik explains that he and Paikea aren't the same person anymore, because the Tagalogs gave Haik a new name after hearing his story from the Maori.
  Humans, your names are important, but they are like clothing. Many wear one name from birth to death, and cherish it as such. Some rip them away and take new names in anger or joy or grief. Others force you to wear names that do not fit. But the gods, the diwat? We are creatures of the otherworld, not nearly as solid as earth-dwellers. Our names are who we are.
• The Illegal: Haik is an undocumented immigrant, and ICE officers head to Mirasol's house since the hospital can't find any records of him after a week. Mirasol gets a Prophetic Dream where her Caucasian neighbor Claire calls ICE on Haik again.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Man-eating is a plot point in the sambar-prince's myth: He killed and ate a child as a black-magic ritual to turn human. It's mentioned that Filipino aswang (vampires) and mermaids routinely eat people (though this does not make them evil.) When Mirasol dreams of the Tagalog gods mobilizing in their ship to find Haik, she sees Filipino mermaids with visible fangs and shark-tooth necklaces.
  • In one of Mirasol's past lives, Haik tells the Tagalogs that "the Spanish want your souls," and as they had no concept of large-scale religious conversion, they initially think he means "they're going to eat you."
  • The orcas also use their infamous "beaching" strategy to eat some Spaniards attacking Mirasol's barangay.
  • The infant Lumawig WOULD have been eaten by a merman after being given a sea-burial, had he not been a demigod who was sleeping like the water was air.
• Insistent Terminology: Haik is adamant on this, implied to be because gods are sensitive to what things mean. He notes that while some sources call him "sea-god" and "god of the sea" as if it's the same thing, he insists that there is only one "god of the sea" as the Anthropomorphic Personification of the Pacific Ocean. He emphasizes that he's a "sea-god," which means he's one of many deities with sea-based Elemental Powers. Likewise, he can't "see the future," but thanks to his and Mirasol's Reincarnation Romance, he "sees patterns."
  • In the newly-colonized Philippines, when their demigod daughter wants to kill one of the Spaniard's children to avenge her sister's stillbirth, she deems it a fair punishment, but Haik retorts that "equal" does not mean "fair."
  • Haik is called a "tricksome" god in the myth of the sambar-prince and he's been noted to Take a Third Option when solving problems; it's later revealed that he's a fusion of Paikea and Maui, so he probably split some of Maui's trickster aspects with his cousin Lumawig.
  • Played With regarding Itak and Banog's demigod status. Haik keeps saying he "changed his mind" about making them gods, but they retort that the Spaniard made him do it.
• Intangible Theft / Impossible Theft: As with most fire-bringer myths, Haik teams up with Lumawig to steal back fire-making from their volcano-god grandfather.
• Kill the God: Courtesy of the Spaniard, though it's an extreme Kick the Dog moment since the goddess in question wasn't even born yet.
• Literal Metaphor: Dragons are referred to as "the crocodile's ancestors" with shout-outs to Jurassic Park, and the author notes on Facebook that she based them on folk-memories of crocodile's dinosaur ancestors.
  • The story's figuratively meant to be a Filipino counterpart to Whale Rider. For the literal meaning, Haik the Whale Rider used to be Paikea of New Zealand before he went native among the ancient Tagalogs.
  • Haik tells Mirasol that when Maori sailors came to the Philippines, Haik was born "when the sailors got drunk and told each other stories." The Tagalogs named him "Haik" since he came from the east, like the sun, so he became a separate man from Paikea. Paikea eventually went back to New Zealand, but Haik's stories grew more and more elaborate until he became a sea-god.
  • When Haik takes Mirasol sailing in his newly-returned paraw, he sings about how "the wind in the south is his cousin." Later on, he reveals that his cousin Lumawig has four older brothers, who are indeed the Four Winds.
  • Played With when Haik tells Mirasol in their last life about his journey to the Philippines; when he says "Paikea is a different person from Haik," he means it literally, but Mirasol mistakenly thinks that he hated his home so much, he renamed himself.
• Living Ship: Haik begins a story by saying that in The Time of Myths, the Tagalogs used to travel the seas on dragons, which implies that the common Filipino tradition of putting crocodile-head prows on their ships are a folk-memory of that. Haik's traditional paraw is the trope's more common form of "a sentient (wooden) boat."
  • In the conclusion, the gods' balangay mothership is Lola the dragon.
• Lord of the Ocean: Downplayed Trope with Haik; he's not the master of the ocean (seeing as he's not the personification of the sea), but he's an honorary brother to the whales and it's implied that all the other sea-creatures view him as a "relative:" Mirasol has a vision where a huge flock of sea-creatures comes up from the deep ocean and flanks the gods' balangay ship to find Haik, the kraken himself calls Haik "Kuya" (big brother) and brings back his heart, and a pod of orcas in the spirit-world help Haik's son Banog find the ICE officers' ship where he's being detained.
• Loss of Identity: Haik is constantly in despair about how he has no more songs/myths, rituals, or followers, saying that there's "nothing left of him" to help or fight back against their circumstances. It's especially bad since he's a Deity of Human Origin, and the sky-voice tells Mirasol that he can't just go back to being human.
• Mayfly–December Romance: Played With. Haik is a god and Mirasol is mortal, but she's been reincarnated for different lifetimes. The problem is not her individual lifespans, but how Haik remembers ALL of them.
• Metaphorically True: That Man Is Dead appears in its usual form since Haik stopped using his "whale-rider" epithet out of trauma, and gets angry when Mirasol calls him that. However, it also shows up metaphorically thanks to the heavy folklore themes: While Haik acknowledges his Polynesian roots and cultural ties as Paikea the Whale-Rider, he emphasizes that he's not just "the Tagalog version of Paikea" anymore but an entirely separate figure, and he now identifies as Filipino instead of Maori. As noted above, it turns out to be a Literal Metaphor since the Tagalogs gave him a new name.
• Motif: Crocodiles and whales are obviously heavy symbols.
  • Memories. And the LOSS of them.
  • A lot of metaphors involve the sea or sailing, thanks to Haik being a sea-god descended from Polynesians. It also emphasizes the connection between various Austronesian cultures.
  • Human Sacrifice, and the related trope of human CONSUMPTION.
  • Family. And the loss of them.
• Mythopoeia: A fusion of Tagalog beliefs and fictional myths feature prominently throughout the narrative. Thanks to the destruction of native Tagalog culture, whatever Haik tells Mirasol only gives her a ton of different questions.
• Name That Unfolds Like Lotus Blossom: Done to give the Mythopoeia an oral-tradition feel; Haik's many titles are full of this, "Hina who follows the moon" is his older sister, "Lumawig the last-born" is the youngest of five, and Mayari-who-is-the-moon, naturally, is the moon herself.
• The Old Gods: When Haik and Lumawig have to steal back fire, their grandfather who's hoarding it up is an unnamed volcano-god with white hair, who lived in Mount Pulag before it went cold. He's also verbally abusive to both grandsons, and after giving humans the ability to make fire, he took it back because he didn't think they were respecting him properly anymore.
  • Lola the dragon is a literal example of the trope; she tells Mirasol that she and Haik's grandfather were born before humans started giving things names, and they are largely Anthropomorphic Personifications of nature. While they enjoy worship, they don't need it nearly as much as the young gods like Haik and Bathala (seeing as Haik's grandfather took fire away from his own worshipers, due to perceived lack of respect).
• Our Gods Are Different: The Tagalog deities are immortal but can be killed, though it takes a LOT of effort to kill an adult; moreover, Haik notes that he can sail back from the afterlife, and he himself is a Deity of Human Origin as Paikea is a Maori ancestor-figure. Their stillborn first daughter is always referred to as a goddess and was born as an extremely scaled-down whale calf. Their demigod children are mortals with Super Not-Drowning Skills and Animorphism powers, but were barred from being full gods because Haik "changed his mind" after making such public claims about his children's divinity caused their sister's death.
  • Lola the dragon and the volcano-god are about Bathala's age, do not need worship like the regular Tagalog pantheon, and have no proper names because they were born before people started giving them.
• Our Souls Are Different: In addition to heavy focus on Reincarnation in general, souls can be broken through trauma. The ancient Tagalogs believed that men and women had different souls, and that LGBT people (especially transgender people) had "souls that do not match their body." The myth of the sambar deer hinges on the fact that different species have different souls, as Become a Real Boy denotes.
  • It's noted that gods' souls routinely split into different aspects. The Polynesian Maui has three different "pieces" in the Tagalog pantheon: Bathala and Lumawig are the most obvious ones who share many of Maui's myths, and it's revealed that Haik himself is a third aspect of him, in addition to being a folk-memory of Paikea. Haik also notes that the Tagalog version of Mayari is much younger than the Kapampangan Mayari, who intentionally split off a piece of herself because she enjoyed the Fil-Americans' worship.
  • The souls of dead children may become demons if they're miserable and get lost on the way to the afterlife, similar to real-life Filipino beliefs. It's quite a contrast to adults: Haik mentions that Mirasol's soul often wanders around when she's asleep, and the only issue is that there are no more Tagalog shamans/elders who can teach her to manage it properly.
• Power Tattoo: Implied Trope with Haik's crocodile tattoos, since he often turns into a saltwater crocodile or a dragon. Also, all Filipino tattoos are spiritual links to one's community—since Haik was forced to take most of his off to avoid (even more) profiling as a criminal, the other gods haven't found him for centuries.
• Premature Birth Drama: As with many incarnations of the Polynesian Maui, Lumawig was born premature. His parents grieve heavily and give the still-living baby a sea-funeral, since they may have seen this as a Mercy Kill. He gets fostered by mermaids, but before they saw he was sleeping quietly in the water and therefore a god's child, they were going to eat him.
• Primal Fear: Haik's isolation and loneliness is a major character point, and the fear of being hunted/eaten by Sea Monsters (both real and mythical) is a constant motif since Haik is the crocodile-god.
  • In Chapter 16, the whale-goddess summons a massive horde of sharks, seabirds, and Humboldt squid, commonly known as el diablo rojo. They're initially happy to see Haik after so long apart, but quickly become furious when they find out he's getting deported again. During a fight with the ICE officers, Haik gets thrown overboard to make everyone else stop protesting, and they assume he's a goner. They aren't far off—the wounded Haik sparks a feeding frenzy with his blood and starts getting dragged farther into the deep when a nearby mob of squid start eating their own wounded. Haik just lets himself sink and mostly hopes that he passes out BEFORE he gets eaten. Good thing the gods' balangay showed up so Lumawig could fish Haik back to the surface.
  • The sea in general is dangerous, and the unexplained arrival of many threatening sea-creatures is constantly sending the immigrants into mass-panics.
• Reincarnation
• Reincarnation Romance: Between Haik and Mirasol.
• Rule of Symbolism: In the story, whales symbolism joy, love, and freedom, while crocodiles symbolize war and protection. Haik and Mirasol's unborn daughter was a scaled-down whale calf, and their other children were shapeshifters who preferred to be crocodiles.
  • Haik's extensive tattoos have nearly vanished due to his trauma (and the need to avoid Profiling), but have begun to reappear after Mirasol tells him her vision of the other gods coming to find them.
  • Mirasol's heart is a mangrove tree, which lives in saltwater.
  • In the conclusion: After Haik has been tossed off of ICE's corvette to either drown in the open ocean or get eaten by frenzied sea-creatures, he's saved by the other gods finally reaching him. Once he's hauled back out of the ocean, ALL of his tattoos have reappeared.
• Sea Monster:
  • Haik often takes the form of a huge saltwater crocodile, but in one of Mirasol's past-life dreams, he transformed into "a crocodile's ancestor" which was the size of a ship. Moreover, one of his epithets is "(he) who breaks the ships in his teeth." Their demigod daughter also returns as an Asian-type dragon, which are all naturally Sea Monsters in appearance.
  • A bioluminescent kraken appears in the twelfth chapter, when Mirasol is wandering the Otherworld and gets stranded in the middle of the ocean. Despite his scary appearance, he's very friendly and not only helps Mirasol get back to shore, he returns Haik's heart. The cuttlefish call him "Kuya" (big brother).
  • The diablo rojo are less an individual large sea-monster and more a Zerg Rush of smaller ones.
• Sex for Solace: Haik and Mirasol already had sex several times after she remembered their relationship, but at the end of the tenth chapter, Haik's heart leaves (temporarily) for the ocean. He's extremely depressed without it, and she's upset that he's used to it.
• Shout-Out: To Whale Rider through Haik's shared title with the Maori figure Paikea, and both stories' themes of (almost-)lost traditions.
  • Mirasol compares a Filipino dragon's roar to Jurassic Park's T-Rex, and refers to the Filipino myths that Haik tells her as those from "a lost world."
  • She also wonders if she'd be called the Mother of Filipino Dragons since their children liked to shapeshift into crocodiles, which were considered dragons in Filipino lore.
  • The Polynesian Maui is split into pieces in the Tagalog pantheon, which fit the Land, Sea, Sky trinity: Bathala is the creator-god tied to the land, while Lumawig is the trickster wind-deity. It's later revealed that Haik himself has the last "piece" of Maui, as a Born Under the Sail voyager with a sister called Hina.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Mirasol's boss in the newly-colonized Philippines is only called her master or "the Spaniard." His major action is shooting the heavily-pregnant Mirasol to make Haik shut up about being an islander deity, which clinches the Death of the Old Gods.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: Downplayed Trope. Haik and Mirasol aren't prevented from being together, but all the traumas happening to them seriously strain their relationship(s).
• Supernaturally Young Parent: Haik is this by default since he's a god who's eternally young and healthy, but Mirasol also becomes one after their demigod daughter returns. And then when their whale-goddess daughter shows up with the other Tagalog deities as a young woman.
• Mystical Pregnancy: Of the "conceived normally, but something happens during pregnancy." When Mirasol gets shot by the Spaniard, the baby starts thrashing around in pain. When Haik and past-Lloyd take her to a shaman for help, she delivers a tiny whale-calf that ends up stillborn.
• The Time of Myths: Haik tells Mirasol a "Just So" Story about how the bleeding-heart dove got the "bloody" red feathers on its chest.
  Haik: The old days were when the dragons still lived, the crocodile’s ancestors. They carried us across the water, so we did not need ships. The toothed whales had not been betrayed by the sharks yet, and so did not eat meat in vengeance. And so in the old days, the dumugong-puso had not yet grown tired of fighting.
• Time Abyss: Haik's grandfather and Bathala were young men before Bathala made humans. Lola the dragon is only slightly younger, since she was born before people started naming things.
• Traumatic Haircut: Tagalog women often cut their hair as a sign of mourning. Langa-an the North Wind cuts her hair in grief when her child Lumawig is born premature.
• Tragic Stillbirth: Mirasol's Spanish master shot the heavily pregnant Mirasol after Haik told him that their child would be a god, and their daughter's stillbirth has hugely traumatized Haik. Their later children grow up angry, warlike, and far too protective of their mother. Since this started piling more trauma and death onto their Reincarnation Romance, Haik is constantly reminded of their daughter's death and he's afraid of changing things in case he makes it worse.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Downplayed Trope. After their first daughter died, Haik and Mirasol's next two children grow up serious, angry, and overprotective of Mirasol before twenty years old.
• Turtle Island: The literal spirit of Turtle Island, often referred to as the (Great) Turtle, shows up in Chapter 13 as Mirasol and Haik's souls are figuring out a plan to avoid getting deported. The Turtle is Kaiju-sized with a painted shell, and she speaks both English and Spanish.
• Was Once a Man: The souls of dead children become demons if they're scared or miserable for too long, and they often get lost in the afterlife. Langa-an resurrects her adopted son to avoid this, and the mermaid couple who adopts Lumawig also take him in to prevent him from becoming a demon. Later on it's noted that since children are too young to get tattoos, their ancestors have a hard time finding them.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: The issue with Haik and Mirasol's relationship isn't necessarily her individual lifespans or the unlucky patterns she's caught up in, but how Haik remembers all of it. All his trauma's just been accumulating over his extremely long life.
  • In the twelfth chapter, the kraken notes that this is a problem with Haik because he's a Deity of Human Origin—despite his immortality and powers, his heart is still human.