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I really like to think about how each member of the trio relate to their culture.

Proud, prideful Tao, So in touch with his culture. Except it’s a dead culture. Well, perhaps dead isn’t the right word, but the civilisation is long extinct so whatever he knows about his culture, most of it just doesn’t exist anymore- the Muan political system? Justice system? Way of building houses? All that is lost to him, by virtue of it not existing anymore. And yes, he reads, and he probably knows a shitton about it, but most of it doesn’t really matter since the people who applied this culture are long gone. And it shows- sure, Tao’s usually an instant expert on shit by virtue of, plot easiness. But he doesn’t know everything. In S3, there’s that part where he translates something as “Nakal”, and needs a third party (Athanaos) to explain to him what that means. Like no wonder dude wants to find the cities of gold he was raised with all this this is ALL he was taught, all he was told he was born to do. Gotta find your missing piece.

Zia, little Zia, the Incan girl, taken away from her family at seven years old. And, I’m no history specialist so feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m preeeetty sure the spanish would have tried to get some catholicism and whiteness in her. So yes, Inca culture, but how much? Spanish culture, but how much? Does she hates those reflexes the spanish taught her?

What about Esteban? Spanish kid raised in a monastery. How much of Spain, of Barcelona, of Catholicism can you hammer in a kid fundamentally isolated from everyone else?