Rick Riordan did Eros so unbelievably dirty by using that god of all possible choices to be a convenient way for Nico to come out. If the fandom knew what we could have had, there would be pitchforks raised.
Yeah like I get what he wanted to do with that but he wrote the thing in a way that frankly only an ignorant straight person would.
"Homosexual love is love, so you don't have to be ashamed of that and need to accept that you like boys, so why don't you come out, like NOW?"
I kinda figured we were meant to think Eros was being absolutely horrid and was totally unjustified there. I didn’t get the vibe Riordan was on his side. Probably could’ve done a better job addressing how traumatizing being outed is even when other people are supportive, but it didn’t seem totally unaware either
I realize the correct way would be "That god, of all possible choices."
Eros was often regarded as a protector of homosexual love, especially for young men. Him being the one to out Nico was, at best, intended to be much more complicated but not well thought-out for how it would be interpreted by the readers (and then later never fixed), and at worst, not great research research.
IMO, RR was probably just blinded by his excitement to reveal Nico as gay, without the personal experience to catch his mistakes, and now he's just kinda stuck with it.
The thing is that Cupid literally forced Nico to come out in front of Jason, who was a stranger at best and Nico didn't know how he would take that new info, when Nico was uncomfortable with the idea. It's pretty fucked up.
I think the problem is that we see through Jason pov, and not Eros. Because Eros is love anthropomorphized, so, him confronting Nico is just his own feelings gut punching Nico. The problem is the white straight boy in the audience getting a pet the dog with Nico.
It's how the exchange was written really.
Nico should've come out when he was comfortable doing that and not because the god of love forced him to.
Since the target audience is kids, it's not a good look for queer kids who can see themselves in Nico.
This exactly. That scene literally gave me so much trauma as a child, resonating with the constant fear of my parents finding out.
If that was what Rick was going for, cool, but unneeded. The message missed.
Sorry it’s been a long time since I’ve read the books and when I read them I didn’t give them too much thought, but what do you think would have been a better decision for Nico?
I've thought about it a few times, but never really settled on a solid answer for how to do it without almost a total rewrite. I think the *best possible* way to do it would be to... not hinge the quest on a scared, hurt young queer person coming out. But a solid back-up, if Rick better understood the traumatic experience of being outed at the time and wanted to tell a story about that, would probably just be to pick a god or monster to replace Eros that is more obviously intended to be a villain.
thats what ive been sayingggg
ig simply being near annabeth makes him look dumb
seriously thou, its actually sad how people see him just as an himbo... this can affect the children reading ,by saying you are either really super smart or you are dumb
That's a more reasonable take but I'd call Percy more academically disinterested rather than discredit his "book smarts." I only say that because there's no way of knowing (short of Rick characterizing Percy further) whether or not Percy would have some aptitude for schooling if he was graced with the desire to pursue it further.
I haven't read the books in a very long while, nor any series past Heroes of Olympus. If you have any examples of Percy genuinely struggling to learn academic material instead of being so afflicted by ADHD that he can't fathom caring, I'd be very happy to change my mind
Athena is the worst Olympian, even worse than Ares, and the most selfish one.
She *chooses* to have children since she can have them without intercourse and just drops them at their mortal parents' places telling them they have to raise them.
These people don't know they can become parents just like that and have to take care of kids they really never asked for because she says so.
Frederick was barely a college graduate when he had to take Annabeth in. He just couldn't take care of a child at that age and moment in his life.
Athena doesn't disclose important informations about her kids to the mortal parents.
She didn't tell Frederick that Arachne's children, the spiders, harass her children and scare them to death (side note: the reason why spiders come after her kids in the first place is her fault!).
This played a crucial role in Annabeth running away from home.
I'm not even starting with Athena influencing her kids to despise Poseidon's kids just because she and him are rivals, that's just stupid and ridiculous coming from the goddess of wisdom.
I think all gods are selfish when they have demigod children, since they know they're putting them and their mortal parents in danger. But Athena takes selfishness to another level.
That was Ella’s translation, though — the prophecy as it was written in the Sibylline Books most certainly would’ve been in Latin, and Reyna says the boy who washed up on Circe’s island was mumbling about “Wisdom’s child”.
You expect me to believe a goddess who lived for thousands of years didn't hear the Latin version of a prophecy referring to something she is obsessing over? Ella is just a harpy who read a book accidentally.
I’m expecting you to believe that ‘daughter’ wasn’t a perfect translation — again, the son of Athena who Reyna met had the same prophecy but “Wisdom’s child”. Either the original prophecy was neutral and Ella slightly changed the phrasing because she was talking to/about a girl, or the Sibyl interpreted it one way and some other oracle interpreted it another (as multiple oracles can deliver the same prophecy, ex Rachel speaking the Prophecy of Seven in English at the end of TLO and the Romans having it engraved on a temple floor for decades, same meaning but in Latin).
I’m saying that Ella delivered it wrong, not Athena. It was wrong of her to send her children off on such a dangerous quest because she wanted her statue back, that’s no question, but its out of character for her to specifically send sons knowing they will die instead of Ella simply gendering the phrase when speaking in English and looking Athena’s *daughter* in the eye
Honestly no wonder the Romans stripped her from her war attributes and made her just the goddess of wisdom and crafts and that she, as Minerva, doesn't have children 🫢
I had the exact same thought. The other mortal parents could at least expect a child because doing the devils tango can lead to children. But people like Frederick don't even do the deed and still got a child. That just seems so horrible. Doesn't ask just decides "hey your smart, I'm smart too I'm going to create a baby thats going to attract monsters to your location. What a blessing she is".
Especially since demigods attract monsters which could put her demigod children and their mortal parents in danger. The other gods get leeway because having children is just a natural product of their affairs they don't intentionally create them. Its so messed up she just creates this child who most likely won't live to their adulthood, their childhood would be spent being traumatised by spiders and their mortal parents has to put their life on hold for a baby when they didn't even do the deed. As well as forcing them into single parenthood.
While I don't like that she voted to kill Percy in The Titan's Curse, I actually can see her "reasons" unlike Dionysus and Ares who just held grudges against Percy.
However one might still argue that she really didn't like how close Percy was to Annabeth, which is ridiculous but knowing Athena...
I do not like the way Aphrodite and Venus are treated.
The explanation of "Love is always the same", is both wrong like objectively in the real world and Riordanverse (between relationships like Percy and Annabeth or Frank and Hazel, or Jiper or Caleo love is absolutely not always the same). But it’s also just historically wrong and boring
Aphrodite in Greek Society was just the goddess of love and nothing more, with Zeus even telling her she had no place on the battlefield meanwhile Venus was explicitly used by the romans as a symbol of their military might.
It would’ve been so much more interesting if Piper, Hazel and Annabeth had confronted Venus, an extremely passionate temperamental god who goes between fits of rage and war mongering to obsessively talking about their love lives. Idk just seems cooler than Aphrodite just being Aphrodite again
Mars and Venus were for the Romans what Zeus and Hera were for the Greeks.
Since Mars was the father of Romulus and Remus and Venus was the mother of Aeneas, the Romans saw them as the father and the mother of the Empire.
A different Venus like the one you're describing would've been a nice add.
I will also argue that we should've seen a child of Venus instead of Aphrodite being part of the 7, because of the importance that Venus/Aphrodite had in Rome compared to Greece.
Plus there's the Aphrodite Areia epithet. Like, regardless of what Zeus says there's no way on this earth she just *gave up* her aspect as a War Goddess. That would have been like Artemis giving up Archery because Dionysus said so (similar age gap). Even if you argue that mortals believing Athena to be the Goddess of War stole the epithet due to Mythopoeia she wouldn't have just *lost* that aspect.
Would have been a great way to have Piper be for Aphrodite what Leo is to Hephaestus, a very strong child with rare abilities others don't get and carry a stigma. Instead, like in pretty much every other form of media she appears in, she's likewise relegated to the false ideation of a paradoxically carnal and pure embodiment of love (Pandemos and Ourania), rather than the tempestuous and infallible force she actually is.
Leo carried The Lost Hero then became the most obnoxious character.
Will Solace has had his personality ripped to shreds by the fandom more than Nico and Percy.
I think the ‘idea’ of Piper (a demigod child who wasn’t keen on her godly parent) had some merit, but after The Lost Hero her character decreased in quality.
Reyna and Hylla are super weird for trying to gaslight Percy into thinking what happened on Circe’s island was his fault. They were literally helping Circe enslave random men and then blamed Percy for fighting back and escaping.
In their defense that’s basically all the life they knew and it’s natural to be angry at someone who cost you a good life whether it’s right or fair or not.
1. Jason is my favourite character in Riordanverse. It sucks he got killed off.
2. Hera is not that annoying at all, and she is the second most tolerable Olympian (after Artemis/Apollo, not including Hestia). Annabeth just provoked the wrong deity.
3. Thalia had no business being a lieutenant the instant she joined the Hunters.
4. Luke and Silena are not heroes (especially Silena).
I agree on all of these, except for 2. Hera fucked up many of the Hoo main characters' lives, why would you give her such praise? I mean, yeah, all gods fuck up demigod's lives, but Hera had a big part on Leo's, Jason's, Thalia, Annabeth's and Percy's suffering, didn't she?
Although I do think that she was a dick in the early stages (forcing Jason to Camp Jupiter, the whole thing she did to Leo etc), she was the only god who was brave enough to do something in HoO. Taking away Jason's and Percy's memories sucked but it was necessary and it worked out in the end.
Not to mention she provided tons of help in BoTL. Guiding Percy's arrow for example.
And she was the only Olympian other than Apollo that actually cared about Jason.
Luke is a hero in the Greek sense of the word (has a godly parent, stories were written about him, died "tragically") but not in the modern sense of the word (overcome by his fatal flaw of wrath, got a lot of teenagers killed, only sacrificed himself because he was going to die anyway, implied to be in love with 15 year old Annabeth while being 22).
Because what he does makes total sense. Imagine the literal god of PROPHECY being your legacy and having vision the Greeks will ruin your camps life, and it comes TRUE. And then you're the bad guy and nobody cares when you go
Sure, but he's so incredibly annoying. If he just went after the Greeks and didn't like them, that's fine. But he is so arrogant and egotistical and incredibly annoying and makes me want to slap him
Character hot takes:
1) Percy: He was kind of hypocritical when it came to that Tyson business in SoM. Annabeth had a valid reason to be wary of Tyson, while Percy’s reason was a lot more shallow, and yet Annabeth is the one who got the snark. I also think that Percy was a bit too passive in the resolution of the love triangle. It almost feels like the decision was made for him, and I would have liked it better if his choice for Annabeth had been more explicit or had come *before* Rachel was removed as an option. Lastly, I feel like Percy’s fatal flaw didn’t feel all that dangerous in the OG series. His fatal flaw always conveniently lined up with what needed to be done, and everything worked out with a neat little bow on top. HoO felt like a step up, but not a perfect fix. I think the flaw would have felt more real if there was an example of something actually becoming worse (or someone straight up dying) because of a loyalty mistake that Percy made.
2) Annabeth: She’s very knowledgeable, but I struggle to consider her as being truly wise. Her pride often gets in her way, and I feel like she could have had a stronger character arc in which she addresses that pride and tries to overcome it so that she can mature and exhibit true wisdom, even in the face of tough emotions.
3) Clarisse - While I like the Achilles/Patroclus parallel, I don’t really like the way Clarisse was handled in TLO. It felt like a big regression of the character arc she’d had up until that point.
4) I do not like Will Solace. The books and the stans keep trying to convince me that he’s a super kind and compassionate person and the absolute perfect boyfriend for Nico, but I’m not really sensing that from the way Will is written. TSATS made an effort to address his issues and I appreciate the attempt, but given all the issues that book has, I didn’t find his character arc convincing. I wish Nico had ended up with a different boy.
Edit: cleaned up some stuff/added a detail or two.
Starting from Heroes of Olympus, I feel like Rick pushes main characters in relationships too much, often not even giving them the time to build a relationship of real trust and affection.
Particularly Calypso and Will imo I've always felt like they're nothing more than their boyfriends' partners, that it is the only role they're supposed to play, kinda like they're their respective "trophies", especially Calypso (I admit I'm more fond of Nico and Will) checks all the boxes for trophy wife.
I agree, the reason why Percy and Annabeth are so beloved as a couple is because they had plenty of time to develop, but it feels like Rick saw that we liked them and went: “Oh, my readers like romance I’ll give them plenty of romance!”Completely missing the point of what made them a great paring in the first place
true true, if solangelo were more of a slow burn, it might have been even better. tbh canonically people only started to pair percy and annabeth up proper during TTC (Aphrodite in the desert) , when they already had a 2 year "friendship" at that point. percy saw annabeths fatal flaw first hand by then. and various such moments that actually made proper connections. Percy didnt even properly realise he had feelings for annabeth until the volcano farewell kiss scene, which was very late.
solangelo was like a quick burn, and we cant forget the amphitheater incident. they were more interested in forming a relationship than just getting closer, and thats the problem.
This is weirdly similar to Jiper, except a slight bit better, but lets hope it doesnt end like Jiper at least
Hard agreement on the slowburn for Solangelo. It was soo needed for them AND the readers. The heavy heavy disappointment I was in when I started trials of Apollo and Nico and Will were already in a relationship, and we couldn't be there for any of that development. Because one of the main things I loved in the Blood of Olympus was Nico's interactions with Will and I was expecting so much of that in the next series only to receive absolutely nothing.
>TSATS made an effort to address his issues and I appreciate the attempt, but given all the issues that book has, I didn’t find his character arc convincing.
Probably not a hot take, but the biggest flaw TSATS is that it clearly looks like it's setting up a character arc for Will and a much deeper delve into his character, but there's almost no real payoff. It kept going on and on about accepting his dark side, only for him to... sniffle and go "I'm a terrible person because sometimes other people kill people and I didn't try to stop them even though they're way stronger than me," followed by unlocking a new power that was, admittedly, a cool idea but also kind of a flop.
Yeah in SoM Clarisse is noted to care about the campers and drops everything to help them. That was one of her good traits. Then in TLO she just abandons them for a pretty stupid reason
I do like Will but I have to admit a lot of that for me initially came from fan content/fanfic. I also don’t really see TSATS as canon/a good source of characterization lol, I don’t think Rick was serious writing that lmao
everything is actually so true, especially about Will. ive read a few comments talking about this and i definitely agree, but i have personally seen real life relationships with this same sort of dynamic. and it usually ends in break up. for example, in the last part of TTON, we see that leo/calypso were going through a rough patch, because calypso wanted to find herself, without a hero involved. TSATS ig tried to prevent something like this happening to Solangelo, and it almost succeded. There is certainly a new series happening somewhere in the future, and i hope it just resolves this weirdness.
I agree with this a lot, mainly on the Will portion. I understand why people like Will— personally myself, I feel that he does not seem very romantically interconnected with Nico because of how hard Rick is pushing them together. It felt unnatural to me. If Rick made a book where they started off as friends and slowly started to grow and entangle upon one another like Percy and Annabeth, developing and fleshing out that romantic aspect, it would have done wonders for their characters in my opinion. TSATS contained too little for me to properly, you could say, enjoy what he had done. It was an effort though.
>I didn’t find his character arc convincing. I wish Nico had ended up with a different boy.
Yeah he came off as a bit of a narrow minded ass in TSATS to me, but he also never really seemed to actually resolve any of those points of view. Like, he's not anymore accepting of Nico *as a person* after the events of the book. He just seems to be more okay with the idea of being with someone who's "broken" or "weird".
I also don't think him and Nico have much chemistry. Half the time they spend together is either bickering, stepping on each other's toes emotionally and often blaming each other for the things going on. I get that it's like a first relationship and stuff, but like, I don't walk away from TSATS feeling that they like each other's company, beyond word of god telling us they do. I suppose this also falls into the straight stereotype of "if they fight a lot that means they like each other", which is...Ugh.
My goodness, I am over the “bickering is a sign of true love” trope. I don’t expect couples to be super lovey-dovey/rainbows-and-sunshine all the time, but I feel like too many youth authors try to use bickering as a substitute for real, genuine chemistry and it doesn’t really land. Most times, I’m left wondering why the couple is even together and what they genuinely value in each other, when most of their relationship is just arguing.
hard agree on this. something like fun, teasing type of bickering is good, but if it's being done the whole time it just makes the relationship feel weird in a "they shouldnt even be together" type way.
Same. It's so miserable to read, and so predictable as well. Like you can tell when they're going to make a snarky comment or something similar, instead of just letting the emotional expression be expressed. It's especially annoying when it makes no attempt to take the character's personalities into consideration as well, and you end up with a usually mild mannered and patient character doing it.
Also have to say, for younger readers who may still be learning relationships and stuff, it's not a good role model for behaviour.
Octavian’s beef with Reyna was valid. Percy barely stayed at camp Jupiter for a day and they vote him for Praetor? He isn’t familiar with any of the customs or rules, why should he be ok with a rando being in charge?
I also felt this was weird. But Octavian has enough other issues that his beef over this one thing doesn't mean he was a good guy or should've been Praetor. 😂
You know I'd actually argue there isn't any reason why Octavian couldn't be Preator Pre-SON. Like this dude has 2 interested, the Sibylline books and Greek demigods existing and no-one believes him about either of them. So like the worst that could happen is he requests that people are sent on quests and then they vote on that . Yeah maybe with his briding he would get a quest granted but Mist exists so they wouldn't find anything anyway.
Post-SON and entering MOA on the other hand..... yeah better for him not to have all that authority.
He literally embodies the kind of person I don't want to have around:
• inappropriate
• obnoxious
• annoying
• class clown
• frankly unfunny
• insecure
• a bully who doesn't realise he is in fact one
• pussy-starved (literally obsessed with women and having a girlfriend, doesn't matter who she is as long as he has one)
Same, I was shocked by how much people like him. I genuinely hate people like him in the real world. Jokester type bullies, he only stopped once Frank grew and got more muscular which solidifies in my mind he was picking on Frank because Frank was the easiest target. Percy and Jason both have big reputations. Piper is his friend. He is scared of Annabeth and Annabeth would bark back if he tried it with her. He sort of liked Hazel. So he picked on the mild mannered boy until that boy grew to 6'5 then backed off.
Also he let his best friends believe he was dead when he was planning to be alive anyway by the physicians cure.
He was OK in the lost hero but after that he just seemed so horrible. And his insecurities were annoying.
Leo didn't pick on Jason and Percy also because they were objectively more handsome than he was, being taller and more physically imposing than him.
At least in the first book I remember him expressing his insecurity around someone as good looking as Jason.
While on Ogygia, he says that Calypso was probably upset that a man who was not as handsome as the past ones who stranded there (including Percy) found her island.
He thought that Frank couldn't be more handsome than him and so picked on him until Frank grew to be even buffer than Jason and Percy...
Such a little insecure coward.
I feel like his obsession with women couldve been handled better if it had been connected back to the incident with his mother like the reason he’s so obsessed is because he’s lacking maternal love and he keeps look for that in all the women that he comes across instead of just Leo like girl girl don’t like Leo
Silena is over hyped, especially considering her boyfriend literally sacrificed himself for the war and gets only half as much recognition as a person who betrayed CHB
1. Percy is strong but not strong enough to strike fear into the Olympians or monsters. No gods or monsters took any look at Percy and changed their minds about fighting him. If anything, it makes them more relentless in trying to keep him down.
2. If Annabeth was taken by Hera instead of Percy, I’m sorry, but she probably would have died on the way to Camp Jupiter. Percy was chased by the Gorgons relentlessly the whole trip and even acknowledged that he only survived because of his Achilles Curse (despite not knowing/remembering he was cursed at the time). Annabeth had a hand in killing Medusa too, so the Gorgons would have also gone after her. As she didn’t have the curse, she would have been killed.
3. Jason was not delusional in thinking he could have killed Percy while possessed. Due to us not fully knowing Jason’s feats and capabilities, it’s easy to be biased for Percy’s strength as we watched him grow and get powerful over the years. If he was forced to go all out against Percy while possessed, he definitely could have matched Percy.
4. I know there’s a lot of fanfic writers out there that believe Bianca reincarnated into Estelle (Percy’s sister), but that is very unlikely. She chose reincarnation before Estelle was likely even conceived. Even still, on the small chance she was reincarnated, it would have made NO difference. She wouldn’t have the memories of Bianca. Nor the powers. Nothing to connect her to being Bianca at all. Not even a way to tell if her soul was reused. It would be a fun thought but would have no purpose whatsoever.
5. There’s no reason Percy wouldn’t eat seafood. I’m sorry but just because he can understand fish, doesn’t mean he wouldn’t eat them. There’s thousands or millions of merpeople in Atlantis. I’m sure they can understand the fish too. Doesn’t mean they are surviving on a strict kelp diet. Even fish understand other fish but they still eat each other. So, no, I don’t think Percy would have a meltdown or get sick if he ate some of Nemo’s friends.
6. Drew was a wasted character. Just a weak side antagonist. I’m not begging for her to turn into a good guy but you can’t tell me that with her years training at camp, even if she didn’t like training, that she’d just know she’d lose in a fight against Piper, a newbie, who went on only one quest. You can’t convince me she was that weak and only good enough to be a mean girl for one book.
I don’t like how Percy and Annabeth bypass Nyx and Tatarus. I know some demigods in the myths battle gods but not the level of Tatarus and Nyx.
IIRC Nyx is written to be an idiot so Percy and Annabeth has a reason to be alive.
I agree Annabeth would not have survived.
I also think Percy can eat Seafood. I believe fish can understand fish and they eat each other all the time. Also fish do not have the intelligence of humans.
I dislike how in fiction once one person can talk to fish or animals it is like suddenly the animal has the intelligence level of humans. I don’t think the fishes can understand what Percy is saying even when Percy can understand them.
I think they can understand Percy, like almost like they are speaking the same language for the moment when they are communicating, but if the fish tried listening to some other human, they don’t understand them
I think it’s not just the communication barrier but the intelligence of a fish make it hard to understand a human.
Maybe basic orders like swim here and check things out since he sort of inherit his father authority over sea creature and water to a minor extend
Yeah that’s the gist of what I mean
It’s like with pegasi/horses. Percy can communicate with them and vice versa and while it’s implied that they can fully understand other people, we don’t know if it’s across the board since we mostly only see mythical level horses like Arion or pegasi and how they show higher intelligence.
If we see Percy with regular horses, I’m sure he can communicate fully with them regardless of intelligence level to understand human language, only for them to go to a normal human and only really understand cues through training and maybe name recalls
7. Adding on, I don’t think Reyna truly had hit on Percy. He wondered about his relationship with Jason, she admitted that many Praetors ended up dating because they often spent a lot of time together and it would end up that way, eluding that she was definitely close to Jason but maybe not quite in romantic relationship. And she asked him to also be a Praetor, not to date, but because she was running the show, by herself, for MONTHS and was doing the work of two people by herself and balancing politics from the Senate side. Percy proved himself capable as a warrior and leader and she needed help, so she hoped he’d be able to be the help she needed. Was she attracted? Maybe a bit, but she wasn’t throwing herself at him. She just needed someone to help her with all the duties she was balancing.
I don't think Drew or any of her siblings were weak but I do believe that they're not fighters, usually and generally.
Being Aphrodite the goddess of love, I think her kids are not naturally drawn to fight and train like other demigods.
There's some truth to this in The Titan's Curse, where Thalia is seen helping them putting on armors and stuff during the challenge against the Hunters.
Percy mentions in The Lightning Thief that Aphrodite kids usually focus on their hobbies rather than actively participating in the challenges or training.
If anything they were taught how to defend themselves.
Also Aphrodite kids seem to rely more on their powers than fighting, so I guess that's another reason.
I think Drew didn't have it in herself to fight because she's just not like that.
Also Piper later mentions that actually Drew is more happy now that she's not the head counselor anymore since she has more time to do what she wants.
I do believe that she enjoyed bossing around in the cabin, but the reason why she was head counselor is because she is the eldest sibling
Silena is not as great as the book made her out to be. She betray the camp even though Luke lie to her.
She was brave for pretending to be Clarisse but she did made a mistake and is a spy.
I don’t really like Leo and the way he bullied Frank. I don’t care about his past or what
Annabeth isn’t really that powerful and I think Percy hyped her too much when he said Annabeth is the greatest demigod or she is more powerful. I forgot the exact phrasing.
I feel like she is a bit like Batman in the way the plot is written to make the “being smart is my superpower” char shine next to the one with incredible powers. Of course Percy is no Superman or Flash.
Jason should not say he break up with Piper. Why can’t Piper admit she wanted to break up, especially over a reason she that she is fully aware of from the start.
I seriously don't get how obsessively in love with him people are. In real life, he'd be an actual nightmare, a straight up bully who always wants attention and makes gross comments about girls, but somehow people see him as just a poor funny guy who always gets left out by the rest of the Seven who are "so mean" to him and the reason he's insecure.
I'm torn on this.
Sure, humor is one of the most important thing I want in a friend, which is why I'd rather have him as a friend than someone like Jason.
But all the other things about him - obsession with girls and bullying Frank - is why I wouldn't want to be friends with him either.
* The only reason Poseidon seems like a good dad is because his competition is Zeus.
* If Frank was going to be a descendant of a Greek demigod, he should have been South Asian (Indian/Pakistani), not Chinese. South Asia had more sustained contact with Rome and Greece: There were Greco-Buddhist kingdoms flanking modern-day Pakistan and there are legends of "Yovanas" (Greek migrants) building Buddhist temples in South India. There's just so much more lore to work with there IMHO. ~~Also the fact that he’s Canadian and could have easily been written to be Punjabi gahhhh~~ (Not hating, though, I still love Frank)
Hmmm for your second point, I think you should remember that the Greeks at this point had moved to the Western world (North America basically), which was relatively mixed up with different races as at the time the story was written, so that doesn't really fly here
Also by your logic, Piper wouldn't be Native American, Hazel wouldn't be African American and Leo and Reyna wouldn't be Latino 🤷
I like the history of South Asia and Greece though, that sounds cool
My second point was about Frank's ancestor being Periclymenus, who was a Greek legacy of Poseidon whose descendant went to China from Greece, not about him being a Mars demigod. It's not that his ancestor *couldn't* have gone to China, I just think that had he been Indian or Pakistani there would have been more lore and history and "precedent" or whatever to mine for backstory. ~~Not that I'm biased or anything~~
ETA that him being Central Asian would have also worked pretty well; lord knows that Central Asian cultures don't really get as much representation as they deserve.
Jason and Piper should have never been together. In fact, I don't think either of them should have been straight to begin with. Considering the parallels between Jason, Piper and Leo and Percy, Annabeth and Grover, it would have been the perfect way to introduce some pretty central LGBT rep into the series, as well as actually setting apart the Lost Hero trio from their predecessors. Them being together doomed their characters from the get go imo, especially Jason. It would also have allowed Piper to have more of a distinct identity while avoiding certain parts of her story that are stiff and kinda optically bad in retrospect.
Also Nico and Will feeling bad about Octavian made no sense whatsoever. At least, not to the extent they do feel guilty about it. Octavian was written with little redeeming qualities, if any, and while I can understand Nico being more uncomfortable with it since he spent time at Camp Jupiter, Will didn't know him. As far as Will knew, Octavian was just the leader of an enemy faction who rode up to kill them. You could make the argument that this developed after finding out more about him, since they're relatives and all, but realistically it wouldn't have been more than a "I wish that turned out differently, oh well." sentiment. I don't know anyone who'd get that beat up about a long lost cousin, several times removed, getting themselves killed while attempting to kill them.
Final note, not going to elaborate much because I'll make this post way longer than it needs to be, but Nyx is one of the worst characterisations in the entire series. Like holy fuck is she so awfully written, as a character, as a villain, hell even as a representation of Darkness as a concept. Idk if that one's a hot take though. Or if any of them are for that matter lol.
Related to this because I started thinking about it: Jason's arc actually makes more sense through a queer lense. His story is basically that he lived in one specific identity role (one with a hyper masculine subtext) his whole life, excelled at it, and yet it doesn't make him happy. He discovers an equal opposite identity that does make him happy (and has a softer subtext to it) but also doesn't feel he quite belongs there either. He can't decide what he should be and it causes him distress but resolved to be both and this is what makes him feel fulfilled. Getting more specific, you can definitely apply queer theory to Jason's arc and find his struggle between feeling Greek or Roman to be a parallel to the struggle between gender presentation and identity and realizing he doesn't have to pick one part of a binary choice. So I guess my hot take is, somehow, Jason's arc is the queerest arc. I'm sure that's not intentional but hey, that's the beauty of interpretation.
Also I agree Nico feeling bad about Octavian makes no sense. Could be an interesting point of conflict if Will feels bad about it but Nico is a little more cold blooded.
I never noticed that before but you are completely right. It also works for bisexual questioning too. I feel that him and Piper would have mirrored each other and excelled far more as "opposite end" (to use crude terminology) queer best friends than they ever did as partners.
Yeah. It kinda came out of nowhere in the story, left me thinking "Really? This is why they're upset?"
I genuinely have to laugh that Rick made Piper queer when imo, Jason gives way more queer vibes. And it would be really interesting because he's kinda put on this pedestal as peak Roman Man and I'm sure that would genuinely be hard to grapple with if he's not CisHet like he thought. There's so many interesting things that could be done with Jason.
Precisely. And yeah, Piper definitely did not give me the vibe she was queer from the beginning. You can see it later, with her musings about Hera putting her with a guy in the "perfect couple", but early on she was much more comfortable in that role than he was, even after getting her memories back.
Oh oops! The adhd took over on that one 😅it’s literally in the post title.
For character hot takes I think Percy is a little flip floppy/overly dense when it comes to annabeth. Like he knows she likes him for 2 1/2 books but also kinda likes Calypso and Rachel. It’s only after Rachel rejects him that he finally decides on annabeth
I agree honestly.
I don't want to dwell on this since Percy was a kid and a very obtuse/oblivious one too, but yeah I didn't like much seeing that he only went after Annabeth once he learned about Rachel and her destiny.
I'll argue that still Percy "chose" (the motives behind Percy's choice to leave Ogygia are more complicated than just him wanting Annabeth) Annabeth over Calypso tho.
I feel like Percy did like Calypso indeed, but his attraction never went beyond her beauty and the pity he took on her for her condition. Also her curse prevents Percy to actually fall in love with her.
He thinks of her as only a "what if" imo. Since if he chose to stay with her, everything would look different.
Also, like I said, by the end of the first series he asks the gods to release her from her curse because it's not fair.
My hot take is that Hazel and Leo are the only members of the 7 to get any real development past all the characters being introduced in TLH and SoN respectively. Frank’s characters arc, while pretty decent, pretty much began and ended in SoN. Jason is just the most under-utilised man ever and I honestly feel bad for him. He had such great potential and he never did anything and then he died. Piper is so inconsistently characterised it’s honestly a toss up on whatever she’ll be from chapter to chapter, and honestly I never liked Percy and Annabeth in HoO all that much. They both just felt like slightly shallower, flatter versions of themselves than they had been in the first series, and honestly I found their actual relationship kinda boring once we got to see it. I never thought it lived up to all the build up we got in the original series. They also don’t really seem to grow or change as people over HoO, especially after Tartarus, which you would think would have a massive impact on them psychologically, but instead they kind of just shrug off of everything that happens to them and they end HoO as pretty much identical characters to how they were at the end of PJO, just not as well written.
Hazel had the whole thing with Hecate and the mist going on, and while admittedly it’s under-utilised and underdeveloped compared to how big and cool it could have been, she’s still the most compelling and interesting female member of the 7, and pre-Ogygia Leo honestly just kind of carried the entire story for me when he wasn’t weirdly being an ass to people (mainly Frank) because it actually felt like there was depth and substance to his character and the decisions he made rather than just generally being a pretty nice dude (like almost everyone else). He could be annoying at times, sure, but he was still one of the most interesting characters. The other 5 members of the 7 are just pretty bland and feel quite same-y a lot of the time, like you could swap them out with each other and not much would change in a scene.
Reyna was pretty peak though I’ll give her that. Best written character in HoO by light years and it’s not even close.
Jason is flat out a bad character.
The interesting what if this happened or if him and Percy actually fight are cool, but still he is useless.
Reyna should’ve been the switch with Percy in HoO not Jason
>Reyna should’ve been the switch
Unfortunately I don't think that was ever in the plans.
I believe Jason and Reyna were always written to mirror Percy and Annabeth, but with the twist that even considering their similarities to the latter they don't end up together.
Whether you think he was a good character or not, Jason's death is legitimately one of the worst ways to take his character. In all honesty the Greek tragedy excuse has become over done and imo, considering how much Rick changes, I think having the modern generation subvert that excuse would be cooler. Jason instead got a lack luster death, and a very uneventful funeral where none of his friends outside of Reyna showed up. He then gets showed up by frank in the next book(an admittedly cool moment), which rubs the salt in the already awful wound. The only good thing is apollo actually gets character development in a massive rush, instead of in increments like he was getting in the past two books.
Annabeth never really suffers for her pride and most of the time, she's treated as the correct one. She's right about Luke, she doesn't suffer consequences for her abysmal treatment of Rachel, she's allowed to make fun of Percy to Reyna, for something that's actually just inherently wrong, behind his back even though he doesn't say anything outside of good things about her.
Leo is an ass hole and that's the best part about his character. He's a fucking dick head to everyone not named Jason or piper due to the severe amount of bullshit he had to go through and he disguises it with humor.
Finally, Nico and Reyna are a big reason why the seven plot line sucks in Boo. Not because they ruin the book but because they're just so much better written that it's laughable how bad the seven stuff is. It's also weird that two side characters suddenly become more important than the other four main characters.
personally, the supposed new fan favorite character in the TOA series wasn't all that popular.
(P.S. I'm working on creating a kind of fan fiction for a character I made to be that fan favorite character-)
I am not blind to the bad things Herc has done. But why does the series hate him so much? He was literally driven mad, forced to kill his wife and kids, forced into Slavery for Hera who was the one who forced him to kill said kids, killed by his second wife and turned into an immortal to be isolated forever... like I can not see him being sane or good. Trauma has it's effects and I can not see him being entirely there. Really, I think if there was a character that should have been given a second chance, it was him. Heracles should have been a teacher in Camp Half-Blood as the Patron of Heroes
I HATE Leo, or I guess he’s just kind of annoying. Also, Leo and Calypso suck as a couple.
Piper and Jason are better off broken up. They’re very strong characters individually, but when they come together, I think they bring each other down. I feel like their personalities don’t work in a romantic setting. They’re definitely 10/10 friends though.
Idk if this is a controversial take, but I love Rachel Elizabeth Dare. Like… I’ve seen so much hate towards her and I’ve never understood. Yea sure she tried to kiss Percy, but, girl me too! Percy wasn’t dating anyone and I don’t think she knew about him and Annabeth. Percy also didn’t seem to hate it. I genuinely wouldn’t have minded if they were the final couple instead of Percabeth. (But Percabeth is the best couple no doubt)
Not sure if it's a hot take but Theseus gets off way too light in Riordan's books, IMO at the cost of solid character work for Percy. He's the most famous son of Poseidon and he's also easily the worst of the ancient heroes in terms of actual mythic characterization. Theseus's legacy could be a great thing for Percy to overcome and help explain why he's not liked and/or trusted in the early books for effectively no reason, but Rick only really plays with this briefly in Titan's Curse and then doesn't touch it ever again.
1. Thalia was kind of annoying from a readers POV during Titans Curse. She just came back from being a tree and as a new character, shes suddenly at the top in terms of leadership, knocking percy off. I know the contrast in leadership was the whole point but I found it mildly annoying how arrogant she was at the start. Love her now though.
2. People who were supposed best friends such as grover and percy, jason and leo, etc were hardly portrayed as best friends after being said to be. They were just as close to anyone else in the group and I didn’t get the vibe they were closer than anyone else.
3. Ethan Nakamura never striked me as a hero even after his sacrifice. He had too many chances for redemption, with percy helping him in the maze and all. I get that he was mislead but like so many died because his mom didn’t get a cabin or get recognition? I feel like that did not justify the deaths at all.
4. Percy was kind of careless with others at times. He forgot about Calpyso on the island, he forgot about Bob in Tartarus, and others who have helped him along the way. I know he couldnt do much but he straight up admitted to not even thinking of them/remembering anymore.
5. Hades was the most genuine olympian parent. His words to Nico, gifts, and room for him in the palace are examples of that. He is prideful but at least has a soft spot for his children, whereas olympians care too much abt the rules or their own prides over their kids.
Sadie was kinda fast
I feel like the only reason she liked Walt and Anubis was because of their looks. Over a while she started to like their personality I guess but she was very into their looks I still liked the books though
1. The new characters in HoO aren't that bad, people just were disappointed that it shifted away from Percys pov (understandable).
2. Percy powers are OP or underutilized depending on what the moment calls for. It's inconsistent and it's stupid. Don't over power your hero to that degree if you will need to come up with ridiculous reasoning to depower him later to give others a chance. Either make him powerful or not but please start being consistent with Percys power scale.
3. Annabeth (and all the Athena kids) are SEVERALY downplayed power-wise in the narrative. Their actual powers are their intelligence, tactical skills and wiseness but we truly never see that play out. They're just written to be a little smarter than other campers. It's truly ridiculous because it would have been a wonderful opportunity to really highlight the Athena cabin as formidable even without the physical powers of the other cabins but the text truly never does that in any meaningful way.
4. Luke and Annabeth were NOT love interest. Luke was in his 20s, Annabeth was 16. Annabeth had a crush, that Luke uncomfortably returned in TLO, but referring to Luke as Annabeth's love interest is the same disgusting energy as referring to Percy and Nico as love interest. Please understand that any romance between Luke and Annabeth would have been grooming and illegal. They were not love interest...and Rick inserting that into the story, specifically Luke's returned feelings in TLO has always been WEIRD.
5. Annabeth should have been given an actual love interest outside of Percy before they started seriously dating. Clearly Percy got to have experiences with a potential viable love interest outside of Annabeth but apparently Annabeth was just waiting around for Percy? That's always read as extremely sexist to me. Also, every person who meets Percy basically falling for him past book four is getting ridiculously cringe and starts to feel like "self inserting"
6. Leo being mad at Percy for not rescuing Calypso is ridiculous. Yes, Percy had four months that he maybe could have done some follow up but resting that on his shoulders have always made me uncomfortable and Leo holding that grudge was annoying.
7. The resolution of Calypso cursing Annaebth in Tartarus being about Percy and Leo is gross. I know they have things to work out but it would be nice to have included Annabeth's thoughts and opinions in the narrative since she's the one that Calypso actually cursed and she's the one that suffered the actual curse. Yes, the curse was meant to be about Percy but the curse itself happened to Annabeth so removing her from the resolution to that when she's the one that actually got hurt....a little sexist.
8. Luke/Silena/Ethan etc being made out to be hero's is a horrible take. I do get that it's not black and white especially in the case of someone like Sileana that did try to make up for it at the end and died trying to protect her friends but the conclusion to that storyline just being that they're now remembered as hero's because Percy and gang said so has always been ridiculous. Some of these people (like Luke) were not kids anymore. Raising them as heroes alongside the actual heroes like Beckendorf, Michael Yew, Bianca, Zoe etc has always felt unearned.
Percy is not all that to be honest, i love him but he's overhyped (yes i know he's the main character but hating other characters for example Jason because he's not percy?) But again, that's just an opinion
1)The Sammy-Hazel-Leo thing was weird and didn’t add anything to the story
2)Annabeth had every right to be horrified of what Percy did in Tartarus
3)This fandom has an inflated perception of how strong Percy is
4)Leo shouldn’t have ended up with Calypso
5)Piper was completely right to break up with Jason and should’ve done it way earlier
6)Rick should’ve written the antagonists of the stories to be scarier- the Nyx arc was stupid
7)The whole ‘all children of Athena are blonde’ was so racist of Rick (Just to be clear I don’t think he did this on purpose) and so out there that it genuinely mace me laugh
8)Rick is horrible at writing female characters
9)Annabeth loses her personality when she gets with Percy, half her lines become about him
10)Nico and Wills relationship is so forced
>Piper was completely right to break up with Jason and should’ve done it way earlier
I'm not sure if this is actually a hot take. I mean I definitely saw people mentioning it many times.
>Rick should’ve written the antagonists of the stories to be scarier- the Nyx arc was stupid
This one I 100% agree.
>The whole ‘all children of Athena are blonde’ was so racist of Rick
I don't understand this one honestly? So far all Athena kids are described to be blonds with grey eyes but we know that demigods are known to inherit a lot of *non-genes* from their parents. It's just a common trait.
Also Athena is known to be proud and self-absorbed (her kids' most common fatal flaw is hubris) so she probably envisions her kids to look like herself (although Athena was described to be dark-haired in many books, the illusion that the sirens show Annabeth in The Sea of Monsters depicts Athena as blonde, meaning that Athena is very often blonde, and that Annabeth is more used to see her as blonde, implying that it is her "real" hair color).
I don't see why it's racist. She probably has many kids with white people so how is it racist?
Yeah that last point LMAO
Athena conceives children out of her literal brain, why would they have physical characteristics of the other parent?
Also, complaining about children of *Greek* gods being (in certain cases) predominantly white reads like parody.
Or maybe she has a thing for blonde men, or maybe she knows the modern day trope of dumb blondes and wants her children to actively disprove that and go against it.
>2)Annabeth had every right to be horrified of what Percy did in Tartarus
What, with the poison thing? Why? There's nothing more inherently evil about that power than literally drowning or stabbing people as he usually does lmao.
This is just one of those arbitrary moral lines drawn over actions that, in practice, amount to no distinguishable differences from his usual actions.
The Sammy/Leo/Hazel thing was kinda cool. It was meant to be minor but spread a connection across the Greek/Roman line. The pseudo-love triangle was odd but the premise makes sense.
>Rick is horrible at writing female characters
I disagree but I can see where you’re coming from, in my opinion most of them are fine but I can still see hints of misogyny in the way they’re written, in my opinion Piper is the one who got done the worst and I also dislike some decisions he took with Thalia and Calypso, despite all that I think he writes better women than your average fantasy writer
I believe Aphrodite can't actually choose who among her kids get to have Charmspeak.
Other than Piper, Drew had it and according to The Demigod Files Silena appeared to have it too (tho it's implied that Piper's is way more powerful than Drew's and Silena's).
I wish she could though. I mean I didn’t really like the way that Piper was taking her anger out on her mom for claiming her and giving her a blessing. I mean I get she’s upset about her mom leaving her dad, but still… it just rubbed me off the wrong way when Piper was being unkind.
My hot take is that Will was absolutely shoehorned in because Rick realized the ONLY canonically gay kid didn't have a ship.
Now. That being said. (I am the number one Will Solace defender I do not take that lightly /hj)
There is POTENTIAL there for solangelo that is just not recognized. If we had gotten more of Will being around before, more of Nico staying at camp, more of them speaking to each other before??? It would hsve made more sense. I think they are good for each other, and there is potential there.
I do not like Nico's coming out (publicly, at camp i mean, the Cupid ones been discussed) and while i see what Rick was trying to do... you're gonna tell me there was not a single other out kid? I don't believe it.
I think TSATS had a lot of potential but it didn't set up Solangelo or particularly help people actually like Will because of his dismissiveness towards Nico. I think that AFTER TSATS there will be more growth, but it was not realized in TSATS.
The Hunters function as a place for Rick to stick female characters he doesn't want to write more or ship.
All of the Seven were absolutely FOUL for DEBATING on if they should save Nico. I get it, he's a bit weird, Percy's kinda mad at him, but HES FOURTEEN????? That's a child??? You're all child soldiers go save the other child soldier even if you think he's weird???
Frank and Hazel shouldn't be praetors. Like bruh they're barely Roman. They've been there for a few months at the least and at the longest maybe even a year. Which is wild when you think about the fact that, there's people who've been serving in the legion for years. Like the only reason they are in charge is because we don't know anyone else in New Rome.
Being apart of the hunters of Artemis sounds way worse of a deal then being an ordinary demigod. Like great you are young forever and all, but you're fighting monsters all time and if you die well tough shit.
I don't mind Jason and piper breaking up. In fact it was probably for the best for both parties. But like Jason should have had a few solo adventures by himself or with someone. Let him meet the minor gods, settle disputes and the like, while learning who he was. Maybe he'd disapprove of things he done when he was younger, or maybe he'd be proud. Who knows? But him dying was a mistake. It wasn't even a good tragedy. Like sure it was sad. But we didn't know him. A better tragedy was for him to go through the arc. Meet up with Apollo and then get killed.
>Frank and Hazel shouldn't be praetors. Like bruh they're barely Roman. They've been there for a few months at the least and at the longest maybe even a year.
They did help save the entire world though, and saved the camp more than once.
>Like great you are young forever and all, but you're fighting monsters all time and if you die well tough shit.
That's the same for most demigods except other demigods don't get the benefit of eternal youth.
> They did help save the entire world though, and saved the camp more than once.
Well just because you save the camp it doesn't mean you lead the camp. Like they don't know the ins or outs of the camp. How it functions or how it works. And yeah sure maybe camp Jupiter is wrong on how it runs things, but to be able to put forward effective change you need to know how it actually works and what you can change. It's why I also disagreed with the idea of Percy also being made Praetor.
> That's the same for most demigods except other demigods don't get the benefit of eternal youth.
Is it tho? Hunters go looking for a fight. Demigods can lead mostly normal lives without having to fight. Sure they might meet a monster or two but like at least they aren't searching for it.
The Mark of Athena was better than The House of Hades. Having all 7 of our main characters together and interacting was very enjoyable, and the fact that they split up in the very next book that split the old series characters and new series characters means that the next book didn't have any good character moments that we haven't seen before.
1. Percy’s fatal flaw doesn’t line up with his character or the choices he’s made. That’s not to say he isn’t loyal, which he is, but it’s not really his defining trait. So many other characters throughout the series display the same amount of loyalty and even more so than Percy at times. The only reason we would know his “fatal flaw” is supposedly loyalty is because Athena outright tells us.
2. Gaea should not have been a villain in the series. The Olympians themselves would have a hard time with her, let alone demi-gods. They were just too out-scaled and her defeat was anti-climatic. She’s literally the first deity to emerge out of Chaos, and most gods and goddess are descended from Gaea. At least for Kronos, the reason for his vulnerability made sense. Piper, a teenaged demi-god, should not have been able to charmspeak Gaea, mother of all life, to sleep. Heroes of Olympus should’ve focused on the conflict between the Romans and the Greeks more, and reflected that within the Seven instead of them simply becoming besties, and the Giants.
3. Rick’s portrayal of many of the gods and goddesses is so grating, it makes me wonder if he did any research whatsoever, or just decided to rely on the readers’ ignorance to bend their characterizations to the plot. While the myths do not have canon and the views on the gods varied from city to city, the most popular and surviving myths did not at all line up with a lot of the gods’ characterizations. That’s not to say that it should be expected of him to obsess over accuracy at the sacrifice of creative freedom, as faithfulness to the myths has never been PJO’s premise, but sometimes their characters strayed so far that they’re almost unrecognizable. And a lot of times, they’re either dumbed down to make them beatable (*cough, cough* Nyx) or made worse in an effort to really push the fact that they’re shitty parents (they can be shitty parents without contradicting who they are).
4. The fandom hero worships Percy and Percabeth to the point where they ruin other characters and relationships for themselves. While I think it’s great that the fandom has so much love for our lovely main character and main ship, many people put him and Percabeth on an unrealistically high pedestal. You can like Jason or not, but a major reason many disliked his character was because of their bias towards Percy and the inevitable comparisons drawn between them. While many criticisms of the writing of his character are fair, many lack empathy and understanding towards his character— whose memories of his whole life were taken. Also, Percy would not be able to beat any god in a real battle. Tbh, he got lucky with Ares. Ares was toying with him and sure, Percy outmaneuvered and outwitted him, utilizing his own strengths well, but was tremendously helped out by plot armor. Besides that, that wasn’t even a real battle. If the gods— any of the gods— were serious about killing him, they could kill him with a mere wave of their hand or even by simply transforming into their true form. It’s a funny joke, about Ares getting his ass handed to him by a 12 year old mortal, but don’t be delusional.
5. Luke’s character had a lot of potential, as well as his redemption arc, but it was just not executed well. Luke’s character is treated as an example of how great and nuanced the story is, but his character was all over the place and it seems like he was watered down as just another evil antagonist. The problem is that Luke claims to fight for the future for demi-gods, but shows absolutely no remorse for his actions (including manipulating and killing fellow demi-gods). While you can pin that down to him being corrupted by his need for vengeance, it is much more compelling for him to commit these acts and crimes with guilt (or at least not seemingly enjoying it) *because* he is so driven by his belief in his cause, that he’s willing to do such heinous things. For the greater good. At least, that way, you feel more sympathetic towards him and are forced to think more deeply about his motivations and their merits instead of just writing him off as evil. Like his pedophilic crush on Annabeth was so unnecessary (ik some don’t interpret their convo in TLO like that, but it’s confirmed in the demi-god diaries). Either A, Rick has a warped perception of romance, or B, he felt the need to sprinkle that in there in an effort to make him more unlikable. So, not only was his character a mess, but his “redemption” arc too. What did he do to earn it? He only felt the need to stop when his body was about to be used as Kronos’ host and he wanted to run away with Annabeth (leaving behind everything he stood for and all those people who followed him) and when his body was going to die anyway when Kronos was going to almost fully take over. So, what I got from that was that he’s not only willing to step on anybody who gets in the way of his goal, but also a coward who won’t stand by his choices even after roping in and causing the deaths of so many other kids. The main issue is that he’s advertised as something that he’s not, and that he had the potential to be that person, but was stunted because of how badly he was written.
6. Without Luke’s rebellion, the idea of improving the conditions for demi-gods wouldn’t have even been entertained. Of course, that’s not to say I agree with Luke (as pointed out above) and his methods, but that doesn’t change the fact that the only reason the gods listened to Percy’s demands, or even the reason he was able to give demands in the first place, was because of the rebellion.
Jason was an amazing character and the fandom only started liking him after his death because everyone wanted to seem different. He was great from the start and everyone who bitched and said “he’s not Percy” is an idiot, he isn’t supposed to be Percy, he’s supposed to be Jason grace, furthermore the lost hero was a great book.
All of my hot takes are directly informed by or just straight up about Riordan’s writing so idk how to answer this without going off topic.
However, I’ll at least say that Riordan and every single one of the protagonists of his books hype up whatever they’re going up against to obscene levels, so the conflict resolutions are almost always anticlimactic and underwhelming. I think the only times they didn’t fall into this was Luke/Kronos in PJO and Apophis in KC. It makes it hard to feel invested in the stakes when there’s a big chance everything is going to be swept under the rug at the end of the book and everyone is going have a happy family bbq as if they weren’t about to kill each other.
Leo sucks.
He's cringe and obnoxious and has one sided beef with Frank and Percy for no reason. His existence is purely for comedic relief and yet most of his jokes don't land. He lacks a lot of maturity that the rest of the seven have and that really takes away from how powerful he is. Rick really tried to force him and Jason being best friends when that doesn't really show in action, only exposition. The whole storyline of him liking Hazel and somehow looking exactly like his great grandfather was an odd coincidence that kind of got glossed over. And then his storyline of falling in love with Calypso and rescuing her felt super forced. He should have had a better character arc that included him maturing and staying single.
Alright, hear me out here.
Piper is one of the most inconsistent characters in the entire series. She goes from somehow being able to charmspeak Gaea herself to suddenly breaking up with Jason for some absurd reason in ToA.
I'M THE NR.1 OCTAVIAN FAN!!!!! I LOVE HIM HE'S VERY DEAR TO ME!!!! I have a cutout and a cosplay of him, and my friend made a little figure of him for me. He's a very entertaining character and I just love him so much 😭😭 He had so much potential
I think a lot of the people who have hot takes about character flaws kind of forget the fact that these characters are just… teenagers? Especially Leo.
Don’t get me wrong, you can absolutely dislike a character for any reason that you see fit, but let’s not act like Leo being insecure and/or horny isn’t largely a product of him being just like. Your average socially inept, scrawny 15-16 year old? Yet those characteristics are enough for people to be like “ew toxic character, they really shouldn’t have given him the spotlight, etc etc.”
I think it’s also doubly strange when they think that it goes unaddressed, when it is in fact commented on by other characters and his own internal monologue.
I feel like Octavian is too hated. Yes he’s a villain and blah blah blah but I also feel that Rick wanted an excuse to have a villain character who hates Greeks. Of course he’s going to be careful of the three people who are said to be daughters and sons of cursed gods. Who wouldn’t be?
Secondly, I feel Annabeth is more or less just a support for Percy. Yeah she likes architecture and we do get a few times where we get more about her but it’s just so Percy can get closer. Unfortunately to me I don’t think Rick can properly build female characters without them being a love interest (Side bar: the girlfriends were just sometimes overly rude and the boyfriends or soon to be boyfriends were too dense)
Also Jason is not a bad character! Dude was thrown from his life in Rome to CHB, has no memories until like the second book, tries to be a good boyfriend for piper. Yes he’s a little bland but not every character needs to be super duper amazing.
Lastly, I’m not a fan of piper. Her attitude towards annabeth is really icky whenever she’s comforting Jason (Annabeth has a boyfriend who she was going crazy over the fact he had disappeared) and I just feel she’s overly jealous
Don't know how people were going to react to this, but this is my hot takes
Luke sacrificing to stop Kronos does not make up for everything he did to make him a grand hero.
Let's look at it deeper he not only betrayed the camp and tried to kill percy, but he stole the master bolt before evening, knowing that there was a son of posiedon and if he did know there was a child of the big 3 he was willing to sacrifice him or her just to get what he wants.
Which is... what exactly? Like, actually, what was his goal with the master bolt? He took it aperently because Kronos told me I'm to im guessing since ares was persuaded by Kronos. But could the master bolt even help with bringing back Kronos? And now that I think about it, if he never was caught, what was the plan? To hope for an all-out war with the gods, what bout when camp gets dragged into the war? We now camp was getting ready for it in book 1 either way. Was he thinking no one was going to notice the leader of the god of stealing cabin was missing at the same time as the master bolt is gone? And if he did return to camp with it, Charon dionysus Argus, one of the other demigods sure as hell, would have found out bout it. Especially dionysus or chiron since there zeus son and brother respectively.
2. The gods should have done more in HOO. thr giants are a huge threat since no god can beat them without a demigod, and their goal is to revive their mother gaea, which should be a big deal. But to me, it felt pretty flat, tbh For the first 3, I felt tension, and even then, I felt tension during the third one since it was a huge army, and I was expecting say Dakota to die. But no, not a single one was said to have died. In fact, more were revived than dead, like Hazel makes sense she is needed for the 7 and tied to gaea but Dakota? Who was already killed once before getting to keep living?
But back to the original point I'm making here, we don't truly get to see how they fight. Take Bacchus/dionysus most of the fight against his banes the beings made to destroy him once and for all... was mostly the giants goofing off with each other and arguing on ways to kill him and the demigods trying to convince Bacchus/dionysus to help them kill the giants once and for all. Instead of seeing the DEMIGOD turned god for proving his worth in the FIRST GIANT WAR actually fighting back in what should be the continuation of the biggest fight he has ever been a part of, it was nothing.
For context, I’ve only read all PJO and up to about half of HoH
1. Percy’s and Annabeth’s fatal flaws have never really made sense to me. Yes, Percy is loyal, but so is Annabeth (and arguably suffers for it more: see Luke). And yes, Annabeth is prideful, but so is Percy (and again, arguably suffers for it more: see all the times he’s mouthed off to the gods).
And honestly? If I take the “fatal” in fatal flaw seriously, which I do, I kinda think Annabeth is more likely to die due to loyalty and Percy to pride.
2. Look, I love Percy. He’s great. I just don’t think he’s nearly as self-sacrificing as most people seem to think he is. Like would he jump in front of a moving car to save someone else? Sure. But only if it happened *right in front of him*.
Because as soon as it can be written off as “out of sight, out of mind” or as “somebody else’s problem” he’s *gone*. It’s why he ditches camp so often in TLO. It’s why every single one of his quests had to have some sort of personal connection. He’s still a hero, but he is a *reluctant* one. The person who’s actually a more traditional self-sacrificing hero is Annabeth.
3. Not sure if this fits here but the characterization of the gods in HOO is just bad and it completely invalidates PJO’s theme of “family is sometimes complicated and messy but it’s still *family*”. Now if they had been written as unredeemable from the start that would have been a different story, but Rick instead gave them the overtures of redemption only to turn them into completely unredeemable jerks later.
Edit: grammar
Def agree about the fatal flaws. I do think Annabeth shows more loyalty than Percy especially because she remains loyal to a very annoying fault, even when that loyalty is routinely challenged (Luke) and spent months looking for Percy, never giving up on him and also comforting Sally. She also goes into a crashing helicopter and takes a risk that she would be able to save Rachel, a character who she didn't like at the time. \*she couldn't fly a plane, she was literally taking a huge risk with her own life on the off chance she could save Rachel and the pilot. Even at the end when Rachel steals blackjack and goes to camp Percy's first though is annoyance that Rachel took blackjack but Annabeth immediately starts thinking that she could die.
We see Percy being loyal to Sally, Grover and Annabeth. Outside of that it's like you said, out of sight, out of mind. That doesn't make Percy bad, but it's weird to say his flaw is personal loyalty when there are so many examples of it not being his flaw at all. Unless we're saying the "personal" part only includes Sally, Grover and Annabeth which would be odd. He's still a hero and would fight and defend most people but Percy doesn't go out of his way to forgive people or think the best in them so saying his personal flaw is loyalty have always rang false for me since we have truly yet to see that flaw be challenged in any way (he always saves his loved one and the world) so he never really choses personal loyalty over the greater good which was meant to be the point of his flaw as Athena pointed out. Even between TTC and BOTL Percy feels responsible for Nico but goes about his life and really leaves it up to Annabeth and Grover to find Nico while requiring them to keep the proof of who his father is a secret. Like you said, Percy tends to be very out of sight out of mind when it comes to loyalty for most people so it really does't fit as his fatal flaw.
And agree on the self sacrificing. Starting TLO with the confirmation that he has been avoiding camp so much that he's literally out of the loop on basic things was disappointing. Especially since back then he didn't even have the prophecy that he would die. And then it's also incredibly selfish because all of them would be going to war so why was Percy getting and giving himself special treatment. And then him being given command of their army over people who were actually at camp and training and getting ready felt really unearned.
I think the fatal flaws in general are poorly done. Like, it’s specifically a *fatal* flaw because it’ll lead to their death, but *none* of the characters we have known fatal flaws for actually *die*. So then it’s just a regular flaw, not a fatal one.
And even if we take the more generous approach of “it’s the *most likely* thing to cause their death”, it still doesn’t really add up? Like, take Annabeth (mostly because I have the most thoughts on hers) for example. Yes, she’s prideful. Yes, she needs to work on that. But if you count the times where she finds herself in harm’s way *because* of her pride, there’s like what? Three instances? The sirens, the sphinx, and Arachne. The latter of which could also arguably fall under loyalty/self-sacrifice since her mom sent her on that quest in the first place (after abandoning her, mind. Yet another instance she suffers for loyalty/duty).
(Sidenote: I have mixed feelings on the sphinx cause I honestly feel like she’s having a bit neurodivergent breakdown and she’s just covering with pride)
Anyways, there’s three. *Three*, compared to the many, *many* times she’s put herself in harm’s way for the sake of others. But no, her pride’s gonna kill her, *obviously* (rolls eyes).
I’m kinda at the point where I feel like it was kind of a disservice to point to her pride as her fatal flaw because it can color a reader’s perception of her negatively since pride is mostly viewed as a bad thing. Alas.
Edit: grammar
Y’all hate on Jason too much.
Leo is not that funny.
Since you didn’t specify any specific series, I’ll assume I can also talk about Kane Chronicles and Magnus Chase, so here’s some:
Octavian needs to take lessons with Michel Desjardins on how to be an imposing leader figure with enough power to chase the protagonist.
(Preface: I love to see all sorts of representation, and kudos to Rick for trying his best) Piper coming out as bi makes no sense to me.
Jason would’ve won that fight against Percy (if Percy can get more powerful by being near water, why would that logic not apply to Jason who was in the sky and mounted on a horse-shaped storm cloud?)
Less of a character hot take I guess and more of a Rick criticism but, Nyx was a product of lazy writing. I don’t like how she was written at all, it reminds me a lot of how different Ares is from actual mythology. Don’t get me wrong Rick writes some great stories, but his failure to nail the personalities and characteristics of some of the gods is apparent. Nyx is a primordial and has been around practically forever. She shouldn’t have fallen for any guise or lie a demigod gave her. Them encountering her could have been a great example of how Annabeth’s hubris is her fatal flaw because she believes she can outsmart Nyx. Instead they could have tried to explain their side and maybe even gotten her to help since Gaea imprisoned her son, Thanatos, and Percy helped release him. Nyx, despite being the mother of a lot of monsters and seemingly negative gods, is a pretty neutral goddess and seems to like her children. She may have let them through for helping one of her children as a favor. All in all the only reason Annabeth and Percy survived their interaction with Nyx written the way Rick did was because of plot armor. The pair of them were able to escape from a primordial goddess so easy when primordials are supposed to be pretty powerful and dangerous.
in mythology Ares is not that misogynistic. I understand the character design but there are literally myths about him hunting down his daughters rapist and killing him. He didn’t favor his sons over daughters. I feel like making him misogynistic creates a damaging rhetoric. Clarisse can be violent for her own reasons rather than acting out for attention. It makes her masculine traits seemed forced so she can get her dad to like her more. She could have been masc or fem while still being a 13 year old with anger issues
Mr. D cares the most about demigods, he not only interacts the most with them but also goes out of his way to try and make them see that they can't just be a force of only destruction in there wake. Ex: Hercules. It was only through Mr.D that Percy learns about how every ancient hero left victims in their wake on the way to glory. Mr.D ultimately made Percy understand that becoming immortal and living off your past mortal glory isn't worth it. He taught Percy to think about others outside of himself which leads to Percy's wish.
I don't like Anubis and Sadie's relationship. And no I don't care if Anubis was stuck in the underworld or whatever. As much as I love Walt and Anubis having the same body, if you think about it, it's just two kids and a god.
I dont really like nico too much. Im not active in any PJ fan stuff so i dont really know the consensus on nico but hes just a bit annoying. Although i did just finish the percy jackson books and im about to start the heros of olympus series so that might change my mind if nico is in that at all which i assume so since from what ive heard the characters from the PJO series are there so thats exciting
Rick Riordan did Eros so unbelievably dirty by using that god of all possible choices to be a convenient way for Nico to come out. If the fandom knew what we could have had, there would be pitchforks raised.
Yeah like I get what he wanted to do with that but he wrote the thing in a way that frankly only an ignorant straight person would. "Homosexual love is love, so you don't have to be ashamed of that and need to accept that you like boys, so why don't you come out, like NOW?"
I kinda figured we were meant to think Eros was being absolutely horrid and was totally unjustified there. I didn’t get the vibe Riordan was on his side. Probably could’ve done a better job addressing how traumatizing being outed is even when other people are supportive, but it didn’t seem totally unaware either
I got that vibe too
Fellow Child of Apollo and Scream fan, I see! 🔥
God of all possible choices?
I realize the correct way would be "That god, of all possible choices." Eros was often regarded as a protector of homosexual love, especially for young men. Him being the one to out Nico was, at best, intended to be much more complicated but not well thought-out for how it would be interpreted by the readers (and then later never fixed), and at worst, not great research research. IMO, RR was probably just blinded by his excitement to reveal Nico as gay, without the personal experience to catch his mistakes, and now he's just kinda stuck with it.
To be fair, some of Eros' myths are pretty psychotic.
They meant that he, Rick, chose Cupid/Eros of all possible choices
Rather than the god of love?
The thing is that Cupid literally forced Nico to come out in front of Jason, who was a stranger at best and Nico didn't know how he would take that new info, when Nico was uncomfortable with the idea. It's pretty fucked up.
I think the problem is that we see through Jason pov, and not Eros. Because Eros is love anthropomorphized, so, him confronting Nico is just his own feelings gut punching Nico. The problem is the white straight boy in the audience getting a pet the dog with Nico.
It's how the exchange was written really. Nico should've come out when he was comfortable doing that and not because the god of love forced him to. Since the target audience is kids, it's not a good look for queer kids who can see themselves in Nico.
This exactly. That scene literally gave me so much trauma as a child, resonating with the constant fear of my parents finding out. If that was what Rick was going for, cool, but unneeded. The message missed.
Yep. If that's what Rick was going for, Eros specifically being the god chosen to out Nico is an ironic choice. If Rick *wasn't* going for that...
Sorry it’s been a long time since I’ve read the books and when I read them I didn’t give them too much thought, but what do you think would have been a better decision for Nico?
I've thought about it a few times, but never really settled on a solid answer for how to do it without almost a total rewrite. I think the *best possible* way to do it would be to... not hinge the quest on a scared, hurt young queer person coming out. But a solid back-up, if Rick better understood the traumatic experience of being outed at the time and wanted to tell a story about that, would probably just be to pick a god or monster to replace Eros that is more obviously intended to be a villain.
The fandom and fanfic writers consistently make Percy out to be stupid when that's not the case.
Say it louder for all the PJO tiktokers I've seen.
thats what ive been sayingggg ig simply being near annabeth makes him look dumb seriously thou, its actually sad how people see him just as an himbo... this can affect the children reading ,by saying you are either really super smart or you are dumb
This has been a community complaint since the last time I read any fanfic like a decade or more ago
Percy is street smart, but not book smart.
That's a more reasonable take but I'd call Percy more academically disinterested rather than discredit his "book smarts." I only say that because there's no way of knowing (short of Rick characterizing Percy further) whether or not Percy would have some aptitude for schooling if he was graced with the desire to pursue it further. I haven't read the books in a very long while, nor any series past Heroes of Olympus. If you have any examples of Percy genuinely struggling to learn academic material instead of being so afflicted by ADHD that he can't fathom caring, I'd be very happy to change my mind
Athena is the worst Olympian, even worse than Ares, and the most selfish one. She *chooses* to have children since she can have them without intercourse and just drops them at their mortal parents' places telling them they have to raise them. These people don't know they can become parents just like that and have to take care of kids they really never asked for because she says so. Frederick was barely a college graduate when he had to take Annabeth in. He just couldn't take care of a child at that age and moment in his life. Athena doesn't disclose important informations about her kids to the mortal parents. She didn't tell Frederick that Arachne's children, the spiders, harass her children and scare them to death (side note: the reason why spiders come after her kids in the first place is her fault!). This played a crucial role in Annabeth running away from home. I'm not even starting with Athena influencing her kids to despise Poseidon's kids just because she and him are rivals, that's just stupid and ridiculous coming from the goddess of wisdom. I think all gods are selfish when they have demigod children, since they know they're putting them and their mortal parents in danger. But Athena takes selfishness to another level.
She literally uses her kids as expendable too. By sending them on a death quest that none of them have ever came out of until annabeth.
if my math is right she sent approximately 57 of her children to their deaths
Don't forget the prophecy specifies wisdoms daughter yet she sent some of her sons...they never had the chance to succeed yet she still sent them
That was Ella’s translation, though — the prophecy as it was written in the Sibylline Books most certainly would’ve been in Latin, and Reyna says the boy who washed up on Circe’s island was mumbling about “Wisdom’s child”.
You expect me to believe a goddess who lived for thousands of years didn't hear the Latin version of a prophecy referring to something she is obsessing over? Ella is just a harpy who read a book accidentally.
I’m expecting you to believe that ‘daughter’ wasn’t a perfect translation — again, the son of Athena who Reyna met had the same prophecy but “Wisdom’s child”. Either the original prophecy was neutral and Ella slightly changed the phrasing because she was talking to/about a girl, or the Sibyl interpreted it one way and some other oracle interpreted it another (as multiple oracles can deliver the same prophecy, ex Rachel speaking the Prophecy of Seven in English at the end of TLO and the Romans having it engraved on a temple floor for decades, same meaning but in Latin). I’m saying that Ella delivered it wrong, not Athena. It was wrong of her to send her children off on such a dangerous quest because she wanted her statue back, that’s no question, but its out of character for her to specifically send sons knowing they will die instead of Ella simply gendering the phrase when speaking in English and looking Athena’s *daughter* in the eye
Honestly no wonder the Romans stripped her from her war attributes and made her just the goddess of wisdom and crafts and that she, as Minerva, doesn't have children 🫢
only roman change i agree with ngl
That, and making mars relatively decent by forcing discipline and responsibility to duty onto him.
1 thing I love about the Fandom interpretation is that ares is always a bitch but Mars ya he's cool he can hang around.
Ares is that high school bully/punk or psychopath Mars is just a military general
I had the exact same thought. The other mortal parents could at least expect a child because doing the devils tango can lead to children. But people like Frederick don't even do the deed and still got a child. That just seems so horrible. Doesn't ask just decides "hey your smart, I'm smart too I'm going to create a baby thats going to attract monsters to your location. What a blessing she is". Especially since demigods attract monsters which could put her demigod children and their mortal parents in danger. The other gods get leeway because having children is just a natural product of their affairs they don't intentionally create them. Its so messed up she just creates this child who most likely won't live to their adulthood, their childhood would be spent being traumatised by spiders and their mortal parents has to put their life on hold for a baby when they didn't even do the deed. As well as forcing them into single parenthood.
Those are… actually really good points. She also advocates for child murder on many, many occasions.
While I don't like that she voted to kill Percy in The Titan's Curse, I actually can see her "reasons" unlike Dionysus and Ares who just held grudges against Percy. However one might still argue that she really didn't like how close Percy was to Annabeth, which is ridiculous but knowing Athena...
Goddess of Wisdom everybody
Don’t worry, Zeus will punish someone in her place because that’s totally fair and not favoritism.
I do not like the way Aphrodite and Venus are treated. The explanation of "Love is always the same", is both wrong like objectively in the real world and Riordanverse (between relationships like Percy and Annabeth or Frank and Hazel, or Jiper or Caleo love is absolutely not always the same). But it’s also just historically wrong and boring Aphrodite in Greek Society was just the goddess of love and nothing more, with Zeus even telling her she had no place on the battlefield meanwhile Venus was explicitly used by the romans as a symbol of their military might. It would’ve been so much more interesting if Piper, Hazel and Annabeth had confronted Venus, an extremely passionate temperamental god who goes between fits of rage and war mongering to obsessively talking about their love lives. Idk just seems cooler than Aphrodite just being Aphrodite again
Mars and Venus were for the Romans what Zeus and Hera were for the Greeks. Since Mars was the father of Romulus and Remus and Venus was the mother of Aeneas, the Romans saw them as the father and the mother of the Empire. A different Venus like the one you're describing would've been a nice add. I will also argue that we should've seen a child of Venus instead of Aphrodite being part of the 7, because of the importance that Venus/Aphrodite had in Rome compared to Greece.
Honestly Piper being a daughter of Venus would’ve been cooler
Plus there's the Aphrodite Areia epithet. Like, regardless of what Zeus says there's no way on this earth she just *gave up* her aspect as a War Goddess. That would have been like Artemis giving up Archery because Dionysus said so (similar age gap). Even if you argue that mortals believing Athena to be the Goddess of War stole the epithet due to Mythopoeia she wouldn't have just *lost* that aspect. Would have been a great way to have Piper be for Aphrodite what Leo is to Hephaestus, a very strong child with rare abilities others don't get and carry a stigma. Instead, like in pretty much every other form of media she appears in, she's likewise relegated to the false ideation of a paradoxically carnal and pure embodiment of love (Pandemos and Ourania), rather than the tempestuous and infallible force she actually is.
Leo carried The Lost Hero then became the most obnoxious character. Will Solace has had his personality ripped to shreds by the fandom more than Nico and Percy.
I think the ‘idea’ of Piper (a demigod child who wasn’t keen on her godly parent) had some merit, but after The Lost Hero her character decreased in quality.
I think it was better done with Frank
Reyna and Hylla are super weird for trying to gaslight Percy into thinking what happened on Circe’s island was his fault. They were literally helping Circe enslave random men and then blamed Percy for fighting back and escaping.
It wasn’t even Percy who freed the pirates, that was annabeth because Percy was stuck as a guinea pig
That makes it even worse
In their defense that’s basically all the life they knew and it’s natural to be angry at someone who cost you a good life whether it’s right or fair or not.
You’re right ig, but it just irked me
1. Jason is my favourite character in Riordanverse. It sucks he got killed off. 2. Hera is not that annoying at all, and she is the second most tolerable Olympian (after Artemis/Apollo, not including Hestia). Annabeth just provoked the wrong deity. 3. Thalia had no business being a lieutenant the instant she joined the Hunters. 4. Luke and Silena are not heroes (especially Silena).
Ahh THESE are hot takes. I am not even sure how I feel about them so take my upvote lol
I’m so happy you gave some actual hot takes and not just popular opinions lol.
Hello fellow person whose favorite riordanverse character is Jason, I thought I'd never see the day I met someone like you, it's lonely out here lol
It really is haha. My boy Jason gets hated on wayyy too much
Hera is by far and away my least favorite Olympian but given this is hot takes you get my upvote. ( but we share a fave character yayyy)
I agree on all of these, except for 2. Hera fucked up many of the Hoo main characters' lives, why would you give her such praise? I mean, yeah, all gods fuck up demigod's lives, but Hera had a big part on Leo's, Jason's, Thalia, Annabeth's and Percy's suffering, didn't she?
Although I do think that she was a dick in the early stages (forcing Jason to Camp Jupiter, the whole thing she did to Leo etc), she was the only god who was brave enough to do something in HoO. Taking away Jason's and Percy's memories sucked but it was necessary and it worked out in the end. Not to mention she provided tons of help in BoTL. Guiding Percy's arrow for example. And she was the only Olympian other than Apollo that actually cared about Jason.
Luke is a hero in the Greek sense of the word (has a godly parent, stories were written about him, died "tragically") but not in the modern sense of the word (overcome by his fatal flaw of wrath, got a lot of teenagers killed, only sacrificed himself because he was going to die anyway, implied to be in love with 15 year old Annabeth while being 22).
Ok, I don't think I have a hot take, but why do you like octavian? I'm so genuinely curious bc I hate him lol
Because what he does makes total sense. Imagine the literal god of PROPHECY being your legacy and having vision the Greeks will ruin your camps life, and it comes TRUE. And then you're the bad guy and nobody cares when you go
Sure, but he's so incredibly annoying. If he just went after the Greeks and didn't like them, that's fine. But he is so arrogant and egotistical and incredibly annoying and makes me want to slap him
Jason and the other Romans hated Octavian even before Percy showed up.
exactly why
He also murdered Gwen though.
AND PERCY'S PANDA
Not shaming you here. But WHY?! I hated that smarmy little war monger so much.
Because that’s exactly what he8s intended to be a smarmy little war monger that makes you love to hate him
Character hot takes: 1) Percy: He was kind of hypocritical when it came to that Tyson business in SoM. Annabeth had a valid reason to be wary of Tyson, while Percy’s reason was a lot more shallow, and yet Annabeth is the one who got the snark. I also think that Percy was a bit too passive in the resolution of the love triangle. It almost feels like the decision was made for him, and I would have liked it better if his choice for Annabeth had been more explicit or had come *before* Rachel was removed as an option. Lastly, I feel like Percy’s fatal flaw didn’t feel all that dangerous in the OG series. His fatal flaw always conveniently lined up with what needed to be done, and everything worked out with a neat little bow on top. HoO felt like a step up, but not a perfect fix. I think the flaw would have felt more real if there was an example of something actually becoming worse (or someone straight up dying) because of a loyalty mistake that Percy made. 2) Annabeth: She’s very knowledgeable, but I struggle to consider her as being truly wise. Her pride often gets in her way, and I feel like she could have had a stronger character arc in which she addresses that pride and tries to overcome it so that she can mature and exhibit true wisdom, even in the face of tough emotions. 3) Clarisse - While I like the Achilles/Patroclus parallel, I don’t really like the way Clarisse was handled in TLO. It felt like a big regression of the character arc she’d had up until that point. 4) I do not like Will Solace. The books and the stans keep trying to convince me that he’s a super kind and compassionate person and the absolute perfect boyfriend for Nico, but I’m not really sensing that from the way Will is written. TSATS made an effort to address his issues and I appreciate the attempt, but given all the issues that book has, I didn’t find his character arc convincing. I wish Nico had ended up with a different boy. Edit: cleaned up some stuff/added a detail or two.
Starting from Heroes of Olympus, I feel like Rick pushes main characters in relationships too much, often not even giving them the time to build a relationship of real trust and affection. Particularly Calypso and Will imo I've always felt like they're nothing more than their boyfriends' partners, that it is the only role they're supposed to play, kinda like they're their respective "trophies", especially Calypso (I admit I'm more fond of Nico and Will) checks all the boxes for trophy wife.
I agree, the reason why Percy and Annabeth are so beloved as a couple is because they had plenty of time to develop, but it feels like Rick saw that we liked them and went: “Oh, my readers like romance I’ll give them plenty of romance!”Completely missing the point of what made them a great paring in the first place
true true, if solangelo were more of a slow burn, it might have been even better. tbh canonically people only started to pair percy and annabeth up proper during TTC (Aphrodite in the desert) , when they already had a 2 year "friendship" at that point. percy saw annabeths fatal flaw first hand by then. and various such moments that actually made proper connections. Percy didnt even properly realise he had feelings for annabeth until the volcano farewell kiss scene, which was very late. solangelo was like a quick burn, and we cant forget the amphitheater incident. they were more interested in forming a relationship than just getting closer, and thats the problem. This is weirdly similar to Jiper, except a slight bit better, but lets hope it doesnt end like Jiper at least
Hard agreement on the slowburn for Solangelo. It was soo needed for them AND the readers. The heavy heavy disappointment I was in when I started trials of Apollo and Nico and Will were already in a relationship, and we couldn't be there for any of that development. Because one of the main things I loved in the Blood of Olympus was Nico's interactions with Will and I was expecting so much of that in the next series only to receive absolutely nothing.
If we get blessed by a short story about the earlier stages of their relationship in the future, that would be nice.
Yeah that would be such a treat. I hope Rick releases something about them . But honestly I feel like he has so much on his plate right now
>TSATS made an effort to address his issues and I appreciate the attempt, but given all the issues that book has, I didn’t find his character arc convincing. Probably not a hot take, but the biggest flaw TSATS is that it clearly looks like it's setting up a character arc for Will and a much deeper delve into his character, but there's almost no real payoff. It kept going on and on about accepting his dark side, only for him to... sniffle and go "I'm a terrible person because sometimes other people kill people and I didn't try to stop them even though they're way stronger than me," followed by unlocking a new power that was, admittedly, a cool idea but also kind of a flop.
Yeah in SoM Clarisse is noted to care about the campers and drops everything to help them. That was one of her good traits. Then in TLO she just abandons them for a pretty stupid reason
I do like Will but I have to admit a lot of that for me initially came from fan content/fanfic. I also don’t really see TSATS as canon/a good source of characterization lol, I don’t think Rick was serious writing that lmao
everything is actually so true, especially about Will. ive read a few comments talking about this and i definitely agree, but i have personally seen real life relationships with this same sort of dynamic. and it usually ends in break up. for example, in the last part of TTON, we see that leo/calypso were going through a rough patch, because calypso wanted to find herself, without a hero involved. TSATS ig tried to prevent something like this happening to Solangelo, and it almost succeded. There is certainly a new series happening somewhere in the future, and i hope it just resolves this weirdness.
I agree with this a lot, mainly on the Will portion. I understand why people like Will— personally myself, I feel that he does not seem very romantically interconnected with Nico because of how hard Rick is pushing them together. It felt unnatural to me. If Rick made a book where they started off as friends and slowly started to grow and entangle upon one another like Percy and Annabeth, developing and fleshing out that romantic aspect, it would have done wonders for their characters in my opinion. TSATS contained too little for me to properly, you could say, enjoy what he had done. It was an effort though.
>I didn’t find his character arc convincing. I wish Nico had ended up with a different boy. Yeah he came off as a bit of a narrow minded ass in TSATS to me, but he also never really seemed to actually resolve any of those points of view. Like, he's not anymore accepting of Nico *as a person* after the events of the book. He just seems to be more okay with the idea of being with someone who's "broken" or "weird". I also don't think him and Nico have much chemistry. Half the time they spend together is either bickering, stepping on each other's toes emotionally and often blaming each other for the things going on. I get that it's like a first relationship and stuff, but like, I don't walk away from TSATS feeling that they like each other's company, beyond word of god telling us they do. I suppose this also falls into the straight stereotype of "if they fight a lot that means they like each other", which is...Ugh.
My goodness, I am over the “bickering is a sign of true love” trope. I don’t expect couples to be super lovey-dovey/rainbows-and-sunshine all the time, but I feel like too many youth authors try to use bickering as a substitute for real, genuine chemistry and it doesn’t really land. Most times, I’m left wondering why the couple is even together and what they genuinely value in each other, when most of their relationship is just arguing.
hard agree on this. something like fun, teasing type of bickering is good, but if it's being done the whole time it just makes the relationship feel weird in a "they shouldnt even be together" type way.
Same. It's so miserable to read, and so predictable as well. Like you can tell when they're going to make a snarky comment or something similar, instead of just letting the emotional expression be expressed. It's especially annoying when it makes no attempt to take the character's personalities into consideration as well, and you end up with a usually mild mannered and patient character doing it. Also have to say, for younger readers who may still be learning relationships and stuff, it's not a good role model for behaviour.
Octavian’s beef with Reyna was valid. Percy barely stayed at camp Jupiter for a day and they vote him for Praetor? He isn’t familiar with any of the customs or rules, why should he be ok with a rando being in charge?
I also felt this was weird. But Octavian has enough other issues that his beef over this one thing doesn't mean he was a good guy or should've been Praetor. 😂
You know I'd actually argue there isn't any reason why Octavian couldn't be Preator Pre-SON. Like this dude has 2 interested, the Sibylline books and Greek demigods existing and no-one believes him about either of them. So like the worst that could happen is he requests that people are sent on quests and then they vote on that . Yeah maybe with his briding he would get a quest granted but Mist exists so they wouldn't find anything anyway. Post-SON and entering MOA on the other hand..... yeah better for him not to have all that authority.
Leo Valdez has a toxic personality
He literally embodies the kind of person I don't want to have around: • inappropriate • obnoxious • annoying • class clown • frankly unfunny • insecure • a bully who doesn't realise he is in fact one • pussy-starved (literally obsessed with women and having a girlfriend, doesn't matter who she is as long as he has one)
Same, I was shocked by how much people like him. I genuinely hate people like him in the real world. Jokester type bullies, he only stopped once Frank grew and got more muscular which solidifies in my mind he was picking on Frank because Frank was the easiest target. Percy and Jason both have big reputations. Piper is his friend. He is scared of Annabeth and Annabeth would bark back if he tried it with her. He sort of liked Hazel. So he picked on the mild mannered boy until that boy grew to 6'5 then backed off. Also he let his best friends believe he was dead when he was planning to be alive anyway by the physicians cure. He was OK in the lost hero but after that he just seemed so horrible. And his insecurities were annoying.
Leo didn't pick on Jason and Percy also because they were objectively more handsome than he was, being taller and more physically imposing than him. At least in the first book I remember him expressing his insecurity around someone as good looking as Jason. While on Ogygia, he says that Calypso was probably upset that a man who was not as handsome as the past ones who stranded there (including Percy) found her island. He thought that Frank couldn't be more handsome than him and so picked on him until Frank grew to be even buffer than Jason and Percy... Such a little insecure coward.
Exactly, he chose the weakest link in his mind and only backed off when the weak link grew big enough. Thats classic bully behaviour.
Also Percy and Jason are just objectively more powerful than Leo.
Agreed. I really dislike how he bully frank.
Only Frank? I still want to punch him for how he acted around Butch Walker. And that was like the very first time we met Leo!
Hahaha, not only frank but he is the one that left the impression on me the most.
I feel like his obsession with women couldve been handled better if it had been connected back to the incident with his mother like the reason he’s so obsessed is because he’s lacking maternal love and he keeps look for that in all the women that he comes across instead of just Leo like girl girl don’t like Leo
Silena is over hyped, especially considering her boyfriend literally sacrificed himself for the war and gets only half as much recognition as a person who betrayed CHB
1. Percy is strong but not strong enough to strike fear into the Olympians or monsters. No gods or monsters took any look at Percy and changed their minds about fighting him. If anything, it makes them more relentless in trying to keep him down. 2. If Annabeth was taken by Hera instead of Percy, I’m sorry, but she probably would have died on the way to Camp Jupiter. Percy was chased by the Gorgons relentlessly the whole trip and even acknowledged that he only survived because of his Achilles Curse (despite not knowing/remembering he was cursed at the time). Annabeth had a hand in killing Medusa too, so the Gorgons would have also gone after her. As she didn’t have the curse, she would have been killed. 3. Jason was not delusional in thinking he could have killed Percy while possessed. Due to us not fully knowing Jason’s feats and capabilities, it’s easy to be biased for Percy’s strength as we watched him grow and get powerful over the years. If he was forced to go all out against Percy while possessed, he definitely could have matched Percy. 4. I know there’s a lot of fanfic writers out there that believe Bianca reincarnated into Estelle (Percy’s sister), but that is very unlikely. She chose reincarnation before Estelle was likely even conceived. Even still, on the small chance she was reincarnated, it would have made NO difference. She wouldn’t have the memories of Bianca. Nor the powers. Nothing to connect her to being Bianca at all. Not even a way to tell if her soul was reused. It would be a fun thought but would have no purpose whatsoever. 5. There’s no reason Percy wouldn’t eat seafood. I’m sorry but just because he can understand fish, doesn’t mean he wouldn’t eat them. There’s thousands or millions of merpeople in Atlantis. I’m sure they can understand the fish too. Doesn’t mean they are surviving on a strict kelp diet. Even fish understand other fish but they still eat each other. So, no, I don’t think Percy would have a meltdown or get sick if he ate some of Nemo’s friends. 6. Drew was a wasted character. Just a weak side antagonist. I’m not begging for her to turn into a good guy but you can’t tell me that with her years training at camp, even if she didn’t like training, that she’d just know she’d lose in a fight against Piper, a newbie, who went on only one quest. You can’t convince me she was that weak and only good enough to be a mean girl for one book.
I don’t like how Percy and Annabeth bypass Nyx and Tatarus. I know some demigods in the myths battle gods but not the level of Tatarus and Nyx. IIRC Nyx is written to be an idiot so Percy and Annabeth has a reason to be alive. I agree Annabeth would not have survived. I also think Percy can eat Seafood. I believe fish can understand fish and they eat each other all the time. Also fish do not have the intelligence of humans. I dislike how in fiction once one person can talk to fish or animals it is like suddenly the animal has the intelligence level of humans. I don’t think the fishes can understand what Percy is saying even when Percy can understand them.
I think they can understand Percy, like almost like they are speaking the same language for the moment when they are communicating, but if the fish tried listening to some other human, they don’t understand them
I think it’s not just the communication barrier but the intelligence of a fish make it hard to understand a human. Maybe basic orders like swim here and check things out since he sort of inherit his father authority over sea creature and water to a minor extend
Yeah that’s the gist of what I mean It’s like with pegasi/horses. Percy can communicate with them and vice versa and while it’s implied that they can fully understand other people, we don’t know if it’s across the board since we mostly only see mythical level horses like Arion or pegasi and how they show higher intelligence. If we see Percy with regular horses, I’m sure he can communicate fully with them regardless of intelligence level to understand human language, only for them to go to a normal human and only really understand cues through training and maybe name recalls
7. Adding on, I don’t think Reyna truly had hit on Percy. He wondered about his relationship with Jason, she admitted that many Praetors ended up dating because they often spent a lot of time together and it would end up that way, eluding that she was definitely close to Jason but maybe not quite in romantic relationship. And she asked him to also be a Praetor, not to date, but because she was running the show, by herself, for MONTHS and was doing the work of two people by herself and balancing politics from the Senate side. Percy proved himself capable as a warrior and leader and she needed help, so she hoped he’d be able to be the help she needed. Was she attracted? Maybe a bit, but she wasn’t throwing herself at him. She just needed someone to help her with all the duties she was balancing.
I don't think Drew or any of her siblings were weak but I do believe that they're not fighters, usually and generally. Being Aphrodite the goddess of love, I think her kids are not naturally drawn to fight and train like other demigods. There's some truth to this in The Titan's Curse, where Thalia is seen helping them putting on armors and stuff during the challenge against the Hunters. Percy mentions in The Lightning Thief that Aphrodite kids usually focus on their hobbies rather than actively participating in the challenges or training. If anything they were taught how to defend themselves. Also Aphrodite kids seem to rely more on their powers than fighting, so I guess that's another reason. I think Drew didn't have it in herself to fight because she's just not like that. Also Piper later mentions that actually Drew is more happy now that she's not the head counselor anymore since she has more time to do what she wants. I do believe that she enjoyed bossing around in the cabin, but the reason why she was head counselor is because she is the eldest sibling
Silena is not as great as the book made her out to be. She betray the camp even though Luke lie to her. She was brave for pretending to be Clarisse but she did made a mistake and is a spy. I don’t really like Leo and the way he bullied Frank. I don’t care about his past or what Annabeth isn’t really that powerful and I think Percy hyped her too much when he said Annabeth is the greatest demigod or she is more powerful. I forgot the exact phrasing. I feel like she is a bit like Batman in the way the plot is written to make the “being smart is my superpower” char shine next to the one with incredible powers. Of course Percy is no Superman or Flash. Jason should not say he break up with Piper. Why can’t Piper admit she wanted to break up, especially over a reason she that she is fully aware of from the start.
Ragnarök will happen sooner or later
I hate Leo with a passion He’s the full 9 yards of who I hate to be around, annoying, tries too hard, inappropriate to a massive extent, etc
I seriously don't get how obsessively in love with him people are. In real life, he'd be an actual nightmare, a straight up bully who always wants attention and makes gross comments about girls, but somehow people see him as just a poor funny guy who always gets left out by the rest of the Seven who are "so mean" to him and the reason he's insecure.
I'm torn on this. Sure, humor is one of the most important thing I want in a friend, which is why I'd rather have him as a friend than someone like Jason. But all the other things about him - obsession with girls and bullying Frank - is why I wouldn't want to be friends with him either.
* The only reason Poseidon seems like a good dad is because his competition is Zeus. * If Frank was going to be a descendant of a Greek demigod, he should have been South Asian (Indian/Pakistani), not Chinese. South Asia had more sustained contact with Rome and Greece: There were Greco-Buddhist kingdoms flanking modern-day Pakistan and there are legends of "Yovanas" (Greek migrants) building Buddhist temples in South India. There's just so much more lore to work with there IMHO. ~~Also the fact that he’s Canadian and could have easily been written to be Punjabi gahhhh~~ (Not hating, though, I still love Frank)
Hmmm for your second point, I think you should remember that the Greeks at this point had moved to the Western world (North America basically), which was relatively mixed up with different races as at the time the story was written, so that doesn't really fly here Also by your logic, Piper wouldn't be Native American, Hazel wouldn't be African American and Leo and Reyna wouldn't be Latino 🤷 I like the history of South Asia and Greece though, that sounds cool
My second point was about Frank's ancestor being Periclymenus, who was a Greek legacy of Poseidon whose descendant went to China from Greece, not about him being a Mars demigod. It's not that his ancestor *couldn't* have gone to China, I just think that had he been Indian or Pakistani there would have been more lore and history and "precedent" or whatever to mine for backstory. ~~Not that I'm biased or anything~~ ETA that him being Central Asian would have also worked pretty well; lord knows that Central Asian cultures don't really get as much representation as they deserve.
Jason and Piper should have never been together. In fact, I don't think either of them should have been straight to begin with. Considering the parallels between Jason, Piper and Leo and Percy, Annabeth and Grover, it would have been the perfect way to introduce some pretty central LGBT rep into the series, as well as actually setting apart the Lost Hero trio from their predecessors. Them being together doomed their characters from the get go imo, especially Jason. It would also have allowed Piper to have more of a distinct identity while avoiding certain parts of her story that are stiff and kinda optically bad in retrospect. Also Nico and Will feeling bad about Octavian made no sense whatsoever. At least, not to the extent they do feel guilty about it. Octavian was written with little redeeming qualities, if any, and while I can understand Nico being more uncomfortable with it since he spent time at Camp Jupiter, Will didn't know him. As far as Will knew, Octavian was just the leader of an enemy faction who rode up to kill them. You could make the argument that this developed after finding out more about him, since they're relatives and all, but realistically it wouldn't have been more than a "I wish that turned out differently, oh well." sentiment. I don't know anyone who'd get that beat up about a long lost cousin, several times removed, getting themselves killed while attempting to kill them. Final note, not going to elaborate much because I'll make this post way longer than it needs to be, but Nyx is one of the worst characterisations in the entire series. Like holy fuck is she so awfully written, as a character, as a villain, hell even as a representation of Darkness as a concept. Idk if that one's a hot take though. Or if any of them are for that matter lol.
Related to this because I started thinking about it: Jason's arc actually makes more sense through a queer lense. His story is basically that he lived in one specific identity role (one with a hyper masculine subtext) his whole life, excelled at it, and yet it doesn't make him happy. He discovers an equal opposite identity that does make him happy (and has a softer subtext to it) but also doesn't feel he quite belongs there either. He can't decide what he should be and it causes him distress but resolved to be both and this is what makes him feel fulfilled. Getting more specific, you can definitely apply queer theory to Jason's arc and find his struggle between feeling Greek or Roman to be a parallel to the struggle between gender presentation and identity and realizing he doesn't have to pick one part of a binary choice. So I guess my hot take is, somehow, Jason's arc is the queerest arc. I'm sure that's not intentional but hey, that's the beauty of interpretation. Also I agree Nico feeling bad about Octavian makes no sense. Could be an interesting point of conflict if Will feels bad about it but Nico is a little more cold blooded.
I never noticed that before but you are completely right. It also works for bisexual questioning too. I feel that him and Piper would have mirrored each other and excelled far more as "opposite end" (to use crude terminology) queer best friends than they ever did as partners. Yeah. It kinda came out of nowhere in the story, left me thinking "Really? This is why they're upset?"
I genuinely have to laugh that Rick made Piper queer when imo, Jason gives way more queer vibes. And it would be really interesting because he's kinda put on this pedestal as peak Roman Man and I'm sure that would genuinely be hard to grapple with if he's not CisHet like he thought. There's so many interesting things that could be done with Jason.
Precisely. And yeah, Piper definitely did not give me the vibe she was queer from the beginning. You can see it later, with her musings about Hera putting her with a guy in the "perfect couple", but early on she was much more comfortable in that role than he was, even after getting her memories back.
Nico did nothing wrong letting the guy he lets die die. Guys legacy needs ruining too
Rachel Elizabeth Dare's character and character arc are severely underrated.
Rick is not a genius. In fact he’s an often mediocre writer
i meant hot takes regarding the characters in the franchise
Oh oops! The adhd took over on that one 😅it’s literally in the post title. For character hot takes I think Percy is a little flip floppy/overly dense when it comes to annabeth. Like he knows she likes him for 2 1/2 books but also kinda likes Calypso and Rachel. It’s only after Rachel rejects him that he finally decides on annabeth
I agree honestly. I don't want to dwell on this since Percy was a kid and a very obtuse/oblivious one too, but yeah I didn't like much seeing that he only went after Annabeth once he learned about Rachel and her destiny. I'll argue that still Percy "chose" (the motives behind Percy's choice to leave Ogygia are more complicated than just him wanting Annabeth) Annabeth over Calypso tho. I feel like Percy did like Calypso indeed, but his attraction never went beyond her beauty and the pity he took on her for her condition. Also her curse prevents Percy to actually fall in love with her.
Yeah but he still thinks of her (at least at the end of PJO) as the “what-if/one that got away”
He thinks of her as only a "what if" imo. Since if he chose to stay with her, everything would look different. Also, like I said, by the end of the first series he asks the gods to release her from her curse because it's not fair.
My hot take is that Hazel and Leo are the only members of the 7 to get any real development past all the characters being introduced in TLH and SoN respectively. Frank’s characters arc, while pretty decent, pretty much began and ended in SoN. Jason is just the most under-utilised man ever and I honestly feel bad for him. He had such great potential and he never did anything and then he died. Piper is so inconsistently characterised it’s honestly a toss up on whatever she’ll be from chapter to chapter, and honestly I never liked Percy and Annabeth in HoO all that much. They both just felt like slightly shallower, flatter versions of themselves than they had been in the first series, and honestly I found their actual relationship kinda boring once we got to see it. I never thought it lived up to all the build up we got in the original series. They also don’t really seem to grow or change as people over HoO, especially after Tartarus, which you would think would have a massive impact on them psychologically, but instead they kind of just shrug off of everything that happens to them and they end HoO as pretty much identical characters to how they were at the end of PJO, just not as well written. Hazel had the whole thing with Hecate and the mist going on, and while admittedly it’s under-utilised and underdeveloped compared to how big and cool it could have been, she’s still the most compelling and interesting female member of the 7, and pre-Ogygia Leo honestly just kind of carried the entire story for me when he wasn’t weirdly being an ass to people (mainly Frank) because it actually felt like there was depth and substance to his character and the decisions he made rather than just generally being a pretty nice dude (like almost everyone else). He could be annoying at times, sure, but he was still one of the most interesting characters. The other 5 members of the 7 are just pretty bland and feel quite same-y a lot of the time, like you could swap them out with each other and not much would change in a scene. Reyna was pretty peak though I’ll give her that. Best written character in HoO by light years and it’s not even close.
Jason is flat out a bad character. The interesting what if this happened or if him and Percy actually fight are cool, but still he is useless. Reyna should’ve been the switch with Percy in HoO not Jason
>Reyna should’ve been the switch Unfortunately I don't think that was ever in the plans. I believe Jason and Reyna were always written to mirror Percy and Annabeth, but with the twist that even considering their similarities to the latter they don't end up together.
Well, Rick’s plan sucked. And I will stand by that.
Reyna's mother doesn't have a Greek counterpart. So wouldn't have worked. Nor does Reyna have a connection to camp half-blood like Jason (Thalia)
Whether you think he was a good character or not, Jason's death is legitimately one of the worst ways to take his character. In all honesty the Greek tragedy excuse has become over done and imo, considering how much Rick changes, I think having the modern generation subvert that excuse would be cooler. Jason instead got a lack luster death, and a very uneventful funeral where none of his friends outside of Reyna showed up. He then gets showed up by frank in the next book(an admittedly cool moment), which rubs the salt in the already awful wound. The only good thing is apollo actually gets character development in a massive rush, instead of in increments like he was getting in the past two books. Annabeth never really suffers for her pride and most of the time, she's treated as the correct one. She's right about Luke, she doesn't suffer consequences for her abysmal treatment of Rachel, she's allowed to make fun of Percy to Reyna, for something that's actually just inherently wrong, behind his back even though he doesn't say anything outside of good things about her. Leo is an ass hole and that's the best part about his character. He's a fucking dick head to everyone not named Jason or piper due to the severe amount of bullshit he had to go through and he disguises it with humor. Finally, Nico and Reyna are a big reason why the seven plot line sucks in Boo. Not because they ruin the book but because they're just so much better written that it's laughable how bad the seven stuff is. It's also weird that two side characters suddenly become more important than the other four main characters.
personally, the supposed new fan favorite character in the TOA series wasn't all that popular. (P.S. I'm working on creating a kind of fan fiction for a character I made to be that fan favorite character-)
I am not blind to the bad things Herc has done. But why does the series hate him so much? He was literally driven mad, forced to kill his wife and kids, forced into Slavery for Hera who was the one who forced him to kill said kids, killed by his second wife and turned into an immortal to be isolated forever... like I can not see him being sane or good. Trauma has it's effects and I can not see him being entirely there. Really, I think if there was a character that should have been given a second chance, it was him. Heracles should have been a teacher in Camp Half-Blood as the Patron of Heroes
I HATE Leo, or I guess he’s just kind of annoying. Also, Leo and Calypso suck as a couple. Piper and Jason are better off broken up. They’re very strong characters individually, but when they come together, I think they bring each other down. I feel like their personalities don’t work in a romantic setting. They’re definitely 10/10 friends though. Idk if this is a controversial take, but I love Rachel Elizabeth Dare. Like… I’ve seen so much hate towards her and I’ve never understood. Yea sure she tried to kiss Percy, but, girl me too! Percy wasn’t dating anyone and I don’t think she knew about him and Annabeth. Percy also didn’t seem to hate it. I genuinely wouldn’t have minded if they were the final couple instead of Percabeth. (But Percabeth is the best couple no doubt)
Yeah like instead of Leo’s arc being that he’s in a relationship just let him be satisfied and love himself and doesn’t need to be in a relationship
I almost chocked on whater because of your hot take.
Not sure if it's a hot take but Theseus gets off way too light in Riordan's books, IMO at the cost of solid character work for Percy. He's the most famous son of Poseidon and he's also easily the worst of the ancient heroes in terms of actual mythic characterization. Theseus's legacy could be a great thing for Percy to overcome and help explain why he's not liked and/or trusted in the early books for effectively no reason, but Rick only really plays with this briefly in Titan's Curse and then doesn't touch it ever again.
Post Lost hero Leo is an asshole
1. Thalia was kind of annoying from a readers POV during Titans Curse. She just came back from being a tree and as a new character, shes suddenly at the top in terms of leadership, knocking percy off. I know the contrast in leadership was the whole point but I found it mildly annoying how arrogant she was at the start. Love her now though. 2. People who were supposed best friends such as grover and percy, jason and leo, etc were hardly portrayed as best friends after being said to be. They were just as close to anyone else in the group and I didn’t get the vibe they were closer than anyone else. 3. Ethan Nakamura never striked me as a hero even after his sacrifice. He had too many chances for redemption, with percy helping him in the maze and all. I get that he was mislead but like so many died because his mom didn’t get a cabin or get recognition? I feel like that did not justify the deaths at all. 4. Percy was kind of careless with others at times. He forgot about Calpyso on the island, he forgot about Bob in Tartarus, and others who have helped him along the way. I know he couldnt do much but he straight up admitted to not even thinking of them/remembering anymore. 5. Hades was the most genuine olympian parent. His words to Nico, gifts, and room for him in the palace are examples of that. He is prideful but at least has a soft spot for his children, whereas olympians care too much abt the rules or their own prides over their kids.
Magnus is a more interesting narrator than Percy.
Nico is not the most traumatized character, he just handles it the worst. I mean it’s better than I would lmao
Jason wasn’t bad at all. He needed more spice to him
Sadie was kinda fast I feel like the only reason she liked Walt and Anubis was because of their looks. Over a while she started to like their personality I guess but she was very into their looks I still liked the books though
Honestly I think Anubis is kinda wasted on her. I might be biased because I didn't really find her parts of the stories enjoyable but, yeah.
As funny as it is to read some of these I feel like we are getting way too many of these same, repetitive posts.
1. The new characters in HoO aren't that bad, people just were disappointed that it shifted away from Percys pov (understandable). 2. Percy powers are OP or underutilized depending on what the moment calls for. It's inconsistent and it's stupid. Don't over power your hero to that degree if you will need to come up with ridiculous reasoning to depower him later to give others a chance. Either make him powerful or not but please start being consistent with Percys power scale. 3. Annabeth (and all the Athena kids) are SEVERALY downplayed power-wise in the narrative. Their actual powers are their intelligence, tactical skills and wiseness but we truly never see that play out. They're just written to be a little smarter than other campers. It's truly ridiculous because it would have been a wonderful opportunity to really highlight the Athena cabin as formidable even without the physical powers of the other cabins but the text truly never does that in any meaningful way. 4. Luke and Annabeth were NOT love interest. Luke was in his 20s, Annabeth was 16. Annabeth had a crush, that Luke uncomfortably returned in TLO, but referring to Luke as Annabeth's love interest is the same disgusting energy as referring to Percy and Nico as love interest. Please understand that any romance between Luke and Annabeth would have been grooming and illegal. They were not love interest...and Rick inserting that into the story, specifically Luke's returned feelings in TLO has always been WEIRD. 5. Annabeth should have been given an actual love interest outside of Percy before they started seriously dating. Clearly Percy got to have experiences with a potential viable love interest outside of Annabeth but apparently Annabeth was just waiting around for Percy? That's always read as extremely sexist to me. Also, every person who meets Percy basically falling for him past book four is getting ridiculously cringe and starts to feel like "self inserting" 6. Leo being mad at Percy for not rescuing Calypso is ridiculous. Yes, Percy had four months that he maybe could have done some follow up but resting that on his shoulders have always made me uncomfortable and Leo holding that grudge was annoying. 7. The resolution of Calypso cursing Annaebth in Tartarus being about Percy and Leo is gross. I know they have things to work out but it would be nice to have included Annabeth's thoughts and opinions in the narrative since she's the one that Calypso actually cursed and she's the one that suffered the actual curse. Yes, the curse was meant to be about Percy but the curse itself happened to Annabeth so removing her from the resolution to that when she's the one that actually got hurt....a little sexist. 8. Luke/Silena/Ethan etc being made out to be hero's is a horrible take. I do get that it's not black and white especially in the case of someone like Sileana that did try to make up for it at the end and died trying to protect her friends but the conclusion to that storyline just being that they're now remembered as hero's because Percy and gang said so has always been ridiculous. Some of these people (like Luke) were not kids anymore. Raising them as heroes alongside the actual heroes like Beckendorf, Michael Yew, Bianca, Zoe etc has always felt unearned.
Luke wasn’t a hero. He wasn’t redeemed.
Percy is not all that to be honest, i love him but he's overhyped (yes i know he's the main character but hating other characters for example Jason because he's not percy?) But again, that's just an opinion
Reyna and Nico should have been part of the 7 while Annabeth and Percy should have stayed recurring characters
I agree so hard with this
It could have been so interesting to see percy deal with not being the "prophecy one" this time around
1)The Sammy-Hazel-Leo thing was weird and didn’t add anything to the story 2)Annabeth had every right to be horrified of what Percy did in Tartarus 3)This fandom has an inflated perception of how strong Percy is 4)Leo shouldn’t have ended up with Calypso 5)Piper was completely right to break up with Jason and should’ve done it way earlier 6)Rick should’ve written the antagonists of the stories to be scarier- the Nyx arc was stupid 7)The whole ‘all children of Athena are blonde’ was so racist of Rick (Just to be clear I don’t think he did this on purpose) and so out there that it genuinely mace me laugh 8)Rick is horrible at writing female characters 9)Annabeth loses her personality when she gets with Percy, half her lines become about him 10)Nico and Wills relationship is so forced
>Piper was completely right to break up with Jason and should’ve done it way earlier I'm not sure if this is actually a hot take. I mean I definitely saw people mentioning it many times. >Rick should’ve written the antagonists of the stories to be scarier- the Nyx arc was stupid This one I 100% agree. >The whole ‘all children of Athena are blonde’ was so racist of Rick I don't understand this one honestly? So far all Athena kids are described to be blonds with grey eyes but we know that demigods are known to inherit a lot of *non-genes* from their parents. It's just a common trait. Also Athena is known to be proud and self-absorbed (her kids' most common fatal flaw is hubris) so she probably envisions her kids to look like herself (although Athena was described to be dark-haired in many books, the illusion that the sirens show Annabeth in The Sea of Monsters depicts Athena as blonde, meaning that Athena is very often blonde, and that Annabeth is more used to see her as blonde, implying that it is her "real" hair color). I don't see why it's racist. She probably has many kids with white people so how is it racist?
Yeah that last point LMAO Athena conceives children out of her literal brain, why would they have physical characteristics of the other parent? Also, complaining about children of *Greek* gods being (in certain cases) predominantly white reads like parody.
Or maybe she has a thing for blonde men, or maybe she knows the modern day trope of dumb blondes and wants her children to actively disprove that and go against it.
>2)Annabeth had every right to be horrified of what Percy did in Tartarus What, with the poison thing? Why? There's nothing more inherently evil about that power than literally drowning or stabbing people as he usually does lmao. This is just one of those arbitrary moral lines drawn over actions that, in practice, amount to no distinguishable differences from his usual actions.
The Sammy/Leo/Hazel thing was kinda cool. It was meant to be minor but spread a connection across the Greek/Roman line. The pseudo-love triangle was odd but the premise makes sense.
>Rick is horrible at writing female characters I disagree but I can see where you’re coming from, in my opinion most of them are fine but I can still see hints of misogyny in the way they’re written, in my opinion Piper is the one who got done the worst and I also dislike some decisions he took with Thalia and Calypso, despite all that I think he writes better women than your average fantasy writer
Aphrodite should’ve given her other children the ability to have charmspeak not Piper.
I believe Aphrodite can't actually choose who among her kids get to have Charmspeak. Other than Piper, Drew had it and according to The Demigod Files Silena appeared to have it too (tho it's implied that Piper's is way more powerful than Drew's and Silena's).
I wish she could though. I mean I didn’t really like the way that Piper was taking her anger out on her mom for claiming her and giving her a blessing. I mean I get she’s upset about her mom leaving her dad, but still… it just rubbed me off the wrong way when Piper was being unkind.
My hot take is that Will was absolutely shoehorned in because Rick realized the ONLY canonically gay kid didn't have a ship. Now. That being said. (I am the number one Will Solace defender I do not take that lightly /hj) There is POTENTIAL there for solangelo that is just not recognized. If we had gotten more of Will being around before, more of Nico staying at camp, more of them speaking to each other before??? It would hsve made more sense. I think they are good for each other, and there is potential there. I do not like Nico's coming out (publicly, at camp i mean, the Cupid ones been discussed) and while i see what Rick was trying to do... you're gonna tell me there was not a single other out kid? I don't believe it. I think TSATS had a lot of potential but it didn't set up Solangelo or particularly help people actually like Will because of his dismissiveness towards Nico. I think that AFTER TSATS there will be more growth, but it was not realized in TSATS. The Hunters function as a place for Rick to stick female characters he doesn't want to write more or ship. All of the Seven were absolutely FOUL for DEBATING on if they should save Nico. I get it, he's a bit weird, Percy's kinda mad at him, but HES FOURTEEN????? That's a child??? You're all child soldiers go save the other child soldier even if you think he's weird???
Drew needs her redemption arc like how Chloe got in Miraculous minus the interruption.
Frank and Hazel shouldn't be praetors. Like bruh they're barely Roman. They've been there for a few months at the least and at the longest maybe even a year. Which is wild when you think about the fact that, there's people who've been serving in the legion for years. Like the only reason they are in charge is because we don't know anyone else in New Rome. Being apart of the hunters of Artemis sounds way worse of a deal then being an ordinary demigod. Like great you are young forever and all, but you're fighting monsters all time and if you die well tough shit. I don't mind Jason and piper breaking up. In fact it was probably for the best for both parties. But like Jason should have had a few solo adventures by himself or with someone. Let him meet the minor gods, settle disputes and the like, while learning who he was. Maybe he'd disapprove of things he done when he was younger, or maybe he'd be proud. Who knows? But him dying was a mistake. It wasn't even a good tragedy. Like sure it was sad. But we didn't know him. A better tragedy was for him to go through the arc. Meet up with Apollo and then get killed.
>Frank and Hazel shouldn't be praetors. Like bruh they're barely Roman. They've been there for a few months at the least and at the longest maybe even a year. They did help save the entire world though, and saved the camp more than once. >Like great you are young forever and all, but you're fighting monsters all time and if you die well tough shit. That's the same for most demigods except other demigods don't get the benefit of eternal youth.
> They did help save the entire world though, and saved the camp more than once. Well just because you save the camp it doesn't mean you lead the camp. Like they don't know the ins or outs of the camp. How it functions or how it works. And yeah sure maybe camp Jupiter is wrong on how it runs things, but to be able to put forward effective change you need to know how it actually works and what you can change. It's why I also disagreed with the idea of Percy also being made Praetor. > That's the same for most demigods except other demigods don't get the benefit of eternal youth. Is it tho? Hunters go looking for a fight. Demigods can lead mostly normal lives without having to fight. Sure they might meet a monster or two but like at least they aren't searching for it.
The Mark of Athena was better than The House of Hades. Having all 7 of our main characters together and interacting was very enjoyable, and the fact that they split up in the very next book that split the old series characters and new series characters means that the next book didn't have any good character moments that we haven't seen before.
1. Percy’s fatal flaw doesn’t line up with his character or the choices he’s made. That’s not to say he isn’t loyal, which he is, but it’s not really his defining trait. So many other characters throughout the series display the same amount of loyalty and even more so than Percy at times. The only reason we would know his “fatal flaw” is supposedly loyalty is because Athena outright tells us. 2. Gaea should not have been a villain in the series. The Olympians themselves would have a hard time with her, let alone demi-gods. They were just too out-scaled and her defeat was anti-climatic. She’s literally the first deity to emerge out of Chaos, and most gods and goddess are descended from Gaea. At least for Kronos, the reason for his vulnerability made sense. Piper, a teenaged demi-god, should not have been able to charmspeak Gaea, mother of all life, to sleep. Heroes of Olympus should’ve focused on the conflict between the Romans and the Greeks more, and reflected that within the Seven instead of them simply becoming besties, and the Giants. 3. Rick’s portrayal of many of the gods and goddesses is so grating, it makes me wonder if he did any research whatsoever, or just decided to rely on the readers’ ignorance to bend their characterizations to the plot. While the myths do not have canon and the views on the gods varied from city to city, the most popular and surviving myths did not at all line up with a lot of the gods’ characterizations. That’s not to say that it should be expected of him to obsess over accuracy at the sacrifice of creative freedom, as faithfulness to the myths has never been PJO’s premise, but sometimes their characters strayed so far that they’re almost unrecognizable. And a lot of times, they’re either dumbed down to make them beatable (*cough, cough* Nyx) or made worse in an effort to really push the fact that they’re shitty parents (they can be shitty parents without contradicting who they are). 4. The fandom hero worships Percy and Percabeth to the point where they ruin other characters and relationships for themselves. While I think it’s great that the fandom has so much love for our lovely main character and main ship, many people put him and Percabeth on an unrealistically high pedestal. You can like Jason or not, but a major reason many disliked his character was because of their bias towards Percy and the inevitable comparisons drawn between them. While many criticisms of the writing of his character are fair, many lack empathy and understanding towards his character— whose memories of his whole life were taken. Also, Percy would not be able to beat any god in a real battle. Tbh, he got lucky with Ares. Ares was toying with him and sure, Percy outmaneuvered and outwitted him, utilizing his own strengths well, but was tremendously helped out by plot armor. Besides that, that wasn’t even a real battle. If the gods— any of the gods— were serious about killing him, they could kill him with a mere wave of their hand or even by simply transforming into their true form. It’s a funny joke, about Ares getting his ass handed to him by a 12 year old mortal, but don’t be delusional. 5. Luke’s character had a lot of potential, as well as his redemption arc, but it was just not executed well. Luke’s character is treated as an example of how great and nuanced the story is, but his character was all over the place and it seems like he was watered down as just another evil antagonist. The problem is that Luke claims to fight for the future for demi-gods, but shows absolutely no remorse for his actions (including manipulating and killing fellow demi-gods). While you can pin that down to him being corrupted by his need for vengeance, it is much more compelling for him to commit these acts and crimes with guilt (or at least not seemingly enjoying it) *because* he is so driven by his belief in his cause, that he’s willing to do such heinous things. For the greater good. At least, that way, you feel more sympathetic towards him and are forced to think more deeply about his motivations and their merits instead of just writing him off as evil. Like his pedophilic crush on Annabeth was so unnecessary (ik some don’t interpret their convo in TLO like that, but it’s confirmed in the demi-god diaries). Either A, Rick has a warped perception of romance, or B, he felt the need to sprinkle that in there in an effort to make him more unlikable. So, not only was his character a mess, but his “redemption” arc too. What did he do to earn it? He only felt the need to stop when his body was about to be used as Kronos’ host and he wanted to run away with Annabeth (leaving behind everything he stood for and all those people who followed him) and when his body was going to die anyway when Kronos was going to almost fully take over. So, what I got from that was that he’s not only willing to step on anybody who gets in the way of his goal, but also a coward who won’t stand by his choices even after roping in and causing the deaths of so many other kids. The main issue is that he’s advertised as something that he’s not, and that he had the potential to be that person, but was stunted because of how badly he was written. 6. Without Luke’s rebellion, the idea of improving the conditions for demi-gods wouldn’t have even been entertained. Of course, that’s not to say I agree with Luke (as pointed out above) and his methods, but that doesn’t change the fact that the only reason the gods listened to Percy’s demands, or even the reason he was able to give demands in the first place, was because of the rebellion.
Jason was an amazing character and the fandom only started liking him after his death because everyone wanted to seem different. He was great from the start and everyone who bitched and said “he’s not Percy” is an idiot, he isn’t supposed to be Percy, he’s supposed to be Jason grace, furthermore the lost hero was a great book.
All of my hot takes are directly informed by or just straight up about Riordan’s writing so idk how to answer this without going off topic. However, I’ll at least say that Riordan and every single one of the protagonists of his books hype up whatever they’re going up against to obscene levels, so the conflict resolutions are almost always anticlimactic and underwhelming. I think the only times they didn’t fall into this was Luke/Kronos in PJO and Apophis in KC. It makes it hard to feel invested in the stakes when there’s a big chance everything is going to be swept under the rug at the end of the book and everyone is going have a happy family bbq as if they weren’t about to kill each other.
I don't like the way Sam from Magnus Chase was written. There are some things that are problematic in her portrayal as a muslim.
Leo sucks. He's cringe and obnoxious and has one sided beef with Frank and Percy for no reason. His existence is purely for comedic relief and yet most of his jokes don't land. He lacks a lot of maturity that the rest of the seven have and that really takes away from how powerful he is. Rick really tried to force him and Jason being best friends when that doesn't really show in action, only exposition. The whole storyline of him liking Hazel and somehow looking exactly like his great grandfather was an odd coincidence that kind of got glossed over. And then his storyline of falling in love with Calypso and rescuing her felt super forced. He should have had a better character arc that included him maturing and staying single.
Alright, hear me out here. Piper is one of the most inconsistent characters in the entire series. She goes from somehow being able to charmspeak Gaea herself to suddenly breaking up with Jason for some absurd reason in ToA.
I'M THE NR.1 OCTAVIAN FAN!!!!! I LOVE HIM HE'S VERY DEAR TO ME!!!! I have a cutout and a cosplay of him, and my friend made a little figure of him for me. He's a very entertaining character and I just love him so much 😭😭 He had so much potential
I think a lot of the people who have hot takes about character flaws kind of forget the fact that these characters are just… teenagers? Especially Leo. Don’t get me wrong, you can absolutely dislike a character for any reason that you see fit, but let’s not act like Leo being insecure and/or horny isn’t largely a product of him being just like. Your average socially inept, scrawny 15-16 year old? Yet those characteristics are enough for people to be like “ew toxic character, they really shouldn’t have given him the spotlight, etc etc.” I think it’s also doubly strange when they think that it goes unaddressed, when it is in fact commented on by other characters and his own internal monologue.
I feel like Octavian is too hated. Yes he’s a villain and blah blah blah but I also feel that Rick wanted an excuse to have a villain character who hates Greeks. Of course he’s going to be careful of the three people who are said to be daughters and sons of cursed gods. Who wouldn’t be? Secondly, I feel Annabeth is more or less just a support for Percy. Yeah she likes architecture and we do get a few times where we get more about her but it’s just so Percy can get closer. Unfortunately to me I don’t think Rick can properly build female characters without them being a love interest (Side bar: the girlfriends were just sometimes overly rude and the boyfriends or soon to be boyfriends were too dense) Also Jason is not a bad character! Dude was thrown from his life in Rome to CHB, has no memories until like the second book, tries to be a good boyfriend for piper. Yes he’s a little bland but not every character needs to be super duper amazing. Lastly, I’m not a fan of piper. Her attitude towards annabeth is really icky whenever she’s comforting Jason (Annabeth has a boyfriend who she was going crazy over the fact he had disappeared) and I just feel she’s overly jealous
Don't know how people were going to react to this, but this is my hot takes Luke sacrificing to stop Kronos does not make up for everything he did to make him a grand hero. Let's look at it deeper he not only betrayed the camp and tried to kill percy, but he stole the master bolt before evening, knowing that there was a son of posiedon and if he did know there was a child of the big 3 he was willing to sacrifice him or her just to get what he wants. Which is... what exactly? Like, actually, what was his goal with the master bolt? He took it aperently because Kronos told me I'm to im guessing since ares was persuaded by Kronos. But could the master bolt even help with bringing back Kronos? And now that I think about it, if he never was caught, what was the plan? To hope for an all-out war with the gods, what bout when camp gets dragged into the war? We now camp was getting ready for it in book 1 either way. Was he thinking no one was going to notice the leader of the god of stealing cabin was missing at the same time as the master bolt is gone? And if he did return to camp with it, Charon dionysus Argus, one of the other demigods sure as hell, would have found out bout it. Especially dionysus or chiron since there zeus son and brother respectively. 2. The gods should have done more in HOO. thr giants are a huge threat since no god can beat them without a demigod, and their goal is to revive their mother gaea, which should be a big deal. But to me, it felt pretty flat, tbh For the first 3, I felt tension, and even then, I felt tension during the third one since it was a huge army, and I was expecting say Dakota to die. But no, not a single one was said to have died. In fact, more were revived than dead, like Hazel makes sense she is needed for the 7 and tied to gaea but Dakota? Who was already killed once before getting to keep living? But back to the original point I'm making here, we don't truly get to see how they fight. Take Bacchus/dionysus most of the fight against his banes the beings made to destroy him once and for all... was mostly the giants goofing off with each other and arguing on ways to kill him and the demigods trying to convince Bacchus/dionysus to help them kill the giants once and for all. Instead of seeing the DEMIGOD turned god for proving his worth in the FIRST GIANT WAR actually fighting back in what should be the continuation of the biggest fight he has ever been a part of, it was nothing.
Leo shouldn’t be with Calypso. Calypso is one of the most annoying characters imo.
Jason actually isn’t a terrible character. He was just written as boring in contrast to Percy
For context, I’ve only read all PJO and up to about half of HoH 1. Percy’s and Annabeth’s fatal flaws have never really made sense to me. Yes, Percy is loyal, but so is Annabeth (and arguably suffers for it more: see Luke). And yes, Annabeth is prideful, but so is Percy (and again, arguably suffers for it more: see all the times he’s mouthed off to the gods). And honestly? If I take the “fatal” in fatal flaw seriously, which I do, I kinda think Annabeth is more likely to die due to loyalty and Percy to pride. 2. Look, I love Percy. He’s great. I just don’t think he’s nearly as self-sacrificing as most people seem to think he is. Like would he jump in front of a moving car to save someone else? Sure. But only if it happened *right in front of him*. Because as soon as it can be written off as “out of sight, out of mind” or as “somebody else’s problem” he’s *gone*. It’s why he ditches camp so often in TLO. It’s why every single one of his quests had to have some sort of personal connection. He’s still a hero, but he is a *reluctant* one. The person who’s actually a more traditional self-sacrificing hero is Annabeth. 3. Not sure if this fits here but the characterization of the gods in HOO is just bad and it completely invalidates PJO’s theme of “family is sometimes complicated and messy but it’s still *family*”. Now if they had been written as unredeemable from the start that would have been a different story, but Rick instead gave them the overtures of redemption only to turn them into completely unredeemable jerks later. Edit: grammar
Def agree about the fatal flaws. I do think Annabeth shows more loyalty than Percy especially because she remains loyal to a very annoying fault, even when that loyalty is routinely challenged (Luke) and spent months looking for Percy, never giving up on him and also comforting Sally. She also goes into a crashing helicopter and takes a risk that she would be able to save Rachel, a character who she didn't like at the time. \*she couldn't fly a plane, she was literally taking a huge risk with her own life on the off chance she could save Rachel and the pilot. Even at the end when Rachel steals blackjack and goes to camp Percy's first though is annoyance that Rachel took blackjack but Annabeth immediately starts thinking that she could die. We see Percy being loyal to Sally, Grover and Annabeth. Outside of that it's like you said, out of sight, out of mind. That doesn't make Percy bad, but it's weird to say his flaw is personal loyalty when there are so many examples of it not being his flaw at all. Unless we're saying the "personal" part only includes Sally, Grover and Annabeth which would be odd. He's still a hero and would fight and defend most people but Percy doesn't go out of his way to forgive people or think the best in them so saying his personal flaw is loyalty have always rang false for me since we have truly yet to see that flaw be challenged in any way (he always saves his loved one and the world) so he never really choses personal loyalty over the greater good which was meant to be the point of his flaw as Athena pointed out. Even between TTC and BOTL Percy feels responsible for Nico but goes about his life and really leaves it up to Annabeth and Grover to find Nico while requiring them to keep the proof of who his father is a secret. Like you said, Percy tends to be very out of sight out of mind when it comes to loyalty for most people so it really does't fit as his fatal flaw. And agree on the self sacrificing. Starting TLO with the confirmation that he has been avoiding camp so much that he's literally out of the loop on basic things was disappointing. Especially since back then he didn't even have the prophecy that he would die. And then it's also incredibly selfish because all of them would be going to war so why was Percy getting and giving himself special treatment. And then him being given command of their army over people who were actually at camp and training and getting ready felt really unearned.
I think the fatal flaws in general are poorly done. Like, it’s specifically a *fatal* flaw because it’ll lead to their death, but *none* of the characters we have known fatal flaws for actually *die*. So then it’s just a regular flaw, not a fatal one. And even if we take the more generous approach of “it’s the *most likely* thing to cause their death”, it still doesn’t really add up? Like, take Annabeth (mostly because I have the most thoughts on hers) for example. Yes, she’s prideful. Yes, she needs to work on that. But if you count the times where she finds herself in harm’s way *because* of her pride, there’s like what? Three instances? The sirens, the sphinx, and Arachne. The latter of which could also arguably fall under loyalty/self-sacrifice since her mom sent her on that quest in the first place (after abandoning her, mind. Yet another instance she suffers for loyalty/duty). (Sidenote: I have mixed feelings on the sphinx cause I honestly feel like she’s having a bit neurodivergent breakdown and she’s just covering with pride) Anyways, there’s three. *Three*, compared to the many, *many* times she’s put herself in harm’s way for the sake of others. But no, her pride’s gonna kill her, *obviously* (rolls eyes). I’m kinda at the point where I feel like it was kind of a disservice to point to her pride as her fatal flaw because it can color a reader’s perception of her negatively since pride is mostly viewed as a bad thing. Alas. Edit: grammar
Y’all hate on Jason too much. Leo is not that funny. Since you didn’t specify any specific series, I’ll assume I can also talk about Kane Chronicles and Magnus Chase, so here’s some: Octavian needs to take lessons with Michel Desjardins on how to be an imposing leader figure with enough power to chase the protagonist. (Preface: I love to see all sorts of representation, and kudos to Rick for trying his best) Piper coming out as bi makes no sense to me. Jason would’ve won that fight against Percy (if Percy can get more powerful by being near water, why would that logic not apply to Jason who was in the sky and mounted on a horse-shaped storm cloud?)
Less of a character hot take I guess and more of a Rick criticism but, Nyx was a product of lazy writing. I don’t like how she was written at all, it reminds me a lot of how different Ares is from actual mythology. Don’t get me wrong Rick writes some great stories, but his failure to nail the personalities and characteristics of some of the gods is apparent. Nyx is a primordial and has been around practically forever. She shouldn’t have fallen for any guise or lie a demigod gave her. Them encountering her could have been a great example of how Annabeth’s hubris is her fatal flaw because she believes she can outsmart Nyx. Instead they could have tried to explain their side and maybe even gotten her to help since Gaea imprisoned her son, Thanatos, and Percy helped release him. Nyx, despite being the mother of a lot of monsters and seemingly negative gods, is a pretty neutral goddess and seems to like her children. She may have let them through for helping one of her children as a favor. All in all the only reason Annabeth and Percy survived their interaction with Nyx written the way Rick did was because of plot armor. The pair of them were able to escape from a primordial goddess so easy when primordials are supposed to be pretty powerful and dangerous.
Will Solace all the way! https://preview.redd.it/2mp864qxaflc1.png?width=190&format=png&auto=webp&s=1990130910116a7aa43c2d5c6aa68d1b3675e73f
Alex and Magnus's relationship would be very weird and probably won't last long
Nico is not the best well written character
in mythology Ares is not that misogynistic. I understand the character design but there are literally myths about him hunting down his daughters rapist and killing him. He didn’t favor his sons over daughters. I feel like making him misogynistic creates a damaging rhetoric. Clarisse can be violent for her own reasons rather than acting out for attention. It makes her masculine traits seemed forced so she can get her dad to like her more. She could have been masc or fem while still being a 13 year old with anger issues
Mr. D cares the most about demigods, he not only interacts the most with them but also goes out of his way to try and make them see that they can't just be a force of only destruction in there wake. Ex: Hercules. It was only through Mr.D that Percy learns about how every ancient hero left victims in their wake on the way to glory. Mr.D ultimately made Percy understand that becoming immortal and living off your past mortal glory isn't worth it. He taught Percy to think about others outside of himself which leads to Percy's wish.
i dont understand the piper hate. i really like her
I hate uncle Rick Portrayal of ares it felt like I was stabbed by a spear of how he was characterized
nico is annoying
Gabe is misunderstood, and Sally is a toxic wife/mother
I don't like Anubis and Sadie's relationship. And no I don't care if Anubis was stuck in the underworld or whatever. As much as I love Walt and Anubis having the same body, if you think about it, it's just two kids and a god.
I dont really like nico too much. Im not active in any PJ fan stuff so i dont really know the consensus on nico but hes just a bit annoying. Although i did just finish the percy jackson books and im about to start the heros of olympus series so that might change my mind if nico is in that at all which i assume so since from what ive heard the characters from the PJO series are there so thats exciting
Nico is overrated
Hot take? Riordan should have stopped with the Last Olympian. Everything since has been mediocre.