#Of imperialism and the racism embodied within appeals to ‘western heritage’ and all that

[burlowbeanie]

Also, look at Apollo's response to Percy insisting all demigods be claimed and taken to CHB just a chapter or two prior:

"They won't be left out in the world on their own at the mercy of monsters. I want them claimed and brought to camp so they can be trained right, and survive." "Now, wait just a moment," Apollo said, but I was on a roll. (TLO 353)

To Percy at the time, and on a Doylist level in terms of where the series was at with his characterization in fuckin' 2009, his protestations come across as typical self-absorbed drivel in the face of being accused of anything less than perfection. And while him framing his protestations that way fits with his characterization as it emerges in the rest of the series, in light of the wonderful readings that others in this thread have performed there is another level to them, one that spurs him to try to rebuild his foothold in camp asap and damn the consequences.

As the previous rb mentioned, Apollo has just lost several children to this war. He has just had it driven home in the worst way possible that CHB may not, in fact, be the safest place for his kids; it may be a streamlined way of giving them to Zeus to use as pawns in his power struggles. But now, Percy is forcing the gods' hands. Percy is institutionalizing CHB and binding all of the gods to it. This makes complete sense from Percy's perspective. He is a kid, camp is his home, and he is in the moment where he is speaking feeling fairly lenient and well-disposed towards the gods. He is willing to assume the best of them, willing to forgive Hermes, willing to ignore Ares' abuse (side note: I hate that motherfucker, get the fuck away from clarisse, I stg i will kill him), and willing to overlook the atrocities he has learned Zeus and Hades committed. He just wants the gods to be part of their kids' lives, at least enough for the kids to understand what's going on. And yeah that's a better deal overall for the half-bloods than they've had so far. But from Apollo's perspective, given his waning power within camp, Zeus' growing influence, and the recent fates of his children, jesus christ that is a terrifying ultimatum.

Building on what everyone else in this thread has established, Zeus has been elbowing him out of camp, repeatedly using it as a blackmail chip to get heroes to do what he wants them to. (I'm thinking of the way the weather reflects his threats in TLT and TTC, the way Percy is pressured into quests through fear of what Zeus will do to his friends and to their sanctuary). And now Percy is giving Apollo no choice - he *will* keep turning over his kids. No wiggle room. Camp's size and influence seems like it has been fading over the past years. Many demigods are said to have "disappeared"; not died, just not come back after a summer. I wonder how much of that could have been those who cared about them - parents both mortal and immortal - wanting to keep them out of the action, preferring their chances against monsters to their chances in a war. Point being, camp has not been the default in the time leading up to the Titan War. Not being at camp is dangerous, but being at camp has been dangerous as well.

Percy wants camp to be the default. Percy wants there to be systems in place, a safety net for demigods to rely upon. And he's so so right to want that. But he is a kid and he does not fully recognize (or want to recognize, understandably) how fucked it is, how capricious the safety net can be (the conditions of Zeus' protection), how it is paid for in blood (the quests, the unnecessary dangers, the poorly-planned 'training exercises'), how there is so much room for abuse within it (Tantalus, Mr. D at his worst, bullying on an inter-camper level with Clarisse, Drew, Sherman). But, at least to some extent, Apollo does, even he pretends not to. So when his hand is forced, he immediately moves to try to have some oversight of camp, some more involvement, to build up some of his power to protect or at least monitor it more. He instates Rachel as oracle immediately after the council concludes before anyone has time to react. Camp Half-Blood has been (re-?)established as Thee place for Greek demigods, and if that is inevitable then god damn Apollo going to put all his effort into being a part of it again rather than letting Zeus continue to alternately manipulate and abandon it uncontested.

oo now im interested in that apollo is chb'd patron thing would you care to elaborate on that??

@stereden also asked this! There’s not so much canon for this as some of the other things I’ve talked about but there’s still a few things to say on the topic, and not only am I going to talk about him being the patron, I’m going to talk about how that works with the things that happen with CHB during the PJO series, and of course because we’re talking about Apollo, there’s the odd little titbit from TOA that makes its way into this, too.

A lot of this will be extrapolation, but I’ve done my best to keep more floating headcanons out of it, so this should at least all stem convincingly from canon.

I’m going to address two things under this umbrella, because I think they’re related and also because I find them fascinating: Apollo as the patron god of CHB, and Apollo’s loss of jurisdiction over CHB by the events of canon.

So, Apollo and the patronage of CHB. While Camp Half-Blood Confidential is pretty goofy and daft in tone, it gives us a few important little nuggets of information regarding the founding of the camp, namely that it was Apollo’s idea - or at the very least, Apollo foresaw that it would happen/needed to happen.

Continua a leggere