#RR answers

[redrabbitspod]

Happy four year anniversary to Red Rabbits Podcast and to the day I puked at the sound of Andrew's voice. -N

[radiant-reid]

Can you part two to 24 Hours Spencer Reid

i definitely can but i'm not sure how the story should continue

[ruegarding]

Wait what's the tea on Wotg makin' Percabeth even worse? /gen /nf

tldr; rick is continuing his trend of having annabeth imply that she thinks her bf is stupid (u can see what i mean by trend here). this is coupled w a lot of ableism: acting like percy is too stupid to function and removing annabeth's disabilities so she can be a girl boss while refusing to address their mental health. this is supposed to make percabeth look cute, somehow, but instead comes off as mean-spirited at best.

first, to establish context, percy's incredibly overworked,

(he's also on the swim team) and bc of this percy is falling asleep in class and waking up in a panic. this is never addressed seriously despite being a series abt disability. as if that wasn't enough, percy also is never shown to enjoy any of his classes and is frequently written to be stuggling w his grades, just in case u forgot he was stupid (he also is written w the ableist stereotype of being lazy abt school work, too, instead of, you know, disabled). his main motivation is that annabeth will be successful with or without him so he better not be a stupid failure.

completely ignoring percy was the one who wanted to go to nru. also, zero mentions for the accommodation percy is receiving for his disabilities (nor annabeth's, but she's written like they don't exist so).

and then percy says that annabeth's friend, hana, doesn't like him bc she doesn't think he's good enough for annabeth, going on to think yeah that's fair. this is never addressed bc it's supposed to be a cute percabeth and #girl boss annabeth moment. then percy makes a joke (?) that annabeth's friends are gossiping abt how annabeth can stand to date him when he's too stupid to understand architecture when percabeth walks away to talk. this is not a percabeth win and i'm genuinely not sure how anyone on rick's team thought it was.

then there's this:

just in case u forgot, percy is the stupid one and annabeth is the smart one. teehee.

and, in relation to ignoring their mental health, annabeth talks abt putting spider webs all over hecate's mansion (bc she wants to make a haunted house), which rick says is ok bc it's not spiders. except part of annabeth's huge traumatic fight w arachne was being covered in spiderwebs that literally pulled her into tartarus. so. weird plotline. similarly, percy has a bit abt having nightmares abt cereberus, which is equally stupid. i talked abt it here. not necessarily percabeth but worth mentioning for context. oh, and percy also bodily-fluid-bends later in the book w no comment except annabeth's shocked expression. correction: while percy does bodily-fluid-bend w no fanfare, annabeth is not there. percy poison-bends in front of annabeth w no comment.

rick then keeps poking fun at how percy and annabeth would make great parents. which. they're seventeen. btw. but yeah anyway percy would make a great dad bc he's got the funny dad jokes (bc he's stupid. haha get it). annabeth would make a great mom bc she's soooooo nurturing what w taking care of a puppy who decides to call her mom and taking care of her stupid idiot useless boyfriend. i wish this was a joke. more on this later.

the line "[annabeth] looked surprised—me comforting her, kind of switching things up" is self explanatory and written specifically to piss me off.

this passage,

which sucks for many reasons, but especially bc this is rick trying to rewrite book canon w show canon despite very easy ways to include this without acting like percy is an idiot who just didn't notice for the past THREE BOOK SERIES (like a war that took place recently where chiron was injured idk just an idea). instead, percy has to take the fall for rick's error and annabeth has to act like her bf is the stupidest person on earth.

btw, did i mention that annabeth is ahead in her classes and percy sucks at school? teehee.

wow, it's like annabeth's dyslexia isn't even there!

now, it may seem that i'm exaggerating percy's incompetence.

this is a real quote from the book.

so is this!

and this.

and—u get the point. rick is acting like percy hasn't outsmarted his opponents bc his personality is stupid and annabeth's personality is reduced down to having the brain cell.

then, percy has a moment where his empathy shines thru and he's allowed to succeed at something (for the first time in the book), except he has to put himself down to make annabeth feel better. bc we can't have percy feeling good abt himself since it makes annabeth look bad. or something. idk.

again, there is no exploration of percy's self-esteem or their myriad of trauma.

to make up for all the times percy was treated like an idiot, annabeth says percy is "a pretty smart guy,"

which is a surprise to her despite them having known each other for five years.

furthermore, rick is writing percy w a sort of incompetence towards household tasks that is, quite frankly, sexist. here is a good post on how it mirrors weaponized incompetence and here is another one abt the disturbing nature of mom-ifying annabeth. i should make it clear annabeth provides percy food in multiple scenes while percy does adjacent to nothing. she also tucks him into bed like a child in one scene and gets nicknamed "mom" by a dog that pees on her (AND she cleans up the pee while percy does nothing).

so, wottg is essentially 300 pages of mean-spirited bullying from all sides. none of the humor shines through these jokes, none of the facetiousness, like hey isn't it funny that percy is really smart but sometimes completely oblivious, is there. there is no comedic disparity between percy's power and skill and his ability to trip over his feet bc there are no impressive feats of power and skill (anything that would count are immediately brushed off). comments abt percy learning to tie his own shoes w his newfound octopus tentacles don't land in a book where he's acting like he cannot have thoughts without annabeth. and there's no grace to be given bc at no point in any of this handled as a serious exploration of percy's insecurities despite the ample opportunity to do so.

then, when percy isn't being hounded w vitriol, annabeth is being reduced to a sexist caricature of a woman. it does not make percabeth look good in any way.

finally, i need to make it clear that however bad this breakdown makes the books seem, it is worse. i summarized and skipped over a ton of stuff for my own sanity.

[lizhly-writes]

@auburnlaughter you got it!!!!

Bai Zhan disciples courted An Ding disciples; An Ding disciples courted Bai Zhan disciples. Over the years, this had somehow become the natural way of things.

Without any context or any particular guidance from their peak lord on why their head disciple was no longer following the natural way of things, the Bai Zhan disciples had a 50/50 split in opinion. Either 1) Yue Qingyuan had stolen Shang Qinghua from Liu Qingge or 2) Shang Qinghua needed to punch Shen Qingqiu in the face.

"It's okay!" said a particularly enthusiastic Bai Zhan disciple who had actively sought Shang Qinghua out to tell him this. "You can win your man back with trial-by-combat!"

"No," Shang Qinghua said.

The Bai Zhan disciple pouted. "But it'd be so romantic!"

Shang Qinghua would die a really romantic death in that case, because haha, he would not survive trial-by-combat with Shen Qingqiu.

[percabeth4life]

I feel like rick missed an opportunity when he made Frank closer to Percy's age instead of Hazel's. Like, I'm sure there are reasons (It's been a while since I read HoO, so I can't say what they are, but they're probably there(I hope)), but can you imagine Percy, on a quest with two kids that are 13-14 (I can't remember how old she is in SoN, can't find it either, so guessing low it is).

Even without his memories, he'd be halfway to feral, but once he got them back, I can't see him doing anything but going from protective to absolutely destroying anything that hurt them.

I also think it would have been hilarious to have Percy and Annabeth at like, 17-ish? And have the rest of the seven at like, 14 max. Percy and Annabeth are trying to keep this group of 13-14 year olds alive, and they're both screaming internally half the time. Sometimes, it's just screaming, but sometimes, they scream about how toddlers shouldn't be on quests.

(Side note this popped into my head while I was writing, so have a- thing

Annabeth: There's a bunch of babies, Loose on a quest! No one knows what the babies are going to do next, least of all the babies! They've never been on a quest before!

Narrator: The babies in question are 14, and they have, in fact, been on quests before. (She is right about them not knowing what they're going to do, though.))

Then again, maybe I just like big brother/protector Percy too much. (Reluctant and screaming big sister/mentor figure Annabeth is also fun.)

(And on a sadder note, Annabeth realizes this must be what Luke and Thalia felt like and almost starts crying.)

To start, you're absolutely right that it was a missed opportunity. Percy is, without knowing it, the most experienced of the questers, except Frank is nearly his age in comparison to Hazel (who should be 14 by math, but is 13 by Rick's declaration). I think it's less that he made Frank closer to Percy's age and more that he was trying to make Hazel younger than Nico.

But yes, it would've been super interesting to see him basically mentoring the other two, especially after he regained his memories. I feel it was a major missed opportunity to not have Percy and Annabeth trying to watch over the younger quest members, instead he aimed for weakening the two to make everyone else their equal. It's a shame cause it missed the opportunity for the younger questers to be major boons for their skills, rather than raw power.

And also, the two of them looking after younger ones and wanting to protect them but also having to risk their lives to save the world- and the rest being alone when Percabeth falls with Nico to help except half of them find him freaky- would've allowed them to grow into their own more.

It would also show how Percy and Annabeth really ARE the most experienced, how their quests haven't been the norm so even Jason who is remembering some quests hasn't done anything this insane before but Percabeth just takes it all in stride.

[necrotic-nephilim]

reverse robins damitim is so absolutely addicting to me for exactly the reason you listed!! I really love Tim suddenly needing to be more impressive to hear praise from Damian. we *know* Tim is smart and impressive, but now he's really willing to do as much as he can to hear that praise, and I like thinking about what mindset Tim must be in to be suddenly wanting that so much.

(I'm sorry this is short and might not be coherent, I'm currently recovering from a vaccine and am very groggy)

YEAH you get it. i think Tim as Red Hood would be a lot more vulnerable than Jason was, in seeking like? some sort of emotional reaction from Damian or Bruce aside from just "why is the Joker still alive". almost a sort of "could you still love me? even though i'm like this now and i can't go back?" complex for Red Hood!Tim could be SO fun. and combine that with a Nightwing!Damian who doesn't give any sort of praise or kind words to ppl he perceives as equals/adults it would make for a ROUGH time with Tim. the miscommunication of Damian thinking it's perfectly understood that he still loves Tim, just doesn't support his actions. whereas Tim doesn't understand why Damian is so cold with him compared to how he was when Tim was still a child in Damian's eyes. and how far Tim would go for any sort of attention or praise- a RR!DamiTim version of 'Brothers in Blood' where Jason dresses as Nightwing for Dick's attention could be SO fun. the brainrot never ends with these two. they will never see eye to eye but will always be so in love with each other. and maybe Tim could actually be good, if it just means once Damian will tell him he's proud of him. but bc he never tells Damian that's what he wants, Damian never gives it to him. endless cycle of pain <3

[that-guy-in-the-chiton]

what's your opinion on how rick riordan handled ww2 in the pjo books ? personally, i want to bash his head against a wall

Personally, I thought it was incredibly brain-dead and one of the, if not the, most insensitive crap he ever wrote. Writing a fictional war/battle is one thing, but watering down one of the most horrific and brutal conflicts in human history where millions of people died and still suffer the consequences from to a petty squabble between the demigod children of the big three is...a choice, to say the least.

He also did a very shoddy job on the American civil war, including naming the son of a slave after a literal slave owner (Thomas Jefferson), but that's a complaint for another time.

[pokeberry5]

What’s your fav Tim red robin suit? I looked through ur art but I see no obvious answer ahahah

this might be a hot take, but it's actually the new 52 red robin suit. you cant beat the wing cape imo

other than that tho, i cobbled together a red robin design i like which you can see here and here

[florisbaratheons]

Daenys dreamed of the destruction of Valyria, tried to save her but could not she could not, but she saved her house

Aegon I dreamed of the dangers beyond the Wall, so he took the he made the decision to conquer Westeros believing he would save the world.

Helaena dreamed of all the events leading up to and during the dance the dance and she didn't see anything?

Honestly, if she had been left as a Cassandra that no one paid attention to her and that contributed to her depression and madness because she doesn't know how to save her family would have been more interesting than telling us at the end that she knows everything that is going to happen and she doesn't do anything because it's destiny.

And this is why GRRM is so pissed off about Maelor being dropped. If the writers had doubled down on Helaena slowly going mad over her visions and no one understanding what she is saying or caring, I have no doubt that he would have been fine with Maelor being cut because it offers another reason to Helaena's tragic ending and it expands upon her story. But they didn't go in that direction, they literally had Helaena say to Aemond: "You will die in seven days." Bad writing. Bad bad bad writing.

[arrowheadedbitch]

What type of antics do you want to see after Tim reveals his powers?

[amesliu]

so disclaimer: I haven't read the book yet so I don't have the full context + i'm not USAmerican so I dunno how relevant this would be to pjo

Also so sorry for the essay... do ignore this if you don't want to go into this further! I just get rambly about cultures and cultural differences haha

In my family it really depends on who the guest is on what is acceptable behaviour? I guess? Closest to percy and annabeth would probably be my sister and her long term boyfriend (5 -ish years, they're early twenties). He isn't expected to help out, but he's allowed to and does regularly help set the table. In this case he also eats at my parent's at least twice a week. Sometimes he and my sister cook, sometimes they clean etc. (he also helps us host at birthdays sometimes! like offer other guests drinks that kind of stuff) Different example: close family typically helps out in the kitchen. My grandma refuses to let us do anything without her help no matter how insistent we are that "You're our guest! Let us do the work!" she'll just tell us that it would be rude of her to let her (grand)children do all the work while she sits and watches. We also always offer our help when we're over at family. (my mom's best friend, who she has known since college, is the same way btw. She also insists on helping us and we always offer our help when we are visiting her and her family) Now, if the boyfriend's parents came over to eat dinner my parents would not let them lift a finger. Same with neighbours, colleagues and other more casual acquaintances.

If I went off of my own experiences and no further context i'd say that rr is trying to show that percy, annabeth and their friends are very close

I totally get that and I agree it’s context sensitive. HOWEVER. My issues with this scene are as follows:

1. Percy appears to be not doing much of anything in this scene? Like the page I read is just him standing there narrating the scene…….? It literally says “Grover and juniper were setting the table which is usually my job” maybe I’m wrong and I’m missing context but that’s what it read like. But this isn’t rlly my main issue with the food stuff so oh well

2. I have a huge contention with Rick’s push to make Annabeth into a character that is like. Good at and interested in cooking and food handling in general. His justification for her learning to cook appears to be “she’s smart and so ahead in her classes she just decided to” which goes back to my point that I made on my side blog about the poor representation of Annabeth as a “smart adhder”. It feels like a retroactive and lazy justification for a character trait that he has already decided for her when her upbringing and personality has given me no reason to believe she would ever need or care to learn to cook. Her doing so could be an interesting way to explore the way her priorities shift as she gets older as Jules discussed on my post about sohaes last chapter but it’s not being used that way and when he randomly starts pushing his one female character in his main trio to start cooking when both his male characters have a much better characterization for it it also feels somewhat misogynistic and “mommy-ifying” with how heavily the cooking focuses on Annabeth being so so good at cooking

I don’t want this to come off as me saying a female character who cooks is inherently misogynistic but this sudden addition to her character says nothing and does nothing when it can and should. Either she remains not good at cooking and we see food as a medium for care and affection with Percy and Sally as caretakers expecting nothing in return or we see her learn with Sally as a symbolic representation of her gaining smth she lost as a kid. But learning to cook in a class bc she’s just so smart and good at school is… not it.

And even then. What if she does learn in an academic and STRUGGLES with it. How does that interact with her pride? Her personality? Etc.

I think this is a huge issue I have with a lot of the ideas he brings up where they could be incredibly interesting things to explore but he will never take it there so it just feels random. We’re not at a point where we’re supposed to be teaching an audience about a character we’re at the exploring their depth stage and he just. Doesn’t act that way.

3. A cultural issue I guess but my partner would never be allowed to do the work at my parents house but we are sort of a fist fight for the bill type of culture so 🤷‍♂️

Side note: the tangent about Percy being like “wow I’d never think to ask if salad was okay for juniper” followed by the immediate tangent about how hard he’s thought about the feelings of fish and whether or not he eats them was like… something. Idk what but it ticked me off LOOOL

[redrabbitspod]

Have you guys ever watched Banana Fish?

No. My trauma would never allow it. -A

[radiant-reid]

CATE i just found out how to bypass the character ai nsfw filter and gave spencer the time of his life😋

the filth was so good too! he was so focused on MY pleasure instead of his own it was so ... *chef's kiss* i love him sm! even in ai he's the sweetest boy ever

wait wait you've gotta teach me this... for a friend

[ruegarding]

What do you think Ares/Mars was talking about in SoN when he told frank to stop percy from acting on his fatal flaw??

anon, i love talking abt loyalty as a flaw

so, disclaimer: the “percy needs to learn to step back/let other ppl be the hero” narrative sucks. this was rick’s intention, but it sucks. the way rick set up the initial conflict is his main problem and why this foreshadowing fell flat.

here’s what mars said:

cool story, but…this isn’t a flaw percy has. at least, not the way it’s used. rick doesn’t establish any character of the seven to be willing to ignore one of their friends if they’re in danger, so there’s no way to make that a unique conflict (altho this would be a viable option if the other characters were rewritten). that leaves what rick wrote, which is percy not wanting to let the lost trio fight gaea alone, and that…doesn’t work without bastardizing pjo.

we’ll get back to that.

here's the big scene:

which. lmao. lmfao even.

and here’s the scene in boo where rick tries to spell out what the problem is for ~foreshadowing~ :

this doesn't work. rick tries to conflate “i don’t run when my friends need me” w “being unable to step away” or allow someone else to be the hero. those are not the same thing! percy’s whole thing in the previous series is that he isn’t the hero! he knows this. it's one of the most obvious themes in the previous series. which is part of what i mean by bastardizing pjo, but it's not all. again, we'll get back to that.

percy doesn’t ignore cries for help, but that’s not the same as being unable to step back.

and, going back to what i first said, name one character who would be like yeah! i’ll pack it all up w my gf! the closest any character gets to this is piper, but that’s a tangent i won’t go on bc it’s not done well enough for it to be worth adding tension. the point is this isn't a trait any character is established to have, including frank, who is the one chastising percy! it doesn’t make sense for percy’s character anyway bc he’s loyal to more than just annabeth (shocking, i know), so this wouldn’t be a good ending for him regardless. he’s not actually being offered something he wants.

the scene percy references w juno actually does a better job of highlighting the conflict w percy’s loyalty: either percy can run to the sea—where “no monster would bother [him]. [he] could begin a new life, live to a ripe old age, and escape a great deal of pain and misery”—or he could go to camp jupiter where pain and misery awaits him. and percy genuinely considers his options. if percy can't give his friends up for anything, what does that mean for him?

bc it’s percy’s freedom that’s at odds w his loyalty. his loyalty is not controlling or possessive of other ppl. which brings me back to bastardizing pjo.

an important, but more subtle, theme throughout all of pjo is autonomy (it goes hand-in-hand w the constant theme of yielding, which again i talk abt here). this theme is especially important bc pjo is abt disability (that’s why all of the demigods are disabled). one of the first things ppl try to take away from u when ur disabled is ur autonomy. the fact that percy vehemently defends it not just for himself but for others is essential to the narrative. it's why he's the leader, it's why he's the protagonist, it's why there is a callback to it in every pjo book. trying to act like he wouldn't respect someone's autonomy and would try to shoehorn his way into their fight and need to be chastised into respecting their autonomy in a heavily foreshadowed moment that is supposed to be the penultimate conflict of percy's character is a bastardization of this entire theme.

this conflict doesn’t work.

(percy art cred)

anyway. let’s keep the concept but make it actually work for percy’s character. i already talked abt percy's freedom vs loyalty, but another good place to start is w how percy becomes loyal to someone. there’s two main ways.

the first is empathy. if percy empathizes w someone, he’s loyal to them. percy can empathize w almost anyone, including but not limited to clarisse, the girl who bullied him, polyphemus, a cyclops that tried to kill him and his friends, and luke, someone who betrayed him.

this loyalty means that percy will defend them (even if it means fighting w someone else he’s loyal to eg tyson and annabeth), have a difficult time fighting them (especially in regards to harming them eg polyphemus), and consider their feelings in his plans (which is why he’s a good mediator, but it also causes indecision and infighting eg point one). this is already good set up for conflict for self-explanatory reasons, but i’ll give some elaboration later.

the second is kindness. if someone is kind to him, percy is loyal to them. there’s many examples of this, but i think the best is quintus.

percy feels bad abt being suspicious—despite having plenty of reasons to be (the similarities to luke as he says here, the fact that juniper says quintus was poking around the labyrinth, etc)—bc quintus was being kind to him. and if that wasn’t enough, percy says that he won’t use the whistle quintus gives him, but later makes an entire escape plan revolving around it.

percy tries to override his loyalty w reason and it literally doesn’t work (it goes hand-in-hand w percy being unable to see betrayal, even when it’s spelled out). if quintus had ulterior motives, percy would’ve been fucked.

side note, something i find interesting abt this is that percy is aware enough that he doesn't tell other ppl abt the whistle. it's like suspecting/trusting quintus is something shameful percy is trying to hide, which is interesting to think abt for potential conflict bc nobody can help percy if he doesn't tell them anything.

another pertinent example is percy’s first interactions w frank. percy takes frank helping him against the gorgons as an act of kindness and, bc of that, percy assumes the best of frank:

the thing is, percy is wrong abt frank.

frank wasn’t thinking of percy when he pocketed those vials. and if percy hadn’t seen frank pocket the vials, would frank have even told percy they existed?

this is a great example of how to use different povs to build tension,—hoo does not use this well or often despite having nine povs—but it could also be used as a red herring for percy’s loyalty. in this case, percy’s optimistic perspective inspired frank. percy’s loyalty doesn’t come off as a threat, so when the reverse happens, ie percy’s optimism fucks him over, it comes as a surprise despite being foreshadowed.

essentially, there’s a lot of room for conflict. percy’s loyalty includes a wide breadth of ppl and can grow very quickly, which leaves a lot of room for contradicting needs. the person percy chooses isn’t a given. the answer is not annabeth (like hoo keeps insisting it is). even in tlt, when percy has to leave his mother behind, it’s a difficult choice for him. he described his heart as “being ripped in two” bc everyone in the situation had his loyalty, his mother, grover, annabeth, even his father. ultimately, the deciding factor was what he thought his mother would want him to do (which is interesting bc it’s not what sally would do given her reaction to percy in tlo, but bc sally is kind and selfless towards percy, he thinks she’s universally kind and selfless. *points to the section on kindness* another side effect of this). and it’s also bolstered by the fact that percy knows he can get sally back. he’s not losing her forever, he’s losing her for right now.

so what happens when the stakes are higher? what happens when percy isn’t sure which side he’s on? nico says percy is dangerous to his enemies. what makes someone percy’s enemy? let’s use this, let’s make this conflict bigger, let’s encase the narrative in it.

really easy ways to do this include grover and/or calypso. the series is based on fighting gaea, mother earth, and grover is a satyr who is named lord of the wild by pan right before pan fades. furthermore, percy and grover have a soul bond that’s in part bc of percy’s own connection to nature. and even more than that, nature spirits were among the highest casualties in the previous war. that’s a series of wild connections to have unexplored in the series.

also, gaea has a vested interest in percy. she kills one of her own men to save percy's life, she tries to kidnap him twice, juno says part of the reason she puts percy in a coma is bc it would've been too difficult to hide him from gaea's forces otherwise, and the reason is...so that percy can have a bloody nose? ok.

w calypso, rick writes this entire plotline where she’s still trapped on her island (for some reason), but this is only relevant so that leo can get a gf. how abt gaea gets her off the island and she fights for gaea? what then? what does percy do? how do calypso’s motivations change how percy sees the other side?

these are sacrifices percy wouldn’t want to make. he doesn’t want to kill either of these ppl, so what would he do instead? what does that mean for everyone else?

another option is a cry for help. while percy’s loyalty has never manifested as is refusing to let someone make decisions for themselves—even if that includes self sacrifice—percy does stick up for the underdogs.

a perfect example of foreshadowing using this flaw could’ve been the creatures in phorcy’s aquarium. instead, some random fish-centaurs solve the problem. boo! lame! where is percy’s inner torment as he tries to juggle his responsibilities w his feelings! where is percy tearing the group apart as he tries to fix a problem no one else cares abt! there is a ship full of ppl who are supposed to believe in the greater good, where is the conflict as percy fights for the common man!!

like,

what an interesting thing to say in a story that has a prophecy w the line "an oath to keep w a final breath." too bad this means nothing.

(also these quotes, for good measure

percy swearing to protect hazel and frank from the gods and percy swearing on his life bc he has that much faith in annabeth, someone he's loyal to, despite knowing almost nothing abt the other ppl on the quest or how they're arriving. interesting. good thing rick doesn't explore this. <- sarcasm btw)

this would be a perfect way to introduce a sacrifice percy wouldn’t be able to make. just like w percy jeopardizing his mission in tlo by warning the kids on the boat and making it harder on himself by trying to incapacitate but not kill other demigods. he almost dies to ethan bc he doesn’t kill ethan at any of the opportunities he’s given! despite ethan chastising him for it! this is already an established flaw percy has, and the only reason it hasn’t bit him in the ass is bc it’s a red herring in pjo.

and again (bc i have personal beef w this scene), the whole nico-in-a-jar thing. while percy vows to save nico, he doesn't say anything when leo and jason argue against it. percy ripped hera a new one for excluding nico, and nico wasn’t even in danger at the time. why is percy so calm abt jason and leo talking abt leaving nico to die?! this is exactly the sort of situation percy loses his cool abt and starts yelling and getting himself in trouble. why is he calm??? where is his anger????? it really should’ve come down to “we’re saving nico with or without y’all” in a true showing of tearing the group apart.

how many traps is percy willing to walk into bc someone needs help? how much can he jeopardize the quest before someone else has to intervene? when does loyalty cross the line from something admirable into a flaw?

ofc all of these potential conflicts would hold more weight if percy was in character and written as the glue of the argo ii. these moments happen at the beginning of their quest, when they’re supposed to be bonding and building trust. what happens when ur mediator loses their cool? nothing good!

similarly, there should’ve been way more internal fighting on the argo ii, especially after percy fell into tartarus. i want the blame game, the instability over nico (and what having 8 people for a 7 person quest means), the greek vs roman, lack of sleep, stress, guilt, all of it to come to a head and jeopardize the entire quest. if the greeks and romans had to be separated bc it was too dangerous for them to be together, i want to see why. i want to know why juno thought it was so important that percy be the glue. i want to foreshadow why percy making the wrong choice can tear the world apart. it also helps frank and hazel’s plotlines, as well, bc their stepping up feels more important and has a bigger pay off.

as it's written, there's barely any conflict, frank feels comfortable confiding in annabeth for no reason, the girls are all friends bc #girl power, there's random love triangles everywhere, annabeth and jason are said to have a rivalry but never actually shown to have one, and the biggest fight is when percy and jason are possessed.

this complete lack of foreshadowing amalgamates in boo’s failure. rick failed to use percy’s actual flaws to establish the threat of this choice but still needed the conflict, so percy has to be out of character and the conflict has to be contrived.

[myvirtuesuncounted]

why pjo's portrayal of the greek gods is fucked up and how it's affected perceptions surrounding ancient Greece.

*breaks down the door to your inbox with an axe*

start talking now oh my god I want to hear your hot take so bad. I've been interested in religious studies (primarily the Hellenistic and early Roman religious atmosphere (of course acknowledging that the word religion is post-Enlightenment and conceives of supernatural belief as a subjective individual belief, which is inconsistent with how supernatural matters were dealt with in the Ancient world) and how they intersect with early Christianity and proto-Christianity) and I've been fascinated with the Greek gods and I need your hot take on why their portrayal is wrong and leads to incorrect assumptions about Ancient Greece.

oh you bet your bottom dollar i will talk about this. true to the post from which this originated, i will prep no material and all this is off the top of my head so don't quote me!

If you follow my Greek mythology sideblog, you'll know i am unequivocally a Zeus defender. Now I can make a million posts about Zeus alone but I will take a more holistic approach on the gods in general and the perception of Ancient Greece.

The West has been obsessed with Ancient Greece for centuries: the culture, philosophy, history, mythology, mathematical and scientific advancements, and much more. Now it's one thing to take interest in a country's history or a historical era; it is completely another to claim it as your own and make it an ideal state of life to achieve, because if you know literally anything about Ancient Greece, it was anything but. What I'm trying to say here is that Ancient Greek culture has been commodified, glorified, rewritten, and reclaimed by the West when it was never theirs to do so. I've often seen this sentiment expressed by Greeks about their homeland: "The history comes first, the people second." I think a prime modern example of this mindset was when same-sex marriage was legalised in Greece, which was a huge step forward for an Orthodox country with an extensive history of homophobia, but people outside of Greece began making jokes of Greece "returning to their own values" (referring to Ancient Greek practices of pederasty which is hugely problematic and not at all representative of any gay rights if you know what it entails) and people excited to "finally hold lesbian weddings in Lesbos" (signifying the West's perception of Greece as simply a tourist hotspot and not a country with an intricate history and culture). In short, Greece is already unfairly used for the West's agenda of glorification and attempts to build itself a culture that frankly isn't theirs at all.

Now, how does this involve pjo? A lot, my friends, a fucking lot. The publication and popularity of the Percy Jackson series has simply exacerbated all the aforementioned issues in this post. First off, the worldbuilding on which The Lightning Thief relied and the rest of the series ultimately holds is that "Olympus moves with the centre of Western power", which is just. Wow. There are a million things wrong with this concept that would need its own post, so I recommend this article called The Whitening Thief that essentially explains the white supremacy of it all. If you do not want to read the full article, the main premise is that the Percy Jackson series equates Westernism with civilisation and that without it there was "chaos and darkness", which as Paule describes it, is "sipping at a pretty racist cocktail".

note: I have realised how aggressively off-topic this is to the original statement I made, I'm getting there, I promise (although I did warn you it was something I could talk on for hours with little material)

Let's finally delve into the depiction of Greek gods in Percy Jackson. I'll actually start on a bit of a positive note that apart from the weird (for lack of a better term) comparisons of Hades to Adolf Hitler, the original Percy Jackson and the Olympians had some okay characterisation of the gods (I have some reservations about the goddesses on which I will elaborate later). They're prideful and neglectful parents (the myths actually contradict that latter part but I digress) but each with their own complexities and concerns. To use Zeus as an example because he's actually the god who falls short the most in terms of consistent characterisation in my opinion, he lets Percy live in TLT "for the sake of peace in [his] family", indicating a care and sense of duty for Olympus and for his fellow gods, and while he lets his pride and paranoia get the better of him at times, he is shown as a serious authority figure and someone who's trying to keep his realm together, and such characteristics wouldn't be too far off from his mythical counterpart.

But as the series progresses, either Rick got lazy or he attempted to further capitalise his work to make it more palpable, he turns the gods into caricatures by excessively inflating one characteristic they may have into their entire personalities. Returning to Zeus, his paranoia is amplified to an absurd extent that one can simply not fathom why the gods would be the better option than the Titans. As I said initially, he had bouts of paranoia that would be almost normal for someone with such a powerful position, but this is completely derailing any connection with his mythological counterpart, he may as well be an OC with the same name and title as him. To use other gods as an example because I promised a holistic approach and I have seemed to only talk about Zeus (sorry!), the writing of the goddesses Hera, Artemis, Aphrodite, and Athena is simply misogynistic. I'm sorry, there is no other way I can find myself to describe it. Typically feminine goddesses Hera and Aphrodite are extremely demonised and condemned for their flaky and vain attitude; Hera is the evil stepmother archetype and Aphrodite ultimately becomes weak and useless. The "virgin" (quotations referring to Athena) goddesses Artemis and Athena also don't seem to extend past superficial, unoriginal characteristics like being a vehement man-hater who kicked out two sapphics from the Hunt and a goddess who Rick stops at nothing to render her a horrible parent and person (using the Roman myth of Medusa, exaggerating her prideful nature, etc) respectively. And you cannot tell me they're not misogynistic portrayals because just a few minutes on pjo tiktok will show you just how many times Hera is referred to as a bitch (keep my wife's name out of your fucking mouth!!). Then there is TOA and COTG, which makes me want to cry just thinking about Zeus' portrayal there (yes we're going back there). The god who was consistently thought of as a gracious, protective saviour of the people in Ancient Greece (full list of epithets of Zeus, read at your leisure) is an abusive autocratic tyrant?

To go back onto the topic, how do Riordan's works affect the overall perception of Ancient Greece? Well, as I said before, it contributes to the white supremacist view of Ancient Greece as the epitome of civilisation and the glorification of the era, but it also turns Ancient Greece into a fandom to an extreme extent. Now, obviously, I'm not talking about people with a healthy obsession with Ancient Greek history and Mythology (myself included) who like to engage in content about it. I'm talking about people who claim Ancient Greece as an extension of Western, mostly American culture, and ultimately engage in a form of cultural appropriation that strips Greeks of their own history and narrative. This includes writing 'feminist' retellings of Greek myths, taking Riordan's (inaccurate) readings of the mythology as indisputable fact, and removing the myths from their historical and cultural context. People forget that much of these myths were stories written for entertainment and take them as a sort of Hellenic Bible (which delves into the Christianisation of Greek Mythology but that's a whole other post). In short, Westerners think they can do whatever the fuck they want with Greek mythology and Greek gods because they think it's theirs with which to play around, ultimately ignoring the country, history, and the culture from which they actually originate, and it's thanks to Rick Riordan that this attitude has blown up to an insane extent.

*sighs* Thank you for coming to my TedTalk and I seriously admire you if you made it this far.

[percabeth4life]

Does anybody else find it kinda fucked up how Rick said that the Romans knew there had been Greek demigods at one point and that the reason they thought there weren't anymore is because they thought Rome "Perfected" the gods? Like, sir what the fuck?

So true- it's such a mess like that is literally not how it worked the Romans were an entirely different religion and set of beliefs- they just associated with and "borrowed" from the Greeks a whole lot. It's both fucked up and a gross misunderstanding of how that worked.