#hoo octavian

[pjotwitter]

[percexe]

top ten worst guys

[i-am-traveling-the-multifandom]

Octavian knew he was going to die but went along with it because he thought it would make him a hero. He wanted to be loved till his last breath......and you want me to hate him?

Source: wiki

[wanderingmind867]

"Really?’ Octavian said. ‘You seem to know a lot about our enemy’s plans, Percy Jackson."

Most insults Percy could shrug off – being called weak or stupid or whatever. But it dawned on him that Octavian was calling him a spy – a traitor. That was such a foreign concept to Percy, so not who he was, he almost couldn’t process the slur. When he did, his shoulders tensed. He was tempted to smack Octavian on the head again, but he realized Octavian was baiting him, trying to make him look unstable.

Octavian isn't trying to make you look unstable! He's reasonably pointing out that you shouldn't trust a weird foreigner who is clearly not roman! If a strange new person showed up in my home too, I'd be concerned! I can see it from Percy's perspective, but come on! Octavian is not in the wrong for this!

[diaruchann]

I finished reading Blood of Olympus almost two weeks ago and this is totally how it happened in the book wdym

[octagon--lover]

Me when people hate on Octavian :(( /hj

[octag0n-l0v3r]

*giggles* I've done it again

[sugar-r-rush]

heres to the first octavian post after months (will be many more)

[ilovewillsolace]

the child of the universe

he's my Dolores Dei

[reuben-7991]

Octavian’s treatment is one of my least favorite things about HoO because it isn’t his character, it’s his lack of one.

We COULD’VE had an excellent character who was a look into what could truly go wrong with blind devotion like Octavian’s, drawing an excellent parallel to Luke’s blind hatred in the original series (Percy even says Octavian reminds him of Luke).

We COULD’VE had a fantastic contrast into a follower’s descent into insanity after making empty promises of power whilst under the influence of a massively elder being, thus leading to said follower’s death.

What makes me especially mad is that Octavian has no backstory. This is a problem with a lot of Roman characters, but Octavian especially. He doesn’t even have a last name. All we know is:

- He’s a legacy of Apollo.

- He used to be sane and probably very charismatic, due to Reyna stating she used to have a crush on him in TTT.

That’s it! One of Rick’s gold stars is that his human characters are just that: human. They have motivations and flaws, deeply personal origins and ideals that affect their actions and their outcomes. None of the villains are just plain villains, evil by birth. They have motives to back up their actions (now weither those motives make sense or not, that’s another story, but they’re still there.) There’s Luke, Medea, Lityerses (who is an entire other can of worms), Circe, Loki, Gunilla, Randolph, hell, even Kronos and Gaea. All of them have reasons for the shitty stuff they did. Octavian is a glaring exception. We know he’s power-hungry, but we don’t know why. We know he’s violent, but we don’t know why. We know he hates the Greeks, but we don’t know why. You may argue ‘oh, he’s a minor character, he doesn’t really get a reasoning’ which is just blatantly untrue on both fronts.

1: Octavian is NOT a minor character in the slightest. He has major roles in the plot throughout the books.

2: Him being a ‘minor’ villain wouldn’t have anything to do with his motivation. Chris from the OG series has stated motivation, and he’s way more minor than Octavian.

Another thing is that Octavian’s insanity is played off almost comically. He’s relatively well put together in SoN, only being super dramatic and reportedly blackmailing Hazel and probably other legionnaires, but by BoO he’s absolutely broken. He’s utterly obsessed with being a hero to the Romans, with being Pontifex Maximus, with killing Gaea and almost proving himself to Apollo (who is utterly disgusted by him), but it’s all either framed as ‘hate this guy more plsplspls’ or brushed away to the side.

I’m torn on his death scene, because it’s a good scene overall but too much of it is humorous in my opinion. Between Will calling Octavian an ‘anemic loser’ (which like. what.) and Leo describing his screams as a little girl’s, it seems almost too light for such a pivotal point in the story. Octavian has truly lost himself to madness, ranting and raving and insisting no, HE has to be the one to kill Gaea, HE has to be a hero.

His death is horrific, yet it’s framed as a silly oopsie.

What the fuck.

Overall, Octavian is a shining example of missed character potential. We could have gotten the Riordan special and made to empathize more with our villain, like what happened with Luke or Randolph from MCGA, but all we get is a crazy blond kid, character so shallow he could count as a tide pool. It infuriates me to no end how in a sea of good, properly motivated antagonists, Octavian is the outlier.

It’s a real shame.

[ilikepjo24]

On Octavian ruining Percy's panda pillow pet...

Now, I thought this wasn't even a serious thing that needs to be addressed but I just finished arguing with someone over this, so apparently it does need its own meta.

So, the take we're debunking today is "Octavian is mean/evil for ruining Percy's pillow pet".

The thing about this pillow pet is that Percy was homeless for six months, he had to steal to survive and fight off monsters every single day, a task that was getting harder and harder every day, all while he remembered nothing. He only had his name. He didn't have friends, a home, a family, a safe place, a purpose, something that can get people by so that they don't just give up when struggling every day for no known reason with no known end goal gets too much.

During those months, his panda pillow was the one single form of comfort and familiarity he was granted. A small mercy if you will, to help get him through this. Although many people downgrade, poke fun off, and affectionately ridicule his relationship with the panda pillow pet, it was definitely something meaningful. Like the first participation trophy you got for participating in a competition for fun, only to realize you really like that activity and get hooked on it. Sure, the trophy does not indicate any real talent or success in itself, but to you it's the starting line for something you genuinely love. And to Percy his pillow pet has value because of it's emotional worth.

Which is why it had to be sacrificed.

I'll explain why soon enough, but for now, hold that thought I put in your head just now while I add a second idea there too.

This isn't talked about in the books, but it's something Uncle Rick made sure to address in the show. As Chris Rodriguez worded it: The gods love the smell of beging.

In Camp Half-Blood, when meal time is over, demigods throw the remaining of their food into the fire as a sacrifice and pray to the gods. In the show it was specified that it's better to sacrifice a portion of your favourite food, because if the gods see that you're willing to sacrifice your own comfort (even if it's just in the form of your favourite food) just to please them, they are more likely to answer your prayer. Once again, as Chris said, they love the smell of begging. And the more you beg, the more you're willing to sacrifice, the further you're willing to go, the better.

So Greek gods like it when you pray by sacrificing your food, and to an extent, your comfort. And the Roman gods like it when you sacrifice a life.

Which is why auguries became a thing. Of course you're not gonna see the future in the guts of an animal just because. The gods will grant you spoilers for the next season if you kill the animal because it will make them feel flattered to see that you're so desperate for their help that you'd rip out the soul of a living being in their honor just to get their attention.

However, Rick is writing books for tweens and teens. He can't just have animals being slaughtered left and right, especially for the purpose of feeding the gods' narcissism. So what can he do to make the situation a bit more pg 13? Remove the slaughtering of animals. And how will auguries be performed then? By sacrificing something else that has value. Emotional value.

It's quite logical to assume that the stuffed toys Octavian uses in his auguries are really expensive or collector's edition or handmade or are someone's childhood companion that they donated. The gods wouldn't just let you have information about the feature when all you gave to them was a sacrifice worth 1$ that you could even fish out of the trash.

Now I want you to hold on to that too and knit it together with the other thought I told you to hold on to, got it? And if you do that part of the process properly you should get to the conclusion that the best sacrifice available at the moment to get the gods to tell you how they feel about Percy joined the legion was Percy's panda pillow pet that he is so deeply emotionally connected to.

Octavian did not ruin something Percy loved for kicks. He didn't even know him yet, there's no way he had any type of malicious feelings towards Percy yet. He was just doing his job. The job Reyna tasked him to and the job Hazel told him to do during their conversation. And that was to read Percy's augury (which wasn't an augury bc Octavian is a haruspex but that's irrelevant right now). He wasn't actively trying to soil Percy's mood and ruin his day just to be the evil villain. He was just doing his job.

Thus proven.

[fellatitledthemf]

Octavian: manipulative blackmailer who attamted murder and genocide and borderline racist

Fandom: He's actually silly n' cute, he's bad written character so he's actually good ≧▽≦ 💗 ʚ♡ɞ

My honest reaction to ppl who love Octavian but hate Luke

ONG I hate how ppl still bring up how he asked Annabeth and show how others say Luke meant romantically☠️

IT'S STILL NOT FROM HIS POV AND RICK'S A LIL BITCH

[rookhuntt]

Octavian cosplay ☀ “Aut vincere aut mori”- Camp Jupiter

Instagram: @_.dramaturgy

[i-am-traveling-the-multifandom]

Luke And Octavian

Ok, so I haven't seen anyone make a comparison between Luke and Octavian. Even though they have so much in common. In my opinion they are Greek and roman parallels of each other just like Jason and Percy are parallels of each other.

Luke

Heritage: Greek child of Hermes. He was never acknowledged by his father no matter what he did and blamed him for his problems. Mother had gone mad which he blamed Hermes for (rightfully so).

Physical appearance: Blonde hair and blue eyes.

Occupation: Head counselor, great responsibility and honor.

Emotions portrayed: Manipulation, madness, regret, anger, sadness and love.

Motivation: Wanted to make a better world for his fellow half-bloods by eradicating the gods.

Problems: Manipulated by Kronos. Had to face his friends in the end.

Death: Orchestrated his own death by stabbing himself and saved the Greeks by doing so.

Octavian

Heritage: Roman legacy of Apollo. He was never acknowledged by Apollo no matter what he did. His family had been going to the camp for a century but couldn't escape this world, so he probably be angry.

Physical appearance: Blonde hair and blue eyes.

Occupation: Augar, great responsibility and honor.

Emotions portrayed: Manipulation, madness, regret and anger.

Motivation: Wanted to make a better world for his fellow half-bloods by eradicating the Greeks.

Problems: Manipulated by Gaea. Had to face his friends in the end.

Death: Orchestrated his own death by (accidently) catapulting himself toward the sky and saved the Greeks and Romans by doing so.

The only difference is that while rick decided to make Luke an anti-hero, he gave Octavian the role of a narrow-minded villain.

(I love both of them if you haven't guessed)

[wanderingmind867]

Octavian just really gets bullied and demeaned at every turn. Percy and Reyna come off really poorly here. Because what was Octavian done!? He's just upset about the rules not being followed! Is that so wrong!? Orderly conduct and Rules are a thing, after all!

Octavian snorted. "Which means we now have three praetors! The rules clearly state we can only have two!" "On the bright side," Percy said, "both Jason and I outrank you, Octavian. So we can both tell you to shut up." Octavian turned as purple as a Roman T-shirt. Jason gave Percy a fist bump. Even Reyna managed a smile.

"I'll step aside for Jason," Percy said easily. "It's no biggie." "No biggie?" Octavian choked. "The praetorship of Rome is no biggie?" Percy ignored him and turned to Jason.

[percabeth4life]

Yeah, Octavian’s anger post-MOA is really valid, because to the Romans, these people showed up with claims of peace and then bombed their city, targeting not just fighters but civilians too. I also would despise them and wouldn’t be willing to listen to what they say (also? Octavian is right to bring ear plugs to counter Piper, to the Romans she’s a girl who can take away their free will and part of the group that attacked their home. Who knows what she could say to them, what if she makes them go back and attack New Rome even more? She’s very much an active threat in the eyes of the Roman demigods). There’s no actual evidence the 7 could offer up to prove it wasn’t actually Leo in charge, it’s not like possession leaves a trace nor can they display their memories to prove it.

She literally planned to use her charmspeak against New Rome from the start (Bad for Relations) and actively used it against Octavian specifically cause she found him annoying. Like- yeah, no surprise he took steps to prevent that from happening again.

And yeah, like- as far as Octavian is concerned he was literally THERE when Leo starts bombing New Rome. Maybe he'll accept that the others didn't intend to, but them running instead of surrendering and talking out what happened doesn't look good. Especially because they proceed to break more laws.

Now, I do think Rick wrote him absolutely insane, but like- him not trusting them? Tracking them down? Trying to capture them? Valid.