#how come no one can ever praise jason without him being compared to percy/nico/thalia???

[jasongracedefenseattorney]

i’ve seen this assertion and tweets like it several times so let’s actually check the text, shall we! first, what he is referencing is this moment during the war games in son of neptune:

notice how it says he’s fighting in “a completely unorthodox style” unlike how a roman would fight and this is why they aren’t prepared for his assault. it also says the sheer novelty of losing has thrown the defense into chaos. now considering jason is considered a sword master and spent MONTHS with the greeks, it’s safe to assume he’d have trained in their sword fighting methods. yes jason trained in one specific style of combat but so did percy, we just never see a situation where jason has to sword fight all of the greeks. in fact, he even says in house of hades that he struggled with the strict rules of the romans

now let’s get to the meat and potatoes: who would actually win in a fair fight? many people assert percy could and use this quote from mark of athena as evidence:

now if we look at this, we may think this proves anything but it doesn’t. two teenage boys having a pissing contest and each saying they’re better than the other is not evidence that either one actually is. so here’s the relevant parts of the fight that they’re talking about, which happens right before that scene

jason and percy are fighting and jason knocks percy off of his horse with a lightning blast (i would argue that bouncing lightning off of your sword is not predictable). he has his sword six inches from percy’s face when piper distracts him with charmspeak. this gives percy time to recover and he is able to sweep his legs under jason, making him hit his head and fall unconscious. percy almost kills jason until piper is able to charmspeak him. now piper is clearly a variable in this fight seeing as she stopped each of them from killing the other so if you take her out, what happens? easy. jason stabs percy through the face and wins. it is only because piper stopped jason in the first place that percy even had a chance to get that close to killing him at all. sure they are both highly skilled fighters and had he not used lightning, jason might not have won, but he did use the lightning because he has it along with flight and being able to harness air. percy discovered in tartarus that he was able to bend poison to kill akhlys; what happens when jason realizes he can pull the air from peoples’ lungs?

i understand percy is everyone’s favorite but can we please use our brains from time to time? yall hate jason for not being percy and refuse to acknowledge anything that makes him interesting because you base all of your info off of the lost hero in which he spends the majority of the book without a memory so OBVIOUSLY he wouldn’t be super interesting to read. even in his first chapter of the lost hero, he is knocking the socks off of his opponents AND by the end of the book, already learning greek fighting techniques of slashing rather than stabbing

anyway idk how to wrap this up i just want yall to acknowledge that jason is OP

[mcmactictac]

Ramble time!!!! Boy oh by do I have thoughts today!!!

(It’s been a while since I’ve read the books, I plan a re read soon so sorry if everything isn’t totally accurate!)

Why do I never see anyone talking about how low Percy’s self esteem is? I feel like we all make him out to be this cool, know it all guy who is super confident right? But he ISNT. And throughout the series you can see aspects of his mental health shown in different ways, but I find it the most interesting to look at the difference a POV change makes.

We as a reader know that Percy is powerful, but we don’t get a sense of how he comes off to other people until we get Frank and Hazels POV’s in Son of Neptune. Both of them are in awe of this kid, I mean Hazel thinks he’s a GOD IN DISGUISE when she firsts meets him. That’s no small feat, and almost everyone seems to find him incredibly impressive and intimidating too.

But when we get Percy POV’s (I’m talking mostly PJO here but HOO is also applicable) he’s totally humble? This is the kid who beat the god of war as a 12 year old with virtually no training in combat, or of his powers. That’s a HUGE deal. And Percy never really has that big moment where it’s like “woah, I just beat the God of war, that’s a massive deal”. He constantly undermines his own achievements, simply in the lack of acknowledging and appreciating them. It’s just another thing to him, something he did to save others. He’ll literally hold the sky and brush it off like it was nothing. And it seems like it’s nothing, but he consistently does it! The readers don’t notice it as much because we don’t know any different. It reads as just being insanely humble, but there are times when you deserve to step back and appreciate what you accomplished. Percy rarely (if ever) does that, and often just passes it off as luck or a mistake that it worked. Something that worked out by chance, and not a pattern him being successful.

I personally like to believe he doesn’t notice or brag about any of these things because of his low self confidence. Objectively, beating a god is an incredibly impressive thing, that Percy would praise in other people, but when it’s HIMSELF it doesn’t matter. That’s what his expectations for himself are. It isn’t an achievement but more of a “congrats, you didnt screw up this time. Don’t know how you pulled that off”. It’s more of being excited/surprised you didn’t fail, instead of celebrating the achievement.

Battle of the Labyrinth. There’s a lot going on there. Literally most of the main characters in this book have a crush on him. Annabeth, Rachel, Calypso, and Nico all express interest in him, some more clearly than others. And for the most part? They are NOT subtle. Even though readers only have Percy’s POV, it’s still blatantly obvious to us that Annabeth, Rachel and Calypso all have feelings for him. So why doesn’t Percy recognize it? I mean you could argue that he is unobservant, but we see everything narrated through his eyes. Which means he sees and processes everything we know. He is totally aware of the signs of people flirting with him, but he just cant comprehend the fact that someone could be showing interest in him and doesn’t even consider the possibility. Most of the time his reaction is genuine surprise when he realizes someone has feelings for him. He can’t wrap his head around that idea without being explicitly told. I feel like this relates into confidence again because despite all the signs being there, he automatically assumes that he’s misreading them. He basically doesn’t view himself of someone worthy of having a crush on.

People with ADHD also have a tendency to have way lower self confidence: Since they are constantly told they’re doing something wrong, or misbehaving, or corrected on something they can’t control, it can be really challenging to not feel like a failure, or think something is wrong with you: Not meeting up to neurotypical standards can be incredibly challenging, and can make people feel bad about themselves when they don’t meet those standards. People with ADHD often receive so much external criticism, and If you don’t realize what you have it can potentially be even harder, since you are constantly trying to match a neurotypical level, and not understanding why it’s so much harder to reach. That negative talk you hear so often around you gets internalized into your own narrative, and makes you more critical of yourself as well. I’m sure having an abusive parent only made this worse. The way Gabe talks to Percy and about Percy sets him up as this problem child who doesn’t deserve anything. Sally is amazing, and I love her, but she can’t magically undo the negative impact all of that commentary from Gabe, teachers, and peers has had on Percy’s view of himself.

It’s also interesting when you look at HOO, when everyone is comparing Percy and Jason, and who could win in a fight. Everyone has their thoughts and opinions, and it’s something Jason thinks about a lot. Jason and Percy view this “rivalry” in a really different way. Jason has been raised to be the best, he is a strong and capable warrior who is pretty confident in himself once he starts to remember who he is. Jason worked his way up and earned his position as a leader, it was something he wanted and chose to be. He is confident in himself, and just wants to prove to others that he is strong and capable, a leader worthy of putting trust in. Percy on the other hand was forced into a leadership role. He was forced to take his first quest and he had no choice in being the child of the prophecy. He doesn’t even really want to be, I think he would have been perfectly happy if it was Thalia’s problem instead. He adapted and learned, but he still doesn’t see himself as a leader. He feels as fake as he did as a young kid, having no idea what he was doing. Faking it all and hoping that no one would notice the doubt he hides from them.

Just because Percy doesn’t see himself in a “negative” light, does not mean he doesn’t have severe mental health issues. Since it’s a children’s series, obviously a lot of it is glossed over or lies more in the subtext, but I wish it was something the fanbase acknowledged more because its so interesting!!

[jasongracedefenseattorney]

yeah but this post isn’t about percy OR nico! i love them all and all three are extremely powerful demigods who could easily wipe out everyone else if they teamed up but unlike jason, percy and nico both get plenty of attention and love so saying their accomplishments is kind of beating a dead horse. meanwhile jason is treated like some side character loser who can’t hold his own and is boring when that’s simply not true. percy is a leader at his camp but we seem to forget that jason was also the leader at his.

i seriously don’t get how the fandom isn’t obsessed with jason. he’s easily my favorite character. the dude can fly, makes some of the most underrated funny comments, is charming and talented enough to be given a leadership position at camp jupiter, a highly sought after spot, despite being in what is considered the worst cohort, and was a huge ally to nico. like give my man the respect he deserves!