#just realized i forgot to add damien white to the family tree

[bright-eyes-strawberry-lies]

LMFAO oh dear. I'm so glad I get to be the one to tell you this! They absolutely are related! That's because incest is KEY to Greek mythology.

Yes Apollo and Artemis or Zeus and Athena can date and fuck and procreate. The incest isn't why they won't date each other, though, it's because the girls are single maidens by choice. They don't date anyone.

Hera and Zeus are siblings. Yes, Zeus' wife is his sister. Hades is Persephone's uncle. The "family tree" is actually a family wreath (mostly but not entirely due to Zeus being a slut).

Wanna see how many times Zeus is fucking around? Eight times he's on the family tree! Eight! And that's only to make the demigod family tree, not even including the many, many other things Zeus has fucked throughout history.

The POINT is that they ARE all related.

Rick leaned so hard into the incest for the first few books. There’s so many of these scattered throughout the books, causally mentioning that all of the campers share facial features and the traits their godly parents like the most. Not to mention calling each other by familial names (cousin, sister, uncle, etc…).

He should have just leaned into it instead of trying to retcon it and then retconning his retcon in the same paragraph.

“But the thing is, the godly side of your family doesn’t count, genetically speaking, since gods don’t have DNA.”

Well, that’s not what the other four books say but alright. We can pretend that this is what Rick meant all along. Problem solved. oh wait, there’s more…

“A demigod would never think about dating someone who had the same godly parent. Like two kids from Athena cabin? No way.”

But they’re not related. You just said they aren’t related. Most of the campers are also only there for summer, so they aren’t “like siblings” or “raised together as siblings” and they aren’t adopted. Why wouldn’t they date if they wanted to?

“But a daughter of Aphrodite and a son of Hephaestus? They’re not related. So it’s no problem.”

Yes, we know they aren’t related because gods don’t have DNA and because they aren’t “like siblings” or “raised together as siblings” or adopted. Kind of like how Annabeth and Malcolm aren’t related, aren’t like siblings, weren’t raised together as siblings, and aren’t adopted. So there’s no problem with Annabeth and Malcolm dating.

🙄