#laynie's pjo essays

[sapphicambitions]

You know, they put a sword in his hand when he was twelve and taught him how to kill. He spent his major formative years fighting monsters and evil. Before he turned sixteen, he fought in a war against unheard of evil, lead his friends and peers into battle and watched most of them die, the entire time thinking that he wasn’t going to live to see the end of the war. Then just when he started to settle into happiness, he was ripped from his home, lost all of his memories, and then trained by wolves how to fight and kill and be a warrior before joining one of the greatest armies in the history of the world. Then he faced his worst possible fear of drowning, which he thought he couldn’t do, and learned he had to fight in another war, an even worse war against the earth itself. Then just as he was reunited with the love of his life, she went away on a terrifying quest that could get her killed. And then just as they were reunited once again, they traumatically fell into the literal pits of hell, a place that literally brings out the worst parts of yourself. In the pits of hell he endured incredible mental and physical trauma and had to endure the death of every monster he’s ever killed who put a curse upon him in their dying breath, while watching the love his life stumbling around blindly thinking he’d abandoned her. All of this horrible physical abuse and war and death and psychological trauma and violence before he even turned eighteen, and y’all are surprised that Percy Jackson went a dark for a moment and tried to choke a goddess with her own tears? He’s literally been trained to kill since he was twelve. He’s fought in one war already and currently in another. He’s figuratively and literally carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. The dude’s a little fucked up.

[sapphicambitions]

like when I say I think Luke Castellan is gay I don’t mean it as a cutesy “don’t u wish ur fave was gay” kind of way I mean textually and seriously I believe he was gay. 

I could cite the petty stuff like “he only had female friends growing up” and “he clearly never showed interest in women even though many women were interested in him” or “he is one of the few people in the series who didn’t actually have a serious love interest / partner” or whatever but i feel like it’s actually much deeper than that. Luke was a young person who had a difficult and strained relationship with his parents. He saw how flawed the system was and how it was treating people like him, and sought to change the system, give power to people like him, and start it all over. (Yeah, he fell victim to people who influenced him to the dark side but that had nothing to do with his gayness, imo.) He just reminds me a lot of characters like Nico and Catra from She-Ra: repressed gay with a strained relationship with parental figures, angry and willing to take down the world. In this essay I will-

.......like no but seriously

Luke had a very troubled childhood because of his mother’s damaged mind, and the fact that she was constantly having fits and telling him how terrible things were going to be for him. When Luke is (angrily) describing his childhood to Hermes he says: “You could’ve helped me when she was having one of her fits, shaking me and saying crazy things about my fate. When I used to hide in the closet so she wouldn’t find me with those glowing eyes,” like!!! he even mentions hiding in a closet (let me find the subtext where i want it)  but seriously, you know what’s one of the first things my mother said to me when I came out to her? “You know how much harder your life is going to be, don’t you?” So then Luke ran away from his home and found a new family, one that looked out for each other and loved each other more than their blood family ever did. This is a queer narrative!!

And with Hermes, it was all sorts of fucked up. His father kept him at a distance. Made Luke feel like there was something wrong with him, like he didn’t love him. His dad made it very clear to him what his expectations were of him, tried to encourage him to be a great hero, like all the heroes before him (when he was talking to him about sending him on a quest and Hermes said “You will get a change to be a great hero before…”) but Luke didn’t want to be the person his father expected him to be. He wanted to be something new, something true to himself. Luke was always burdened down with the weight of his parent’s expectations, both the expectation that he should strive to be a perfect hero and the knowledge that his future was doomed. 

So one time i was at a bar with friends and me and the only other queer person there were talking and he was like “gay men and their dads, you know what i mean?” and I was like “yeah also gay women and their moms” and we had a whole discussion about growing up with a certain set of expectations of who you’ll be from your parents and the gendered expectations they have for you and having to crush all of that when you come out to them and navigating the difficulties that come with that when you want to be your own person so like there’s your real world comparison / evidence for that argument

ALSO Luke ran away from home but then kind of immediately went to Camp Half-Blood where he was shoved into the Hermes cabin with all of his siblings and undetermined kids and then still expected to scrape part of his food in the fire and be thankful to his deadbeat dad. That would suck! He was already harboring all of this rage inside of him, and then he went on his quest. Saw the world. Was exposed to other schools of thought. He understood that he was just being used as a pawn. He came back a different person, he didn’t quite fit in at camp anymore now that he’d seen the world. Kind of like when I went off to be gay at college and then came back to my childhood home and had to be straight around all my high school friends. just saying.

Luke saw the flaws in the system, the way the gods ruled the world. The way the gods treated their children and how much it hurt them. He felt so betrayed and hurt and abandoned by his dad and all the gods, so instead of sitting with it, he thought “I can do better.” Luke sought to rebuild the world, scrap it all and start new. Start with new leaders who took better care of everyone, who did things completely differently than the way it was done before, and raze anything before it. We’re going to ignore the fact that he was influenced to the dark side for a moment because it’s not related to this essay, but I also feel like this is a very queer narrative. (how many times can i say that phrase in this essay) Seeing the flaws in the way the world is treating people like you and wanting to do better. Luke said (this not an actual book quote more of a dramatic sentiment): “I won’t be used and I won’t be who you want me to be. I will become my own person and there’s nothing you can fucking do to stop me. I will make a new world, better than before, without you, for people like me, and I will tear down the walls of the previous world if I fucking have to” and i just think that’s very gay rights of him.

A thing that I’m a big fan of is seeing specific character types and relating them to each other. For example: our fave Nico di Angelo and Catra from She-Ra. (If you haven’t seen She-Ra, she’s the DEFINITION of an angry repressing gay) We can see from Nico’s narrative and from Catra’s narrative and also just straight up my own personal narrative that sometimes when you’re gay and repressing and afraid of becoming the person you are warned against, while also knowing that you were meant for more but maybe not quite understanding what that more is yet, and overall just want to feel accepted and loved as who you truly are but not receiving that, it can tend to make one lash out in angry and irresponsible ways. It can make one isolate themselves from those they previously were close to. It can lead to irrational and impulsive choices for all the wrong reasons because you don’t feel right and you don’t know why. Not at all saying this is the same across the board for queer people, it’s just something that honestly happens to some people and I can relate to when i see it in characters. 

I see that in Luke. He is weighed down by everything his parents want him to be, both good and bad, and is trying to scrap the world and make a new one for people like him. He wants to take his turn, pushing aside anyone who’s hurt him. Luke was someone who was constantly being torn apart by the world and just wanted to feel safe and secure in who he was and the world he was in. He was acting in anger and fear and hurt and revenge for his childhood and because he still felt like there wasn’t a place in the world for him. He lashed out against his father and his family and his friends and pushed them all away. Sure, he had some friends at Camp Half-Blood, but Annabeth’s devotion to him was not enough to make up for like, all of his childhood trauma. First everything with his mom and then being on the run for so long and then meeting his dad and then losing Thalia (which also fueled his anger and hatred of the gods but like we knew that) and his quest and just everything. He was dealt a cruel hand and he didn’t handle it well. Not that that has anything to do with him being gay but I’m just lamenting over the tragedy of his life. Anyway.

Also not to quote the Lighting Thief because it’s not technically in Rick’s canon but i still think they perfectly understood the characters so I’m including it, but the idea that Luke has tried to be a good kid, he’s tried to do what was expected of him, he’s done everything they ever asked of him, but it didn’t pay off. It didn’t matter. It still wasn’t a world he belonged in. “you know this world will never be ours as long as our parents rule over the stars” and “it’s time to make the world our own” strikes me very much to the tune of LGBT activism. once again ringing in that idea of “if you won’t make the world better than i will do it with my bare hands” he also sings “the gods were never on our side, so i think it’s time we watched them fall” which gets to me every time because like he was just a kid! he was just a kid who had so much hurt and anger inside of him and he went about everything the wrong way but he was just a fucking kid! 

also YES to be petty and shallow but while Annabeth and Thalia refer to luke romantically, he never mentioned the same for him. Kelli the sexy monster hits on him during Battle of the Labyrinth and was clearly interested in him and he pushes her away without any hesitation. IN FACT the only demigods referenced on Luke’s ship are Chris and Ethan (why we didn’t see any of that trio, I’ll never understand), with Ethan working much closer with Luke and being a major player in the Titan War. (also I think Ethan is queer too but that’s a battle for another day.) And Rick LOVES romances. pretty much every character gets paired up with someone in the original series (percy and annabeth, grover and juniper, even Clarisse and Chris) which is fab thank u rick for my percabeth rights but Luke is the only character who does not get a girlfriend!! because he’s a homosexual!!!! you know what other character didn’t get paired off in the original series??? NICO, a known homo!!!  i do think that luke is a case of “accidentally written homo” because this was before rick saved the world and gave us nico’s coming out and really started pushing for queer rep in the books (thank u again rick!!!!), so I’m allowed to find my gay subtext in the original series, thank u very much!

listen all im saying is that my favorite character narrative is “angry gay coded villain who is repressing and lashing out at the world because of it” and i truly believe luke fits into that narrative and I stand by my argument.

Thank u for attending my TED Talk

[sapphicambitions]

what are your thoughts on luke asking annabeth if she loved him in TLO? many fans who dislike luke tend to use this example to portray him as manipulative (and slightly paedophilic given their age difference)

ah yes ive given this a lot of thought and honestly i have many thoughts head full. thesis: i dont think luke was asking in a romantic way. i think annabeth took it in a romantic way, and she was supposed to via the writing choices and what the narrative needed.

 I think when we look at choices authors made we have to examine WHY they made the choices. Not just as the character but as the author who is moving the story along (thank u to my play analysis professor for sponsoring this post). we don’t always have to agree with the choices the author made but like sometimes you gotta look critically at the work and analyze it if you want to understand why a choice was made. (also shoutout to my friend kara who keeps telling me that im getting a phd in analyzing ya lit with all my long pjo posts)

rick is a guy that’s HUGE on romance and pairing everyone off. the main reason annabeth is smitten with luke the whole series is to put tension on her and percy’s relationship and so they wouldn’t get together too soon. luke has to be older in order to be taken seriously as a villain. annabeth had to confirm in front of percy that she didn’t have feelings for luke so that percabeth’s relationship could move forward. Annabeth wasn’t just going to stand over luke’s dying body and be like “haha i don’t have feelings for you” unprompted after like a fucking battle, so dramaturgically luke had to ask her “did you love me” in order for her to shut it down so percy could see it. i don’t think it was the BEST writing choice because percy could have asked her about it later, but also, it’s the climax of the whole series. climaxes are supposed to answer questions. the question in that moment was “does annabeth have feelings for luke?” and the answer was no. i think also “did you love me?” was written purposefully in that way so that annabeth would take it to mean in a romantic sense so she would answer in a romantic sense so we could wrap up that plot point. 

but like lmao honestly i do not believe luke meant it romantically.  “did you love me?” can mean a lot of things. love doesn’t always have to be romantic. they knew each other for almost a decade. annabeth was basically the only family that luke had left. y’all think he didn’t love her? i think he loved her like a little sister ABSOLUTELY. because also he asked annabeth if she loved him, and he didn’t say “ive always been deeply in love with you” or anything confessing his own feelings, so miss me with that “he was trying to manipulate her” shit like HOW WHAT WOULD THAT ACCOMPLISH HE’S LITERALLY DYING.  luke did a lot of bad things. he made a lot of mistakes. a lot of really, terrible mistakes. i think at the end of his life, he was wondering if the one person in the world he actually cared about loved him. it even says when annabeth says “you were like a brother to me” he nods like he expected it because i think that’s the answer he was looking for all along.

also lmao anyone who knows me knows that i 100% believe luke was gay

but lmao actually i do think the phrasing of it is lowkey bad writing on ricks part and he could have phrased it in another way but even so looking at the choices he made leading up to that moment i think it was more about giving annabeth permission to move on from luke (because incase y’all forgot there was a LOT of tension between her and percy about her still excusing luke) so she could be with percy than anything else. No, I don’t think luke had a crush on annabeth. I think she was his family and i dont think he was trying to manipulate her. (like manipulate her to do WHAT i literally dont understand) i think rick needed to write a climax and that’s the choice he made to do it. 

[sapphicambitions]

I love Rick Riordan but he will never be able to top the line “Hope survies best at the Hearth.” He just won’t. It’s too iconic of a line to be topped. That line rattled around in my brain and fills up my soul. I mull it over daily. I want it tattooed on my ribcage. I can’t get over it. It’s life changing. I remember reading it for the first time at 13 and practically buzzing. I’m breathless thinking about it now. I need to sit down for a moment. Let it wash through me. I’m having a moment. Hush.

[sapphicambitions]

Honestly I think the reason I love Luke as much as I do is because of his characterization in the Lightning Thief Musical. Particularly in his part in “The Last Day of Summer,” I felt like the writers truly tapped into his character and made me understand him better. The first time I listened to it I bawled my eyes out. Then when I went back and reread the books with that characterization in mind, I grew to love him even more. I also think that the older I’ve gotten, the more I’m able to understand and sympathize when characters who are younger make bad choices. Because I don’t think that Luke was like “secretly a good guy all along” or an “unforgivable evil villain” or whatever I think that he was a kid that was influenced by dark forces at a young age and allowed his trauma to twist him. He lost his hope. He made bad choices. He hurt a lot of people. But he is an excellently written character. He wasn’t evil! It wasn’t that black and white. And I don’t think a character has to be a goody-two shoes hero for you to love them and appreciate the way they were written. I just feel like I see a lot of Luke hate and I will single handedly love him enough for everyone else if I have to.

[sapphicambitions]

So far I have ranted about a few pjo things here and there, (1, 2, 3, 4, 5,) ranted at length about the pathos of luke as understood via the musical and why im not surprised percy went a little dark in house of hades and analyzing luke’s final moments with annabeth, and written full essays on why i think pjo is better than hoo and why i think luke is gay.

so uh. what else do y’all want me to rant about from the pjo world?

[sapphicambitions]

There only two things about the Lighting Theif Musical that I disagree with:

1. The idea that Charlie Beckendorf would EVER cheat on Silena Beauregard like do not disrespect Charlie!!!!!!!! Do not!!!!!!!!! He is the one guy that you do not get to disrespect

2. Literally Mr. D’s whole characterization in Just Another Terrible Day. It was like reading “Dumbledore said calmly” and then watching him lose his fucking mind. Like honestly I do not think Mr. D would care enough about the camp to be like, angry. Being angry and loud and upset requires to like... care. He’s passive at best. He starts to care a little bit more in the third book but like percy’s first impression is of a bored man playing cards who doesn’t care about anyone enough to remember their names, he wouldn’t be like listening to campers individual complaints lmao

[sapphicambitions]

I think one of the greatest strengths of the Percy Jackson series is the way Rick sets up everything like a book and a half in advance. The Nemian Lion being seen out the train window in book one and then slain in book three. Meeting Rachel a book early to establish her character before she’s actually needed for the plot. The fact that we see Hestia in the very beginning and that moment is called back to in the scene that delivers the thesis of the series. Many many more examples. Every little detail is important and thought through and it is just excellent storytelling

[sapphicambitions]

Also I deeply deeply love the Last Olympian for essentially just being one giant battle. And it’s earned because of the last four books leading up to that very moment. It all comes together so beautifully and pays off so spectacularly and is truly a fantastic final book of the series

[sapphicambitions]

FURTHER one of the greatest things about the series is that the tone of the books matures with Percy and with the audience. The first book is a cross country road tip with friends and features a minotaur wearing diapers and playing fetch with Cerberus. The final book is a full scale battle fight to the death with heartbreak and loss and love and victory. You truly got the sense of Percy growing up and growing into himself and I remember being the same age as Percy when I read them and growing up alongside him. What a fantastic series

[sapphicambitions]

I think my favorite part about the Percy Jackson books is it’s weird genre of mystery adventure. At the start of each book we’re given the prophecy that tells us how the story’s gonna go and you get to watch it unfold and try to predict how it gonna end. It’s a brilliant writing strategy and highly effective

[sapphicambitions]

I started writing a post that said “The reason the Percy Jackson and the Olympians is better than Heroes of Olympus is because it understood simplicity and character development” and then accidentally wrote like 10 paragraphs. 

The reason the Percy Jackson and the Olympians is better than Heroes of Olympus is because it understood simplicity and character development.

The PJO series was so effective was because of the simplicity of it. It was a well written and interwoven story that took place over the course of many years, but it was never too complicated. Each book was a quest and each quest had a prophecy and each book built up to the final battle in the Last Olympian. You never felt lost, you were completely engaged. Plot points and characters were set up a book and a half in advance. It was an incredibly well developed world and I will never get over how excellent the payoff was in The Last Olympian. The Annabeth & Luke stuff is to this day one of the best payoffs I’ve ever witnessed in a series. The way everyone came together in the final battle, everyone that we’d met over the course of four books? Impeccable. The Hestia plot line was set up from Percy’s first moment at Camp Half-Blood.The character arcs were stunning and realistic and truly a coming of age story. 

The way the series itself developed from the happy go lucky cross country road trip in the Lightning Thief to the first death of the war with Bianca we witnessed in the Titan’s Curse to the serious tone and action picking up in the Battle of the Labyrinth to the fact that 75% of the Last Olympian was just the Battle of Manhattan and it worked. It payed off. Ten years after the final book was released and to this day I say it is one of the best written series ever and I will love it for the rest of my life.

And Heroes of Olympus kind of... fell flat. For me it was just too complicated. It had so many characters and plot lines that it was hard for me to keep track of it all. Specifically House of Hades and Blood of Olympus, every time we switched to a new perspective, I struggled to remember what had happened when last we left off. Things were kind of  set up a couple books in advance but there was so much going on that they’d mention a character or an object and I’d be like “Wait, what’s that again?” ESPECIALLY with all the giants and their names that I couldn’t remember. Blood of Olympus had no payoff for me. Like, where was Percy’s sacrifice that was so heavily hyped up? How did the characters grow and develop? Rick was trying to do a lot over the course of the series with all the different perspectives and introducing new characters and I kind of think he lost sight of what made the original series good. Yeah there was a big plot and war or whatever but the original series was about the characters. 

PJO was getting to watch Percy go from an idiot twelve year old to leading an army to save his home. Seeing Annabeth go from a stubborn little kid trying to prove herself to the Architect of Olympus. Grover went from a total dorky mess to the Lord of the Wild. Clarisse went from a bully to a drakon slaying hero. We got to see Luke’s whole journey in all of it’s ups and downs and understand his character better. PJO was always about the characters, no matter how cool the plot and action was. It was always about getting to grow up alongside them. Now one could make the argument that Heroes of Olympus wasn’t trying to be a coming of age story, it was trying to be a cool action adventure series, which is fair. But I think the characters suffered because of it.

Percy and Annabeth didn’t really change over the course of five books, they just got more trauma. Hazel and Piper got like, good at fighting and using their powers, which was kind of badass. Jason figured out his career, I guess. I refuse to acknowledge Leo’s arc because it’s dumb that it was tied to a girl and falling for her and not realizing how loved and valued by his friends. Frank got promoted and like, I don’t know, found his courage, which was nice. I really liked Reyna but we never properly got to know her. I know absolutely nothing about Octavian. The only character who got an ACTUAL arc and is, to be honest, the MAIN reason I’m glad this series was written at all was Nico. Nico got an ARC. Nico’s story of feeling like a hated outcast to a welcomed member of the family with a home and people who love and accept him is the BEST damn thing about Heroes of Olympus and you can quote me on that. 

I really enjoyed Mark of Athena (because it plays directly into my found family lives together in a personalized home doing adventures and eating meals together niche interest thank u 2012) and there were good parts sprinkled throughout the series and I do like the new characters. I did! I thought they were neat. I just felt like they weren’t given proper justice. We didn’t see anyone long enough to actually get to know them. I missed the side characters of the original series. Like, where was Grover the whole fucking time? Clarisse? Rachel? The Stoll Brothers? Why didn’t we get to see more of Thalia? Honestly I didn’t really care about the Romans as much, where were the characters I grew up with? 

I’m also not going to get into the whole “so many things that happened in the original series were swept aside for the sake of interesting plot development like the minor gods being important or whatever” because like we know and I don’t have the energy to be upset about that right now lmao.

Further, Percy Jackson and the Olympians was all building up to one moment specifically: Percy giving Pandora’s Jar to Hestia and the line “Hope survives best at the hearth.” It is the thesis of the series. I’ve posted about it at length before because it is what ties all the books together. The idea that we should place our hope in our loved ones, our friends and our family, and if we do that, we won’t be tempted to give up hope again. I’m crying just thinking about it! Literally! That one simple line is what made the series so powerful and it truly felt like every single line, every single moment was just building up to that specific moment and I will literally never get over it. I am not joking when I say I want that line tattooed on me. It’s iconic and i think about it daily.

Heroes of Olympus had uhhhhhhhh..... It had..... ummmm........

I shit you not, I finished reading the book for the second time less than 24 hours ago and I couldn’t tell you. What was that series about? What was the thesis? Did it have any iconic lines?What was it all building up to? A battle? Like, cool I guess? But how did the characters grow and develop? You know what even if they did, I’m not sure I kept up with it because there was so much going on all the time! and I got lost in it! I read the series when it first came out and then completely forgot everything that happened in it! It was too much!

The spirit of the original books was never in the action and the monsters and the gods. It was in the characters, and how they grew up. How they changed and developed and became better people. How they all loved each other. It was about the promise of family and of hope. And that’s why the original series will always be exponentially better and hold a special place in my heart.