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helenofsparta2 · 4 days ago

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Having the whole plot between Nico and Percy be resolved simply with “You’re not my type” in Blood of Olympus was such a huge disservice to both characters

They are pivotal parts to each others journey. No person in PJO influenced Nico as much as Percy did, aside from Bianca, and no person represents Percy’s guilt and the responsibility he had to shoulder more than Nico does. The writing for both characters really suffers through this lack of a real satisfying resolution.

First to talk about what Percy represents for Nico:

Percy, first of all, represents Nico’s introduction to the mythological world

He is the first demigod Nico ever came in contact with

He saved him and Bianca from the manticore (somewhat)

Nico stated in Blood of Olympus than Percy had reminded of the heroes of his mythomagic game come to life

Nico wholeheartedly believed that Bianca would be safe, if Percy was with her and created this image of the perfect hero in his mind, putting Percy on a pedestal

In Nico’s mind Percy is irrevocably intertwined with Bianca and everything that happened to her

Despite Nico naively believing, that Bianca would be safe if Percy were around, he was instead the last person to ever talk to her, and present when she died

Percy informed Nico of her death (Dead silence. I stared at Chiron. I couldn’t believe nobody had told him yet. Then I realized why. They’d been waiting for us to appear, to tell Nico in person, Titan’s curse)

Nico turned him into the scapegoat for her death, so that he could let all his grief and anger and bitterness out on him

Bianca sent Iris-messages to Percy, so that he would find and help Nico (“Percy has been worried about you, Nico. He can help. I let him see what you were up to, hoping he would find you.”, Battle of the Labyrinth)

Her ghost only appeared to Nico when Percy was with him

Percy is the only person Nico knows of, who also grieved for Bianca (“Bianca,” I said. My voice was thick. I’d felt guilty about her death for a long time but seeing her in front of me was five times as bad, like her death was fresh and new. I remembered searching through the wreckage of the giant bronze warrior she’d sacrificed her life to defeat, and not finding any sign of her. “I’m so sorry,” I said. Battle of the Labyrinth)

Percy is the person who protected and cared for Nico more than anyone else in pjo

Tried to convince Bianca to think more deeply about her decision of joining the hunters, especially thinking of him (“Biance, this is crazy,” I said. “What about your brother? Nico can’t be a hunter.” (Titan’s curse)

Searched the woods in the dark for hours after he had disappeared (Annabeth and Grover helped me search the woods for hours, but there was no sign of Nico di Angelo.)

Didn’t tell Chiron about Nico’s parentage to protect him from the Gods. (I don't think Nico understands who he is. But we can't go telling anyone. Not even Chiron. If the Olympians find out—") Titan’s curse)

Decided to completely commit to the prophecy, solely so Nico didn’t have to bear that burden and go trough any more suffering(It was the last thing I wanted, but I didn't say that. I knew I had to step up and claim it. "I can't let Nico be in any more danger," I said. "I owe that much to his sister. I… let them both down. I'm not going to let that poor kid suffer any more." ) Titan’s curse)

Searched for Nico in the months after Titan’s Curse (Now, six months later, I hadn’t even come close to finding him. It left a bitter taste in my mouth. Battle of the labyrinth, chapter 3))

Saved his life on Geryon’s farm. (“Either way, you get my friends,” I said. “But, if I succeed, you’ve got to let all of us go, including Nico.”)

Always offered Nico a place at camp half-blood to the best of his abilities (“We missed you at dinner,” I said. “You could’ve sat with me.”“No.”“Nico, you can’t miss every meal. If you don’t want to stay with Hermes, maybe they can make an exception and put you in the big house. They’ve got plenty of room.”, Battle of the Labyrinth)

Invited him to join him on his birthday (“Is that… is that blue birthday cake?”He sounded hungry, maybe a little wistful. I wondered if the poor kid had ever had a birthday party, or if he’d ever been invited to one. “Come inside for cake and ice cream,” I said. “It sounds like we’ve got a lot to talk about.”, Battle of the Labyrinth)

Reminded him that he was still a child (I smiled. “Maybe it’s okay to still be a kid once in a while.” I tossed him the statue, Battle of the Labyrinth)

Helped him to get the sword of hades back to impress his father (Then I looked at Nico. Unfortunately, I recognised the expression on his face. I knew what it was like wanting to make your dad proud, even if your dad was hard to love., Sword of hades)

Acknowledged everything Nico did in The last Olympian and is one of the main reasons why Hades has a cabin at camp. ( “But your children should not be left out. They should have a cabin at camp. Nico has proven that.”)

Percy was Nico’s first, and after Will, his biggest love

Nico had feelings for Percy, which didn’t leave him for around 2 1/2 years, and accompanied him throughout the most challenging parts of his life.

Feelings, which were so deep, the god of love personally acknowledged them.

Favonius even called Percy, the person Nico cares about most in House of Hades.

This was more than just a mere crush

Percy is so completely intertwined with most aspects of Nico’s character arc, in both PJO and Hoo, be it his feeling of ostracism, his relationship to Bianca or him coming to term with his own sexuality, that them not having a final interaction, makes his writing feel shallow and unfinished. Especially Nico coming to terms with his crush on Percy opens up the opportunity for a really heartwarming conversation and a moment of character growth and maturity for both of them, instead of it being wasted on one throw-away line.

And it’s the same the other way around. Nico is also a huge part of Percy’s journey.

He especially represents Percy’s biggest failure.

The first five Percy Jackson books are characterized by Percy having to take up responsibility and him being afraid of not being able to fulfill them. Be it responsibility for camp, the world, Bianca’s death, the prophecy, his friends, teh unclaimed demigods, or everything else. Most of the time, Percy was able to make sure everything turned out fine. He saved camp, he saved Olympus, he finished his quests, made the right decision for the prophecy, and he made the gods swear upon teh styx. But there’s one exception. And that is Nico.

Percy did everything in his power to make sure Nico would be spared any more hardships. He took up the burden of the prophecy, explicitly, so that Nico doesn’t have to go through any more hardships

He searched for him after Titan’s curse, kept his identity a secret and even risked himself, Annabeth, Grover and Tyson dying if it meant saving Nico

Still, Nico is one of the characters, if not the character, who has suffered the most in PJO and Hoo, even partly because of Percy (though, of course, Nico having a crush on him was not Percy’s fault at all)

He lived alone at 11 years old on the streets and in the labyrinth, while getting manipulated by an ancient evil spirit

He was isolated and ostracized at camp half-blood

He experienced the horrors of Tartarus completely on his own

He got captured by the giants and slowly suffocated to death in a small jar

He had to deal with internalized homophobia and his complicated feelings regarding Percy

He has been a vital part of two wars at only 15 years old

Had to admit his crush involuntarily in front of Jason, etc.

One of the things Percy battles with in Heroes of Olympus is this overwhelming sense of guilt. He blames himself for almost everything that went wrong over the last few years. Be it for Iapetus, Calypso, or especially Nico. Having Percy acknowledge this complicated relationship he has with him during House of Hades, but not allowing the two of them to talk it out is genuinely baffling to me, and one of the (albeit many) reasons why I really don’t like most of Percy’s writing during Heroes of Olympus, despite the fact that he is my favourite character by far. This could have led to a moment of character growth, where Nico helps Percy to aknowledge that he feels guilty for things he had little to no control over, while Nico himself realizes how important he actually is to Percy.

They are also so similar in terms of who they are and what they’ve been through, that even if you ignore their history with each other, it seems insane, that they didn’t interact in any meaningful way:

Both were ostracized at camp half-blood because of their parentage, and so far are the only two half-bloods we know of with that experience

They are (together with Hazel) the most powerful demigods in the Riordan verse, and have feats which far surpass anyone else’s

Both are in some way afraid of their powers

Both went through Tartarus

Both have relatively similar relationships to their godly parents

Both have gone through immense trauma and loss

And if you read heroes of Olympus, it actually very much seems to build towards a final resolution of their relationship

Percy and Nico were, aside from Frank, the two people closest to Hazel; both saw her as a little sister, and Hazel treated them both like her brothers

Nico was the first person Percy met from his old life

Percy was the one, who received the visions of Nico being captured

From everyone present, Percy trusted Nico to lead the others to Greece in his moment of greatest desperation

They both had introspections about the other in house of Hades, Nico having to deal with his crush and Percy with his guilt in Tartarus

But, in the end, after they met again, nothing happened. The only scene we really got was the “You’re not my type” line and Percy being surprised by it for a couple seconds. That’s it.

We saw no meaningful conversation between the two of them, no acknowledgement of what they’ve been through together, no lasting feelings. Nothing.

In regards to their relationship, Percy acknowledging everything that Nico has been through led to nothing. Nico acknowledging his feelings for Percy and finally letting go of this pedestal he had placed him on led to nothing. You could argue that their entire relationship, which has been built up since Titan’s curse led to nothing. And considering that they are so important characters for each of their character arcs, their characterization very much suffers from this writing decision.

The two of them, together with Hazel, are my three favourite Riordan verse characters by a long shot, but some very important aspects of both of their characters fall so flat to me through this lack of a satisfying resolution.

Both of them deserved so much better.

They are the friendship with the most missed potential in the entirety of the Riordan verse and probably the most fleshed out and nuanced relationship Rick ever wrote.

R.I.P. Nico di Angelo, and Percy Jackson, you will always be brothers in my mind.

#rant is over #I could talk essays about their relationship i fear #thank god ao3 exists #percy jackson #heroes of olympus #rick riordan #pjo hoo #percy jackon and the olympians #rr crit #hoo crit #nico di angelo #house fo hades #blood of olympus #the brother who never were #my roman empire

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knightofthenewrepublic · 3 months ago

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The Battle of Manhattan didn’t go the way the Fandom thinks it did; we need to address the “massacre” of the Titan Army!

The Battle of Manhattan is the most pivotal event of the first series. And we see the entire thing exclusively from Percy’s point of view. He takes us through the thickest of the fight from one end of Manhattan Island to the next, and shows us a desperate fight of good against evil.

But we have another point of view for the battle, one that comes from the demigods of the Titan army, and one that informs us of a far different, darker side to the conflict. One where an entire army of children is massacred by the victorious Olympians, without a thought or even a care. It’s a shocking, confronting side of the struggle that most fans don’t seem to be aware of.

But it’s also completely inaccurate.

Now I love Alabaster; he’s one of my favorite characters, and I want nothing but the best for him. But he’s a demonstrably unreliable narrator. I don’t even mean that he’s intentionally dishonest; but he’s very badly misinformed about what actually happened. And that gives the fandom three major misconceptions that need to be cleared up.

Alabaster gets the casualty ratio for the battle wrong (the Olympians had more than he thinks).

The Titan army has far fewer demigods than most fans think (not much more than 50 at the most).

Alabaster does say that there was a “massacre” at the end of the battle, but most of the TA demigods had deserted before that!

Part 1) The Olympians Have High Casualties

“It was a massacre. If I remember right, my mother told me that Camp Half-Blood and its allies had sixteen casualties total. We had hundreds.” (pg 219)

This is the only time we get a specific number for Olympian casualties, but it just doesn’t match up with what actually happens in the books. Looking back at all the deaths we do see:

Charlie Beckendorf -1

one [Hellhound] got hold of an Apollo camper and dragged him away. I didn’t see what happened to him next. I didn’t want to know. (pg 182) -1

Michael Yew -1

A young dragon had appeared in Harlem, and a dozen wood nymphs died before the monster was finally defeated. (pg 203) -12

“We lost twenty satyrs against some giants at Fort Washington,” [Grover] said, his voice trembling. (pg 203) -20 Giants smashed through trees, and naiads faded as their life sources were destroyed. (pg 243) -1< Enemy archers returned fire, and a Hunter fell from a high branch. (pg 244) -1 Too many of our friends lay wounded in the streets. Too many were missing. (pg 257) -1< The flagpoles were hung with horrible trophies –helmets and armor pieces from defeated campers. (pg 282) -1< The Drakon lashed out, swallowing three californian centaurs in one gulp before I could even get close. (pg 288) -3 Poison spewed everywhere, melting centaurs into dust along with quite a few monsters, (pg 288) -1< The Drakon snapped up one Ares camper in a gulp. (pg 291) -1

Silena Beauregard -1

Leneus -1

a body covered in the golden burial shroud of Apollo’s cabin. I didn’t know who was underneath. I don't want to find out. (pg 303) -1

Oddly enough, we actually miss the moment that was probably the worst for the Olympians, the final push by Kronos that breaks through their line. After Clarisse slays the drakon and the monsters are driven back again, Percy and co. take the opportunity to go up to Olympus. Percy gives Pandora’s Pithos to Hestia, and then contacts Poseidon via his throne. It’s just as he finishes that Thalia comes up and tells them that Kronos is coming again, but they miss the fighting.

By the time we got to the street, it was too late. Campers and Hunters lay wounded on the ground. Clarisse must have lost a fight with a Hyperborean giant, because she and her chariot were frozen in a block of ice. The centaurs were nowhere to be seen. Either they’d panicked and ran, or they’d been disintegrated. (pg 312) -<500

And finally, Kronos does kill some people on Olympus itself.

A few minor gods and nature spirits had tried to stop Kronos. What remained of them was strewn about the road: shattered armor, ripped clothing, swords and spears broken in half. (pg 322) -1<

The specific deaths we have mentioned during the battle amount to 48 at the very least; and that is an extremely conservative estimate that only includes the deaths Percy has the time and presence of mind to witness in all the carnage. Considering how many others must have happened, factoring the sudden disappearance of the 500 centaurs in particular, it was likely in the hundreds. And most of the centaurs probably ran at the end, but even that would have involved heavy casualties.

It’s true that actual demigods were a smaller fraction of Olympian forces, and so would have made up just a fraction of losses. The number 16 might actually make sense if it were just the number of campers lost, but that’s not what Hecate said, she said total.

It might be significant that Hecate is the actual source of this misinformation. Would she have reason to lie to her own son, or might she herself be out of the loop. Right now, we just can’t know.

And she might be underestimating Titan Army losses too. Considering how many times a wave of several hundred monsters tear into Manhattan, and get thrown back by the Olympians only to return later with no discernable drop in numbers, until the army is finally routed entirely, it wouldn’t surprise me if the TA actually took a thousand or more casualties. But those would be overwhelmingly monsters, because:

Part 2) Less Than Fifty Demigods Were Even In The Titan Army

To prove that there could not possibly have been hundreds of TA demigods killed at Manhattan, we need look no farther than Alabaster's own account.

“There was a war between the gods and titans last summer and most half-bloods–demigods like me–fought for the Olympians.” (pg 218)

So the TA could not have had more demigods than the Olympians; and they had about a hundred. There are forty campers to start with, who are quickly joined by the Hunters, who now have thirty members. Then, in the last hours of the fight, they are finally joined by the Ares cabin, which brings another thirty (jeez Ares, you animal!). So Olympus has an even hundred demigods. (The Hunters aren’t necessarily all demigods by birth, but I don’t think Alabaster would make a distinction based on that.)

So the TA has less than a hundred demigods, significantly less. I would argue they probably had no more than fifty because that lines up with the only solid numbers we ever get for them. And every time the TA is described, demigods are a clear minority. First, look at the foes Percy encounters when he infiltrates the Princess Andromeda:

I saw monsters patrolling the upper decks of the ship–dracaenae snake-women, hellhounds, giants, and the humanoid seal-demons known as telkhines . . . . . “I don’t care what your nose says!” snarled a half-human half-dog voice—a telkhine. “The last time you smelled half-blood, it turned out to be a meatloaf sandwich!” “Meatloaf sandwiches are good!” a second voice snarled . . . . . a telkhine was hunched over a console . . . . . a half dozen telkhines were tromping down the stairs . . . . . past another telkhine . . . . . And in the fountain squatted a giant crab . . . . . a couple of dracaenae slithered across my path . . . . . As I was running up the stairwell, a kid charged down . . . . . Laistrygonian giants filed in on either side of the swimming pool . . . . . demigod archers appeared on the roof . . . . . two hellhounds leapt down . . . . . The crowed of monsters parted . . . . . Giants jeered. Dracaenae hissed with laughter . . . . . throwing monsters off their feet . . . . .I knew him, of course: Ethan Nakamura . . . . . two giants lumbered forward . . . . . Panicked monsters surged backward . . . . . one of the dracaenae hissed . . . . . I pushed through a crowd of monsters . . . . . Monsters yelled at me from above.

That was a quick summary of all the enemies Percy and Charlie encounter on the Princess Andromeda, I’m not crazy enough to try and write the whole chapter. But it’s pretty clear there are only a few demigods amid dozens of monsters. We hear the same thing from Poseidon later, that “there were only a few demigod warriors aboard that ship”; we might question whether or not Poseidon is a trustworthy source, but the evidence does back him up.

When we finally get to the battle, the disparity of demigod numbers in the TA is again evident:

The bronze image showed Long Island Sound near La Guardia. A fleet of a dozen speed boats raced through the dark water toward Manhattan. Each boat was packed with demigods in full Greek armor. At the back of the lead boat, a purple banner emblazoned with a black scythe flapped in the night wind. I’d never seen that design before, but it wasn’t hard to figure out: the battle flag of Kronos. “Scan the perimeter of the island,” I said. “Quick.” Annabeth shifted the scene south to the harbor. A Staten Island Ferry was plowing through the waves near Ellis Island. The deck was crowded with dracaenae and a whole pack of hellhounds. Swimming in front of the ship was a pod of marine mammals. At first I thought they were dolphins. Then I saw their doglike faces and swords strapped to their waists, and I realized they were telkhines—sea demons. The scene shifted again: the Jersey shore, right at the entrance of the Lincoln Tunnel. A hundred assorted monsters were marching past the lanes of stopped traffic: giants with clubs, rogue Cyclopes, a few fire-spitting dragons, and just to rub it in, a World War II-era Sherman tank, pushing cars out of the way as it rumbled into the tunnel. (pg 167)

Here we see the first wave of the Titan Army as a three pronged attack (which Percy says on the next page collectively numbered at least 300) and only one of the units has demigods. It’s the one that Kronos leads, so it’s probably meant to be a more elite unit, at least at first.

We don’t know for sure how many there are. Speedboats are usually made to carry 4-6 people so a dozen would be possible 48 to 72. Considering Alabaster says there were significantly less demigods in the TA than the Olympians, I would guess it’s on the lower end; and that does match another number we see in a moment.

This fleet never reaches Manhattan, since Percy bribes the East River to swamp their boats. Those who say many TA demigods were killed in the battle might point to this as Percy causing a bunch of kids to drown; but Alabaster never mentions a mass drowning in his narrative of the battle, and he would have been on one of those boats, so it’s safe to say they just went for a swim.

(And Kronos was with them, which means that a very angry titan lord was suddenly pitched into the river and had to swim with the rest of them. That’s not really relevant, I just want everyone to know that.)

Percy is then immediately told that “Another army is marching over the Williamsburg bridge.” This fourth prong of the attack, led by the Minotaur, also has no demigods in it.

An entire phalanx of dracaenae marched in the lead . . . About a hundred more monsters marched behind them. (pg 182) More monsters surged forward —snakes and giants and telkines—but the Minotaur roared at them, and they backed off. (pg 186)

But more monsters keep advancing because by the time Percy kills the minotaur and the demigods charge and rout the whole group, it had grown to 200

Finally, the monsters turned and fled—about twenty left alive out of two hundred. (pg 188)

So the grand total for the first TA attack was 500 soldiers or more, with only 40-70 of them demigods. And after the monsters on the Williamsburg bridge retreat, those demigods show back up.

Then I saw the crowd at the base of the bridge. The retreating monsters were running straight toward their reinforcements. It was a small group, maybe thirty or forty demigods in battle armor, mounted on skeletal horses. One of them held a purple banner with the black scythe design. The lead horseman trotted forward. He took off his helm, and I recognized Kronos himself, his eyes like molten gold. (pg1 188)

This is the only time we get anywhere close to a specific number when TA demigods are concerned. It would have been the same group that was sunk in the East River, who then had to swim for Brooklynn; which is where they are now trying to take the Williamsburg bridge. This reinforces the idea that the number of demigods in the boats was only a little more than forty, since they would not have suffered more than a few injuries in the sinkings.

I’m going to come back to this moment later to demonstrate how Percy refrains from killing other demigods, even in his Achilles state, but the other important thing to note is that this is the last time Kronos organizes his demigods into a unit that he leads personally. After they fail to break through here, Kronos just has them take on a secondary role, and puts his faith in bigger and bigger monsters to lead the charge instead.

The Titan Army units on Long Island then spend the evening marching the long way around Manhattan (for some reason) because they make camp for the night in New Jersey, at Medusa’s old lair. Percy again describes demigods as the small minority.

Hundreds of tents and fires surrounded the property. Mostly I saw monsters, but there were some human mercenaries in combat fatigues and demigods in armor too. A purple-and-black banner hung outside the emporium, guarded by two huge blue Hyperboreans.

And this is only part of the Titan army, because there are more troops north of Manhattan.

“Tell my brother Hyperion to move our main force south into Central Park. The halfbloods will be in such disarray they will not be able to defend themselves.” (pg 237)

The army that marches into central park is bigger than the one camped in New Jersey. And it is made up exclusively of monsters.

At the north end of the reservoir, the enemy vanguard broke through the woods—a warrior in golden armor leading a battalion of Laistrygonian giants with huge bronze axes. Hundreds of other monsters poured out behind them. (pg 243)

There is not a single mention of a demigod. However they’re already joining the fight in other places.

When it flew above the rooftops, I could see fires here and there around the city. It looked like my friends were having a rough time. Kronos was attacking on several fronts. (pg 251)

After Percy kills the Clazmonian Sow, the momentum of the battle shifts. With his main force failing to deliver a knockout punch, Kronos has his remaining armies spread out to put equal pressure on the entire defensive line, and catch it in a massive envelopment.

Midtown was a war zone. We flew over little skirmishes everywhere. A giant was ripping up trees in Bryant Park while dryads pelted him with nuts. Outside the Waldorf Astoria, a bronze statue of Benjamin Franklin was whacking a hellhound with a rolled-up newspaper. A trio of Hephaestus campers fought a squad of dracaenae in the middle of Rockefeller Center . . . . . The hunters had set up a defensive line on 37th, just three blocks north of Olympus. To the east on Park Avenue, Jake Mason and some other Hephaestus campers were leading an army of statues against the enemy. To the west, the Demeter cabin and Grover’s nature spirits had turned Sixth Avenue into a jungle that was hampering a squadron of Kronos’s demigods . . . . . I spotted a familiar silver owl banner in the southeast corner of the fight, 33rd at the Park Avenue tunnel. Annabeth and two of her siblings were holding back a Hyperborean giant . . . . . The next hour was a blur. I fought like I’d never fought before—wading into legions of dracaenae, taking out dozens of telkines with every strike, destroying empousai and knocking out enemy demigods . . . . . At one point Grover was next to me, bonking snake women over the head with his cudgel. Then he disappeared in the crowd, and it was Thalia at my side, driving monsters back with the power of her magic shield. Mrs. O’Leary bounded out of nowhere, picked up a Laistrygonian giant in her mouth and flung him like a Frisbee. Annabeth used her invisibility cap to sneak behind enemy lines. Whenever a monster disintegrated for no apparent reason with a surprised look on his face, I knew Annabeth had been there . . . . . Kronos was riding towards us on a golden chariot. A dozen Laistrygonian giants bore torches before him. Two Hyperboreans carried his black-and-purple banners . . .

“THEN THE WINGED HUSSAARSSS AARRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVVVVVVED” SABATON BLASTS ON ELECTRIC GUITAR

Sorry, sorry, I mean then Chiron and the 500 centaurs arrived!

Kronos’s forces looked as confused as we were. Giants lowered their clubs. Dracaenae hissed. Even Kronos’s honor guard looked uneasy. Then, to our left, a hundred monsters cried out at once. Kronos’s entire northern flank surged forward. I thought we were doomed, but they didn’t attack. They ran straight past us and crashed into their southern allies . . . a shower of arrows arced over our heads and slammed into the enemy, vaporizing hundreds of demons. (pg 258)

This is how the second phase of the battle ends. And during the entire night, out of a sea of monsters (hehe) we only see one unit of TA demigods. And it’s the last time we get any reference to them participating in the battle.

After being driven south, the TA apparently did another long march, because they make camp northeast of Manhattan.

The Titan army had set up camp all around the U.N. complex. The flagpoles were hung with horrible trophies—helmets and armor from defeated campers. All along First Avenue, giants sharpened their axes. Telkines repaired armor at makeshift forges. (pg 282)

Ethan is the only demigod mentioned this time. And he doesn’t appear to take part in the next attack, aside from releasing the drakon. We get less of a description of the enemy army this time, but it’s all monsters.

The rest of the battle wasn’t going well. The centaurs had panicked under the onslaught of giants and demons. An occasional orange camp T-shirt appeared in the sea of fighting, but quickly disappeared. (pg 289)

Of course the Ares cabin arrives, the drakon kills Silena, and Clarisse kills it. It’s another rout for the TA.

The monsters retreated toward 35th Street. (pg 298) There was no answer from the enemy. Slowly, they began to fall back behind a dracaenae shield wall, while Clarisse drove in circles around Fifth Avenue, daring anyone to cross her path. (pg 299)

After that we have the final phase of the battle, when the Titan Army finally breaks through the Olympian lines. But once again, we have no reference to demigods other than Ethan.

The Titan Army ringed the building, standing maybe twenty feet from the doors. Kronos’s vanguard was in the lead: Ethan Nakamura, the dracaenae queen in her green armor, and two Hyperboreans. I didn’t see Prometheus. (pg 312) “ROWWF!” Mrs. O’Leary bounded toward me, ignoring the growling monsters on either side. (pg 315) There were thousands of [skeletan soldiers], and as they emerged, the titan’s monsters got jumpy and started to back up. (pg 315) The armies of the dead clashed with the Titan’s monsters. Fifth Avenue exploded into absolute chaos. Mortals screamed and ran for cover. Demeter waved her hand and an entire column of giants turned into a wheat field. Persephone changed the dracaenae spears into sunflowers. Nico slashed and hacked his way through the enemy, trying to protect pedestrians as best as he could. My parents ran toward me , dodging monsters and zombies, but there was nothing I could do to help them. (pg 318).

The fight continues like this, until Typhon is destroyed, and the defenders are joined by the gods, and Poseidon’s army of cyclopes. It’s then that the Titan army is “massacred.” Most of the fandom thinks that the demigods were killed too, but that’s not the case.

PART 3: The TA Demigods Deserted Before The Final Battle

As Alabaster remembers it:

the war didn’t go our way. I fought on the battlefield against the enemy, but most of our allies ran. Kronos himself marched on Olympus, only to be killed by a son of Poseidon. After Kronos’s death, the Olympian gods smashed any remaining resistance. It was a massacre. “We weren’t all destroyed,” Alabaster said. “Most of the remaining half-bloods fled or were captured. They were so demoralized they joined the enemy. (pg 219)

When you look at this narrative, and compare it to The Last Olympian, it’s actually more complicated than the TA demigods simply getting massacred.

Al says that while he was fighting, most of his allies ran. That’s odd, because we don’t see the relative numbers of monsters go down at any point. What we do see, is the number of demigods go down.

As I illustrated in Part 2, the Battle of Manhattan has four distinct phases. Phase one, that ends when the Williamsburg Bridge is destroyed. The second phase, that starts when Hyperion attacks Central Park, and ends when the Party Ponies arrive. The third phase, which is all about the attack of the drakon. And the final phase, when Kronos breaks through.

We only see TA demigods in the first two phases; they attack the Williamsburg Bridge in the first phase as part of the Kronos’s main force, then in the second phase they’re relegated to a supporting role by hitting the defenders western flank. And that’s the last we see of them. After that, Etahn is the only demigod left standing in the TA. Alabaster must be somewhere in the background, as a retcon, but there’s no one beyond the two of them.

You might think that they’ve just already been killed by this point. After all, Percy blows up the Princess Andromeda, then goes into an Achilles Curse fueled berserker mode several times in the first two phases of the battle. Surely he must have killed hundreds of kids, right?

No, not even close.

Maybe not any at all.

On the Princess Andromeda Percy finds lots of monsters, but the number of demigods he finds could be counted on one hand. And the first one he meets; Percy spares him and tells him to get his friends and evacuate. We can’t prove whether or not any demigods were killed in the blast; we just know that the two we can confirm were still on board, Ethan and Alabaster, both survived. And when Alabaster recounts it, he doesn’t mention any bad losses at this point.

As for the Curse of Achilles, it doesn’t send Percy into anything like the berserker state some people think of it as. It might seem like that when Percy lets loose on the Williamsburg Bridge:

You’re going to ask how the whole “invincible” thing worked: if I magically dodged every weapon, or if the weapon hit me and just didn’t harm me. Honestly, I don’t remember. All I knew was that I wasn’t going to let these monsters invade my hometown. I sliced through armor like it was made of paper. Snake women exploded. Hellhounds melted to shadow. I slashed and stabbed and whirled, and I might have even laughed once or twice—a crazy laugh that scared me as much as it did my enemies. (pg 188)

But when push comes to shove, Percy can control the Curse, and what he does during it. That last moment was when he was fighting nothing but monsters. But when the TA demigods arrived, Percy pulled his punches like he always does.

I tried to wound his men, not kill. That slowed me down, but these weren’t monsters. They were demigods who’d fallen under Kronos’s spell. I couldn’t see faces under their helmets, but some of them had probably been my friends. I slashed the legs off their horses and made the skeletal mounts disintegrate. After the first few demigods took a spill, the rest figured out they’d better dismount and fight me on foot. (pg 189)

Percy is still in complete control of what he’s doing; even when the worst happens.

“Annabeth!” I turned in time to see her fall, clutching her arm. A demigod with a bloody knife stood over her . . . . . I locked eyes with the enemy demigod. He wore an eye patch under his helmet: Ethan Nakamura, the son of Nemesis. Somehow he’d survived the explosion on the Princess Andromeda. I slammed him in the face with my sword hilt so hard I dented his helm. (pg 190)

Percy really has all the reason to hate Ethan at this point; after Percy spared his life in Antaeus’ arena, Ethan still joined the side that had been ready to write off his death, and deliberately helped Kronos achieve his physical resurrection. Because of that Percy’s friends and even-Riordan-doesn’t-know how many mortals are going to die in the next few days; and on top of all that, Ethan just stabbed the love of his life.

And all Percy does is knock him out, maybe a little harder than necessary. He makes no effort to kill him. Those aren’t the actions of a berserker with no control.

In fact, the knife turns out to be poisonsed. And Ethan now has an idea where Percy’s Achilles Spot is, and might tell Kronos. And even after all of that, Percy doesn’t seriously think about killing him as an option.

“I’ll bonk him on the head harder next time.” (pg 241)

But more on topic, there is no reason to think the TA demigods have particularly high casualties in this phase of the battle, though they have a few:

Our archers shot a volley, bringing down several of the enemy, but they just kept riding. (pg 189)

Though it’s vague if they are hitting the riders or the horses. In fact, it might actually be Kronos who’s responsible for more of their losses.

[Kronos] struck the bridge with the butt of his scythe, and a wave of pure force blasted me backward. Cars went careening. Demigods—even Luke’s own men—were blown off the edge of the bridge. (pg 192)

I will die on the hill that between this, Ethan, and other implied moments, Kronos killed more of his own demigods than Percy did.

In the second phase of the battle, when we see the TA demigods attack again, they’re in a very different situation.

To the west, the Demeter cabin and Grover’s nature spirits had turned Sixth Avenue into a jungle that was hampering a squadron of Kronos’s demigods. (pg 255)

This is the only thing we see the TA demigods do as a group in this phase; and they’re fighting people who are using very defensive tactics, more hampering than harmful. They’re not likely to lose many fighters. A few of them do cross Percy’s path in the chaos, but even at his most Achilles fueled chaos he never loses control.

The next hour was a blur. I fought like I’d never fought before—wading into legions of dracaenae, taking out dozens of telkines with every strike, destroying empousai and knocking out enemy demigods. (pg 257)

He talks about killing monsters, but always “knocking out” demigods. Finally, that phase of the battle ends when the centaurs show up. Did the centaurs kill any demigods? After all, Percy said they “trampled everything in their path.”

Well the only report we get on the TA demigods puts them to the west. When the centaurs attack, they come out of the north east and drive the enemy south, and start off a wave of panic that ripples down the enemy lines ahead of them. The demigods were probably running before any centaur reached them, and might have had better chances of being trampled by their own monsters.

So if the TA demigods aren’t taking many losses, where do they all go in the third and fourth phases, when we don’t see any except Ethan?

They desert.

Alabaster: “I fought on the battlefield against the enemy, but most of our allies ran.”

I think the demigods of the TA signed up with no real idea of what would happen when they fought the Olympians. They thought they were going to have a sure victory.

Chris Rodriguez said it in SOM:

“I hear they got two more [drakon] coming,” [Chris] said. “They keep arriving at this rate, oh, man—no contest!” (pg 122)

Alabaster C. Torrington said it in SOM:

“Kronos wasn’t supposed to lose! You said the odds of winning were in the Titan’s favor! You told me Camp Half-Blood would be destroyed!” (pg 196)

And they probably weren’t well prepared for the war either. At one point Luke says they will fight well because he has been training the army. But most of them join because they are the children of minor gods who swear for Kronos, and that doesn’t happen until the end of BOTL, after Luke has been possessed. Most of the TA demigods never got training from him; including their two highest ranking members, Ethan and Alabaster. It’s no wonder most of them weren’t prepared.

As I was running up the stairwell, a kid charged down. He looked like he had just woken up from a nap. His armor was half on. He drew his sword and yelled, “Kronos!” but he sounded more scared than angry . . . . No way was I going to hurt him. I didn’t need a weapon for this. I stepped inside his strike and grabbed his wrist, slamming it against the wall. His sword clattered out of his hand. (pg 18)

And the demigods might not hold much loyalty to Kronos, a violent and temperamental eldritch horror!

Ethan moistened his lips. “He’s still fighting you, isn’t he? Luke—” “Nonesense,” Kronos spat. “Repeat that lie, and I will cut out your tongue. The boy’s soul has been crushed.” (pg 236) “But, my lord,” Ethan said. “Your regeneration.” Kronos pointed at Ethan, and the demigod froze. “Does it seem,” Kronos hissed. “that I need to regenerate?” Ethan didn’t respond. Kind of hard to do when you’re immobilized in time. Kronos snapped his fingers and Ethan collapsed. (pg 284)

And the demigods might have witnessed a darker side to his army that we didn’t.

Back on my first visit to the Princess Andromeda, my old enemy Luke had kept dazed tourists on board for show, shrouded in Mist so they didn’t realize they were on a monster infested ship. Now i didn’t see any sign of tourists. I hated to think what had happened to them, but I kind of doubted they’d been allowed to go home with their bingo winnings. (pg 15)

So, the demigods deserted. After the second phase of the battle we don’t see any at the Titan camp at the U.N., or taking any part in the last phases of the battle. They had been fed false promises, were treated badly, and were being sent against enemies out of their league.

“Most of the remaining half-bloods fled or were captured. They were so demoralized they joined the enemy.”

All except two, Alabaster and Ethan. The son of Nemesis, who has already given so much and is so desperate to see something good and fair come out of it; and the son of Hecate, who was promised victory, and is desperate to avenge the death of his siblings. Ironically, the two demigods who stayed loyal to Kronos the longest, did so because they had faith in their godly parents.

So if there was no “massacre” of TA demigods at the end of the Battle of Manhattan, why is Alabaster so insistent that there was one?

“Yes,” Alabaster said bitterly. “Camp Half-Blood decided that they would accept any children of the minor gods. They would build us cabins at camp and pretend that they didn’t just blindly massacre us for resisting. (pg 220) “But I’ll never bow to the Olympian gods after the atrocities they committed. Their followers are blind. I’d never set foot in their camp, and if I did, it would only be to give that son of Poseidon what he deserves.” (pg 221)

Well, it’s because the children of Hecate suffered the most in the war. She didn’t have as many children as other gods, and Alabaster was the only one to fight in it and survive. He claims he convinced “most” of his siblings to join; but if Hecate does not have many children, and he is the only survivor of the battle, how are there still enough of his siblings to decently fill a cabin, it’s likely “most” was only slightly more than half. The sad irony is that the fact that the smaller group of demigods had more casualties than the larger ones (and it sounds like not just more proportionately, but more in actual numbers), also kind of disproves that there could have been a large massacre that affected them all.

Alabaster was a scared, frustrated, exhausted kid; who convinced his siblings to fight in a destructive war, and was the only one of them to survive. To him, that is probably always going to feel like a brutal massacre.

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