#pjo books versus show

[lumenalumia]

opinions? pjo disney

"gods and demigods dynamic"

one thing I found made me 'fear' the gods as a reader was seeing the way Annabeth or Chiron or Grover would address gods. I am sort of missing the use of 'lord' to refer to the gods or 'sir'.

I love the dynamic of the trio but then when they are introduced to gods so far, Annabeth has sort of become the god resistant one rather than Percy - whose real character charm is that he isn't afraid, even when its stupid - and that makes him braver in a way? Does it make sense that I feel as though some of Percy's strengths are being showcased through the other characters more to create a different dynamic. Also, them not bowing to Percy sort of signalled to me that they wouldn't respect or fear him or have much of an opinion at all about his godly parent, which has always impacted and been part of Percy's fitting in at camp as he ages through the books.

I am looking for productive discourse and fan theories. Shows have different executions and so I suspected things that were plot relevant would be distributed across the episodes, like I am hoping happens in the case of ambrosia. In a TV Show, writers make decisions so that audiences usually 'world' 'plot' 'monster of the week' relevant info in the episodes that are closer to the climax or based around that information.

HATE WILL BE REPORTED. I hate that I even have to include this sentence.

[sunsetcougar]

With the release of the PJO show, I’ve noticed something.

I’ve been seeing people saying that the book appearances of the characters are no longer canon because of the show, and it’s genuinely baffling to me that they think that. I see it as a sort of Spider-Man situation, they’re the same people but in different universes. It’s like how Spider-Man in any given comic run is not the same as the Spider-Man in the Tom Holland movies, but they’re both Spider-Man and one existing does not make the other any less canon. They’re just different canons that exist simultaneously

Personally I’m loving seeing people draw both the show and book versions of the characters and not excluding one for the other, because both versions of the characters deserve to be recognized and loved

[crisisreading]

One topic the writers of the PJO series will need to treat with caution, is the romantic implications between Luke and Annabeth.

The original books were written in the 2000’s and at this time, relationships with large age gaps were more socially acceptable in media than today. Also, it is going to be really hard to ignore the creepiness of SEEING an older Luke actor show romantic feelings towards a younger Annabeth actress, versus just reading it on the page.

I sincerely hope that the writers don’t brush over this, or omit it entirely. Although it is a sensitive topic, I think it is an important message for the younger target audience to understand that an adult man romantically pursuing a teenage girl is wrong and has always been wrong. I would love to see Annabeth’s transition from a young girl who was groomed and manipulated and blamed herself for Luke’s actions, into a woman who is finally able to see Luke’s intentions for what they were and not blame herself anymore.

Overall, I really want to see Annabeth’s shift from “I should have known better” to “He should have known better” play out on screen because it would be 1) a cautionary tale for younger viewers and 2) a cathartic experience for older viewers who may have already gone through something similar.

[aroaceleovaldez]

So, in your last post about the Percy Jackson TV show, I felt you lacked a few pieces of information/points. While it is true that the CGI in the film is pore and not constructed well, please note that while they have a large budget Disney has made a lot of restrictions to the show. In the original scrips there was a significantly larger amount of violence that would have needed more CGI. This was latter edited out of the script due to both restrictions and budget cuts for other parts in the show(sadly). Also to bring into prospective Sea of monsters the movie was made 10 years ago. Inflation has juristically affected the way money is used in films. Another thing to note is typically movie budgets are less than TV shows because they only are filming for one larger block of time. TV however they can take years meaning the acters need to be paid even for the time off set. This is not to say movies cannot take years, but it is to show that TV shows are filmed longer. I would also like to say I am genuinely not trying to be rude or unkind about your opinion and thoughts on the subject. I am just someone who has a different insight into the topic because of the things I know about the topic (I myself, am an actor and for the most part I think this is why the CGI was not the best as well as some of the script work). 

I did actually calculate inflation for Sea of Monsters versus the PJO TV show. We know the PJO TV show allegedly had a budget of $12-15 million per episode. For comparison, this is the type of budget Disney+ usually uses for stuff like The Mandalorian. I was doing a generous underestimate for the entire season which comes out to $96mil (12mil per episode x 8 episodes). Sea of Monsters' budget was 90mil. Here's that inflation:

So lil over $120mil. Going for a top estimate for s1 of the show (15x8) that's $120mil. And as far as I'd heard that may also not include stuff like budget for casting for the show. They are still roughly in similar ballparks.

Regardless of this - as an animator, i can tell you there is no excuse for that wonky CGI trident other than it being extremely quickly done. That's literally a transform error, like ctrl+t type stuff. That is a lazy and cheap trident, probably because Disney notoriously overworks and cheaps out with their CGI. The CGI problems in the show are majority because Disney's being cheap about it. This shows in nearly all the CGI in every episode.

If they had to remove violence from the script and so remove CGI scenes with it, then theoretically they should have more room in the budget for more or better CGI where it already is in the show. That money doesn't just vanish. Changing that in the script gives them less of an excuse, actually.

Also, as i mentioned in my previous post - if you don't want to CGI hydrokinesis, don't pick the franchise where the main character's defining power is hydrokinesis. If you can't have much violence, DON'T PICK THE GREEK MYTHOLOGY SERIES WHERE THE MAIN CHARACTER BEHEADS TWO PEOPLE IN THE FIRST BOOK AND IT ONLY GETS BLOODIER FROM THERE. You cannot have PJO without some level of violence. It's kind of very inherent to the series. Rick actually talks in his original Teaching Guide for The Lightning Thief about how, in argument against attempts to ban TLT (in this specific instance for "being too violent"), that monsters in the books poof into golden dust for a reason, because then they haven't "died." There is no blood. They can and will come back. Because it's fantasy. That is the excuse for all the violence. Of which there otherwise technically is a lot of.

If you are doing live action PJO you are going to have to have some amount of violence (and there is absolutely a level that is perfectly suitable for a PG13 audience. The show right now is leagues below that level. PG13 just means parental guidance for under 13 - this majority has to do with concerns about children under 13 replicating behavior on-screen. Past 13 kids know better than to do that, which is why that rating is a thing. There are plenty of film/media/etc that are way more gory and violent and are still PG13). You are going to have to CGI monsters/creatures to some degree regularly (alongside demigod powers like Percy's hydrokinesis even more regularly). And between those two things, characters are going to have to look like they're physically interacting with the CGI at times. Disney is capable of doing this. Disney does have the budget for this for the show. They're not doing it because they're being cheap. Disney has done this before and does it regularly. This is not anything new. It entirely has to do with CGI not having as many unions. They have no excuses. If they didn't expect to run into these problems then they clearly did no planning for what adapting the series would entail and didn't think at all of what the series actually featured before diving into it. And they have no excuse for that! That is step one!

[ahecen]

thoughts on percabeth characterization in wottg (or lack thereof)?

oh my godddddd. first of all I just have to note how hilarious it is that everyone forgot about this book a week after it came out. anyway. percabeth’s characterization in the new books versus the show versus the original books is so interesting to me. with allegedly being very involved in the writing process of the show, you’d think rick would be even more aware of how he wrote his characters and translate that to new books. now i’m not saying 17 yr old percabeth should act the same as 13 yr old percabeth. you’d think they’d grow, right? wottg percabeth just doesn’t have that spark and I was honestly confused seeing ppl gush over them in this book. every time I thought they were about to have a talk, just a moment to themselves, the scene ended. how do you set up several scenes for your fav couple and just. end it. it’s extra strange bc I loved them dearly in cotg. but in wottg,,, where’s the friendship? they remind me of those couples in school that have been together for years and don’t seem to enjoy each others company. they’re currently together because… uh…. if this was my first introduction to percabeth, having no prior knowledge of their relationship, I would question how much they even liked each other. yeah, they love each other. that’s great and all, but do they like each other? it’s like percy and annabeth became caricatures of themselves. haha percy’s dumb. annabeth has an idiot boyfriend that everyone knows she’s too good for. this is the shit you read on wattpad, not a published book. I think the worst moment of all was when annabeth seemed to realize for the first time in her life that percy was intelligent. girl you’ve known that since you were twelve fucking years old. I also think percabeth suffers in this book bc annabeth didn’t have much of anything going on. she was kinda there. percy had an emotional moment, grover had several emotional moments, but there was always prepared annabeth, ready to save the day from her helpless boyfriend and friend. rick isn’t known to write female characters well, but annabeth has mostly been the exception to that. what happened? if cotg was bad, this would be a different story. and I know pjo tumblr likes to tussle about the quality of anything written after tlo, but I genuinely really liked cotg. there was a lot of heart. the shift from a good story to the nothingness of wottg was really disappointing. I wasn’t expecting much, but, like, can rick at least pretend to try? there’s a lot more to say but we’d be here all night.

tldr; it was only a matter of time before percabeth was negatively affected by ricks greed

[pjo-tvs-version]

Now that the Wrath of The Triple Goddess preview is out, I have a few thoughts on it. I am making 3 posts for each chapter so this is for the first one. In case you haven't read the Chalice of the Gods yet (read it NOW it's soo good) be warned there maybe spoilers below.

The chapter title "I have an accident in the principal's office" is so closely linked to the prequel book's title which was "I accidently get flushed" and I'm already loving the continuity. The fall season vibes are spot on. Percy sassing Hera in his internal monologue is dam funny. I love his humour soo much. Percy being sus about everything being peaceful for 3 weeks is soo real of him because I feel that too. Like in school I didn't get homework for a weekend and then I know I will most probably have a surprise test on Monday. And also it just shows how fed up he is of everything around him. Give this boy a break like seriously (don't I need Percy to be more tortured for more pjo content I'm soo sorry Percy)

Percy falling off to sleep in English class and jolting awake and shouting "themes" got me chuckling. He was seriously trying and was prepared to answer and poor boy. Also I would like to draw your attention to the theme he was going to talk about- "free will versus fate". Percy oh gosh he was feeling this one on another level. Curse you Zeus (but thank you for being a moron since I can read Percy's internal monologue once more.)

Then Percy just being like how is this creepy lady going to kill me is just... Like I can't decide whether to laugh or be concerned about his mental wellbeing. Anyway to quote from the chapter,

" Hi, I’m Zeus. It’s always I am the Thunder-Maker, the Paranoid Patriarch, Heavenly Adulterer, Lightning Britches, King of Luxurious Beard Products."

I don't know why I'm loving this soo much. I was laughing out loud at 11 at night as read this. Continuing, Percy using the technique Annabeth told him to keep him calm is soo cute. Hermes quest was to go waterskiing with Percy? EXCUSE ME? Was he being nice and even Aphrodite like fetching a box of cupcakes. Percy my boy I feel soo bad for you. Hecate revealing her godly form or whatever portion was creepy though. And then she says this???

“See you tonight, then,” she said. “Ciao.”

LIKE SERIOUSLY HECATE????? AND CIAO???? SHE IS ITALIAN OR SOMETHING???? Anyway the chapter ends with Percy saying that he needs to find Annabeth and Grover but BEFORE that he needs to change his undershorts!!! Percy is the most hilarious person and relatable person to exist (change my mind).

Overall a great first chapter because I'm already hooked. The fed up Percy is soo real and I'm just waiting for 24th September (why can't you come faster)!!! Anyways posting for chapter 2 soon :)

[gilly-moon]

PERCY JACKSON TV SHOW REVIEW

(SPOILER ALERT! I Did Not Like It)

It has been 16 long years since I first picked up The Lightning Thief, and once again...I am faced with an adaption of one of my favorite books that is so painfully disappointing. And now that the tv show is completely out, it's time to purge the collection of thoughts I compiled on it:

Starting on one of the (few) positives, the cast was incredible. I know for a FACT that they are all wonderfully talented individuals, and I aim all of my gripes with their acting at the directors and writers.

So much telling. So little showing. Stop explaining the plot and the mythology to me. SHOW it to me. Explain later only when necessary.

And yet, some things weren't explained at all! I know, as someone who read the books, what blue food means to Sally and Percy. But the show never explains its significance. To the unknowing watcher, it's just a weird quirk, not a small rebellion between a woman and her kid against the life they're stuck in. It baffles me what the writers chose to over explain versus under explain. There's no clear reason for either behavior, and it permeates the writing in a bad way.

There's also a lot of the kids just being dragged from point A to point B by an outside force, rather than their own actions. They never really felt alone or even in danger on their quest, because gods kept showing up to help them along. I did not like that.

These kids aren't allowed to be kids. I stg you could make them teens or young adults and the dialogue/their actions would be the same. That's not good.

Why do they always have all of the information!!!?? They immediately know it's Medusa. Echidna introduces herself and they immediately know who she is and that it's a Chimera in her bag. They immediately know what the Lotus casino is. Why? It makes the stakes feel so low, rather than the mad dash scramble in the books that happens a lot when characters have to remember the myths and how to beat a monster mid-fight. And it makes all these scenarios so boring!!!

Also so many of the fight/chase scenes were boring or anticlimactic. The only good ones I can think of were in the first two episodes, and then one with Ares. Someone actually slipped in some good choreo in those few fights, but completely forgot to add it in to....the rest of the show....

There's very little about the show that feels magical. CG is used, obviously, but at times it feels like they should've gone further with it, or used it even more, and they just....didn't. The visuals end up feeling clunky and not very cohesive, with zero whimsy. Hate to make this comparison, but the Harry Potter movies were VERY good at showing the lines between the magical world and the muggle world, and the tension that occurs when the two interact. There is....none of that in the PJO series. Zip. Zero. And the mythological CG that is there is more often than not static or boring.

Break for a positive! I actually really liked that Percy was learning mythology from Mythomagic. The show wasn't really consistent on that point - saying it was his mom instead most of the time - but that was such a fun and clever way to work in the card game and make it plot-relevant. As someone with ADHD, I can confirm I would also learn mythology WAY better if it was for my favorite game.

Ok back to the negatives - Wtf is up with the portrayal of the gods? For one, they're boring to look at. Nothing about their designs makes them feel 'godly' and while that's ok with some gods (Hermes for one, tho I have issues with his weird beige sweat suit look) why is Ares just some regular ass biker dude? Where are the flaming eyes?? And radical skin-leather bike?? He couldn't even have a CUSTOM bike with red bloody paint and boar heads and chain link handles or something???

And the gods are way too fucking nice. Sorry. I don't have an issue with Hermes being nice but. Ares having a heart-to-heart with Grover? When his presence is supposed to stir everyone up into a rage? And Hephaestus sees Annabeth refuse to give up on her friend and just goes 'awww, ok, you and Percy can go, and take my rival's shield back to him too cause I'm just so nice.' Sorry, no. I'm fine with gods being helpful - Hephaestus helps (reluctantly) in the later books. But it was at a price! A favor for a favor! Not a 'get out of jail free' card just because he was moved by normal ass human compassion!!

Hades gets his own bullet point because who the fuck was that. As a child of Hades, I'm offended that this sweet fruity guy just wanders up and goes 'hey, how's it going, wanna snack?' like, that is NOT my dad. My dad had skeleton soldiers filling his halls and a garden of jewels and a voice so loud it rattled the whole Underworld. Whoever that was in the show was a pathetic imitation.

The point of the first series is to work up to Percy throwing it in the gods' faces how awful and neglectful they've been of demigods and specifically their own children. Demanding that they do better. But if they're already showing compassion and 'humanity' in the context of the first book/first season of the tv show....Percy starts running out of ammo against the gods. There's no coherent story progression where Percy spends years seeing the worst of the gods and the best of them at very distinct, important times of his life and his story. It no longer feels like a massive change they have to make in the system, something that deserves a godly favor for Percy to demand of them. Luke no longer feels like his fury at the gods is wholly justified. The whole series begins to crumble because the gods already have a good reason for being how they are, rather than being thoroughly selfish assholes who only dote on demigods when they do something really cool. And the exceptions are presented at intelligent moments that prove to Percy when he most needs it that the gods can be better, they just need a forceful push to get there.

That being said, where was Percy getting the info that the other gods were feeling scared and abused by Zeus? I love the balls on this kid, but like...when did he make these assumptions and why? That whole scene felt really unearned.

Also Olympus was BORING. And EMPTY. And DARK. It looked like we were just back in the Underworld. Which. The Underworld was fucking boring too. Some neat visuals, sure, but put that in some high fantasy show. Not this one.

One last positive before my final point - there were some pretty good jokes scattered around. Not nearly enough, but I did really enjoy the Dionysus introduction and a handful of lines from Percy. Also releasing the animals in Vegas - Grover being like 'oh, you were worried about the humans' got me good.

The final word that kept spinning through my head after finishing episode 8 was: Pathetic. Luke's betrayal was pathetic. No deadly scorpion. No commitment to that period of time in the books we were convinced he really was evil. And Gabe just stumbling on the package with Medusa's head in it? PATHETIC. Percy outright asked his mom if she was being abused in the book, and she took fate into her own hands to statue-ify that bastard. But no. The show was through-and-through just a pathetic, watered-down version of an incredibly fun, emotional, brutal, exciting series of books. I know there was a lot of heart behind this production, but I did not feel it at all. But what else should I have expected from modern Disney?

[riordanverse-ship-polls]

How is this blog different from @pjo-ship-polls?

1.) We aren't using any statistics from Ao3 or similar. Ships are almost entirely through submissions. We also do not intend to do any polls pitting different ships against one another - this is entirely polling opinions on different ships. We're looking to see general attitudes towards a wide variety of different ships, not popularity of each ship.

2.) Ships span across all series/riordanverse media, including TKC, MCGA, ghostwritten books/companion novels, and etc, so characters like Alabaster or Claudia are not excluded. We're also including ship formats like polyamorous ships with 3 or more characters, character x themself, crackships (such as character x inanimate object), Character x OC, Character x Reader/Self-insert, and crossover ships.

3.) We may also do multiple polls of specific ships, such as across different adaptations (ex: General Percabeth, Books, Movies, Show, Musical, etc etc, in this example due to the already existing fandom specification of Percabeth [general] versus Smartwater [show]), specifying ships of different adaptations to begin with (that may be more or less "canon" depending on adaptation), or we have specification options for ships in different relations formats, such as romantic vs queerplatonic vs platonic, etc.

Hope this helps!

[happyk44]

Still kind of miffed that the sequel series wasn't Olympus versus the underworld like it was kind of setup throughout PJO. like the whole ending to the underworld stuff was sort of... boring. when you look at it. like hades gets blamed in TLT despite no proof, TTC his daughter dies and her body just disappears (and it's never brought up why they couldn't find her body, like??) and his son runs away, TBotL shows how powerful and deadly children of Hades' can be

(in a way that Percy really hasn't shown with his own powers imo, like Percy and his usage of his powers doesn't really happen very much until TLO, it's generally just small things like healing himself, or swimming, etc. nothing particularly big. like the most notable event prior to TLO is blowing up that volcano, and that's fucking four books in, bro, Percy please. why is the first time you summon a hurricane in the middle of a battle, baby, please hyperfixate on something other than your sword)

anyway Nico also states that children of Hades have never been accepted at camp (why, why, why - like the implication is because no one trusts Hades, but what does that mean for his children when they do go to camp? Plus Hades saying his kids rarely have happy endings in BoO, like WHAT DOES THAT MEAN, this is why my headcanon is they literally got bullied into suicide or "accidentally" killed off by other camper, and they just. fucking accepted it because they had to protect the other underworld kids and better they got beat and harmed than the children under their wing - they can handle it, they're stronger and they're not afraid of dying)

and then in one of the side stories we find out through Persephone that Hades may never have actually been on equal footing as his brothers, that Melinoe might've helped Ethan with Bob (and thus was on Kronos's side to some extent.

and in TLO we find out morpheus, born of the underworld, is on Kronos's side and also that Zeus straight up tried to kill Nico and Bianca and judging from Hades' insistence w/ trying to get Maria to agree to go to the Underworld with him, it's not a surprise to him that this happened, if anything it was anticipated - which means it had to have happened before, either with him or with anyone. he knows that if he refuses his brother's demand (his brother who is not a king to him, mind you, olympus has no bearing on the underworld) that his brother will strike and he will not be able to do anything direct about it because conceptually the underworld is smaller than olympus, and has few, probably none, allies outside of its underground walls, so he would be risking everything if he fought back at his brother for the death of his beloved and his children

it's also why my headcanon is that zeus wanted all his niblings rounded up into one place, and then he sent down the seed of "hey, kill your cousins to save the world" to his kids and there was a big all out battle, and everyone died (because it's so easy to blow up people without anyone noticing your involvement when lightning is being flung everywhere) and like. i am. jsut

this would've been so cool

but also rick probably would've effed it over so lmao because he's not the best at nuance and complex situations - see Hermes as an Olympian and a Chthonic deity, where would he sit if he had to choose, what side does he pick?

see Annabeth as a child who has grown up in camp, who views things from a logical perspective and can see why Nico would be dangerous to keep around, the risk he carries from the death that oozes off his fingertips with ease, who can see why past campers tried to get rid of him and his ilk.

see Percy who has no loyalty to Olympus or camp, he is only loyal to his friends and his friends belong to Camp, Annabeth belongs to camp, Grover is literally akin to an olympian deity right now, but Percy intrinsically feels the need to protect Nico and Nico belongs to the Underworld - what does he do when his heart belongs to different powers? does he steal nico away while his family burns and lets the kids hate him again, so long as he's safe? does he help him and watch the place he just worked so hard to save be brought to its nees? does he try to be diplomatic about it? try to mend things back together?

the complexity of it - the choices you'd have to make and the reasonings you'd have to apply to the characters so nothing seems out of place, but also so that no one is enraged by the characters they loved making decisions they don't agree with, so maybe it's a good thing this story never got told

but it would've been so cool to see, if it had

[bi-lullaby]

So I really loved the PJO show. I wish we get a second season, and a fourth and so on all the way through heroes of olympus because it’s just so good. If you feel like reading my (NOT spoiler free) rambles:

- Percy’s loyalty and dedication to his mom is just so integral to his character and they RESPECT THAT.

- I really like what I’ve seen mentioned about how both casting wise and storyline changes wise there have been some adaptations that were less “lol lets change it” and more to connect better with today’s audience and cultural paradigm. Like Annabeth being blonde because of the stereotype of “the dumb blonde” that was so prevalent in the era the books were released versus her being Black showcasing the extreme undermining Black women go through instead, or Luke being less 00s/10s boyband boy looking and more tiktok softboy looking now, but also Sally being less 100% perfect and more active in the story and upbringing of Percy as both a hero and a demigod and Luke being less cool and detached and more… Sweet? Emotional?

- I did feel pretty meh about a few changes: Zeus immediately accepting that Kronos is scheming and is a threat (Ik they couldn’t know if they’ll get that far but it cuts the stakes of the third book by a lot if there’s no pressing time limit to get Artemis back to Olympus to convince the Gods into action if they’ve been Doing Stuff for two years now, and even the second book loses a little in regards to the behind-the-scenes political climate that leas to it being what it was). Luke going to every length not to kill Percy is such a 180° from the books it was a little jarring and I feel it cuts out how much of a Menace he was and how bitter/jealous he was of Percy. Like we could have seen their bonding and even Luke trying to recruit him but I’d still have liked to see the scorpion scene so the betrayal and anger and wariness Percy feels is that much deeper and bitter and personal like in the books.

- I’m of two minds about the entire Gabe arch. Like on one hand I do understand toning him down (including his demise) for the public’s intended audience, I even think it kinda goes along the adapting to new times by showing that the useless, insensitive, disrespectful aspect of a bad husband is harmful just as the “darker”, more explicitly abusive/exploitative and mean drunk book version, but on the other I feel like he had such an impact on Percy in the books (he’s literally the Oracle’s “mirage” for his prophecy, he thinks of his smell in tartarus), and I really had loved the line “you’ll fail to save what matters most in the end” coming true because Sally saves herself - although the post I’ve seen about his fate showcasing how his lack of respect was his doom did make me appreciate it a little more.

- The only castings (or maybe it was the directing and styling of them more so) that I can’t really get behind are Hades and Hephaestus. Hades felt like they were going for the Disney’s Hercules comedic relief one in a slightly toned down costume. None of the gravitas and intimidation, he didn’t feel like a god at any point. And Hephaestus was just… So different. He’s supposed to be a deeply secluded, antisocial, gruffy mechanic who’s self sequestered by his inventions and forges. The show version looked like an eccentric professor more than anything imo. Which I feel could be one modern retelling of Hephaestus in another series, but isn’t the one we had and, imo, doesn’t go as well with the rest of the vibe. Which is a shame bc I do feel like Timothy could have been used in a way that would work fantastically for those vibes.

- Lin Manuel Miranda’s, acting actually shocked me. I never really had a Hamilton phase but I am on tumblr so I was expecting something cringe and honestly, I thought it was good (and to bring it back to Hades: Hermes in sweats and a hoodie actually gave me the feeling of “this is merely a cover to a deep well of power” than Hades in his suit and dark colors ever did)

- Meanwhile, perfect Ares casting. Yes this man is beefing with (and losing to) 12yos but he’s also an ancient force that revels in bloodshed and carnage.

- Annabeth from the show encapsulates the character so well while also bringing her own notes to it. Like as time went on back in my peak pjo days I felt she got “Hermionified” by the fandom too much? And I lost sight of how fond I was of her but the show (and having reread the books) really rekindled that and made me remember why she is a force to be reckoned with and also someone that must be protected at all costs. I cannot express enough how much my fondness was reignited.

- Like I feel this could be a whole post but basically I feel the books showcase the “ideal” characteristics the gods and their kids could have versus how they wind up twisted into something else (Percy’s sea-like indomitable spirit vs several of his brethren’s ruthlessness and disregard for what’s good) and Annabeth feels like, beyond amassing knowledge for it’s sake… She wants to actually Learn, and in the show maybe even to a deeper degree than in the books and it is endearing and very enthralling.

- On that note, Leah, Walker… This is supposed to be a SLOWburn goddamit. Like in the books you can see where it’s headed but in the show they have such silly crushes I can barelyy stand it. My children.

- Speaking of Walker that kid IS Percy like you cannot convince me otherwise. Disney farmed him for this role.

- I actually really loved Poseidon having a british accent? Idk, something about england and nautical exploration and it feeling older and more… Powerful? Like the ocean

- And Zeus had all the “I’m the god amongst kings and king amongst gods” that I’d have expected from him. He was crackling with power and that was beautiful to see. What a tragic loss.

- Grover is my precious child (although I do wish we had gotten the silly, goat like details of him like eating cans and making the bleating noises). And since the last book I finished rereading was the Battle of the Labyrinth (where I cried like a baby at Pan’s death) watching this sweetheart getting all excited with his literal flower searches license? Made me wanna weep.

- Overall most of my criticisms that came to mind besides the alterations I cited came from being hushed because of too few eps and those being too short. Really really hope the next season (fingers crossed) we’ll get like, 15+ eps (and/or at least longer eps) so we can really sink into the meat and potatoes of it all.

[demigods-posts]

Reasons why The Last Day of Summer from The Lightning Thief musical is an amazing song:

1.) “What do you do when it’s up to you to choose: has something ended or begun?”  It’s the end of the book, the musical, but Percy has to decide if this is the end of his story. This line does an amazing job at explaining Percy’s dilemma.

2.) “Do I stay because it’s safer? Back to the home I left behind. I could stay and train for a peace of the action, but what about peace of mind?” In Good Kid, Percy complains that no has ever asked him if he’d like to come around and stay, but in The Last Day of Summer, the camp directors are asking him exactly that - and he doesn’t have answer. Being a year-round camper allows Percy to strengthen his skillset as a demigod so he can better prepare for a world of monsters, but it requires him to sacrifice the chance to lead a somewhat normal life. I find it admirable that even though he has begun to embrace his godly side, he still has a grasp on his humanity. 

3.) “Perry Johannsson, this means you.” I love this gag that Mr. D deliberately choose to say Percy’s name wrong the entire musical, and also the entire five book series. 

4.) “Sometimes, family is worth the trouble. Believe me.” “I guess we both have a choice to make, Seaweed Brain.” I love the contrast between that moment in Killer Quest when Annabeth calls Percy Seaweed Brain in an attempt to insult him versus in The Last Day of Summer when it becomes almost a mockery of their initial rivalry. Here, Annabeth acknowledges their rocky start, but chooses to not let it define the future of their friendship, and I love that for them. Additionally, Annabeth lets her guard down and briefly confides in Percy, which goes to show that she has begun to trust him and, more so, heed his advice. Their friendship is portrayed so beautifully. 

5.) “Tough last day?” I’m really enjoy all of these callbacks we are getting in this song. When Luke ask Percy ‘Tough first day?’ in Their Sign, Luke has yet to decide if Percy will be a threat to his plan to overthrow the gods. Here, Luke knows Percy is a threat and intends on eliminating him.

6.) “You’re the lightning thief.” “The oracle warned you. ‘Betrayed by a friend.’” Percy saying the title of the show, and Luke quoting the line referring to his betrayal >>>>

7.) “I’ll do anything. I don’t care if I hurt anyone. It doesn’t pay to be a good kid, a good kid, a good son.” This line right here forces the listener to empathize with Luke. While we may not agree with the decision he makes, we understand why he makes them: because he was once was where Percy is. 

8.) “Soon, you’ll see what I did.” Throughout the PJO series, we see Percy have resentment toward Luke for good reasons, but when Percy denies the gods offer in 'The Last Olympian', he, in a round-about way, defends Luke. Even as Percy grows older, he understands Luke’s stance toward the gods and the shitty system they created of sending their kids off to do their bidding. Luke was right. In time, Percy would soon see what he did and why he did it.

The Last Day of Summer is such a beautiful song. The callback to previous songs in the musical, Annabeth and Percy becoming good friends, Luke’s reprise of Good Kid, the foreshadowing that Percy will grow up to understand why Luke is doing what he’s doing. Just, everything about it is so amazing!

[jellyfishsandwich2333]

My thoughts on the PJO show Episode 4:

I really love how much more agency the kids are getting in the show versus in the books. In the book, it felt like they just stumbled from trap to trap, but in the show they're actually making choices that impact what's going on.

Wonderful development of Percy and Annabeth's relationship and Annabeth's character as a whole.

10/10

[universe-of-peoples]

I wanna talk about the Camp Half-Blood Necklaces

Ok so this is something I’ve been sitting on for a while because it’s kind of a niche topic, but I wanted to do a short little study of the Camp Half-Blood necklaces in relation to a very similar real-world tradition! Read more under the cut.

The Camp Half-Blood necklace tradition, featured in the books and only in the background of the TV show, is really interesting to me. Each camper gets a leather cord to put around their neck, and for each summer they spend at camp half-blood, they get a bead to put on their cord that has been painted with a design unique to that summer. It’s a really cute and unique idea, but it is actually really similar to a real-life tradition in the world of drum corps.

Drum corps is like major league marching band - like how there’s Major League Baseball, or the NFL for football - if you’re really good at marching on a field while playing music, you may find yourself lucky enough to compete at its highest level. There are many many different corps you could march in, but there’s one tradition that almost every corps has in common. That’s corps necklaces.

The tradition can vary from corps to corps, but the basic idea is that you get a cord, commonly made of paracord (or marimba string), and on it is a charm that represents your corps, usually something to do with the corps name or logo. Then, you get a bead to put on your cord for every summer you march.

Sound familiar? It should: spend a summer, get a bead. When I came home from my first summer marching drum corps, my sister took one look at my necklace and said “it’s just like Percy Jackson!” It’s probably just a coincidence, but I’ve sometimes wondered whether Rick knew about drum corps necklaces when he got the idea for the CHB ones.

There are some differences in the CHB beads versus drum corps beads, for instance the CHB beads are unique for each summer, whereas most corps keep their beads the same. But it looks like even the way the cords are tied around the neck is the same in the PJO tv show as how we tie them in drum corps.

Another difference is that with drum corps necklaces, each necklace has a charm representing their corps. I think it would be interesting to see a version of the CHB necklaces where the campers each got a charm representing their godly parent - Percy’s could be a trident, Annabeth’s an owl, etc. The problem would be with the unclaimed campers - would they get no charm, or would they adopt the Hermes cabin charm? Food for thought.

Anyway, thanks for reading my analysis comparing Camp Half-Blood necklaces to drum corps necklaces! Both are topics I care deeply about and I’ve been wanting to do something on the necklaces thing for a while.

[crisisreading]

Now that we’ve reached the halfway point of the PJO TV series, I want to recap my thoughts so far (as someone who first read the books back in 2010 as a fifth grader)!

I will share another post with my dislikes soon.

Likes:

- Having Sally tell the Greek myths to Percy throughout his life is SO smart. Sally has very little agency to protect her son, but this was the one way she could prepare him to be a hero.

- I love how Luke’s mentorship towards Percy is emphasized in the show. This is Percy’s first positive male role model and the first person to make Percy feel at home in the demigod world. This strong foundation really sets up these two boys to be dramatic foils.

- I like the fact that Percy is NOT the best fighter yet. We watch him stumble and struggle during his fights with Alecto, the Minotaur, and Clarisse. You can tell when his instincts kick in and even he is surprised at what he is doing.

- Having Echidna and the Chimera catch up to our heroes at the Arch because Athena ALLOWS it was brilliant!

- And the change from Percy jumping from the Arch and praying for his father’s help in the books, versus resigning himself to death and falling instead perfectly captures where Percy is in his hero’s journey. Why would he trust a god who he’s never met, and has done horrible things?

- Honestly, the contrast between Annabeth defending Athena and being forsaken versus Percy forsaking Poseidon and being rescued, is peak television!

- I am so so so relieved that the show has maintained the plotline of the gods being flawed and even cruel beings. I was certain that Disney would whitewash this aspect of the story, but I’m glad we see the heroes doubting their parents, and the gods acting weird at best or murderous at worst. After all, this is a family story and the entire Titan war is started because demigods felt abandoned by their parents.

- Finally, I was so impressed by the show’s adaptation of Grover! The way Grover was able to use his abilities as an empath and his people skills to read and manipulate Ares himself was genius! And it really shows why satyrs are trusted to guide demigods on quests.

Please let me know your likes!

[neanderthyall]

I haven't watched the PJO show yet, but seeing people get super furious is just a little laughable to me like? Since when has being a 1:1 adaptation been the standard? Like, i get it. Obviously any good adaptation will need to take directly from the source material to actually be a good adaptation. But there's more to making a good adaptation than just transposing the book to the screen. (Obviously this is still important- i might be wrong, but I've heard through word of mouth that the reason why gabes abuse was toned down was because the book scene was too intense to show in a childrens show on screen. Some things just aren't the same when read versus seen).

When i comes to a 18 year old story, some actual plot points might need to change. Part of adaptation is translating the essence of the books when making these changes. Considering that rick riordan and his wife were incredibly involved, it's weird to be mad at a bunch of relatively little changes when the heart of the show is still the same.

[sarah-cam]

Love how you’re a PJO fan! For your tsitp cabin assignment, I’ve always thought that Jeremiah’s godly parent would be Hermes, since he dressed up as Hermes for Susannah’s painting in s1. There’s also how Hermes is the messenger god and I think the writers made Jeremiah dress up as him to foreshadow how he’s always eavesdropping on conversations in s2 and how he has the most information on Belly and Conrad’s real feelings about each other (ie. Conrad’s love confession and Belly’s POV on the breakup). Jeremiah chooses to withhold this information and only becomes the messenger once revealing this info benefits him.

I can see why you gave Dionysus/Mr. D to Jeremiah, since he becomes a frat bro, but I think Hermes makes more sense as it works with Jeremiah’s character and how he creates conflict. I also saw in the tags that you could see Jeremiah as a Hephaestus kid, but I personally don’t agree as Hephaestus kids are pretty handy, while Jeremiah can’t even fix a tire. (And frankly, I don’t want Jeremiah to be a Hephaestus kid as throughout Riodan’s series, the cabin 9 kids are pretty great and Jeremiah doesn’t deserve to be in their cohorts. I’m an unbiased party since I’m an Apollo kid, so this is just the truth lol).

honestly it has been so long since i read the percy jackson books so most of my recent memory comes from the show 😂 i was obsessed with them and greek mythology though it was like middle school

i mostly based my choices on the traits associated with the god rather than the "job" or skills, but that makes sense!! dionysus is charismatic and fun but also bitter and unforgiving, which i feel jere has shown to be multiple times. i also said a blend with hephaestus because charasmatic/friendly but also bitter and jealous, again TOTALLY jere traits lmaooo but definitely makes sense when looking at being handy/hardworking. as for hermes, that definitely makes sense!! i just looked at it more again as traits versus job/role