#pjo theories

[kumquatqueenb]

So we don't know really when Clarisse got that spear so I kind of like the headcanon that she got it when she first got to the camp. Like 7 year old Clarisse having nothing from anywhere or anyone, no family at all and then there's Ares who claimed her and immediately armed her. Measuring her height against the spear she can barely hold at first.

This is a super adorable headcanon, and I love it so much omg. Just picturing a tiny Clarisse getting claimed and trying to hold a too big spear is so sweet.

I never really considered Ares giving it to her when she got claimed tbh. For some reason I always thought that it was something that was left for her. Like, when Ares slept with Clarisse’s mom he gave her the spear with instructions to give it to Clarisse when she went to camp. The spear was a sort of reminder of the legacy that she was meant to live up to. A bittersweet promise for more attention if she earned it, I guess?

[multifandom-aroace]

Something I noticed about Song of Achilles/ Percy Jackson is that when Percy goes in the river styx, Annabeth essentially became his anchor to immortality. Achilles was so powerful because he went in the styx. Didn't know it yet, but he had an anchor to his mortality. Patroclus. That's why he went so mad after Patroclus died, because he had no reason to be rational anymore, no reason to be human anymore. Achilles' rage was kept back by Patroclus, and when he was killed there was nothing stopping achilles from destroying everything in his path.

Thinking about this, imagine what would have happen if Annabeth had died. While she played a big part in stopping Kronos, Percy would have completely lost it. We saw what he was capable of in HoH, and Annabeth was the only thing that stopped him from completely losing control. Percy, at his most powerful, and at his most dangerous. Complete and utter destruction.

[helpallthenamesaretaken]

Percy’s “crashing a car after annabeth smiles at him” to “blowing up a volcano after annabeth kisses him” pipeline is going to hit hard

[splankie]

is blowing up a volcano after ur first kiss couple goals

[outofuse-sorry]

SPOILER FOR PJ

I’m probably not the first person to figure this out, but it just clicked for me. Percy Jackson never technically made a decision that would be the rise or fall of Olympus on his 16th birthday, he made one the day before. This is because he never actually turned sixteen. He, multiple times, got stuck in places where time was warped, like the lotus casino, and calypso island. He physically, never turned sixteen.

Instead, at the beginning of SoN, where he finds Juno (Hera) he makes the big choice of going into the water into safety or bringing her to Camp Jupiter. Thats roughly 2months after the Battle of Manhattan, as we don’t know how long went by before he went missing. In SoN, he said he’d been on the run for 2 months. If you go and add up the times where he was frozen in time, like calypso and the casino those two are 3 weeks, probably a little over a month including the Labyrinth.

This is a strong hypothetical, but if you went back and added up all the times he was frozen, my hypothesis assumes that they would add ip to, or near the rough two months between SoN and TLO. Don’t quote me on this, this is a stupid theory I’ve thought about before. Also, First post of Tumblr!

[delicate-sketch]

Idk if this is unpopular opinion or not but while Percy is like “fuck this demigod stuff I am retired” I think Nico would be working in the underworld in the future like I just have this vision of him in a mix of modern and ancient greek clothing doing missions for Hades collecting some troublesome souls idk helping with the judgement talking shit with the dead making the playlist for their elevators vibing to tragedy by bee gees he kinda enjoys the demigod stuff even if its hella dangerous or whatever

[aroaceleovaldez]

rip Kelli you would have loved Hot To Go

[echo-stimmingrose]

If Percy was real he would be so famous on Tumblr. To be clear, he would not have a Tumblr nor would he know he was famous on Tumblr; but he would in fact be famous on it for all the weird news stories he's in.

[writerofthewinds]

maybe I have an idea there is a flower called the Flower of Zeus that can supposedly bring someone from the dead and is linked to Damasen's Apparently there's mention of him using that flower so maybe they could bring back Jase with it. from Wikipedia: "Another serpent, a female one, then fetched 'the flower of Zeus' from the woods, which was a painkilling herb.[1] She laid it on the lips of the dead serpent, bringing it to life."

or demigod's blood i remember that in one of Hercule's twelve labor myths, some souls wanted to drink his blood and due to the insane vitality demigod's blood has to be brought to life.

or I'm Delulu and swimming in Egypt.

Hi, I've seen a few (jk I've seen a bunch) of your posts and I was just wondering...

If Jason came back to life, would you be pissed that Rick pulled another Leo, or would you rejoice?

OR would you rather Will and Nico bump into Jason in the middle of the book?

Hi! Firstly, thanks for your interest! Let us dissect this one at a time.

For the first question: well, I'd say "pissed" might be too aggressive. I rarely get outraged when it comes to media content (wrecked yes, but rarely angry). I might not like it - that's like. all the time - but I'd most likely be able to leave it alone just bc I hate to care about what I dislike.

That is to say: should it turn out that Jason pulls a Leo, I think I would be more happy than not.

Of course, it depends a lot on how, exactly, Rick pulls it off.

As I've said, it's all about plot and more importantly, to me, logic. If he makes up another sort-of-the Physician's cure and the story basically goes the same way? I would be extremely disappointed. I love parallels but not replays. I hate it more if it's Jason - who's alr been shat on enough for "not having a personality". I'm throwing hands

In the fortunate event that Rick somehow comes up with a new, unrivaled resurrection method for Jason, though? It'd be really nice because I'm pretty sure 9 out of 10 Jason stans would want another chance for him to live a true life. Bringing him back to life - as of now, would do more good than harm, IMO, and maybe idk give the Jasico fans a reason to buy the book Ig

I'm aware of how difficult it is, also. Said resurrection must not be another Leo replica and still has to bypass Nico's children of Hades thing. I barely know about Greek myths and I have nothing in my mind. Let's just Rick has something in store should he decide to play this card lmao.

About the scenario in which Nico and Will bump into Jason: generally, I have no problem with the idea that Jason would make an appearance again. As mentioned: I'd love to see Jason again - in every shape and size, honestly.

However, there're a few I hope would be addressed should it happen that way:

1/ The fact that Nico didn't even try to contact Jason after his death.

2/ How Jason feels after-death, whether he even wishes to be back, how he feels about his funeral and/or Apollo's promise, sort of, etc...

3/ A clear insight into Nico's grief.

And of course: a thorough and reasonable explanation as to why and/or how Nico and Will bump into Jason.

Do they see him in Tartarus? Then why is Jason in Tartarus when he's died as a hero? How he's coping?

Do they meet him in Elysium? Why does Nico (and Will) come to Elysium in the first place? What does their encounter bring? Does Jason help with the quest?

In short: I'm more of a go-with-the-flow type of writer. Generally, I have no problem if things are set the way they should be and the plot doesn't just. kick its own balls I guess. If Rick can make it make sense and stay away from the cliché, I'm sure everything would be just peachy.

[raphael-angele]

Solangelo Sleepover (feat Percy cuz it's his turn to babysit)

Nico: Hey, I found something

Percy: What is it?

Nico: Oh, just Will in a campus personality pageant

Percy: WHAT?!

Will: *tries to snatch away the tablet*

Percy: PLAY IT!

Tablet:

7 year old Will wearing a cowboy hat very sparkly gold tuxedo: Hi, I'm William Andrew Solace from Austin, Texas!

Nico, laughing: You look like neon yellow highlighter!!

Baby Will: And you should pick me for Mr Campus because *sings and dance* I am your sunshine. Your only sunshine. I make you happy when skies are grey. You'll never know dear how much I love you. Please don't take my sunshine away! *smiles*

Percy: PLAY IT AGAIN! PLAY IT AGAIN!!!

---

Nico, to Will: Why did you never tell us you were in beauty pageants?!

Will: Cuz it's embarrassing

Nico, laughing: It is, it really is

Will: Yeah, well, Percy writes Studio Ghibli fanfiction about himself and Annabeth and posts it on the internet

Nico: (º〇º) ... (⚆⩌⚆)...no..

Percy: WHY?! WHAT DID I DO?!

Will: I'm sorry, I had to get the spotlight off me and tearing down other people was part of my pageant training.

[ukelele-boy]

I was rereading some of my posts from 2021 and was reminded of how much meta I used to write so imma share my crazy headcanon/ theory which i thought up as plot for a revolution fic:

RR verse is on the "Olympus will fall" timeline and Zeus' actions are speeding it up.

In the recent decade there has been several great prophecies back to back. And people have remarked how weird it is that there have been so many. What if the reason is because of Zeus?

Remember, in greek mythology there is a major theme of how Your Fate Cannot Be Defied. And Zeus, king of Olympus, has a major Fate: being overthrown. However he managed to "defy" it by eating Metis.

My idea is that he has been forcefully clawing out a future where he is still king of Olympus. By doing this, he is literally changing the flow of fate. And obviously fate wants to correct itself, so the harder he fights it, the more counterforce he triggers. All prophecies meant to lead to his overthrowing are suddenly sped up. Olympus begins to lose power. Zeus is aware of this. He is also aware how people are becoming suspicious. And he needs a scapegoat. And who better than the god of prophecy who is also a threat to the throne?

Apollo mentions that Zeus blamed him for his oracle revealing a prophecy "too early" and therefore causing it to happen early. However, everyone knows it's not possible to actually cause a prophecy to happen early...so why would Zeus even have this weird line of thought? everyone probably dismissed it as Zeus being irrational, but there a juicier theory this ties into:

Apollo being the one to overthrow Zeus.

The idea of "fall of the sun, the final verse". What if this is the final prophecy that is meant to happen before Zeus is overthrown? And what if the fall this speaks of is actually when Apollo fell close to chaos? When he pulled himself together there?

What if he reformed different from his original godly form. He was literally almost gone, his body was disintegrating. Maybe he pulled himself together using the energies of chaos. Apollo himself isn't aware of this, due to a suspicious memory gap between him clawing up from the cliff and him waking up next to Artemis.

And this adds to another headcanon of mine, the fates choose Apollo to be the god of prophecy on purpose. At first glance, this is a horrible match. If they wanted a good servant, why would they choose someone so closely tied to his heart and so likely to fight fate? Someone who dares get them drunk just to extend a human's lifespan? UNLESS... they WANT him to eventually try and defy fate??

Imagine if fate was a compass and Zeus had forcefully wrenched the needle point at a bleak dark future where Olympus falls with him. And this river direction has been set so deeply in stone and run on for so long, it has worn a grove and become the mostly likely future.

you need someone willing to fight, someone to wrench the needle out. SOMEONE FAMILAR WITH FATE AND Prophecy. Someone who has the power to fight it and win. Someone who has the will. Perhaps a baby god who was willing to fight Python, and who would have likely died there. But if he successfully did take on the powers of prophecy, one day that same godling would fight Python again, would absorb the powers of chaos to recreate himself.

Perhaps not today and maybe not even for the next four thousand years

but one day that godling would stare down at that wretched compass hand and decide to yank the flow out of its place. And maybe, that godling means a chance for Olympus to have a different future.

Anyways that's my crazy theory i hope it wasn't too confusing. It also links up with my other story theme idea about fate, hope and apollo blah blah blah, which i rambled about in a different post.

Edit: just remembered my other crazy thought, what if ZEUS PURPOSEFULLY TRIED TO GET RID OF APOLLO NOT ONLY CAUSE HE IS A THREAT TO THE THRONE BUT ALSO BECAUSE AS THE GOD OF PROPHECY HE IS MOST LIKELY TO REALIZE SOMETHING IS WRONG AND THAT ZEUS IS MESSING WITH FATE?!???? Basically pulling a imma say you're the murderer before u realise im the murderer. (i cant remember the actual saying Lmaoo)

[kumquatqueenb]

The gods as parents makes me think of the types of parents vs their kid being bullied thing.

Poseidon goes to talk to the other kid's mother when his kid is being picked on. Athena encourages her child to find a way out of it by talking, making friends etc.

Ares asks what the fuck the kid wants him to do about it and hands them a baseball bat saying settle it themselves.

This is so funny lmaooooo!

Hear me out, Aphrodite is the mom that tells her kids that they’re being teased because the other kid has a crush on them. Apollo is the parent who just shrugs and goes, “that sucks, too bad you can’t be cool like me, kachow!”. And Hephaestus is just that dad who gets they’re kid a new Lego set to cheer them up.

[ninesparrowsoftroy]

One thing i do think about (in regard to both the book and the show) is how it would make so much sense for Percy to know a startling amount of history. Like obviously we know he’s not the most academically inclined but i like to imagine that when it came to history class he was always freakishly good at it—like if they were at a WW2 museum listening to some audio play over a display documenting the Pacific War how Percy would just know what ships went where, how he would be looking at the uniforms in the glass cases and recognize some of the names even though he has no idea why.

And it’s all because water has memory.

He knows these sailors, these ships, these niche events that the history books scarcely even cover because he’s the son of the sea. He doesn’t have to go out of his way to try and learn the timeline of things or the details of certain historical events because he just knows them subconsciously because the water remembers it all.

[mo-mode]

Okay but the camper in the wheelchair either has a super tricked out celestial-bronze plated magical flying wheelchair with wings gifted by Hermes himself, or Chiron just gave zero shits about how inaccessible the outside world is because there is no way she’d survive a cross-country road trip while being chased by monsters in a normal wheelchair. If they offered me up for a quest like that, I would have wheelied my ass tf out of there. She chose a long-range weapon for a REASON

If the wheelchair IS tricked out, however, then I require a scene where her magical chariot-wheelchair hybrid flies her up above the big battle as she takes out monsters with flaming arrows, or the show is ableist. I don’t make the rules—

[helpallthenamesaretaken]

Something about percy and the concept of breathing like

Sally has to tell percy to breathe once in a while (this and the next example is tv canon but its technically Rick's work since he wrote it so I'm counting it)

@vfdcatlady on here was talking about how percy was not frozen in time as the golden statue in the tunnel of love scene, but he was trapped inside and suffocated judging by the way he gasped for breath after coming back to life and by the way he was slightly panicking while the gold enveloped him as if he couldn't breathe.

Percy's fear in heroes of Olympus was drowning aka not being able to breathe

Percy canonically having issues of wheezing after coming back from tartarus

Edit: percy canonically hating claustrophobic spaces

[aeithalian]

What even are the ancient laws?

I've been meaning to get around to this one for ages.

Anyways! Good question, guys! Answer: nobody fucking knows. Sure, we have good ideas. The laws are mentioned every now and then as a "oh, no little mortal child I can't help you - that's against the ancient laws. But hey! You can help me."

Let's be honest: the ancient laws, while there might be legitimate reasons for some of them, have transformed into yet another way that the gods hold themselves as the high and mighty overlords of the world, and keep their mortal offspring below them at all costs. But... why? Are the demigods really that dangerous to the gods? The answer: yes, but not to the gods - to Zeus.

Let's start from the beginning and list out everything we know about the laws. I did the hard work, you're welcome:

1. Gods cannot steal each others' symbols of power.

2. A god cannot initiate a fight with a mortal.

3. No direct interference - gods are not allowed to interfere in the lives and ongoings of mortals or monsters.

4. No more than 3 people are allowed on a quest.

5. Harming the sacred animals of a god is forbidden.

And that's it. Those are the only true mentions of the Ancient Laws in the entirety of the Riordanverse (at least, the Greco-Roman books).

And I think we all know what the most important one is. Direct Interference is the only one we see Zeus actively enforcing (or at least attempting to). But why is that? Well, stealing another god's symbol of power and initiating a battle with a mortal are physically impossible for gods, and the ban on harming a sacred animal is very commonly accepted already, as it's a guaranteed way to get your ass whooped. And the rule about having 3 on a quest isn't really something Zeus is going to spare the effort to enforce - starting a quest with more than 3 will typically guarantee that you come home with only 3, if at all.

But Direct Interference is the most interesting law, simply because it's the one that our demigod narrators are affected by the most, either in the ways their godly parents violate it, or refuse to do so.

There's plenty of instances where this law has had quite a bit of impact on the story and relationships. For example, Hermes used this law as a major reason why he could not help Luke or prevent him from raising Kronos. But let's be honest: besides Zeus himself, Hermes might be one of the only gods that actually obey this rule, despite the fact that he wants to break it. Just off the top of my head, I can name an instance in the series where every single Olympian at least toed the line of violating Direct Interference, except for maybe Demeter. And I'm not sure Dionysus counts, since he has contact with his half-blood children because of his position at CHB.

But there's something interesting even about the ways these gods break the law of Direct Interference. In most instances, these interactions with mortals happen when the god is in disguise, or through dreams. And, based on how little it seems like the gods get punished for breaking Direct Interference, we can only assume that Zeus is not aware of when gods talk to demigods via dreams. I mean, he's probably aware that it happens: Apollo, Poseidon, Hephaestus, Aphrodite, Hera, Ares (who occasionally follows the rule, but only as an excuse to not help a demigod out), Artemis (although she is subject to exceptions due to her domain), Dionysus, Athena (I think?), and Hades all do it at least once in the RRverse. I mean, you could also argue that dreams are a more indirect means if interference, but I can also see how that's an iffy argument at best.

So, what does this mean? If there is one thing I know about laws and rules in general is that people tend to break laws if the direct consequences of their own actions don't directly apply to them. Gods would probably respect the law of Direct Interference more if there was an immediate negative effect on themselves, aside from just the punishment.

Think of a law or a rule that people break all the time. Littering, for example. People do it all the time, even though it's bad. But why is it bad? A person who doesn't have a lot of forethought will drop a piece of trash and say 'hey, that doesn't affect me. The planet will suffer and this will be a pain in the ass to clean up, but I'm not the one cleaning it up, so why do I care?' If you don't care about the planet or other people cleaning up your trash, the only reason you have to not litter is that you're afraid of the punishment.

I think the attitude towards Direct Interference is similar. The only reason a god would obey is if they're afraid of the punishment, or if they respect Zeus enough to follow his laws (which, clearly, is not the norm in godly society). And even then, what is a punishment to an immortal being? The only way Zeus punishes gods that really matters to them is turning them mortal - and that's a very rare occurrence.

By that logic, we can assume that a violation of Direct Interference does not actually negatively affect gods all that much. To be honest, it doesn't negatively affect mortals either. Maybe monsters have the short end of the stick, but monsters didn't write the law of Direct Interference - Zeus did. So... why? Why does it exist?

My first thought was the Fates and prophecy - if gods can interact in mortal life without recourse, then it might fuck with the way the Fates operate. But gods have been interfering for the entirety of civilization. If they really had a the power to alter the future just by dipping a toe in mortal life, don't you think it would have been obvious? Even in the RRverse, there are plenty of instances, as I've mentioned, that gods have interfered in a quest, and said quest wasn't severely fucked over because of that interference. Take, for instance, Percy's quest to save Artemis - Apollo intervened, but where were the consequences of that? Where were the earth-shattering effects?

So what gives? Also, I'd argue that the gods would actually obey the law more if they knew it had such a negative effect on the proper functioning of the Fates, especially Apollo since that's his domain. So I'm going to say that's not the case.

So we're back to the first question: why does the law against Direct Interference exist if it has no effect on the gods or the Fates? In all references to the law against Direct Interference in the Riordanverse, never once is it explained why this law exists. Why would Zeus create it if violating it doesn't have some major world-ending effect? Gods are gods: what could make this law so important that it's the only one Zeus makes a true effort to enforce?

Well, it makes sense to me that Zeus would create the law if he's the one who has to bear the immediate consequences of it. Which raises the question: what are the immediate consequences? What reason could Zeus possibly have to separate half-blood children from their godly parents? HMmmmmmmMMMM.

Well, there's another interesting thing about the Ancient Laws: some of them don't apply to mortals. Mortals can steal a god's symbol of power, and mortals can initiate battles with gods. Imagine with me a scenario in which your enemy has an army that is not subject to the same laws you are. Gods are (as far as I know) physically incapable of stealing symbols of power and starting battles with mortals, but what does that matter if they have half-blood children that reach the power of minor gods, like Percy, who can do that for you?

It's a terrifying premise, if you're Zeus. And before you start telling me that I'm going down yet another far-fetched rabbit hole (listen - I always make sense in the end), we've seen Zeus go down this line of thought before, all the way back in The Lightning Thief. Remember???

Chiron said that the reason Zeus blamed Percy for stealing the Master Bolt was because the mines the Cyclopes used to forge the bolts is close to Poseidon's domain, and he thinks Poseidon has it out for him. Now, there's a theory running around the TOA fandom that gods can control how much power they hand off to their children (as seen with Apollo's children, who rarely inherit the power of prophecy, which we're willing to bet is something Apollo is controlling from behind the scenes), and if Zeus knew that Poseidon had had a child, it's possible Zeus thought Poseidon was trying to create a super-child just for the sake of overthrowing him. I'm willing to bet that one of his greatest fears is that an über-powerful child of one of his brothers would be used to steal his symbol of power and then overthrow him. He views demigod children like weapons that his enemies can use because they could be inherently dangerous to the standard structure of godly society. His main fear is somebody with the motivation of Luke having the power of Percy. And what do paranoid kings do when presented with the idea of their greatest fears? Make laws against them.

The only way Zeus could be sure that Poseidon would never intentionally have a child like Percy, then bring him under his wing just in time to start a rebellion against him is to ban that kind of interaction at all.

Counterpoint: you could also say that the law against Direct Interference was a way to protect the mortals against the gods who might harm them or do them dirty. Like getting women pregnant while in the form of a swan. Ahem ahem. Do you get my point, though? It's not like Zeus has any real reason to protect the mortals in this way, since he was one of the main perpetrators anyways, but it is a damn good excuse if he also wanted a reason to prevent a potential revolution led by demigods.

Now, if you'll bear with me for a little bit longer, there is one more interesting thing I'd like to point out: In the entirety of Trials of Apollo, Apollo (a god, obviously) only mentions following the Ancient Laws once. Unsurprisingly, at the time he's mentioning the law against Direct Interference, he's also violating it - when he kills Commodus to save lives, Rome, and for his own peace of mind. So, to me this basically means that Apollo doesn't give two single shits about following laws against Direct Interference.

Connect that with everything else we know about Apollo post-trials: he loves his kids, doesn't want to see them hurt, and is trying to distance himself from Zeus and godly society. Even pre-trials, he doesn't have any trouble admitting that Zeus makes his rules and laws difficult to follow - nobody is good enough in Zeus' eyes. I truly believe, if there's any person who, given the proper means and motivation to overthrow at least some aspects of the Direct Interference law, he would.

Just saying. Feel free to add on if anybody else has more thoughts!

[a masterlist of my other metas]