#the subtleties of percy's characterization

[mustelidsinlove]

In Between Days by orphan_account

Wherein book 7 is completely ignored because wars don’t tend to happen so quickly; Percy Weasley runs a safehouse [because that’s as close to administrative work as you can get in a war], and everyone gets a chance to play minor character bingo. Get your cards and markers ready!

“We really are sorry,” Fred says as Percy walks through the sitting room. “But you’re our brother.” It makes Percy pause. “And you’re mine. And I’m older.” “You outrank us,” Fred says. “Got it.” // “How does that work?” George asks. “Magic,” Percy deadpans. // “Haven’t been sleeping,” he answers blandly. “You, on the other hand, are the picture of health, despite having walked into—and this is just a broad guess—several walls and a lamp post.” // “Yes.” Molly breathes deep and puts her hands on her hips. “You’ll leave in two days; we have to send word ahead, of course.” Her tone is crisp and unassailable. She puts her hands on Percy’s shoulders before walking around him and poking Draco in the chest. “Sit up straight,” she barks. Draco remains slouched, but Molly is out of the room and doesn’t see it. “Well,” Arthur says into the silence, “that went rather smoothly.” “You know she’s crying in the other room, right?” Draco asks. He raises his eyebrows when Arthur and Percy both glare at him. “Just making sure.”

Art: Head of an Apostle, Melozzo da Forlì, c. 1480

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[kidspawn]

And Now, A Comprehensive Essay I Never Thought I'd Write:

I've seen people upset with Gabe's character in the show thus far. Saying he's too toned down, too "pathetic white trash" as opposed to abusive jerkass. I do understand why people are mad, but a few words in defense of this portrayal - and why it still works.

One: "He's too nice/soft/passive"

Um... absolutely not? This dude had me cringing and tensing up as soon as we meet him. Percy tenses and goes on the defensive, starts shooting comebacks. Gabe, seeing a tense and emotionally drained child, immediately comes at him, berating him for misbehaving.

He snaps at Sally, basically loses his shit at the idea of her leaving the apartment. She has to negotiate with him to leave her own apartment? To use the car? I don't care if she's "standing her ground" more. (Which, she isn't, but that's a whole other topic.) He's still being a douche.

There are aspects of Gabe's book characterization that are lost in media translation. For instance, Percy giving him money. "Whenever I was home, he expected me to provide his gambling funds. He called that our 'guy secret.' Meaning, if I told my mom, he would punch my lights out" (The Lightning Thief, pg. 31) This is Percy's internal monologue. When Percy enters their apartment in the book, Gabe is just a dick. Yes, he's not pestering Percy for money but he's doing everything else. I wouldn't be surprised if this information about Gabe comes to light the further into the story we go. Rick Riordan isn't trying to erase the abuse, but drawing attention to the intricacies and subtleties of abuse.

Two: "Sally is too assertive/fights back/etc"

Please, kindly, screw off with that "perfect victim" line of thinking. Just because Percy and Sally aren't crying, sobbing, etc, doesn't mean they're not being abused? First of all, that would be out of character. No doubt about that.

The only thing different between the scene in the book versus the show is how Sally manipulates/negotiates with Gabe. She has a different tone here, sure, but let's face it - Sally doesn't particularly like Gabe. He is a means to an end. She doesn't care too much about hurting his feelings here. She's placating. She's leveraging what little she has to get something from him. In the books, it was bean dip. In the show, its sandwiches and watching a game together. Sally doesn't care for Gabe, but Gabe obviously has interest in Sally, or spending time with her. She's leveraging her time and her resources to get her kid to Camp Half-Blood. She knows what's going to work because she's been dealing with this for so long.

And don't pretend like Gabe using the word "please" is changing the horrid tone he uses with Sally. Neither Percy or Sally flinch when he yells. This isn't a rare occurrence. Gabe probably yells all the time. But it's been happening long enough they're both desensitized to it.

These aspects aren't that different from the book.

Yes, the abuse is subtle, a few tweaks to appease an admittedly young target audience. But it is there. It's solely disappointing to me that subtext has seemingly been lost.

Three: "He's just average white trash."

Is that not... the point? He's... just a basic mortal? He's so abysmally human, so utterly mundane that he masks Percy's smell. He's crummy, and slimy, and awful. He doesn't strive for more, he doesn't aspire for more. He's a bully. He's awful to Percy, he yells at Sally. The only thing different about him in the show so far is he hasn't hit Sally yet.

(Yet. By the way. There's only two episodes out. We find out he's hitting Sally at the end of the source material. He never hits Percy onscreen, it's stated in internal monologue.)

Details will be lost in translation, of course, but please I cannot stress enough how little of the show we've seen. We don't know how they're going to explore Percy's characterization and reaction to abuse. There will be flashbacks, opportunities to flesh out the relationships and characters. Just because Rick changed aspects to keep people from being triggered doesn't mean he's going to let audiences go on believing this kind of behavior is ok. (At least, I hope he doesn't.)

Gabe Ugliano is still a piece of garbage. He is a horrendous human being. It's baffling to me that no one's believing that based on what we've seen of him. Not once did I think he was "toned down." I had a hard time rewatching that scene. The verbal belittlement, the subtle manipulation and control he's asserting into their lives. He's awful to Percy, he's awful to Sally.

Also, I reiterate: there are only two episodes out. Give the story time to breathe. Give the team time to deal with this storyline and flesh out this aspect of Sally and Percy's relationship.

[lovecatsys]

Hellverine #1: Thoughts

God idk where to start. The first issue was a lot.... a lot of emotions going on.

Okay I guess the best part to start with is my criticism?

It feels like Percy knows what he's doing in regards to Akihiro's characterization and the direction he wants to take him in- which is good, but he lacks... subtlety.

(more under the cut)

Okay this got long lol so I'm splitting it into separate parts.

Part 1: Narration

There's a lot of narration boxes which I don't usually mind, love when my man gets a voice in his own story, but everything he communicates there is like... very obvious. He's telling the readers everything upfront, which I have complicated feelings on.

My criticism as an emerging writer comes from something I have personally struggled with and I know many amateur writers struggle with as well, the "show, don't tell" issue. Percy is telling us pretty much everything up front, in very plain words. It feels very amateur because of that, all of the things that he is telling us about Akihiro's feelings and what he's going through right now could be easily communicating by showing the readers these things, instead of having Akihiro plainly communicate them.

In Akihiro's first solo book, the original Dark Wolverine, Marjorie Liu and Daniel Way do a fantastic job of giving Akihiro an interesting voice in his narration that describes his current situation- but not necessarily all of his emotions about it, and what it means for him as a character. That is left to subtle cues for the audience to get the message.

In Hellverine #1, Akihiro gives us a recap of his current situation, tells us that he left behind both Logan and Project Hellfire, and then immediately tells us why he did those things afterwards and the questions he is trying to answer about himself.

It's interesting! These are great things to communicate about Akihiro as a character and his current dilemma, they feed into his angst which of course I'm a huge fan of. The problem is that these things don't have to be communicated so clearly in just the first few pages, Percy has a whole first issue to set up Akihiro's current problem and get us interested, but he tells us everything extremely literally in just the first few pages. That's not to say that the action in the rest of the issue doesn't add stuff, it does, but instead of giving the reader the opportunity to see for themself what Akihiro might be feeling at this point in his life, he just has Akihiro tell them exactly what he's feeling. It takes the fun and the interest out of it imo, and makes it feel dry.

In Dark Wolverine #75, just this one page has Akihiro briefly summarize his situation in his own words, but he keeps it subtle.

He doesn't mention his Father by name, but he brings him into the conversation when he talks about the "mask," you as the reader can interpret from this that he is talking about the Wolverine mask, the one that his father wears that he is currently wearing on Osborn's Dark Avengers. You can also tell from the punctuation that he does not feel particularly happy about this, he hesitates, you feel as the reader that he doesn't exactly want to mention the words "Wolverine" or "Logan."

When he tells us that he is hiding in plain sight, but that "they don't know what [he is]." It gets you thinking, does he enjoy hiding in plain sight, that he can be "on top" as he says, without having to deal with the public knowing what kind of person he is? Is that why he's willing to wear the mask of Wolverine? Perhaps he's reluctant, but still enjoying this one particular aspect of being Wolverine for the American government.

The narration here tells us some things, but leaves the rest of it up for us to interpret. It feels more rich that way, it gets you thinking about who exactly Akihiro is as a character, lets you come to the conclusions of who he is without telling you straight up. It has depth.

Going off of that though, there are weirdly some positives to this? at least from my point of view.

Part 2: Marvel fans (and writers) are stupid.

I'm not entirely sure if this is the problem and I sometimes hope to god it isn't, but unfortunately sometimes it feels like certain people read comics (or anything, in general) and aren't very good at picking up the subtle messaging. Especially when I look at writers like Leah Williams, who maybe didn't read all of Akihiro's stories before she wrote X-Factor, but whatever she did read I don't believe she picked up on any depth in Akihiro's characterization.

For one thing, Akihiro does have a lot of fans right now and I think many of them probably came from the sniktfam fandom, which has been really fanonized in the past few years. So much of the depth of Akihiro and Laura's relationships with Logan have been shaved away in favor of making them closer to their father, having more positive relationships with him. This is of course infuriating when their past relationships with him before he died in the mid 2010s were really... not positive and sometimes even horrific. Of course, there's nothing wrong with developing their relationships with him to be more positive, but the problem is that they aren't doing that. There hasn't been any dedication to Logan righting the wrongs he did to his children, they're all just kind of shoved together in the same books and pretending like things are okay.

Lately Percy has been writing Akihiro with this kind of "Logan and I have done terrible shit to each other but we need each other right now," of course that was before Sabretooth. I think I get it cause once things are written into canon you can't really pretend they don't exist, so it's a way to acknowledge their past while keeping things in line with what's happened recently. He's developing Akihiro away from that now which is great!

Which kind of brings me to my point here, I think that saying everything clearly makes things a lot more obvious for readers who don't typically have the reading comprehension skills to figure out the deeper meaning here.

I do have to acknowledge though that I could be wrong on this point, as many of the fans and writers who mischaracterize him may just not... have read anything where he's a more complex character, where he isn't just a side character in Logan or Laura's stories.

Still, I do have somewhat positive feelings about Percy's writing here? Even if it's not the most enjoyable to read and doesn't make me. feel super compelled, for one thing it shows me that Percy does understand Akihiro better than I thought. His voice isn't very accurate, but he gets Akihiro's emotional struggles, and he has a clear setup for a direction he wants to take him in. That has definitely made me feel a lot more positive about this book.

Part 3: Summary

Overall I think it was pretty good, I'm definitely interested at least which is what a first issue should always do: pull the reader in. I like that it kind of brings back his moral ambiguity, that other people don't trust him very much, but he's not a full villain and still a sympathetic character. I also love that he's going away from Logan, that he's doing his own thing, and that things from his past are being brought up. Like, when was the last time we got a flashback to his childhood?? A mention of his trauma from being bullied and his neglectful adoptive mother??

It gives me hope, I hope right now that we also get some more looks at his childhood with Romulus, which may be difficult to show because a) it's really. horrific and b) there isn't really much material to go from, whereas there's a full timeline of his childhood in Japan backn in Wolverine: Origins.

Hell, I'd love even a mention of Romulus leaving him in the snow to freeze or training him and making him kill people as a small child. Those are the only things I can really think of besides maybe some moments where Romulus tells him stuff.

I'd also love some elaboration on his relationships with Agent Kim or with Somnus, I like to interpret that he had run away from Romulus as a young adult in Canada and his encounter with Carl scared him due to the intimacy and the violation which sent him running back. But I'll take any crumbs at this point.

[kiera-raelyn]

Huh. That is really interesting and not something I noticed before.

I'm not sure how much I like it, at least on Draco's part. He has no reason to call his father "dad", and I don't feel like he would use the term even at his most emotional. We have no indication that he ever called Lucius "dad," and indeed, given his status, it seems a stretch. He could only have picked it up from school, but given that the use of "father" is an indication of class, he would be unlikely to lower himself that way. I'm more inclined to think this was JK dropping the ball on characterization again than to accept it as an intentional character development point.

Back to Percy, though. As we can see, he spoke formally even before he left school. I'm not sure that he ramped up his use of "Father" so much as we just saw them interacting more as the books progressed. We can tie his formal use of language to his ambition, and I agree that he's looked down on for it, but.

I kind of see Percy as autistic, honestly, and his formal language as an extension of that. Now, obviously, this is just my interpretation of him. But I feel like there's a decent amount of evidence to support it as a headcanon: his obsession with rules and abiding by them (himself and others), his excellence in school, his reading habit, his difficulty with emotional nuance and subtlety. There may be more, that's just off the top of my head. It's my experience that people who read a lot as kids tend to speak more formally, at least for a time.

From the perspective of this hc, I guess I'm not a big fan of Percy's use of "dad," either. At least, not if we go with your interpretation that it's an indication of character growth. I just take issue with the idea that "father" is always, by its very nature, indicative of less close/deep feelings than "dad."

Not that I'm saying that's your interpretation. You're actually probably spot-on with your observations. I'm arguing more with the author here than you. Frankly, I'm not sure how coherent that argument even is. I've got a headache that's making it difficult to think. Please don't take anything I've said here personally or as an attack - it's not meant that way. I am impressed with your observation and the opportunity for thinking more on these characters that it gave me!

One thing I noticed only recently is that the way Percy calls his father and how it's an indication of his storyline's progress throughout the books. Percy's whole character arc is about how he's doing ambition wrong; there's this undercurrent of judgement towards Percy's desire to be an accomplished professional and i think his language reflects that.

Percy has had a very formal way of speaking since the very first book, it's one of the main indicators that we're supposed to read him as a pompous party pooper, but we don't see him address his father until book 3, when jkr starts setting up the ministry plot:

(from PoA: Percy enjoys the treatment Arthur is getting from the ministry, foreshadowing his interest in climbing up the ministerial ladder)

I find the use of the word "Father" interesting: the most notable person we see use the term in the books is Draco, who is very much posh-coded.

(from PS, one of the very first things we come to know about Draco is how he addresses his father: this is a scene from Harry and Draco's first meeting)

A not insignificant facet Draco's personality comes from how his elevated status in society has shaped him to be arrogant and dismissive of other people. Draco speaks like a Fancy Boy, with his "Father"s (always capitalised) and his insistence on calling most people (even his friends and housemates) by their last name.

Seeing Percy start to use the type of language we've been accustomed to see from posh boy extraordinaire Draco is jarring, and it primes us to start disliking him. As Percy's brief foray into the Evil side begins (basically From GoF onwards) Percy starts ramping up in his use of "Father":

and

and

but, at the culmination of his story arc, when Percy is reunited with his family during the battle of Hogwarts, Percy switches to "dad":

This, again, mirrors Draco in that he also changes the way he addresses his father when he's at his most emotional

and I find this very interesting.

[mustelidsinlove]

In Between Days by orphan_account

Wherein book 7 is completely ignored because wars don't tend to happen so quickly; Percy Weasley runs a safehouse [because that's as close to administrative work as you can get in a war], and everyone gets a chance to play minor character bingo. Get your cards and markers ready!

“We really are sorry,” Fred says as Percy walks through the sitting room. “But you’re our brother.” It makes Percy pause. “And you’re mine. And I’m older.” “You outrank us,” Fred says. “Got it.” // “How does that work?” George asks. “Magic,” Percy deadpans. // “Haven’t been sleeping,” he answers blandly. “You, on the other hand, are the picture of health, despite having walked into—and this is just a broad guess—several walls and a lamp post.” // “Yes.” Molly breathes deep and puts her hands on her hips. “You’ll leave in two days; we have to send word ahead, of course.” Her tone is crisp and unassailable. She puts her hands on Percy’s shoulders before walking around him and poking Draco in the chest. “Sit up straight,” she barks. Draco remains slouched, but Molly is out of the room and doesn’t see it. “Well,” Arthur says into the silence, “that went rather smoothly.” “You know she’s crying in the other room, right?” Draco asks. He raises his eyebrows when Arthur and Percy both glare at him. “Just making sure.”

Art: Head of an Apostle, Melozzo da Forlì, c. 1480

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[eternally--mortal]

I really want to like it, too. I respect the artistic choice to make the show it’s own parallel reality, but I’m really sad not to have the chance to see a lot of the book scenes play out on screen.

For me it’s the fact that the style of direction and line delivery go directly against the themes of the book. The point is that Percy is a very emotionally normal kid responding to crazy situations, right? So why are there so many moments of heightened dramatic music and dramatically-stated lines being given? Annabeth is supposed to be a girl straddling two versions of herself—a hero chasing glory and a girl who left the real world behind at a super young age to the point where she’s practicing a fake-it-til-you-make-it style of survival while on a quest because it’s a little hard to be a Greek hero and figure out the modern world at the same time. So why are her lines written so blanket-portrayal-put-together and level-headed?

I think the actors are doing a great job with the material they’ve been given, and I think a lot of the characterization is great. But it takes a lot of the heart out of the original story and throws it in the trash when you eliminate Annabeth’s excitement over just seeing the arch as a tourist or when you discard Percy being obviously perceptive from street smarts and filling in Annabeth’s gaps in normal knowledge and instead decide to just make Percy magically have the answers. These characters have a lot of subtleties in the books that I think would come across great onscreen and instead they’re being overwritten by dramatic moments for the sake of pushing a Profound feeling onto the audience. Genuinely Profound things aren’t forced. They’re like little pleasant lightbulbs that come on after seeing something in its truest form.

That said, there’s a lot that I love. Sally’s characterization and her relationships with Percy and Poseidon? Amazing. The casting continues to bring me so much joy. But I’m not going to pretend that this show is everything I hoped it would be. Especially when it takes the main emotional backbone of what made me care about the books and trades it in for moments that feel needlessly ‘cinematic’ and artificial.

I also really just like being able to see the characters figure out shit. Let’s bring that back! That was half the fun in the books! And characters look and feel way smarter when we get to see them putting the clues together instead of them just explaining that they already know something.

book finding the bolt:

Percy: give us the bolt!

hades: what??? I don’t have the bolt, you have the bolt. Give me my hat back!

Percy *finds bolt in bag*: oh shit did I take the bolt??

show finding the bolt:

Percy: whoa the master bolt is in my bag

Grover: Ares must have put it there

Percy: I concur, we should see if hades is working together with him

[alexalessandro]

Going on with the characterization of Chiron, I 100% prefer TV Chiron to book Chiron

Book Chiron lies to Percy so easily, and he’s so condescending to Percy throughout chapter 6. I get it that we can only see things through Percy’s POV in the first books so to seed the fact that camp half-blood is complicit with how the gods run things we need Chiron to be shady right to Percy’s face, BUT I HATE HOW BLARING IT MAKES IT.

I love the subtlety in the TV series, it makes it feel like Chiron is a genuine carer and not a condescending prick (like everyone else in the book so far), it feels more like the fandom version of Chiron, the one that hates lying, cus he does nothing but lie and misdirect Percy from the truth for all of chapter 6.

TV Chiron makes me care about him, and it hurts all the more when he doesn’t trust Percy enough to tell him the truth, the fact that we need Grover’s perspective to know the shadiness also makes the whole thing way more realistic and believable than the books

I’ve been re-reading The Lightning Thief and I just gotta say it somewhere before I explode.

I think the series is going to be 10 times BETTER than the book.

There is so much that is irking me on a re-read that was fixed or better in the TV series.

I hate Grover’s wet cat characterization, it feels trope-y and weird and bad and if TV Grover acted like the book Grover in the first chapters of the lightning thief I’m pretty sure we would effin hate him.

I hate Sally’s characterization in the book, it makes no sense. “I’m sorry Percy I was selfish, I just wanted to keep you with me for as long as possible instead of sending you to camp”

Huh?

Girly this guy spent most of his life in boarding school after boarding school, you rarely see his ass what are we talking about? Also how tf was smelly Gabe supposed to cover him all the way out at Yancy??? Is his smell Bluetooth compatible?

I love the new characterization of Sally AND Gabe, the only reason why Gabe was at all “scary” in the book is because Sally is a wet cat and I hate that characterization of her, it doesn’t solicit any empathy in me especially since her actions don’t make sense. How am I supposed to empathize when I can’t even understand her and when I can poke immediate blaring holes in the stuff the book is selling me?

I also hate Mr.D in the book, I know we’re trying to show that the gods are assholes but I think the way the tv series is doing it by having them be detached distanced assholes that only care about their kids when they can do shit for them is 100% more compelling. I’m sorry but in the first few chapters, Mr. D is even worse than Gabe.

I also hate the exposition in the book about how “the Gods follow the western flame” Oh okay American exceptionalism stfu, I think it’s way better to leave it as a soft unspoken “eh it was written by Americans” than what the books give us.

5 chapters in and I keep thinking “damn I wish I was watching the series instead”, “this is so much better in the tv series”, “damn I hate x character's characterization it’s way better in the TV series”

Another thing that I’m silently grateful for in the TV series is how disability isn’t a smokescreen for great mythological powers anymore.

Grover’s legs are covered by the mist, he’s a healthy satyr so he appears a healthy human (like I’m sorry you’re telling me the mist can erase the existence of an entire person, Mrs. Dodds, from everyone’s minds but satyr's legs are too much?), and Chiron has a brace in his Centaur form as well making him disabled instead of making his wheelchair “a container”.

So yeah, I think the TV series is 100% better than the book so far and all the changes they made make me excited or glad because they made me cringe in the original on a re-read, didn’t make sense to me, or made me care less about characters we’re supposed to care about to drive the story forward.