#the way he literally said “luke this isn't you. kronos made you like this” or something

[d4ydream-girl]

percy to luke when he's processing that luke is the "one who calls him friend"

[princessofghosts-posts]

Fandom view of Percy

Ok y'all,let's unpack this one too.

My last serious post was about Percy backstory and how his trauma is rarely acknowledged by the fandom and sometimes by Riordan himself. At the end of it I also wrote how the fandom is most at fault for this,and how it also inflicted on Rick writing of him.

And let me tell you why and how.

First of all the "Percy is dumb and can't do anything without Annabeth" stereotype. Fortunately this one is slowly fading away,but I tell you that in the PJO italian fandom it was something. Most of the ff I read had this,or a variant of this,stereotype. It got to the point that I also started to think about it too,before remembering how he was in the books. 2018/2019 was war on Wattpad for this.

Percy is extremely smart and has an high Battle IQ. We are talking about the same dude that fought Kronos and won (credit to Luke's help too) and kept the world from being destroyed twice. The only reason why people started to believe that was because Percy himself has loe self-esteem,so people often don't realize how much things he downplay of himself. Also,do I need to remember you all that most of the first 5 books no one explained things to him? They literally thrown him out there in the greek world,after a basis tutorial,and said "go figure out it yourself". Chiron and Annabeth never told him about his prophecy,so it was normal for him not understanding shit. He didn't know and nobody told him about it,and that's something I'm always mad about,but he isn't stupid for this. He actually adapts to a situation pretty quickly,even when he almost doesn't know anything,and that's impressive. He was the one to make the plan in TLO,he positioned the campers and went to help them right and left when he could. It was his plan,not Annabeth's. He does a lot of things without her,both in PJO and HoO,so he isn't confined to her and he can still function without her. Like she can without him. They have each other back and help each other,sure,but he was never depended of her.

Then we have the "silly guy obsessed with blue food",another popular one that I hated for how much it got redundant. This also is almost everywhere and I'm sick of it because people don't understand what really means for Percy blue food.

We are introduced to blue food in TLO,when Percy talked about how it all started because Gabe didn't believe the food could be blue,and that it was stupid. Sally went out of her way and made sure that the food was actually blue,and ever since then they had it as a sort of tradition. The blue food was born to oppose their abuser. And that's why for Percy is so special. Because it was the only thing that Gabe couldn't ruin for them and couldn't snatch away,and it's also one of the few things that Percy had controll over during his childhood. All of the other things? Gone,Gabe took them all with his gambling habit. But he couldn't break the blue food. And that was something that probably grounded them. In PJO he only talk about it in the TLO,but in HoO,during their stay on the Argo II,he always ate something blue. And again in this situation,blue food didn't changed meaning for him,because it's the only familiar thing he still have of himself while everything is going to shit. Like the seeds kept Nico alive in the jar,blue food grounded Percy to a small sense of comfort and controll in what was happening. It's more deep that what people thing.

The "joke/a frat boy that would stay out partying all night and make horrible jokes to his friends" after he got accepted at the College in New Rome. Not a very popular one but I saw a couple of them,and N O. That's not Percy. Percy personality is nothing like the "popular guy" troupe,he would stay in his and Annabeth apartment rather than staying out all night. He is extremely good at met others comfortable with him,but e is actually pretty awkward and shy around people he just met. The would spent his time with his friends or doing something he likes,rather than taking part in frat parties. He ain't a frat boy,he is one of the most kind and gentle character out there. We are talking about the same guy that turned down immortality and godhood (who actually does that??) because he wanted the gods to be better parents. He is everything except this.

"Percy was disappointed after Nico told him he wasn't his type anymore" is one of the worst probably. This actually is everyday and I'm sick of it because the jokes are old,overused and OOC. Fortunately some people actually get the memo and are aware of it,but most of the time the jokes are still there. Which sucks.

Percy was confused about Nico confession because for him it was so out of blue. It happened after the conflict and the newly fresh ended prophecy where he actively took part in,and untill 12 hours earlier was still fighting for his life. He has a low self-esteem,remember? So of course when it cames to relationship he doubts himself often and don't see himself handsome. This is the same guy that in MoA asked himself how could Annabeth still love him after knowing how and what he was. You think he thought that Nico got a crush on him? Nah. He is also pretty obvious when it cames to his own relationships (because he is pretty aware of other people's). BotL had the whole crew in love with him and he was clueless of it. He never took it on personal and was probably confused on how,why and when. So the "I'm not your type!" jokes are stupid and after a while not funny,and extremely repetitive.

"Percy is OP and could fight a god/overthrown the whole Olympus without a problem". Did we read the the same books? Apparently no because this is bullshit.

Most of this was born from the fact that Percy isn't afraid to call out wrong doings,especially the ones done by the Gods,and he can be quite disrespectful with them because tired of their games,and another part is because of the Akhlys scene in Tartarus. But half of those things are in his thoughts. They are still Gods and he is a demigods,those are things he can never change and can't go beyond. He is powerful but not that powerful. He can't overthrow the gods both for the difference of power and because it would go against Percy himself as a character. His fatal flaw is loyalty. His is loyal to his friends,his loved ones,Annabeth and his dad too. They have an ok father-son dynamic (I already talked about it in the other post),and going against the Olympians would be going against his father too. And again,he did all of that shit in the first serie because he didn't want to end up like Luke,and now people hc him that way? Naaah. That's crazy. And the "Dark Percy" everyone talk about is just the one that snapped in Hell,where he wanted to survive. Why does he have a fault at that and why people think it's a different Percy than usual? It's the same,only when he is pushed to his limit. There isn't a Dark Percy,it's just Percy that did everything and the gods still decided to use him again and again because they can. Which is depressing as fuck but put emphasis on the distances that there are between Gods and demigods.

There are probably more but I already covered the main/most popular ones. Of course if there are any others you want to discuss about feel free to comment, rebblog,ask,or something. I'm always open to deep talk and overanalyzing of characters.

Now,going on with the last part of this post,at the start I said that the fandom view of Percy influenced Rick writing of him. And I want to explain why.

You see,while some author are completely out of reach from their audience,there are some that are pretty familiar with it and like to mingle with the fans. It's not something bad actually,it means the writer take us in consideration and is aware of how the readers feel about his books. Constructive criticism really do wonders for a product. But it also has his negative effects too. When the author is too close to the fandom,they can assimilate some of their idea about a certain character.

Take the Rowling for example. That woman was out for Draco Malfoy fans since they put him on a pedistal,and went on about how "he is so misunderstood","he is an anti-hero","he isn't evil he just didn't have a choice","Draco is the best character ever,idk why people never talk about him","he is so underrated",and many more. She actually took part of a CG (acting like another reader) with some fans only to emphasize how bad he actually was,and not misunderstood,and those same fans kicked her out because she didn't understand his real character. She then proceeded to dislike him more and I think she published a couple of updates on Pottermore about him,and how the character wasn't an innocent guy everyone made him about. Crazy right? But put emphasis on how much shit can happen when an author gets too close with their readers.

Rick is also close with his readers,and he is quite loved by the fandom. He interact with the fans a lot between books and series updates,or when someone ask him a question on the books/characters. And again, that's quite ok and sweet and all,but it can also damage the author view of his own characters when the whole fandom decide to mischaracterized them.

I didn't read the new Percy Jackson serie and I probably never will because I'm going to stop at Nico serie. Rick showed that he values more quantity over quality,and at this point he is just writing books because he can. I stopped at HoO a couple of years ago,and I'll read TOA only to have a good picture of what happened before TSATS since I've wished for years to have a Nico centred serie.But I'll stop there. Anyway I'm not immune to spoiler and quite like to spoil myself,so I'm always updated. And this is why,I want to ask,what the fuck was Riordan thinking with the way he wrote Percy? Because apparently he is a totally idiot that needs Annabeth to say smart things for him to do something. Like he can't think with his brain and needs Annabeth for everything. And wait! Who else interpreted Percy that way? Oh right! The fandom. The fandom that Rick fairly interact with. You think that an author doesn't know what his readers think about his books or characters? Especially if it's something that almost everyone agree on about? That they don't know or care? Wrong.

They got people that frequently check social media for them and update them on the most big things. For years the fandom had a popular hc on Will (the one about how he could glow in the dark) and in TSATS he apparently can actually glow in the dark. The hc isn't an hc anymore because it's canon,and that's not a coincidence. Like how Percy got written like a stupid idiot. His own author mischaracterized him because the fandom has a different view of him,so he decied to stick around with it.

We are our own greatest enemy. We fear that new fans (especially the ones that will enter the fandom with the TV-show) will mischaracterized the characters once the future seasons will be out,but we ourselves have already done that. And this time it got so bad that Riordan himself decided to stick with it. As if he never wrote Percy like the genius fighter he was. And I'll never like this.

[ma1dita]

Even though Luke doesn’t cheat on Trouble, I listen to Burn from Hamilton and imagine these two post tlt bc yes i like the pain,, no i don’t need therapy, officer 😀

girl the way this is probably canon anyway bc in the trouble!verse luke is a Hamilton Hater ™ and trouble was known to be singing songs from the musical with her ex-bf

im DYINGGGG but damn if you go to therapy hop in we can carpool

sidenote there's still a lot that can relate in the lyrics and im bored rn so lets feed into the delusion for a bit (guys I'm a fic writer who peaked in the 2010s in the age of bad youtube fan recreations of songs to fit their otps... i know how to work with scraps)

She said, "Be careful with that one, love , "He will do what it takes to survive" // You and your words flooded my senses, Your sentences left me defenseless, You built me palaces out of paragraphs, You built cathedrals // I'm re-reading the letters you wrote me, I'm searching and scanning for answers in every line, For some kind of sign, And when you were mine // The world seemed to burn, Burn

Mr. D warned her from the beginning about Luke, even silently in 'play pretend' because she was becoming more like her old self (reckless and crazy, just like him) when she was falling in love with Luke, and it isn't a bad thing but definitely takes away fro what her and Luke have been working at as THE counselors of CHB. Luke's always been good with words as a son of Hermes to the point that it even fools Trouble to some extent, there comes a point where her as an amazing actress can't tell when he's lying---and he learned that from her...

You published the letters she wrote you, You told the whole world, How you brought this girl into our bed, In clearing your name, You have ruined our lives // Do you know what Angelica said, When she read what you'd done?, She said, "You've married an Icarus, "He has flown too close to the sun" // You and your words obsessed with your legacy, Your sentences border on senseless, And you are paranoid in every paragraph, How they perceive you, You, you, you!

this made me giggle OKAY HEAR ME OUT LMFAOOOO ever since they got together (in the span of a little over a year before his betrayal), they always sleep in the same bed when they can as mentioned in 'now that we're older' because they barely have time to themselves in the day....when 'when the chaos is through' is posted, that's when Luke agrees to side with Kronos in his ultimate belief to protect Trouble from impending war and eventually give her a better life outside of CHB. (imagine kronos dressed as eliza schuyler and we're set because luke essentially brings him to bed with them for half of their relationship and she doesn't know LMFAOOOOO) and well yeah yall know his decline after TLT but he's in too deep to fall back

I'm erasing myself from the narrative, Let future historians wonder how Eliza reacted, When you broke her heart, You have torn it all apart // I'm watching it burn, Watching it burn, The world has no right to my heart, The world has no place in our bed, They don't get to know what I said, I'm burning the memories, Burning the letters that might have redeemed you // You forfeit all rights to my heart, You forfeit the place in our bed, You'll sleep in your office instead, With only the memories of when you were mine //I hope that you burn

The beginning part reminds me of the confrontation scene in 'love is a blister' where the counselors put Trouble on trial for loving Luke---the reality of it is they and everyone at camp only know what Luke & Trouble have shown them, but everything between them is private and their own. They didn't expect him to leave her behind. There are a lot of references throughout the series and especially in 'solipsism' where his last time alive as his waning sense of self he goes to visit Trouble who's fresh from visiting Annie in 'love is a blister' and he literally is burning through his old self as kronos overtakes his body. He couldn't imagine not being able to say goodbye before becoming true vessel and well in TLO, teeeechnically what happens and what i plan to write i--[GUNSHOTS]

me saying scraps and then copy pasting almost the whole damn song... ive said too much. this was entertaining, how'd I do?

[peachdoxie]

I'm really happy for your three way fight analysis post for HTTYD 3, because I see a lot of people be like "oh, Hiccup just gave up on peace" when it's not that? It's that keeping the dragons and fighting every threat that comes until there is peace isn't what's best for the dragons, at least not in this moment. Maybe it will be someday, but for now Hiccup needs to let the dragons go because that's what's best for them NOW.

For reference, that's this post anon is referring to.

The end of How to Train Your Dragon centers on a concept that I rarely see in the fiction I consume but is one I really like, and that's the concept of the hero yielding the fight to someone better able to win it.

Hiccup realized that he and the Berkians were fighting a losing battle. The warlords were far more powerful and had more resources to enslave dragons that the Berkians had to rescue them, even with the help of Toothless the Alpha. Hiccup had already been thinking along these lines during the meeting after Grimmel's attack:

Grimmel is just a sign of the times. Our enemies are getting smarter, more determined. We're not just overcrowded. We are exposed, and vulnerable. Short of full-blown war and risking everyone we love, I don't... I don't see a way of staying here any longer.

In particular: "Short of full-blown war and risking everyone we love...."

What Hiccup wanted most was to avoid a war with other humans. He grew up in the middle of a war between dragons and humans, and that was one of survival, not domination: "They raid us because they have to! If they don't bring enough food back, they'll be eaten themselves." The Berkians' response was primarily defensive, with Stoick's attempts at offense literally blowing up in his face. Even then, Stoick's offensive attacks were more about driving the dragons away than annihilating them. (I wrote about this more here.)

But Hiccup learned first-hand how devastating a war with a person who wants war is when Drago used Toothless to try and kill him and Stoick pushed Hiccup out of the way. There was no good outcome for any of the Berkians. Stoick died. Toothless was forced to kill him. Hiccup watched both happen and was powerless to stop it. Not to mention how much of Berk was destroyed when Drago attacked it.

And a year later, things haven't improved. In fact, they've gotten worse. Grimmel shows that, as Hiccup explained. He was able to get past their scouts and install a large trap for Toothless, leaving the Light Fury there as bait. He broke into Hiccup's house to threaten him, and even if Hiccup anticipated that, he didn't anticipate the Deathgrippers on the roof and how much they'd damage Berk (an attack eerily similar to Drago's attack on the gathering of Chieftains from Stoick's flashback).

The only solution Hiccup had was to leave:

Hiccup: If we want to live in peace with our dragons, we need a better plan.

Gobber: So, what are you saying, Chief?

Hiccup: I'm saying we have to disappear. Off the map. Take the dragons to a place where no one will find them.

That's it. Leave Berk and hope they can find the Hidden World. Staying and fighting would risk war.

But even before Hiccup saw how inhospitable the Hidden World would be to humans, it wasn't shaping out to be a feasible idea to move everyone there. The Vikings liked New Berk a lot, as evidenced by the party they threw:

Gobber: Don't say I thought you were a little off your raw for this but it isn't half bad.

Hiccup: This is supposed to be a temporary solution.

Eret: It's unanimous. Everyone agrees we've definitely traded up. Well done, Chief.

Hiccup, really, was the only person convinced that moving everyone to the Hidden World was the best solution. Very few Berkian Vikings had heard of the place, let alone believed it existed. Even Astrid, Hiccup's most staunch supporter, doubted his plan.

And as he learned, they were right. The Hidden World isn't a place that humans can easily live in. It's a world of dragons.

Hiccup knew this even before Grimmel kidnapped Toothless and the Light Fury from New Berk: "You belong there, with her. We don't." It's important to note that, before he says this to Toothless, he glances up at the buildings the Berkians had started to put up. They're happy there and are already getting settled. Uprooting them again would be immensely unpopular, even if the Hidden World could support humans.

Of course, Grimmel finds them. The warlords bring an armada. Even though New Berk is "defensible" and "hidden," the Berkians aren't safe there. They're not safe anywhere.

This brings me back to the concept of yielding the fight to someone else better able to win it. Hiccup realized that he and the Vikings were fighting a losing battle. Continuing to fight risks a new war that would be even more deadly than the one between Berkian Vikings and dragons. I think that Toothless falling from the sky, unconscious from Grimmel's dart, was when it really hit Hiccup that this wasn't something he could continue to fight. It was the first time in the entire trilogy when Hiccup was completely powerless to save Toothless. 

Even in HTTYD 2, during Toothless Lost and Stoick Saves Hiccup, Hiccup wasn't nearly as powerless as he was during As Long As He's Safe. Yes, Toothless fell from the sky into the ice, but he was conscious, and Hiccup could at least yell at Valka about going back for Toothless (even though he'd already been rescued). When Drago takes Toothless, even though the dragon is being mind controlled, he's at least not at risk of dying immediately. But when Toothless is falling from the sky, unconscious, he would die if he hit the water.

In the context I'm talking about, yielding is not the same as giving up, or conceding defeat, or fighting on until you're at your last breath and letting someone else save you. It's making an active choice to yield the fight to someone else because you know it's the only way to succeed as best you can. Hiccup's only option to save Toothless was to yield the rescue to the Light Fury. And as I wrote about in my three-way fight analysis, it's mirrored a short while later, when Hiccup's only option to save the dragons is to yield their safety to the seclusion of the Hidden World. 

Personally, I find this immensely satisfying, though I'm aware not everyone does. So often, I'm bombarded with stories about characters never giving up and fighting on until they either win or are forced to give up. There's something to be said for perseverance, but I think it is also an incredibly dangerous way to think and act. Knowing when to yield and realize that continuing towards a certain goal or dream is an incredibly valuable skill to have. I've watched too many people I know, and read/watched too many stories in fiction, continue on a path when it's damaging them more than the end goal will benefit them.

Quite frankly, the only time I've seen this concept of learning when to yield a battle to someone/something else explicitly part of a character's arc is in the Last Olympian, the final book in the original Percy Jackson series, and coincidentally the book-equivalent of the HTTYD films in how much it impacted my life (which is a lot). Percy was advised to yield Pandora's Box to someone better equipped to protect it instead of fighting for it (and against the temptation to open it) himself. And at the conclusion, the "single choice [to] end his days" that Percy was prophesied to make was about choosing to let Luke end the fight with Kronos instead of making it his fight, as you'd expect the hero to do. 

I've been enamored with this concept since 2009 and wished for more of it in my media, and found it lacking. And yet, in the artistry of fate, I found it in the conclusion of the How to Train Your Dragon trilogy. It's a very similar execution of the concept, though less explicit than in PJO. Despite it being Hiccup's goal to live in peace with the dragons, and despite the fact that he's the hero of the story and thus expected by common narrative conventions to win at all costs, he chooses not to continue the fight because he knows he can't win it. (I talk about this more at length in this post.)

The end of HTTYD 3 is laden with irony. We expect Hiccup to fight until he wins or die trying, as part of common narrative expectations. And it's set up in the repeated emphasis of how stubborn Hiccup is, throughout all three films:

"We're Vikings. We have stubbornness issues." (Hiccup, HTTYD)

"Every bit the boar-headed, stubborn Viking you ever were!" (Gobber, HTTYD)

"Boar-headed! Just like his mother!" (Stoick, HTTYD 2)

"You know what he's like. He won't give up, Gobber. And if Hiccup finds Drago, before we find him…" (Stoick, HTTYD 2. Stoick's tone greatly contrasts that of the previous line, here expressing serious concern about Hiccup's stubbornness, for the first time showing that stubbornness can go too far.)

"You are the bravest, most stubborn, most determined... knucklehead I know. Toothless didn't give you that, Hiccup." (Astrid, HTTYD 3)

So the end of HTTYD 3, with Hiccup not continuing with his stubborn determination to bring peace between Vikings and dragons, is heavily ironic, and I think a lot of people dislike that, either because they wanted to have a happy ending (not unreasonable) or because they see it as Hiccup being out of character instead of Hiccup undergoing character development in an unexpected way.

In addition to personally really liking the concept of yielding and knowing when to stop following a certain path because it's how you started, I also agree entirely with you that it's not Hiccup "giving up" on peace (if I hadn't already made that very clear). And ultimately, while "peace" is what Hiccup has been fighting for, especially in HTTYD 2, "peace" isn't really what matters to Hiccup. I talk about this at length in this post, but to summarize: what matters the most to Hiccup is that Toothless and the other dragons are safe and free. He mentions both of these things in his goodbye to Toothless:

Go on, bud. Lead them to the Hidden World. You'll be safe there. Safer than you could ever be with me. It's okay. I love you too. And I want you to be free. Our world doesn't deserve you... yet.

The title of the music track at this moment, "As Long As He's Safe," emphasizes this, as does Hiccup's willingness to literally die in order to let Toothless live. The cinematography of the scene really enforces that Hiccup's primary concern was about making sure Toothless was safe, which I've written about here. By being okay with letting the dragons go to the Hidden World, even if it meant leaving the Vikings behind, it shows that Hiccup ultimately didn't care about peace between the Vikings and dragons. He cared most about letting the dragons live in safety and freedom, without threat to their lives or autonomy.

It's for this reason that I don't like to say that Hiccup didn't "win" at the end of HTTYD 3. Sure, he didn't achieve his goal of peace between Vikings and dragons, and so in that way he lost to Grimmel and the warlords (even though they didn't win either). Instead, Hiccup and the Berkians won in the way that they were able to succeed in what matters most to them, and that's the well-being of the dragons. And because this is what matters most to Hiccup, I don't see his actions at the end of the film as out of character.

It makes me think of the line in the original film, when Hiccup says to Stoick,

Dad. It's not what you think you're up against. It's like nothing you've ever seen. Dad, please! I promise you that you can't win this one! For once in your life would you please just listen to me?!

I don't count this as foreshadowing, nor am I sure of how much of a parallel it's meant to be, but the same thing happened to Hiccup as he told his dad. He learned he couldn't win this fight. Luckily, he listened to that fact and didn't engage in a futile battle from which there would be no way to win. No Hiccup ex machina to save them. The only way to come close to winning was to not continue the fight.

All in all, do I think that HTTYD 2 and HTTYD 3 are a little too subtle in how they show these themes? Perhaps. Do I think that people went into the final film anticipating a different ending, though a combination of conventional Hollywood narratives and an expectation of how an animated "kids" movie is "supposed" to end? Absolutely. Will I be talking about this in my PhD dissertation? Almost certainly. 

Am I aware that not everyone agrees with my views in HTTYD 3? Yes. Do I think that I'm biased in my opinion about HTTYD 3 because of my own personal preferences, my skill in literary and cinematic analysis, and the fact that I've watched all of these films multiple times and have spent years analyzing them so I know these films more in depth than the vast majority of the world? Certainly. 

Do I also think that the How to Train Your Dragon trilogy is an incredibly well-crafted masterpiece of literature of the highest degree? Yes. And do I think that Dean DeBlois should have been nominated for and won all the major awards for best screenplay for HTTYD 3? Also yes, and I will be forever pissed off that he wasn't.