#traumatizzed annabeth chase

[princessofghosts-posts]

These days I was bombarded on TikTok with people talking about Hunger Games latest book (one day,I will read this series too,one day) and there was a girl that made a comment that got me. She said that now the audience was older,the author wasn't holding back anymore and put a lot more of dark topics,than usual,in the new book. And this made me think a bit about HoO.

I often talked with my best friend about how I wanted Riordan to publish the books going alongside with his audience's aging. PJO is probably the strongest serie Riordan wrote,everyone in this fandom read the first 5 books,and then decided to continue or not. It's a crescendo of actions and an heavier tone take place with each books,that then culminate in TLO with the final battle and the aftermath. And for a pre-teen (aimed at 13 years old and up) is pretty good.

But after the first serie,the readers grew and I really wished so had the tone of HoO,since he introduce pretty dark topics and the stakes were extremely more high than Kronos wanting to take over Manhattan. Take for example Tartarus: Annabeth and Percy spend the entirely of HoH down there and when they come back,in BoO,they don't have PoVs. I saw a couple of people complain about it,because at least the last chapter should had been Percy's to close everything. And while I'm neutral to it,there is a reason why they don't have a single PoVs: Rick doesn't know how to write Tartarus's trauma. And even if he did,he couldn't because his audience is from 13 years (sometimes even youngers) up,so some topics cannot be explored further from the surface.

One thing is reading their actions and thoughts and be like: "Oh damn,they are loosing it. This place is hell,when are they going to get out? I'm starting to get anxious for them..." and another is witnessing a full PTSD episode because the trauma is too big for them to handle,and they don't know how to cope with it.

That's also a reason why Nico doesn't mention his trip other than him meeting Akhlys. Reading BoO I was expecting to find something more about his experience in Tartarus (and I was already on a rollercoaster with any of his PoVs without it) but he never think about it. It's like he wasn't effected at all even tho,in MoA,he told Percy he almost went insane down there. Riordan probably doesn't even know how to being with him on this.

There is so much abuse in all of the characters's backstories too but it's never explored in a deeper way. Annabeth's backstory is a great example of that. But other than her we have basically almost everybody else in the same situation.

I don't blame Rick since those are his books and he decide the target audience for his products. That's completely fair and fine. He's the author so he can do what he want. And I also recognize that I'm way out of the target he has,since I'm not 13-14 anymore,and this also weight on my view of the books. But I still love them.

I just wish the books could grow with the audience too,so that more mature tones of certain events could be addressed in the proper way,since the readers would be of a proper age for them. Let's be honest,there is no way that Annabeth and Percy are mentally ok after Tartarus,while Nico is trying to hold himself together and almost failing in it everytime.

I was hoping that with the newest series he was going to change a bit the narrative tone,especially with TSATS since they went back to Tartarus and it's a book on Nico,and he isn't the most mentally stable and happiest character of the franchise. But I was wrong.

Fortunately we have fanfiction that take care of it,and that take time to explore the parts that Rick can't or won't because of his audience's age limitation or his inability to write them right.