#tsats analysis

[sunflowergraves]

When Uncle Rick called Nico di Angelo and Will Solace soulmates, it made me think back to something written in BOO:

"Nico had once read a story from Plato, who claimed that in the ancient times all humans had been a combination of male and female. Each person had two heads, four arms, four legs. Supposedly, these combo-humans had been so powerful they made the gods uneasy, so Zeus split them in half – man and woman. Ever since, humans had felt incomplete. They spent their lives searching for their other halves.

And where does that leave me? Nico wondered.

It wasn’t his favourite story."

I think this is a really important connection. Rick didn't say what he did about Solangelo just to make shippers happy. He's answering Nico's question by saying he's worthy of love. There is someone out there for him despite what anyone says. And by doing so, he is also addressing every queer person out there who also doubts finding love and companionship in a world that so desperately wants to tear them down.

Not only did we get a book where the tragic main character gets a happy ending, but also one that validates every queer person out there. Anyway, that's my TED talk, thank you.

Edit:

Here is the quote that Rick Riordan made during an interview. I'll leave the link to the website in the comments!

[ambriel-angstwitch]

So some more thoughts on The Sun and The Star

I love how this book has one of the healthiest understanding of love I’ve seen in recent media.

To quote Persephone

“But no matter what form love takes, no matter how much or how little you have, you must still choose to cultivate it. In friendships, in romantic relationships, in life,”

I love that quote because I feel like there’s no longer an understanding of the choice you make to love. Love is a complex idea, and I feel like to many people believe it’s just a feeling. From what I’ve observed and understood in my life it isn’t though. Of course feelings are important and are typically what start it love isn’t just that. Love is also a choice and a commitment. You choose each day to love somebody to commit yourself to actively work towards furthering your relationship and your understanding of each other.

This book understood that. It understood that in a relationship there’s going to be times it’s hard, you don’t understand each other and you might fight. Those giddy romantic feelings might die out for a bit. But none of those mean you give up. No you work through your issues and along the way you might reignite the spark that started everything.

And that’s what Solangelos relationship was, they had their highs and their lows, they fought, they didn’t always feel those sappy feelings but through all of that they never gave up on their relationship. They worked through it.

I don’t know I just thought this was a really refreshing take on a love story. It was a type of love that even I as someone Aroace spec could understand. I don’t get those giddy brain chemical feelings but I do understand commitment and choosing to love those people important in your life.

[flightfoot]

I agree with this. I was fine with her questioning her relationship with Jason given how it started, but in TOA I was getting the vibe that it might be going the direction of saying that Piper never had actual feelings for Jason in the first place, which didn't jive with what we saw when we were in her head during HOO. She's not totally sure what label to pul on her sexuality, nor is she too concerned with doing so, but she did have feelings for Jason and now has feelings for Shel.

Minor Spoilers for The Sun and the Star

I really like how when Piper and Nico talk about Jason and Piper never once diminishes her realtionship with Jason because she’s dating a woman now or even officially labels her sexuality.

Piper says that she was in love with Jason and that those feelings were real and not a thought that Hera forced onto her and I actually really like that they added that because they’re not just pushing Piper into the mold of “unknowingly closested lesbian” or saying that her love for Jason meant nothing because “she’s gay now” or “didn’t know she was gay”.

Piper talks brielfy about realzing that she had feelings for another person after Jason and still greiving his death while also coming to realization that she was attracted to women. On top of that, she adds that she doesn’t know if she feels fully in tune with any one label quite yet, she mentions not during it she’s bi or pan and even says “if I’m never attracted to another man does that make me a lesbian?”.

I think that it was written really well and I love the way that Rick and Mark did this because it also doesn’t act like everything that Jason or Piper felt for each other was fake or simply planted in their heads by Hera. They had very real feelings for each other despite what Hera did to them. Their love had always been real even after everything they went through and because of it, Jason protected not only Piper, but everyone he loved up until the very end.

Knowing this makes Piper’s grief for Jason that much more real too, he wasn’t just some guy she was with before she knew she was attracted to women, she wasn’t “confused” when she was with him. She says. it herself, she loved him, he was her first love and she still misses him every day.

[aroaceleovaldez]

I was reading a post about CoTG and I realized: Rick has seemingly started to write every character pairing with the exact same dynamic, and he's not good at writing that dynamic and it doesn't make sense for 90% of the characters he writes it for.

It's that very specific dynamic of one half of the pair who is almost aggressive to the other party - "teasing" them constantly/insulting them, affectionately punching/judo flipping/maiming/etc, seemingly almost always exasperated with the other - and said other party usually just accepts this treatment or blanketly views it fondly, and may generally be framed as more incompetent than their partner and a little bit of a doormat (particularly relating to being insulted/teased/etc by their partner).

We start seeing this dynamic in HoO with Percy and Annabeth, as a sort of semi-inconsistent twist on their rivals-to-friends-to-lovers dynamic from the first series. Then the dynamic pattern develops further with Leo and Calypso. Then Magnus and Alex. Then Nico and Will, particularly in TSATS. And now in CoTG, it's Percy and Annabeth again but even more in this direction.

I know people have talked about Nico and Will's relationship over the series rapidly being shoehorned into Percabeth Two™, and it's extremely apparent in TSATS that Rick's doing it on purpose (including directly quoting Percabeth scenes but minorly tweaking them to be Solangelo). But recognizing it as an overarching trend in Rick's later books honestly reminds me a lot of how Rick started trying to apply the "Percy Formula" so-to-speak to nearly every protagonist in HoO (and then try to replicate similar character archetypes with Magnus and Apollo's narrations - moreso Magnus in being jaded and sarcastic, very much trying to be first series Percy. He only sounds unique because Rick failed at making him Percy 2. Apollo is more akin to later-series Percy characterization of being goofy and incompetent. Apollo [and Zeus] even got retconned to give Apollo a more similar backstory to Percy's). Rick seems to have decided that he thinks the audience wants this specific dynamic but 10 times over, except he's not good at writing it the first time because it's a bastardization of the time he did a different thing okay.

And Rick also seems aware of that too! Because he retconned Calypso and Leo at the end of TOA, probably because he realized how absolutely awful it was reading when they were written with that dynamic of Calypso just functionally hating Leo and constantly being aggressive towards him! The only time Rick's actually made the dynamic even semi-successful was with Magnus and Alex, because it actually fits within their characters, their dynamics with each other, and their environment. Alex beheading Magnus on the regular works out fine because there are no repercussions to that in Valhalla, Magnus will be fine, so it does genuinely come off as humorous. And Alex has been effectively established to be abrasive at times but have her genuine feelings shine through regularly, and that meshes well with Magnus' jaded-and-aloof-but-quietly-very-empathetic character. And Magnus has been established to, yes, not be great at combat, particularly compared to Alex. They are the only time that flavor of dynamic in that form was effective and cohesive.

Percabeth is no longer rivals-to-friends-to-lovers badasses on equal levels with shaky pasts who finally found some form of permanence with one another. Now it's super smart doting and affectionately aggressive girlfriend and her silly goofy 50%-of-the-time incompetent boyfriend who she judo flips/pushes off cliffs/etc - but affectionately~! Solangelo is trying to riff off of the early series "Poseidon & Athena are enemies" dynamic that Percabeth had but with Apollo & Hades being "opposites" but learning to accept each other, except it ends up with Will just coming off as a huge asshole and Nico being retconned to a complete doormat about it - when prior to that those characterizations would be completely contrary to their established characters (even just from TOA!). Calypso in HoO gets retconned from her PJO characterization to being snooty and aggressive, and Leo's false persona gets merged into his just normal personality except he just also becomes a doormat but more goofy than Nico with occasional haha-dark/depression-humor! Which Nico also got. Which was also a bastardized Percy trait that got redistributed.

It's exhausting. Rick write more than one relationship dynamic you can do it I promise

[willthespy]

The Nico is extroverted and Will is introverted argument is both right and wrong depending on what your definition of both terms is and I have to talk about it. I agree mostly with the original post that claimed this, so just listen and bear with me.

Most people categorize extroverts as ‘social’ and introverts as less so, but in reality (depending on what theory) that is not really true. Because I do agree Nico was a social kid who still has the social skills, but has dampened it down because of his own insecurities and the insecurities he’s been fed due to his parentage. Then for Will, he’s got some solitude and gloominess in him for sure (another introvert stereotype), but shows himself as the (I don’t know what word I want to use for it, but I’ll go with) happy head counselor, because he ‘had to be.’

As for the definition I prefer to use, it’s in fact a bit different. Note that it isn’t a black or white thing, and that you can’t be 100% introverted or 100% extroverted. That’s the same as saying you’re 100% autistic, because all of these terms are all created and used to categorize, and you can’t perfectly fit a category. There’s no such thing as ‘perfection.’

Now, it’s been a while since I’ve properly read about cognitive functions, but as a Feeler type myself, I know most about the different types of ‘Feelers’ to say that Nico has dominant introverted feeling (Fi) and Will uses dominant extroverted feeling (Fe).

While Nico has shown to have social skills, he definitely looks to be a Fi user. He knows who he is (again, not 100% - it isn’t black or white) and what he wants and he doesn’t really base his values on others. I think why a lot of characters with Fi are ‘emo’ or ‘weird’ is because they’re authentic to themselves and don’t bend themselves to anyone else’s will that easily. Now, we all know Nico can be a stubborn prick, but we also can see that in PJO he corrects Minos on who he is. His whole thing there is him being ‘the Ghost King.’ He knows he is, he doesn’t need to be told he is that, he just does what feels real to him.

Also that one scene in ToA (I believe) where Nico is very blunt towards Lester/Apollo and where Will tells him he needs to work on his social skills or whatever? Yeah, that shows their differences in Fi vs Fe. Nico focuses on his inner needs and values (which actually aren’t selfish at all, but important to the entire universe in this case), while Will knows the bluntness isn’t socially acceptable (as far as he knows) and, albeit jokingly, tries to control his outer world to bring it to ‘harmony.’

Note that Nico also has had selfish inner values, wants, and needs. For example, trying to revive his sister. But Will was also selfish when he tried to keep Nico away from the Trogs for example. Fi and Fe aren’t inherently selfish, but their different types might make them make selfish decisions.

Will and Nico both are self-sacrificial, but in different ways. Nico does it for his own internal values and because he feels he’s not wanted anyway, and Will seems to do it because he seems to feel the need to be strong and have an image of himself up for everyone else, even if that means putting his own needs second to his own.

Will also showed some eagerness to absorb and ‘fix’ Nico’s negative emotions in a way. He’s a healer, it’s what he does, right? But meanwhile he struggles to accept or even acknowledge his own ‘darkness.’ (Yes, I’ll talk about this as long as I’ll live. I won’t stop. Ever.)

Also very important. Nico was way more accepting of the Troglodytes than Will. And you might say, “well, isn’t that an extroverted trait?” And I’d tell you: “that depends on your definition!” But in terms of Fi/Fe, it’s Nico who’s showing introverted feeling here. He doesn’t judge, as long as they (the Trogs) don’t go against his core values.

Will, my dumb, dumb, dumb son (note: I don’t actually think he’s dumb), whom I love very much, shows Fe here. He’s quicker to judge because of his sense and knowledge of social norms, but also because of his care for his loved ones. I don’t know, I think both are true arguments as to why he was against the idea of the Trogs.

Also this is why I think it wasn’t too out of character for Will to get all bitchy and negative about the Underworld. And also not why Nico got upset about it, because Will being against his ‘home’, went against his inner self. Boo! Fe vs Fe argument! Take that liberals! (joke)

In short:

Nico is the Fi user. He’s authentic, stubborn (in defense of his own values), actually attracts misfits - because he’s not as quick to judge people who go against social norms - as he doesn’t conform to social norms himself. He’s passionate and emotional (very emotion-driven). If I remember correctly, he also shows to solve problems by talking about it, rather than just cheering anyone up.

When he was ‘unhealthy’, he also retreated from society and went into solitude + lashed out. He also strictly followed his internal beliefs that he was unwanted and all that, while Will claimed that he was the only one thinking that.

Will is the Fe user. He is a healer and nurturer, but neglects his own inner self. He is externally friendly, but can be a bitch. (Sorry not sorry fellow Will lovers.) He can definitely be a bit controlling and less expressive for the sake of his outside world and is also more aware of what he thinks are social norms and cares about them more. (As is seen in ToA and TSATS).

I checked PDB (not the best source, but a source nonetheless) right after this, and people seem to agree. Nico is categorized as INFP (Fi > Ne > Ti > Se), while Will is voted to be ENFJ (Fe > Ni > Te > Si). Thank you for listening to my TED-talk.

[cardboardboxy]

Dionysus is going through it in riordanverse

Heres why :)

So there's the obvious that hes imprisoned in camp, which is probably difficult

Whats worse then being imprisoned? Being imprisoned with a bunch of doomed children and not being able to do anything to save them

Dionysus is (most likely) able to sense all of the campers mental states and has to watch their decline. "Well I'm glad you asked!" I say, knowing that nobody asked

Dionysus is the god of madness, and cannonically in PJO he can sense peoples madness, we see this with Chris Rodriguez and Nico Di Angelo to an extent. Both of these characters are already experiencing mental illness before they go to dionysus so he could only be able to get a vague sense but I dont think this is the case

Some modern worshippers of dionysus view him as almost a god of mental health, which would mean he has much more intricate understanding of peoples mental states then just 'mentally ill' and 'not mentally ill'

This would cause him to be very aware of exactly how damaged all of the campers where in all different ways and he'd not be able to do anything to help them, either due to the issues being too deeply rooted for him to do anything about in the short amount of time he'd be able to help them and the fact that gods are forbidden from interfering too closely with demigods

So for 16 books and counting he just has to fester in all these kids trauma, which would be a very good reason for him to avoid getting close to the campers on a personal level where possible

This concludes my yap session 👍

[charbroiledchicken]

i have reasons to believe there will be a fierrochase cameo in 'the sun and the star 2'

reason number one: delusion.

[amiti-art]

TSATS SPOILERS

Nyx: *hates sunlight and changes*

Me: oh wow she would really hate Apollo then

Me:

Me: WAIT A MINUTE

This might sound very delusional but anyone else had a feeling while reading that the whole thing with Nyx seemed a bit like a foreshadowing for a possible rebellion against Zeus?

She rules by fear (like Zeus), she is overly controlling twords her children (like Zeus), she thinks she understends them better than they understend themselves (like Zeus), she thinks she knows better than them (like Zeus),

I think one of the characters even calls her a tyrant (like Apollo called Zeus in the ToN) She doesn't want to change herself (like Zeus)

And in the end her children turned against her in order to save the demigods. It's her own son who burned her mansion.

Apollo's rebellion against Zeus foreshadowing anyone???? (He deserves to burn down his dad's palace too ❤️)

Also in the chapters when they fight Nyx the fact that Will is Apollo's son is pointed out at least 3 times. And this whole thing with her hating the light and changes when Apollo's most important domain is sun/light and he changed so much during last year???

I'm more than delusional at this point

[femmefangirl]

yeah. and this is why i really can't imagine this every happening within the context of toa. you really think apollo with all that redemption and shit is going to let Will who he considers to be one of his favorite kids into Tartarus? He'd forbid the guy from even stepping in the underworld. Apollo quite literally would die for his kids; he'd do something about this.

[marspumpkin]

what does the title mean, truly?

the sun and the star. two concepts that, at surface level, seem like polar opposites. representing two traditionally juxtaposed states, night and day. but they're the same fundamentally. our sun is a star itself.

now think of two teenagers who are aesthetically completely different. one being tied with darkness and death, the other with light and life. famed for being so drastically unalike it's shocking that they'd date. but if you look closer their experiences, their trauma, are very, very similar. at their cores they're the same. and they can connect through these shared experiences to help each other heal both physically and mentally. in this essay i wish

[not-eli]

Hear me out.

I'm literally pissed with some people rn. They're hating on Will and finding dumb and stupid arguments and Istfg you give me the same vibes as those toxic percico shippers that literally tried their all fucking best to make Will seem like a bad person.

"He kissed him when he was upset that's so rude!!" No bitch he wanted to comfort his boyfriend but he didn't know what to do. It was explicitly stated that they had never kissed before and it was an impulse. Maybe he didn't mean to do that, but it's not like Nico minded it, did he?

"Omg he is unsure of his feelings for Nico!!" No you deep shit he has a fucking thing called ANXIETY. I have anxiety as well and I can assure you that believing that the people you care about don't actually love you or are going to leave you at any moment is a normal symptom. Now, I'm not stating that he has canon social-anxiety, but do not come up with these kind of bullsheets where he's forcing himself or sm.

Also, many of people complained about how he was "unimpressive" like I'm sorry bitch, do you know what the actual hell "fanon" means? No everything we theorize is true, and it Just can't be.

Will obviously feels a lot of pressure on his shoulders. He became a cabin consulor when he was like 11 or so (I don't remember the actual age alr) and as the best healer of the camp he feels like he just CANNOT fail, and I can assure you it's the worst feeling in the world.

Please, do not criticaze characters without firstly getting to understand them.

[the-ultimate-junkyard]

I'm like 75% into the sun and the star book, but I wanted to talk about the traits we get to see more of in will solace. Since his first appearance in TLO and his latest in ToN (before this book came out), we saw that will is a sarcastic healer son of Apollo that cares a lot about Nico. And the rest of the traits like how he's a chill guy, the sunshine of the grumpy/sunshine dynamic duo, and other stuff is just headcanon from the fandom.

But in TSaTS, we're seeing a will solace we've never seen before. What we're seeing is a guy with a huge anxiety and severe abandonment issues and a grudging sense of duty.

The first time we get to read in will's POV is when he's dreaming. In the dream he's following Nico as he led him to somewhere in the Underworld. We see dream!nico mocking will because he didn't want to jump into the river Styx. We see will jumping into the river because, if Nico wants me to do it, I should. And after swimming in the river and coming back out alive, we see dream!nico mocking him once more: you're just slowing me down. Will replies (while sobbing) with: I won't, Nico! I promise!

This is a really interesting way to introduce a character's POV. Why would he follow dream!nico into the river styx knowing well enough that he's in a dream? In the second time we see his POV, he's in another dream, trying to heal dream!nico in front of dream!lester and dream!meg and dream!rachel. In that dream, yet again, we see them mocking and belittling will: my children are supposed to be the best doctors. what use are you if you can't even heal your own boyfriend? you're supposed to be good at it. So he tries to heal. Because he's not going to let anyone think that he's useless.

Well, well, well, we're seeing a pattern here, aren't we?

Will is afraid of being a burden to others. He thinks if he doesn't do something someone asks for, if he doesn't do something to help, then people would turn on him and start to believe he's worthless. The possibility that lingers in his head bothers him, so he helps and helps and helps people. He helps heal campers. He helps Nico.

After their plummet into Tartarus, while Nico was sleeping, we get to read will's POV once more. While reading it we realise he's panicking, and feeling anxious. This massive mess of an anxiety stems from the unfamiliar surroundings of Tartarus, and he starts to overthink, which results to: I should be doing something. I'm a counselor, I'm supposed to take the initiative. I've been burdening Nico since we entered the underworld. I'm doing nothing. I'm supposed to be doing something. I should be doing something.

As we all know, overthinking leads to irrational decisions lead to trouble. And that's what happened after this part.

I'll add more to this post after I finish reading the book, but it's certainly something interesting to see.

[ambriel-angstwitch]

Talking about TSATS again because it’s cheaper than therapy

“He had spent so many years resisting companionship friendship and love… No matter how hard people tried to show Nico that they cared he had chosen lonelinesss and isolation instead.”

I find Nico’s thoughts resonating with me a lot because I’ve been in a lot of really dark places in my life. The thing with struggling with mental health is that a lot of the time you don’t really want to get help. There’s something comforting about keeping things the way they are even if the way things are is horrible. You become complacent to quote Nicos experiences

“He’d always been known as the demigod who wouldn’t eat. Why had he let himself get to the point of starvation over and over again? Because he was used to it.”

It’s also so easy to stick yourself in a box like Nico did. To go “well this is just the way things are” and just stay that way.

Change is terrifying and when you’ve convinced yourself that you’re comfortable in your misery makes it so much harder to take the first step towards getting better. Besides it’s hard to open up to people. Even if they’ve shown time and time again they care for you it still feels like making yourself vulnerable will lead to an attack or them deciding you’re no longer worth the effort

Then another thing is even as you start to get better the comfort of being depressed doesn’t really go away. I and other people I’ve heard about have had moments where we’ve missed being more depressed. Which from an outside perspective is so weird, but I think what makes us miss it is the constant it used to be and that now there’s so much more effort that goes into things. It’s a lot easier to just live rather than being alive. But simply drifting isn’t nearly as rewarding as pushing yourself and getting those experiences and relationships that make you feel completely alive. These things don’t completely eradicate the darkness but overtime it lessens it and makes it easier to deal with.

“I can’t ever escape what’s happened to me. But I can learn to live with it.” - Nico Di Angelo

The thing is people often act like you need to get rid of your depression, anxiety or whatever to live a happy fulfilling life. But you don’t necessarily have to, if you can that’s great but it’s important also to learn to live with it. Learn what strategies help you get out of the pit quicker, and learn to rely on other people. If you slip sometimes that’s ok too. Growth isn’t linear. It’s a path we all take in some shape or form, but it’s going to look different for everyone, and that’s ok.

[vonnietheinvisible]

** spoilers for TSATS, I don't know how to add a "read more" option 😤 **

I say,

Maybe that was Will actually trying to wake him up. Maybe he was actually hearing Will speak.

[aroaceleovaldez]

I HAVE BEEN REMINDED OF SOMETHING i think i've made a post about it before but maybe it's just sitting in my drafts. idk, whatever, I will ramble again. Said thing that reminded me was a tiktok by madison_murrah about how the PJO TV show doesn't get the balance between mundanity and magical correct for pjo and I want to expand on that cause while a.) it totally is a problem in the show and i take issue with it, b.) it is also a problem in later books and i ALSO take issue with that too and i would like to elaborate on it

this got long so ramble of the day below the cut:

so the thing is that PJO is actually pretty unique in it's approach to hidden world modern fantasy. like, hidden world modern fantasy is a decently established genre with a ton of examples, but there's a reason why PJO stands out so much, and that's because technically it's NOT "hidden world." There is very intentionally no distinction between the mundane world and the mythological, at least in first series. They 100% overlap. And you do not necessarily need to be "special" to see the "mythological world-" some mortals are totally naturally clear-sighted, a lot of kids are clear-sighted, and it's like 50/50 for if mortals can become clear-sighted. In fact, most demigods aren't immune to the effects of the Mist, all that really matters is if you're actually thinking about being able to see through it. And there's a reason for that!

In general, this format of the "hidden world" modern fantasy serves two purposes: One, as the series is meant to introduce people to Greek mythology and explain why it is relevant and how it can be relatable in modern contexts, it intentionally juxtaposes myths against modern concepts: Medusa runs an apparently average garden statue store. Procrustes runs a mattress store. The entrance to the Underworld is in LA at a record store. Circe lives on an island paradise that's secretly dangerous. Hydras are like chain donut stores that seem to pop up on every corner. Perseus and his mother struggle in Perseus' childhood but get a happy ending. Calypso has an island paradise where the challenge for the hero of our story is being tempted to leave behind his goals. The plot of Sea of Monsters is blatantly the Odyssey, and it's about Percy trying to get to his best friend (who he shares a literal psychic link to) who is in danger of getting married to someone awful (a literal monster) to help you understand Odysseus trying to get back to Penelope and how important to each other and in sync they are. Battle of the Labyrinth is Theseus and the Labyrinth and it's Percy/Theseus trying to protect his home and his people and fellow kids (like Nico) from the dangers in the maze. These are all supposed to help us understand what is actually going on in those stories.

We also still see how Greek mythology influence shapes and influences western culture in general in their world (which is supposed to be our own and so uses real-world examples) - in government, in architecture, in pop culture - Mythomagic is clearly supposed to be your standard TCG like Magic The Gathering. And in general there is no distinction between where the mythological ends and mundane begins - Camp Half-Blood is both a magical training space for demigods and your run of the mill underfunded summer camp, complete with cheesy camp songs and t-shirts and crafts. Olympus is located on top of the Empire State Building which is operating completely as normal except for when a demigod asks to go to a non-existent floor. Your best friend with a muscular disease in his legs is secretly a satyr. Your brother with down syndrome is a cyclops. Your teacher in a wheelchair is secretly an immortal centaur. Your crappy algebra substitute is a literal fury. But also they're still your teachers. The satyr is still your best friend, the cyclops is still your brother. And that brings me to the second aspect of all of this (which i have talked about before [here] and [here]) - the other purpose it serves is that it is an extension of the overarching disability themes that form the core of the series.

The entire reason that meshing of mundanity and magical is so intertwined is entirely because it's part of the disability metaphor, specifically inspired by early 2000s parenting/teaching concepts for children with disabilities, particularly learning disabilities, as trying to reframe disabilities as "superpowers" to empower kids (and still exists in some more modern forms - like referring to disabilities as "being differently-abled") (I talk about it in my previous post on the subject but this generally fell out of favor due to many kids/students finding it belittling of their struggles) - this is why we get the description of ADHD and Dyslexia being framed as "demigod superpowers." In the series this structure is intentionally made to encourage kids to reframe how they view disabilities in general as not something negative but something interesting and fantastical that they may be more open to engage with - and PJO does this in a really nice way where a lot of the disability struggles are still acknowledged and treated sympathetically. Kids still get bullied, Percy and Annabeth struggle in school or with reading/spelling, they grapple with both internal and external ableism. The entire reason for the titan war in the first series, at least from the demigod perspective, is criticizing flawed systems meant to support disabled people that don't do their job effectively or let too many people fall through the cracks. The Mist "hiding" the "mythological world" from mortals (and even some demigods) is about how most abled people (and some undiagnosed people) don't recognize disability struggles until it affects them personally. None of these things are glossed over! It's handled with nuance and care! The series says "you can be disabled and you can be like these fantastical heroes - not in spite of your disability, but alongside it. Neither negates the other." The series was explicitly made so Rick's disabled son could see himself in a hero and learn about mythology for school. Those are the two pillars of the entire franchise: Disability and learning about mythology.

So, when you mess with that "hidden world" structure, the entire thing falls apart and it immediately doesn't feel right, because it's no longer serving either of those two purposes when it needs to be fulfilling both. Late-series Riordanverse has a tendency to compartmentalize the mythological and keep it entirely sectioned off from the mundane. Think about first series and even TKC versus later series - how many mortal characters are there? what do they do? are they just in the background or do they interact with the main cast frequently? are they more than just family or an extension to the main cast? First series we see Percy's classmates frequently, Percy talks about his mundane experiences at school, multiple mortal parent characters (and other mortal characters like Rachel) are active participants in and vital to the plot. We even see a lot of background mortal characters. In TKC, not only are all the magicians technically mortal, but also Sadie's completely mundane best friends help her out. Now think about HoO, or ToA, or even MCGA. Think about the mortal characters in those series. How important are they? Out of the important ones, how much are they in mundane situations versus being almost entirely involved in something mythological? How many aren't related to any of the main cast? How many aren't actively working for a god? The answer is basically zero! Why is that? Because Rick stopped letting the mundane exist. The entire draw of the main series is that Percy does continue to live this mundane life and that adds to his mythological life and makes the balance and meshing between them interesting, but basically all mundanity ceases to exist by HoO. Camp Jupiter is an isolated entirely magic town. Percy and Jason's schools are full of mythological beings as basically the only people they interact with. The Tri's headquarters is an entire giant building in New York City that they completely control that just so happens to ALSO be directly across the street from the local Oracle's house, because even where Rachel lives isn't allowed to be mundane anymore. Why is Olympus just at the top of the Empire State Building versus the Tri having an ENTIRE building? That feels weird and unbalanced, particularly given the difference in importance between those two! Because one is playing into that balance of the meshing of mundane and magical and the other isn't! The show continues this trend. It doesn't allow any of the mythological to exist within mundanity like it functions in the books, which creates a completely different atmosphere and doesn't allow those spaces or scenes or characters to serve their actual narrative purposes, either making it easier to understand mythology contextually or what disability metaphor or representation is occurring there.

It's part of the problem with show!Percy being too mythologically-savvy - Percy is supposed to be the mundane lens unfamiliar with mythology that the audience is learning by proxy through. That's the entire point of the series! If you have Percy already know everything because he's already too ingrained into this mythological environment from the start, and he just exists in this entirely magical world where he understands everything immediately then the literal target audience of the entire franchise (students being introduced to mythology) is left behind! That's part of why the pacing of the show feels so bad! It's rushing through every scene that's more or less the same as the books, particularly anything mythological, because the show is assuming you've already read the books and already know enough mythology to know what it is and what happens and that you don't want to see it again, so it rushes through. The show doesn't explain things that it presumes you already know - worldbuilding, character decisions, basically any mythology, etc, so it doesn't even bother with it.

Later books in the franchise do this too - as long as it's tangentially Greco-Roman mythology, or if it's anything to do with the main series like a reference in TKC or MCGA or etc, it's not going to elaborate much if at all. HoO speeds through Jason's introduction to CHB, and the only reason we get much introduction to Camp Jupiter is because it's actually new. We're no longer trying to contextualize or learn about mythology, it just all becomes set-dressing and references thrown at you rapid-fire as filler. By late HoO and into TOA and TSATS and such, we're not longer even within the realm of pretending like we're adhering to mythology at all. Why is Iris a vegan? Why is Rhea a hippie? Dunno, don't care! Literally doesn't matter! Why are the pandai panda/elephant-monsters and the troglodytes frog-monsters when that's not part of their actual history at all? Well a.) literally just word associations and b.) possibly a little bit of racism (they're supposed to be humans from India and northern Africa, and you made them monsters. cool. okay. and their plotlines totally aren't horrible within those contexts. awesome. please try thinking literally at all next time, thanks). We're not even bothering to look at mythological instances anymore for a basis, a lot of it's written like we're just going based on the first results on google (hi Menoetes and the cacodaemons - the latter of which is not even spelt correctly once in the entire book - which is weird because they do say "daemon" so they know the word. Not that the cacodaemons are mythologically accurate at all because then they would be humanoid. Instead they seem to just be inspired by the things from Doom). None of it serves the purpose of the narrative at all; we're literally just making random choices, some of them quite distasteful! In large part due to refusing to acknowledge the actual contexts of the myths and how that might translate into something similar or equivalent a modern setting to help conceptualize it - something the first series did inherently by design. And we need this! A.) So that you're less likely to make bad decisions because you are inherently thinking about the historical and cultural contexts of these things and how to compare/explain it, and b.) because the audience for later books/the other series and the show is going to be the same as the first series! Those nonsensical references may be at best cameos to people who are already familiar with them, but if your intended audience is new to mythology then making references like that is just going to leave people out of the loop! You don't shift your target audience in the middle of a franchise!

Later books in the series and the show are failing to understand what the first series was actually doing narratively and how it was approaching these subjects and its audience. When you fail to do that, it completely messes up the general worldbuilding and the core themes and intentions of the franchise as a whole. Once you lose touch with that you might as well just be writing a completely different franchise. You need to approach it from the same lens or else it will feel completely off, because otherwise you've lost all base touchstones that make the series what it is.

[sunray-screaming]

I’ve been seeing so much about the sun and the star, and everything just seems so extreme? like people are either trashing it completely and saying that they wish they never read it, or they’re defending everything in the book and like…there’s definitely a gray area?

I totally get why people thought that rick riordan would change his target audience (to more adult audiences rather than sticking with middle schoolers) but it’s okay that he didn’t? you can still enjoy the book even if you’re older?

and I also understand the criticism about how will got a bit sidelined and while that sucked…it’s also called a nico di angelo story? it’s meant to be about nico, there was nothing misleading about that

and saying that the characters are completely ooc just completely misses the point of the book – change is good and sometimes healing from trauma means learning to live alongside your trauma. and as someone who’s now starting to enter the phase of rediscovering who I was before my depression got really bad, I appreciated that SO much

I was kinda put off by how “in your face” some of the queer stuff was (and I say this as a bi person) ‘cause I’d rather have it be shown as just? a normal part of life? like kids need to see a healthy, normal queer relationship but I wish their relationship had been treated with the same nonchalance as every other heterosexual relationship in the earlier books

(but I also don’t know if that’s bc of mark oshiro’s influence? like I haven’t read any of their other work but I’ve also seen people kinda jump the gun and say it’s all their fault which…idk man)

but the only thing that truly bothered me was the typo where nico says that his mother is bianca di angelo bc MAN maybe I’m being too harsh but that was just careless imo