A Potential Reason For Why Rick Didn't Make Ares Love His Children, And An Explanation For Why He Should

I think that Sophie Foster should finally die so she can get some much needed peace and quiet.

The existence of Melinoe in the pjo universe implies that Mr. D is the reincarnation of Zagreus, and that´s concerning.

Well, that just adds onto his trauma which he really needs to recover from.

I'm curious, though-how is that concerning?

All right, ok, LISTEN. I don't know who needs to hear this, but I'm pretty sure that some people do. It's ok to hate Percy Jackson because it depicts the Greek Gods in a terrible way. Rick Riordan has the creative license to write them however he wants, but it's still fine to be annoyed at how they're portrayed.

It's ok to hate the fact that PJO wasn't in Greece and that the explanation for why it was in America was terrible.

It's ok to hate the fact that Zeus, Hera, Ares, Athena and a whole lot of other gods were portrayed in a negative light.

It's ok to be furious because Ares is a bad parent in PJO.

It's ok to tear your hair out over the way Artemis and her hunt were written.

It's ok to be angry that Athena had children with mortals when she was a virgin goddess in the myths.

It's ok to be angry that Hades cheated on Persephone in PJO (even if you like Nico and Bianca and Hazel. It's fine to do both).

It's ok to be angry that Persephone and Demeter don't have a good relationship and that Demeter is largely painted to be an overbearing, helicopter mother.

It's ok to resent the fact that Artemis, the former's hunt and Hestia, the goddess of the hearth and another virgin goddess, were portrayed as literal CHILDREN despite there being no reason for Rick to do that.

It's ok to be annoyed with the fact that Poseidon was sanitized when he could've been such a morally gray character.

It's fine to cry about the fact that Aphrodite was largely reduced to a stereotypical, modern cartoonish version of RomANtiC lOvE when she was the goddess of LOVE, not just ROMANCE, SEX AND BEAUTY.

It's ok to like Trials of Apollo but want to smash things because Apollo was depicted as an incompetent dumbass. It's ok to seethe at the fact that Zeus was portrayed as an abusive father to Apollo when in the myths, he was quite loving.

It's ok to do this because PJO is one of the if not THE MOST major media that depicts Greek Mythology. It's basically a Greek Mythology fanfiction MODERN AU. And yes, it's helped thousands of children and adults and made them feel better, and it's almost as popular as Harry Potter for a reason. But it's still fine for Greek people, Hellenistic Pagans and even people who aren't Greek or Hellenistic to be angry with how Rick Riordan is continuously bastardising the Greek Gods and making them look more and more of a joke.

A lot of people who got into Greek Mythology used PERCY JACKSON as their first reference, and while Percy Jackson is a great start for venturing into Greek Mythology- PLEASE, PLEASE BEAR IN MIND THAT PJO GODS ARE NOT AS ACCURATE AS THE ORIGINAL.

POSEIDON IS NOT THAT GOOD.

HADES IS NOT SO VILLANOUS.

ATHENA IS NOT SO COLD AND UNCARING. SHE'S A MAIN PATRON OF HEROES AND RARELY ABANDONS THEM EVEN AFTER THEY'VE COMMITTED WAR CRIMES

DIONYSUS IS NOTHING LIKE HIS PJO COUNTERPART.

ARES IS A GOOD FATHER.

DEMETER AND PERSEPHONE HAD A BEAUTIFUL, LOVING RELATIONSHIP.

HERA IS NOT SO HORRIBLE. SHE HAD HER GOOD MOMENTS

ZEUS WAS NOT THAT BAD IN GREEK MYTHOLOGY AND HE WAS ALSO A CARING FATHER. HE SENT BLOOD RAIN DOWN TO MOURN HIS SON SARPEDON WHO WAS FATED TO DIE.

I know this sounds like I hate PJO, but I really do like the series. It's fine to like PJO and its characters while also disliking how the gods were portrayed. It's ok.

Thank you for this criticism of my post. It's helped me a lot.

I'm embarrassed at the way I thought that Hellenistic Pagans only worshipped Greek Gods and I apologise for that. I've changed my post to correct that.

I've also deleted the part about Jews. I was only stating facts, but I see how you think I used them as canon fodder to appeal to my audience. Your irritation is valid.

I also get your point about how the gods were not only and never Greek and their creation and being passed down.

I never stated that Rick was only allowed to use one version of a myth in my original post, I only criticised the way he rewrote the myths and expressed my annoyance. I never intended to say that there was a correct or canon version of mythology, but I see how I might have fallen into that trope.

But the rest of your post is wrong.

They are quite literally saying that Americans own Greek Gods out in the open on Twitter. I said so in my original post.

The way Rick Riordan justified the Greek Gods was saying that without Westernisation, there is no culture, only chaos and darkness, and it is extremely racist to non-Western countries. I have every right to criticise that. I should have made this clearer in my original post, which I will edit to reflect this, and I'm also stating it here.

I'm not saying that non-Greeks can't write about Greek Gods, but there's a line between respectfully writing about them and disrespectful, and Rick Riordan has definitely crossed that line.

In the original myth, Hephaestus tried to rape Athena and she only defended herself from him. Rick is allowed to rewrite that, but the way he writes it is that Hephaestus is a sad, pathetic man who only wants a girlfriend and Athena is terrible for not comforting him when she just doesn't want to deal with Hephaestus' nonsense.

That reeks of using 'nice guys' and putting girls down for just not wanting to be a guy's participation prize rebound. Hephaestus literally got up on her and ejaculated on her thigh. That's a severe violation of boundaries. Athena had every right to be disgusted and defend herself. And even in PJO, Hephaestus keeps bothering her when she doesn't want to deal with his BS and he actually buries his face in her thigh. Athena had every right to kick him away.

As someone who didn't want to deal with a nice guy like that and got put down for it when I was just tired of dealing with his bullshit, I'm angry about that, and I rightfully can be.

I took comfort in this story knowing that I could try to fight off someone if they try to rape me, just like Athena. I looked up to her for this, and reading Rick's rewrite was extremely aggravating. People like me-and trust me, there are hundreds just like me-have every right to criticise it.

I did say that he was allowed to portray the Greek Gods however he liked in the name of creative license and I stand by that, but I'm also allowed to criticise his portrayal of them and how he rewrites the myths.

Athena is an unmarried virgin goddess for a reason. Her domains are strategic warfare, wisdom, intelligence etc. If she falls in love with men and has children with them, she can no longer be a goddess of those domains, because love would cloud her judgement.

Athena wouldn't randomly dump a child onto a man without preparing him to raise it and form it without asking him for consent. It's cruel, and she has no reason to be cruel. Other gods might do this, but not Athena-she's the goddess of wisdom.

She knows better than to do what she did in Percy Jackson, so it doesn't make sense for her to do such a thing. She would only do it if she wanted to be cruel, and she doesn't want to be cruel to Frederick and her other lovers. Why would she?

The way Percy subtly dropped comments about Athena that were malicious and also unnecessary shows us Rick's dislike for her. When Athena says that she has a plan for a fair competition between her and Poseidon for the honour of being the patron of Attica, Percy says that it was typical and she always had some sneaky idea. There's literally nothing sneaky about this-it's just another malicious comment designed to subtly turn us against her.

I'm not saying that there's a canon basis in Greek Mythology that Rick Riordan has to use. He can use whichever version of a myth that he likes. But like I said before, there's a line between being respectful and disrespectful when portraying the Greek Gods, and Rick ran over it long ago.

People who worship Greek Gods sacrifice a portion of their food in honour of the gods. Rick Riordan turns this into something that they're required to do and they don't like. In his show, he says that the gods like the smell of begging-that is, the children sacrifice the food to the gods so that they can get attention.

This isn't true. People sacrificed food to the gods to honour them. By turning this sacred practice into a derogatory begging ritual, Rick dishonours it. It's not ok.

He divorces the Greek gods from their homeland using the racist excuse of flame of the Western Civilisation and also says

Rick Riordan also used WW2 as a rhetorical prop and a plot device just to justify why the Big 3 couldn't have kids anymore. He literally made Greek Gods of an ancient culture the fathers of people who caused one of the most horrible wars on Earth. His books said that Hades was the father of Hitler and he only changed it later to avoid backlash.

Using ancient gods from an ancient culture to blame for GODDAMN WORLD WAR TWO? I'd say that's pretty fucking disrespectful.

There are multiple people other than me who are angry about this, especially Greek people, because it's the ultimate insult to them to make their gods be the fathers of their enemies, that too ones who caused WW2? Nope.

Listen, I'm really sorry if I offended you and I understand that some of my takes in this post were incorrect and I've changed them. However, I'm also criticizing Rick on his portrayals which I am allowed to do.

My last message is to emphasise that Percy Jackson is not part of Greek mythology and Rick Riordan is not a source of information on mythology like Homer or Hesiod or Apollodorus are and I'd like people to recognise this. They wrote their writings with respect to the gods and culture in mind, and he didn't do this.

Do not equate Rick Riordan or his works with the poets and playwrights of Ancient Greece.

HOW RICK PORTRAYED THE GREEK GODS AND WHY IT WAS SO IMPORTANT

So people are going to notice that a lot of my complaints aren't just in PJO but extend to media portraying Greek Myths in general. But I want to focus on Percy Jackson and not other media, so I'm going to focus on Percy Jackson and not other media.

Starting off.................

The way Rick portrayed the Greek Gods was important because PJO was the most read book series that heavily centered around Greek Mythology he pretty much destroyed their images at the time.

There's an entire anti Percy Jackson tag as well as an anti PJO tag for you to scroll through to see how Rick Riordan portrayal of the Greek Gods was terrible. Be my guest and treat yourself to it. Search it up.

There are also people like @alatismeni-theitsa, @margaretkart and @katerinaaqu to ask for correct information on Greek Mythology. So be their guest too.

Today, we have PJO fans running around having incorrect perceptions of the gods and flinging hate and abuse at the real Greek Gods while Greeks and Hellenistic Pagans have to suffer through all this bullshit.

The torture is REAL. Just ask them.

I mean, you have people claiming that they are the CHILDREN of VIRGIN GODDESSES.

Artemis, Athena, Hera and Hestia don't have any demigod children.

If you really want to, call yourself their chosen champion. Not their child. It's disrespectful to Greek culture and religion to do otherwise.

Rick Riordan read about and taught Greek Myths in school, so he must have read the actual versions of the myths.

And knowing these, he decided to twist them into his terrible, inferior, crappy versions.

That man literally wrote Hephaestus, a rapist, as a poor guy trying to get a girl, oh, he's so sad and pathetic, and Athena's such a mean bitch for not accepting his advances even if she doesn't want it!

I'm not joking.................and I don't have words for this. I just don't.

Riordan doesn't really have any tact, does he? None at all.

And no, Greek people and Hellenistic Pagans cannot get away from these horrible portrayals, because there are too many Percy Jackson fans clogging up the Greek God tags with their Rick Riordan written PJO versions of the gods, which is kind of terrible for the Hellenistics who just want to be able to read devotional things about their gods and other people who just want to read about real Greek Mythology, not Percy Jackson. And this happens in real life, too. I mean, people using PJO as a substitute for real Greek Mythology.

Pro tip for PJO tumblr users: if you're typing about a god, use the Greek God PJO tag, like PJO Apollo or PJO Aphrodite, not just Apollo or Aphrodite, ok? Thanks for reading this.

There are many common misconceptions about Greek Mythology due to Percy Jackson. So, if you're not sure about something, please search it up on verified academic websites or ask real people-you can do this online too.

Now I am aware that Rick has the creative license to portray Greek Gods however he wants-

but let us as educated people all be aware of the fact that we should not always take portrayals of the Greek Gods in modern media depicting them seriously and if you want to read up on the actual gods, then read the myths and the Odyssey, Iliad etc.

Now, to name another shockingly appalling writing choice-

In the very first book, WW2 is atrociously used as a plot point

Yes, that's right-Rick Riordan, beloved author of a bestselling franchise for children and adults alike, reduces WW2, one of the most bloody and complex conflicts in history with a multitude of a reasons for its existence, to a fight between fictional demigods of the Big Three simply to have a reason for the Big 3 not to have children.

Do you know how serious this is? Do you actually know how bad this is, though?

Millions of people even today are affected by the WW2 due to generational trauma and abusive parents. WW2 killed millions of soldiers and civilians alike, and the Holocaust was so horrible that some people would faint just reading about what happened.

I will not go into the bloody, gory details here, but if you still don't believe this, go search up WW2 and Holocaust torture and treatment of Jews and other minorities as well.

Jews today still have gaping holes in their family trees because of it. And to have Rick Riordan portray it in such a callous way, to make a literal Greek God sire war criminals in modern history, when there were other methods he could have used to intertwine the mythological world and demigods and history.........it makes you wonder what was running through his mind at the time.

There were so many other ways he could have portrayed the prophecy-make it so that Big 3 children were constantly causing natural disasters and fictional wars in the mythological world, not the real world, and constantly dividing the cabins at CHB. Maybe they had their own war parallel to WW2. There were so many ways to do this- and none of them had to do what was ultimately done.

PJO WWII IS THE ULTIMATE INSULT TO THE GREEKS

What makes this even WORSE is that during World War II, the Greeks were in fact part of the ALLIES.

The Allies were fighting against the Axis powers, the latter of which contained Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Japan.

When the Nazis invaded Greece-well, it's never a good thing for a country to be invaded by enemies during a time of war.

At least 250,000 people died during the Axis occupation and its Jewish community was pretty much killed off. And the country's economy and infrastructure were ruined quite horribly.

And generations of Greeks are traumatised because of this, even today. Not just Greeks-thousands of people. Millions of people all over the globe are still traumatized from this war, be it direct experience or generational trauma.

And to make ANCIENT GREEK GODS responsible for WWII is simply, totally and absolutely unforgivable on Rick Riordan's part.

To make the Greeks' enemies the sons of their ancient gods........no. Just no.

And yes, Hitler is a son of Hades in canon. Rick later changed it because of the backlash. He's absolutely disgusting.

WHY THE HELL ARE THE GREEK GODS IN AMERICA?

Now.........the Greek Gods are in the USA!

But..........they're Greek, right, which means that they should be in Greece! So why now are they in the USA?

Well.........here's Rick's explanation for it.

Apparently, the Greek Gods started with the fire of the Western Civilisation and then moved onto other places.

'Flame of the West' crap my ass. Search it up-there's this great article called the Whitening Thief. Read that.

What's meant by Chiron's explanation is that apparently Greece is too bad for Greek Gods now, which is terrible, because that's literally where they originated. And their explanation for leaving it and coming to America is extremely half-baked and just reeks of white American superiority.

@margaretkart

@alatismeni-theitsa

@katerinaaqu

These are all good blogs to disillusion yourself with Percy Jackson and learn about what really happened in Greek Mythology.

And I just want to say-Percy Jackson is an ok start for venturing into Greek Mythology as long as you've read up some basic background beforehand, but-

But-

Do NOT, under ANY circumstances whatsoever, take RICK RIORDAN'S portrayal of the Greek Gods as the REAL Greek Gods.

Never do that. That is the one thing that must not be done.

Hera doesn't just love perfect families. She literally lives in the most dysfunctional family to ever exist. And she loves you if you try. She really does.

Hades would not threaten to eternally torture literal children just because of what their parents did to him. His literal job is to uphold justice in the underworld, and sending a child to Tartarus just because her father angered him and he couldn't punish the father isn't justice now, is it?

Ares loves his children and as for why Rick made him hate them-

Rick has a hate boner against the war god, that I will swear on. Read this post and the explanation for why Rick shouldn't have done it.

And the gods are actively depicted as cruel, neglectful, abusive parents, when in the myths they are quite the opposite.

Real Aphrodite loves her son Aeneas and frequently comes to his aid on the battlefield. She also tells him to not marry a woman (TO GIVE UP LOVE, HER LITERAL DOMAIN) so that he can fulfil his destiny of becoming a king.

Real Ares loves all his children. He tries to avenge his son Cycnus when Heracles kills him with good reason for being a cruel tyrant-and they were even riding chariots together when Heracles came across them. He avenged his daughter even at the cost of being punished by Poseidon and Zeus, neither of whom liked him.

Now, what I want to tell you is that the PJO Greek Gods are Rick's interpretation of them.

An interpretation of a Greek God by a modern author (who isn't Greek, by the way, please take note) is not the same as the real Greek God. Please understand this and accordingly adjust your views.

This also goes for Madeline Miller, Rachel Smythe, etc.

And lastly, one of the most ironic things is that though Richard uses the Greek Gods in his books, he has never ever added a single Greek character in it.

I'm talking about a modern Greek demigod who comes from Greece. Imagine them teaching the other demigods Modern Greek and Greek culture, language and traditions!

It's very ironic that he includes Chinese, African and Native American culture in his works and then turns around and pretend that Greek culture doesn't exist.

The demigods are in Athens, but for how much time before they go back to America? Barely any at all. And nothing learnt about culture while they're there.

(No hate to his already shitty representation. I'm merely making a point that there should have been a Greek character in a book that heavily centers on Greek Gods and their children, even if it's in America.)

RICK DOESN'T USE GREEK CULTURE OR RELIGION AND IN FACT INSULTS GREECE IN HIS WORKS

So, if you've read the title, let me tell you something-

Do you know that Greek Gods are still worshipped?

Some of you do, some of you don't, but let me tell you, they are still worshipped.

And accordingly, you must respect them and their worshippers, just like you would do for Christians. You cannot maliciously ridicule and condemn Hellenistic Pagans and Greek Gods just because they are a minority.

And if you've read the myths and think that the Greek Gods being cruel......

They're not, actually. I mean, yes, you think they're cruel, but most of the myths aren't taken literally by Hellenistic Pagans.

What the Greek Gods do is supposed to be symbolic.

Hades kidnapping Persephone symbolises death ripping children from their grieving parents' arms. It's an explanation for the seasons and it finally represents the fact that daughters could be given away by their fathers with the mother having no say in it whatsoever.

Demeter's grief and her actually being able to do something about her daughter's marriage and Persephone being returned to her is supposed to be a comforting tale for grieving mothers who have lost their daughter.

Artemis' cruelty towards certain people? It represents the cruelty of nature towards humans and what it will do to humans if they provoke it.

Zeus' infidelity and abuse of his power? Well, it represents what kings do. Zeus represented the kings of Ancient Greece, and kings abused their power and had many mistresses besides having a wife.

Many Greek kings also claimed to sons of Zeus or descendants of the gods, so it the idea that Zeus had many affairs with ladies and princesses of royal lineages was conceived.

The link above provides many good reasons for why the Greeks wrote Zeus having many affairs with mortal women, so check it out.

Also, Zeus is symbolic of storms. Storms are volatile and raging, and so was Zeus at times. He was a god of storms and as such symbolised them.

Hera punishing the mistresses and children in a jealous rage to bother Zeus? That's what queens did back in the day since they couldn't directly punish their husbands.

Dionysus being charming and fun but also being mad and wild? Well, he represents breaking away from social norms and going fully wild. Also, wine can make people fun and charming, but at the same time, it can turn people into mad, raging creatures.

The point is, most of what the Greek Gods did was symbolic to their domains. And no, contrary to popular thought, Greeks did not live in fear of their Gods striking them down every moment. In fact, many of them genuinely devotionally loved their gods.

And Greek Gods themselves are very kind and benevolent to their devotees, even today, as long as you don't provoke or seriously insult them. Just ask Hellenistic Pagans and you'll be surprised at the results. I'm serious.

The problem here is that we're trying to moralize divinity.

According to the Greeks, gods weren't humans. They were modelled after humans, but they were above humans and human flaws.

And the Abrahamic gods do terrible things too, but do we mock them? No, we don't, because their worshippers say that they are above humans and human flaws, so similarly, the Greek Gods are above humans and our flaws.

CONCLUSION

And no one cares about the fact that a guy is objectifying and making money off a culture all the while removing its significance and turning it into a joke.

Even though Greeks have a millennia old and rich culture, people are always bastardizing it. Non-Greeks really must stop doing this. It's very culturally disrespectful.

I've also seen grown adults saying that the Greek Gods are American so they're allowed to do what they want with them now, and that's absolutely disgusting. It's cultural appropriation, that's what it is. Do not condone it.

Ah, sorry, not conclusion-let me add one last thing here.

Rick Riordan has a series called Trials of Apollo in which Apollo is cast down to Earth as a human for the third time to defeat Python.

What I want to talk about here is Apollo's human name-Lester Papadopoulos.

Papadopoulos is a common Greek Christian surname that means 'son of a priest'. One of Apollo's domains in prophecy and he has many priests, so maybe this is a reference to that.

But what is most upsetting is that this name is used for comedy.

It's belittled, laughed at and ridiculed for its longevity and hard pronunciation when it is in fact a very normal Greek surname. Even if it's not an American surname, even if it doesn't sound normal and sounds ridiculous to you, it's not ridiculous to others and you should respect it.

Can you imagine how Greek people with that last name read the books and felt bad about their last name? Or felt furious. I know that I would be FURIOUS if my last name was used like that.

And the fact is that Papadopoulos isn't even that hard to pronounce! It's literally just 5 syllables that you can repeat a few times until it doesn't twist your tongue.

And if you can't repeat this simple name, then you need to go back to kindergarten. Hell, go back to preschool even.

And there are people who have the audacity to say that the Greek Gods belong to America and are American. Grown adults, actually, on Twitter, no less. Tweeting it for the whole world to see their absolute foolishness and audacity.

They're pretty tactless, huh?

The Greek Gods were and always will be GREEK. Foreigners are not their rightful descendants-the Greeks are (Greek immigrants included). I mean...........this is bizzarre.

To conclude, (really conclude this time) though it's a series heavily entwined with Greek Gods, the only Greek thing about the series is the Gods. There's no Greek culture, religion or language, and even the Greek Gods are heavily Americanised, which is pretty disappointing. I hope that other authors will do better handling the Greek Gods than Rick Riordan.

(Side note: If you think anything I've said is wrong, tell me. I'll correct it immediately.)

@fandomloverangel

Let's make Percabeth fight

Can we have a Percabeth fight?

Like........I haven't seen them fight........about one thing.........ever since they got into a relationship.

Can we get Percy tired of Annabeth hitting him all the time, so he tells her to stop?

Can we have them argue about Annabeth's pride and the way it led them to fall into Tartarus?

Everyone's holding Percabeth up as this golden standard, but I think that they need to have a real, good-old fashioned couple fight.

Because, let's be honest, real couples bicker. Married, fiance, dating. They fight, even over small things. And it's just like Percabeth agree with each other all the damn time. Let them fight, even if it's over something small, like the color of something in their dorm, what food to eat. Let them squabble too. Let Annabeth not make all the decisions and have Percy follow her lead. Let him do something on his own, away from Annabeth!

Either give them a huge, blownout fight where they don't talk for days afterwards. Guilt, shame and anger linger in the air. They avoid each other, eyes averted, body leaning away.

Or give me a small fight, over something unserious, then they don't talk for sometime, and then they make it up.

Or just have them squabbling. Don't make Annabeth hit or insult Percy-just make them playfully fight over something.

Because I'm going to be real with you, real golden standard couples still fight.

I mean, Percabeth isn't even a golden standard couple (though I'm not calling it abusive) and one of the issues with this is that they just never fight.

Honestly I don't think that there's a couple in the world that's never fought. It's as simple as that, really.

Playing Roblox after my dad died is so weird. 5 months ago I was playing Roblox and I never thought that he'd die so soon. Now I'm replaying one of the games on Roblox and I'm going through all the games and remembering when I played them back in January and it seems really odd.

Properly developing and writing LGBTQ ships.

Ok, but when have we actually SEEN a good LGBTQ ship being DEVELOPED AND WRITTEN PROPERLY?

Like with Percabeth, you can see their development over the course of the series. WHEN HAVE WE SEEN THAT WITH GAY MALES OR LESBIAN FEMALES? I've never seen it (if you have, though, tell me please.)

We almost never get gay characters as major characters. Sure, Piper Mclean is bisexual, but we never knew it until the literal END of Trials of Apollo even though she was a major character in HOO and even starred as a side character for Trials of Apollo. Was her POV in HOO about discovering her bisexuality and coming out? No. Piper's representation is so shoved in that it barely counts, TBH. Though that is just my opinion on this matter-no need to agree with it.

And Nico di Angelo is gay, but his rep was handled terribly. A forced coming out with no closure and being paired off with a random side character to 'prove' his gayness. Also, Will being a terrible partner for Nico (sharing his medical information without authority, and being someone's doctor and boyfriend is problematic for boundaries. Nico could have had another doctor. Seriously, are there no Athena kids in the infirmary, or no trainee Apollo kids?).

I'm just saying that I'm not sure if Solangelo is good representation because we don't really get any development and whatever development there is on Nico's side is somewhat deteriorated. We don't even get much of Will as a character. No development at all.

And with the lesbian couple, Jo and Emmie, in ToA? No development-plus they got kicked out of a supposedly safe space for being lesbians. Very problematic.

And Piper and Shel? NOTHING. No page time. None whatsoever. No development or good writing.

Lavinia and Poison Oak? We're told, not shown. We don't even see Poison Oak.

Fierrochase is the only developed ship, and even then, it's a little rushed. (Just my opinion).

You know a character trope I love?

When person A loves person C for a good reason, but person B also HATES person C for a good reason.

Like in PJO. Nico loves Hades because the latter is his father and helps him out a lot, but Thalia also HATES Hades because he sent monsters after her.

There is so much potential for this. Nico and Thalia angst? Hello? Someone please write this.

I've seen this post before, and I wanted to argue against it.

Now, bear in mind that this is supposed to be a friendly debate and I don't want to offend you.

With that being said, let's look at the bullies that Percy's called out.

The teachers and students who bullied him at his old schools for his learning disabilities, Nancy Bobofit, Gabe, Dionysus, Tantalus, Ares, Hades (yeah he qualifies, he made Percy feel bad and Percy stood up to him. Go Percy, boss moment honestly) Clarisse, Matt Sloan and his gang.

These are people that Percy heavily dislikes (well, Clarisse is an exception, but at the time she bullied Percy, he heavily disliked her.) This makes it easier to call out their bullshit.

Annabeth is someone he likes. It's difficult to call out the bullshit of people that you like-very rarely can people can do this.

And we're forgetting that Percy's fatal flaw is loyalty. He's loyal to the people he loves and blind to their flaws, so he is the exact opposite of a person who'd be fair with both their friends and enemies.

Take Sally Jackson, for example. Sally herself admitted that she was selfish and kept Percy with an abuser so as not to be attacked by monsters instead of dropping him off at Camp where he would have been safer, especially with Poseidon's influence. Logically speaking, Percy should have resented her for this a little bit, right?

Now, for the morons who'll come to this conclusion, I am not saying that Sally Jackson is the devil incarnate. She was a struggling single mother stuck in between a rock and a hard place-there was no completely good option for her to choose here.

But she still chose to marry an abuser to keep Percy and herself safe. She knowingly married him knowing that he'd make Percy's life terrible and that Percy would be affected by this. This was definitely not a good choice on her part and it doesn't make her a good person (though she still is a good person, just not as good as one would make her out to be).

But Percy doesn't even think about this-he just idolises her (understandable, considering the circumstances, but still) and he never thinks about the situation from this point of view.

And Grover in Wrath of the Triple Goddess. Percy calls him out, but Percy later feels guilty for the stupid reason of Grover thinking he's going to be lonely when they (Percy and Annabeth) go to college, which is why Grover almost ruined the quest. Percy literally says that he should have been thinking about what Grover felt (Grover, who is responsible for his own self, Percy is not responsible for Grover) instead of, you know, thinking about himself and his future.

This is complete malarkey. It's a terrible reason for Grover's terrible actions. And what does Percy do?

He shoves it down, takes the blame, forces himself to be calm even though he should rage. This is another example of Percy not wanting to call someone's bullshit out because they're a loved one.

And Percy loves Annabeth. She's his friend, she went on his first quest with him, she's saved his life and she has a lion's share in his view of the mythological world since she was pretty much the first demigod that he really knew (discounting Luke who left after the first book).

All of this makes it pretty difficult for him to call out her bullshit-especially when she hates being called out on her bullshit, which she does.

Of course, he called out her bullshit during TLT and SOM regarding himself and Tyson respectively, but this is when they're not really friends. In the later books, where they're better friends and he likes her more, he doesn't do it.

And also, Percy has called Annabeth out on her bullshit, but she doesn't listen to him, so he becomes resigned to it.

Her calling him Seaweed Brain? He says that he's gotten used to it in TTC, meaning that he didn't like it but she didn't stop, so he just became used to it.

He says in TLO that he wanted to argue with Annabeth regarding his cabin inspection marks, but no good would come of it, so he just resigned himself to his marks.

He says that he wouldn't argue with her because she would beat him up.

Annabeth yells at Percy and blames him for leaving even though they both know that he was kidnapped. Does he call her out on this, tell her that she was wrong? No.

Annabeth makes Percy feel scared every time she brings up Rachel. This makes Percy feel bad and he does not call her out on it.

All of these are examples of Annabeth not listening to him and bulldozing her way over his protests, so he becomes resigned to it.

That's a common abusive tactic that I've experienced myself-don't listen to the victim and bulldoze your way over them until they become silent and resigned.

Now, I don't want to go so far as to call Annabeth abusive, but she is definitely pretty toxic towards Percy at times. I know that she loves him, I'm not denying that, but you can love someone and be toxic towards them.

Again, I don't want to be disrespectful and I respect your opinions. I'm just providing valid arguments as to why I think your statement was wrong.

when you say that percy is stuck in an abusive relationship with annabeth, you are not only insulting annabeth, you are erasing one of percy's best character strengths: how he is NOT afraid to call out people's nonsense and stand up against bullies no matter how bad or insecure they make him feel

I feel disappointed that Rick implied that Hazel and Nico were related to the most infamous Nazi and didn't care to address it. Or that Camp Jupiter was allied with the confederates and all Hazel does is go "Not cool".

Did he not want to think about how fucked up that is?

This is a case of Rick intertwining real life history with his fictional world and fucking it up big time.

It's absolutely horrible to make the Greek Gods responsible for World War 2. It's even more digusting to have the Nazis be children of the Greek Gods. It's a huge insult to Greeks, their culture, their history (The Greeks fought AGAINST THE NAZIS!) and their culture.

I don't know much about the fandom history or PJO history, but I think that he retconned it to avoid backlash.

The fact that Camp Jupiter allied with the Confederates is also extremely disgusting. Hazel definitely should have been horrified and more disgusted. And making Hitler's half-siblings the type of people that he hated was even more fucked up, though it could have been interesting if it was talked about.

My best guess is that he didn't want to address the implications of how fucked up that was, which was why he retconned it and didn't talk about it again.

Sometimes I wonder what goes on in his mind. I guess that it's just the infamous American arrogance, especially from an old white Christian man.