#Nico is in denial hes just afraid of his feelings maybe he had a really terrifying coming out story of his own. I hope we hear it

[ladyblueberrymuffin]

I don't like how little faith Percy has in Nico.

Like, when Nico helps him get the curse of Achilles, Percy has no problem instantly believing he betrayed him, when this is clearly not what Nico wanted, and then Percy threatens this twelve year old with a sword.

Then when he gets his memories back, he is completely fine with his closest friends and allies making up all these scenarios about how Nico might be their enemy, like completely proving Nico's point that demigods are prejudiced against children of Hades. Even when Percy kinda defends Nico, it's more like "Hazel vouches for him". Percy, this kid saved your life, without him you'd be dead ten times over, you should be vouching for him.

Nico has proven himself time and time again as Percy's friend, but Percy refuses to call him that. In his narration, his most inner thoughts in HoO, Nico is always referred as "that guy" or "the guy", and "Percy had no idea what to think of that guy".

And on paper, this is an amazing set up. Percy putting up this wall between him and Nico, because he's afraid of letting him close. Like he never got over that initial resentment, or he's afraid that Nico will get too attached to him. You could tell an amazing story with that. You have a character flaw for Percy to overcome.

But... we don't get that. We don't get anything like that. Percy keeps drifting away from Nico's life further and further.

The confession scene is so frustrating, because I didn't want it to be a joke, I wanted Percy to finally open up to Nico. I wanted him to have a heart to heart, finally acknowledge that he does care about Nico, because he should care about Nico.

To me Percy's treatment of Rachel and Nico feels less like he's oblivious of their feelings, but rather he's in denial of their feelings. Like, of course he wouldn't know Nico was gay, but the kid so clearly looks up to him, and wants his approval, and Percy is still like "Nope, not acknowledging that".

On another note, the way Percy kinda just lets Nico walk away after the confession is a consistent problem with how Percy is written, he neglects his friends a lot. He doesn't really spend time with Rachel after she becomes an Oracle, he doesn't really talk to or think about Grover in HoO, he lets Nico just walk away. It's like now that he has a girlfriend he doesn't care about anyone else, and that kinda feels out of character? Or maybe I just want this character to be better, and this is totally consistent with what Percy always was since PJO. I dunno. But it at least feels antithetic to what the core of this character is supposed to be. If he's loyal to a fault, shouldn't he care about his friends more?

It's the one thing that I know the TV show will get better, because already a lot more focus is placed on how much he cares about people around him.