#Percy jackson analysis

[counting-stars-gayly]

It’s time we accept that Percy Jackson is an unreliable narrator. He’s not dumb. He’s just insecure. He’s not clueless about his and Annabeth’s feelings. He’s just in denial. He’s not clueless about Rachel’s feelings. He just doesn’t want to do anything about them. His mother isn’t perfect. He just loves and respects her more than anyone in the world. That boy contradicts his own inner monologue all the time. Do not trust him!!

EDIT: Please don’t interact just to disagree. You can make your own post.

[ninesparrowsoftroy]

Someone has definitely thought of this or spoke of this before but I’m rereading The Lightning Thief (after like 7/8 years) and one of the biggest things they hit on in the first half of the book is how powerful names are.

When Percy first learns about essentially everything regarding being a half-blood, Olympus being real, etc etc…the one thing that Mr. D and Chiron really beat into Percy’s head is that names have real power.

So just being reminded of that made me think back to the series and how huge of a deal it was that Percy not only prayed to his mom instead of any Olympian God but that when he was being told he was Poseidons son by Mr. D he outright corrected him by stating he was Sally Jackson’s son.

Not only was this 12 year old essentially saying fuck you to the Gods, he was using their own power against them in the only way an undetermined (at least until he is) 12 year old could.

[aficionadoenthusiast]

i could point out the beautiful parallels between nico's crush on percy, the crush he developed due to childhood trauma and intense hero worship and hung onto even after he thought his hero betrayed him, and annabeth's crush on luke, the crush she developed due to childhood trauma and hero worship and held onto even after her hero betrayed her, and how both of their crushes are commentary on their upbringings, nico's being how grief and internalized homophobia caused him to latch onto the beautiful hero that saved his life, annabeth's being how growing up neglected and unwanted caused her to latch onto the first person who showed her any attention and how that attachment only strengthened in their shared grief, and how those parallels extended to show how their respective attachments left them vulnerable to manipulation yet ended up not joining the dark side, ironically in part because of percy, either because of the crush (nico) or in spite of the crush (annabeth), and how those crushes contributed to their overall character arcs, nico's being to learn to let go: of grudges, grief, and his own self-hatred as a two part climax on that one page of boo and the cocoa puffs in tsats with will being the catalyst to making him see his own worth, annabeth's being to learn what real, healthy love looks like (a spot of irony: percy taught her this, which is contrasted with her typically being the person to teach him stuff) in contrast to what she ultimately got with luke which was manipulation, because luke, also being a neglected kid, never learned what healthy love looks like, but you guys are not ready to hear that so instead i'll just try not to cry at the hypocrisy of the pjo fandom's obsession with nico's crush on percy while refusing to see annabeth's crush on luke as anything more than a disgusting mistake

[moomsine]

i think it’s interesting how in the book, percy killing ms. dobbs is described as “the only thing that comes naturally” that being percy swinging the sword and turning her to dust, and him killing the minotaur is almost accidental, he snaps the horn off by ACCIDENT and happens to come up with it positioned to kill the beast and how that contributes to his feelings of inadequacy, whereas in the show so far, him killing ms. dobbs was a complete and total accident, and you can actually see some of the thought process in the show of him ripping the horn from the minotaurs skull and driving it through his brain. idk once you get down to it, it shows a very stark difference between this is something that is happening to me to this is something i am doing, my mother told me monsters are real and now one took her from me and what i can do is take it in return and i do think it’s also exemplifying this tonal shift that the show has taken by not having percy’s inner monologue to explain his thought process as events unfold, and also their stronger focus on relationships and building up camp life to an extent

[heteromerous-rhyming]

i'm unleashing my inner academic i'm so sorry all.

in "Pacific-Asian Immigrant and Refugee Women Who Kill Their Batterers: Telling Stories that Illustrate the Significance of Specificity" julia tolmie writes: the true significance of this evidence for the purpose of the accused's self-defence case is properly understood only when it is explicitly understood in light of her unique positioning.

this is an article written in 1997 and it details two trials - muy ky chhay, an immigrant woman from cambodia, and jai fong zhou, an immigrant woman from china. (if you're interested at all please give it a read, it's available for download if you search up the title) they were both put on trial for the murder or attempted murder of their husbands, their abusers. the article is compelling on a number of levels but one of the parts of this article that pierced me through was tolmie's centering of these women and their narratives and their testimonies. you can see throughout this article tolmie's commitment to foregrounding the stories of these women, you can see that she's done what she can to research and understand, to show them as individuals first. (i will never be sane about this, do you understand)

that is to say: riordan was much more radical twenty years ago.

i will not be comparing the cases of these women to sally jackson's fictional situation. that would diminish them, the reality of their cases.

but what i do want to do is use tolmie's methodology. i want to show the significance of specificity in sally jackson's case. tolmie organizes her article into sections, and i wanted to take a few of them to look at sally jackson. so. without further ado:

1. the accused's credibility

sally jackson has no family, no one to vouch for her. it is clear throughout the lightning thief that she's isolated - and this is in contrast to gabe, who is surrounded by his poker friends constantly. she got her diploma late because she couldn't finish high school due to needing to take care of her uncle with cancer, who then died leaving her with nothing. she was young when she had percy, and never married the man who fathered him.

in the eyes of this world, sally jackson would be often overlooked, dismissed, disdained. she wanted to be a novelist, she had passion and ambition, but these were beaten down by the world. she barely got her high school degree, there's no chance that she, a single mother, gets a high paying job, so she's working at a candy shop. a job that whether or not she enjoys was not what she'd worked towards. audre lorde speaks about the difficulty of working women to write novels in "age, race, class, and sex" because of the material demands of that process. sally jackson cannot write a novel - she's working a job that cannot possibly pay her enough for her and percy to survive in new york and she's a single mother caring for a child that the schools will often describe as "a troubled kid."

not only that - sally jackson finds it difficult to make friends, because percy is not a normal child. he's a demigod. those first few years, though we don't know much about them, must have been terrifying. she's in contact with camp, chiron probably advises her to give up her son so they can stop attracting monsters, but she refuses. she calls this choice selfish. but it is so increasingly clear that percy is one of the only bright and joyful parts left in her life, that percy is who she lives for.

she chose percy. chose to raise him, chose to protect him, chose to keep him close.

2. evidence of the deceased's violence

gabe ugliano (the name is on the nose and i'm living for it) is the manager of the electronics mega-mart in queens (i have no clue what this company is but ok) he clearly has more money than sally, and i would venture to assume that the lease for the apartment is also in his name (though i also assume that sally is paying for a good amount of that apartment). that is to say, gabe has significantly more power and "respectability" in the eyes of society than sally. he's probably the reason that they're financially afloat. despite all of this, despite the fact that gabe has a clearly expensive car, he does not ever offer to cover sally's financial situation. she's still working a likely minimum wage job even though it is probably that gabe could support all three of them with his.

it is evident, from percy's first interaction with him in the books, that gabe is financially controlling and greedy. he's not stupid (at least in this regard); he works out (with an ease that implies habit) exactly how much money percy likely has. and then he takes it. it is likely that gabe also does this to sally. it is likely that he knows exactly how much money sally makes and regularly attempts to control how much she can save (think: the money for montauk came out of sally's "clothes budget"). he restricts her movement ("my mom and I hadn’t been to montauk the last two summers, because gabe said there wasn’t enough money.")

when sally returns from the underworld, gabe forces her to work to make up for the month's salary she "lost."

this is also when percy realizes that gabe hits his mother. canonically, gabe physically abuses sally. can we assume that maybe sally has been taking hits for percy? perhaps. it is clear that percy didn't realize that gabe was physically violent towards his mother, so i assume that gabe never hit percy. we don't know the extent of his physical violence. we don't need to; regardless sally jackson is in a situation where that threat of physical violence is constantly hanging over her head.

3. the accused's options in dealing with the deceased's violence

sally stays with gabe because of a myriad of reasons, most relating to what i have described above in section 2 but also, crucially, because of the protection he offers percy due to his smell.

sally isn't weak-willed. she isn't irrational. she might plead with percy to not antagonize gabe, but that's survival instinct. she understands pretty clearly her situation.

she knows how difficult it is for a single mother to survive on her own with a child. she knows how impossible it would be to do so with a child of the big three, without combat skills, without the disguise of humanness. perhaps she's resigned herself to the fact that there is no other way. perhaps she thinks that this is punishment for keeping percy close.

she cannot divorce him; he'd oppose that, and he has the financial means to hire a lawyer. and after divorce, where would she go? without the means to support herself and percy, without a support network, what options does she have?

she cannot leave, cannot call the police. she still needs to take care of percy, she still needs a place to stay.

and yet, despite all of this, at the end of the book sally makes the choice to kill gabe. she takes back agency into her own hands, and despite the financial uncertainty, despite all of the reasons that she couldn't leave, she takes her life into her own hands. not only that, but his death leads to her financial liberation.

perhaps this was due to percy finally ending up at camp, finally having that concrete safety net to fall back on. perhaps this was because gabe threatened to call the police on percy, perhaps this was because gabe fueled the terrorist accusations, perhaps any number of things.

all this to say. somehow, riordan, a white cis man, twenty years ago, managed to capture in sally jackson something real. he managed to show the structural inequities that she faced, her lack of options, and gabe's abuse in a book meant for children. in a book meant for twelve-year-olds.

and this was without explicitly showing any physical violence from gabe.

sally jackson's story is engaging because we understand somehow, despite the majority of us condemning murder, why she killed her abuser. we understand that this isn't just a toxic relationship, that this isn't a situation that sally can just leave, that both real and fantastical forces combined compel her to stay, and we cheer for her.

i want to end this unfortunately long post with a quote from tolmie, from the article i started off with:

"It has been suggested that women rarely succeed in arguing self-defense because legal doctrines and notions of what is "reasonable" do not encompass the realities of women's lives."

what better way than to break this doctrine of "reasonability" through the lens of a fantasy world.

[addsalwayssick]

zeus commenting on how Percy shouldn’t exist because he’s a forbidden child, like calm down it’s not his fault your daughter is a tree right now

[seagreeneevee]

my fav analysis i found on r/camphalfblood ep 4 discussion post!

[magicalmythicalry]

Spoilers for the Percy Jackson TV show and books:

I have actually loved all the little changes and additions they've been adding to the story omg. Since Rick is actually heavily involved with everything, it feels like he's editing the story he wrote over a decade ago, and as the author that must be SO satisfying. He's leaning so much harder into the narrative parallel between Percy and Luke. Granted, it has been a while since I've read (and reread) the series, but it seems like Percy is much angrier at his dad for abandoning him (and his mother, especially). The whole scene where Percy says in his prayer to his mom "I'm gonna make him come down here and see me, and to see us"? I feel like we didn't get kind of anger from Percy until later in the series, and damn it feels good it see! Like yeah, Percy, you should be fucking mad! Also, emphasizing the connection to his mom (I'm Sally Jackson's son!) and refusing to go on the quest for a father that never did jack shit for him, even at the cost of the world? this perfectly shows how much of a problem and a threat the gods consider Percy later down the line. This kid is rebellious, stubborn, and will not be pushed around by the gods - the way he was being yelled at my Dionysus to take the quest and that little 12 yr old boy just yelled right back at him??? King shit. Percy is motivated by love, not power, not glory, and the gods can't help but feel threatened by that. He'll save the world, but not for the gods or even the rest of humanity, but on the off chance that he'll see his mother again. God I love this series.

[henbeaka]

why the pjo tv changes help translate ideas from book to screen using hubris and loyalty as an example [spoilers!]

percy's big thing - his shaping quality and fatal flaw - is loyalty. we know this. and how is it shown in the show?

by having percy self sacrifice just to save his friend, at the cost of death. i mean, that is loyalty in its purest form, and this is a scene thats not included in the books right? like percy never goes out of his way to lock annabeth and grover out because theres a never a need to.

we already know percy's self sacrificing tendencies that stem from his loyalty. through internal monologue. not in the show. theres no internal monologue, and this addition so easily creates more emotional payoff and turmoil, but shows to the audience, percy is a loyal peson. he would die for his friends.

for annabeth, she offers to do the one thing she would hate-- ask her mother for help, directly corelating to her hubris. her pride would never let her. this isn't showing us her pride, because we've been led to believe that she would never ask for help because she literally refused to last episode.

so this shows us how this relationship between the characters is growing. annabeth is willing to ask for help to save her friends- her hubris has a limit. she won't kill someone for it-- or maybe she would? maybe she just doesn't want percy to die because of her pride. that tells us something very important.

the friendship between percy and annabeth is nowhere near what it was when the show started, and none of this growth was told to us.

this show is so good.

[lilislegacy]

have you ever thought about how out of all the men in PJO and HOO, percy is the least like annabeth? they complement each other so beautifully, like 2 puzzle pieces that are a perfect fit, but they’re SO different. like imagine…

piper: annabeth is dating one of these 4 men

hazel: *gestures to percy, jason, frank, and leo*

piper: guess which one

random person: hmm… i’d say frank. he’s the son of the god of war and she’s the daughter of the goddess of battle strategy. they’re both incredible fighters and stategists. i bet they are amazing together

percy: 😐

hazel: *nervously laughs*

piper: um, nope! try again!

random person: oh? really? ok well then definitely jason. son of zeus? well mannered, always in control of the situation, very humble and honorable. as a daughter of athena, he’s totally her type. they are both very calm and level-headed. they both are leaders and know how to weigh the options and outcomes quickly in a tough situation. plus, they are both blonde with light eyes, so they would have beautiful babies!

percy: 😒

piper: *nervously laughs*

hazel: um… still no! one more try!

random person: oh wait… i’m so stupid! it’s obvious!

hazel: there you go! i also think it’s obv-

random person: it’s leo! why didn’t i see it? he’s a mechanic. she’s an architect. they are perfect together! she’s a creator and he’s a fixer. their brains work so much like each other. they’re basically meant to be! oh and they are both from the south!! and i bet-

piper: IT’S PERCY! she is dating percy. perseus jackson. you know, the one on the left? tall, tan, lean, black hair, green eyes? him and only ever him.

random person: oh

percy: 🤨

random person: the… the son of poseidon?? the hot sarcastic bad boy? with that troublemaker look about him? the one with severe mood swings, and who gets expelled from every single school he goes to?

percy: *awkwardly looks down at his hands*

random person: HE’S annabeth chase’s boyfriend??

annabeth: damn right he is 🥰

[counting-stars-gayly]

There’s something about Percy spending the whole episode remembering how upset he was with his mother for separating them, but with this newfound understanding of why she did it, and then deciding to leave her (temporarily) at Hades’ palace because it’s the right thing to do, regardless of how much it hurts.

“Hold fast, Mom,” because they’re braving the storm that was made to break them.

[aroaceleovaldez]

reminder that the only reason the "ADHD is actually demigod BATTLE STRATEGIES" and "dyslexia is DEMIGOD BRAINS HARDWIRED FOR ANCIENT GREEK" things exist in the PJO universe is because it's a very direct reference to early 2000s teaching/parenting techniques for neurodiverse and disabled children, which aimed to frame childrens' disabilities and hardships as a "superpower" or strength so that the children would feel more positively about their disabilities or situations. This technique has fallen out of favor since then for the most part since more often than not it just results in kids feeling as though their struggles are not being seen or taken seriously.

Yes, demigods are adhd/dyslexic (and sometimes autistic-coded) in the series. This is extremely important and trying to remove it or not acknowledge it makes the entire series fall apart because it is such a core concept. Yes, canon claims that their adhd/dyslexia is tied to some innate abilities, which is based on an outdated methodology. It's important to acknowledge that and understand where it comes from! But please stop trying to apply it to other pantheons in the series like "oh, the romans have dyscalculia because of roman numerals!" or "the norse demigods have dysgraphia for reasons!" - it's distasteful at best.

A better option is to acknowledge the meta inspiration for why that exists in the series, such as explaining potentially that Chiron was utilizing that same teaching methodology to try and help demigods feel more comfortable with their disabilities and they aren't literal powers. In fact, especially given Frank, there's implication that being adhd/dyslexic isn't a guaranteed demigod trait, which means it's more likely to be normally inherited from their godly parent/divine ancestor as a general trait, not a power, and further supports the whole "ADHD is battle strategy" thing being non-literal. It also implies the entire greco-roman pantheon in their universe is canonically adhd/dyslexic - and that actually fits very well with the themes of the first series. The entire central conflict of the first series fits perfectly as an allegory about neurodiverse/disabled children and their relationships with their undiagnosed neurodiverse/disabled parents and trying to find solutions together with their shared disability/disabilities that the kid inherited instead of becoming distant from each other (and this makes claiming equivalent to getting a diagnosis which is a fascinating allegory! not to mention the symbolism of demigods inheriting legacies and legends and powers from their parents and everything that comes with that being equivalent to inheriting traits, neurodiversity, and disabilities from your parents).

anyways neurodiversity and disability and the contexts in which the series utilizes representation of those experiences particularly during the 2000s symbolically within the narrative is incredibly important to the first series and the understanding of what themes it means to represent. also if i see one more "the romans have dyscalculia instead of dyslexia" post in 2023 i'm gonna walk into the ocean.

[aficionadoenthusiast]

yes yes annabeth has abandonment issues and she loves percy because he's the only one who stayed, but have you considered: she loves him because he has no ambition

(i'm tempted to just leave it at that, but i'm guessing most people will not get what i mean, and i like doing this stuff so let's go)

think about it. for her dad, it was the dream of having a normal family and a nice normal job where he could work on his projects without distractions. it was the desire to make helen happy because she could give him that life even if it hurt his daughter.

for thalia, it was the dream of not being the child of the prophecy. it was finding a family with the hunters, no strings attached. it was maybe even the desire of keeping annabeth and luke alive by sacrificing herself, at least a little bit.

for luke, it was the dream of being a hero. it was the dream of saving the demigods. it was the utter belief that he knew what was best and could achieve that goal, damn the consequences. it wasn't even pride. it was just good intentions marred by ambition and bad influences.

for grover, it was the dream finding pan.

the one thing all of these dreams have in common: they took annabeth's family away from her.

that's not to say percy didn't have desires or dreams or goals or anything, but the difference is that everything he wanted had her in it, and none of it was particularly ambitious.

he didn't want to be a hero. he just did what he had to do til his job was done. even his ambitions now have annabeth written all over them: going to college with her in new rome, trying to live as normal a life as possible, growing old with her, etc. there's nothing he wants that doesn't involve her, and you know what? they deserve that so much, that open-hearted devotion.

which introduces some fun irony: where percy's fatal flaw is loyalty, annabeth's fatal flaw is hubris, and one of the first real things she ever said about herself is that she wants to build something permanent. that is hardcore ambition right there, but it ties right back into her abandonment issues. she wants to build something that won't leave and disappoint her.

in that regard, percy's lack of ambition fulfills her excess ambition because his loyalty gave her something permanent. they love each other so much that they fill in the gaps of each other's fatal flaws, and their ambitions fit like puzzle pieces. they never have to doubt each other because there is nothing to doubt.

she loves him because he has no ambition.

[puzzled-pegasus]

Do you ever just think about how awful it is to be a demigod before you know about it?

I've been thinking about it a lot lately. How much demigod kids and teenagers don't fit in with mortal society. Their mortal parents don't know what to do with them, even if they do care for them immensely. They are labeled as troublemakers, as bad kids, as mentally ill, as freaks and monsters who see things they shouldn't see and have an aversion to authority that they shouldn't have and a strong sense of justice and an inability to sit still, read, play, act, feel normally. Percy got in trouble for getting into fights, for speaking impulsively, he was mocked and spoken down to and expelled from lots of schools who couldn't handle him and he didn't know why until he was twelve years old. Sally wasn't able to tell him why.

Annabeth was the product of her father's relationship with a goddess, and he loved her for a while, but she wasn't a normal kid. When he fell in love with a mortal and Annabeth didn't get along with her or her kids, he chose the mortal side. How could he understand Annabeth's side? She was just a badly behaved kid, while his new wife and children were the normal good ones.

Jason always knew he was a demigod, he was accepted and praised and tons of expectations were placed on him from a frighteningly young age. Part of the reason the others resent him and see him as a sort of golden child is because he was placed on a pedestal and he will never, ever know what it was like for all of his friends to be looked down on as children, to be scolded for things they didn't understand and told that the things they saw and experienced constantly were not real.

Piper was always loved by her father but I think he loved the idea of her, he loved that she reminded him of the beautiful woman he met years ago. He was always kind to her and usually gave her things she wanted, but he couldn't always spend time with her as his job got busier. Piper sensed that her father's attention was occupied by something else, and as he got busier, she felt less supported and stole things and got in fights and her dad didn't know what to do with her after the BMW so she was sent to a troubled teen program where she was bullied for her disabilities and her race.

Leo feared his power because it killed the person he loved the most, and after that, everything in his life was hell. He didn't feel safe anywhere, he didn't have anyone he could trust, and adults saw him as a troublemaker who would never amount to anything.

The books don't emphasize these things as much with any of the other demigods, or maybe Annabeth, Percy, Piper, and Leo are the best examples we have. I just. They're so tragic. They're all my children all of them. I love them and I feel so sad for them

[addsalwayssick]

what if hades was just sirius black. a guy who was able to separate himself from the family abuse, and now lives alone with his wife (remus) and his dog (james) and the dogs wife (lily/the red ball)

[cryptidkoretmblr]

I saw someone say Apollo/Meg aren't relatable characters and I highly disagree. in the post it says no one can relate to a 4000 old ex God. in the nicest way possible I think that person forgets that in literature everything isn't just the literal written words, but the what's behind those words.

no, none of us can relate to getting our godly powers taken away.

but neurodivergent kids know the gifted kid to burnout pipeline.

kids know abuse.

and both Apollo AND Meg were abused. And children can relate to that. They can absolutely relate to Meg who is torn between love and fearing her abuser.

There's a lot of ways people can relate to Apollo/Megs journey that isn't the *literal* fantasy world aspects.