#and today on ''luna mcfrickin snapped after finishing titan's curse''--

[mvndrvke-archive]

       DEVOUT TO DEFIANT : ANNABETH’S VIEW OF THE GODS ;;

( aka how i change shit up from canon and ruin all of rick’s hard work pART TWO!! )

“i’ve been here since i was a kid, i did everything they ever asked,  yeah, i did. and for what?”

so annabeth just????? she’s definitely not the one that’s been screwed over the most by the gods in the series, but she’s been present and closely related to those that have really gotten the worst treatment from olympus. from luke to percy, she’s seen the full spectrum of things, and it’s shaped her opinion more and more over the years to the point where she outright turns her back on the gods in quiet but open defiance of their rule over olympus and the demigods. 

imma be splitting this into little pieces which are the following-- 

i. luke’s teachings and what she learned from his life/death ii. annabeth’s relationship to athena and how it all started going downhill iii. the wars and how annabeth’s idea of the gods was changed vi. who is she now-- annabeth after heroes of olympus

trigger warnings : death / violence

I. LUKE’S TEACHINGS AND WHAT SHE LEARNED FROM HIS LIFE/DEATH

to wildly oversimplify luke, he really hated the gods. his daddy issues were truly something else, and his resentment and anger towards hermes and the other gods almost destroyed olympus. now, annabeth’s relationship with luke is incredibly complicated ( i’ve written something about all of annabeth’s relationships in the books, which you can check out here ), and honestly a lot of her issues with luke come from the fact that he a) didn’t talk to her about any of this, he just shut her out, and he b) never asked her to come with him. that’s the real kicker, because if luke had asked annabeth after the titan’s curse, annabeth would’ve left to fight on his side, and would’ve tried to take percy and thalia with her. i touch on this more later. 

the main thing that annabeth really learned from luke was to never give up. luke was wrong about a lot of things, and his corruption stemmed firmly from his point of weakness-- his resentment and bitterness, but also kinda his wounded pride-- but in the end, annabeth was able to get through to him. she didn’t write luke off as a lost cause, which pretty much everyone else did. she believed there was someone worth saving. 

and luke made some fair points, which she realizes later on as she herself gets more resentful towards the gods. this is touched on in the section about athena more, but annabeth really starts to realize how far the gods have to go, and that maybe the apologies owed aren’t from the demigods, or the fault of the demigods, but the gods themselves. luke hit the point where he was done fucking around and had to stand up to the gods. annabeth hits this point too, but unlike luke, she’s smart about it and does it on her own terms rather than letting herself be tempted into something she can’t control. 

II. ANNABETH’S RELATIONSHIP TO ATHENA AND HOW IT ALL STARTED GOING DOWNHILL

okay so when we first meet annabeth, it’s when she’s twelve years old ( duh, we all remember this ), and she’s been living with the knowledge that she’s a demigod for about five years. of those five years, she’s spent two as the head counselor of her cabin ( these campers are CHILDREN, i will get into that more in the last section, but it’s really important to note how young annabeth is at this time ). and we get to see that annabeth’s views of the gods and their children are INCREDIBLY dated. her initial dislike / distrust of percy and his intentions is due to the rivalry between their parents ( athena and poseidon ) and the hostility those two share towards each other. annabeth is adamantly opposed to befriending percy even after they’ve headed out on their quest together, and it takes her a long time to actually get over that and accept that maybe she can be friends with people that her mom wouldn’t approve of. this actually proves to be a regular problem for annabeth, as she has a lot of trouble learning to trust tyson ( percy’s half brother and a cyclops ) because of his connection to poseidon, which once again stems from her mother’s hatred of poseidon. 

prior to annabeth leaving for her quest in the lightning thief, it’s clear that she’s a pretty mama’s approval oriented kid. she holds athena in high regard, and we can see how much faith she puts in her mother since her catchphrase is “athena always has a plan.” she doesn’t, girl, she really doesn’t. but that’s not the point. annabeth idolizes and champions her mother, and really just wants to be like her in every way possible. UNTIL, of course, things start to change. 

where shit really gets bad is at the end of the titan’s curse. keep in mind that two of annabeth’s closest friends-- thalia and percy-- have just risked their asses to save annabeth’s life and the life of artemis. so fresh off that high, and with annabeth owing her survival completely to her two friends, they then show up at olympus so the gods can vote on whether or not to kill percy and thalia in order to avoid the prophecy. now. annabeth is still loyal to her mother at this point, but also to her friends. i mean obviously, they’ve just saved her life ( from luke, even though he’s kinda taken over by kronos at this point, but that’s a whole other thing ), and what’s their reward? the gods vote on whether or not to kill them, and athena votes that they should. not only that, but athena is really the first and the strongest advocate of killing thalia and percy. annabeth has been in loyal service to her mother for i think seven years at this point, and even knowing that annabeth’s friends are officially down to two ( the loss of luke really makes thalia and percy her two closest friends. sorry grover. ), athena sees the best solution being to kill those two off. which annabeth gets, strategically, but annabeth isn’t all battle strategy. we’ve seen her at this point show a lot of emotion and heart, especially when it comes to her friends ( her ongoing faith in luke’s innocence really highlights this perfectly. even during the final battle, she doesn’t give up on him, and it’s that devotion and trust in him that really saves the day at the end ). we know that there’s no way annabeth could ever rationalize her way through this, and this is the moment when the first seeds of bitterness are placed in annabeth’s heart. 

athena’s continued harshness towards percy over something as juvenile ( in annabeth’s mind, now that she’s actually had some time to grow up and become independent of her mother’s thoughts when it comes to her rivalry with poseidon ) as annabeth’s relationship with percy is also something that grates on annabeth’s nerves and fosters her resentment towards her mother. 

during the heroes of olympus series, annabeth really gets shit on for being athena’s daughter by the romans. it’s considered to be kinda scandalous for her to be the daughter of athena, since minerva is so wildly different from her greek counterpart. so now she’s facing all this crap for being the daughter of someone she’s not super duper thrilled to be the daughter of, and annabeth’s meeting with minerva really pisses her off. yes, she understands that it’s unfair and demeaning to be reduced from the status of athena to the image of minerva with her power diminished, but once again, her mom is saying percy should be destroyed, and once again, annabeth is being charged with an anger, resentment, and revenge that isn’t hers. 

and then there’s the matter of the athena parthenos. annabeth has to face her absolute worst fears to get that goddamn statue, falls into tartarus for her troubles, has to deal with all sorts of shit, and what’s the reward? a ‘nice job, but you haven’t done enough yet’ from athena, who tells her she needs to get the athena parthenos back to camp halfblood. reyna gets the support and power of both athena and bellona behind her when she’s fighting orion, annabeth gets another job to do. she’s tired. she’s exhausted. she’s done so much already and she’s done. annabeth is half dead from her time in tartarus at this point, and her ability to keep going is barely there. 

true and fair, athena does come in and help annabeth out in the big battle against the giants. and that’s a moment where things could maybe get better, but they can’t. at this point, annabeth has been faced with too much, and too much resentment has built up in her chest when it comes to her mother. i’ll talk about this more in the last section, but annabeth’s relationship with athena is too damaged at this point to ever be repaired or bring annabeth back to the point of idolizing her mother that she was at when she was a kid. 

** there are a few things that annabeth’s opinion hasn’t changed on, though her relationship with percy has made some of these decisions actually have weight to them. these are just my personal headcanons of annabeth, but the big one is that annabeth never wants to get married. ever. athena never married, and annabeth had always seen this being the path for her to take ( which we can kinda see referenced in canon when she’s considering joining the hunters of artemis. boys were never really her top priority ). and she was totally fine with that. but especially after she started dating percy and she saw how much her mom hated him, she knows that if she ever was to get married, it would not be with athena’s blessing. no matter how resentful annabeth is towards her mother at the end, she still can’t stand the concept of athena fully turning her back on annabeth, so she remains firm with her decision that she’s never going to get married, even if she and percy did reach that point in their relationship one day. **

III. THE WARS AND HOW ANNABETH’S IDEA OF THE GODS WAS CHANGED

annabeth fights in two wars in five years. two. and by the time the second war ends, she’s seventeen years old. we always get to see ( in the original series, at least ) how stunned percy is to still be alive, and while the romans have legacies, the greeks don’t seem to as far as i remember. they all seem to just die young. i’ll get back to this in a sec. 

now, while the gods end up coming to fight in the final battles, it’s a pain in the ass to get them to contribute. they really only sweep in to save the day at the end, which by the time the second big war rolls around, is just not enough. especially in the first war, the problem was the gods. that’s what started the whole thing, that’s what let kronos rise to power, that’s what they were all fighting over-- the gods keeping control of olympus and the world. and what did they get? the gods agreed to pretty much the bare minimum and promised to claim their demigod children. round of applause, can’t believe you would do something so controversial yet so brave. it’s a victory that day, but they all go back to camp halfblood after and realize how many people are dead. this is a quote from percy in the last olympian, but i feel like it sums this up really nicely--

                    “I stared out the window into deep blue water.                      Beckendorf was supposed to go to college in                      the fall. He had a girlfriend, lots of friends, his                     whole life ahead of him. He couldn't be gone.” 

they’re kids. most of the demigods at camp are teenagers, and as far as i’m aware/remember, beckendorf and luke are the only demigods we see in the original series that are 18+ years old. meanwhile the olympians are all totally chill with sending them out to fight monsters and titans and giants and all this shit, and then sweep in when they absolutely have to so it looks like they’re contributing. this isn’t a new thing. historically ( in mythology, not literal history ), this is kinda just what the gods do, though they will intervene now and then ( athena helps achilles when he’s trying to kill hector and helps odysseus like 50000 times, and i believe apollo is the one that stabs patroclus before hector is able to kill him. patroclus is a tough guy, y’all stop treating him like he’s a wimp ) in smaller ways. mind you, these were adults trained in combat fighting other adults trained in combat. but now? when it’s kids versus monsters/titans/giants ( oh my )? nope. they’re happy to let the kids fight it out on their own. that’s fucked up. 

after the original series ends, annabeth’s kinda confronted with this for the first time. she hasn’t really considered it much before, but then hopping into the heroes of olympus series, when she sees how well organized the romans are and how they’ve maintained that militaristic mindset even in modern day, annabeth suddenly has that realization that oh shit, we’re being trained to be weapons. growing up in camp halfblood, being trained to fight, she was always told was to protect them from monsters, but she’s fought in two wars now. and suddenly, abruptly, disturbingly, annabeth realizes how messed up it really is that she’s been attending a summer camp where she learns to be a solider and kill things for ten years and she never thought about this until now because it just got normalized for her. 

VI. WHO IS SHE NOW-- ANNABETH AFTER HEROES OF OLYMPUS

this is all my own personal headcanons, and how i move forward with annabeth. probably the most important thing is that annabeth stops sacrificing to the gods. they make offerings to the gods every meal at camp halfblood, and she just stops doing it. it’s like the pledge of allegiance here in america, you get into the habit of reciting it every morning at school ( yeah, they have us do that, every single day five days a week ) and don’t really think too much about it, and then someone points out how that’s kinda messed up and it’s like “oh damn you kinda right.” for annabeth, it’s kinda like that. she’s now aware of how much the gods have taken advantage of them, and she makes the decision not to pay tribute to them anymore. the gods have had enough, she’s paid her dues, she’s done her time. she’s not doing anything else for them. 

mind, annabeth would never outright turn her backs on the gods and she’d never go as hardcore against them as luke did, but at a certain point she just can’t find it in herself to continue doing things as she’s been doing them. like luke was wrong when it came to a lot of things and percy really did help progress happen but after the second war ends, she just realizes that it’s never gonna be enough so she just stops putting in the effort to be the perfect daughter to athena, who after the war’s done and her work in olympus is finished, she just doesn’t talk to anymore after this. she stops praying for guidance and wisdom in battle. she’s annabeth goddamn chase. she don’t need no fuckin help. she really doesn’t give a shit about being the favorite child anymore. 

and i think that’s a large part of what drives annabeth to leave camp halfblood to attend new rome university or whatever it’s called. she doesn’t want to be the head of athena’s cabin anymore, and that anger temporarily drives her away from camp. she’s still stuck seeing it as this training ground for children and not what it should be-- a refuge for those like her. it takes her a long time to sorta work through this. 

in my version of annabeth, she decides after a semester to return to camp halfblood, and attends college in nyc so she can be there for her siblings when they need her, not because of athena or out of respect for her mother, but because she knows that if anyone can do better by these kids, it’s her. 

if you’ve managed to make it this far, congrats! it’s long as hell and i’m honestly impressed. pls accept this gift of annabeth lookin cute as hell as your prize. 

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