one thing abt thalia and percy's dynamic that is often overlooked is that percy was punished for the same things thalia was rewarded for. there's a prophecy abt one of the big three kids? percy is treated like a liar and thief and ppl refuse to talk to him. thalia? everyone respects her (including gods!) and assumes she'll do a great job saving the world. thalia is accepted immediately at camp and threatens the place percy spent two years proving he deserves. percy wants to go on a quest to save his friend? he's an attention seeker and glory stealer. thalia? well, she's the obvious choice. thalia comes up w a plan to win capture the flag that's basically "leave everything to me" and percy comes up with a plan that's basically "if you see a good opportunity, go for it," but percy is viewed as the control freak.
what i'm saying is percy had every reason to resent thalia and he didn't. he chose not to. and thalia had every reason to look down on percy and didn't.
even when they were fighting, i never saw it as a power struggle. they were being pit against each other, and instead of doing what everyone expected them to (kronos was fully expecting thalia to kill percy), they chose to love and respect each other. because they're not their parents. they're just two kids who started cracking under the pressure but refused to break.
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something. about. the horror of being sent on an impossible (death) quest and obligations and hospitality politics. the trauma of not having a home, and then the trauma of being in a house that becomes actively hostile to you, one that would swallow you whole and spit out your bones if you step out of line. all of this is conditional, your existence continues to be something men want gone.
it's about going back as far as I can with the perseus narrative because there's always a version of a myth that exists behind the one that survives. the missing pieces are clearly defined, but the oldest recorded version of it isn't there! and there's probably something older before that!! but it's doomed to forever be an unfilled space, clearly defined by an outline of something that was there and continues to be there in it's absence.
and love. it's also about love. even when you had nothing, you had love.
on the opposite side of the spectrum, this is Not About Ovid Or Roman-Renaissance Reception, Depictions And Discourses On The Perseus Narrative.
edit: to add to the above, while it's not about Ovid, because I'm specifically trying to peel things back to the oldest version of this story, Ovid is fine. alterations on the Perseus myth that give more attention Medusa predate Ovid by several centuries. this comic is also not about those, either! there are many versions of this story from the ancient world. there is not one singular True or Better version, they're all saying something.
Perseus, Daniel Ogden
Anthology of Classical Myth: Primary Sources in Translation, edited & translated by Stephen M Trzaskoma, R. Scott Smith, Stephen Brunet
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So, Danny was effectively homeless.
His parents are dead, his sister is dead, his friends are dead. Hell, even Vlad, Vlad kicked the fucking bucket which, Danny genuinely never expected.
Vlad was supposed to be his nemesis, his main bad guy, the guy Danny's supposed to constantly pull everything out against just to win. Not to mention how significant his presence was.
A part of him assumed that Vlad would always be there and him not being there and knowing he won't be there ever again is... weird.
So you're probably asking, how exactly did this happen?
Well you see, the nasty burger exploded, for one thing. Then when he was under Vlad's care both of them got outed for being ghosts to the GIW, which was technically Danny's fault, since he did something extremely stupid.
Somehow they got caught, and life under the GIW was not great in the slightest. The constant experiments, the dehumanization (Sometimes Danny doesn't even register himself as human), the amount of times their feelings were utterly disregarded, and so, so much more.
The GIW found Vlad to be more dangerous than Danny, even if he lacked the raw power Danny had his intellect made him dangerous and for good reason. For it was because of said intellect that Danny managed to escape.
Vlad didn't manage to do the same.
Danny hated reliving that memory. Because Vlad was a villain, evil and self-serving, he shouldn't be sacrificing himself for his literal greatest enemy to escape in his stead (Not that Vlad would say Danny was his greatest, he would probably say it was the person who refused him to buy the packers). It was just, so utterly stupid and out of character for him.
So, Danny managed to escape, Vlad died. He couldn't even say anything about Dani because she got destabilized in front of him, in front of both of them actually. It hurt to watch and, he didn't quite know the specifics between Dani and Vlad anymore, but he thinks they were getting... better.
Not how it was when Dani was first created, but Vlad was working on mending it. Which, honestly, just makes everything worse.
Danny isn't powerless but it's a damn close thing. He's far weaker than he normally would be, and he's injured on top of that too boot, his powers can barely work and it's just so stupid.
So here he was, hiding out in some random sewer because he didn't want to take the risk of being on the surface and he hates the smell, but he'll take that over being experimented on again. So, Danny spends most of his time in the sewers of this place called Gotham, he even managed to make his own little area with a couch he stole and a few other appliances that were thrown out.
He lacked a Tv or laptop, but he found a yo-yo! Most of his time was spent practicing various tricks with his yo-yo.
It got boring fast. But it was really the only safe thing he could do when waiting for his powers to come back. At least he's a god at yo-yoing now.
It was while doing various tricks with it in some random sewer path, that a literal, goddamn crocodile-man just splashed up from sewer water and half-laid on the edge, since his lower body was still in the water.
Danny looked at his yo-yo, the crocodile, and then slowly stepped on over and gently poked the crocodile dude.
He made a sound, so he was alive!
Finally! Someone to appreciate his godly yo-yoing skills!
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