furiousrascalhorseherring

[emma-o-yt]

Rick Riordan's problematic age gaps

Apparently reddit hates criticism because this got removed from there after a few minutes, maybe I can get it back up...anyways.

The age of consent in Texas is 17, Texas is where Rick lived (according to wikipedia) up until 2013. And yet...here we are.

Where do I even begin with this bullf*ckery? How about the most egregious of all?

Luke and Annabeth

We have two lines confirming their mutual feelings, one from The Demigod Diaries:

"Overtime, Annabeth developed a crush on Luke. As Annabeth got older, Luke developed feelings for her, too."

Mark of Athena (from her conversation with Venus):

"First there was Luke Castellan, her first crush, who had seen her only as a little sister; then he’d turned evil and decided he liked her—right before he died."

Now let me remind you, Annabeth and Luke have a seven year age difference, they knew each other at 7 and 14. By the time he died, Annabeth was just 16, while he was 23. And it's implied he begun returning her feelings a little before he asked her to run away, perhaps when she was 14. He's paralleled with Percy as Annabeth is his string in the river styx. He asks Annabeth explicitly if she loved him romantically (and she denies because Percy is there).

It's disgustingly inappropriate but at the very least they don't end up together...as for when they do...

Sadie Kane and Anubis

When it comes to immortal romance, I usually go for coded age. Anubis is thousands of years old but is mentally and physically 16, which is fine and dandy except for the fact that Sadie is 12. What do you want me to say except Rick is disgusting for promoting this.

Speaking of extreme age gaps:

Calypso and Leo

When you have a philosophy that every character must end up in a relationship, you run out of sensical options to pair up. Now, I'm a Caleo hater mainly because of how it retconned PJO and also because they are very toxic.

Now hold on, doesn't Caleo fall into coded age? Calypso is 15/16 and Leo is 15, so it's A okay! I suppose, if it wasn't for Calypso's past loves.

Odysseus, he had a wife and a son who was 20 years old in his final year on Ogygia, he is well into adult age. She also mentions the privateer Francis Drake and his wife Elizabeth, he was 45 when he married her.

If your defence is that she's actually thousands of years old, then that must also apply to Caleo. You cannot have it both ways.

Hazel and Frank

It's not that bad but it's necessary to mention for the point I will be making.

The timeline is messed up but I think they're 13 and 16 and meet at 12-15. I mean, come on.

Misogyny and Racism

What do these have in common? Well in 3/4 or 4/4, the younger one is female. In 2/4 or 3/4, the younger one is a person of colour.

Remember Nico? His crush on Percy as revealed in HoH? Well in MoA, there's a cheeky little red herring that happens a bit before Annabeth's talk with Venus (where it is revealed that Luke liked Annnabeth back). She wonders if Nico had a crush on her, but denounces him as too young. Now, Nico's age is inconsistent, I am unsure of his gap with Annabeth but I do know his gap with Percy. It's 3 years 5 months in PJO and 2 years 5 months in HoO (the series we are currently in).

So in RR's messed up mind, a white boy having a relationship with someone 2 to less than 4 years his senior is inappropriate. But a black tween girl dating someone 3 years her senior is just fine, a 12 year old biracial black girl dating a 16 year old is daijoubu, a 15 year old mestizo Latino boy dating an elderly woman is relationship goals, or the reverse a 15 year old girl dating middle aged men is a tragic romance and a 12 year old girl having mutual feelings with a 19 year old man is a "love story for the ages"!

The tv adaptation is so infuriating for this, they made Annabeth black, a lot of the changes they made came off as micro aggressions but especially her relationship with Luke. It's reduced to Luke simping for Annabeth behind her back and it's even worse because you can visibly see how large their age gap is. Heck, Charlie Bushnell and Leah Jeffries have a smaller age gap than book Luke and Annabeth.

Adultification is a huge real life issue. Children of colour and especially female children of colour are seen as less innocent than their white counterparts. Rick, who is dedicated to inclusivity should've known better than to include these illegal relationships. Stans will try and make excuses but it's there, deal with it.

As a black teenage girl who has been a fan of Rick's work for 12 years, I am disappointed.

[obsidianstrawberrymilk]

A short list of things I would have changed in HoO

It takes place ten ish years after the end of PJO. Percy and Annabeth aren’t a part of the seven but instead appear as cool older mentors to help out the Lost Hero trio. They both have careers and live in New York and go to Sally’s house for dinner every weekend.

Caleo isn’t a thing. In fact, let’s not even mention Calypso. At most we mention she was freed after the last war as idk proof demigods have some power or something.

More than 1 Asian character. Give this one ADHD and dyslexia bc shocker Asian kids can be disabled as well.

For that matter a properly disabled character. I have a deaf OC I would use if I rewrote the series.

Leo is aroace. His arc is about learning that his self worth doesn’t have to be tied to the people around him and his friends love and care about him and he doesn’t need romance to be complete. His flirting is overcompensation bc he doesn’t feel romantic or sexual attraction and is afraid he’ll be alone forever.

Drew and Piper become friends. Drew’s mean girl bullshit is outdated and boring and it would have been a lot cooler to see her icy exterior thaw and her help Piper with her charmspeck (explaining how Piper learned how to use it to begin with) and take on an older sister role

Neither Leo nor Piper become head councilors to their cabins because that’s dumb

Keep the chapter title style from PJO. It was so fun and one of the highlights of the series for me. The relatable nature of PJO in general was kinda lost in HoO and it’s a shame bc there was such a variety of characters for people to identify with there.

Give Reyna a girlfriend or at least a homoerotic friendship that can become an actual relationship in the next series or something

Frank is 14 and he and Hazel aren’t dating, they just have mutual baby crushes on one another.

For that matter what the fuck was ‘Frank is magically not fat due to Mars’s blessing’ bullshit? Frank is a fat character who stays fat but learns to be confident in himself and his body type.

Stop The Adultification of Hazel 2k23. Hazel is 13, she’s the youngest member of the seven and despite her trauma I think that should be obvious. I think emphasizing her relationship with Nico could be fun here - he’s in his 20s so him taking a more ‘that older sibling who toes the line between parent and sibling’ role here could be fun.

Also, I don’t want Hazel to have Hecate’s blessing or whatever. Between her being a magical horsegirl and the daughter of Pluto there’s already a lot of room to expand on her powers that was never used - I think doing more with her cursed jewels and metals powers and her learning the other aspects of her powers, like Shadow Travel, would be fun.

Instead I think having a daughter of Hecate as a part of the Seven would be cool, because we could still have a witchy character with mist manipulation and magic powers.

Give Jason an actual personality, please. Bro’s been a child solider practically since age 2 and has spent his whole life with the weight of other teenagers’ lives on his shoulders as praetor - give him perfectionism issues and anxiety. We’re told that he’s spent his whole life helping others compromise instead of being his own person - show that. Let his arc end with him deciding to try and live a mortal life and find out who he is beyond being a war general.

Show us that Octavian’s a piece of shit, don’t just tell us.

Leo and Piper are the ones who fall into Tartarus. Nothing romantic ever happens but we get heavy emphasis on their friendship and we get to see their grief over Leo’s mom and Piper’s grandfather respectively

Piper’s grandfather has died a few months ago and she cut her hair herself when her dad didn’t want to let her due to that (correct me if I’m wrong but it’s a tradition in Cherokee culture to cut your hair when a loved one dies, correct?), which is why it’s all uneven. A lot of her insecurities stem from going from growing up in rural Oklaholma (not in a reservation bc there aren’t any there) without much money to suddenly being catapulted into a millionaire Hollywood lifestyle and having everyone criticize everything about her and be really racist, all while her Dad drew farther away from both her and her grandfather. Her arc would be reconnecting with both her culture and Dad and learning to find who she is and her self worth again.

They defeat Gaea in a way that isn’t so anticlimactic and fucking stupid

[overheard-at-camp-half-blood]

why do you hate house of hades? because of calypso

Believe it or not, my hatred for Calypso is a very, very small reason as to why I don’t like House of Hades. My main issue is that this is where a lot of the storyline goes downhill in nearly every aspect.

I know a lot of people love it because of Percabeth, but I’m honestly indifferent to it. Mostly because I think Percy and maybe Annabeth shouldn’t have been apart of the seven to begin with, but that is a whole other controversial opinion.

But also, putting that aside, Percy and Annabeth being the center of it is part of the reason I don’t like it.

Because… you’re telling me… that Rick had so many underdeveloped new characters, and his choice was to focus on the two ALREADY well-established characters?

In my opinion, HoH should’ve focused on the Romans, like MoA focused on the Greeks, but I wouldn’t have minded him adding Annabeth’s POV as well, since at this point, she also had the least POVs out of all the characters.

And honestly, the fact that after Annabeth and Percy went through Tartarus together, and we didn’t even really see the aftermath of it? Because we don’t even SEE Percy and Annabeth’s point of view for the rest of the series. Not until the Chalice of the Gods, and again, is barely mentioned.

I also think the best way HoH could have been written, was to throw a Roman and a Greek in Tartarus together, to develop their alliance with each other and to just have more friendships in general.

Again, there was no build up to the last book, which is why I think the last book sucked so much. Because in the original series, BOTL is what built up to The Last Olympian, and the Last Olympian was just them fighting.

The reason Blood of Olympus was so bad is because the final battle with the big bad only lasted a few chapters, if that, when in reality, it should have lasted the entire book.

Idk, I know why people like House of Hades, but as far as writing goes, it’s one of the worst books in the Riordanverse as a whole. But I also see House of Hades and Blood of Olympus as a package deal.

One sucks, because the other sucks.

[delicatebluebirdruins]

slowly working my way through heroes of olympus

book one in 25th May and finished 17th June

book two 17th June ongoing

next three who the fuck knows

this is my first reread ever I have not read these books since 2015 and I did enjoy TLH but god parts of it rub me the wrong way and it is just... I am having a ball of a time reading through the critical tag for it as I should

[poppitron360]

[helpallthenamesaretaken]

Annabeth in TLT:

what was the name of her doberman? what happened to her doberman? is she sad because she had to leave her doberman behind when she ran away? did something happen to her doberman? did whatever happen to her doberman contribute to her abandonment issues?

will I ever get to know? will I ever get to cry about it?

[rosabell14]

The fact that in house of hades Annabeth is like "Nooo Percy 😭 what you did wasn't good some powers should never be used like that 😰" and then the narrative actively decides to prove her wrong in Blood of Olympus? By having Percy listen to Annabeth's ideology and nearly get killed for it in his fight against Polybotes? He doesn't use his control over poison and nearly dies from it. Had Jason not convinced Kymopoleia to help them, Percy would have died. Listening to Annabeth would have killed Percy.

(and then Percy says that he deserved to die for what happened to Akhlys and Jason is like mood bro and it's never brought up again 😑)

And THEN, in the same damn book Nico literally turns Bryce Lawrence into a ghost and Reyna who has trauma associated with ghosts goes: yeah it was scary and reminded me of my dead abusive dad, but Nico we all have darkness inside of us and we should get to release it. Plus you saved us soooo ☺️

[muiltifandomnerd]

If Rick decides to give Athena kids even though she’s a virgin goddess and justify it with them being brain kids, then we deserve to have Hera, Hestia, and Artemis to have kids as well

Hell throw in Persephone and Amphitrite as well

Just Imagine Reyna or Jason being children of Hera

Leo being a son of Hestia

Frank being a son of Artemis.

Hazel being a daughter of Persephone.

@pjo-hoo-toa-freakazoid @hotpotrandomfics @hazellevesquelover @heroes-of-olympus-next-gen @takaraphoenix @jollyholidayswithmaryandjane @overanalyzer

@yonemurishiroku @chairmenmeow

[sweetnnaivete]

my roman empire is how good heroes of olympus could have been, but how badly it was executed

[notavalidblognamebut]

Solangelo and Percabeth are hands down THE BEST ships in pjo. Literally no one does it like them.

[braghis]

Today i chose violence so here a list of my unpopular PjO opinions. Feel free to discuss them:

- Nico di Angelo would have made a great aro/ace representation;

- Solangelo has potential as a couple but it was poorly written and it's just there to "prove" Nico's sexuality. Also Tsats made both of them dirty;

- Reyna and Thalia would have made a GREAT lesbian representation;

- Frank is the real token-straight guy out the main cast. Jason is VERY bisexual-code;

- Leo would have made a GREAT gay representation;

- RR writes characters from minorities mostly for publicity and profit and it doesn't feel genuine anymore;

- None of the main couples in the story were necessary except Percabeth. They are actually teenagers and finding romantic love shouldn't be their numer 1 priority. Also a person can be gay/bi AND single;

[everythingannoyingpjo]

i really don't like how Riordan wrote Octavian in HOO. during SON, it really seemed like he had something planned for him, some backstory or reasoning for his actions, but when he saw the way fans hated on him he decided to just make him a laughingstock. he's supposed to be this powerful guy, Hazel even says so, and he's supposed to be able to talk the senate into almost anything, and yet we don't see any of this past SON. and the hypocrisy for him! with Luke, people forgave him even though he tried to literally destroy Camp Halfblood, gr00med children, and obviously did not care if his own allies got killed. his main reasoning was "I don't think my dad cares about me so I'm just gonna injure and/or off dozens of children!". Octavian does try to destroy Camp Halfblood (which I'm not gonna say is okay, bc it isn't) but he has an actual reasoning! his home had been attacked and the people who did it just ran away with no explanation. yes, Leo had been possessed, but nobody even told Octavian that! so his rage was absolutely reasonable. and he actually cares about his allies. he waits to attack several days to a week just so the onagers would arrive, that way there would be no casualties on his side. plus, it seems like people just ignore the fact that he was manipulated by Gaea and was obviously having a mental breakdown near the end. it's constantly brought up in arguments for Luke like "he was manipulated by Kronos!!" but when a similar thing happens to Octavian, nobody mentions it or seemingly cares.

Note: OP has a negative opinion of Luke and of some fans differing reactions to Luke and Octavian as antagonists. However this is not a fandom complaint or character complaint blog. It is a book complaint blog. This ask was sent before that point was clarified. Please try to limit complaints and discussions to what occurs in the source material only.

Yes, I agree. I tried to make a list of your points below for clarity.

during SON, it really seemed like he had something planned for him, some backstory or reasoning for his actions

It did seem that way. There are a lot of implications behind Octavian and not much fact.

It is implied he was raised in New Rome. This means he was raised in a culture that promoted suspicion of/aversion towards greek demigod culture. (You can see this aversion in the way people/the laeres react to Percy when he arrives at CJ.)

It is implied he has prophetic powers.

It is implied that he is unwell/unstable. It's implied he is being manipulated by Gaea.

It is implied that public opinion of him is favorable.

It is implied he wants to go to war, specifically against greek demigods should they exist, though he should have no proof of their existence.

It is implied that he killed Gwen.

It is implied (in TOA) that he has a connection to the triumverate.

None of this is ever explained/explored/given more detail. Why does he believe Apollo supports him? What is the extent of Gaea's influence on him? Why does he angle for war before the attack on Rome even happens? What does he know and how?

he's supposed to be this powerful guy, Hazel even says so, and he's supposed to be able to talk the senate into almost anything, and yet we don't see any of this past SON.

Given every implication above, he should be powerful, or competent, or at least have the backing of competent people. We never see that. We never know why he makes the decisions he does and how he accomplishes his goals is almost never shown or explored.

Octavian does try to destroy Camp Halfblood (which I'm not gonna say is okay, bc it isn't) but he has an actual reasoning! his home had been attacked and the people who did it just ran away with no explanation.

Octavian was pretty clearly angling for war even before the attack, but certainly that cemented the legitimacy of such an action in his mind. Yet from SoN onwards Rick treats Octavian as a complete joke. Which honestly, I do think Octavian is funny, but I also think the story would have been better if I believed Octavian was a legitimate threat. And I don't because he basically disappears from the narrative at this point except to exist as some sort of omnipresent boogieman. None of his actions, motivations, or reasoning is ever explored. Any shadow of substance he had in the previous books is flattened. He becomes completely two dimensional.

It's hard to even be mad at people for not seeing the legitimacy in his attack when it's the result of Rick completely ignoring his character. After SoN he basically only exists to create a sense of urgency in completing the quest.

and he actually cares about his allies. he waits to attack several days to a week just so the onagers would arrive, that way there would be no casualties on his side.

I mean, this is largely supposition. The narrative heavily implies the wait for the onagers is because he wants to win with overwhelming force. But you are right that his compatriots safety could be the reason he wants to win with overwhelming force! But we don't know, because again, he was never fleshed out!

plus, it seems like people just ignore the fact that he was manipulated by Gaea and was obviously having a mental breakdown near the end.

It's pretty clear he was being manipulated. I think one thing it's easy to forget is that all these characters are teenagers. Octavian is a child. He has been put in a position of responsibility that should be reserved for an adult. It's hard to think Octavian is 100% evil or that he 100% deserves to die. EXCEPT that Rick has prevented us from being allowed to see him as a real person. He has made him feel like a complete caricature of a human being. And even then, it still disgusts me that Rick made his death a complete joke, something to laugh at.

If Rick was trying to say that "people who think this way are a joke" he should have shown us more of Octavian's thoughts. He should have given us the oppurtunity to see the point he was making by laughing at him.

Instead we have the implication that there was more, and no answers. He never even gave Octavian a last name. I do not like Octavian as a character, but everything about how he was written is sort of fucked up.

[obsidianstrawberrymilk]

Ok when I say Percy and Annabeth should have been the older mentors to specifically the Lost Hero trio, I’m talking Annabeth looking at Leo and seeing so much of herself it hurts. I’m talking Annabeth seeing the way Leo looks like he’s constantly waiting fir everyone to leave him and thinking about that seven year old hidden behind a trash can who would rather starve and nearly die just because she knew her family didn’t want her. I’m talking about Percy looking at Piper and seeing someone trying to navigate a whole quest and trying not to break because her dad is in danger and she needs to save him, and she has to keep trying but it just hurts and he knows exactly how it feels. I’m thinking about Annabeth looking at Jason, someone who’s only home he ever knew was Camp Jupiter and how he really doesn’t know how to be a person beyond a warrior, and Percy looking at him and seeing someone who knows far too well what it means to have the lives of all the teenagers you care about on your back. I’m talking them being able to make a safe space, be a guide for kids who they see themselves in. I’m talking them being the people they never had as kids. Their stories have been told and letting them use that to help kids like them would have been so powerful.

[overheard-at-camp-half-blood]

While I’m sad the season is ending, I am kind of glad it is. I’ve been so focused on the show, I have forgotten to bitch about the character development in Heroes of Olympus and post incorrect quotes. It’s time to get back to my roots.

[erenfox]

ok but it's absolutely hilarious to me how HADES - the God who almost never cheated on his wife - has more demigod kids than Poseidon - who is known to cheat on Amphitrite all the goddamn time (hell, some myths even suggest that Poseidon has more kids than ol Zeusie)

and don't you give me any of the Big Oath After WW2 bs.

[poppitron360]

Y’all get mad at Rachel for cockblocking Percabeth, but you should really be mad at Calypso.

Rachel is actually an interesting character, with an arc that separated herself from Percy and she actually got to be her own person.

Calypso was written as an obstacle to keep the will-they-won’t-they going so that Rick could sell another book. She is there for one chapter, and doesn’t really do much for Percy’s arc except to give Annabeth a reason to be pissed at him.

She was then brought back in HoH because Leo “needed” a girlfriend. She served no other purpose.

Something something female characters being written by men that only exist to enhance the arc of the male protagonist something something.