Heroes of Olympus

So, what was the decision that Percy had to make that he might not be able to? That was hyped up with The Son of Neptune, I do believe, and I can't figure out what it was.

Also, when Percy was surrounded by all that poison underwater, why didn't he just use his powers to control the water current and push the poison away?

The decision he had to make was to let Leo, Piper and Jason fight Gaea alone.

Oh, you mean the one I recall playing out like this?

Percy: "I'm going to help you!"

Annabeth: "Percy! Over here!"

Percy: "Screw you guys; hoes before bros!"

Because that totally seemed like a difficult decision for him to make.

No? It's during the climax. Leo, Piper, and Jason were going to fight the main villian alone and Percy wanted to stop them because he knew it was dangerous/that there was a chance they'd most likely die. Frank had to point out to him that letting them go was the decision that Percy wouldn't be able to make which is outright shown in the text.

I don't recall that at all. Still, Riordan spent about four books building up to this one great decision that Percy might not be able to make. I expected it to be something pivotal and epic, not something that took all of three seconds in universe. I was expecting something like a Friend-or-Idol Decision. Maybe he'd have to choose between saving Annabeth or ensuring that the quest succeeded or something that would have left the ending bittersweet. The fact that the choice came down to staying on the ground and helping the two Camps where he can actually do some good or go with Jason and Piper to fight Gaia were he'd be of absolutely no help is more than a little disappointing.

edited 12th Jan '15 4:20:57 AM by Zelenal

I recently re-read House of Hades and while I enjoyed one thing bugged me; the use of Pasiphae as a villain. I mean in the myths, this woman's only crime is being cursed to fall in love with a bull because of her husband's arrogance and while Hazel does express sympathy for the Minotaur she completely ignores Pasiphae's own suffering.

The only things I remember about House of Hades are the entirety of Percy and Annabeth's section, Riordan cheating us out of an amazing fight scene when Frank killed all the things, Nico turning into a plant, and the reveal that Nico is gay which I still call BS on (he never showed interest in Percy and Thalia was the first demigod that Nico saw in action).

Given that Percy is an idiot do you really think if Nico showed interest in him that he would have realized it? Plus his crush on Percy completely explains why he acts the way he does throughout the franchise. Also I'm pretty sure Percy was the first demigod Nico saw in action.

Re-reading Titan's Curse and Battle of Labyrinth there are a lot of things that Nico says and does that make 500% more sense if you realize he has a crush.

Percy's a little dense but that only stops him from interpreting actions as being romantic, not noticing them. Case in point, even if he doesn't interpret them as such, readers can still all of the parts where Annabeth shows romantic interest in Percy early on.

And that depends on how you define "in action". All Percy did was cut down one spike and then get captured. He did nothing else that Nico could see until after Thalia jumped in and started kicking ass.

Also, I've seen some people say that Nico's crush explains some of his actions in the first series but I never understood that. What actions does it explain? What actions need explaining?

I did. It didn't since they never seemed strange to me in the first place.

edited 15th Feb '15 1:42:35 PM by Zelenal

Let's be fair here. The point of revealing that Nico is gay was never there to explain his actions in the earlier series. It was there for one reason: to add representation. To give us an explicitly gay character in a popular children's book series, which is not something that happens a lot (and no, Dumbledore doesn't count).

And y'know what? I'm fifty different kinds of okay with that.

I know that's the real reason why it happened (despite what Riordan says on his website) and that's precisely the reason why I'm not okay with it. If you want a homosexual character, that's fine and dandy but what is in my mind derailing a character for the sake of representation most certainly isn't.

Especially since damn near everything regarding that in the final book was painful to read due to being very poorly written. It didn't give off the feeling of something that was planned from the start but something that was thrown in at the last minute.

To reiterate, having a homosexual character is fine (just look at my avatar for proof of this belief) but making such a major change to a character isn't.

I don't see how making Nico gay derailed his character. Nor do I see why drastic character change is a bad thing.

Drastic character change is a bad thing because there was no setup. Unless someone can provide me a scene where Nico having a crush on Percy is the only possible explanation, it came out of absolutely nowhere. Now, if Nico had been gay but his crush wasn't on Percy then I would have had less of a problem with it since the explanation is as simple as "Percy didn't see Nico around that guy" but no. He had a crush on Percy and he never showed signs of being interested. There was hero worship in the beginning, sure, and Nico got over some of his irrational hatred towards Percy during off screen character development (because the guy really does change a lot between books) but nothing suggesting romantic attachment. Hell, I wouldn't care quite as much if there was.

Also, the scene at the end of the final book where he tells Percy about his crush is one of the worst things I've read. It was completely unneeded and Annabeth's high five made absolutely no sense. I was just as confused as Percy there and chose to just ignore it for the remainder of the book.

It doesn't help that the final book engaged in far too much Nico wanking for my taste. If he hadn't already done some amazing things, especially in the previous series, he would have been the exact opposite of Percy in the narrative (being told how awesome he is instead of showing us how awesome he is).

I feel like that's a bit of a false dichotomy. (I think? Am I using that term right? Meh, whatever.)

I mean, Nico having a crush on Percy doesn't have to be literally the only possible explanation for the things Nico did for it to make sense that he had a crush on Percy. He didn't act like he didn't have a crush on Percy.

And, perhaps, yes, you could say that it "came out of nowhere," but...again, I fail to see why that's bad. I don't think revealing something that couldn't have been inferred, so long as it still makes sense, hurts the story in any way.

I'll grant that the last book had some poorly-handled Nico moments. It had a lot of poorly-handled moments in general. Okay, tangent: why'd the worst book in the series have to be the last one, dammit.

Having a major reveal without any sort of buildup is bad writing, plain and simple. We even have a trope for it (although that trope is meant for plot twists, it's the closest thing we have, to my knowledge).

Like, imagine if the big reveal in The Sixth Sense happened without any of the hints that Malcolm was dead or if none of the clues as to Luke's betrayal were there. Imagine if, instead of Luke, Annabeth had been the traitor. While that would have been far more major, it's the same basic principle. A reveal like this without foreshadowing is bad writing. Plain and simple.

I think we just have different ideas of what does or does not make writing bad, so I'll just drop the subject and be a pedantic ass and point out that that's a bad example since it actually was foreshadowed that Annabeth might've been the traitor.

So, Crown of Ptolemy. Setne is rather decisively dealt with, we have confirmation that demigods can host Egyptian gods, and it gives no new information whatsoever about Magnus Chase.

I have to admit, although I am a massive Percy Jackson fan, and I thought Heros of Olympus was a pretty good sequel, I read the first red pyramid book and I didn't really like it all that much.

And his new series coming out is with Norse Gods??? I'm sorry, but greek mythology has a much deeper footprint in modern american culture than egyptian or norse, plus, the excuse that all the greek gods were constantly going on booty runs to the mortal world gave the perfect basis for the power system used in PJO and HO. Egyptian and Norse Myths don't lend themselves as easily.

Also, Forgive me Rick, but I don't really think you have the writing chops to turn this into a great big giant crossover between all 3 series like brandon sanderson is doing with most of his books and the Cosmere universe. And yet, a great big giant crossover is probably the only thing he could do to convince me that the Egyptian and Norse series are not just blatant attempts to repeat the success he had with PJO

I'd go and point out that while greek culture has its foot print in modern american culture too, american culture is also an descendant of the english culture which has had repeated influxes of germanic cultures (Saxons, Normans etc).

American culture may put Greek Posters on its wall and listen to their rock music, but in its gene code is way more norse than greece.

And given the general American themes of self-made-man, resistance against unjust authority and so, this all jives very well with Nordic themes.

Every man can be a millionaire if he puts himself to it.

Every man can come to Valhalla if he dies well.

You are oppressed by your leaders? Revolution!

Your Jarl is an ass? Time for a challenge.

Heck if I was meanspirited I could be tongue in cheek and draw parallels between viking plundering and "peace missions" to iraq

edited 14th Apr '15 8:26:10 AM by 3of4

Not to mention that as far as European influence on the Americas goes, the Norse were there at least seven hundred years before any person with Greek ancestry ever set foot on the continent. You Johnny-Come-Latelies

And the only really uniquely "Greek" aspect of American culture is the fact that it's a democracy. A lot more of its genetic code is Roman, from the fact that it was born (arguably) from successful use of Fabian strategy, the myth of the Republic overthrowing imperial (and more importantly, royal) tyranny, the idea that you can press peace through armed conflict etc.

And if you'd read the Eddas you'd know that the Norse gods were pretty big on 'let's visit Midgard and (literally) fuck with the mortals.' Hell, half of the important characters in the Icelandic sagas are directly or indirectly descended from Odin. And Scandinavian-Americans are a pretty sizable (if not as sizable as, say, Irish-American) demographic in the United States, and if you factor in Germany (which prior to its Christianization had the same gods) you've got a pretty large amount of people who brought their culture overseas.

edited 14th Apr '15 8:36:12 AM by math792d

Having the Norse Pantheon be interested in Western Culture makes a lot more sense then for the Egyptian Pantheon to still be up and influencing people... I'd honestly be a tad more interested in the Norse guys.

I still think branching out to other pantheons was a mistake though. Part of what made PJO work so well was that what was going on felt like something that could have happened in the myths, even though it was happening in the modern day.HoO felt very much like a modern urban fantasy, not like a modern day myth. And the same thing goes for the other Riordan books.

edited 14th Apr '15 1:26:58 PM by ObsidianFire

I think the reason why it felt like it could have happened in the myths is because a lot of them did, just with a modern makeover.

I like Heroes of Olympus a lot more because it starts telling stories that are undeniably mythic, but doesn't feel like it needs to use the Greco-Roman plot details as a kind of narrative crutch to tell its story. It can use all the trappings to tell an engaging narrative without having to crib directly from the source material.

Which is, frankly, the best way to do an adaptation of any kind of pre-monotheist mythology.

edited 14th Apr '15 1:54:00 PM by math792d

Ok. Consider me chastised. I do get that there is an american interest in norse and Egyptian mythologies in popular modern culture.

But doesn't really affect the fact that to me, trying to do the PJO series over again with a different mythos will just seem like an attempt to repeat past glories.

besides, the reason he gives in PJO for the olympians continued existance,"western civilization" really makes sense, but not so much for the other 2 pantheons.

I agree. Good thing the Kane Chronicles didn't do that, and Magnus Chase almost certainly won't do it either.