Headscratchers / The Trials of Apollo

• What happened to Camp Half-Blood's plates in this book? They used to generate any food the user wanted. In this book, they are strangely absent. Why?
  • Off season, maybe they were put away? Or maybe someone found some way to break them.
  • The plates didn't generate food - right from the start of the entire series food was always served by the assorted nymphs. You might have misremembered slightly; the camp's glasses generate whatever drinks are asked for, which is why Percy drinks blue Coke.
  • You might be thinking of Camp Jupiter, where the plates do generate food.
• Right when Meg is claimed by Demeter, the book mentions a girl from the Demeter cabin talking. Just a few moments later, Apollo mentions Billie Ng as the only Demeter camper (besides Meg) present. What?!
  • Besides Miranda Gardiner the head counselor. Because it wasn't summer there were only three campers in the Demeter cabin: Miranda, Billie, and Meg. All girls, understand?
• Why did Apollo got squicked when he realized that Thalia and him are half-siblings? Isn't incest quite common and rather irrelevant among the Greek gods?
  • Maybe it's the human teenager form talking.
  • Also unlike his dad, Apollo and his siblings avoid sleeping with siblings. They'll sleep with cousins but not siblings.
    • I imagine it’s because he’s mortal now. Though from the way he had that realisation, flirting with children of Zeus has often resulted in him going “ew” and “curse you father for having so many children”. Generally from thinking “oh wait, I’m a son of Zeus, so I (gag) I just flirted with my sister” kind of way. Basically if he doesn’t think about it, he’s unbothered about it, if he thinks about it, he squicks.
• Apollo explains that Celestial Bronze guns aren't practical because the bullets evaporate after use. How is that not already a problem with arrows?
  • Most bullets are designed to deform◊ on impact, making them impossible to reuse. A loosed arrow, on the other hand, can often be recovered and reused wholesale; even if the shaft breaks, the arrowhead can simply be attached to a new one. Plus, if the arrows are enchanted to return to the archer's quiver (a'la Riptide) manually recovering them becomes a non-issue.
• You can chalk it up to character development, but is there any reason why Apollo is suddenly feeling all this guilt and self-loathing now? Like I know, it's possible he always felt like this, but given his narcissism, it feels weird that his conscience is suddenly surging up now.
  • The first two books show him still as the narcissist he was, by book three he's began growing out of it and he takes to heart Jason's words to not forget what it was like being human, Book four is when his past really starts coming back to haunt him and he begins feeling the guilt and self-loathing you mentioned.
    • It’s a mix of things. Much of Apollo’s self worth came from his power, various skills, good looks, with his punishment having specifically striped him of those, forcing him to learn some humility while. Then there are the various tragedies and failures he faces, quite a few of which happen to people he comes to consider friends. Also as he indicated as early as the Hidden Oracle, he’s no stranger to guilt, even if as a God he hid it.
• How were Apollo's kids - Jerry, Gracie, and Yan - claimed if they showed up after he was turned mortal?
  • Perhaps Artemis showed up in their dreams?
  • Maybe the gods set up some sort of auto-claim magic so they don't have to pay attention to their children, thus circumnavigating the spirit of Percy's wish.
• In The Burning Maze, when Leo returns from warning Camp Jupiter about the attack, he asks where Jason, who died in chapter 33, is. It's a great tearjerker and all, but how did he know Jason was supposed to be there? Apollo and Meg didn't mention needing him for the quest at the Waystation, and although Thalia did ask Apollo to check on Jason for her, Leo didn't hear that. Sure, he saw Piper, but how does he know that they didn't just decide to ditch Jason?
  • Maybe a dream told him. That happens to demigods quite a lot.
    • Or he just saw the looks on everyone's faces when he brought up Jason.
  • Well, one , “how did he even know Piper would be there?”, would be a more pressing question than how he knew Jason should be there. But disregarding that, note, he asked that question after seeing the looks on their faces, and he seemed to be asking that in a “hey, where can I find my friend I haven’t seen since I exploded Gaia?” kind of way. Secondly, since they were dealing with an emperor I think Leo assumed (rightfully) that they would have gotten Piper and Jason for backup.
• When exactly does The Tower of Nero take place? We know that it takes place approximately "six months" after Apollo's fall—so presumably July, but when exactly in July would that be? I'd assume it would be late July to early August due to Jerry and Yan's presence at CHB, because in the British and Hong Kong education systems, most schools' summer holidays don't start until mid- or late July, and there would presumably be time for them to adjust to life at CHB and be claimed, unless they joined CHB during a previous school holiday (e.g. Easter).
  • Time is vague in Riordan books. Unless it’s specifically plot relevant, don’t worry about it.
• Small one, but in The Tower of Nero, Apollo jokingly wonders if at the dawn of time, "the elder gods" let the troglodytes pick their species-wide Arch-Enemy of the tauri silvestres. Who was he referring to? The Protogenoi, the Titans, or the first six Olympians? Or was he referring to a different, older pantheon?
  • It was a joke. He could have meant a lot things, you decide what.
• Apollo mentioning Jesus of Nazareth, creates a couple of headscratchers. Apollo says the following in The Burning Maze:
  Apparently, she (Herophile) was being celebrated for some obscure prophecy long ago, when she’d predicted the birth of Jesus the Nazarene.
  • Does this imply that Jesus in this universe is real in the sense that All Myths Are True? Does that also mean Jesus is a mythical being powered by belief the way Apollo is in this universe?
    • Jesus of Nazarene could just be a historical figure in this universe.
    • Also, considering that, according to the Kane Chronicles, Moses existed, in this universe, I presume Jesus existed.
  • Does Apollo know who Jesus of Nazarene is? He calls her prophesying Jesus’s birth “some obscure prophecy”, which makes it sound like Apollo believes Jesus’s birth in this universe was inconsequential. In a historical sense, belief in Jesus has had a massive impact in Western culture over the past two millennia. So the fact that Apollo seems to think the prophecy was inconsequential makes it appear as if Apollo doesn’t really understand who Jesus is.
    • Apollo mentions Nero burning Christians, so he definitely has heard of Christianity. Given how much art and music pre-Renaissance depicted Jesus and his deeds, there’s no way he doesn’t know who Jesus is.
    • Maybe Apollo is just saying the prophecy was obscure, not Jesus himself.
    • The way he phrased it, it seems he was specifically talking about the prophecy being. Though considering how self-absorbed Apollo can be, how discombobulated he was at that time, who knows really.