Series / Percy Jackson and the Olympians (2023)

The gods are waiting.

"Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood. Being a half blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways. If you think you might be one of us, my advice is: turn away while you still can. Because once you know what you are, they'll sense it, too. And they'll come for you. Don't say I didn't warn you."

— Percy Jackson

Percy Jackson and the Olympians is an American Urban Fantasy series for Disney+, based around the middle grade books of the same name by Rick Riordan (who is one of the executive producers). Jon Steinberg and Dan Shotz (Black Sails) act as showrunners, and James Bobin (The Muppets) directs the pilot. It is the second screen adaptation of the books, following the 2010s film adaptations.

12-year-old Percy Jackson (Walker Scobell) is unexpectedly thrust into a world of gods, heroes and monsters when he is revealed to be the demigod son of the legendary sea god Poseidon (Toby Stephens) and the accused thief that stole the Master Bolt that the sky god Zeus (Lance Reddick) wields.

Now the young demigod must lead a quest with his two friends — Grover (Aryan Simhadri) the satyr and Annabeth (Leah Sava Jeffries) daughter of Athena — across America to prevent a war among the Olympian gods and restore order between his father and uncle.

The series' first two episodes premiered on December 19, 2023. A second season has been ordered.

Previews: Teaser, "We've Been Expecting You", Official Teaser Trailer, Official Trailer.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians contains examples of:

• A-Team Firing: A training variant. During Percy's training at archery, he aims his bow way too high from the hydra target and fires off, causing him to fall.
• Adaptation Amalgamation: Gabe's final fate ends up being a mix of both the original book and the first movie adaptation. Like in the book, he's turned to stone by Medusa's head after it's mailed back to Percy, but like in the movie, it's due to his own stupidity and spitefulness, rather than Sally murdering him outright, as the book implies.
• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Grover is much more upset when he discovers the statue of his uncle Ferdinand compared to in the books, where it was Played for Laughs.
• Adaptational Attractiveness: Due to Rick Riordan's preference of open-casting, some characters look far more conventionally attractive than how they are described in the books:
  • In the books, Grover is said by Percy to look like he was held back several grades, as he's the only sixth-grader with acne and signs of a wispy beard on his chin. Here, he's clean-shaven and looks slightly more convincing as a sixth-grader (Aryan Simhadri was 16 during filming).
  • Clarisse isn't exactly attractive according to Percy's description of her, while the comic adaptation portrays her as a flat-out Brawn Hilda. Here, she's played by Dior Goodjohn, who's far easier on the eyes.
  • Echidna's human disguise, a Fat Bastard in the book, is a fairly skinny woman here.
  • Like Uma Thurman, Medusa is, for the second time, a young beautiful woman instead of a hideous old crone.
  • Mr. D isn't as chubby as Percy describes him as, something the books and the Sea of Monsters film adaptation kept true to. Here, he's very thin.
  • Like Joe Pantoliano's interpretation of the character, Gabe Ugliano is pretty thin, but he has a full set of hair instead of being bald.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • Sally Jackson was a loving mother, but in the novels, she was fairly passive and put up with Gabe's abuse. In the first episode, she displays Mama Bear traits, standing up to Gabe and trying to side-swipe the Minotaur.
  • In the original novel, Percy only wins the fight against Clarisse and the other members of the red team during capture the flag after he's forced into the river and gets a boost of strength. Here, he's able to take them on three-to-one with little difficulty outside of his native element, and only gets shoved in the river by Annabeth after the fight is over so that his wounds can heal.
  • Compared to his Cowardly Lion book counterpart, Grover is shown to be much more brave as he was willing to ignore Chiron and Mr. D's strict orders of not telling Percy that Sally is still alive, even doing so right in front of them and knowing Mr. D would be ticked off.
  • Annabeth manages to kill one of the Furies during the brawl on the bus by throwing her knife at her. In the books, Percy killed her with Riptide.
• Adaptational Consent: Medusa implies that her relationship with Poseidon that led to her current condition was not entirely consensual, and from her point of view considers both herself and Sally to be his victims (although there's no indication that Sally's relationship with him was non-consensual). This is in contrast to her book counterpart who implied that her relationship was entirely consensual.
• Adaptational Context Change:
  • Clarisse had a rivalry with Percy in The Lightning Thief after trying to give him a swirly as an 'initiation ceremony' ends with Percy dousing her and her cabin-mates. In the show, she's gunning for Percy because she believes he's lying about slaying the Minotaur for the sake of kleos — the Greek concept of glory.
  • Annabeth wants to visit the Gateway Arch in St. Louis to admire its architecture in the original novel; in the show, it's a secret temple to Athena, built by one of her demigod children, and the main trio visit it in an attempt to seek sanctuary from Echidna and her Chimera. Unfortunately, Annabeth has incurred her mother's wrath by going along with Percy's scheme to send Medusa's head to Olympus, and that sanctuary is immediately revoked.
• Adaptation Deviation:
  • Percy sending Medusa's head to Olympus isn't directly addressed in The Lightning Thief until the very end, but in the show, this action causes the gods to see Percy and Annabeth as impertinent, which in turn causes Athena to allow the Chimera into the St. Louis Arch, which is normally a temple that monsters can't enter.
  • In the novel, Percy plunged directly out of the Gateway Arch and into the Mississippi River below; this is a geographical impossibility in real life, so instead, Poseidon sends a waterspout to grab him and drag him into the river as he's falling.
  • After retrieving Ares's shield, the God of War gives the trio the objective of getting to the Lotus Casino and meeting with Hermes so that his personal driver can quickly get them to Los Angeles; in the original novel, they ended up in the Lotus by sheer coincidence while looking for a place to rest, and Hermes doesn't show up until the second novel.
  • On leaving the Lotus Hotel and Casino, Percy himself drives all the way to Santa Monica (albeit aided by the fact that they stole Hermes's car and can travel there instantly). The original novel had them pay a cab driver with a card that had seemingly infinite money on it from the Lotus Hotel and Casino.
  • At the beach at Santa Monica, the nereid Percy meets informs him that he's too late, and that the Summer Solstice has passed; Zeus and Poseidon are heading to war. In the original novel, they got to Santa Monica the day of, with hours remaining. Furthermore, the water-spirit gives him four pearls instead of three — enough to save himself, Annabeth, Grover, and his mother. In the book, he was only given three.
  • Hades mentions that his Helm was stolen "days" before the Bolt and that he figures whoever stole the Helm used it to steal the Bolt. In the books, the Bolt and the Helm were stolen from Olympus at the same time because Hades only ever comes to Olympus for the winter solstice.
• Adaptational Diversity: In addition to Annabeth being Black and Grover being played by an actor of Indian descent, there are a few disabled campers at Camp Half-Blood; the camper that Percy tries and fails to demonstrate archery in front of uses a wheelchair.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: Due to Rick Riordan's preference of Ability over Appearance, very few of the actors chose to go the extra mile of resembling their book counterparts a capite ad calcem. Examples include: invoked
  • Percy and Poseidon have black hair in the books. Here, they are blond, only Poseidon's hair is brownish and Percy's is a sandy shade.
  • Annabeth is blonde with gray eyes in the books, but here she has black hair, effectively switching hair colors with Percy, as well as brown eyes. Rick Riordan has justified her brown eyes by stating that while he took the myths' description of Athena (and by extension her demigod kids) as "gray-eyed" literally in the books, the Ancient Greek term for 'gray-eyed' can also be translated as "bright-eyed" or "wise".
  • Grover's hair is black instead of brown, much like Brandon T. Jackson in the films. In addition, he has a wispy goatee in the books and films, but is clean-shaven here.
  • While Ares closely resembles his book counterpart, he has dark brown hair instead of black like in the official artwork.
  • Like Annabeth, Luke also swaps hair colors with Percy, now having black hair instead of being blond.
  • Like in the films, Chiron's horse half is brown, rather than the white stallion he is said to be in the books. While his hair is thinning like in the books, it's graying like in the second film instead of brown like in the books and the first film.
  • In the books, Zeus is a long-haired, long-bearded old man. In the first season, he's played by the late Lance Reddick, who is bald and clean-shaven.
• Adaptational Early Appearance:
  • In a rare case of a game being this, Mythomagic, Nico di Angelo's favorite game actually gets a cameo as something both Grover and Percy use to bond over, instead of of being first mentioned in The Titan's Curse.
  • In the books, Mount Olympus isn't visited until the final chapters of The Lightning Thief. Here, in Episode 3, Hermes is first glimpsed delivering Medusa's decapitated head to Mount Olympus.
  • Chris Rodriguez, who in the books was briefly mentioned in The Sea of Monsters but didn't truly appear until Battle of the Labyrinth, is in the second episode as Luke's cabin-mate who accompanies him and Percy in finding something Percy's good at.
  • In Episode 2, Grover consults with the Cloven Council. In the books, the Council of Cloven Elders was mentioned from Book 1 but not properly introduced until Battle of the Labyrinth (Book 4).
  • As shown in Episode 3, Blackjack was already one of the camp's pegasi by the beginning of the series, as opposed to being rescued from Luke at the end of Sea of Monsters (Book 2).
  • Hermes first appears in Episode 3, during the events of The Lightning Thief, delivering Medusa's head to Mount Olympus. In the books, he instead first appears during the events of The Sea of Monsters.
  • Annabeth provides exposition on how children of Athena are born in Episode 4; this detail, while accurate to the books, wasn't elaborated upon until The Battle of the Labyrinth, the fourth book in the series.
  • Episode 5 sees Timothy Omundson appearing as Hephaestus as he tries to stop Annabeth from freeing Percy from the trap in Waterworld; Hephaestus doesn't appear in the flesh until the fourth novel. A mechanical rhino that might be one of his constructs is observed by Percy in his youth.
  • The majority of Luke's backstory wasn't filled in until the final book in the original series; due to Hermes getting an Adaptational Early Appearance, the broad strokes of it are explained in Episode 6, which is still in the first novel.
  • Episode 6 features a very easy-to-miss Early-Bird Cameo of Nico di Angelo calling out for his sister Bianca.
• Adaptation Expansion: Rick Riordan has gone on record stating that he plans to expand the original source material of his novel series.
  • Riordan intends to expand the series over the source material:
    In terms of the plot, we stuck with it very closely. What I will say though, that I found really fascinating, is that we were able to look at the story, which I wrote back in 2005, and say, "What do I wish I had done at that time? What background can we give people that know the story backwards and forwards, but still have questions like, 'How did Sally meet Poseidon?' or 'What were Percy's experiences in school before we see him in the first chapter?'" We were able to dive into that and flesh out the history of these characters and the chemistry between them in ways that are completely faithful [to the book] but are also new.
  • The series opens with a flashback to Percy's youth and show that he's always been able to see through the Mist, filling up a whole notebook with illustrations of what he sees. It also shows that he and Grover bonded over the card game Mythomagic, which is the favorite game of Nico di Angelo.
  • The second episode introduces the concept of kleos — the Ancient Greek form of glory, which is earned by defeating monsters and completing quests. This was not present in the original novels.
  • The fourth episode opens with a flashback to Percy's childhood, showing he had an Ironic Fear of swimming when he was younger.
• Adaptation Explanation Extrication:
  • Luke claims that all of the demigods at camp have dyslexia and ADHD, but the series doesn't clarify why this is the case; the novels stated that the dyslexia was due to the brains of Greek demigods being 'hardwired for Ancient Greek', and the ADHD was a manifestation of battle reflexes. Ironically, the 2010 film had Grover explaining this to Percy.
  • Percy's sword was named "Anaklusmos" (Greek for "Riptide") when he received it in the original novel, but for the entirety of the first season, it's gone unnamed.
  • In the books, Sally's original reason for marrying such an awful man as Gabe was because his stench hid Percy from monsters. This goes unmentioned in the series, leaving the reason behind her marrying him unexplained.
• Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole: Subverted. In the books, the Arch was just the Arch. However, in the series, the Arch is a temple to Athena. When Echidna and the Chimera enter the Arch, Grover is confused, because monsters can't enter a god's temple unless the god gives them permission, and why would Athena give Echidna permission to kill her daughter? However, with horror, Annabeth learns Athena was embarrassed by the fact that Annabeth let Percy send Medusa's head to Olympus, and that this is her punishment.
• Adaptational Intelligence:
  • Annabeth figures out that Percy is Poseidon's son much quicker than she does in the books. Here, she shoves him into the river because she's seemingly riddled out that he's Poseidon's son before anyone else at camp has figured it out, after seeing him demonstrate Making a Splash powers in a prior scuffle with Clarisse. In the books, she only realizes it after she sees Percy's wounds heal from being in the water after the game of Capture the Flag ends.
  • Annabeth also immediately deduces that "Aunty Em's Garden Gnome Emporium" is Medusa's lair, whereas in the books she didn't notice until after she had eaten the burgers.
  • Grover immediately clocks onto the fact that the Lotus Casino is the modern-day manifestation of the Land of the Lotus Eaters from The Odyssey. In the novels, nobody, not even Annabeth, realized this, even after the Lotus Hotel came up again in the third book.
• Adaptational Late Appearance:
  • Rather than appearing to Percy and Grover as Percy is leaving Yancy Academy, the Fates appear at the Arch in Episode 5 in front of Grover and Annabeth.
  • Since Hephaestus's trap doesn't involve spiders, Annabeth's fear of them is never established in linear time; instead, a flashback in the final episode has Luke using Annabeth's arachnaphobic reaction to spiders (squashing them) as a metaphor for what gods do when a demigod steps out of line.
• Adaptational Nice Guy:
  • According to Word of God, Percy's abusive stepfather Gabe's behavior is toned down here to mesh better with the series's light-hearted tone.invoked Downplayed, since his behavior towards Sally is still emotionally abusive, just less cartoonishly evil.
  • While Chiron has always been a kindhearted and charming Cool Teacher, Team Dad and Big Good that all demigods can rely on, his interaction with Percy in the first chapters of The Lighting Thief show that he can be Innocently Insensitive from time to time and his words do affect Percy negatively, not helped by the fact that when he has his confrontation with Percy its within earshot of Nancy in the books. Here, he's a lot more gentle and encouraging during their conversation.
  • In the books, Annabeth's father was reluctant to take Annabeth in when Athena delivered her to him, and this was a source of angst for Annabeth as she felt it meant her father never wanted her. In Episode 3, Annabeth mentions to Percy that her father did take her in and "treat her like a gift", with things only starting to fall apart after he moved on and got married to Annabeth's stepmother.
  • Medusa of all people gets this, saving the trio from Alecto and offering them food. Whereas the books followed the more classical version of Medusa's myth — an irredeemable monster who was cursed to turn people to stone — the show seems to take more inspiration from Ovid's interpretation, where she was made monstrous by Athena after being victimized by Poseidon. While Percy of course has to obliterate her, she comes off as sympathetic and at least somewhat nuanced.
• Adaptational Superpower Change:
  • While in pen form, Riptide will vibrate whenever it detects a monster nearby, an ability it doesn't have in the books.
  • Multiple monsters are shown to have a form of Telepathy that allows them to directly communicate with the demigods they are hunting without being overheard by mortals.
• Adaptational Sympathy: In the books, Medusa was a straightforward villain. Here, she's a Tragic Villain and a Well-Intentioned Extremist depicted as a victim of the gods' cruelty. She's still evil, but portrayed in a much more nuanced light.
• Adapted Out:
  • The cloaked figure that Percy sees sitting by the hearth at Camp Half-Blood who turns out to be Hestia, Goddess of the Hearth and Home, in The Last Olympian is omitted.
  • Percy isn't attacked by the hellhound after Capture the Flag.
  • Argus doesn't appear due to being judged not worth the effects cost that would be required for his very minor appearance.
  • Gladiola the poodle is absent, though young Percy's swim trunks in the flashback in Episode 4 have a poodle design as a Mythology Gag.
  • Nectar and ambrosia, divine foodstuffs that demigods can eat in limited quantities to heal their injuries but are fatal to mortals and satyrs, seem to be completely omitted from the show.
  • One of the last chapters in the book has Percy fly back from LA to New York to deliver the Master Bolt, intruding in Zeus's domain and putting him in peril; in the show, Poseidon's pearls teleport them to the beach on Montauk instead of Santa Monica, removing the need for this.
• Age Lift: Grover is twenty-eight in the original novel, but says he's only twenty-four in the show.
• Ambiguous Time Period: Rick Riordan intended to give the show's setting a timeless feel as far as this post was concerned. However, it has to be set in 2013 at the earliest, considering One World Trade Center is seen in the background of an establishing shot. If it weren't for the technology, the pop culture references (which the books are also guilty of) or the Freedom Tower's appearance, the show could almost be set at any time between 2005 and 2025.
  The series isn't meant to be set in the 2010s. It's meant to be a sort of timeless "modern day" vibe, so we aren't trying to capture a certain decade.
• Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: He's not named, but dialog implies that Eero Saarinen, the architect behind the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, was a child of Athena.
• Big Damn Heroes: Poseidon saves his son, Percy, using a water spout, at the end of Episode 4. He saves Percy again in Episode 8, this time from the wrath of his own brother, Zeus.
• Big "NO!":
  • In Episode 2, Percy is told to fire a bow at a hydra-shaped target as part of figuring out who his godly parent is. After completely missing the target and causing the surrounding campers to duck in panic, Percy asks if he should try again; the campers loudly tell him "NO!"
  • Also in said episode, Clarisse shouts it when she realizes Percy broke her spear during their fight.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: The Olympians according to Ares, Percy's cousin. Long ago, Kronos, grandfather of both Ares and Percy, ate his own children and Zeus started a war to free them. One of the central driving plots of the season is an impending war between two brothers, Zeus and Poseidon. Kronos attempts to return to power, by exploiting this and turns both Ares and Luke to his side, in a plot to steal the Bolt and start a war against his own sons and grandsons. Ares also tries to kill his own cousin, Percy.
• Call-Forward:
  • Gaea is mentioned by Echidna in Episode 4.
  • Episode 6 features Annabeth telling Percy the story of May Castellan.
  • Also in Episode 6, Nico di Angelo's voice can be faintly heard in the background of the Lotus Casino, calling for his sister.
• Classical Chimera: The Chimera herself menaces the heroes in the fourth episode, first attacking them onboard a train and following them to the Gateway Arch. She largely resembles a scaly green and gray colored lioness with a pair of goat-like horns on her head alongside a cobra-like hood, the ability to breath fire, scaly ridges across her back, and the traditional 'snake head for a tail' replaced with an almost dragon-like tail colored with coral snake-like stripes and with a vaguely scorpion-like stinger at the tip.
• Clingy MacGuffin: Percy's sword cannot be lost unless he willingly surrenders it; it always returns to his pocket in pen form.
• Colorblind Casting: The Olympians may be family, but they're played by actors of a wide variety of races. For the Big Three, Lance Reddick (Zeus) is Black, while Toby Stephens (Poseidon) and Jay Duplass (Hades) are white. As for Zeus's godly children, Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hermes) is Latino, Jason Mantzoukas (Mr. D/Dionysus) is Greek, and Adam Copeland (Ares) and Timothy Omundson (Hephaestus) are white. Then again, as far as Riordan's writings are concerned, they're all gods, so they can change appearances at will. That's also not getting into their demigod kids, who are a wide variety of races, too.
• Company Cross References: In the final episode, Annabeth mentions her father is taking her to Walt Disney World, but seemingly doesn't know what it is, other than it seems less determined to kill her than Waterland was.
• Creative Closing Credits: The background of the credits are a stop-motion animation in Art-Deco style that essentially summarize the main plot of The Lightning Thief and introduce some of the gods.
• Creator Cameo:
  • Rick Riordan has a cameo in the first episode as a Yancy Academy staff member.
  • Statues of Riordan and his wife, Becky, appear in Episode 3 as part of Medusa's collection.
• Didn't Think This Through: In the third episode, Grover explains his plan to defeat Medusa, telling Percy and Annabeth to run as soon as he says, "Maia!" Unfortunately, since that's the trigger word for the flying shoes regardless of context, the shoes activate anyway, causing him to be sent flying. He even screams the trope name as he crashes back down.
• Dies Differently In The Adaptation: In The Lightning Thief, Sally explicitly murdered Gabe using Medusa's head because he was an abuser, plopping it in front of him in the middle of a poker game. In the show, Gabe peels open the package containing her head himself after it's marked "Return to Sender".
• Disabled in the Adaptation: In the books, films, and musical, Chiron is fully-abled and simply uses a wheelchair when going undercover as a human. Here, he has a brace on his left back leg. The creators have confirmed that this is a war injury, though it will be just a detail during Season 1.
• Eldritch Location: The Lotus Hotel and Casino. It's Bigger on the Inside, and thanks to vapor from the lotus flowers being pumped through the vents, there's major Time Dilation going on; twenty minutes, from Percy and Annabeth's perspective, equates to about several days outside.
• Everybody Hates Hades: Defied. After suspecting Hades of masterminding the lightning theft since Episode 2, the Lord of the Dead reveals that he had nothing to do with the drama surrounding the Bolt. He is perfectly content with ruling the Underworld, since it means he's far away from his Big, Screwed-Up Family on Mount Olympus. He only sent his Furies after Percy because his symbol of power, the Helm of Darkness, has also been stolen and he believes Percy took it.
• Face Death with Dignity: Grover notes that his Uncle Ferdinand didn't look afraid like the rest of those turned into stone by Medusa.
• Fauns and Satyrs: Grover and other satyrs are human from the waist up, but have goat legs and horns.
• Final Battle: Luke, having been revealed as the true Lightning Thief, duels against Percy. Luke has the upper hand until Annabeth arrives to help Percy.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: As Percy confronts Luke in the Season 1 finale, a firework briefly reveals a tall silhouette in the woods behind him: Kronos was watching.
• Full-Name Ultimatum: When Percy stubbornly refuses to leave his mother behind with the Minotaur, Sally calls him by his real name, Perseus, before telling him to "brave the storm".
• Greater-Scope Villain: Kronus is revealed as such, having manipulated everything, including his grandsons, Ares and Percy, to start a war against the Olympians and retake his throne.
• Good Parents: Sally Jackson doesn't question her son's account of what happened when he's expelled from Yancy Academy and is shown to be just as loving to him as she was in the novels.
• Gory Discretion Shot: Medusa doesn't get decapitated until after Annabeth puts on her invisibility-inducing baseball cap, and the most we see of her severed head is a shot from the back when Percy uses it to petrify Alecto. Her blood is also invisible as well.
• In Which a Trope Is Described: The episode titles adopt this format, all derived from the books' chapter titles.
• Innocently Insensitive: Percy suggests burying Medusa's head with the invisibility cap on to prevent anyone from accidentally looking at it. It takes Grover explaining that the cap was a gift from Athena to realize that Annabeth was being sarcastic when she agreed and that she was actually upset.
• Lower Half Reveal: When Grover shows up at the window of Jacksons' rental cabin in the middle of a storm, Percy is at first mad at him since Grover recently got him expelled... until Grover comes inside and Percy sees Grover's legs. Percy tries to get the anxious Grover's attention, before finally blurting out, "Grover, why is there half a goat in your pants?" The camera pans down to Grover's goat legs poking out of his shorts, revealing he's a satyr.
• Meaningful Echo: "Hold fast, Perseus. Brave the storm."
  • In the first episode, it's first said in a story Sally is telling Percy, framed as the mythological Perseus's mother, Danae, encouraging her son. Later, in the same episode, she says an altered version of it to Percy before sacrificing herself.
  • In the seventh episode, Percy says, "Hold fast, Mom," before using a pearl to escape the Underworld.
• Misplaced Wildlife: In Episode 2, when Percy plays hooky from playing Capture-the-Flag in the forest, he encounters and strokes a crested gecko, which is native to the Pacific island of New Caledonia.
• Moody Trailer Cover Song: The official teaser trailer is set to a slow and dramatic remix of Vance Joy's "Riptide", the name of Percy's sword in the books.
• The Mountains of Illinois: Due to the series being shot in Vancouver, where the 20th Century Fox adaptations were also filmed, the portion of New Jersey where the main trio encounters Medusa is a pine forest unlike any found in that climate. Lampshaded by Percy:
  Percy: I didn't even know they had forests in New Jersey, but we found one.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The trailer features a Moody Trailer Cover Song of Vance Joy's "Riptide", the name of Percy's sword (which has yet to actually be named in the show).
  • After being bullied by Nancy, Grover suggests to Percy that he should go see Mr. Kane. Whether or not Mr. Kane is Julius Kane, the father of Carter and Sadie Kane is left for guessing.
  • In the first episode after the car crashes in a ditch, Grover uses his goat feet to smash a car window to help Percy and himself climb out, like his 2010 film counterpart.
• No Smoking: Due to Disney's anti-smoking policy, Gabe is not seen with his cigar.
• Not Me This Time: Hades and Clarisse are revealed to have nothing to do with the Lightning Thief plot, despite the initial suspicions of Percy and his friends.
• Orange/Blue Contrast: The teaser poster cuts a striking image by contrasting the bright orange of a Camp Half-Blood T-shirt with the blue plume of a Greek warrior helmet.
• Parental Abandonment: Much like the books, gods are aloof to their mortal children, often taking long to claim them, if ever, unless they prove themselves through acts of glory. Because of this, demigods who are claimed are often defensive of their divine parent and very possessive of whatever enchanted gifts they're given, as the only proof of a connection they have.
• Pragmatic Adaptation:
  • Becky Riordan explained why the production team (or specifically the makeup department) chose not to have the actors resemble their literary descriptions as mentioned in this Threads post.
    Filming was intense. We needed our kids to be as comfortable as possible and spend the least amount of time in costumes and makeup as possible so they could be filming. Time with kids is limited. We also were very respectful of our adult cast too. In a lot of cases they helped pick the wardrobe choices they were most comfortable with. Glynn even picked the horse he worked with. Every day I am grateful for the cast we were able to gather for this show. Walker Scobell is a brilliant actor. His hair does not need to be black for him to embody Percy. When Fox first optioned Percy before the movie cast Logan, Rick's readers knowing our son was the inspiration for Percy imagined we would cast Percy with light brown hair like our son has.
    • Azriel Dalman also explained why he couldn't wear a wig due to the underwater scenes.
  • Gabe now plays online poker as opposed to having an in-person poker game with his buddies; this helps cement how big of a loser he is, and helps cut down on the budget for casting.
  • Grover's legs are portrayed as being uncovered when human; this is handwaved by the existence of the Mist, and gives the actor more freedom with their wardrobe.
  • The detail about any wine Dionysus conjures being turned into Diet Coke is implied by him holding a can of the drink, and the fact that he's not allowed to consume alcohol is filled in with exposition courtesy of Chiron.
  • Paste Magazine lampshaded the changes in their review of the show:
    If you want this show to be a copy-paste job, you will be severely disappointed, but where's the fun in that anyway? From what we have seen so far, the changes have only streamlined and enhanced the story, and both of those things are improvements that will hopefully lead to the renewal of a series that is bound to be loved by people of all ages. What truly matters is that Percy Jackson and the Olympians doesn't throw away the iconic set-pieces that are so important to us. The car chase with the Minotaur is still tragic and terrifying, Percy still gets to drench Clarisse in toilet water, and Riptide is still a sword disguised as a ballpoint pen. These are the characters we know and love going on a journey we have experienced over and over again, and if fate is in our favor, we'll get to see this series through to the very end.
  • Medusa's severed head is only shown briefly for one shot from behind, being invisible or inside a box the rest of the time; this helps keep the rating of the show down (showing a severed head on-screen likely would make it inappropriate for its target audience) and means that a severed head prop doesn't have to be designed.
  • In the book, Percy jumps from the Gateway Arch directly into the Mississippi River to escape the Chimera — which would be impossible in real life, since the river is actually several hundred feet from the Arch instead of under it. The show instead has Poseidon save Percy by summoning a waterspout to drag him into the Mississippi River and properly heal him.
  • Percy doesn't have the ability to stay dry underwater as he does in the books, as it would likely be difficult and time consuming to dry Walker off after every underwater scene. This only seems to be the case sometimes, as during the fight with Ares in the final episode, a wave crashes over him and he emerges dry.
• Race Lift: Because of Riordan's belief in talent over appearance, the ethnicities of some characters have been swapped from their book counterparts:
  • Annabeth is Black, rather than being a tanned blonde.
  • Grover's skin color isn't specified in the books, but he is portrayed as white in official artwork. Here, he's played by Indian actor Aryan Simhadri.
  • Clarisse is played by Black actress Dior Goodjohn.
  • Zeus is played by Black actor Lance Reddick in the first season.
  • Chiron is played by Black actor Glynn Turman.
  • One of the Fates stays White, while another is Asian and the other is Black.
  • While she hasn't been cast yet, the fresco art in the Creative Closing Credits shows that Athena is Black in this continuity like her daughter.
• Refusal of the Call: Played up in comparison to the books. Percy gets in a shouting match with Mr. D about how he wants nothing to do with his dad. He only agrees to go on the quest at all when Grover reveals that Sally is still alive, and traveling to the Underworld may be his only chance at getting her back.
• Sadly Mythtaken: Chris claims that Oizys is the Greek Goddess of Failure; she's actually the personification of pain, misery, and distress, all things that can result from failure, but not failure itself, though this could be a case of Chris being a Deadpan Snarker in his case.
• Saving the World: One of Percy's driving motivations for the quest is due to the fear that a war between Zeus and Poseidon would cause untold devastation to the mortal world.
• Sequel Hook: At the end of Episode 8, Grover says he's going to search the seas for Pan, which will lead right into Season 2, based off the events of The Sea of Monsters.
• Serious Business: Earning kleos (glory) from slaying monsters and completing quests is this to the demigods of Camp Half-Blood, to the point where Clarisse is gunning for Percy because she doesn't believe that he single-handedly defeated the Minotaur and thinks he's lying for the sake of glory.
• Sixth Ranger Traitor: In Episode 8, Luke is revealed as the Lightning Thief, having plotted alongside Ares and Kronos to start a war amongst the Olympians out of resentment towards their poor treatment of mortals and half-bloods. He manages to escape the grasp of Percy and Annabeth in the Final Battle, in order to continue his plans and recruit more acolytes.
• Spider-Sense: Percy's sword, Riptide, vibrates madly as if it can sense monsters nearby and alert Percy, something the book version of said sword was never capable of.
• Time-Shifted Actor: Azriel Dalman appears as a younger Percy.
• Trailers Always Spoil: At the end of Episode 6, Percy has missed the Summer Solstice and the war is starting. The official trailer still shows Percy presenting the Master Bolt to the guard at the Empire State Building, all but confirming that Percy will succeed in his quest despite missing the deadline.
• Truer to the Text: In spite of several alterations to the character's physical appearances as well as several changes to the story and plot line, the show is ultimately more faithful to the books than the 2010 film and its sequel.
  • Percy is much more in line with his literary counterpart in terms of personality, complete with his trademark penchant for snark.
  • After being Adapted Out of the Lightning Thief film and only appearing in the Sea of Monsters, Clarisse makes her debut in the first season and retains her antagonistic rival role to Percy.
• With Friends Like These...: How Percy felt when Grover turn-coated him in Episode 1. They eventually reconcile after Grover tells him that Sally Jackson is still alive in Episode 2.
• You Are Too Late: In a departure from the Lightning Thief novel, Percy, Annabeth, and Grover stay at the Lotus Hotel too long. By the time they escape, the solstice has passed and the war between sea and sky is beginning. Still, Percy is insistent about completing the quest to save his mother and the world.

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"Percy Jackson. We've been expecting you."