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3.5/5
Non-Fiction
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Rating: 4/5
Pages: 312
Started: 13 January 2024
Finished: 13 January 2024
Summary:
What started out as a mundane mission--help Grover get two kids out of a boarding school and to Camp Half-Blood before any monsters find them--becomes something worse when Annabeth is kidnapped by one of Kronos's monster henchmen and Percy, Thalia, Grover and their charges are saved by Artemis and her immortal huntresses. With Annabeth gone and Artemis alone on a hunt for a world-ending monster, the huntresses and demigods agree to collaborate on a quest to save Annabeth and stop Luke and Kronos from bringing about the gods' demise. Only, among the group of five sent on the quest, Percy isn't chosen, so he instead sets out alone. Prophesies are not meant to be defied, though, and all the demigods and huntresses must work together to save the gods and their friend.
Thoughts:
Again, analyzing this book while keeping in mind PJOTV characterization is fascinating, and I had so many thoughts about Percy's characterization and the role of gods and magic in the series.
I would argue that Percy's character arc in this book is defined by his parallel with Heracles. He begins with an excess of hubris and anger--refusing to let Thalia lead the school operation, defying her capture-the-flag plan--fury at himself and Thalia in general, though it is admittedly also very in-character for Percy to reject authority and try to use his intelligence to circumvent an authority's request. Percy's parallel to Heracles becomes even more evident part way through the book when he kills the Nemian Lion and takes its fur, and uses Anaklusmos which is the sword Zoe gave to Heracles in the ancient myth. Yet in the end of the book, Percy sacrifices his trophy (the lion skin) in a prayer to his father for the safe passage of Grover and Bessie, and instead of succumbing to anger and continuing to attack Atlas, he takes on the weight of the sky to free Artemis so his friends can be saved. Thus he rejects hubris and blinding anger and proves how he is different from other heroes, his flaw his loyalty and his willingness to sacrifice himself for his friends.
Speaking of sacrifice, I've been thinking a lot about Percy's penchant for planning to sacrifice his life thanks to conversations with some friends, and: every single time something starts to go wrong, Percy's go-to solution is to try to trade his life for his friends' safety. It happens at least half a dozen times in this book alone. It's never really talked about, and just sort of happens and then is ignored and then happens again, but while this willingness to sacrifice himself is arguably what makes Percy the hero, it's also a symptom of his fatal flaw and a heartbreaking commentary on how he sees his own self-worth.
Magic and the role of the gods in this book was also very interesting. The gods were very present compared to in the previous books--Athena, Hermes, Apollo, Artemis, Ares, Aphrodite, answered prayers to Zeus and Poseidon, and then the scene in Olympus at the end--but they all showed up very minutely, felt otherworldly, and didn't dominate the protagonists or their autonomy. The portrayal of Aphrodite was especially interesting; her beauty was as unsettling as Ares's anger, especially considering Percy's pain after holding up her mirror for ages while in a trance. Grover's magic was also a lot stronger in this book, with pipe-playing and tracking and future-telling, although that could be explained by Pan's looming re-emergence.
I am very excited to keep reading the series and tracking character arcs in comparison to the show. This really is a good series--first grade Ella was right.