Where Every Scroll is a New Adventure
I wonder what kind of relationship Poseidon and Annabeth have. I’m sure it’s a subtle one bc they don’t interact, but I like the idea of them kinda trying to feel the other out. Like, Annabeth occasionally gives Poseidon offerings when she’s worried about Percy and Poseidon just being NO WAY IS MY SON ENDING UP WITH AN OWL HOOLIGAN only to see Annabeth save Percy’s life and him reluctantly allowing her a nice beach day.
And later on, they begrudgingly kinda do nice things for one another. Annabeth sighs and cleans up Poseidon’s temple and Poseidon might groan and tell sea monsters not to bother Annabeth and it’s just an exasperated relationship even though they haven’t even had a single conversation.
The real kicker comes when they start defending one another without thinking about it. Hera complains about Annabeth and Poseidon is just like ‘okay, now. don’t be mad bc she called you out’ while Athena is sitting there bewildered. One of Annabeth’s siblings makes a passive aggressive comment about Poseidon and she starts listing off all his accomplishments and ‘everyone makes mistakes and he’s been alive for a thousand of years so he might have a bit more than the average person but he’s done plenty of good things too-’
And poor Percy is just praying to Athena like “That could be us :D”
The gods not understanding how demigod kids work😂 I’m just waiting for the moment one of their kids gets a paper cut or something and they’re just like, “PAPER! THEY SOMEHOW GET HURT BY PAPER!”
Okay, but the duality of human beings is SO wild that I’m positive this information would absolutely break them.
There are humans that can survive great heights? But only sometimes? And other times they die? It is really just up to chance and how you land?
Humans can fall down a flight of stairs and say they’re completely fine, but PAPER hurts them and they whine about it all day?
Gunshot wounds? Yeah, we can recover from that (well, depending on where you’re hit, maybe). As long as invisible bacteria doesn’t get into the wound without us noticing... then we might die even if the blood is gone and wound sewn up.
Zeus is like “There are people out there who survive my lightning strikes?” and then learns the same person died like.... three hours later from choking on a hotdog.
Hermes, with a magazine: Athena! Look at this. It says here that 1 in every 15,000 humans die from exercising too much.
Athena: But... they need exercise? All my research says they need exercise!
Annabeth: You did hear the one in FIFTEEN THOUSAND part, right?
Hades: HOW ARE THEY DYING FROM DOING THE THING THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO DO! DAMNIT!
Then you have Demeter running in like:
Demeter: KILL THE MOSQUITOES! KILL THE MOSQUITOES!!!
Ares: Why?
Demeter: Look at this! I ran the numbers while in the Underworld while visiting Persephone. One million people die a YEAR from mosquitoes. We have to kill them.
Ares: There’s no way these punks are dying from these tiny bugs.
Demeter: Apparently, they carry diseases.
Ares, softly: ...holy shit. Biological warfare.
Apollo, flipping a table: IS NOTHING ON THIS GODDAMN PLANET SAFE ANYMORE?!
Chiron, still trying to explain everything: Nothing on this planet was ever safe at any point... ever.
Athena: Pandora’s box?
Chiron: You guys pin wayyyyy too much on that poor girl.
Later on, you have Nico walking up in bubble wrap like ‘okay, which one of y’all told the gods that it hurts when we stub our toes?’ and you got Piper in helmet and knee pads all bitter like ‘It wasn’t me’ and Will is just looking so guilty before quietly going ‘I just wanted to explain how nerves worked’
They try to explain it all to the gods and it just... gets so much worse.
Zeus: So... the medicine... that heals you.... can also kill you...?
Will: I mean, if you overdose, yeah. It’s the same with ambrosia-
Hermes: AMBROSIA CAN KILL YOU!?
Percy: HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW THIS?!
Hephaestus: That’s it. All of you are too fragile. We’re going to have to make a safer planet. This is ridiculous. Maybe we can just put them all on Venus or something-
Leo: We need oxygen to survive, Dad.
Ares: You’re kidding me, right?
Annabeth: Um, no, but... well... we can’t actually have too much oxygen or we’ll-
Poseidon: LET ME GUESS! You die?! For the love of Rhea! How has anyone survived anything?
Nico: Well... we all end up dead at some point, so arguably... we don’t survive?
And finally:
Jason: you guys created humans. Why don't you know this?
Zeus: No. Prometheus created humans and quite frankly he did a TERRIBLE job-
I like that there is just… A noticeable gap in the gods’ understanding of mortal children. Like, Zeus really accused a TWELVE-YEAR-OLD of stealing his master bolt and the only justification I have for him is “Well, Hermes stole Apollo’s cattle right after birth so that tracks”
But now I have a theory that the gods don’t really understand how mortal children work and that’s why they’re so blasé about sending them to do ridiculous nonsense?
Like…
Zeus: what do you mean ‘first word’? Why would they only speak one word?
Artemis: humans can only cry when they’re born
Zeus: nonsense. When you were born you didn’t cry. You delivered your brother and then came to me to ask for a birthday present.
Artemis: humans aren’t the same though. They can’t walk or talk for many months. When they do speak it is only in small, short words.
Zeus: ….that’s not true
Artemis: I’m afraid it is
Zeus, under his breath: what the fuck
Later on…
Keep reading
Artemis is supposed to be the protector of young girls, not trick them into joining an eternal hunting/death cult, take them to witness wars and punish them if they want to leave. She would not isolate them from society and freeze their biological development. She would not kick lesbians out of the hunt. If Real Artemis met PJO Artemis, she'd hunt her down ruthlessly and slaughter her as painfully as possible.
If Real Zeus met PJO Zeus, he'd be throwing him into Tartarus. What do you mean you're a bumbling, incompetent king that can't be bothered to take care of his own kids and doesn't let the others see them? Tartarus for you, asshole!
If Real Apollo met PJO Apollo, I think that he'd be disappointed. Kind of mad, but mostly disappointed. Apollo seems to be a good dad, but he's still vain and narcissistic when Real Apollo isn't really like that.
If Real Hades met PJO Hades, he'd be roaring at him for breaking justice by sending monsters after a twelve year old girl for no fault of her own just because of what her father did to his lover. He'd be screaming at the way Hades sent his son down into Tartarus of all places for no good reason. Honestly Hades would also throw PJO Hades into Tartarus.
If Real Hera met PJO Hera, she'd be disgusted by her. Liking perfect families only? Beefing with literal children who aren't even Zeus' bastards? Leaving a hero to wander the streets when said hero saved Olympus? No gratitude at all? No, honey, straight into Tartarus for you too.
If Real Ares met PJO Ares.........oh boy, the fight would destroy most of New York, I should think. It would kill millions of people and animals. Real Ares would be rearing to rip PJO Ares apart.
If Real Athena met PJO Athena, she'd be horrified at how Athena treated her lovers and children. She would literally fight her and make her swear on the Styx to never dump babies on men without their consent. Actually, she'd use her wits to throw PJO Athena into Tartarus.
Note: red highlighted parts are important and must be read.
This is a link to a post that beautifully talks about Rick Riordan's horrendous portrayal of Athena and the other goddesses down below-
It's a must-read. Please read it.
Rick has made many, many egregious writing decisions. I can't say which one is the most horrible, but a leading candidate is the fact that he chose to make Athena, a virgin goddess, have children.
For the shocked Pikachus who have had the utter bliss of not having to know how Rick Riordan ruined Athena, yes, Rick made Athena have children.
She doesn't lose her virginity though-she has brain children formed from the thoughts of her and her lover, which she considers the purest form of love.
And this is terrible, because the Ancient Greeks equated virginity to not bearing children and not marrying. If Athena bears children, then how can she be a virgin?
Yes, Athena's children ARE HER CHILDREN. They are explicitly called her children. And she's said to be their mother. That means that she's not a virgin anymore.
And Athena's virgin goddess status and refusal to marry reinforced her role as a powerful goddess who was independent. Marriage symbolized subordination to a husband, so by not marrying, Athena's autonomy and power were shown very clearly.
Athena's key qualities-wisdom, strategy and war-are associated with rationality and independence, which were not associated with love in Ancient Greece. If she loved men, then she would be unable to retain her identity as goddess of wisdom and war.
Virginity oaths for goddesses were taken very seriously. When Artemis came close to loving Orion and breaking her oath, Apollo decided to kill Orion and risk the long lasting wrath of his sister rather than having her break her oath. That's how serious they were.
And this is already so terrible, but you know what the worst part is?
She doesn't tell her lovers that she's going to give them a baby. She just forms the baby and then DUMPS it on them, which is horrible, because-
Also, even if Rick was inexplicably desirous of going through the terrible process of making a virgin goddess have children, did he really make ATHENA, goddess of WISDOM, think that Annabeth would be well-treated and cared for with a single father who was unprepared and did not even want her in the first place?
Athena was a bad mother to Annabeth simply by creating her without her father's permission and placing her with a father who did not want her, thus leading to Annabeth being neglected and abused. Athena knew that Frederick didn't want a child and still created one and made him raise her-she didn't even give Annabeth away to an adoptive family who would most likely have raised her better.
On some level, she knew that Annabeth would be traumatised-even Frederick would be traumatized by her actions. That makes PJO Athena a horrible person and a bad mother.
She did claim Annabeth, but she also let her wander the streets even if she guided her to help-and that help was two other traumatised children.
And to say that she let her children fight their own battles-a seven year old shouldn't have to fight their own battles when their battles are monsters and living on the streets. Gods have been shown to break laws multiple times, so why didn't Athena do this? Zeus wasn't watching all the time and he's pretty much the only one who enforces these rules.
And when she deems one of her children worthy, she gives them a Mark and sends them to find her statue, despite knowing that it's fruitless and that all of her other children have died.
Just read this post-it explains a lot.
Let me digress here and tell you a little something about Myth! Athena.
Athena had an adopted child in the myths. His name was Erichthonius, and even though he was a product of an attempted rape on Athena, she adopted him as her own, wishing to make him immortal, and frequently protected him. He, in return, honored her by founding a festival for her (Panathenaic Festival) and setting up a wooden statue of her on the Acropolis. Their relationship was a very good one-
So tell me, why would Athena conceive a child without asking the father for permission and then force him to raise a child despite knowing that he did not want to?
Exactly. Real Athena would never do this. Rick's Athena would. Note the difference, please.
Of course, this is just another frustrating portrayal of a Greek God as a bad parent which continues throughout the PJO series-then again, that is its core foundation. Still, thought I'd write this section just to set things straight.
Athena is quite vilified in the original PJO series and all throughout the franchise.
First of all, she disapproves of Percy's relationship with her daughter. This is at first understandable, because he's a son of Poseidon, her archnemesis, and at first glance she might not like him.
But something annoying here is that she always gets bad moments with Percy, threatening him if he dared cross her, while POSEIDON NEVER GETS ANY BAD MOMENTS WITH ANNABETH.
In fact, Real Poseidon is more likely to be the person who hates Percabeth given his mythological characterisation, though he would lay off Annabeth for the sake of Percy, because he loves his children very much.
Setting that aside, my real concern here is how Myth! Athena would not do this.
Real Athena, would judge Percy based on his merits and not his parentage.
Of course, she might threaten him if he crossed her or her daughter, as befitting of a goddess, but she wouldn't continue to judge him based on his parentage. Once he proved himself, she would help him and not threaten him.
In fact, in some versions of Theseus' myth, including the one used in Percy Jackson's Greek Gods, he is a son of Poseidon, so Athena actually helped a son of Poseidon, that too in the PJOverse, so it makes no sense for her not to help Percy when it's for the good of all of them.
She also helps Bellerophon, a son of Poseidon, in the myths. In fact, she does this in the Riordanverse too, so why she would hate Percy after helping Bellerophon and Theseus?
PJO Athena also tells Percy to stay away from her daughter during a war, when romance should be the last thing on her mind.
I mean, if Athena told Percy not to get distracted by Annabeth and focus on the bigger picture which would be beneficial to everyone, I'd understand, because she's the goddess of war tactics and wisdom.
But no-her message explicitly tells Percy to stay away from her daughter because she didn't like both of them together.
And yes, she doesn't like Percy because he's too loyal and he was apparently supposed to choose a dear friend over something more important when she thinks that he should choose the big picture but his loyalty never causes any serious consequences and everyone is fine in the end, so this is absolute nonsense and it's not a good reason for her anymore.
Let me digress and tell you a little about real Athena here.
The REAL Athena would help Percy commit war crimes if it helped their side win. Hell, she'd play matchmaker for him and her daughter if it somehow helped them win (well, Aphrodite could do that, but you know what I mean.)
Real Athena was a patron of Odysseus who was a literal war criminal. Actually, she was considered to be one of the most important gods in the Odyssey. She even helps Diomedes by blessing him and directing him to wound the god Ares as well as the goddess Aphrodite (Who caused the Trojan war).
Also, Real Athena is considered a patron of heroes. Not only that, she helped tons of heroes. Odysseus, Hercules, Perseus, Jason, Bellerophon, the Argonauts, Achilles, Cadmus, Tydeus and Theseus.
She also aided several women such as Penelope, Eurynome, the Danaids, Menippe and Metioche and Nyctimene the last of whom she turned into her sacred symbol, the owl.
Athena was also believed to have invented every kind of work that women in Ancient Greece did.
The only time Athena abandoned a hero (Tydeus) was when he committed cannibalism-before that, she planned to make him immortal, in fact, but left him in disgust when she learned what he had done.
There was so much that Rick could have done with her status as a patron of heroes-have her help and advise Percy and Annabeth on their quests (indirectly so as not to risk her father's wrath). Helping Annabeth get over her prejudices and chastising her for letting her jealousy of Rachel almost ruin her chance for a successful quest.
Not.........whatever the mess that PJO Athena is.
And yes, I know that she's thought to have helped Percy in The Titan's Curse-but she just gave him a useless platitude. That was barely help at all. The only time she really helped was when she sent Hermes back to inform Annabeth about Plan 23. For a wisdom goddess of war tactics, she is surprisingly little help in the war.
And in Heroes of Olympus, a lot of people blame Athena for her cruel treatment of Annabeth while it was in fact Minerva who gave Annabeth the Mark. Athena was severely split between her Roman and Greek form and was unable to properly think at the time.
And it's clear that Rick continues to denigrate Athena-not just by using which myths he wants (Medusa being turned into a demon by Athens after willingly doing it with Poseidon in her temple in TLT, and now Ovid's myth in the PJO show) which he's allowed to do-
Confused? I'll elaborate.
In case you didn't know, there's a Percy Jackson book called Percy Jackson's Greek Gods and Heroes, where Percy rewrites a lot of myths from the Greek Mythology.
I'll give you some advice-just skip it. It tells you about the myths, yes, but it's quite biased, and if you don't know the real myths, please read the real ones first and then read these if you really want to.
You see, if you think that it's just a book, you're wrong.
This is written in a biased fashion and subtle comments like these turn you against certain gods and goddesses that Rick doesn't like.
When Aphrodite arrives at Olympus, Rick writes all the women as immediately thinking, 'Oh, I hate her because she's the most beautiful of us all.' Not the goddesses. Just the women.
This is also shown with Ares, where Percy calls him a bully, loser and a jerk. He also says that he wanted Poseidon to beat Ares up when Ares was defending his daughter from being raped by Poseidon's son because apparently it would have been awesome to watch.
This is shown with Aphrodite as well when Percy outright states that he hates her and twists the stories about her by rewriting the narrative and adding subtle comments to make us dislike her.
It uses terrible sarcasm which is concerningly childish for a grown writer. I don't know what Rick has against Ares or Aphrodite. He definitely has a hate boner for Ares.
Sorry, I digressed a little bit there. Returning to the subject of this essay-
Athena is featured in some of the stories in this book. In one, Athena and Poseidon compete to be the patron of Attica. When Athena says that she has an idea as to how they can settle this peacefully, Rick writes- 'Typical. Athena always had some sneaky idea.'
................Really?
This wasn't a sneaky idea. Athena literally said that she had a fair idea for a competition-both of them would create gifts and the mortals would decide which one was better. How is that sneaky?
In Percy Jackson's Greek Gods, he writes her as a romance-hater (242-243 page no). While there's no evidence to indicate that she likes romance, making a virgin goddess who's heavily implied to be aroace hate romance is very aphobic. Not everyone aroace hates romance-that is a negative stereotype.
Of course, Rick promotes these stereotypes, so what can I expect from him. *Sigh*
Rick subtly makes Athena seem unlikeable like this. It's one of my biggest frustrations-that he makes gods that he doesn't like evil in one way or another through blatantly incorrect misinformation or subtle denigration like this.
All right, so moving on to the more serious story in which Athena is deprecated yet again. It's called 'Athena adopts a handkerchief'.
Brace yourself.
So in the original myth, after Hephaestus catches Aphrodite cheating on him with Ares, he's pretty depressed.
So when Athena comes to him to comfort him or ask him for weapons, Hephaestus literally tried to climb on her and RAPE HER, and she DEFENDED HERSELF from him. A woman defending herself from a man trying to rape her-that's what it was.
But Rick specifically writes Hephaestus begging and pleading and oh so miserable, even when Athena clearly walks away and yells at him to stop. And then Hephaestus cries into her bare leg, and she kicks him away in disgust.
We're supposed to root for Hephaestus here, and even if we aren't, he's still portrayed in a sympathetic light, which is completely fucked up.
Let me tell you something. If a person is crying and begging for your attention and walking after you and grabs you, whining, even after you clearly and firmly tell them not to-
You can defend yourself from, even physically. Doesn't matter if you're a girl or boy or if they're a girl or boy. You have every right to kick them away. Now matter how pathetic they seem, they are still knowingly coming after and harassing you.
But there a lot of people that don't think like this. They feel bad for men who seem 'pathetic' and often denounce women who reject men like this, even though the women have every right not to want to be with men, even if the man seems pathetic and lonely.
Rick wrote Hephaestus to seem pathetic (he literally called Hephaestus poor guy WHEN HEPHAESTUS WAS TRYING TO RAPE ATHENA) and Athena to be cold and bitchy for not acquiescing to Hephaestus' wants, thus flipping the script to make us feel bad for Hephaestus and disdain Athena.
And yes, even if Athena was ultimately written to be the one in the right here, most people will favour Hephaestus and disdain Athena in this narrative simply because of the way their behaviour is written.
It's ingrained in our brains and psychology-let men off, blame the women. Nearly everyone thinks like this-it's practically the default way for society.
I'm not saying that everyone thinks like this. There are very good people who don't think like this or are working on their behaviour and thoughts...........
But they're a minority. There are too many people who default to the 'men good women bad blame women automatically' mindset, even the supposedly progressive ones.
Rick knew the original myth and instead, he chose to twist and write it like this, having us root for Hephaestus instead. That HAS to tell you that the guy has some form of misogyny about Greek Goddesses.
Red flags for Rick Riordan? Hell yes. This was published in 2014, so we can only hope that he's improved on his behavior a decade later, but considering the recent changes in the show, I don't think it's happening.
Now, I'm not saying that Athena is always demonized when she shows up. She has a few good moments in PJO and there are some good parts to her.
She realises that Typhon was a distraction and convinces Zeus to send Hermes back, thus greatly helping the demigods.
(But this is overlooked because Rick made her tell Percy to stay away from Annabeth for no good reason. He didn't have to do this at all-but as a very wise person once said, this was another way of trying to distance Percy and Annabeth but not knowing how to properly do so, and of course, Athena becomes the scapegoat who must take on the blame here even though Poseidon could have also said this, thus giving him an actual moment that shows that hey, he's not all-good, Percy and readers!)
She does love Annabeth, as seen when she guides her on the streets to help, immediately claims her at camp, gives her the invisibility cap, appoints her the architect of Olympus itself and compliments her in front of the entire Godly council and many demigods too.
When Annabeth is in Tartarus, she speaks to her and tells her that she did well and gives her a message to send, indicating a gesture of trust, honour and respect from mother to daughter.
(But she was also a bad mother to Annabeth for reasons I've stated before in this essay. She neglected her, forced her to stay with an abusive father, did not bother to find an adoptive family for her, etc)
In Percy Jackson's Greek Gods, she instructs Cadmus on what to do with the dragon's teeth. She rightfully blinds Tiresias for staring at her while naked and not immediately looking away and covering his eyes, but then gives him a walking stick and lets him understand the language of birds so that they can direct him when she learns that it was an accident.
She also helps Percy on his quest in Chalice of the Gods by sending Ganymede and the cart that Percy's hiding in back to the kitchens to save Percy.
It's just that...........her portrayal in PJO had some serious problems. It was hideous, horrendous, ghastly, frightful, atrocious, shocking, appalling, grievous, gross and a whole of lot of other synonyms to match. And she is more often than not criticised and hated on for her bad moments than she is noticed for her good moments in Percy Jackson.
I know that Rick is free to use whichever version of the myths he wants, but I just want you to see that he denigrates her and portrays her in an appalling manner. Making her have children without the father's permission and forcing the children onto them and making her neglect her children was absolutely unnecessary and Athena did not need to have brain children.
Now, I'm not saying that Athena isn't portrayed in a positive light. She does have good moments in Percy Jackson, but what I want to say is that a lot about her characterization in Percy Jackson is absolutely egregious for the most part considering her actual mythological counterpart.
Athena is the only virgin goddess who has children, and she's also the only virgin goddess who's portrayed as an adult. Coincidence? I think not. In fact, if Rick hadn't made Athena have children, he would have made her a child too.
He turned Hestia into a child for no reason at all, so it's not entirely implausible to think that he would make Athena a child too-probably use the stupid excuse of 'children learn better and their brains are more flexible than adults' brains!'
(I don't want to give him any ideas.)
To conclude, Athena more often than not demeaned in PJO and her overall portrayal is absolutely ghastly when compared to her mythological counterpart. There are a few good parts to her, but not many, and her portrayal in such a famous pop culture series that has impacted so many people will be an eternal tragedy.
@superkooku
@cynthiav06
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So I said in this post that I wanted to see more of Poseidon and Annabeth interactions where Poseidon is judging Annabeth.
Based on their mythological counterparts, PJO Athena would probably have fewer problems with the relationship, seeing as she is logical and practical, so she would be able to accept that Percy and Annabeth love each other. I mean, she could be annoyed with the relationship, but she would definitely be less judgmental and more lenient.
And Poseidon would actually dislike Annabeth. He loves Percy and Percy loves Annabeth, so he'd let her live for Percy's sake, but other than that, he does not care for the girl and might even minorly inconvenience her if he could get away with it just to be petty-
Because Poseidon is petty. He's very volatile-one moment he can be kind and gentle, the next brooding and raging. And he's second to Zeus in being morally gray in the myths-that is, he's a very dark shade of grey for some people. He would love his children a lot, though, so there's that. And maybe if he was feeling nice or generous, he wouldn't inconvenience Annabeth.