Percy Jackson
Percy Jackson is a series of young adult books by Rick Riordan (Known as Uncle Rick to fans). The series focuses on the titular character Percy Jackson, and his various adventures in America. The series is one of the most popular YA books ever, consistently making the top 15 on various best sellers, the setting is also unique for the time the first book was released (2005, two years before Scion, in fact Percy Jackson might have inspired it) in that the Greek mythology of old is still in existence, just moving from Greece to wherever Western Civilization is stronger. In the books timeline it's currently in America, and everything from Greek mythology is real, ESPECIALLY the monsters. The series has lots of Grimdark, with it being stated that most Demigods dying before adulthood, because monsters can smell Demigods, and apparently Demigods smell like an All You Can Eat Buffet. In order to make the series more challenging for the hero, electronics multiply the smell. The explanation given for this is that phone signals cause a beacon that sends signals to monsters. The first five books are "The Lightning Thief", "Sea of Monsters", "The Titans Curse", "Battle of the Labyrinth" (not that Labyrinth, nor the one with David Bowie) and "The Last Olympian", later he wrote books that included the Egyptian and Norse Pantheons, The explanation given about how these two pantheons coexist is that, whatever enough people believe in, exists, Yes, in the Riordan-verse, gods are tulpas. The books are all mostly good and a great read for any Greek fan.
The Lighting Thief[edit]
The Lighting Thief has Percy start out as a kid with Dyslexia and ADHD with a piece of shit abusive step dad, that is until he kills his math teacher, who was actually a Fury, and discovers he is the son of Poseidon. but this comes at terrible timing; Zeus's Master Bolt has been stolen, ancient laws prevent Gods from stealing each other's things, but this doesn't apply to their children, so naturally Zeus thinks Percy is to blame. Percy travels to Camp Half Blood, where Demigods train to become heroes. With the help of his new pals Annabeth and Grover, they eventually retrieve the lighting bolt, and give it back, uncovering a plot to overthrow the gods by Luke. Notably shown Is Riordan's understanding of Greek tragedy, as Percy gets to the underworld to rescue his mother (Hades kidnapped her), he finds that he can only save three people, his mother stays behind, fulfilling the Oracle's prophesy
Other Books[edit]
- Sea of Monsters:
Percy gets a Cyclops brother, and he has to go to the Bermuda triangle to grab the Golden Fleece in order to heal Thalia's Tree since Luke poisoned it. He gets it, and it heals the tree so well that Thalia pops out. We also find out why Percy is dangerous; the three fates degree the next child of Hades, Zeus or Poseidon will either kill the Gods or save them, not wanting to take a chance, the big three forbid each other from having kids, but both Zeus and Poseidon break the rules, making Percy and Thalia highly dangerous
- Titan's Curse:
Percy and company meet Artemis and her huntresses, an all female group of man hating hand maidens, as well as her second in command, Zoe, long story short, Atlus got Artemis to hold the sky while he does evil shit, he is also Zoe's dad, and he kills her at the end
- Battle of the Labyrinth:
Daedalus's maze is some kind of system of travel where time and space cease to have relevance, also Daedalus is a robot
- The Last Olympian:
Characters[edit]
- Percy Jackson: One of the biggest Mary Sues out there, in his first book he defeats Ares the God of War, days after discovering his heritage, AND he's also twelve when this happens. Fortunately he gets better as the books progress, but still a Mary Sue none the less. His fatal flaw is that he cares more about his friends then the world, the books try to play up how bad this is and fail to mitigate his sue-ishness. He's the son of Poseidon, meaning he can manipulate water to do whatever ass pull is necessary for the plot, he also can talk to horses, one of whom is a Pegasus named Blackjack, who acts as his personal taxi.
Despite what this has told you so far he's actually a pretty good character, lots of fun to read, unlike some OTHER mary sues
- Annabeth, daughter of Athena. Before you ask how a virgin goddess has children, in the forth book she says that she's a mind baby like how all Athena's children's are, and of course herself since she was born from Zeus' tumor (does that mean Athena gave birth to her children from her head tumor as well? no one knows). She's Percy's main squeeze, a role she holds despite verbally abusing him like, all the time, sometimes even physically. Her fatal flaw is hubris, but you could fool anyone into thinking otherwise, also a pretty fun character to read, despite her verbal abuse
- Grover Underwood, saytr, unfortunately the fact that Saytr have constant erections is not addressed. The butt of many jokes, he is looking for the nature god Pan, who is said to have died a while back, eventually finds him, and gets cool nature powers
- Thalia, daughter of Zeus. When she was young, she, Annabeth, Grover and Luke were traveling to camp Half Blood when they were attacked by monsters, she stood by and held off the monsters so the others could escape, before she died, her dad turned her into a tree, she's revived at the end of the second book
- Luke, basically Horus, from the serious daddy issues to the final battle on the last beacon of the good guys base, killed in the last book, he's the antagonistic force in the first five books, later he's taken over by Kronos
- Nico de Angelo, son of hades, he is the maximum edgelord, also he's gay, but it's actually well written
There are too many characters to fit in this article, but rest assured, if they appear in Greek mythology, they probably make an appearance in these books, even characters who died in the original tales, like Procrustes and Chiron.
The Greek Gods[edit]
For some reason Rick decided to alter the Gods in various ways, here are a few:
- Zeus, in mythology he was a jovial God, but piss him off and you would be killed so hard the Lady of Pain would whince with pity, here he's a mega douche who only threatens Percy with death for anything he does
- Poseidon, he's a pretty cool guy here, being the only Greek God that apparently gives a shit about being a good dad
- Athena, stuck up cunt like normal
- Artemis, man hater, altered a bit from source
- Hades, NOT a villian per say, but still a dick
- Hestia, despite having the same importance of dirt in Greek mythology, Rick made her a lot more important then she actually was
- Hera, despite being a terrible person in mythology, she's a lot nicer here
Why is the Series Popular?[edit]
Despite what the last bits of the article would imply, the books are really close the source material, altering a lot of the edgier stuff cause the books were made for kids, this is helped by the fact Rick was a mythology teacher, the books themselves are also pretty good, this article exaggerated a lot for humor, like we said before, it's a damn good read, problems and all, plus the quests they go on make for some easy campaign ideas for lazy people who don't want to put effort into their campaigns GMs looking for a epic feeling campaign without resorting to ripping of Tolkien for the Octilianth time.
Other characters[edit]
This section needs expansion
The Fandom[edit]
The fandom is known for two things, one, it know for all the shitty crossover fan fiction that attribute various fictional characters as Demigods, although this can be seen as more of a series issue then a fandom issue, unlike number two. Number two, the fandom is bar none the horniest fandom out there, damn near every fanfic that doesn't involve a crossover or shitty OCs is a lemon (fanfiction short hand for porn), these stories also accelerate the Mary Sue problem with most of them being multi chapter fics involving Percy Fucking enough women to make Zeus blush, while Annabeth lemons not with Percy that don't use it as a means to justify said fucking, are few and far between