believe it or not, the concepts “the representation in rick riordan’s books is often incredibly lacking and even problematic at times” and “despite that, he still wrote representation when no one else was doing it and it appears to have been a sincere effort on his part” can both be true. yes, there are major issues with some characters and their writing like nico and samirah. but it seems to have been a genuine effort that just wasn’t researched enough. idk i didn’t explain it well enough but i hope the point got across.
i feel like that ‘when no one else was doing it’ part is an important factor that a lot of people seem to miss when criticizing any of the representation. speaking at least in terms of lgbt+ rep, nico came out before the season finale of legend of korra aired. we met alex long before we met double trouble or the few other trans characters that exist in childrens’ media. there are a lot of perfectly good and correct criticisms to be made, but ‘he only did it because it became more popular and he wanted to make money off it’ is not one of them.
I think it should also be remembered that Riordan started the Rick Riordan Presents titles as a way of getting better representation on shelves and in kids’ hands because he knew his name would sell but he also knew that his attempts while genuine did have flaws. When every other big name author platformed other writers by saying Author & New Author or just used ghost writers, Riordan wanted the focus to be on others and just use his name as a selling point. Some of these books have won huge awards, too! Even though his attempts have these flaws he is time and again breaking from the status quo in order to get more and better representation in kids’ media
At least he’s actually trying, why would you hate on that when there are people that don’t give a shit or actively do bad?
Also all the Demigods are ADHD and Dyslexic from Day 1 so jot down that representation.
