Ooh, I didn’t even THINK about Apollo giving relationship advice to Jason! Many, yeah, that would’ve been PERFECT! He’s got a lot of experience, after all. I WISH Riordan had done that too!
Yeah, I doubt that anyone’s ever told Jason that he shouldn’t have gone through what he did, not so young. Camp Jupiter is for child soldiers, even if they’re so young that they’re not fully potty-trained yet.
I also love your comparison between Jason and Apollo! I can see Apollo saying how he shouldn’t have been put through such harrowing trials when he was so young, and Jason bringing up Python, saying that Apollo shouldn’t have needed to fight him when he was so young, either.
Oh man, that passage HURTS. He just… he never seems to think that other people might actually care about him, especially other gods. And the saddest thing is that he might be RIGHT. No one else defended him at the Parthenon, and everyone was shocked when Jason tried. They might like him, but no one else would stick their necks out for Apollo. As far as we know, no one except for Artemis and Rhea (and Britomartis, at Artemis’s request) has attempted to help Apollo. And it’s not like gods often care much when one of their own is in danger. Actually, I think that Apollo and Artemis are the ONLY ones we’ve seen who were willing to put their own well-being at risk in order to save a god. And especially, in order to save a god because they CARE about them personally, not just being afraid of the consequences of their imprisonment/destruction. No one looked for Ares when he was imprisoned in the jar, no god came down and tried to help Hera (some of them were even planning to party while she was gone), and while Mars DID send a quest for Thanatos, that was because of the consequences of his imprisonment, not because he cared for him personally.
Apollo’s been through a lot of pain while mortal, but at least he finally, FINALLY has friends who would put themselves at risk to protect him, who care enough about him AS A PERSON that they’d be willing to put their own lives on the line to keep him safe.
Makes me wonder whether some of them HAVE deflected blame onto Apollo before. I doubt Hermes, Hephaestus, or Athena would, but Ares? Or even Dionysus? I can totally see them doing that. And it’s NORMAL in this family. Apollo expects nothing less. Heck, in TDP, he talked about how if he gave up on someone just because they tried to kill him, then he wouldn’t have any Olympians left on his side. And he just KEEPS TRYING. He’s HURT by their willingness to throw him aside, but he hides it. Just like he;s hidden the rest of his pain throughout the millennia. But he wants to be cared about SO BADLY.
Heck, even back in The Hidden Oracle, he couldn’t BELIEVE how his children embraced him, and promised to protect him:
I couldn’t recall the last time someone had cared about me enough to to curse my enemies with rhyming couplets.
I do wish that Jason and Apollo had gotten more time together, like you said. Apollo was so, so happy to get to bond with his family back at Camp Half-blood. To have a brother who’d support him, a sibling to look up to? That would’ve been glorious. Just… Apollo needs his FAMILY. He needs a HOME. He needs to be loved for who he is.
Personally, I think that Hermes has probably been captured, and that’s why communications are down, and travel is difficult. I’m hoping that Apollo and Hermes get to really bond as brothers. They’re close anyway, but I think Apollo usually thinks of Hermes as a friend moreso than a sibling.
Still disagree with you on Crest, but we’ve already gone into that.
