omg thank you, when rick was like 'your fatal flaw is loyalty, it's deadly' i literally rolled my eyes. THIS IS NOT A REAL FLAW. can we stop saying their flaws are things which are actually good, just because the mc is so awesome? (sarcasm). what makes it worse is percy is actually a good, fleshed out character. he has real flaws. give us a real fatal flaw rather than 'loyalty'. they're all loyal, annabeth literally says she would've done the same.
THAT’S WHAT I’M SAYING!!!!!!! loyalty is not a flaw and that’s the end of it. anyone who would let the world die to save their friends is not loyal, they’re selfish or shortsighted or frivolous with human life or obsessively controlling or any number of other issues that are actually flaws. and like you said, annabeth is also self sacrificial for her friends, as are literally all the heroes. that’s like. the literal definition of a hero. in all fiction. and even in real life.
giving the world to save a friend is a different story entirely. that’s bargaining with people’s lives and screwing up like all of history and life as we know it because your own happiness is the only thing that matters. that’s not loyalty, that’s not selfless. that’s about the most selfish thing i can think of. screwing the entire world over so the people you care about can be happy? fuck you! seriously!
i guess the real debate lies in whether that quality is actually present in percy. there are lines like “forget the world, he didn’t want to be without her” which is pretty damn close to what i described. so i guess maybe in that sense, it is a fatal flaw. and i definitely think that’s an awful flaw.
but still. i just don’t really buy it. because like, we all have flaws, you know? we’re all selfish and angry and power hungry and proud and conniving and a number of other things. so what makes something a fatal flaw is the capacity of that flaw to actually fuck up your life and screw everything up. that’s what makes someone a tragic hero: they have a tragic flaw that causes their downfall. if the flaw doesn’t cause their downfall, it’s not the tragic flaw. that’s a literary rule. so yeah, sure, the hero can have flaws in any number of ways, but if it doesn’t ever cause them to fuck up, then it’s not the tragic, fatal flaw.
and like i’ve said before, percy’s supposed loyalty to his friends has not ever caused him to fuck something up. ever. he leaves his mom in the underworld, he leaves beckendorf on the andromeda, he lets annabeth go on her quest, and a whole host of other things that, time and time again, he’s able to relax. and i’m just not willing to accept that a passing thought of “fuck everything i just want my girlfriend to survive” means he’s fatally flawed in this area. who hasn’t had a thought like that? i hardly think that controls his life. he’s got a good grip on it, he keeps it in check.
i can, however, think of a number of flaws percy has that consistently fuck him over. mouthing off and resisting authority, for example, causing him to go off on his own. he really wrestles with this in titan’s curse, which is super ironic because it’s the same book where athena’s like “hey your flaw is you’re too loyal” and i’m like bitch where?? you mean in the same book where he fucked up nico and bianca’s extraction because he got pissed at thalia and veered off on his own? the same book where he hated dionysus so much that he couldn’t bear to ask for help until his friends were literally dying, and even then he did it through gritted teeth and hated every second of it?
like i am sorry but what is the one thing that consistently gives percy trouble, that he’s bad at controlling, that leaves his friends shifting nervously and trying to reel him in?
his fucking temper.
