In addition to this, not only did he fail to properly represent Greek culture, the minority groups who did get included in his stories were often if not almost always negatively represented and filled to the brim with stereotypes.
The Muslim girl you speak of(Samirah) was in an arranged marriage, her hijabi-wearing was portrayed inaccurately, and she was engaged to a relative to boot.
The Hispanic son of Hephaestus(Leo) was portrayed stereotypically, described as a Latino Santa’s elf, constantly portrayed as mischievous and annoying and a flirt, referred to his girlfriend as “mamacita” and also came from an abusive home as do most of Rick’s Latine characters. He also gets an immortal goddess as a girlfriend. Because that’s healthy and normal.
The “half-Cherokee” daughter of Aphrodite(Piper) was oversexualized, wore a feather in her hair, had light eyes in order to show that she was beautiful because Rick thinks that women of color have to have an adjacence to whiteness in order to be beautiful, was pit against another girl of color(Drew) for a white guy, was used to reinforce Rick’s misogynistic attitudes about feminine women by being portrayed as “not like other girls” and better/stronger than her siblings because she is tomboyish(note that Piper herself wasn’t a misogynist, it was her writing that was, which is what I am calling out, before anyone reads too much into this), used a Cornucopia, a symbol of Thanksgiving, as a weapon, and that’s not even getting into how her dad was portrayed. Also the mere fact that she is called half-Cherokee, a concept that doesn’t even exist, you are either Cherokee or not because their culture doesn’t believe in blood quantums but in actually participating in the culture, shows how little research Rick did.
The Chinese son of Mars(Frank) was written to be fat and mocked for it by the narrative in a racist way(referred to as a panda man and a baby sumo wrestler) and hated for it until he was given a makeover where became strong and buff and lost his fat, and he was described as being better and more attractive that way, his Chinese heritage is also portrayed very inaccurately and his surname is even pronounced wrong.
Nico and Will’s relationship is riddled with ableism and many physically disabled/chronically ill people have spoken out about how much they hate the ship and its fandom(who is somehow even more ableist than the canon source material) because the ship is ableist at its core, Will constantly acts like he knows what is best for Nico better than Nico knows for himself, I mean for God’s sake Will’s catchphrase is literally “doctor’s orders.”
The Black daughter of Hades(Hazel) was given light eyes and red hair to make her more beautiful because again Rick is allergic to normal Black and brown features like brown eyes and brown/black hair and thinks that those traits aren’t attractive enough. He described her using food terms such as a roasted coffee bean and cinnamon to describe her physical appearance, her mother is a terrible and racist representation of the voodoo religion, and her father also looks like Adolf Hitler. She was also written as far more mature than she should be at thirteen which reeks of adultificafion bias(Black girls being treated as more mature than their age as an excuse to sexualize them and deny them care and nurturing that white girls get and not getting to be treated like kids, look it up), to the point where she was paired with a boy three years older than her(Frank above), again, at THIRTEEN, because according to Rick she is “mature for her age”. Despite this being rhetoric that gets real Black girls hurt, abused, suspended, victimized by sexual violence, preyed upon, etc., Rick thought this was okay to put in his books that millions of little Black girls would read.
The gender-fluid transgender warrior of Odin(Alex) was written as a textbook caricature of gender-fluid people, who constantly has to explain her gender to people, has his gender-fluidity portrayed as a biological and hereditary thing, has another character magically know what gender she is at any given time, and was misgendered by Rick Riordan himself. Despite the fact that she says she uses she/him pronouns and NOT they/them, Rick still referred to him with they/them pronouns, in the SAME SENTENCE in which he stated that she does NOT use they/them. Seriously, how much self-awareness can you lack???
And finally, the mixed-race siblings Carter and Sadie are written in a racist light too. Because not only did Carter get a line where Rick made him speak positively of Elvis Presley who stole from Black culture and music, but Sadie is also frequently whitewashed in art(an act the fandom also allows and encourages), and she too, like Hazel, gets with a guy way too old for her. Because it is interesting how of all the girls, only the Black girls get with boys way too old for them, but I guess it’s just a testament to the fact that we are all “just so mature for our ages” Blegh.
And the worst part is that Rick refuses to take constructive criticism. Many people have spoken out to him about the racism in Piper and Samirah’s writing, as well as other issues of his writing as well. And he brushed them all off while acting like he knew better than actual people of color who were calling out his problematic depictions of them, and accused those people of merely bullying and harassing him. He hasn’t ever owned up to his terrible writing of poc, queer people, disabled people, women, and multiple other groups. He defends himself and gives himself a pat on the back because “well I created a character who was this form of minority that means I’m such a woke white dude who did all that I need to do for representation!!!” He has no accountability and continues to act like he is perfect.
So respectfully you can fuck off with your “Rick had so much diversity in his works so shut up and don’t complain about him ever!!!” bullshit. Having a lot of diverse characters means nothing if you are going to write them this deplorably and stereotypically, if anything it makes it even worse as you have even more negative depictions of minority groups to choose from. Every single one of the characters that I just went through was badly-written and filled with so much stereotypes and negative tropes that I cannot in good faith call any of them good representation, and you shouldn’t either. They are just tokens to make the story look more inclusive and open-minded so that Rick THINKS he did a good job, but he didn’t actually take the care and attention to make sure that these characters were well-written and provided good and accurate representation to the kids who look like them, rather than just being diversity quotas on paper(which is what they are).
And hell, that’s not even getting into the anti-Semitism, the U.S. imperialism, the misogyny against feminine women in the form of the Aphrodite cabin(which I just barely touched on), the historical revisionism of the Holocaust, the stereotypical and clueless portrayal of Alaska, the mockery of Egypt, the use of the r-slur, the exclusion of lesbians from the Hunters, the queerbaiting, the ableism, and so so so much more. Please educate yourself on why Percy Jackson is not good representation for…anyone, really. Or at least not the vast majority of people.
I am so sick of people like you who pat Rick on the back for the bare minimum of tokenism that he awkwardly put into his works and acting like the rest of us should kiss his feet for it. For writing negative racist misogynistic and homophobic stereotypes and calling it representation. I am sick of being expected to be grateful. I have had enough.
