This is re: my saying that "Nico shouldn't have been gay, that's a better character arc for Jason."
Narrative vs. metanarrative is the simple version.
To see this in a simple light: Percy. Mythic (narrative): He's a kid with near impossible expectations and near-limitless potential because he has to live up to the bloodline of a Big Three god and take on a prophecy, and no one gives him the respect of giving him the information to do this until near the end.
His METANARRATIVE becomes obvious when you look at his mortal life, where he is...an ADHD and Dylsexic kid who constantly under preforms in school because he is never given adequate support, but per some of the more recent releases, is actually extremely smart, if he can focus.
There's expectations he needs to live up to, but can't without something - or more accurately, someone - there to help him. AND there's also the way that being the child of a single parent and an abusive stepparent informs a lot of his issues with authority (something that, metanarratively, is there to speak to kids experiencing that) which are there in the text, but are also mirrored really nicely in Percy's relationships with the Gods as a concept.
Now, look at Annabeth with this same lens. What do you see? Well...Narratively, (and the thing that the mythic side of the story calls attention to) she is a brilliant, daughter-of-athena, who wants to prove herself, but has had very little experience with the 'real world' that hasn't been horribly traumatic.
She knows what needs to be done, but frequently needs help doing it because at the level of threats she's going up against, she simply does not have the kind of raw power she needs to go eye-to-eye and win without backup or tricks most of the time.
Now, (meta-narratively) mortal-side, her relationship with her parents is fuckawful. Like I know rick keeps going back and forth on how bad, exactly, or whether they got their shit together enough to matter later, but she ran away at 7, they made gestures at reconciling when she was 13, and her dad decided after knowing all of that to *not* relocate away from the Titan's seat of power where his daughter's presence was not so much flirting with death as much as sexually harassing the possibility of her own gruesome murder.
She also has some physical attribute that causes people to dismiss her or consider her less than she is on sight, at least mortal-side, (Book!Annabeth is blonde, in books written when "dumb blonde' stereotypes actually had academic and professional impacts on hiring and grading for blonde girls, and Show!Annabeth is black in an era where misogynynoir only seems to be getting worse).
She wants to prove herself not just to Chiron, not just 'as a demigod' but as a capable persn, despite what the world (and her parents) might think. Her lower...gods I hate this but it works... 'power level' in terms of combat ability is also significant: she is a character whose experiences have taught her not to trust people, and in order to actually reach her goals, she has to rely on others.
Now let's look at Jason and Nico
Well, in Nico, we see an orphan kid whose been bounced around all over hell's (pun intended) half acre, from one not-actually-relative to the next, whose been more or less parented by an extremely parentifed sibling only two years older than him who leaves for another thing simply to be allowed to be her own person and be free of the crushing responsibility (side note: I have other thoughts about Bianca but this isn't the post for them), who then DIES.
Nico then spends a year on the run, hunted by every foul thing under the sun and below the ground, quite literally talking only to ghosts, going half insane, and also may well be the most powerful demigod in the series...who everyone is low-key afraid of because he's proven to be more than slightly troubled, unstable, and in the first series, prone to changing loyalties for his own reasons.
Now, what this does have is a fuckton of mythic stuff that feels less like metaphor and more like continuation of what was already there for Nico as a mortal - like every other character. He's got a lot of potential, but everyone is afraid of him because he's the son of Hades (and also, metanarrative, because he's a foster kid and homeless and therefore 'troubled'). Chiron, who is supposed to be the reasonable adult, even lets Nico run away because, to quote a line that @shenanigansandtriumph quote at each other every time we need to mock authority figures being cartoonishly neglectful, "Nico needs to find his own, dark road." (No, really) - Nico is allowed to go through actual hell because everyone finds him uncomfortable to be around because of his bloodline (trauma).
Like yes, you COULD do a narrative of him being gay within all that, (gods know, there are queer kids homeless or in foster care) but frankly, Rick Riordan has a...track record....of being less than optimal when he writes a character with more than one marginalization at a time, in that he'll generally write one to the exclusion of the other. I think Nico's narrative/metanarrative is stronger if it focuses on the trauma Nico has experienced as a homeless, orphaned kid, even if that gets played through the 'son of Hades' angle.
Meanwhile. Jason. Narrative, he is the Son of Jupiter, king of the Gods. He has no mortal life at all, actually, except that he's been raised, his entire life, in the 12th Legion (it's only half a legion but w/e). This legion is a super-conformist, high-control group with extreme expectations of discipline, efficiency, minimal room for self-expression, etc. Jason has, due to his birth and his capability, risen to the top of the ranks very, very quickly - man killed a titan in a 1v1, for fuck's sake. He is perfect, and he needs to be perfect....except...he's...not.
He actually hates being perfect. It is text that the conformity of New Rome is stifling to him and he actually prefers Camp Half Blood's more expressive aspects, the freedom he has with them, the way he breathes easier when he's with them, the way he feels he can be himself, but he's reluctant to admit it because going to camp Half-Blood is giving up the office that he's worked hard for, not that he necessarily wants the power (he never asked) but because he feels that it's his responsibility to hold Praetorship now that he has it to command the legion well and lead them and not leave Reyna to do it alone.
hey what does that sound like to you? Because, to me...it sounds. Like a kid who grew up evangelical, was the 'perfect' choir boy, struggled to be, gave up a lot to be, and is now struggling with certain realizations that might break the dam.
Plus, Jason as a character was super underutilized because I don't think Rick ever found a meta-narrative to ground Jason's story in despite this one being...pretty obvious.
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