Everyday I wonder how Rick could have made the Greek Gods and Olympus based in, you know, Greece, instead of America and have the story go that the Greek Gods always roamed around the world and had kids at random locations, which could then lead to the existence of multiple CHBs across the globe in almost every country. This would not only help maintain the integrity of Greek culture but also make a lot of sense - because is Rick really trying to tell us that the demigod kids from places on the other side of the globe have to necessarily come to America in order to live a safer life?
You hit me in the "agh, I've been thinking that this entire time" with your ask because ever since first getting into PJO as a child, I've been getting a weird vibe over how America-centric it is. It only hit me later on what exactly has been annoying me so much.
There are a few very questionable ideas in the core of PJO as a series, which are:
The Mediterranean is a "dangerous" place for Mediterranean Gods and their descendants.
Modern day America is a "good" place for Mediterranean Gods
America is the cradle of Western civilization so "of course" Greek Deities would move there
Let me just say that I find it ridiculous that Riordan never dwells on the Mediterranean in his Mediterranean Deities series. Sure Nico goes back there at some point for a bit but Nico's proposed to be a Northern Italian boy from Venice of all places. It's like trying to represent, say, Egypt by picking someone from the wealthiest home in Cairo - or Ancient Greece by talking about just 5th century Athens. Venice is a rich place that was under control of France of all places for a long time. Did you know Italy was colonized by at least three wealthy European powers? Not talking about Magna Graecia now. It's not representative of Italy, and it's definitely not representative of Italo-Greek people, which Nico is supposed to be. In my opinion, Nico should be Sicilian or Southern Italian. Venetian Nico does not exist to me.
But! I just find it a little weird that across dozens of books about the Greek myths we never hear about Eastern Mediterranean? Lebanon, Turkey, Iran and more? I cannot emphasize how important Islamic influence was in Ancient times, and how much interesting and fun stuff you could find there, not to even mention the ethnicities you can represent.
Now, the "cradle of the Western civilization" talk is notably frequently used to make Greece/Ancient Greece more palatable for Westerners even though it's arguable how "Western" Greece is/was. There's a lot of talk about the degree of Eastern influence in Ancient Greece and how an average Ancient Greek would probably be closer to the Eastern civilization than the Western one. Music, culture, art, way of life, trade routes, you know? But, again, no mention of that. And I know he knows because he mentions extremely episodic characters of Greek folklore - he has to know about all the talk on Lycian/Carian/etc. influence on Ancient Greek culture and life.
The whole "Mediterranean is a dangerous place" thing is just gross to me. If he talked about the gradual anti-pagan (word used loosely) views building up in Italy and Greece, he could just say that. But even then, moving is unnecessary - polytheistic heritage organizations exist in modern Greece and Italy. They are not always the best but they exist. Also, the religion never died, families from the area have carried it through generations, but I shouldn't be even specifying that. "Dead Gods that need to be resurrected" is a savior plot.
Westernization is weird. I'm Eastern European and I feel more relation to Greek concepts of the life/afterlife/Deities than I will ever feel to a common Westerner (British/German/French/British American conceptual clusters, etc.). I just find the whole "moving Deities from their native habitat to some American city" idea very gross and borderline colonizer-mindset-aligned.
I do have to comment that he doesn't handle the topic of "otherness" well and it's especially prominent in Nico.
Nico moved to America in the beginning of the century. If you didn't know, Italians were treated like scum back then, and because most Italian immigration to the US was from the South, they would be called racial slurs, forced to work low paying jobs, and eventually be forced to naturalize and "drop" their language/culture/heritage to align themselves with the growing "white" cluster in America when anti-Black hatred was coming to its full power. But, there's plenty of period literature talking on how first Italian immigrants closely worked with/related to other immigrants (Irish, African American, etc.) and how quickly anti-Italian hate crimes grew when the general Italian populations started establishing businesses and earning money. All the same story ain't it!
My point is, Nico di Angelo would absolutely be treated like shit when he moved to America. "Otherness" is his entire character theme, and we NEVER see it explored past the gay stuff. He's an immigrant, a "time traveler", a gay boy, and so much more. Where's all that, Richard? I also have to point out that he's not handling diaspora talks well either. Italian Americans exist. Greek Americans exist. Somehow he kinda brushes over that and grabs random American kids, then assigns them Greek/Greco-Italian heritage, then drops the topic altogether. Sometimes you really get reminded that an American man wrote this.
YES it would be SO MUCH BETTER if he wrote about Greek and Italian Deities traveling the world because that's what HAPPENED when sailors crossed the Mediterranean and went from Greece to Lebanon to Egypt to Turkey; when they crossed into modern Central Europe, into Scythia/modern Ukraine and Caucasus, and more! That would be correct and historically respectful because you don't just remove local fucking Gods from their culture and add American flare to it.
It would be so much cooler to have LOCAL CULTS TOO because the way someone in Syria experiences adopted Deities would be so much different than someone who moved to America and retained their national faith - and so much different than someone in modern day Italy or modern day Egypt would. There's more! Imagine the cultures you could get! The local versions of Deities! Imagine not having the dumbass militarized Camp of Jupiter and instead having local cultural clusters across Europe and American places that Mediterranean immigrants settled in?
It would be much better of a series, and would actually be respectful of local cultures without assigning them to singled out nationalities.
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