after noticing an unfortunate trend of an increasing reliance on potty humor in the past PJO universe releases, i've gone over every PJO book I can find and documented the instances of potty humor. I wanted to know what the numbers said, so here they are:
I coded each instance of potty humor jokes (PHJs) under eight categories:
I searched each work for those words, then determined if the instance fell into one or more of the following criteria:
Instance used as a punchline
Instance used as a humorous location or object
Instance framed as an unexpected reaction (e.g., random farting, nervous burping)
If the use of the term did not apply to any of these categories, I did not code for it. For example, a hero may use the "butt of the sword" in combat. In this instance, I omitted the use of the term from the overall tallied count, as it was not a joke, it was a natural descriptor.
For each book, I totaled the number of PHJs to create a graph.
The data from 2005-2009 suggest a moderate usage of PHJs in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians Series. Many of these jokes are underwear (such as in the case of the Minotaur's choice of dress) or bathroom related (upon meeting Clarisse).
The data from 2010-2014 are fairly moderate as well. Blood of Olympus features the most PHJs at seven, with Leo ending up in his underwear twice, Frank's bathroom habits mentioned humorously once, and a few other coded instances of potty humor. Mark of Athena and The Demigod Diaries, an off-shoot book, only feature one PHJ each.
2016-2020 shows a significant increase compares to the two prior ranges. Each Trials of Apollo book features at least five PHJs. The Dark Prophecy features a whopping 18 PJHs, The Tower of Nero has 14, And The Burning Maze has 10. This range also includes two "other" classified books, one of which, Camp Jupiter Classified published in 2020, features 13 PHJs.
2023-2025 consists of the senior series and the Nico and Will series. The newest book, Court of the Dead, contains 32 PHJs, the second most of all time. The worst offender is Wrath of the Triple Goddess, which features 36 PHJ's, twice as many as the highest number in ToA.
I then took the overall total averages of PHJ's per book in a series to determine if there is a trend based on a series alone. I omitted books I coded as "other" as they range so broadly in date and often did not fit directly within a series, it would not provide any productive result. The averages are as follows:
PJO: 2.8
HoO: 3.4
ToA: 10.8
Sen. Series: 17
Nico & Will: 19
This study is limited, as potty humor does not solely consist of using the actual term. For instance, Percy wets himself in WotTG, but it does not explicitly say the word "pee" in the action. Thus, it was not counted in this study, meaning there are more instances that I was unable to feature.
While potty humor can draw in very young readers, it lacks the seriousness that some of the topics Riordan and Oshiro attempt to cover in Court of the Dead. It becomes dissonant to read jokes about a monster with nervous flatulence issues when the writers attempt to use the novel to cover heavier issues. The trend of an increased use of potty humor makes the books feel more superficial than those written before them.
The PJO series used potty humor sparingly. It wasn’t oversaturated, but it offered some well-timed comedic relief. The Senior Series and Nico & Will series, however, seem to rely a bit too much on juvenile humor to lighten the heavier topics Riordan used to handle with more nuance in the original five books.
When every punchline revolves around bathroom humor, it starts to feel like the book belongs in the bathroom, too. The "comic relief" Riordan and Oshiro are aiming for ends up feeling less like relief and more like… constipation.
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