Nico is the one who’s fatal flaw is loyalty. Percy’s real flaw is holding Grudges.
Well I wanted to do a post about this for a while, and since nobody try to kill me over that post I did where I didn’t write any arguments whatsoever, I decided to do this.
First, why their fatal flaws are wrong?
Nico’s Flaw is not Grudges.
Ok, asks that feels rhetoric, but is also honest; WHEN we see Nico holding a grudge?
“Duh, he had a grudge on Percy!“
Yeah, that what we are led to believe…but we in the end now is not true.
“You are close to the truth now,” Bianca told him. “It’s not Percy you’re mad at, Nico. It’s me.” - Bianca, The Battle of the Labyrinth.
‘I had a crush on Percy,’ Nico spat. ‘That’s the truth. That’s the big secret.’ - Nico, The House of Hades.
Sure, Nico before the confession said he hated Percy, but as somebody who had a same-sex crush after living in a homophobic country and having internalized homophobia…there is A LOT of diference between hating someone because your internalized homophobia, and actually hating them.
He didn’t hate Percy, and didn’t look like holding a grudge; he is pretty nice on The Son of Neptune, despite the fact that his sister; who is going to free Death when she escaped the Underworld, is going on that quest with Percy; who last time he went on a quest with one of his sisters, she died.
If he hold a grudge or was skeptical, he would be upset about it; but nothing indicates that.
But what about Bianca? Wasn’t that the whole point of the first phrase?
Except well…the whole thing feels more like the anger from grieving than other thing. Sure, he was also mad because she left for the hunters, but also because she die and left him alone; the thing reads more about the stages of grief than he holding a grudge; specially for how it was handled.
Ok, now that we dealt with the Percy and Bianca, when else we see him holding a “grudge”?
Ehhhh…Hunters of Artemis?
It could be made a case for it, but it feels a little flimsy; for starters, it didn’t made more difficult for Nico to work with them; even if he didn’t like it, he still contacted Thalia, he requested help, and didn’t interfere when they took Reyna; even if it made him angry.
One of the reasons I’m upset about “Percy’s fatal flaw is loyalty” is that we never saw it being a problem; what exactly is the point of a flaw in a character if is never shown to have negative repercussions?
Let alone the fact that he has right to be mad. I don’t care what Will Solace said, or anybody else for that matter: Nico was ostracized; after the third book we have line after line of different people saying how creepy Nico is, of how unsettling is being around him; animals hate him, some gods disregard him, list goes on. In Heroes of Olympus we have different narrators, and even then people hold a thing against Nico; for fuck’s sake Nico went to Tartarus alone, was imprisonment and the rest of the seven (except Hazel), speak of him as if it was his fault he looks like death, without offering a lot of sympathy for the literal hell he lived.
And yet, he doesn’t hold it against them, it fact, in Blood of Olympus he describes them as the closest thing he had to friends. Despite being ostracized by the Camps (and that’s how he perceives it anyways), he is still doing his best to save them and the world.
He could hold it against society, against the gods, the people who judge him, but he does his best.
Percy’s fatal flaw is not loyalty.
“Your fatal flaw is personal loyalty, Percy. You do not know when it is time to cut your losses. To save a friend, you would sacrifice the world” - Athena, The Titan’s Curse.
Sorry Lady, but you are incorrect in this part, and is funny because the evidence has already been shown.
But before that, let’s remember…WHEN Percy has choose the world over a love one?
Perhaps is my bad memory talking, but I cannot remember when he decided to screw the world and save a person he loved, the closest we get is when he decides to go with Annabeth to Tartarus.
But I still find that pretty flimsy, while is true he wasn’t exactly thinking on the world when he took that decision, it was for the best: They need the seven of the prophecy, lose one of them and they are screwed, going with her was the best possibility to get both of them back and alive.
And since letting her go would had condemned the world too, is not really a decision of the world vs the love one, because either one would had the chance to fuck the world.
There was also the time in The Son of Neptune, where Annabeth asked him to stay put so she could find him, but he had a mission and preferred to do that instead of asking what not only he wanted to do, but what she wanted as well. Though I must admit, not sure if this counts as condemning the world.
Let’s go to the proof I mentioned earlier, when Percy chose the world over the person he loved the most.
Case in Point: The first Book, The lightning Thief.
I had to get the bolt back to Olympus and tell Zeus the truth. I had to stop the war. - Percy, the Lightning Thief.
“I’m sorry,” I told her. “I’ll be back. I’ll find a way." - Percy, the Lightning Thief.
Honestly I consider this pretty telling; even when he mentions part of the reason was that Sally wouldn’t want Percy to sacrifice the world for her, he still chose this, he still decided it was more important to save the world than his own mother.
And honestly? If somebody should had been selfish and said “fuck the world I want my mom” was Percy at 12.
Think about it; his life is basically hell, school is horrible, he has bullies that includes even teachers, his stepfather is the absolute worst, he barely has a friend. Now his life went upside down thanks to the gods, that are mostly the reason why his life is this screw up, that are the reason he lost his mother; sure he likes Annabeth and Grover is his best friend, but Sally was literally the only good thing in his life, and he is twelve and obviously attached to his mother.
And yet, he still chose the world instead of her, even if he didn’t have a lot of friends at Camp yet, and the person he loved the most was Sally.
You could say loyalty is a flaw that he developed after, but in all honestly I cannot recall a moment when that truly shows.
Nico’s flaw is Loyalty, or more specifically: Love.
Feels even more cutesy than with Percy, right? Something that bother me about Percy’s Flaw is how little repercussions it has, is sounds more something you will give to your Gary Stue; so how having Love as a flaw is different?
Simple, Nico kills, he becomes obsessed, he wastes himself away.
Sure, is not the type of person of “If you don’t love me I will kill you”; but is the type that he would do anything for their love ones, and when I said anything, I mean anything.
He didn’t plan to kill Bryce, he saw how he hurt Reyna and was planning to ruin her life, and he went ballistic on his own. He was so obsesses with getting Bianca back, you see in his description how her death took a toll on him; and if you had read the The Tower of Nero, you know is not the only time the death of a close one had taken a toll on him.
Nico’s version of love can get ugly; if somebody told me which guy would put the world aside for a love one, I would say the one who was didn’t give an actual shit about the war between Titans and Gods first, and how he only wanted his sister back and everything else didn’t matter. The guy who was ready to risk angering his godly father for the boy he loved. The teenager who went into a rage after losing the people he loves.
I really need to say more?
Percy’s flaw: Grudges.
I will be the first to admit that this is the weakest point of my argument. While it presents some problems, it doesn’t show to be as ugly as Nico’s, but it shows more downsides that with.
Let’s start with a proof of grudges Percy holds.
Frank noticed that one person wasn’t kneeling. Percy Jackson, his sword still in hand, was glaring at the giant soldier. “You’re Ares,” Percy said. “What do you want?” - Percy, Son of Neptune.
It may look like small potatoes, and this definitely doesn’t affect negatively the situation (or not much), but it shows something: It has been years since the incident when they fought, Percy has no memories whatsoever, and he still holds a grudge on Ares. Something that is present even with the lack of his memories.
“But OP, he reacted that way because the influence of Mars!“
Except anyone else reacted that way, if I recall correctly Frank didn’t feel angry at all despite being in front of Mars; people draw their weapons because they heard a strange voice out of nowhere, not because his influence.
Now, let’s go with a big grudge he had: against Nico for “betraying” him with Hades.
Percy learned that Nico got tricked as well; he thought they would just talk and then go to the get the curse of Achilles; he broke him free despite both knowing it will anger Hades; and on top of that, he continue to be mad for months.
He had a rocky history with Nico di Angelo. The guy had once tricked him into visiting Hades’s palace, and Percy had ended up in a cell. But most of the time, Nico sided with the good guys. - Percy, the Mark of Athena.
Hey remember the part where Percy was there when Nico acted surprised that Hades didn’t respect his side of the deal and immediately went to save him? Apparently not Percy!
The consequences of this are minimal, but at least they exist.
Percy had shared some disturbing stories about Nico. His loyalties weren’t always clear. He spent more time with the dead than the living. Once, he’d lured Percy into a trap in the palace of Hades. Maybe Nico had made up for that by helping the Greeks against the Titans, but still… - Jason, House of Hades.
I cannot assure all the people who distrust of Nico on that boat is thanks to Percy, but at least is Jason; who didn’t trust in him until he literally hit a wall of reality. That was just him, the other ones didn’t.
The grudge apparently leaves when he notice Nico saved his ass by being kind to Bob and talking good about him, but it is still amazing that he hold it for this long despite having all the story.
And that doubts could had cost Nico’s life, with the amount of doubt that was on the boat and him, while not saying anything, was the closest person to Nico beside Hazel, and still didn’t try to help in the situation.
…
So here we have, my analysis of why I think their loyalties are kinda reversed; this took me like 3 days to write because my attention span is shit, so I will be surprised if this makes sense.
Hope it does.