Interview with the Vampire as an adaptation is what the Percy Jackson series wants to be.
Before anyone can comment, yes, I know it's stupid to compare iwtv, a classic of gothic literature and vampire media, with pjo, which is essentially a children's book. But just hear me out.
As I was surfing through the internet, I saw a video essay on tiktok that said the reason a part of the fandom constantly criticized the show was because people just hated changes. Taking the condescending nature of the argument aside, I asked myself. Is all change bad? Or its the way they are made bad?
And, I remembered another one of my favorite series, who also is very different from the original, was going to stream its new, third season, Interview with vampire. So I prepared this "analysis".
Both are adaptations of "old" books, making drastic changes to the original material, like race bending, plot and character details. But the main difference I see its the way its done.
As I watch the producers and actors of iwtv talking about the series I can see they have a genuine appreciation for its source and wants to be both loyal and still make something new. While when I see the production of the pjo series coming from a place of wanting to fix the books.
And, they need to realize that, to make a professional adaptation of something, be a book or movie or a series, you need to have at some level an appreciation for it. Otherwise you're just disrespecting it and not going to see the full picture.
Which is funny considering that while Anne Rice is not part of the iwtv' productions, Rick Riordan is very much involved in the pjo series. Why is that?
Lets see iwtv first. The race bending, characters like Louis, Claudia and Armand have their race changed to be people of color. But those changes were not made blindly.(Be clear that I'm saying it's a perfect representation.)
For example, Louis, who in the books is a white plantation owner, was changed to a black creole man of New Orleans in the 1910s. This was not put in a "here damn" representation way, the showrunners enriched his character with this change to uplift his alienation and difficulty of letting go of his human past because he can just simply shrug off after suffering years and years of racial discrimination. Which puts a strain in his relationship with Lestat, who, as being a white man, can't understand it.
In pjo, we have Annabeth, who was race bended to be a black girl, also had her character changed, and not for good. In the series, Annabeth is a shallow shell of herself, she's made into this all serious and cold character and given this subplot of having to learn how to be human, while in the books, when she a white girl, she was allowed to be emotive and have interest outside of her demigod life and was such a human character that she's Percy's anchor to his own humanity in the River Styx.
I'm not saying every black character needs to have some complimentary comment on racism. Annabeth can be a black girl, but why did her character changed so much? What message that sends to little black girls who watch the show other than they can't be soft? That they can't cry as much Book!Annabeth did?
I could compare Annabeth with Claudia, but I will hold Claudia back for our next topic: How they handle the problems they proposed to talk about.
Iwtv portrayal of race and racism is far from perfect. But I can see how race molds every character and their actions, like how Claudia's death by the Trial in episode seven is part because while Lestat can cry his sob story and be forgiven, she, as a black woman, doesn't have the same privilege because of her color.
On the other side, pjo is about disability, you can't have these series without neurodivergency and disability. The series was written because Riordan's son was neurodivergent. Though the portrayal is not perfect, the answer is obviously not erasing it, which is what this series does!
In very first chapter of the first book we are told, Percy has ADHD and Dyslexia and is mistreated because of it, most demigods have it too, Annabeth, the typical intelligent character also has adhd and dyslexia. But in the series, this aspect almost never is mentioned, we get Percy's monologue about being broken in the first episode and that's it, we don't get the information "Percy is neurodivergent", Annabeth is not show having it, Tyson's intelectual disability is non existent. And that is tragic considering how the original was so obvious about it.
And this goes with something I mentioned at the start. Why the series is so bad as an adaptation, if the author himself is part of it? And I answer it: Because Rick is so afraid of criticism that when he receives critics he will put a patch over it or just erase it completely.
That's why we gets more poc characters but no thoughts behind the characterization of those characters. That's why we don't have the ableist portrayal of disability as super power, because there is no disability anymore. That's why all characters had their edges sand off because we can't really have our favorite blorbos being unlikable. That's why we get more queer characters, but they are shallow and full of stereotypes.
Because Riordan just want to appease the masses, not learn from what they are saying.
And that's its my ted talk.
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