What gets me about the Piper and Percy one-sided beef is that itβs a bad look for Piperβs characterβnot because she isnβt allowed to dislike Percy, because actually I think this dynamic could have been coolβbut because she is wrong about him in exactly the same way heβs been misunderstood and underestimated for his entire life. Even more egregious that this is coming from Piper, of all characters, who is literally supernaturally gifted with the ability to read people.
It is already a questionable narrative choice because it made Piper look bad to a lot of readersβPercy is absolutely beloved, so it alienates Piper from a good chunk of the fanbase. But I think it could have worked had she been accurate in her assessment of Percyβs character, or at least it could have been interesting and defensible narratively (yes, there were always going to be readers who just hated her for not liking Percy and thereβs no way around that. But that doesnβt mean it couldnβt serve the narrative well). Percy is a very likable character, and although he is truly my favorite character (in anything, ever), we must admit that he is partly so likable because heβs the narrativeβs favorite (at least, you know, before his author started openly resenting him lol). And it could have been interesting to see him from a different perspective that exposes more of his flaws, or perhaps views them as genuine flaws rather than endearing traits.
But the reason Piper knocks Percy is actually just because she thinks he looks less impressive than Jason, and that he looks like a troublemaker.
Iβll address the βunimpressiveβ part first. Yes, itβs annoying if you love Percy, but itβs also bad writing, because it hits with a βweβve heard this song before.β Because we have! Percyβs story was a zero-to-hero tale. UNLIKE Jason, unlike Thalia, unlike even Luke, Percy is not a character looked to as a de-facto leader. When he first gets to camp, he has bursts of impressive potential, but he is inconsistent. Nobody knows what to make of him, and βthe only thing [he] really excelled at was canoeing, and that wasnβt the kind of heroic skill people expected to see from the kid who had beaten the Minotaur.β The campers are explicitly said to be βwatchingβ him and sizing him up. They are expecting more from him, and βthe way they stared at [him] made [him] uncomfortable. [He] felt like they were expecting [him] to do a flip or something.β Clarisse targets him because she wants to prove her superiority and dispel the myth that he is ββBig Threeβ material.β He is practically laughed out the door of Cabin Eleven on his first introduction. After getting claimed, heβs ostracized and seen as an inconvenience who brought strife to the rest of the camp. He earns respect through the quest, but we have to rinse and repeat this next summer because of his association with Tyson. And then we rinse and repeat this AGAIN in book 3 because Thalia is older, cooler, a better fighter, has known Grover and Annabeth longer than Percy, and her dad is Zeus. Thalia gets chosen for the questβPercy gets overlooked, again, and has to sneak onto it, again.
And then we have to consider what heβs like outside of campβbullied in school, abandoned by the school system and never had a teacher before Chiron believe in him and actually strived to rise to Chironβs expectations because he was so starved for encouragement, plays basketball in the corner at school dances, never had a single real friend before Grover, insecure about his financial situation, growing up with an overworked single mom and an abusive stepdad who verbally degrades him and makes his life miserable at every turn. Percy is a kid who doesnβt have friends to invite to his birthday partyβcanonically.
The shift into revered hero really only happens in Book 4, and I think the subtext of it strongly implies that puberty hit him hard that year because all of a sudden he has three different love interests (and one not-so-secret admirer in Nico), and he is blatantly unaccustomed to it because thatβs never how it has been for him before. In book 2 he is saying no girl at his school would be caught dead calling his name, [heavily implied that] he is the mocked because Annabeth is out of his league, and then Circe makes him stand in front of a magical body-dysmorphia mirror and dwell on all the things he doesnβt like about himself (imagine ritualistically humiliating a 13-y/o kid in this way as an adult woman. Federal prison. Death penalty!) and in Book 3 he is lamenting that Annabeth is taller than him, and saying he feels uncomfortable talking to Bianca because he gets nervous talking to girls (patently untrue, there are many girls he does not get nervous talking toβbut realistic for him to narrate because although he is close with Annabeth, he is more aware of her romantically now and therefore less comfortable with her, and I would argue he mentions it in this scene because he thinks Bianca is attractive and sheβs close to his age whereas girls like Thalia, Clarisse, Zoe etc are not ever viewed that way by him). So it truly makes sense when in Book 4, he is absolutely dumbfounded by Calypsoβs confession and completely at a loss for how to interact with Annabeth now that sheβs made her feelings clear.
In his βheroβ career, the shift also happens in Book 4βhe has grown as a fighter and is even complimented on this by Luke, he achieves some of his most impressive stunts in this book and shows off his skills in the battle arena, and heβs used by Chiron as a reinforcement to send to the toughest parts of the battle. And the summer after that, because heβs one of the best fighters, he is used all the time on combat missions, like the one with Beckendorf at the start of Book 5. And I really donβt think I have to explain what happened in Book 5, lol.
So. No, Percy wasnβt just granted the revered-hero status because he looks the partβhe earned it, with blood, sweat, and tears (literally). And Piperβs commentary on him is that after hearing all about his exploits, he doesnβt look the part. As if we donβt have like four-and-a-half books that already told us that, made all the more familiar by the fact that Percy is his own harshest critic. The other narrators in HOO is see a side of Percy he doesnβt often see in himselfβthe side we only get glimpses of, such as Rachelβs painting of him killing Anteus or Percy admitting (reluctantly) that heβs slicing through an entire army and laughing at the exhilaration of it. They also sometimes notice a sadness or an anger or an intimidation factor that Percy is often not aware of in himself. Piper, on the contrary, sees only the most surface-level thing, even though she is supposedly so good at reading people that she can interpret Annabeth and Chironβs silent conversations after only knowing them for a day. So it reads like sheβs just being a haterβand I do actually think thatβs the correct interpretation of this moment, considering sheβs explicitly comparing him to her boyfriend. And honestly, if Piper was just being a hater, then fineβI can accept that her attachment to her own boyfriend overrides her gifts, and thatβs all very human and tells you something about Piperβs character.
But what REALLY frustrates me is the βtroublemakerβ assessment. Again, this is a girl who is good at reading people. A girl who has been bullied in school, and befriended Leo, who has also been bullied in school and abandoned by the institutional school system, sent to a place for kids that nobody wants to deal with. A girl who has ALSO been overlooked by authority figures and gotten into a lot of trouble for misunderstandings. And she is judging Percy and saying she would β[steer] clear [of him]β because she has enough trouble in her life. What annoys me is not so much that sheβd avoid him, but that SHE IS WRONG in exactly the way that most of Percyβs authority figures have been wrong about him for his entire life! He is branded as a troublemaker, when he is actually a good kid that falls victim to unfair circumstances. How many times has he been in the wrong place at the wrong time, when he was actually trying to save innocent lives? This is a kid who had a nationwide manhunt started for him at the age of 12 by his abusive stepdad because he seemed like a juvenile delinquent, and guess what, he wasnβt! So itβs super corny to me to hear Piper say thisβagain, we know from BOOK ONE that Percyβs features have a βbrooding look that had always gotten me branded a rebel.β And Piperβagain, the character supposedly supernaturally gifted at reading peopleβfalls for it and informs the reader that she would avoid him for that.
Knowing the context (as the average PJO reader ought to), Piperβs opinion comes across as judgmental and shallow. And to be honest, I think that may have been the source for at least some of the outrageβthat this just feels wrong and we didnβt appreciate the tone of it, even if maybe people didnβt know why it bothered them so much. Because the reader knows that Piper is wrong. It provokes that same kind of feeling of frustration at the injustice that Percy has to continually endure throughout most of PJO for things that are outside of his control. And I have to say, Piper being a rich kid who intentionally acts out for attention and notably does NOT have the learning disabilities that Percy and MOST demigods do, being the one to mislabel Percy in this way, addsβ¦ a layer to this whole interaction that strikes me as icky. I do patently believe this was not the intention of Piperβs assessment, because she does explain that she would avoid him because she had βenough trouble in her lifeβ---as in, sheβs not thinking sheβs better than Percy, sheβs thinking sheβs too much like him. But that kind of falls flat considering that sheβs wrongfully judging him based on his appearance and that her reasoning doesnβt make sense considering her friendship with Leo. And then she doubles down on the assessment by saying that βshe could definitely see why Percy needed Annabeth in his life. If anybody could keep a guy like that under control, it was Annabeth.β This quote reads as so blatantly derogatory to me that it totally overrides any attempt at making it seem like Piper is not being judgmental and condescending here.
This is made more explicit in their exchange with Bacchus, because, in an effort to hype up Piperβs diplomatic skills, Rick has her act shocked at how brazenly Percy speaks towards Bacchus. Sure, it makes sense for her to be taken abackβmost people are by how Percy speaks to the gods. But the tone in this passage is that Piper is babysitting Percy (emphasis mine): βPiper had been watching with horrified fascination, the way she might watch a car wreck in progress. Now she realized Percy was not making things better, and Annabeth wasnβt around to rein him in. Piper figured her friend would never forgive her if she brought Percy back transformed into a sea mammal.β
But Piper is completely ignorant to the context behind this exchange. Percy has known Mr. D for five years. He has earned his reluctant respect, has had multiple one-on-one conversations with him, has been called the correct name by Dionysus, has been personally requested to keep his son safe in the war. Dionysus voted yes to make Percy immortal last summer. Meanwhile, Piper has never met Bacchus OR Dionysus. Out of the three people in this scene, she is the MOST ignorant, and yet weβre supposed to accept that sheβs the authority. And what is even worse, is that Piper doesnβt realize what Percy already knows: Bacchus literally is too lazy to turn Percy into a dolphin and heβs not making a real threat. Percy knows that because he has tested the boundaries before (and when it became clear that Mr. D was no longer joking, it scared him enough to stop talking). So itβs just not convincing that Percy is in real danger in this exchange or that he needed Piperβs help. Whatβs more: Bacchus never had any intention of helping them, and Piper is just too slow to realize this, and she will subsequently admit that he was totally unhelpful! And the hilariously ironic cherry on top: later in the book, Percy is the one who successfully recruits Bacchus! It makes her come across as extremely arrogant to think that she would be more equipped at negotiating with a god than Percy, who has much, MUCH more experience doing this than Piper does.
Now, I think that this is a writing problem. Because fine, maybe we could use this moment to confront Piperβs arrogance and the fact that she completely underestimated Percyβbut that doesnβt happen. But better yet, we could have used this moment to actually further both of their characterizations, with Piper realizing why Percy has earned so much respect (including from someone like Annabeth, who Piper CLEARLY immensely respects), and perhaps touching on her ever-present feelings of insecurity about not being good enough at diplomacy and feeling totally useless. It doesnβt make sense for Piper to think sheβs better than Percy! It simply does not make sense for a character who is chronically self-doubting in their skills! And the reason it doesnβt make sense is because itβs just the author trying to convince us that Piper is just as necessary to the plot as Percy is. Itβs even more annoying when Piperβs βdiplomacy skillsβ are just flattering Bacchusβ ego and manipulating him to get what she wants, which is not remotely unique to Piperβs character. Percy and Annabeth do this literally all the time, and will continue to do it in the rest of the HOO series.
And itβs all just so frustrating and honestly kind of sad. Because there was potential for a whole lot of interesting tension between Percy and Piper. Percy resents spoiled rich kids who act out for attention and heβs so used to encountering them that he would peg Piper as one right off the bat. Consider this quote from the beginning of TLT: βThe other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like me, but they were rich juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives, or ambassadors, or celebrities. I was a nobody, from a family of nobodies.β PIPER IS LITERALLY ONE OF THESE KIDS! Youβre telling me that the kid who immediately understood that the Hermes cabin was full of neglected kids waiting for calls that would never come, who reminded him of the kids he went to school withβwouldnβt notice that quality in Piper right away? Because he would. But I actually think Percy has grown a lot and confronted some of these feelings of inadequacy around socioeconomic status, primarily through his friendship with Rachel, and he is able to see through the resentment and insecurity to recognize that the parental neglect Rachel suffers is a real problem, despite her being wildly privileged. And this journey started in TLT, where Percy realizes that heβs a far cry from having a βfamily of nobodiesββactually he, too, has one of the MOST famous and MOST powerful beings in the entire world for a dad, and that his dad doesnβt care about him (if you recallβhe had chosen to think his father was dead, because that was less painful to believe, despite the fact that Sally intentionally never said that). And he empathized with the neglect that demigods receive from their incredibly powerful parents: βI thought about some of the kids Iβd seen in the Hermes cabin, teenagers who looked sullen and depressed, as if they were waiting for a call that would never come. Iβd known kids like that at Yancy Academy, shuffled off to boarding school by rich parents who didnβt have the time to deal with them. But gods should behave better.β And perhaps more on the nose: βI started to understand Lukeβs bitterness and how he seemed to resent his father, Hermes. So okay, maybe gods had important things to do. But couldnβt they call once in a while, or thunder, or something? Dionysus could make Diet Coke appear out of thin air. Why couldnβt my dad, whoever he was, make a phone appear?β (I still think Percy accepts the bare minimum from Poseidon because it is simply less painful for him that way so I definitely donβt think heβs healed, but enough to have compassion for other abandoned kids, certainly).Β
Percy could have really seen Piper in a way that Piper is used to seeing other people. I truly do think Percy as written in PJO would immediately see Piperβs choices in chopping off her hair and intentionally styling herself in weird clothing for what it really is: insecurity masking as confidence, acting out against her parents, and struggling to find her identity separate from her parents. (Percy is really, REALLY good at picking up on these things in PJO. And he ought to be, because he developed it as a survival skill growing up with Gabe and getting bullied.)
Piperβs writing has serious problems with it, many of which have been discussed in great length and that I donβt think I need to explain here. The only thing Iβll bring up, because I think itβs uniquely related to the Piper/Percy dynamic: it is not sufficiently addressed that Piper is accused of stealing things for fun/attention when she doesnβt actually steal things, and how her race might play a role in that narrative. It is not as simple as Piper being stereotyped by the narrative as a kleptomaniacβbecause Piper really isnβt and she really didnβt steal the BMW, the dealer gave it to her. But the narrative doesnβt really care about exonerating her. And to make matters much worse, there is not much meaningful reflection about her charmspeak being used for coercion, and how, although she didnβt understand what she was doing, she still got the car by manipulating the dealer with magic. And I bring this up simply to demonstrate that had we gotten to the bottom of Piperβs relationship with her parents and her issues with her own identity, then at least this problem could have been reconciled in a much more nuanced way. And I think that her relationship with Percy is fairly low-hanging fruit for how this could have been explored better, because Piper actually quite similar to Percy in that theyβre both βkids troubled by unfair circumstances and not because they want to cause trouble,β even though on the surface her antics make her seem like sheβs more like Matt Sloan (the bully from SOM who stole his daddyβs care and took it for a joyride).
Anyway. TL;DR: Rick did Piper dirty by writing that she thinks Percy is unimpressive and a troublemaker who needs to be reined in from shooting off at the mouth. And it actually botches her characterization, because sheβs supposed to be good at reading people, and she gets a lot wrong about Percy. Because sheβs wrong, it makes her seem judgmental and condescending, and given that Percy is one of the most accomplished demigods of literally all time and Piper is just learning the ropes, she comes across as very arrogant in a way that is not consistent with the rest of her characterization.
