Rant: Piper McLean
I know it’s over done for people to hate on Piper but I wanted to get off my chest my two reasons for disliking Piper and they kind of relate to one another. The first reason is a reason that I’ve seen a lot of people have; I wanted her to show that the Aphrodite kids aren’t just the stereotype they seemed to be in the original series. I think they tried to do that but took her character like, too far the other way. Through her we could’ve seen a bunch of Aphrodite kids and shown them being more 3 dimensional. Like, yeah Jessica spends 3 hours on her make-up but she’ll beat you at capture the flag while looking fabulous.But we didn’t get to see that. I guess Piper being under utilized or not utilized the way I wanted isn’t technically a character flaw though so I kind of give her a pass.
The other reason I don’t like her is because she reminds me of a much much younger me. A version of myself I no longer agree with and am honestly pretty embarrassed off. A version that feminine meant negative/bad/wrong. I didn’t want to be Cinderella I wanted to be Mulan, but it went deeper then that. I thought I was better/different because I hated pink, dresses, make-up, pop music, and high heels. See I liked video games, marvel, anime, black, and punk music which I got praise from my older brother and his friends for. I ended up looking down on ‘girly-girls’. I rolled my eyes at girls in dresses or skimpy clothes holding their starbucks. I’m not that person anymore. She’s living her best life and she isn’t the stereotype either. No one is the stereotype. I still love video games, marvel, anime, black, and punk music BUT I also enjoy dressing up occasionally (because I’m lazy), all kinds of music and doing my make-up and that’s okay! I also now revel in the fact that I love love. I ship in every media I interact with (much to my brothers annoyance when it comes to video games lol). It took a very long time for me to accept my godly parent wouldn’t have been Artemis or Athena or Apollo but rather Aphrodite and it’s because I thought like Piper. Just like I used to Piper looks down on ‘the superficial Aphrodite kids’ and thinks she’s better because she’s different. It makes me cringe as I see 13-17 year old me in her.
In conclusion, I think Piper is strong and useful and her charmspeak is an awesome power that I wish I had. Heck, her borderline obsession with Jason isn’t even /that/ annoying to me. I just felt like she was a missed opportunity to flesh out Aphrodite kids and while her ‘better because Im different’ mind-set may be relatable to many girls who went through that phase, it’s not a good mind-set to have (or read). Rant over lol.












