Leo Should've Hated Hephaestus
AN: Yes, I'm back from the grave of being buried by work and uni and the entire mess that is my life. And I thought I might do what I do best: think of what could've been or what should've been.
The one thing that irks me more than anything is that Leo had more than every right to hate Hephaestus. Almost to Luke levels of hate towards Hermes, and arguably beyond that. Yes, Leo had more right to hate Hephaestus than Luke, who wanted to tear Olympus apart because of his own daddy issues and made a deal with Kronos to get such power.
One of the key things that we kind of tend to forget during the only time Leo and Hephaestus interact is that the god shows he watched Leo throughout his entire life - and he just watched. He didn't lift a finger when Leo's mother was struggling to make ends meet. He didn't lift a finger when Leo was living in the streets. And he certainly didn't lift a finger when Leo was confronted by Gaea when he was eight years old and killed his mother by accident.
And that last one is the one that really makes me want to strangle Hephaestus with my bare hands. Leo's mother died in a fire, in her workshop. By all rights, that was Hephaestus' domain. Sure, there is the whole thing about gods not being able to actively intervene in the lives of mortals aside from banging them, but this event was where Hephaestus could do everything in his power to intervene. He could've had the flames spare Leo's mom, used his divine authority to stop the flames from spreading and destroying the entire warehouse. Shown up and got Gaea to back off. But he did nothing.
One other thing, that we seem to ignore is that it is quite clear that Hephaestus clearly favored his other children a lot more in comparison to Leo. First thing that we see in Cabin Nine's actual introduction was that... there are a lot of them - some older, and some younger than Leo. But what stands out most of all is that Harley, an eight year old, had already been claimed when Leo was sixteen when he first arrived. It doesn't exactly take a genius to do the math and find out that Harley must've roughly been born around the time Gaea visited Leo. Yet Harley is the one claimed and brought to Camp earlier in comparison to Leo, even earlier than the standard that Percy made the gods promise in The Last Olympian. Harley is eight years old, when demigod powers aren't even showing up, yet he is the one whisked off by a satyr to Camp Half-Blood. Leo, in the meantime, knows his powers, was emotionally traumatized and broken by them, yet it takes eight years for a satyr to actually notice him despite Leo having powers that haven't been seen for several hundred years.
And then ooh boy, we get to the actual meeting. Hephaestus hardly apologizes for not helping Leo in any single way, only reminiscing that he misses Leo's mother for a few seconds only for Leo to call him out for not even being there. As for his lack of action, Hephaestus sweeps it down the rug claiming that he couldn't intervene, or claim Leo when he was younger. As for interacting with Leo, Hephaestus said that 'he wasn't good with organic life forms.'
And to that, I call bullshit. Social awkwardness can only be an excuse so far, and Hephaestus basically used it to not interact with Leo for eight years. Hera, the freaking goddess who taught Leo how to use knives, who hates demigods with a burning passion, had more positive interaction with Leo.
And all of the other gods when it came to their children had somewhat reasonable excuses. Hermes, who we all knew tried as much as he could and still screwed the pooched with Luke, still did his best to help his son. Poseidon couldn't even intervene because we all know it would've painted a big bull's eye on Percy's back. Mars didn't stop Frank's mom from dying in combat because she actively knew the consequences of doing so. Pluto tried to convince Hazel's mom to not go to Alaska and resurrect Alcyoenus. Hephaestus may have expressed an 'interest' in talking with Leo, but didn't do so until Leo was in the middle of a quest, and it wasn't even to apologize. It was to info dump about the Giants. The only thing that could even be comparable to worse levels is Zeus, and that's because the king of the gods stuck his dick into
So yes, Leo has every right to hate Hephaestus. He should've hated Hephaestus. Hell, he wanted to chew out Hephaestus for leaving him alone for eight years, yet it was just swept aside. Even his siblings, because its clear that Hephaestus was playing favorites. It should've been more incorporated in his character arc because in comparison to nearly every freaking demigod we know of, Leo was the one that suffered more directly from Hephaestus' inaction.
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