Rick Riordan Crit/Rant
strap in folks this has plenty of hot takes and is mostly my opinion.
To start off this is about rick riordan or RR and the overall pjo fandom and a breakdown on some common misconceptions. Firstly I personally think the writting in pjo isn’t the best and is at times sloppy. This mainly refers to the multiple retcons, changes, and mistakes that don’t make sense or make the story confusing. A wide known example of this is the Saint Luis Arch scene where Percy falls directly into the river below despite there being a good distance between where Percy is falling and the river meaning he either lept and somehow made the jump or he had fallen diagonally. This is the most popular insitince of Rick thinking a gap was closer than it actually was, but it isn’t the last time. This actually happens again surprisingly in the last book of pjo with a mistake that felt more frustrating than funny. The scene in question is the random love confession during Luke’s death. Before I begin to adress the scene and how the mistake completely recontextualized Luke’s view of Annabeth and their overall dynamic, the scene itself it just poorly written and it’s inclusion just ruins the overall emotional impact of Luke’s death. When Luke died it was supposed to show how he had finally realized Kronos was using him and that he was doing more harm than good. It was also supposed to show how much he actually cared for Annabeth and how remorseful he was, so you’d think his death would have some impact right? Wrong. A scene that was supposed to show how regretful Luke was and tie up his storyline nicely was turned into the most awkward confession scene played solely to add a last minute, short lived (litterally) rivalry between Percy and Luke for Annabeth’s affections. I get this was supposed to be a thing throught the series but the way Luke would talk about Annabeth and the way Annabeth refered to her relationship with Luke and Thalia as familylike the overall naritive was that Annabeth had an admiration for Luke that Percy was jealous of since he missinterpreted these feelings of admiration for feelings of love or a crush. This entire scene at the end not only ruins Annabeth and Luke’s dynamic towards the end, litterally Luke’s last minute sacrifice being prompted by Annabeth herself, but also Luke’s entire reputation as a missunderstood villain who, in his mind, was fighting against the gods for what he believed would’ve been equality.
How Rick ruined Luke
What would a pjo rant from me be without a whole section dedicated to this scarface. All jokes aside Rick didn’t ruin Luke as in he completely assasinated his purpose in the storyline to just Percy’s rival for Annabeth, he did something much worse in my opinion. Just from one book, being The Last Olympian, he managed to change how the entire fandom percieved Luke’s actions. Before that piviotal scene in TLO, Luke for the most part led the Titan Army with strategies that focused more on manipulation and backhanded tactics which were reminiscent of his decendants from Hermes, but this is not the case as in TLO his death scene changed how the fandom saw him. Not making him seem more sympathetic, no, that one scene painted Luke as a pedophile. I know that sounds crazy, but it’s true. One scene changed Luke from a missled villain who was blinded by his own hatred towards the gods to see all the destruction he was really causing to the demigods he wanted to protect to a groomer and pedophile. The pedophile thing is entirely Ricks fault though, since this time the “gap” he thought was closer wasn’t between an arch and the water, but an age gap that is very problematic. The Arch thing? Funny. The gap between Annabeth and Luke’s ages? Terribly predatory. In TLO Annabeth is 16 and Luke is supposedly 23, which means Luke is an adult and Annabeth is a minor. This is important because in TLO Luke, on his deathbed mind you, asks Annabeth if she ever loved him. This is strange since one, it’s very out of character for him since nowhere previously did he ever mention or hint to having anything but brotherly affection for Annabeth, and secondly since he is litterally on his deathbed and he randomly asks Annabeth if she loves him. What he said to Annabeth was so different to what he said to other characters while dying, for example he said that Grover was the bravest saytr he knew, which makes narritive sense since this is him reinforcing that Thalia’s death was not his fault. Then why did he randomly tell Annabeth a confession of love that wasn’t there for any other character? I’ll tell you because RR decided that drama was more important than the emotional weight of a scene so he made Luke confess feelings that were never there to spurr one last protective Percy moment from this book series. There is a time and place for everything in writting and a death scene with this context is no place for a confession like that. Not only does this seem out of character but it paints Luke as a pedophile which indirectly ruined the redemption and missled narritive Rick intended.
Just from this scene Luke was also perceived as a groomer for how he manipulated Silena. Which sidenote, this is often an accusation used to defend Silena rather than put down Luke which shows that the people calling Luke a groomer are more biased towards Silena and would naturaly see Luke in a worse light. Firstly Silena admits herself that she was manipulated by Luke and was compliant in being a spy. This shows it was her choice to be a spy for Luke despite knowing it was wrong, which was also influenced by how Luke had promised he would protect those she loves. That promise is what people mainly use to defend her saying that Luke mainpulated, groomed, and blackmailed her to get her to spy on camp, but I belive only blackmail is true and it was also partially her fault. Basically the promise that if she spied than those she loved would be protected, and she stopped supporting Luke when he broke that promise, but did Luke actually break it though? The main reason for her switch is Charles Beckondorf’s death on the Princess Andromeda, which was not even Luke’s fault. Beckondorf sacrificed himself, willingly, to save Percy. Clearly Luke had no part in his death aside from standing on the boat. So no Luke didn’t break that promise and secondly her only switching when she knew her boyfriend was already dead seemed selfish in my opinion. Like she didn’t care what happened as long as Beckondorf was alive which in my opinion was selfish. Sure she might’ve been missled but Luke did not groom her. Grooming by deffinition is getting a minor’s trust to get them to do disgusting things with you, but Luke didn’t do that he most likely just used leverage rather than grooming.
Anastasia Comparison
Firstly he could have made the Titan Army have a similar mindset to the Communists. Of course he can’t exactly write kid friendly Communism that has badass emo guys and a missled leader, but he could have made Luke have a similar mindset to Gleb from Anastasia. I think Gleb is a perfect example of what Luke could’ve been if Rick wrote him properly. The two characters share a lot of similarities like being interpretated at times to be a rival to the main love interest for the female main character or interpretated to have strictly familial affection for the female main character, but Gleb was written better than Luke. Firstly the way Gleb was shown to have conflicting feelings about Anastasia, warring with himself over duty or heart, is so impactful (and hot) in ways that Luke simply doesn’t convey. Sure there’s a difference in tone, but why is Still/The Neva Flows Reprise, a scene/song with no death or dispelled titan feel much more impactful and emotional than Luke’s death in tlo? Gleb being confronted by Anastasia to show the flaws in Communism feel so powerful and his surrender feels so much heavier, while Luke suddenly switching sides after Annabeth says the promise that’s supposed to evoke emotion does not. This is because Gleb and Anastasia’s confrontation with each other is serious. It does not derail or insert unnessasary drama for the sake of Percabeth. It also wraps up Gleb’s storyline nicely and entails a new era that’s better, while Luke’s death is weak. It’s good until Rick decided that Percabeth was more important than Luke’s storyline. Basically he reduced Luke to just an obsitcle in Percabeth’s way, kind of like Calypso which he totally disregarded until MOA. I think the lesson to be taken away from the Luke situation is that everything has a proper time and place.
Character relationships and Aroace rep
To address the first part, almost if not all female PJO and HOO characters are in a relationship aside from the ones in the Hunters of Artemis. This for one is partly why the fandom is insufferable and shows that Rick doesn’t know what to do with major female characters who aren’t in a relationship. While writting this I kept thinking oh wait instert female character doesn’t have a love interest! Then I remember it’s either a character so minor you forget about them or they are in a relationship with another minor character. So yeah most female characters (excluding gods and super minor characters) there are little to no single female characters who are not in the Hunters of Artemis. The ones who aren’t are Meg, who’s entire story I am not personally familiar with, and then Khoine and Drew, two villains who yes aren’t in relationships, but are also one note and play rival love interests for Jason. Then on the Agro II there’s litterally an entire plot of Leo feeling like a 7th wheel because everyone’s in a relationship. Leo could’ve easily been wonderful Aroace representation, hell Piper is his best friend so he could’ve had an entire character arc where she gave him advice that he didn’t need romance to feel loved he just has to love himself first! Then boom! Easy Aroace rep, but no we had to throw him on an island with miss “I fall in love with everyone who washes ashore” which could also have happened but Leo could’ve been the standout. He could’ve been the different one, the guy who didn’t imediately fall for her than leave, he could’ve simply just not reciprocated her advances which leaves her confused then she starts to get frustrated and ask why he doesn’t like her back. He could then ask why she feels the need to make him like her back and she’d explain that all men do then leave, he would then say something sarcastic like “Well you’d think if they kept leaving you’d start to develop some kind of standards for yourself?” And she’d be mad but then she’d realizw that he’s right. Calypso would then play into Ricks whole not what you expect modern take on Greek Myths with her realizing she could maybe not like guys or that maybe she actually didn’t want a relationship. Then they become friends and Leo leaves and comes back for her! Then Calypso could’ve either been revealed to be lesbian (being a better rep for lesbians than Piper, basically showing the same storyline but less at the expense of Jason) or that she was happily single! Boom!
Heroes of Olympus
This may be just me, but I feel like the quality of writting dropped in HOO. It didn’t drop in a way that wS super noticable, but it is a subtle shift in quality that can be noticed as the books go on. Now a critisism I have for Rick that extends beyond HOO is that he doesn’t know how to keep a consistant tone. By tone I mean the overall vibe of the scene, the lasting feeling that lingers after an important moment happens in the story that impacts the reader greatly. What I mean is, HOO feels even messier and more scattered than pjo did simply due to the nature of it being a multi POV book. This is because he has so many characters, seven in the argo ii alone, plus Nico and Reyna who have their own chapters as well. The scattered feeling of these books didn’t start until MOA, since before MOA there were only around three to four different povs you were reading from and they were all, for the most part, together or working to a common goal so it felt more orderly and like you were following a consistant story while expanding more on individiual characters struggles more. The issue arose in MOA, this is because you get all the seven in one book. It isn’t too much of an issue since they were all together and it seemed pretty cohesive, but HOH is when it really tripped me up. This is because Percy and Annabeth were in Tartarus together while the seven were trying to free them. The different POVs just didn’t work in this book for me since the povs from Annabeth and Percy were the most interesting for me since Tartarus is an area that is new and can expand on the world building, and yes while we did get TSATS, this was the first time we saw it and Percy and Annabeth were actively trying to free themselves. The serious and emotional scenes in Tartarus didn’t hit as hard when you follow it up with Leo Valdez shoving himself into a hole in the engine except for his butt which is too big to fit apparently. I feel like if Rick wanted to write HOO more cohesively, especially with Tartarus, he shouldn’t have made the pov changes as frequent as he did or he could’ve made each book focus on a one character with little sort of smaller chapters from other important characters.
Here’s the idea
TLH: Jason, I choose Jason since I think he was supposed to be his own main character in this book and it would really cement him as an important character and make him seem less bland.
SON: This one’s tricky, but I think that SON works with the pov thing very well and is pretty balenced, but I’d say Hazel would make the best sort of focus since her flashbacks are important to defeating the giant at the end.
MOA: Annabeth. Come on this is litterally THE Annabeth Chase book. Give the Athena kids a chance to see her in the full spotlight.
HOH: I would say Nico, but he is also trapped in a litteral jar 90% of the time so no, but I’d say Jason or Frank.
BOO: This can be the multi-pov book. Like a series finale, kinda where you see everyone’s perspective and it’ll be cool.
Heroes of Olympus’ Villain Problem (OCTAVIAN DESERVED MORE)
We all know Luke right? Despite how Rick had mishandled his death and the way he ended his storyline, Luke is still objectively a well written villain. He is written to belive that what he is doing is right, that he is doing bad for the sake of good, that the gods are the real villains here, and what makes him so good is that you can fully understand where he is coming from. The greek gods are interesting because of this, they are interesting because unlike the most common depiction of divinity, they are portrayed as flawed. This makes Luke’s motive seem believable and makes him a compelling villain. It was very clear from the begining that Luke would be the mortal demigod villain and Kronos would be the godly oponant. Just like a lot of the problems with HOO, it overcomplicates things by adding too many of one thing. Yes PJO had several small/side villains, but it keeps them simple and gives the characters time to grow, but HOO makes the mistake of having too much happening all the time. For example not only is there Octavian as the mortal villain and Gaia as the godly villain, but there are also the giants, then every book there are more and more villains being added almost constantly, which combined with the frequent pov changes and the many characters in the main cast, it makes it feel a bit rushed. On top of that Octavian and Gaia didn’t even have time to be fleshed out since the seven never really fully challenged either of them until the last book. This sucks because it never builds Octavian as the same kind of villain believing they were in the moral right, and while Rick basically destroyed Luke’s character arc and storyline with his death, Rick basically assasinated Octavian the minute he was on the page.
Firstly Octavian is a pandora’s box of missed oppertunities. Going back to my comparessions to Gleb, Octavian also would also work if Rick wasn’t such a coward, why? Luke’s was more of a fifht with personal emotions and such while Octavian’s has New Rome and the political side of things involved. PJO and HOO could’ve been like act 1 and act 2 of hamiltion with act 1 being the war and act 2 being fairly politictal. Octavian could’ve shown how being raised with certain beliefs can lead to a child growing up into someone who is the product of those beliefs, good or bad. He could’ve also been shown to have some type of moral conflict in terms of how he is slowly realizing what he is doing is bad, but he is too far gone.
Aside from Octavian it seems that because of how many shifting povs there are in hoo the majority of the side/small villains get pushed aside and are very flat characters. Take Drew for example, she had all the potential to be redeamed and or expanded on as a character. Maybe we could’ve seen her backstory, or some kind of explanation to why she didn’t like Silena or litterally anything else aside from the crumbs we got. Instead we were left with a shallow mean girl archetype meant to do nothing but be Piper’s rival.
Women in pjo (Specifically Piper)
Look I’m not gonna say Rick is mysoginist or any of the such because he’s bad at writing women, in the end I’m confident that he is not mysoginist and is just simply bad at writing women. My first critisism regarding his writing choices is that most, if not all, of the girls in pjo/hoo are in a relationship and those that aren’t are in the hunters of Artemis. Now I have already spoken about how the Hunters of Artemis is such a cheap way to basically write female characters out so Rick doesn’t have to worry about them or wrap up their story in a relationship, but I personally think he just struggles to write a non-masculine female character. Let me give an example, some of the best written female characters in PJO and HOO are Annabeth and Reyna. These two are increadibly similar personality wise, both being stratigists and leaders. On top of this both characters are strong willed and powerful. They also don’t have traditionally femine hobbies or styles. This is in no way a problem, but most if not all female characters in pjo have similar traits while those who don’t are categorized as villains or mean girl archetypes. I think the biggest example of Rick’s flaws in writting women is Piper Mclean.
Piper is a “not like other girls” character. She is litterally the epitome of a female ya main character. Sure she had her moments, but I think Rick just didn’t make her charming. He didn’t make her likeable. Now not all characters need to be likeable, but she’s a main character. She’s dating a main character, yet she is so unlikeable. Sure she is “girlboss” but it feels so hollow. Her conflict with Drew is so petty and feels so unreasonable. There is no real stakes between them and for a series like pjo I feel like Drew and Piper could’ve provided some much needed drama or tension that most series aimed at teens have. I personally compare Piper and Drew to Regina and Janis from Mean Girls. There are major differences yes, but it’s the message the characters are providing that matters. Regina, much like Drew, is a stereotypical mean girl who’s petty and stirs up drama while also being the sort of queen be who runs the school. Janis is meant to represent the “not like other girls” girls and by extension queer girls. Where Janis exels and Piper fails is here. Janis shows how she does not fit in and how different and excentric she is without making a point to say what lengths she went through to make herself “less pretty”. Janis is different for the sake of being herself while Piper is different just because she doesn’t want to attention or something like that. Her character was a super interesting concept, the daughter of a famous actor and Aphrodite who doesn’t want the attention that comes with the very nature of both. I would’ve loved it if Rick made Piper somewhat insecure about her body or physical apearence, despite looking conventionally attractive which makes her see herself as uglier than she really is. This could make her not groom her hair properly which makes it choppy and messy and make her dress more loosly and less stylishly. Eventually by the end of the book she would have grown as a character and learned to be comfortable in herself and she’d be happier in general, but no in every scene in TLO she’s basically going “Oh no! I’m so beautiful and I hate it!” And “Why am I still gorgous!” Instead Rick could’ve used her to show how even pretty girls or people who are conventionally attractive/fit the beauty standard can still feel insecure despite fitting in.
Solangelo crit and overall queer rep in PJO/HOO
I taked abot it briefly in the section about character relationships, but I feel like Rick doesn’t write his queer couples in a way that feels natural, or like they had character growth and grew into that relationship. One big example is Solagelo, the posterchild for queer pjo ships. Nico, is a son of Hades who was born during WW2, he and his sisted Bianca were taken to the Lotus Hotel where they were put to protect them from Zeus. Nico is probably the first cannonically gay character in the PJO series, this makes him quite the fan favorite. Will is a son of Apollo and I think I should now mention that I have not fully read TOH or TSATS/TCOTD so I do not know as much about Will as I do Nico, but I do know that he is a medic and healer at CHB, he does archery and is bisexual. Unfortunately these two fall into the “Golden Retriever x Black Cat” trope or “Sunshine x Darkness” for gay ships and hoo boy is it a common one. Now tropes in writing queer ships aren’t bad, but some are just so overused and played so much that it has become exhausting to see them. For one Nico and Will litterally ARE sunshine and darkness and their personalities reflect that with Will being more happy and outgoing and Nico being more reserved and quite. This isn’t a problem, I’m sure some people find it cute even, but me? I think Nico and Will are shallow queer representation. They’re cute, yes, do I care much for them? No. They play into a lot of tropes and even a few that are quite ablist.
Ok I’m sure someone saw ablism in PJO as wild, but yes. Solagenlo plays into quite a few ablist tropes. For starters Nico has some form of a chronic disablility, though it is not specified by Rick it is shown that his powers drain him and even cause him to pass out or do serious damage to his body. Yes drawbacks to powers aren’t always alagories or references to chronic illnesses or disablilities, but as someone who cannot stand for long due to hypermobile eds, I see a lot of similar things I struggle with in Nico. He is tired out easily from using his powers and often overexerts himself like in BOO. Cannon or not Nico struggles with some form of chronic disablility. This makes Solangelo all the more conteversial when you take into account that Will is a healer. Most depictions of them in cannon works or fanfiction show Will constanly babying Nico or making Nico feel like a burden for needing Will. It shows them more as a patient and a caretaker rather than partners. Circling back to the tropes, they also play into this making Solangelo ablist by making Will the brightness that Nico needs. As one last little hit to the already dead horse that is Solagenlo at this point, I feel like Nico wasn’t given enough time to fully process his own internalized homophobia. Just the excuse of “he was born in a different time” doesn’t work, it would’ve been so powerful to see Nico start to realize that who he loves doesn’t make him disgusting and he shouldn’t be ashamed of it. I feel like for the most part his embaressment for his crush on Percy wasn’t portrayed as internalized homophobia but more like how a teen would react to having their biggest secret revealed. Like I’d also be mortified if my crush for someone was so forcefully revealed like that. In short Nico’s feelings for Percy and how he felt about them felt more like an embaressment for having your crush revealed because again Nico is like fourteen at this point and I think it just looked more like he was embaressed to have a secret like that revealed rather than he was ashamed for being gay.
I haven’t fully read trials of apollo so I can’t give an honest critique of those books and the queer rep in them, but my cousins say they’re ok so I’ll take her word. Now onto some other queer characters in pjo I can critique. Silena and Clarisse, I cannot shut up about these two can I? I’m sorry but when Rick teased yuri Patrocles in TLO it felt like heaven until I remembered Charles Beckondorf and Chris Rodrigez existed. Like tell me why Rick Riordan decided to write a scene with two girls who were both in cannon relationships with guys in a situation that was meant to directly paralel one of the most infamous queer couple in Greek Mythology. I won’t say Rick was queer baiting since I think his editor said he couldn’t add Ruegard, but editor or not, he still wrote that scene while keeping both Chris and Charles as Silena and Clarisse’s boyfriends. This doesn’t show that the two are straight, but it sure raises some eyebrows as to why he added such a scene if he knew the situations of the characters. This now leads me to my second wlw ship that feels weirdly queerbait-y Pipabeth. Before you say I am going insane, hear me out a second. Piper, throughtout HOO and TOH seems to have an arc of realzing she doesn’t like Jason. This is good, their relationship was fabricated by Hera anyways, but tell me why in MOA did Piper and Annabeth have such a weirdly romantic scene. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, in MOA the two were tasked to do something with the heart of the chained god. The chained god being ares. In that scene Annabeth confides in Piper who holds her hands and presses their foreheads together while she says that love overpowers fear and that is eventually what they use to win in the end. Like this. This is just crazy in my opinion. Piper I understand, but Annabeth?
