casually intrudes conversation If anything, to me this demonstrates Riordan's dilemma of justifying Thalia's decision to remain on the side of the Gods since everything that has happened to her in her life points to her joining the Titans.
Thalia grew up with an unstable, alcoholic TV star mother who was obsessed with her father, a guy who was already hardly in the picture, to the point said mother couldn't take care of her or her little baby brother.
She would go on to lose her brother at the age of seven (the age Annabeth was when Thalia first found her, just think about it), because her mom decided to give him away with absolutely no context; and, as a result, had to call the police on her as an act of self-preservation and vengeance on Jason's behalf, before running away.
Thalia then had to fend for herself alone against monsters for a couple of, if not few, years until she ran into Luke, and then Annabeth.
On her journey as a demigod, she bore witness to the cruelty of the gods through Halcyon Green's and May Castellan's curse.
She was chased down by Hades's army of hellhounds, some cyclops, PLUS THE THREE FUCKING FURIES for symbolizing her father's broken promise despite the fact her birth was never a choice for her to make.
She perished in a battle at the age of TWELVE to protect her family, only to be stuck in limbo because her father "pitied" her, when he could have done something beforehand to help her (for reference: Hades ensured the safety of his children in the Lotus Casino.)
She wakes up disoriented years later, not quite fully aged, and has to grapple with 1) the fact the little girl she protected has grown up, and 2) that her best friend is on the Titans' side for reasons she knows more personally than anyone else but kind of has to overlook because EVERYONE at camp is saying he's the enemy and she just woke up.
Oh and said best friend poisoned her tree, which is something she doesn't know how to feel about, because she was dead but also not really.
Finally, she learns there is a prophecy about a child of the Big Three (just her luck, right?) who could bring about the fall of Olympus and then proceeds to get nearly blasted by lightning in the ONE, SINGULAR quest she takes to save Annabeth (which she rightfully, if not correctly, assumes is coming from a paranoid Zeus, who is known for maintaining his rule under any cost, including any cost to himself).
Now, we can give Rick the benefit of the doubt regarding Beryl and Jason Grace, since they don't come until the Heroes of Olympus series. Kind of squinting here because technically Halcyon tells Thalia about Jason being alive, but whatever, I'll still give some leeway.
But Thalia still goes through enough shit to tip her over to the Titan's side (in fact, five of the nine previous bullet points are things Percy likely knows about her), which is why her refusal to join them, without mentioning any prominent reason, makes her badass scene with Luke at the cliffside fall flat.
On one hand, in Riordan's defense, we could assume that Percy is an unreliable narrator and didn't want to entertain any thought of Luke, Thalia, and Annabeth having fulfilling familial ties anymore. We know he was deathly scared of Annabeth leaving him for the Hunters, so it can be similar in that he was scared about Thalia leaving him for Luke. So in his retelling of the events, Thalia stopped knowing Luke as soon as she died all those years ago. When she was revived, she no longer had any connection to the son of Hermes.
But personally, I think the easiest way Rick could have enhanced the scene, and therefore story, would have been to change the following dialogue:
"You aren't Luke. I don't know you anymore."
"It stopped being like old times the moment you hurt Annabeth."
Because here's the thing: Luke had never changed. Thalia and him both used to talk shit about the gods, because they lived their horrors. If Annabeth wasn't in the picture; if it had been only Luke Thalia fought for, she would have joined him in an instant, no matter how much Percy or Grover was kind to her. They didn't know the gods like she and Luke did.
It was Annabeth, however, who threw a wrench into things. She shifted their focus away, even if just for a moment. Rather than fester with personal enmity against the gods, they fought alongside each other to watch over their little girl who symbolized the innocence they lost. They loved her so much and they wanted to create a world that was safe for her.
And Annabeth is also someone who we can tie back into Percy's perspective; she is the common ground that everyone of interest stands on.
Another source of dissatisfaction I'd like to point out is the fact that, canonically, this shared love for Annabeth blinds both Thalia and Luke. They fight to make a better world in their own ways -- Luke builds an army to take down what he sees as the oppressive Olympians and Thalia joins the Hunters of Artemis to strike down monsters that could endanger demigods. But they don't realize that all Annabeth wanted from them was to be a family: a family with the two of them and a family with Percy and Grover (and her mom, no matter how unlikely that would have been).
To see them both abandon Annabeth in pursuit of their goals that were literally inspired by the daughter of Athena... well it makes for a disappointing arc, to say the least.
