okay there has been a lot of great discussion in the notes/tags on whether Percy was aware of what he was doing or not (and if he was purposefully trying to downplay it) and like on one hand I do agree that Percy is often oblivious or very nonchalant when it comes to his power threshold suddenly increasing... but idk idk there's also just something about the way these specific moments in Tartarus that feels different. Aware. Intentional. Like Riordan (through Annabeth) goes out of his way to emphasize the impossibility of it all.
Like in the part where Percy kills Arachne, Annabeth specifically asks Percy how he moved so fast. This is Annabeth's reaction, who has seen Percy make hurricanes and blow up volcanoes and fight with the curse of achilles. And Percy shrugs and says "Gotta watch each other's backs, right? Now, you were saying..." and if this was the only instance of Percy doing something he shouldn't be able to, then yeah, his response could def read like he hadn't realized how fast he was moving and thus doesn't quite understand what annabeth is asking. Sure.
But then we get to the scene where Percy and Annabeth are about to get attacked by the children of Nyx and its Percy who says that they'll have to jump the river. It's entirely premeditated. And again, Annabeth recognizes the impossibility of it. "You said it was twenty feet!" "Yeah" "How can you possibly-" and then Percy just does it. And even Annabeth tries to theorize how he does it -- maybe using the force of the river, maybe through pure adrenaline -- but she thinks about he leaped with more strength than she would have thought possible.
And I'm just dying to know what was in Riordan's head when he was writing this. Because these parts, paired with the Akhlys scene... its not just that Percy was scary powerful or strong or fast, its specifically portrayed as if Percy shouldn't have been able to do these things. But he did.
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