Spoilers for Pjo now I guess. Never thought I’d have to type that out.
I have a feral urge to write a fanfic from the perspective of Olympus while all the events of Pjo where going down.
Like what were the political standings like when it was Zeus vs Posiden and it looked like another war was about to break out?
What were the Gods relations with one another and what were their relationships like with the other nymphs and Saytrs and Minor Gods that live on that mountain?
I know Hades isn’t really close with anyone on Olympus but do Zeus and Posiden have any sort of relationship with their sisters?
What about Hephaestus and Ares. They weren’t on good terms in the myths but Aphrodites story is presented a lot differently in the books from traditional Greek hyms.
How is Ares and Zeus’ relationship. It must be pretty strong if Zeus doesn’t punish him for switching over to Kronos side just for the sake of starting a war when Apollo interacting with one of his descendants to give Octavian his blessings was punished as badly as him killing the cyclopses or killing Python, and overthrowing Zeus.
What about the girls? Do Athena and Artemis get along? They’ve both taken vows of chastity and are both adept in weapons and fighting (plus they both piss of Aphrodite, if that’s not something to bond over then what is)
Like I need to know how they all interact with each over, who they like and dislike and why?
I also would love to see how trauma affects their view of the world.
I mean Demeter, Hestia, Hera, Hades, Posiden and Zeus’ father tried to murder them when they were born so I imagine their judgment on healthy household relations is understandably skewed.
And then there’s the next generation.
Athena, Aries, Hephaestus, Artemis and Apollo.
Athena is canonically the golden child in the myths so how does that affect her?
She tried to overthrow Zeus in the myths so there’s clearly some tension there. Does she like being his favourite child or does she despise the pressure constantly placed on her to conform to an unreachable standard of perfection?
And What about Ares and Hephaestus? Hera considered them both embarrassments in different ways. Of course the infamous story of Hephaestus’ birth and how ugly he was, but then there’s Ares who is constantly in his sisters shadow despite them both being Gods of war.
It would’ve shamed Hera in those times to have a son who looses out to the bastard child of one of Zeus flings, but to have two sons both be subpar compared to the kids Zeus had with other woman?
That’s gotta create some rivalry for daddy’s favourite, and maybe a silent understanding between Ares and his brother.
And then we have the twins. Apollo who looking at all his attributes is definitely suffering from some sort of burnout as well as his father constantly punishing him with lightning probably some resentment there and maybe even some towards Artemis.
As far as we know she’s never been in trouble with Zeus despite ‘meddling in mortal affairs’ by helping Leo and Piper. Again maybe something to do with favouritism Zeus seems very partial to the woman in his family. Plus she doesn’t spend a lot of time on Olympus, maybe she’s as silently resentful as Apollo.
Though we see her worrying for him in blood of Olympus and he breaks the ancient ‘no meddling’ laws in Titans curse in order to help save her. So they’re clearly close, but I don’t think she knows about the lightning thing. I’m not sure if Zeus punishes just Apollo with it, though we hear no mention of any of the other gods experiencing physical abuse from their father.
Then we have the youngest and most recent generation (I’m splitting them into their own category cause they’re the only major gods to be birthed by humans)
Dionysus and Hermes.
We see in sea of monsters that Hermes doesn’t seem to really find joy in his position as a god anymore, maybe the stuff he did used to be fun but it’s gotten monotonous, even stressful with how much stuff he has to do and with no one to help.
Honestly maybe that’s a bonding experience? Him and Apollo silently lamenting about how exhausted they are by all their jobs?
And Dionysus. He seems to be seen as some sort of perpetual joke by Zeus, at least in the books. I mean why else give such a long winded and honestly disproportional response for such a minor action.
I mean even Apollos punishment (though being a lot worse) only lasted a couple months.
And the thing I haven’t even touched on with Hermes and Dionysus being from human descent. Do they miss their old lives?
Hermes had only been born a couple days before he was sent to Olympus, but still, it wasn’t as though he could bring his mother with him. Does he miss her? Or see her as some stranger he left behind. Did he mourn her death? Did Dionysus mourn his own mother. Was he angry with Zeus when he learnt his own father was the reason for her death? If he did what could he do about it?
And Dionysus spent years in the human realm (depending on which myths you look at) did he have friends? Lovers? How did he feel when they died and he continued to live on?
The Gods are left relatively untouched despite being such a large part of the series and it’s events, even ToA doesn’t give us a lot more than what audience already knew from myths and reading previous books.
They’re so intriguing to me because there’s something so human about their actions despite how vehemently they’d probably claim against it. In some ways they’re almost identical to people and it makes me slightly insane that we’ll never get to know everything about them all and the lives they led before the events of the series in modern New York.
