Okay, question about your Camp Nephilim premise (which I love)
Aren't the Nephilim supposed to be, to oversimplify, bad? In the way they were made from angels losing their total devotion to HaShem and giving into carnal relations. And then the way they're framed seems to put them not as Jews but as our oppressors, like Amalek, Philistines, Edomites, Babylonians, Ishmaelites, Romans, etc. I think their directly tied to at least the Philistines (Goliath). I think Moses fights some of them in the desert too. Talking midrash and stuff. Idk if negative framing of Nephilim is just a Christian re-interpretation ("fallen angels") or what. I know Evangelical fundamentalists get really into conspiracy theories about them for some reason.
I'm just wondering if your concept is inspired by a different idea of them.
Right. So the quick and simple answer is no. My concept wasn't inspired by an alternative view of the Nephilim. But I do think this is still workable.
The reason I went with the Nephilim is because I've seen interpretations in the past that this verse from Genesis is an answer to stories about demigods from surrounding cultures. As a result, the Jewish monotheistic view casts them as a problem. The verse itself seems to indicate, in context, that they were one of the reasons for the flood. In certain Midrashim, they are children of rebellious angels - I think they correspond with the traditions in the book of Enoch, but I didn't read it yet so I can't really say. My point with keeping this in the camp is essentially that it stands for already existing Nephilim: children whose parents already went and interbred with humans. There's no reason to start disqualifying them from existence because their parents sinned, and Nephilim seems to be the best term for this kind of things.
Now, in your point you connected the Nephilim to the Refa’im, if not completely consciously so. Though to be fair, the Gemara (Niddah 61A) already did that, as well as the very same Midrashim that talk about Nephilim. Plus, the only time Nephilim are mentioned in the Tanach outside of Genesis is when the Spies tell Moshe that they encountered giants of the Nephilim in Canaan. This, together with verses in Deuteronomy talking about the various nations of Refa’im around the eastern bank of the Jordan river and referring to them as giants as well, led to the identification of the Refa’im as Nephilim. The Midrash (Bereshit Rabah Parsha 26) treats those as two different names for the same group.
The Refa’im aren't exactly described as evil in the same way ‘Amalek is. By the time the Israelites got to Canaan they were largely extinct - see Deuteronomy chapters 2-3, ‘Og is described as one of the last remaining, while the Moabites and Amonites (and possibly Edomites and Pelishtim) killed most of them. In addition to C(e)darla‘omer killing them (Genesus 14, 5) centuries earlier. There are a couple of giants said to still exist in Canaan when the Israelites go there - Aḥiman, Sheshay and Talmay in Hebron, and the children of Harafah (while it's spelled differently than Refa’im, it's possible that this is what it refers to) from the land of the Pelishtim. G-d promised the land of the Refa’im to Abraham (Genesis 15, 20), so in essence... They are conquered people, pretty much. And because they're practically extinct, there isn't much said to vilify them.
The fallen angels thing is... kind of complicated. Judaism doesn't really have the common Christian view of Lucifer and the rebellious angels. By which I mean, no such story exists. There are, however, references to fallen angels of sorts. I think it's related to the story in the book of Enoch - but the book is not canonical to the Tanach, and I'm not sure if there's a clear detailing of this in sources widely accepted in Judaism. I do have a couple of things to say about angels in Jewish sources (especially in the Tanach), but this isn't the place for that.
The Nephilim themselves, if we identify them as Refa’im, are indeed not Jewish. But in the world of Percy Jackson, where you have powerful entities calling themselves gods and breeding with humans, sooner or later you might find Jewish descendants of such a union. And the best Jewish term for those would be Nephilim. Hence the name.
