I've always been annoyed with how people see Leo. He has a lot of really interesting traits, but he also has a lot of issues.
The seventh wheel thing
From day one, Leo is worried that he is a third, or “seventh” wheel. This starts with Piper and Jason’s relationship and continues till the last book. It’s meant to be a relatable worry that he “overcomes” by the end of his story, but I feel it is a manifestation of a much deeper problem. He lets other people’s opinions dictate his actions and his thoughts. Everyone does this to an extent, but it is so deeply engrained into who Leo is that it’s an undertone to every decision he makes. Every other thought he has is about how he doesn’t have a girlfriend and how he feels so left out. This manifests in more ways than that though. When interacting with people he thinks are “lesser” than him, he is pretty cruel at times. The most obvious example is Frank. Their rivalry is framed as boys fighting over a girl, but it’s deeper than that. Leo thinks he’s better than Frank, or at least equal to him. He constantly makes mean comments about Frank’s worth and skills. This is put into better contrast when you look at how Leo interacts with the other boys. He’d never say half of the things he says to Frank to Percy or Jason, even if they were the ones dating Hazel.
2. Using the fact that he looks like hazels old lover to get closer to her.
Leo feels Hazel is in his league. Maybe because she is younger, or maybe because she has talked to him a few times. Either way, he has no issues preying on the fact that he looks like her past crush to become closer to Hazel. He instantly sees their relationship in a romantic light and doesn’t think twice about how things must feel for her. “Hazel was also Franks girlfriend, so Leo knew he should keep his distance. Still, her hair smelled good, and riding with her made his heart race almost against his will.”
“We could’ve made a sandcastle” “A lime castle” Their eyes locked for a second to long. Hazel looked away “You are so much like---” “Sammy” Leo guessed.”
It rubbed me the wrong way when he mentioned keeping his distance from Hazel because she was Frank’s girlfriend. Repeatedly I get the vibe that he doesn’t see women as people just because of how his lack of girlfriend clouds his world view. I really don’t think this was Riordan’s intention when he wrote Leo, but in real life, this would be a big red flag for me.
3. Who needs brothers anyway
Regarding Nico, Leo says “He hoped Hazel had forgiven him for not trusting her brother (hey, it had seemed like a reasonable suspicion to Leo)." It’s valid to be mistrusting of someone you don’t know; the problem is that even when Hazel said multiple times they could trust Nico, Leo still didn’t believe her. From his point of view in MoA, he fawns over Hazel and likes how she pays attention to him. But when it really comes down to it, he brushes aside her worries because he thinks rescuing Nico is too dangerous. Regardless of whether rescuing Nico was a good idea or not, it says a lot about how he truly feels about his friends and the girl he liked.
When the seven had the meeting concerning Nico, they were rightfully worried about the dangers of rescuing him. But it didn’t come from a place of mistrusting Nico. Percy, despite his self admittedly rough past with Nico, looked past it and immediately said he would rescue him. One of his reasons were he “couldn’t stand seeing Hazel in pain.” Meanwhile Leo, the boy who has said he likes Hazel over and over again, couldn’t do the same. He brushed her concerns aside so quickly to share an opinion that really wasn’t needed. Everyone knew the mission would be dangerous, they knew it was a trap. But Leo still said to Hazel’s face that it would be better to not rescue Nico. Is it because Nico is a son of Hades? Because it was a trap? We honestly don’t even get a super clear reason why Leo was so against rescuing Nico. But no matter what his reasons were, sparing Hazel’s emotions didn’t even cross his mind. He sees her as a pretty girl rather than a teammate and someone who can make good decisions.
4. Calypso and Leo’s relationship
Leo didn’t like Calypso; he’s just obsessed with not being alone.
Cruel, but there’s a lot of proof why this could be the case. I believe in the theory that their relationship was Calypso’s curse kicking in one last time. In the beginning she was angry at Leo and said many times that she did not want Leo there. Although they were able to become friends by the end, I believe that if Calypso was not cursed, she would not have fallen in love with Leo. She’s thousands of years old and has directly said that she does not want to fall in love again. Leo is 16, and is a product of a completely different cultural era. People have argued that mentally she is young, but at the end of the day, I believe there must be a least some things in common between two people to be in a relationship.
An interesting point to consider is that Riordan might be already hinting that their relationship wont work out. In Trials in Apollo, Calypso expresses that she is uncomfortable in the real world and understandably feels out of place as a mortal teenager. Leo is also worried and he somewhat micromanages her needs in an attempt to make her feel better. I can’t see this leading to anything good. I will do a 180 if it turns out the author has been playing the long game and plans to address Leo’s issues as a part of his character development. But I think that Calypso was supposed to be Leo’s happy ending. His insecurities won’t go away just because of a girlfriend, and I wish this was addressed as a personal issue for Leo to solve instead of making him rely on outside forces (girl) to solve.
“Keep moving—that was his motto. Don’t dwell on things. Don’t stay in one place for too long. It was the only way to stay ahead of the sadness.“
At the end of the day, Leo has a traumatic past. He is a very interesting character, and there is a lot of depth to him that people don’t think about. From what I’ve seen, people tend to turn him into a 2d character and ignore his issues and the wrong things he has done. They, like Leo, just want him to be “bad boy supreme” and not look any deeper. My issue with him is the fact that none of his development resulted in anything meaningful. He ended the series getting what he wanted, but not what he needed.
