as an insufferable celestial trio stan, here are all the ways grover could have been incorporated in heroes of olympus (because oh boy, i have THOUGHT about it):
a small dialogue right after the stables scene where percy and annabeth are red in the face that 'grover wouldn't have grounded us' 'i miss grover'
anytime percy has some internal conflict monologue thing? boom! just add in a dream conversation with grover where he talks about it! let grover ask why he feels a panic attack coming from percy after tartarus! let percy try to justify it and fail miserably! let grover feel horrible for not being there in person!
a reunion. i assumed that it was basic common sense to include a reunion but i guess rick just decided to forget grover at the end of blood of olympus. but yeah. crying, hugging, cheering!! we deserve it!!
"piper walked into annabeth's room. it was simply decorated, with a plant garden on the windowsill that annabeth said helped connect her to one of her friends back home, which piper didn't understand" see my vision??
for example if some monster shows up let percy and annabeth storm out of a room like "EXCUSE ME WE WERE BUSY IM-ING GROVER WHAT'S GOING ON??"
im not sure how much this is going to make sense, but i feel like a lot of people see percy as a lot more mentally stable than he actually is
this might also just be me misremembering, but i think thats only slightly
the main thing that makes me say this is two things, 1. percy having very clear suicidal thoughts in tlt, 2. percy mentally saying ‘i could start anywhere in my short miserable life’ on page two of tlt
from the start, percy has been suicidal. the first time we hear him directly say he wished he could drown was a 100+ pages into the first book, but considering his internal dialouge, what he actually says, what he thinks about his life- i wouldnt doubt for even a second that hes wanted to die before that, probably for years before we actually see him
this got long.
and while that part is mostly speculation, him just. Not Getting Better is straight up canon. he says he wants to die again in som, and while i dont remember much of the rest of the series i do know what hes like in the later books- with how fucking lost he is. he doesnt know what hes doing for college, he has no plans at all, he only really talks to his family along with annabeth and grover- does he actually have friends aside from those two?
AND ITS NOT EVEN THAT. i dont really think him and grover were the best of friends in tlt, and id say the same goes for him and tyson in som.
those relationships, to me, seemed more transactional. for percy and grover, grover had to be his friend, percys a demigod and hes a saytr its his job to watch over and protect the demigods he finds, while percy seemed to only be his friends because there wasnt anyone else that wanted to be around him, but also because he felt a need to protect grover as well, though for a different reason
id say the same goes for percy and tyson too, as their relationship was very bluntly started to be something that formed because percy felt bad for him and was the only person to actually protect him
basically he doesnt have friends. the only people he seems to actually solidly consider his friends are annabeth and grover (is demiplatonic a thing /hj)
and even with rachel too the relationship is transactional! she wants a way into the godly world and he wants a way out, and they both give each other that! they also dont even talk that much after the war is over (though i mostly blame that on rick)
but also, percy is an extremely angry guy- it makes sense he wouldnt have too many friends. like i said, the only friends he actually seems to be full on friends with started from purely transactional relationships, then due to proximity they bonded and became actual friends,
percy is hard to be friends with! the first line he says in the books is ‘im going to kill her’ while literally getting ready to stand up and punch nancy. that is a fantastic way to characterize a character because it tells us so much about him! hes easily angered, prone to violence if he feels like its necessary, and doesnt really think through the consequences of whatll happen as we see from grover pulling him back and reminding him hes on probation
he gets angry at grover in tlt when he thinks he might be rich, he gets angry at annabeth pretty often in tlt, out of the three of them he is the most effected by ares when they meet him considering we dont really see annabeth or grover getting actually mad by his presence, at least not in the way/to the extent percy was
i think percys anger couldve been shown really well later on, as we really only see it at the start of tlt and then it kinda just. simmers down. and sure that couldve been because he learned to get it under control or because he was just too busy to be angry, but the potential of him not being able to control it? him lashing out at the people he cares about, him scaring the shit out of luke because he is just pure hatred when they meet,
maybe it couldve been shown in his relationship with sally too. he doesnt want to hurt her, we all know this, he loves her more than anything! but i think theres something really interesting in the possibility that mayve he did hurt her, obviously not on purpose, but maybe it left a visible scar that he sees everytime he sees her. we know sally wasnt always there, she was pretty neglectful throughout his childhood just because he was always at school and she was always at work, but maybe part of that neglect is regret on her end- regret that she drove percy to anger so bad it hurt her, and a small part of her saying shes scared of him- and even more scared of how similar he is to his father
neither of them want this, of course, they love each other, but them both accidentally hurting each other and seeing it everytime they see each other? thats just AOUGH. good shit i say
and like. THERES SO MUCH WE CAN DO WITH THIS. we can make percy so much like his father and he knows this and thinking about it makes him physically sick because he knows what his father is like, what he does when hes angry, and percy knows that one minor inconvience has the chance to send him over the edge and make him the same. and it can also tie back into my ‘percy and poseidon is nature vs nurture’ post, where poseidon is the version of percy where he exists without consequence or fear of himself from living in the world he does
like. percy is obviously not doing okay, but hes like. not doing okay. he barely seems to be living life, and more just going through the motions just because its expected of him. hes expected to go to college with annabeth even though the original thought was a throaway line, hes expected (mostly by the fandom) to be annabeths trophy husband even though he was financially abused, hes expected to continue fighting for the gods and doing shit for them for who knows how long and the one time he actually says no is when someone dies-
he doesnt see a way out. everyone expects everything from him, they expect him to be perfect, and considering hes most likely mythologically famous a lot of people/beings he meet in new rome probably arent gonna know anything about his thoughts- hell id say not even annabeth sally or grover actually know his thoughts
reading cottg, he really just seems like someone whos given up on life and is just doing what hes ‘supposed’ to be doing and whats asked of him with very little pushback, and while we do see him having fun every now and then, it doesnt really last for long. he literally has a panic attack and scares the shit out of a god! he is not fucking doing okay!
hes hated himself and his life from the start of the series, its somewhat implied hes been suicidal (at least passivley) for a good while now (even before the books take place), and i find it so interesting that rick is letting nico heal and move on, along with a few other demigods that he actually cares to give screen time to, while percy is literally just. existing. sure hes not trying to kill himself, but it really feels like hes doing the bare minimmun to stay alive, and the only reason for that is because its expected of him
Just realized that Percy would try to make Estelle’s childhood the best thing ever because for most of Percy’s he was abused by Gabe and sent on quests that almost killed him….
There is a sweet tragedy in Percy choosing Camp Half-blood as his home,instead of the appartment where he grew up with his mom that now it's a safe space for another child.
CHB wasn't a good start for him since TLT has him being isolated by the others for being Poseidon's child. In SoM everyone mocked his relationship with Tyson,causing him to fell embarrassed for having him as his brother (fuck them all). With Thalia's return in TTC everyone put pressure on her and neglected Percy. BotL wasn't a good one since Annabeth got too carried away with her jealousy and didn't treat him right. TLO is the only book I can think of where everyone treat him pretty well,but there is a war to compensate that and many deaths.
Why would he choose CHB as home with all of this,when he also felt left out most of the times?
That's simple: Percy doesn't understand the toxicity of it since he grew up in an abusive house. Gabe fucked up his standard and view of a healthy home to live in,so he probably think that whatever happens at CHB would never be worst than his childhood. That's bittersweet.
Also,did he ever felt at home at all in that appartment? Did he felt in danger all the time since he was mostly alone with Gabe? Did Sally know what was happening while she wasn't with them at home?
And how does he feel now,knowing that the same appartment that was probably hell for his childhood now is so full of love,hope and safety? Knowing that his sister will have the chance to live in a good place with both her parents without having to worry about covering bruises? Something that Percy never had when he was little,not even when he went at camp?
CHB is Percy's home only because he can't have one with his mom after the trauma he endured. Give that boy an hug becuase he needs it.
Thinking about Percy like the saddest thing about him isn’t necessarily his apathy about his death, but rather his fear of living. I think part of him wants to suffer, serve penance for all he’s reaped and be done with this mortal coil. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone else. He’s terrified that someone will forgive him because he can’t figure out how to forgive himself. He’s been broken from the start and he’s scared something will get in the cracks and grow where the light shines through. He loves with his whole being and doesn’t know how much is left of him. He’s scared someone won’t be driven away by. He’s scared to be loved.
