'The books don't potray Percy's problems as serious they are and let too many characters off the hook for mistreating him!'
Yeah!!It's really shitty how the newer books keep playing her obvious mental health decline as her being a lovable loser and not the aftermath of Luke and the gods' abuse of her and not holding them accountable for it or their exploitation of tons of other characters!It'll never happen but i wish Toa would've been about the half-bloods doing a revolution with Percy as their leader and that she'd finally be allowed to transition so she can be happy and live as a girl like she always wanted-
'What??????Where are are you getting this from?I meant those stupid sexist towards men bitches and sluts holding back HIS right as Poseidon's favorite son to stake his claims and places at the top and earn the respect from the pantheon he should've during the books and get with Apollo too because he's Percy's type and so was Luke'
Relationship Analysis: Percabeth is Romanticized Toxicity
Believe me, I know I'm walking into the middle of a firing squad here. But you know something? I don't give a tinker's curse about the hornet's nest I'm about to disturb. I'm tired of men being abused in ships that are glorified by the fandom, and as such I could care less about who gets upset by the truth.
Anti Annabeth Chase/Percabeth people are welcome, but those who adore the ground she walks on are obligated to leave, posthaste.
Now, without further meandering, let's tear down this abusive relationship.
Annabeth: A Self-Righteous Narcissist
As can be told by any of a number of PJO fans, Annabeth Chase suffered depression from the belief that her parents hated her, was tormented by spiders once as a child, and ran away and fought monsters so that she could be free of her home life at age seven. While that last is inane considering how tiny and fragile she was at the time, it's these actions that led her running into the arms of Luke Castellan and Thalia Grace, who formed a pseudo family with her until they came to Camp Half-Blood, where Annabeth's woe filled story was capped off with Thalia getting turned into a tree for her own protection and then numerous strained exchanges with her father before Luke's later fall from grace.
Naturally, this is traumatizing. I would not mind such a backstory for Annabeth if she didn't throw it around as an excuse to abuse the people (effectively her own family, too) around her twenty-four/seven, and Percy Jackson in particular.
Annabeth consistently turns her nose up at Percy, throws his Poseidon heritage against him as an insult simply because their divine parents hate each other, demeans his intelligence in the exact opposite way his stepfather Gabe does, and physically assaults him from the age of twelve until they are sixteen....all while expecting Percy to know that she's in love with him.
Remind me again, how is physical, mental, and verbal abuse supposed to be clues that a girl loves a guy?
I don't care how traumatized Annabeth is. I don't care how drop-dead gorgeous she is. I don't care how much backside she can kick. This is unacceptable behavior.
From the start of their friendship, Annabeth props herself up as the brains and insists that Percy would be dead without her. This is ignoring the fact that she nearly died because of her hubris of improving a building's design in Sea of Monsters, where he literally had to drag her out of the water lest she drown. And speaking of, she also never cared about Percy's feelings. Keep in mind, she took the opportunity throughout the entire book to be racist towards his innocent little brother because he was a cyclops when it was clear that he wasn't like the others of his kind, which is then made worse by her taking the chance his "death" in the novel provided her with to play victim and say "look I get you liked your bro, but I knew so many bad ones that I had to kill, it's a miracle he wasn't anything like that."
Can that talk, you viper of a female. Percy's little brother just died in front of him. He needs comfort and sympathy, not your personal saga of a sob story.
Not once does Annabeth apologize for this moment, or even for her repeated assaults on him. It is an established fact in-universe that Percy is afraid of getting hit by her, which happens all the time even when he tries being careful with what he say to her. Furthermore, Annabeth isn't even pleased with his attempts when they start dating. When he sets up a picnic out in the field with pizza and sandwiches as the meal, Annabeth complains that she was "hoping for a bit more" than something so simplistic. Woman, I'd swoon if a man offered to take me on a date like that, and love it if he took me to the lake shore. Why is something as sweet and normal as that unsatisfactory? Because it's something mortals would do, and you hate mortals as much as you do monsters?
And she never improves.
Annabeth reacts violently to Percy leaving her sight twice in the franchise: the first time when she thinks he's died, the second time as part of Hera's second prophecy thing in Heroes of Olympus. And unsurprisingly, she reacts to his return with violence. She screams at him the first time, judo flips and pins his throat the second time, and both times threatens him into never doing that again when he was forcibly taken from the Camp. Then in the second arc, she torments him by making him nervous by bringing up Rachel, the one woman who posed a threat to her place as number one girl in Percy's heart, and essentially treated him as a monster for utilizing a heretofore unknown poison power he had that Percy had used to save her life.
Saying that it's her nerves, her upbringing as a child soldier, her trauma, or all of the above is a flat out excuse for abusive behavior. If a man did to a woman half the things Annabeth did to Percy, he'd be thrown in the deepest cell where he'd never see the light of day again, and rightly so.
The fact that everyone, in and out of universe, laughs and fawns all over her abuse of Percy in this relationship is borderline sadistic. It is not cute, it is not endearing, and it is not healthy.
You know why? I'll tell you why.
Percy: A Loyal Abuse Victim
Percy is a known victim of Gabe's abuse, same as Sally. Unlike Annabeth though, he doesn't use it as an excuse to behave badly. Rather, he remains kind to his mother, dutiful in whatever he can do at school or at home for her, and no matter what, is loyal to the end.
It's for these reasons that he's unable to break away from Annabeth.
Despite her treatment of him, of his family, and of Rachel, Percy's greatest strength, loyalty, is also his greatest weakness. Because of this trait and his background, it both tragically makes sense that he stays with Annabeth and horrifying that he cannot see her abuse for what it is.
Having known her so long and been so abused, Percy is unable to see her treatment of him as anything beyond something he earned simply because he's "too dumb to know better". Gabe always made fun of his intellect, which Annabeth herself does, but worse by telling him how stupid he is. She belittles his intelligence, which is actually incredibly high for a child such as him, and Percy, having had his self-image destroyed by his stepfather and peers both in the mortal world and at Half-Blood, accepts this because he truly thinks he can't know any better. This in and of itself is a weakness of his that doesn't excuse him from taking her abuse lying down, but it sure as heck explains why he can't see it for what it is. Additionally, remember that Annabeth erupted at him for being "too stupid to see that she loved him" (and who also forced herself onto him)? That alone will solidify to Percy that nothing he does will ever be smart enough without her, and that anything that comes across as abuse must be wrong if he "couldn't" see that Annabeth was in love with him.
None of this is healthy. Percy needs a woman who won't treat him like dirt after all he's been through, who won't pick on him because she's oh-so-much-better than him at everything, who won't put him down when he needs to be lifted up, and who won't override his needs simply because she's "been through so much worse than he could ever imagine".
He needs a woman who will take his understandable panic attacks in stride, who won't belittle his intelligence, who will freely admit she's not as good as him at some things, and who can swallow her pride to help him with his struggles rather than be consistently petty with him and propping herself up.
In short, he needs Rachel because she never once treated him horribly, and did all of the above as opposed to bash and treat him like a pet the way Annabeth did.
There's not much to conclude this post with. I've covered the major bases, though there may be others I'm forgetting. That said, I meant what I said, and I won't back down. Despite my disinterest in PJO, Percy is a darling young boy any mother would be proud to call her son, and given how un-defended sons are these days, I'm taking it upon myself to step in until I can (hopefully) be blessed with boys of my own to similarly defend, as well as to remind the other men out there that no matter how beautiful, traumatized, or awesome a girl may be, she's not worth your love if she treats you like an object or pet to be owned.
It would’ve made much more sense for Percy to see Rachel by the water edge, telling him to get up, when he dipped himself in the river styx. She was the person he talked to to be reminded that the human world, a world without monsters, was out there. She was his tether. Not Annabeth.
Love your post. I have a question. I was reading your post named 'Relationship Analysis: Percabeth is Romanticized Toxicity" and I read the part where she made Percy's brother's death about her? Am I getting that right? Did that happen? What chapter? That's truly horrible and self-centered.
Also, "Stuff that talk, you viper of a female!" I love that line. I use it now lmao.
Anyways, thank you so much for answering!
ackers xxx
Hello there. Before I get too far, thank you for reblogging my prayer request. I'm hoping everything goes well for him.
Ah, yes. The scene with Percy's cyclops brother (forgive me, his name currently escapes me) is, from what I understand, actually in the book. Now I admit, I have not read Sea of Monsters, but I do know that Annabeth almost drowned because she was adamant at making a building of some sort "perfect" because arrogance is her weakness. I also know that 1 Percy himself suffered a lot by doing his best to keep her out of the Sea, and 2 that Annabeth was insanely racist towards his brother simply because...she'd had to kill cyclopses that had attempted to murder her.
Like what the hell?
Being uneasy around a member of a species that tried to kill you is understandable, but being a capricious jerk to him (in addition to your love interest, who is also related to this guy, funny how that's never a cause for self-control), is just nuts. That's like thinking every dog that's tried to maul you makes all canines vicious killer animals that need to be eradicated from the surface of the Earth.
It's. Not. Healthy.
Not to mention stupid, because either a cyclops (in fiction) or a dog (in real life) might be your only chance of survival some day.
To go back to your main point though, I found that tidbit from the anti percabeth tags. Frankly, given her cyclops racism was kept for the second film, I'm more than willing to bet it did happen. Moreover, from what I have read of the PJO books, it's perfectly in character for Annabeth to take any moment to make something about her. Remember, this is the girl who thought forcing herself on Percy would spell out that she liked him, then got mad that her abuse of him was still at the forefront of his mind to the point he was actually happy with Rachel until he got scared away from her by Annabeth.
I'm glad you liked my insult, and happy to hear it's being used! I hope I answered your question satisfactorily.
. Just pass time together, walking around somewhere, maybe the Park. Talk about things. Make food together and put some on each other. Paint each other and laugh a lot.
