Re: Grover Underwood and the completely missed potential
- or how friendship is not magic lol
Aka, here I am. Still far from done with shitting on this show XD
Sooo, in a previous post I've already touched on how criminally sidelined Grover is in the show. How he has plenty of opportunities to meaningfully contribute to the team's quest in the book and how he is actually supposed to be kind of an anchor-point between Annabeth and Percy there. How they are both supposed to have more history and more of an established, closer relationship with Grover than with each other at the beginning. And how the show more or less treats him as the comic-relief deadweight that Percy and Annabeth have to keep dragging around with them.
But what makes this even more tragic, is that some of the changes they made at the start could have laid the foundation for such a cool and interesting character arc for him, if only they fully commited to them and here is why:
So we've already established that Percy and Grover's friendship is greatly downplayed in the show. The first two episodes alone make Grover come off as a lot more distant and manipulative, than he is in the book. The montage where we're supposed to see them bonding with each other in the first episode places such a heavy emphasis on Grover underhandely teaching Percy about Greek legends; showing him the the Mythomagic cards, Percy commenting specifically how "it felt good to talk about this stuff [aka the mytholgical creatures Percy sees] with Grover" implying that this must be a large chunk of what they usually talk about, Grover hinting that "there are other places for people like them" That, coupled with his "betrayal" in the principal's office, Percy finding out he's been lying to him the entire time they've known each other when Grover comes to get him at Montauk, Grover telling Percy "Everything so far has been training for what's still ahead of you" in the car and him withholding the information that he knows Sally is alive and only telling him at the end of episode 2 to seemingly manipulate Percy into going on the quest... from Percy's perspective, aaall of that certainly makes it look like their entire friendship up until this point has been built on a pretense and predicated on Grover seeing Percy as nothing more than a job assignment. At the start of episode 3 we have Percy hearing the first half of the prophecy, before we cut to Percy choosing Annabeth.
And then we get this absolutely intriguing scene:
The super guarded way Percy interacts with Grover here, the decision to have Grover ask him why he chose him, then flashing back to "You shall be betrayed by the one who calls you friend and fail to save what matters most" only to cut back to Percy going "I trust you" with this super meaningful look on his face that implies the opposite?? Percy's uneasy smile at the end there, the ominous cut to black??? Grover again lying to Percy, this time about his involvement in Thalia's fate in one of the next scenes?
When I initially saw all of these moments I was cautiously intrigued and excited about where they could be going with these changes. I thought that maybe all this build-up of letting Grover and Percy start out more distant from each other, in addition to what they did with Annabeth, was a deliberate choice to really delve deeper into the "betrayal"-subplot, that I always felt was a bit underdeveloped in the book.
In my opinion the book never really did enough to meaningfully develop a friendship between Luke and Percy, but he's the only other person at Camp he has friendly interactions with, which just made him the obvious candidate for the "twist" at the end. The fact that the thought of Annabeth or Grover betraying Percy isn't even seriously entertained for a single moment, since they get along so well from the start, always made the payoff for the prophecy's second half pretty lackluster to me.
Since Grover is not shown to be as unequivocally on Percy's side in the beginning of the show and willing to throw him under the bus if it means fullfilling his duty, I thought they wanted to add more complexity to his motivations. I thought all the scenes of him keeping Percy at a distance, all the little lies and small manipulations, were there to set-up a deliberate effort on Grover's part not to get too emotionally attached to Percy, still guilty and heartbroken over his last perceived failure. That maybe basing so much of their interactions on preparing Percy to become a demigod, was Grover overcompensating for what happened with Thalia rather than standard procedure.
I thought that maybe this meant they were going to lean more into the idea that Grover's drive to help Percy out isn't wholly selfless either, since to an extent he does see Percy as his last chance at redemption first and as his friend second, at least at the start (even the book has some subtle hints that would lend themselves to that intepretation). After all Percy is still the literal ticket to getting Grover to reach his most important and biggest goal in life: Searching for Pan.
When I first saw that scene where Percy asks Grover to accompany him on the quest with all these framing devices and nuanced acting choices I described above, along with Percy choosing Annabeth "because he thought they could never be friends" (which I thought was a great concept btw), I thought they were making a point of Percy deliberately choosing these two because he's already braced himself for the possibility that they might turn on him. Grover because he's already been hurt and betrayed by him before and Annabeth like he said, because he thought she would always put the mission above all else.
So with all of this build-up, all of this potential for interesting ways to delve deeper into the trio's dynamic, to add a bit more depth to Grover's character, put more weight behind the prophecy... what do they do with of all this?
This gets completely resolved at the end of episode 3. Literally within the SAME episode that conflict is even introduced???? From the trio's last heart-to-heart onwards there is literally nothing to suggest that they aren't the bestest of friends 4eva now who will do anything for each other no matter what, from that point on. And nope, apparently Percy carries no lingering resentment or distrust for Grover at all. Nope, he's just super cool with Annabeth now (and do not even get me started on the rest of that episode because boy do I have thoughts about how they handled the Medusa/Fury scenes xD)
This. Never. Gets brought up. Again!!!!
Maaaaan, imagine the angst potential, the twist and turns, the vibes™ we could have had if only they let Percy stew on this fear silently for just a few more episodes!!! We could have gotten a more turbulent arc of him and Grover growing into their friendship over the course of the show!! How satisfying would it have been to watch Grover gradually letting his guard down, both Annabeth and Grover slowly proving Percy wrong?? Imagine Percy offering to sacrifice himself so much because he keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop, anticipating, if this is finally going to be the moment that one of them is going to turn on him but it never comes?? (This has trickle-down-effects on another certain scene in episode 5, that I'll have to get into another time, before this post runs away with me again lol)
Back when I was watching these episodes for the first time I specifically ranted to my friend about how "I was really liking the actor's performance, but that depending on the path they are taking, the changes they're making to Grover could either be very interesting or hilariously dumb". I said, that "I couldn't tell yet if this was a deliberate choice to make him more distant or if Grover's personality and his friendship with Percy was just being sacrificed at the altar for the sake of clumsy plot progression".
Well since this whole-ass essay wouldn't exist if it was the former and not the latter you can probably already guess what the verdict is xD. So let's get into how if they never actually intended to make their relationship start out rockier or to make Grover's motivations more complicated, all of these scenes I just highlighted and could have praised in a different context were made hilariously dumb in hindsight, shall we xD?
First off, the scene in the principal's office.
Let me tell you a fun and relevant little anecdote from my elementary school days: So, there were these two little shits, a boy and a girl, in my class, who were always at each other's throats for one thing or another. You know the usual hair-pulling, name-calling bullshit elementary students get up to. And there was this one time, the girl appearantly just woke up and chose violence that day. I honestly don't remember what specific beef they were having that time, but the girl seemed out for revenge lol. While we had our break outside she literally threw herself into a puddle on the school yard and went crying to the teachers about how the boy had pushed her. The boy was literally at the complete other end of the soccer field. Can you guess who of them actually got in trouble for it lmao?? (Spoiler alert: It certainly wasn't the girl lol)
I've already touched on it before, that they really don't do much in the show to portray Percy as the "troublemaker" he is viewed as in the book, accidental as that reputation may have come to be. At this point in the book he's been on pseudo-probation for a while now, the Nancy-incident is just the straw that breaks the camel's back.
So... in the show... If the criminal offence of pushing a girl into a fountain once is appearently already enough of a reason for the school to expell Percy and if their intention was not to characterize Grover as a bit more cold and calculating on purpose... they literally turned him into a backstabbing traitor for absolutely no good reason xD!!! Percy's only defence contrary to all the eyewitnesses and evidence fabricated by the mist against him is literally "But I didn't do it tho, uwu". I'm sure that's going to hold up in court xD!!! Grover's excuse of "I had to get you out of there because it's getting too dangerous" is sooo unbelievably flimsy. Am I supposed to believe Percy's "word" would have otherwise gotten him out of trouble, if Grover didn't intervene??? That boy in my class back then, didn't even do anything and he still got detention lmao. I have no doubt Percy could have gotten this outcome without Grover's help, all he did was twist the knife xD!!! Grover ratting out Percy to the principal for absolutely no reason, when he was going to get kicked out anyway contributes absolutely nothing to the show except making Grover look like the shittiest friend ever lol????
Chiron and Mr. D having to somehow find a way to convince Percy to go on this quest was made up for the show. Which makes this whole back and forth they also added to it, about the two of them conspiring to keep the fate of Percy's mom a secret, super pointless??
First of all, going out of their way to withhold the one piece of information from him, that would motivate Percy to go in a heartbeat makes absolutely zero sense from Chiron and Mr. D's perspective, lol??? Sure, I'm willing to concede that Chiron doesn't want to tell him because he cares about Percy and doesn't want his judgement to get clouded or for him to be disappointed, if things go badly. But are we seriously supposed to believe that Mr. D gives a flying fuck about Peter Johnson and his fragile emotional state xD??? If he wants Percy to do this, it's infinitely more out of character for him NOT to use this information against him in an instant...?? You know?? Like Ares did?? In the book??
And second of all, I did not partucularly like that change because it greatly takes away from Percy's agency. In the book Percy notices Chiron weirdly dodging around saying the word "dead" when refering to his mother and draws his own conclusions about Sally probably being reachable in the Underworld to some capacity. Trying to find a way to get her out is his idea and his secret hidden agenda for why he is so willing to take on this quest in the first place (well aside from just being a sweet kid who wants to help lol). The first time he ever gets to know for sure that Sally actually is alive is several chapters later when Ares baits him with that information.
And again, Grover only telling him about this at the very last possible moment, only to manipulate Percy into going on the quest, again makes him look like a complete asshole xD Yeah, yeah I know the intent was probably supposed to be "Wow look how much he cares! He's even going against Mr. D's orders for this". But aside from the fact that Mr. D's orders are already bullshit, there is literally no reason he couldn't have told him this in private at any moment beforehand xD???????
I was willing to forgive all of these little plot holes and inconsistencies if they had at least served the greater purpose of setting up Grover's characterization, but apperantly that just ended up being a fluke?? We even see glimpses of this slightly more caculated and manipulative take on him later in his exchange with Ares, but it just goes absolutely nowhere. This could have been such an awesome opportunity to establish his people skills as his unique strength that sets him apart from the other two. We could have seen him manipulate, mansplain, manslaughter™ (xD) his way into getting dirt on Ares and start collecting the pieces to out him as the culprit later, maybe even have a little arc where Percy and Annabeth dismiss him at first, but come to find out the truth in time. I don't know... just anything more interesting than what we got!
Grover's goal to search for Pan gets brought up soo little in the show it feels like a complete afterthought. There is never really any time spent on explaining why getting Percy through this quest successfully is so important for him or that Percy is literally the key to him getting his searcher's license.
The "four pearls"-thing they added to the show literally only exists to make Grover look more expendable than he already did by that point. Because they don't lose the pearl and "fail to save what matters most" under tragic but unavoidable cirumcstances. No, Grover loses the pearl, because of course he fucking does, why would you expect him to do anything useful at this point xD??? Why in fresh hell could they not at least have given him this one single moment???? Let Percy be the one to be overwhelmed by Cerberus (I almost typed Fluffy, but wrong series lol) and have Grover be the one who saves him because he's supposed to have a way with animals, I thought that's what that whole squeaky-toy thing they gave him at the start of the episode, was supposed to build up to in the first place??? (and yes I know why this was originally Annabeth's moment, but she's already had tons of scenes to shine so far and the show barely touches on the whole thing with her father anyway). Have Percy lose his pearl and Grover offering to stay behind for Sally. If the golden chair scene was Annabeth's moment of unquestioningly proving her loyalty to Percy, this should have been Grover's.
And I could go on, but I think I have more than made my point, already lmao.
The thing is... I wouldn't even call myself much of a fan of Grover in the books. It's a bit hard to take special notice of him since his presence is so understated. All the more reason why giving him more to do and more space to occupy in the show would have been a more than welcome change (they didn't even keep his little arc of him starting out as a bit of a coward, but becoming more confident and self-assured by the point we reach the ending).
But one thing I always really liked about Book!Grover is that he is more than just an accessory to Percy's main character status. He has his own clearly set goals and motivations that he strives towards, he doesn't just exist to be dragged along on Percy's adventures, when he clearly has his own things going on too. Hunter x Hunter does something similar with its friendships too and I always thought there was something refreshingly bittersweet and realistic about that approach. Because yeah, especially as you grow older no matter how dearly you may love your friends, your paths won't always neatly align and sometimes it's hard to spend time together if everyone is busy pursuing their own goals.
And I really can't say that the show manages to capture any of that vibe either. While that scene at the end of episode 8, where the three of them promise each other to meet up at Camp Halfblood again next year was a sweet little moment. I can't help but feel that it takes a bit away from Grover's individuality, when in the book Grover was fully prepared for the possibility of never making it back to see any of them again and probably wouldn't have made that promise. They go out of their way not to say good-bye to each other. All Grover asks of them is to wish him luck, no empty platitudes or reassurances.
I guess it could have worked better for me if they just changed the lines to hint that the real meaning behind that promise is more a proof of Percy's unflinching faith in him to suceed and make it back.
And with how all the scenes leading up to this point just do such a bad job at making Grover seem like he earned this payoff through his own character growth, it all just ends up ringing a bit hollow in the show...
Soooo TLDR; I'm very disappointed they sidelined Grover so hard, when they had all the ingredients to offer a slightly different, but really interesting take on him.
I've run out of steam and don't know how to end this xD so let's just leave things on this sweet little moment from the book.
