I genuinely hope American media sucks for a while! I hope the big companies keep trying to churn out shit and that it’s all embarrassing garbage! I want it to be extremely apparent to everyone how important the writers and actors are to create good media and that they deserve to be compensated appropriately!!!
Book 3 Percabeth is insane like 😭 in "We Visit the Junkyard of the Gods" Percy spent three paragraphs talking about how Aphrodite was the most beautiful woman he's ever seen and the fourth paragraph started with "she looked like Annabeth"
Obsessed with how Annabeth isn't spacial, she isn't a chosen one, she has no demigod magic powers, she is for all intents and purposes, a fairly normal girl.
But she poured her blood, sweat and tears into becoming the best warrior she could be. She trained hard for years because she knew she had disadvantages and she didn't want to be seen as weak.
She's literally known in Camp and by monsters like Alecto as the most powerful demigod alive and she doesn't have powers. It's almost as of girls don't need to be magical to be a hero!
I think Percy choosing to continue the quest “no I am going to see this through” the show perfectly foreshadows him choosing to make the Great Prophecy about him in the Titans Curse “I choose the prophecy. It will be about me.”
In episode 6 of the show, Percy is released from the quest, however he chooses to continue on, seeing that there is a bigger picture. He chooses to continue on with the quest with the hopes of preventing whatever happens.
In the Titans Curse, it is revealed that the Great Prophecy could also be about Nico, however Percy chooses it to be about him. He knows the burden of the prophecy and does not want to put it in Nico. He is going to see the great prophecy through.
I love how the Titan isn’t a God; he’s a father who has used his power to try and communicate with the girl who has shown nothing but love and compassion towards his son. She wears the Bad girl coven shirt. There’s a Hooty piece where he’s missing an eye. Her last words to her son are “I loaf you” because she knows he likes bread puns. The Titan has more in common with witches and humans than he does with the immortalized version Belos created.
I love how Belos intentionally turned the Titan into this Godlike figure because he’s a colonizer. White colonizers thrusted their religious beliefs onto the people they deemed lesser. They actively took over entire continents and actively stole from and killed people because of their perceived superiority. Belos thinks he’s better than the witches, and so he stole the magic from the Titan, appointed himself its ruler, and attempted genocide against the witches of the Boiling Isles.
And I love how Luz saves the day, not because she was a chosen one with some innate power, but because she’d proven to the Titan that she deserved power.
“Almost as if the world wanted to hide them from me.”
“Almost like the Titan himself didn’t want me to have that knowledge.”
Because he didn’t. Because the Titan knew Belos didn’t have good intentions. But she showed the glyphs to Luz. He chose to show his power to her because he knew she would use it for good, and she did. Unlike Belos, Luz appreciated the culture of the Demon Realm and she learned to love the people of the Boiling Isles, including King, in a matter of months. Belos was there for centuries and yet he never bothered to treat the Boiling Isles with any respect. Why should he earn the Titan’s power when he can’t even respect her or any of the beings she shelters?
I’ve seen a few people (mainly on Twitter), reducing all of this to a “deus ex machina” or, “another cult metaphor”, but it’s so much more than that. It’s about respect. Respect of land and the people who occupy it. It’s about respecting people enough to understand them and their culture without forcing your own beliefs onto them. More than simply being an obvious criticism of the witch trials and the Catholics responsible for them, it’s also a criticism of people who use religion as an excuse to hurt people. Belos used the Titan as a substitute for his own God and then weaponized her against her own people, while Luz treated her offspring with nothing but love and respect.
Luz won because she loved and looked after the Titan’s son and thus, loved her. Belos lost because he didn’t even bother to learn anything about King, his Dad, or the people he protected.
Edit: A really nice commenter reminded me it was the Puritains and not the Catholics who were responsible for the witch trials. Thank you for that. Message still stands but just keep that in mind.
plot twist: when they adapt ttc, percy and annabeth dont ballroom dance at olympus at the end. instead, percy delicately holds out his hand. he asks annabeth for a dance. annabeth shyly says yes and takes his hand. and then it cuts to annabeth with cooling glasses freestyling while percy beatboxes