i have such a love for characters who descend into madness or villainy out of deep, deep empathy. characters who fundamentally cannot cope with the cruel realities they find themselves in and blow up about it in spectacular fashion. fallen angel type characters with tears of outrage in their eyes. characters who break before they bend, and break so badly they splatter blood all over their noble ideals. every variation on it gets me so good
I’m actually LOVING how Rick Riordan, and the other writers of the show, took his initial concept of a Percabeth rivalry fueled by that of their parents and kind of turned it on its head?
Now, instead of Annabeth being wary of Percy because he’s a son of Poseidon, he’s wary of her because she made a callous impression on him. They get off to a rocky start even before finding out who Percy’s father is, and when they finally do, Annabeth doesn’t care. Instead of them fighting because of who their parents are, they’re fighting over their own opposed worldviews.
Then, instead of them arguing over which of the gods is cooler and who was right in the story of Medusa, they realize that, just like Medusa, Annabeth is a victim of her mother and that, unlike Medusa, she is a far kinder and stronger person, unwilling to repeat the cycle of hurt. They realize that, like his father, Percy often acts without considering potential consequences and that, unlike his father, he is a far kinder and stronger person, willing to step up for someone he wronged and whom he cares about.
Instead of Percy and Annabeth’s rivalry being focused on that of their parents, it’s focused on who they are, themselves. But the path to friendship is still the same: a realization that they have each other’s backs, no matter what, because they’re not their parents after all.
luke using annabeth’s fear of spiders to explain how the gods view demigods, some being their own children, was fucked up on so many levels.
and the worst part is luke isn’t even wrong
the gods need them to break the rules for them because they can’t, but being able to break the rules make them dangerous, unpredictable, and they now have to be made disposable.
Oh my god. The tears in Luke’s eyes when Percy says the betrayal line. The desperate pleading for them to run away. That he doesn’t want to hurt Percy. The tears in Percy’s eyes. The fear and shaking. Percy apologizing for actually hurting him. The look of horror on Luke’s face as Annabeth comes in. How horrified he looks when he looks down at Percy, who he HURT. The realization that Percy won’t join, and the equaled horror of hurting a twelve year old child.
i think something that elevates the hunger games franchise is not just the quality of writing but the integrity of it. tbosas isn’t just a cash-grab by suzanne collins in the age of sequels and reboots (though i won’t pretend that didn’t play a part), it’s a character study of the main antagonist with a different structure than the main trilogy. and importantly, it doesn’t just re-hash the same old themes and beats the main trilogy had, it expands on not just the world of the hunger games but the themes as well, it actually has something new to say about the trilogy’s themes about class, capitalism, power, and control, in a way that couldn’t be explored with the main story because the protagonist of that story simply did not have access to the world that’s being explored in tbosas.
i understand the people who call for books/movies to be made about haymitch, finnick, johanna, different years of the games — we love those characters and want to see more of them! i’d kill for a novella on finnick’s days mentoring tributes, or katniss’s parents falling in love. but at the end of the day we probably wouldn’t be very satisfied with those stories being fleshed out if they had absolutely nothing new to say about the world, they’d be enjoyable, but not as interesting and engaging as tbosas has been.
Every remake of a game should come with a copy of the game it is remaking that is compatible with modern hardware but otherwise untouched and I'm not even exaggerating this should be mandated by law. If you're going to attempt to recreate a piece of art you have to give people access to its original context otherwise it becomes the only context and makes the previous version simply a superceded product
Since Percy can talk to sea creatures, I'd like to think that one day he passed a pet shop with all these fish screaming at him in agony. Since then there has been a giant aquarium in cabin 3 with fish. He converses with them daily when he's at camp. He gave them all names (they were delighted to hear his suggestions).
There is one grumpy grouch that always tries to eat as much food before all the other fish. He has to keep him forcibly apart in a tiny water ball during dinner. He named him Zeus. Percy doesn't give a shit. Poseidon knows and thinks it is hilarious.
Chiron, who takes care of them when Percy's gone, cannot understand them but he doesn't like the way they look so judgemental. They are very much gossiping about him to his face.