In Defense of the Heroes of Olympus (Who Aren't Percy)

Note:  This blog is not about Harry Potter.  Sorry!  I just had a lot of Percy Jackson feels to write about!

So here’s the thing.  Everyone in the Heroes of Olympus fandom loves Percy Jackson.  I mean, he’s damn near close to being a perfect character.  I’d argue that most of Riordan’s characters are damn near perfect.  For some reason, the internet likes to slam the rest of the heroes of Olympus.  So I’m writing this in defense of them.  Because I think each and every one of them is super important and relevant.

Annabeth Chase

I feel like I don’t have to defend Annabeth because she’s pretty much universally loved (except when it comes to Perachel shippers), but I will anyway because I freaking love Annabeth.  She’s intelligent, methodical, and a total badass with a knife.  Percy and Annabeth are my OTP, but even if they weren’t a couple, I would still love Annabeth.  She’s a fighter in more than just the literal sense of the word.  She suffers emotional traumas and she deals with them magnificently.  What I love about Annabeth most is that she doesn’t just stoically power through her issues, she powers through them realistically.  She panics, she cries, she nearly falls victim to her insecurities.  She’s more than just a badass, brilliant kid.  She’s a sixteen year old girl with legitimate sixteen year old problems.  She cares about her boyfriend and she’s not afraid to show it.  Just because she’s a badass, that doesn’t mean she can’t have feelings.   But also, Annabeth doesn’t just exist in the story to be Percy’s girlfriend.  She’s a lot more than that.  She’s definitely the leader of the quest.  (Jason and Percy obviously think so anyway because they let her have the head chair at the table after a stupid manly man standoff).  It’s great to see a female character in that kind of leadership role when she’s outnumbered by dudes.  And she’s also extremely kind.  People trust her.  Even Frank, who hardly knows her, trusts her to help him figure out the Chinese handcuff situation.  She’s someone that people can count on.

Leo Valdez

Leo gets a lot of love on the internet, but I was pretty surprised to find that he also gets a lot of hate.  The arguments for why Leo is crappy are that he’s selfish, he’s mean to Frank, and he cares about machines more than real people.  I’m not really concerned about the selfish thing.  Teenagers are selfish.  It’s in their nature.  No teenager is actually as perfect as Percy Jackson.  I could go one about ALL the heroes of Olympus’s selfish tendencies, but I won’t because they’re not interesting to me.   

As for the Frank thing, well, I’ll admit, Leo crosses the line sometimes.  He pretty much calls Frank fat at one point and as a fellow fatty, I am not cool with that.  But the thing is that I understand why he’s mean to Frank.  He sees Frank as competition.  He feels inadequate compared to Frank because Frank is this massive hulking guy with a beautiful girlfriend.  He doesn’t realize how insecure Frank is.  

Moving on to the machine-loving issue.  First of all, I don’t think that he actually likes machines more than people.  That’s just not true.  What IS true is that he feels more comfortable with machines than with people.  The only thing Leo has going for him is his sense of humor.  He’s not attractive or strong really.  So he becomes insecure and ends up taking his humor a step too far because he doesn’t know how to interact with people.  In the end of The Mark of Athena, we see that Leo cares about his friends (even Frank) more than even the most precious machine as he gives up the Archimedes stuff to save them.  To be honest, I find Leo’s inability to relate to people endearing because I have the same problem.  Leo’s flaws, I think, are what make him such a great character.  He does stupid stuff, but it’s realistically the same stupid stuff that we are all guilty of.  Leo represents a huge number of people in our generation because he’s been disconnected from real human relationships because of technology.  He’s extremely flawed, but that’s why he’s extremely relevant (and in my opinion, extremely lovable).

Frank Zhang

At first, I was pretty surprised to find that Frank doesn’t have a huge internet following like Leo or Percy does.   But know I think I know why.  Percy and Leo are sassy.  Tumblr loves sassiness.  But if we’re telling the truth, Percy and Leo are borderline rude sometimes.  You know who’s never rude?  Frank Zhang.  He gets mad at Leo sometimes, but usually only when Leo’s provoking him.  Frank is sweet and peaceful and adorably clumsy.  He feels insecure about his powers.  He’s always belittling them.  And I feel like that’s what makes him so endearing.  He’s self-deprecating.  And I don’t mean to get all, “you don’t know you’re beautiful, that’s what makes you beautiful” on you guys, but really, Frank’s humility is a breath of Fresh air compared to the faux bravado of Jason, Percy, and Leo.  Everyone feels like Frank sometimes.  We’re needed and important, but we don’t always know that we’re needed and important.  It’s really a shame that he’s so neglected in the fandom because I think that’s exactly the kind of thing Frank would be afraid of.  He’d be afraid that he wasn’t good enough for anyone.  People put too much importance on confidence and fail to find the value in a good old slice of humble pie.  Frank deserves all the fans.  Because out of all the other male heroes in the prophecy of the seven, he’s by far the most humble.

Piper McLean 

Piper is the most underrated demigod in the prophecy of the seven.  People write her off because she’s not a combat fighter like Hazel or Annabeth.  But the thing is, I think Piper is the most important female character in this story, because Piper’s weapon is her voice.  Piper’s skill is that she can make herself heard.  She can get people to see her way, to listen to her.  She does the thing that all women of the real world should strive to do: stand up for themselves and assert their authority in a male dominated world.  Seriously, I cannot express how important Piper is.  She’s not much of a physical fighter, she spends a lot of time thinking about her boyfriend, and she’s constantly conscious of the way she looks.  THESE ARE NOT NEGATIVE QUALITIES IN A PERSON.  In fact, they are completely realistic qualities to a fifteen year old girl.  This is why Piper is important.  She shows us that you can be a hero without having to use your fists.  You can be a hero without killing or maiming.  You can be girly and still be awesome.  Beauty queens can be badasses.  You don’t have to be an Annabeth Chase or an Arya Stark or a Katniss Everdeen.  If you’re a Piper– if you can get people to listen to you, you’re still a force to be reckoned with.

Hazel Levesque

Hazel’s not my favorite, to be honest.  It surprises me that Piper gets more crap than she does.  It’s not that there’s anything particularly unlikable about Hazel, but I tend to find myself weighed down and depressed by her story.  I mean, she’s a reincarnated daughter of Pluto from the 1940s who experienced extreme prejudice because of her race, and was cursed to create precious jewels that kill people, which made her mother go out of business and be forced to move to Alaska.  Then her mother was possessed by Gaia which eventually led to the death of both mother and daughter and the awakening of Gaia which Hazel  herself feels personally responsible for.  THEN she’s brought back to life by her half-brother who always makes her feel inadequate because really he’s just using her to replace his dead full sister.  Like, SWEET JESUS.  Life doesn’t get much shittier than that, right?  So like, I think any internal pain Hazel expresses in her chapters is completely 100% valid.  I would complain until I died a second time if I were Hazel.  But like I said, I just think that’s too much pain for one character to bear.    

On the other hand, what makes Hazel a truly great character is that she DOES manage to survive all the pain she goes through and still have a relatively positive outlook on things.  She is seriously inspirational to young girls in bad situations and I really like that aspect of Hazel’s character.  Also, she does something that I think a lot of girls do.  She internalizes a lot of pain and wrongly accepts being at fault for the poor decisions of adults.  She feels like it’s her fault that Gaia is rising, but let’s be real, it’s her mom’s fault.  Her mom is a really weird kind of verbally abusive and Hazel deals with that with incredible strength.  Anyway, Hazel carries all that pain around, but she doesn’t complain one bit.  And that’s admirable.  She undoubtedly has the most horrific backstory of anyone, AND she complains about it less than anyone.

Jason Grace

Poor Jason.  Jason gets crapped on a lot.  Mostly because he’s not Percy.  Honestly, I’m sure no fan of the series actually likes Jason better than Percy.  But that’s mostly because we had a whole book series dedicated to Percy before Jason even existed!  We know Percy better, so obviously we’re going to like him more.  If there had been a book series detailing Jason’s adventures side-by-side with Percy’s, then who knows who we would love more?  

Anyway, enough with the Percy talk and onto why Jason is actually awesome.  Jason’s got the stoic hero thing going on…except not really.  He’s trying really hard to be the stoic hero because that’s who he learned to be at Camp Jupiter, but that’s not who he really is.  He’s really a goofball– the kind of goofball who scars himself with a stapler as a child and who can tolerate Leo and keep up with his witty banter.  I think Jason’s struggle to find a balance between his Roman and Greek characteristics is really interesting.  John Green once said something about the hero’s journey being about going from strength to weakness and I think that Jason is a perfect example of that.  Jason goes from being the biggest big shot there is, to being the guy who keeps passing out all the time in The Mark of Athena.  Jason learns a lesson that a lot of guys his age could stand to learn:  He isn’t the only person capable of great things.  And more importantly, your self-worth doesn’t rely on being the best.  Lot’s of people are capable of great things and sometimes you need to rely on those people.  You can’t be the hero every time.  Sometimes you need to check your ego and accept some help.