Percy Jackson vs Annabeth Chase 1v1 (YT & TIKTOK)
So I was scrolling through TikTok and I saw a Percy vs Annabeth edit and I read a few of the comments and okay wow the Annabeth glaze is genuinely too much. So let's analyze shall we.
First off was strength. The creator had given to the point and the people in the comments were saying 'Oh but Annabeth is stronger,' 'Oh but she's trained for longer,' 'Oh but she held up the sky for 22 hours' and yada yada. Thing is. Percy is clearly shown to be one of the strongest demigods alive in the books. First of all, he is the son of one of the Big Three. Percy inherently possesses higher base physical attributes, durability, and stamina than children of minor or standard Olympian deities. Percy has also physically wrestled monsters and deflected blows from giants. I mean sure Annabeth had her moments but it was nowhere near as much as him. Also point three. Small minor factor. When Percy touches water, his physical strength, speed, and healing factors multiply instantly, pushing his physical capabilities far past Annabeth's peak limits. I will talk about the whole holding the sky thing a bit later.
Secondly was speed. Point to Percy. I yet again agree. Not much argument. One or two people did argue and I have a few things to say about that. If we include godly powers Percy can canonically swim at Mach 5, which may be below water but still is speed. In the Son of Sobek (PJO x KC crossover narrated by Carter Kane) Carter states that Percy is much faster than him. Someone in the comments had used the argument that Percy said in one of the Senior Adventures book that he wasn't the best at running at something. Which really is a stupid argument. As much as I love Rick the qualities of the books have getting worse by the year and they sound like fanficition written by middle-schoolers. The Senior Adventures Trilogy (third book yet to be published) completely ruins Annabeth and Percy's character (not so much Annabeth as Percy) so I will not be taking that as a valid argument. Annabeth is fast, she is agile but over Percy? No chance.
Third is durability. Boy oh boy the arguments on this one. Yet again the point went to Percy (are we surprised?) Now people had quite a few opinions on this. The amount of people saying that Annabeth has more durability was.. wow. None were worded politely either, which is astounding. What happened to being nice to creators? The one and only argument repeated by all of them was the mention of the sky holding scene. Now let me remind you something that people love to forget. Percy, too held the sky. And what I've come to realize is that people are confusing durability to endurance or stamina. Here is a definiton I copy-pasted from the google AI thing - Durability is about resisting damage. Endurance is about resisting fatigue and staying active over long periods. People say that Annabeth held the sky for 22 hours. That is an impressive feat but let me make it clear that we actually don't know how long she held it for. From what I remember in the books (correct me if I'm wrong) Percy dreamt at point of Annabeth holding the sky and the next time he slept he dreamt of Artemis holding it. So we do not know if she held if for less than 22 hours or more. It completely depends on when Artemis took it from her. Also to the people saying that Annabeth had Artemis's blessing so it was was easier for her. You're also wrong (if I am remembering right.) Artemis said she had the spirit of a Hunter, but it was never clearly stated that she had given the blessing. But back to Percy. People downplay that my boy here fought Atlas, was sleep deprive, food deprived, had a broken arm and he still held the freaking sky for as long as he held it. The thing about the sky is the fact that it will always the heaviest amount possible to the person holding it, but not enough to kill them. So really the sky scene for Annabeth was a test of endurance, and for Percy it was a test of strength. Back to durability, Percy had the Curse of Achilles for a while which definitely helped. Plus if the guy takes too much it literally just takes a splash of water and he heals. Also Percy has literally been thrown around like a toy. He's been thrown against walls, smashed by giants and pummelled by gods. Whatever Annabeth says, however she acts, however the fandom acts, she is still mortal. She is the daughter of Athena. No powers just.. smart. And even that is debatable. But like fact is, a blade to the shoulder or knife to the back would make her weaker than it would Percy seeing as he can literally use water to heal himself and like she'd need medical assistance and all.
Fourth was feats. Percy. Obviously. I'm not even going to argue about this, and honestly, no one else should be arguing with it either. But of course, you always get those people in the comments saying, "Oh, but Annabeth helped him with everything," or "Oh, he would have died without her, so it's actually her feat." Respectfully? Shut up. Yes, they are an iconic team, and yes, they save each other constantly, but this fanon narrative that Annabeth is a flawless mastermind who always babysits a clueless Percy is completely fake. For a character who is constantly praised as the wisest and smartest demigod alive, Annabeth has actually fucked things up for Percy so many times, forcing him to clean up the mess with his raw power and survival instincts. Take the Sphinx incident in BOTL, for example. Annabeth almost gets them both slaughtered because of her massive hubris; the Sphinx gives her a standardized, unchallenging test, and instead of just answering the easy questions to save their lives, Annabeth throws a literal temper tantrum because it insults her intellect, forcing Percy to jump into active combat to keep them from getting shredded. People also love to forget the Siren scene in SOM. Annabeth confidently thinks she can handle listening to them, but she gets completely overwhelmed, jumps out of the boat, and tries to swim to her death. Percy is the one who has to dive in, physically overpower her while she’s kicking and screaming, and hold her underwater in an air bubble just to keep her from drowning. Even as early as TLT at Ares’s water park, Annabeth freezes up entirely because of her fear of spiders, leaving a completely paralyzed, panicking genius while Percy has to think on his feet, manipulate the water to launch them out of the boat, and physically catch her mid-air. Even her most famous solo win against Arachne in MOA ends with her hubris blinding her to her surroundings, causing her to get tangled in the web and dragged into Tartarus, where Percy has to try and haul her up before falling with her. Annabeth is smart, but she is highly emotional, prideful, and prone to freezing when her ego or phobias are triggered. Percy’s feats are his own, and he is consistently the one bailing them out when her 'master plans' hit a wall.
I’m gonna group the fifth and sixth topics together: IQ (intelligence quotient) and BIQ (battle IQ). The creator gave IQ to Beth and BIQ to Percy, and of course, people had massive problems with this. I read comments outright calling him dumb as a "joke" and saying that Annabeth should easily get both points. I personally completely disagree with that, and honestly, I only half-agree with giving her the general IQ point in the first place. There have been so many cases across the books where Annabeth has been dumb af, but because she’s the "smart one," no one bloody acknowledges it. Just because Percy isn't book-smart or spouting random architecture facts doesn't mean he lacks intellect, and reducing him to a brainless powerhouse while treating Annabeth like an infallible goddess is just lazy character analysis. Annabeth gets the point for general IQ because she excels at academics, architecture, and thriving when she has time to sit down, study a problem, and map out a plan. But her "genius" status blindspots her constantly. She completely fails to see obvious traps because she thinks she’s too smart to be tricked. Remember when Luke tricked her into taking the SKY from him? Or when she completely misread the Sirens' danger? People act like she's a walking computer, but her pride makes her pull some incredibly stupid moves that a little bit of common sense could have avoided. Battle IQ, on the other hand, belongs entirely to Percy. Battle IQ is about split-second decision-making, spatial awareness, and adapting to a chaotic environment when a plan completely falls apart. We see Percy display insane tactical brilliance in the middle of combat all the time. In TLT he figures out how to defeat Medusa by using the reflection on his shield, and he tricks Procrustes into his own trap beds. In TLO, he coordinates the entire defense of Manhattan, demonstrating a macro-level understanding of war tactics that kept an army alive against overwhelming odds. Annabeth is a brilliant planner, but when the battlefield shifts unexpectedly, she tends to overthink or rely too heavily on the rules of logic. Percy thrives in the chaos. He reads his opponents instantly, exploits their weaknesses on the fly, and uses his environment in ways nobody else would ever think of. Annabeth gets the blueprints, but Percy owns the battlefield—and he definitely isn't the idiot the fandom tries to make him out to be. And we definitely don't talk enough about how smart our wonderful boy truly is.
And finally: Power. Percy. Obviously. You would think people would leave this very obvious one alone, but I saw someone in the comments actually arguing that Annabeth should have gotten the point for power, and that awakened pure, unfiltered rage in me because what the actual hell? The Annabeth glaze is getting worse by the day. To say a regular mortal demigod with a dagger is more powerful than a son of the Big Three who can literally command the oceans is a level of delusion I cannot comprehend. Annabeth is a highly skilled human athlete; Percy is a localized walking natural disaster. If we are talking about raw power, Percy’s feats are completely on a god-tier level. He has summoned personal hurricanes to fight off entire armies, created massive tidal waves, caused a literal volcanic eruption at Mount Saint Helens, and can control the water inside poison or blood when he's pushed to his absolute limits in Tartarus. Annabeth’s "power" is her brain and her dagger. She cannot control the elements, she cannot shake the earth, and she cannot summon a storm. Her strength is tactical, not supernatural. To even put them in the same tier of raw power is an insult to the entire power-scaling system Rick Riordan built. This ties directly into how stupid it is that the fandom treats her like the undisputed leader of the Seven on the Argo II. People love to post things like "Annabeth controls those idiots" or act like she’s a babysitter dealing with brainless toddlers, which is just straight-up disrespectful to the other characters. Like, wtf? She didn't "control" anyone. The Seven is made up of child-of-the-Big-Three heavy hitters like Percy, Jason, and Hazel, plus incredibly powerful demigods like Piper, Frank, and Leo. None of them were ever "controlled" by her. They respected her intellect and strategy, sure, but acting like she was the boss of everyone just feeds into this weird, hyper-inflated fanon version of her. If anything Percy or Jason should have been the leader, or even Coach Hedge. Annabeth is a character with a lot of possibilities, but trying to strip Percy of his most defining trait—and putting everyone else down just to boost her up—is absolutely wild. He is a son of Poseidon, his raw, destructive power is unmatched by almost any other demigod alive, and he doesn't need to be managed like a child.
Feel free to add anything or correct stuff.
