channelgirl

Imagine Percy getting paternal affection for the first time in his life but then slowly coming to the realization that Gabe was a bully who hated him, but Poseidon is a bully who loves him. Poseidon encouraging Percy's anger and violence because his sons are entitled to be as angry and violent as they want. Poseidon magic-ing him out of trouble for fighting at school because Percy should be allowed to hit whoever he wants!

Apollo: *shamelessly watching Percy teach*

Percy: Want to join us and learn a thing or two yourself?

Apollo: Oh Percy! Not in front of the kids! *definitely still down*

Throughout Heroes of Olympus, it is made pretty clear that greek demigods have issues speaking and even understanding latin.

Annabeth, for example, admits in Mark of Athena that she has some trouble with it:

Annabeth said nothing. She knew very little about the Roman goddess. She wished she had studied up, but Latin never came as easily to her as Greek. (Mark of Athena, Chapter 4, Annabeth)

When Jason recites the prophecy of the seven at the campfire in “The Lost Hero”, the campers had very obvious troubles understanding it (despite all, or most, of them already knowing the contents of the prophecy he is reciting.) Piper doesn’t even understand a single word, and is only able to discern that it is Latin that he is speaking:

An uneasy silence settled on the group. Piper could see from their faces that several of them were trying to translate the lines. She could tell it was Latin, but she wasn’t sure why her hopefully future boyfriend was suddenly chanting like a Catholic priest. (The Lost Hero, Chapter 10, Piper)

In the same book, Chiron states that greek demigods are merely able to recognize a few phrases at most and that no one can speak latin fluently without practice.

 “You know Latin,” Chiron observed. “Most demigods recognize a few phrases, of course. It’s in their blood, but not as much as Ancient Greek. None can speak Latin fluently without practice.” (The Lost Hero, Chapter 7, Jason)

Yet, it is a bit of a different story for Percy.

He not only has a relatively easy time understanding Latin, but he has actively spoken it in the past. By far not as well or fluently as Jason obviously, but still to some degree.

In fact, the beginning of his understanding of Latin in son of Neptune is remarkably similar to the beginning of his understanding of Greek in “The Lightning thief."

Just compare these two scenes. One from the beginning of Son of Neptune, and one from the beginning of The Lightning Thief:

‘They won’t attack,’ Reyna said, ‘unless you try to steal something, or unless I tell them to. That’s Argentum and Aurum.’ ‘Silver and Gold,’ Percy said. The Latin meanings popped into his head like Hazel had said they would. (The Son of Neptune, Chapter 3, Percy)

“The sword has a long and tragic history that we need not go into,” Chiron told me. “Its name is Anaklusmos.” “‘Riptide,’” I translated, surprised the Ancient Greek came so easily. (The Lightning Thief, Chapter 10)

Important note here: The scene in Son of Neptune was still when Hazel thought he was a roman demigod. Meaning his understanding of Latin seems to have an equal progression to how a roman demigod would understand Latin in his situation.

Now, obviously these were only a couple words and still align with Chiron’s description of the ability of Greek demigods to understand a couple words and phrases, but we have other direct comparisons, that show that Percy’s understanding seems to be a bit more advanced than other demigods.

For example, we do have direct comparison like that between Percy and Annabeth.

Again, let’s look at these two scenes from Son of Neptune and Mark of Athena respectively:

As Hazel marched down the hill, she cursed in Latin. Percy didn’t understand all of it, but he got son of a gorgon, power-hungry snake, and a few choice suggestions about where Octavian could stick his knife. (The Son of Neptune, Chapter 4, Percy)

A statue of Terminus exploded into being, right in front of Annabeth. He yelled at her in Latin, no doubt calling her a liar and a rule breaker; but she pushed the statue over and kept running. (Mark of Athena, Chapter 4, Annabeth)

“No doubt calling her a liar and a rule breaker” Meaning, Annabeth only assumes what he says from his tone of voice and the circumstances and doesn’t actually understand it. In contrast to Percy actually understanding most of what Hazel was saying.

A little bit later in Son of Neptune, Frank, who is a roman demigod, and has spent six weeks actively learning Latin in Camp Jupiter admits to having a bit of trouble understanding Ella when she recites the prophecy in the library:

Ella twitched uncomfortably. ‘Alaska. Six hundred twenty-six thousand, four hundred twenty-five square miles. State mammal: the moose.’ Suddenly she switched to Latin, which Frank could just barely follow thanks to his classes at Camp Jupiter. (The Son of Neptune, Chapter 36, Frank)

Yet, Percy is perfectly capable of understanding the very same prophecy. A prophecy he has never heard, in contrast to the demigods at camp half blood. He seems to be just as capable of understanding it as Hazel and Frank are:

‘Camp,’ Ella muttered. Then in Latin: ‘“Wisdom’s daughter walks alone, the Mark of Athena burns through Rome.”’ ‘Uh, right,’ Percy said. ‘That sounds important, but we can talk about that later. (…) ‘We’ll see her again,’ Percy promised, but he frowned uneasily, as if he were really troubled by that last bit of prophecy – the thing about Athena. (The Son of Neptune, Chapter 36, Frank)

But that is not all. Percy even spoke Latin as far back as the lightning thief:

“Zeus will destroy you!” she promised. “Hades will have your soul!” “Braccas meas vescimini!” I yelled. I wasn’t sure where the Latin came from. I think it meant “Eat my pants!” (The Lightning Thief, Chapter 10)

He didn’t even plan on speaking it, it just came to him as naturally as greek does to other greek demigods.

And I know some people will say “he had Latin in school. Chiron was his Latin teacher after all”.

Listen, I had Latin in school. I had Latin in school for close to 8 years and did an extra course at university for my history degree. You do not learn to speak Latin in school. At all. Especially in grade six. At this point you have some very simple sentences in Latin that you have to translate, and maybe learn like twenty vocabularies. You have sentences like “Julia puella est. Cornelia puella est. Julia et Cornelia puellae sunt.” You certainly don’t learn grammar, the conjugation of passive verbs like viscimini, declinations of “Bracca” or to use all of these words in a coherent sentence. Unless the American education system regarding Latin is completely different than the german one  and you guys learn to actively communicate in Latin and have a bunch of 12 year old prodigies, I can assure you, this did not stem from his Latin classes.

Now, do I believe that this was intentional on Rick’s part? No. Not at all.

Am I interpreting too much in a few little lines? Definitely.