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i feel the need to start this post by saying i LOVED the show. even with the criticism i have, i think it's an amazing show that stands on its own and sparked so much joy in me. it made me incredibly happy. however, like everything, it wasn't perfect and i want to talk about both my likes and dislikes.
obviously this post will have spoilers for the entire show, including the finale. long ramble ahead.
this will be very focused on the show in contraposition with the books, since i'm an old fan of the series and i watched it from the point of view of one as such. i will not address every change, as there are many and i mostly agree with them or just don't mind them. the book released almost twenty years ago so it's only natural that some stuff has been modernized and that rick has decided to change some things according to how he sees them now. it's also normal that some stuff changes when you go from book -> show because of the change in media. but i still want to address some specific stuff that i liked and disliked.
the first thing is sally. i think this is probably the change i liked the most, ironically, because i've seen a lot of sally hate/dislike by show only people (a CRAZY concept, i know) whereas i've never seen a book reader that didn't like her. i think this is because in the books, since they're from percy's pov, portray her solely as a mother. an angelic being that can do no wrong. and this is because of how deeply percy loves his mother, which is also seen in the show (a lot of people have pointed this out, but the scene with percy offering a sacrifice to his mother was such a fucking good scene).
however, the show made a point to portray her as a woman. a flawed human being. which is what has somehow caused some people to dislike her. pure misogyny, if you ask me, because the flaws showed aren't even big things. she's just humane. but anyway, i loved her. i wasn't 100% on board with her casting (one of the few ones i was doubtful about) but by the end of the show i can say: masterful performance, virginia kull.
speaking of the change from percy's direct pov to a more omniscient/third person pov (which is a one of the changes that naturally occurs because of the change in media), i think what suffered the most because of this change was the tone. it's one of the things that disappointed me as a book fan, and i know i'm not the only one. i haven't seen many people point out that it was most likely due to the pov change, though (although it wasn't the only factor). the tone of the show seemed a lot more serious than the books, even if it still had its points of humor. the books are so much sillier, which is the essence of percy jackson, both as a character and as a book series.
it wasn't very noticeable at first. it only started to REALLY bother me in the tunnel of love episode. and, honestly, my theory is that a lot of jokes in the books happen in percy's narration, which couldn't really be translated to the screen. however, they still deliberatedly changed a lot of stuff that could have been translated into the screen, and it started going downhill in that episode (tunnel of love) in specific. i won't go over every single joke that was taken out, or every single scene that was made more serious than in the book, but combining the fact that percy's internal jokes couldn't be included in the show with these deliberate tone changes was what ruined the tone for me.
on sort of the same topic of tone, the episode of the casino was just disappointing to me. even though i loved the taxi scene and i was glad for the silliness of it, the way the air of mystery was ruined from the start by the trio knowing what the lotus casino's trap was and just the general ambience of the casino not being at all what was described/what we as readers pictured in the book was a bit meh. not a big deal, really, but just something that piles up with the rest of tone changes that really didn't work as an adaptation of the books.
to talk about something more positive, and something i seem to disagree with a lot of book readers, i really liked the show's hades. i feel like he was an attempt to give back some of that silliness they took away, but it still worked for me. i know the book's hades is a lot darker, but i like it when hades is not pictured as this typical "dark, brooding" type. i also feel like he can still become a lot more serious in the future, when the situation calls for it. after all, he is a god. i do wonder how they'll deal with some of the scenes in the last olympian, but we'll see when we get there.
i also can't go forward without mentioning the change that everyone praised, as it should be. medusa. i won't go into detail, because there are entire meta posts made about it, but i feel like rick, the cast and the writers did an incredible job portraying her both as a victim and a villain.
something i feel neutral about is gabe. they didn't really portray him as the ruthless abuser he is in the books, it felt more like a neglectful type of abuse, which isn't a bad thing (it was probably disney that asked for this, i think). i was a bit afraid that they wouldn't kill him off, since he wasn't made to be as cruel as in the books and it could have felt out of place if sally killed him, but the way it was his own stupidity what killed him is something i can get on board with. i'm still a bit sad that we didn't have the cathartic moment of sally killing her abuser, since i think that portrayal that women have the right to get back at their abusers was good and necessary (and it would've also made an incredible contrast with the show's portrayal of medusa), but i'm also not particularly mad about it. he's dead, i'm happy. now give us paul!!
unfortunately, now i have to mention the change i quite literally hated. for most changes i disagreed with i mostly just didn't vibe with them or could understand where they were coming from but still didn't like them (as i've mentioned in this post), but this is a change that i genuinely cannot understand from a writing standpoint and thinking of the future of the series. i'm, of course, talking about backbiter.
i just don't get the necessity of giving it the power of opening "secret doors" that are basically portals, and then skipping completely over the fact that it's half normal steel and how luke is ready to kill both demigods and mortals to get what he wants (the downfall of the gods). but what pisses me off the most (unless they go deeper into how these "secret doors" work and somehow fix it) it's how it completely ruins the main point in the battle of the labyrinth. if you're a show only person, please skip the next paragraph because it will have spoilers for the fourth book of the series. you can continue after that.
the whole point in the battle of the labyrinth, unless i'm misremembering, is that chronos' army can use the labyrinth to move quickly to one point to another and, specifically, to sneak into camp half blood. what is the point of this if chronos can somehow give luke the power to just open portals to wherever??? i just don't get it. but well, we'll have to wait and see how they deal with it. still, i don't see the necessity at all to add this mysterious power to it. especially since they skipped over what makes backbiter actually terrifying.
as to not end this post on a negative point, i'll mention a few things i loved. first, the cast. they really were the lifeblood of the show, and it feels like rick shook the books and these people fell out of them. i think all of them did amazing, but of course walker, leah and aryn were just perfect. i acknowledge, like some people mentioned, that some scenes might have had some awkward acting, but it did not bother me at all. plus, they're young and they'll grow with the show.
second, and this is very specific and i've mentioned it before in my blog, the scene in the arch where percy tricks annabeth to fight the chimera himself. rick really knew what he was doing when he added that in. that scene is percy in a nutshell.
finally, this is a bit of a more self indulgent thing for me, and i will go into more depth soon in a different post, but the relationship between percy and poseidon was always something i really loved to think and headcanon about. i really liked how they portrayed him as someone who tries. he's a god, and he has "limitations" as a parent, but he still tries. the scene where he stops zeus from killing percy and immediately surrenders, something very significative because gods are prideful... i had to rewind and watch it again.
in general, i really liked the show. i especially like it as its own thing, even if i still think it was a decent adaptation with its errors/things i don't agree with. as a show on its own, probably because of how attached i am to these characters, i give it a solid 9/10 or even a 10/10. as an adaptation, i hesitate between a 7 and an 8.
great job, pjo team. and to the fans, especially old fans of the series, i think it's important to support the show even with the gripes i know we all have with it. it was very good, and pretty decent as an adaptation, but most importantly it's gonna bring a whole new generation to read the books. i work at a bookstore, and although we already sold pjo pretty often because it's one of our staple recommendations for middle schoolers, we've already seen a significant raise in the sales of the series. we even have a specific client, a full adult man, who is buying them for himself (i love him... we comment the books every time he comes to buy the next one).
that's all! lol i did say it was gonna be a long ramble.
There really is no denying that Percabeth are soulmates like Annabeth has all these trust issues and abandonment issues and she finds someone who’s FATAL FLAW IS THAT HE IS TOO LOYAL?! Like he will literally never betray her or abandon her. Percy never thinks he’s good enough for anything or anyone and Annabeth may not be the first person to see his potential, but she’s the first person to make him believe it. Annabeth believes in Percy even when he doesn’t believe in himself. Like they were made for each other and no one else
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some people saying interpreting piper as a lesbian is biphobic is wild to me. i haven't seen this take on tumblr but unfortunately i've come across it on twitter + tiktok comments a couple of times.
“but she had feelings for jason!” those memories were planted there by hera. “but she developed real feelings later!” girl if lesbians can trick themselves into thinking they like men WITHOUT getting fake memories implanted imagine what would happen to a lesbian who was already predisposed to having feelings for a man because a goddess made her believe they were already dating.
it's like comphet on steroids. like, the whole fake memories thing already felt like a comphet allegory to me back when we didn't know piper was canonically wlw. it certainly feels more like one now (even when it most likely wasn't intentional on rick's part).
it's been a hot minute since i read hoo but i distinctively remember piper finding percy unimpressive, which could just be her not finding him attractive or, guess what, her simply not finding men attractive in general.
plus, rick has never confirmed her sexuality. we just know she's wlw. any interpretation is valid and saying that hcing her as a lesbian is biphobic is as stupid as saying that hcing her as bi is lesbophobic. unless rick comes out and confirms her sexuality, which he probably won't. and honestly? i'd rather he keep it that way. i like that piper is a character that all sapphic women can see themselves in, regardless of their specific sexuality.
clarification, just in case this read too passive aggressive: i'm not trying to go against anyone who hcs her as bi or any other type of queer. those are completely valid! i'm just saying that a lot of stuff in piper's life can feel relatable to lesbians (it certainly does to me) which is why we headcanon piper as one.
pjo au where poseidon sends percy to camp jupiter (somehow, don't think too hard about the logistics, this is fanfiction) to protect him from the other gods so he can grow up in peace (reminder that, iirc, the great prophecy wasn't a thing for the romans). percy grows up thinking he's the son of neptune but, when he's 15 or so, poseidon tells him the truth.
now percy has to go to camp half blood, pretending to know nothing to hide camp jupiter from chb (and viceversa) because he's been warned of what could happen if the camps found out about each other. and on top of that, he has to deal with a prophecy that seems to be about him.
in chb everyone seems confused as to how a child of the big three survived on his own in the mortal world for so long. annabeth, in specific, isn't buying it, of course. not only is it impossible, but also percy is comically bad at hiding his knowledge of everything godly.
so she decides to attach herself to him until she manages to crack the mystery that is percy jackson. percy, on the other hand, is scared shitless. he has his own prejudices about children of minerva, but it's clear that this girl is criminally smart and is determined to figure him out, as if he didn't have enough shit going on.
guys i really wasn't into blond percy at first but the more i see him the more i love him. classic percy will always have my heart but, as other people have mentioned, annabeth calling him 'sunshine' was the start of my downfall. but what really sold me into it was, of course, a taylor swift song.
listen to daylight imagining it from annabeth's pov, in the context of blond percy, and tell me that it doesn't get to you. specifically the bridge.
'i once believed love would be black and white, but it's golden' i am gonna fly myself into the fucking sun.
and yes, this could have been canon percy about annabeth, but daylight just fits so much more with annabeth's loneliness and attachment issues from having been trapped at camp since she was 7 so much better. i want to cry.
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guys i really wasn't into blond percy at first but the more i see him the more i love him. classic percy will always have my heart but, as other people have mentioned, annabeth calling him 'sunshine' was the start of my downfall. but what really sold me into it was, of course, a taylor swift song.
listen to daylight imagining it from annabeth's pov, in the context of blond percy, and tell me that it doesn't get to you. specifically the bridge.
'i once believed love would be black and white, but it's golden' i am gonna fly myself into the fucking sun.
and yes, this could have been canon percy about annabeth, but daylight just fits so much more with annabeth's loneliness and attachment issues from having been trapped at camp since she was 7 so much better. i want to cry.
disney pjo episode 4 is my roman empire. specifically the scene with percy tricking annabeth to save her and fight the chimera himself. i think about it every day. and now he's done something similar in episode 5 again.
now i just need annabeth confronting him about his self-sacrificing tendencies and i am fucking SERVED.
