Popi

the blatant misremembering of Octavians character simply because readers just went along with whatever the main cast thought is honestly a little bit infuriating. he's the most spectrum coded character in HoO and most of his actions up until he is literally *brainwashed by Gaea* are justifiable.

"b-but he destroyed Percy's pillow pet comfort item!!" okay, maybe think about how he has to do this with his own comfort items every day? it's literally his job and it's very likely that nobody has ever gotten upset with him over it before. and *Reyna told him to do this* so why are we mad at octavian if it was an order from the praetor to do an augur thing and the easiest way to do that was with an item that had a connection to Percy?

i will also never get over the banquet scene at the beginning of MoA. Octavian literally does nothing wrong here but the characters decide that they just really want to make him the butt of every joke simply because they find him 'annoying'.

after Reyna does the toast and Jason is recounting their rescue of Hera/Juno, Octavian interrupts him in an exclamation of disbelief that they hadn't noticed that the queen of the gods had been imprisoned in a location that was very important to the romans. is interrupting rude? yes, but he obviously seems distraught over the fact that Juno was unknowingly imprisoned. instead of politely explaining the full extent of the situation, what does Piper do? immediately use charmspeak on him.

next, when Percy praises Jason's skills ("No wonder they made you praetor."), Octavian immediately brings up the fact that they have three praetors now that Jason has returned. this is really important, especially from his perspective since he's such a stickler for rules and regulations. Percy decides to immediately abtagonize him, and then completely dismiss his frustration over Percy choosing to step aside for Jason. Octavian has every right to be offended over this, even if it's not necessarily the most correct time to bring it up. Percy antagonizes him, and then basically blatantly insults him by treating the position he's worked his entire life for as if it's nothing important.

after that, Reyna has Octavian recite the great prophecy, ignoring his hesitancy (that is entirely warranted considering greece and rome have been at war for literal millenia). when Annabeth recites the last two lines of the prophecy and Frank brings up her parentage, Octavian has a right to be skeptical. in rome, Minerva isnt even a war goddess, and doesn't have children. without understanding how the gods operate in their seperate forms, it's reasonable, considering they arrived in a war ship, are being lead by a child of a war goddess that they are wholly unfamilliar with in more ways than most of the other major gods, and are, in fact, greek, to be suspicious of the groups intentions.

when Annabeth and Percy list the seven demigods they believe should go on the quest, Octavian is again rightfully upset. There are rules and procedures that are being completely ignored, and by visitors that are already suspicious to him and have made it very clear that they do not care about his opinion, even though he's on the senate and *the fucking augur.* he is once again interrupted, but this time by the book itself as Tyson shows up.

Ella then recites the 'mark of Athena' prophecy, which Octavian *once again* has every right to know about. prophecies are his job, and his entire *personality* as far as camp jupiter is concerned. i understand that it basically says 'Annabeth will destroy rome' but her secrecy in regards to the quest her mother gave her has never once made sense and is not justified in any way. instead of even saying something simple along the lines of 'Athena made me swear to secrecy', Percy for some reason is made to be the character that needs rescuing (in a situation that has nothing to do with him) and Annabeth takes the opportunity to make Octavian into the fool in front of all of his peers. it feels even worse later on when Annabeth and Reyna discuss the prophecy but only to agree that it even *is* one, and for no purpose beyond that for several paragraphs.

THEN when Leo offers a tour of the Argo II to Octavian and Reyna *once again* dismisses his suspicions, she winds up partly to blame for the resulting attack, as well as Leo for never telling anyone about gaea, and Annabeth for not saying anything when she noticed Leo was acting off. when Gaea attacks CJ and Octavian relays to Annabeth that he saw Leo open fire on the city, she assumes he's pulling some trick to get them to fight each other. she had known him for all of maybe a few hours and for some reason, watching her friends and boyfriend openly bully him has convinced her that he could be evil?

mind you, all of the above events happened over the course of *two* chapters, both of which are from the perspective of Annabeth who had only just met Octavian.

he only really began doing things you could consider 'evil' once gaea had fullt brainwashed him and driven him mad. and even then, he gets a fucking joke death?? as the only character up to this point that i was ever able to identify with on an ASD level, that feels really shitty! and the fact that the fandom just jumped on the Octavian hate train really drives home how people cannot handle spectrum coding/writing/*people* unless its presented in a cutesie helpless way.

but back to the original point of Octavian being compared to Luke; Luke was scheming the *entire* time we knew him. He did not want to protect his home, he did not have any real morals or self imposed rules. all he cared about was getting back at Hermes for not showing he cared about him (which is kind of bs considering Hermes is one of the busiest gods in the pantheon but as a fellow neglected kid i get it.) Luke was willing to do this in any way, even if it meant literally destroying the world. Octavian was just trying to keep his home safe in the way that any historical roman would have.

You also kind of have to consider his background. he was left at camp as an unwanted baby. we dont even know if his parents named him or if the camp did. his only identity is that he's a legacy of Apollo with a gift that is incredibly useful to CJ. this, along with his very clear coding (whether intentional on Rick's part or not), only shows me a character that was always unwanted and outcasted from the only place he even could call home. he doesnt want to be praetor for power, he wants to be praetor to prove to everyone (and himself) that he's worthy of being one of them. if he wanted power for the sake of power he could easily use his augur position to manipulate his way up, but never once do we see him attempt this. it doesn't help that he's named after THE Gaius Julius Ceasar Augustus, the man that founded the fucking roman empire in the first place. imagine how that must feel? to have your identity tied to such massive, larger than life people? imagine feeling like you have to live up to that in a place that seemingly fucking hates you for existing and only keeps you around because youre useful??