Rick Riordan Mistakes

Why wasn’t Jason Grace part of the first prophecy since he was still a child of Zeus/Jupiter? Shouldn’t he have been considered as a child of prophecy too? Or were the Romans unaware of that prophecy at all?

@rickriordanmistakes comment: I think this is the age-old question in the Riordan universe, isn’t it? This can have multiple answers, but all in speculation because we’ll never know why it was Percy who fulfilled the prophecy and not Jason. Maybe Percy being the son of Poseidon imbued him with a special potential that Jason did not have. Or maybe the fact that Jason was the second child of Zeus/Jupiter with the same woman nullified him in some way?

I knew my email was missing something . . . my blog birthday is April 3rd and I haven’t received one of these emails yet!

During the giving of the end-of-summer beads, Luke announced:

The Lightning Thief, Chapter 22

“The choice was unanimous,” Luke announced. “This bead commemorates the first Son of the Sea God at this camp, and the quest he undertook into the darkest part of the Underworld to stop a war!”

“This bead commemorates the first Son of the Sea God at this camp.” This sentence got me wondering. Was Percy really the first son of the Sea God at Camp Half-Blood? Like for thousands of years, Chiron's camp never ever had a male child of Poseidon?

I knew one daughter of the Sea God, though. She was mentioned by Miranda in the book Camp Half-Blood Confidential, Wild Places: Strawberry Fields (Pick Your Own by Miranda Gardiner).

Poseidon’s daughter campaigned loudly for a seafood shack that offered “both Manhattan and New England clam chowder.”

Anyway, how about those sons of Poseidon who fought during World War II?

The Lightning Thief, Chapter 8

Grover shifted his hooves uncomfortably. “About sixty years ago, after World War II, the Big Three agreed they wouldn’t sire any more heroes. Their children were just too powerful. They were affecting the course of human events too much, causing too much carnage. World War II, you know, that was basically a fight between the sons of Zeus and Poseidon on one side, and the sons of Hades on the other. The winning side, Zeus and Poseidon, made Hades swear an oath with them: no more affairs with mortal women. They all swore on the River Styx.”

If Percy really was the first son of the Sea God at camp, then I would assume that these sons of Poseidon weren't trained at Camp Half-Blood at all. Chiron must have (for whatever reason it was) let these children train on their own.

So, I'm wondering if Rick was mistaken or Percy simply was the first son of the Sea God at camp since it was built.

Or I’m just overthinking and misunderstood what Luke said? Haha.

Also, just a thought (I know this is off the issue above) where are the children on the winning side? They should still be alive, living in their old age (assuming they did not die from monster attacks while they're aging). They weren't mentioned in the entire fifteen books. Maybe these veterans did not survive into old age? Hehe.

@rickriordanmistakes comment: Hmm, I interpreted the first quote to mean the first child of Poseidon since WWII, but definitely food for thought! It’s possible Rick meant it the way you interpreted the quote to be, and (like we know happens A LOT) simply forgot when building on his universe.

As for the veteran children of Poseidon, you bring up a valid point. We know from The Lightning Thief that it’s dangerous for children of the Big Three to live in the mortal world. We also know that Camp Half-Blood has been around for a very long time. Maybe there’s a secret sanctuary hidden within Long Island? Maybe the Big Three killed all their demigod children? Who knows?

**WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW**

Read at your own risk.

What does the last line of Percy’s prophecy in The Lightning Thief really means?

The Lightning Thief, Chapter 9

Finally, Eddie, our building super, delivered the worst line of all: And you shall fail to save what matters most, in the end.

Was it when he left his mother in the underworld?

The Lightning Thief, Chapter 19

I turned and faced my mother. I desperately wanted to sacrifice myself and use the last pearl on her, but I knew what she would say. She would never allow it. I had to get the bolt back to Olympus and tell Zeus the truth. I had to stop the war. She would never forgive me if I saved her instead. I thought about the prophecy made at Half-Blood Hill, what seemed like a million years ago. You will fail to save what matters most in the end.

Or when he left Medusa’s head to her mother and let her save herself from her husband Gabe?

The Lightning Thief, Chapter 22

And you shall fail to save what matters most, in the end.

I had failed to save my mom, but only because I’d let her save herself, and I knew that was the right thing.

Percy acknowledged both situations. So, which is which?

@rickriordanmistakes comment: Whoa, I am utterly confused now. I thought I understood it before, but this is now making me unsure if I ever really understood the meaning of the prophecy.

As a busy graduate student, I have not had the opportunity to read the last book of The Trials of Apollo. Do you think it’s something I should make the time for to read? Let me know!

The Lightning Thief, Chapter 8

Grover looked as if I’d just led him into a trap. “I didn’t … Oh, listen, don’t think like that. If you were—you know—you’d never ever be allowed a quest, and I’d never get my license. You’re probably a child of Hermes. Or maybe even one of the minor gods, like Nemesis, the god of revenge. Don’t worry, okay?”

Before Percy was claimed, Grover told him that maybe he was a child of one of the minor gods, like Nemesis. But Nemesis is a goddess. And if Grover meant “gods” as gender-neutral, Percy has a mortal mother, not father.

From Apollo’s words in The Hidden Oracle, that demigods could have a same-sex parents, it would be possible that Grover was thinking this way.

But then Grover who was with Percy for a whole school year should’ve learned by that time that Percy has a male as one of his parents. Percy perhaps had shared sentiments about his “dad” to Grover. Although I am only assuming here. 😅

(Had this been discussed before? If so, sorry if I bring it out again. Hehe.)

The Lightning Thief, Chapter 9

“Zeus’s master bolt,” Chiron said, getting worked up now. “The symbol of his power, from which all other lightning bolts are patterned. The first weapon made by the Cyclopes for the war against the Titans, the bolt that sheered the top off Mount Etna and hurled Kronos from his throne; the master bolt, which packs enough power to make mortal hydrogen bombs look like firecrackers.”

Isn’t it Mount Othrys that Zeus’ master bolt had sheared* the top off?

The Lightning Thief, Chapter 21

Poseidon gripped his trident. “In the First War, Percy, Zeus cut our father Kronos into a thousand pieces, just as Kronos had done to his own father, Ouranos. Zeus cast Kronos’s remains into the darkest pit of Tartarus. The Titan army was scattered, their mountain fortress on Etna destroyed, their monstrous allies driven to the farthest corners of the earth.

Mount Othrys is their mountain fortress or base, not Etna.

The Lightning Thief, Chapter 9

“The sword is celestial bronze. Forged by the Cyclopes, tempered in the heart of Mount Etna, cooled in the River Lethe.

Mount Etna is one of the places where celestial bronze is forged.

Also, I’m a bit confused by the term Rick used: sheered the top off. Isn’t it supposed to be sheared* the top off? To sheer off means to change direction suddenly. While to shear off means to remove something with great force. I think shear off’s definition is closer to what Rick was supposed to mean. Correct me if I’m wrong, please.

@rickriordanmistakes​ comment: You are absolutely correct! In Percy Jackson’s Greek Gods it says that Kronos built his palace on Mount Othrys:

They had spent all their time in the abyss learning how to forge metal and build with stone (I guess that’s pretty much all there was to do), so in gratitude for their freedom, they constructed a massive palace for Kronos on top of Mount Othrys, which back then was the tallest mountain in Greece. 

Mount Etna is the mountain that Zeus threw on top of Typhon. This excerpt is also from Percy Jackson’s Greek Gods:

“EAT ETNA!” Zeus bellowed. (Because that was the name of the mountain.) He smashed Typhoeus under the weight of Mount Etna, and the storm giant has been trapped there ever since, rumbling beneath megatons of rock and occasionally causing volcanic explosions.

Maybe there’s a conflict in the myths?

(Sorry if this has been caught before!)

On page 102 of The Lightning Thief paperback, it says:

“Campers came from the other [not-11] cabins, too, except for the three empty cabins at the end and cabin eight, which had looked normal in the daytime, but was now starting to glow silver as the sun went down.”

The three empty cabins at the end are The Big Three (Zeus, Poseidon, Hades), and Cabin 8 is Artemis. So if campers came from all of the others, then either Hera has demigods, or there were some demigods randomly in her cabin before dinner, which seems pretty unlikely. 

(It’s possible that I’m getting mixed up and Hera’s is either one of the three at the end or Cabin 8, but that would open up the same plot hole with demigods of The Big Three (prior to Percy/Nico/Jason) or of Artermis.)

Hi, does anybody realize that in The Battle of the Labyrinth they say that a halfblood’s touch can open the labyrinth, but somehow Grover is able to open it when they run away from Kampe?

This was also pointed out to me by @mobawesome  — Rick gives a different reason each time for why Percy eats blue food (I know, I was as shocked as you probably are). Here are some examples:

The Lightning Thief:

See, Gabe had once told my mom there was no such thing. They had this fight, which seemed like a really small thing at the time. But ever since, my mom went out of her way to eat blue. She baked blue birthday cakes. She mixed blueberry smoothies. She bought blue-corn tortilla chips and brought home blue candy from the shop. This—along with keeping her maiden name, Jackson, rather than calling herself Mrs. Ugliano—was proof that she wasn't totally suckered by Gabe. She did have a rebellious streak, like me.

The Sea of Monsters:

She’s funny that way, celebrating special occasions with blue food. I think it’s her way of saying anything is possible. Percy can pass seventh grade. Waffles can be blue. Little miracles like that.

The Last Olympian:

We'd had a running joke for years about blue food. It was my favorite color, and my mom went out of her way to humor me. Every year my birthday cake, my Easter basket, my Christmas candy canes always had to be blue.

These were all the times Percy’s mentioned a reason for blue food.

It’s possible all of these reasons are connected, but at the same time there could be discrepancies. If blue was always Percy’s favorite color, then Sally was just humoring him by making blue food. But if she was being rebellious, and she makes blue food all the time, then it’s not just for special occasions and it’s not to humor Percy.

Hi, I was just re-reading The Last Olympian for the third time, and I’d like to point out a couple little discrepancies I noticed. I recently discovered this blog and I thought some of the mistakes you found were really clever, by the way, so thanks for writing! Anyway, two things:

This first one isn’t really a mistake, it just seemed a little weird to me. At the beginning of the book, when Percy is on “The Princess Andromeda”, right before he and Beckendorf blow it up, he fights a giant crab. You probably remember this scene, and anyway, when figuring out how to kill the enormous crab he thinks back to a trip that he, his mom, and Paul Blofis took the previous winter. They went to Montauk, and apparently on this trip Paul took him crabbing. He remembers Paul telling him how “crabs have a chink in their armor”. The full quote is below:

Then a weird thought came to me. Last Christmas, my mom and I had brought Paul Blofis to our old cabin in Montauk, where we’d been going forever. Paul has taken me crabbing, and when he’d brought up a net full of the things, he’d shown me how crabs have a chink in their armor, right in the middle of their ugly bellies.

Ok, so for those of you who are not from New York like me, a couple of things about the seasons here. Our summers are pretty warm, like 90° Fahrenheit tops. They can get kinda humid in the city too. But the winters can be cold, not as cold as, say, New England, but definitely below freezing. It starts to snow around the beginning of December. And for those of you who don’t know anything about crabs, they hibernate in the winter. So, yeah, you could go crabbing on Long Island in the winter, you might even catch one or, if you’re lucky, two. But the water would be freezing, and you certainly wouldn’t come up with “a net full of the things”.

Next something further into the book, after Percy and Nico go to Central Park and wake up Grover after Morpheus caused him to sleep for two months. They’re about to go to the down to the Underworld through The Door of Orpheus when Percy does something that doesn’t make sense:

“Ready?” Nico asked me. “It’ll be fine. Don’t worry.” He sounded like he was trying to convince himself. I glanced up at the stars, wondering if I would ever see them again. Then we plunged into darkness.

Ok, so … Percy “glances up at the stars”? If you’ve ever been to New York City, you’ll know that there AREN’T stars, not that you can see, even in Central Park. You can hardly see them in Westchester (which is the mostly suburban county abone NYC). The light pollution from the city is so great that the only thing in the night sky is the moon, the glow of the city, and the occasional pane flying past. Ok, SOMETIMES, on an especially clear night, if you squint REALLY HARD, you might be able to make out one, possibly two, of the thousands upon thousands of stars that would otherwise be visible. There’s absolutely no way, however, that you could just glance up at the sky and gaze at the stars. This sort of disappointed me, because Rick Riordan does such a great job writing about New York, other than these and that one time that Percy and Annabeth meet Rachel Elizabeth Dare in Times Square. No New Yorker in their right mind ever goes to Times Square, much less arranges a meeting there. But anyway, that’s another subject. This has gotten pretty long, so goodbye!

Just decided to start re-reading The Lightning Thief again after reading The Hidden Oracle and one thing that annoys me is how everyone seems afraid to mention monsters’ names in the very beginning and keeps saying that names have powers but as the story continues, they become more lax about saying monsters’ names. Even Percy and Leo joked about Polyphemus in The Hidden Oracle at the end of the book when they were all discussing what to do next with Apollo. Like did the Titan’s War change everything and now saying monsters’ or people’s names don’t mean a thing?

@rickriordanmistakes comment: I always wondered this too! In the beginning it was taboo to even bring up someone’s or a monster’s name in conversation, but as the series progressed they were throwing out names left and right without a single concern. I even think Piper wasn’t nervous about Leo and Jason mentioning the name of the giant that was threatening her. Like she wasn’t nervous that the giant would jump on her right then even though her friends said his name.

Thank you to all for 300 followers! I’m loving the discussions we have on potential errors and mishaps in the Rick Riordan Universe.

This was sent to me from @mobawesome​: Hi! I don’t know if you ever discussed this, but there’s an error about Percy’s years in high school. He started The Lightning Thief in grade 6 and at age 12. He also starts The Sea of Monsters in grade 7 and at age 13. In The Battle of the Labyrinth he went to the grade 9 orientation (where  he met Rachel again) and The Last Olympian takes place a year after that, so he was obviously in grade 8 in The Titan’s Curse and before the events in The Battle of the Labyrinth. So with that logic, in The Last Olympian he finished grade 9 and is 15 years old (turned 16 by the end of the book). We know that The Lost Hero takes place in December of the same year, so he’s 16 and in grade 10 (and kidnapped). By The Blood of Olympus, he is about to turn 17 (or has turned 17) and has missed all of grade 10. But somehow in The Hidden Oracle he is 17 and a Senior, apparently having missed all of Junior year. And we know not that much time has passed because it’s January and Percy tells Apollo he’s been gone for 6 months. We also know he is 17 in The Tower of Nero because he’s two months early to New Rome Uni but he has graduated high school. So obviously Rick messed up on Percy’s schooling years. It’s not a big error but it’s so annoying.

@rickriordanmistakes comment: I never noticed this, but now that it’s pointed out it’s so obvious! Probably because Percy missed so much school, Rick got confused himself and couldn’t keep track. Anyone have any comments? I know that The Blood of Olympus battle ended on August 1st, so Percy hadn’t turned 17 yet.

How many times did Percy meet Persephone? In The Mark of Athena on page 311 of the e-book, Percy says he only met her once:

Percy had met the wife of Hades once.

But, we know that Percy meets her twice, once in The Demigod Files when he and the other children of the Big Three helped get Hades’s sword back, and once in The Last Olympian. It even says in The Last Olympian on page 121 that Percy met her twice:

Queen Persephone studied me curiously. I’d seen her once before in the winter, but now in the summer she looked like a totally different goddess.

Perhaps when Percy meant when he said “once” was when he officially met and had a conversation with her?