So, I'm rereading The Lost Hero as Rick Riordan's several mythological series are comfort books for me that I reread every so often. Some quick background that I'm sure is a common sentiment among readers: when I was younger and first read The Heroes of Olympus books as they were published, I never really questioned the writing or characterizations. I was too young and too caught up in eagerly eating up more of the Percy Jackson world that I loved. As I got older, learned more about the real world, reread and actually analyzed the books, I found a lot of flaws that has made the quality of The HoO series incredibly incomparable to the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. Every time I've reread the PJO series, I've gained further appreciation for the writing (which has its own flaws, of course), whereas my frustration has grown with The HoO series, lol. Again, I know this is not an unpopular opinion.

This includes Piper McLean's characterization and the representation of her Cherokee ethnicity. I've read some insightful posts in the past explaining how Rick Riordan really messed up with Piper and while he's gained brownie points for diversity and trying, it does not absolve him of the specific choices he made with representing her Cherokee culture and how his writing is insulting to the broader Native American identity.

Throughout Piper's chapters, readers learn several things. Piper is Cherokee through her father, Tristan McLean. They are from Oklahoma and her grandfather Grandpa Tom had a home that Tristan still owns despite being a famous actor because it is the physical link to his ancestry. Grandpa Tom and Tristan taught Piper a lot about her Cherokee heritage including their beliefs and folk tales which Tristan has denied believing in them the way his father did. He still obviously feels strongly about his identity and the pain of historical discrimination and oppression against his people and this trauma passes onto Piper. It is the reason why he never plays any Native American role.

Specifically, I want to highlight this excerpt from Chapter XXI, in which Piper recalls a conversation with her father about the movie roles he's accepted.

"He'd played all kinds of roles— a Latino teacher in a tough L.A. school, a dashing Israeli spy in an action-adventure blockbuster, even a Syrian terrorist in a James Bond movie."

She then follows by asking her father why he never accepts Native American roles.

"'Doesn't that get old? Aren't you ever tempted, like, if you found the perfect part that could change people's opinions?'

'If there's a part like that, Pipes," he said sadly, "I haven't found it.'"

When I first read this, I remember being deeply uncomfortable with the Syrian terrorist example. Yeah, as a Muslim, I'm very familiar with the stereotypical Middle Eastern terrorists in media. I know the reason it exists and why it will continue to exist. Riordan could've and should've chosen any other example of a different character role.

However, rereading this today has made me so upset on another level because I did not remember the prior example and Riordan's connotations until now.

"A dashing Israeli spy." I cannot describe the disgust I felt reading this. No, my disgust is not because it's a "trendy" opinion to hate anything Israeli. I am disgusted because in the three examples Riordan gives, only one has a positive adjective (dashing) attached to the stated role (Israeli spy). The other two roles are minority identities (Latino, Syrian) that have no positive connotation attached. In fact, the latter has a negative attachment (terrorist). It's almost laughable how Riordan decided to write "dashing Israeli spy" and "a Syrian terrorist" in the same sentence and thought that was okay. This is what Americans are led to believe. The narrative that "Israel is good and the Middle East is bad" is so ingrained in American culture, that it is so casually placed in young adult fiction.

And even more disrespectfully, this is about a Cherokee man. A man whose ancestry is tainted by several lifetimes worth of oppression, genocide, ethnic cleansing, and censorship. It should be common information now that the injustice and horrors Indigenous Americans faced (and are still experiencing less publicly and obviously) is aligned with the very same injustice and horrors the Palestinian people have been experiencing for 75 years. The relationship several Native American tribes and Palestine is strong. There is a shared history and solidarity between these oppressed groups. I strongly recommend learning more about their relationship if you haven't already. The Palestine Pod, a podcast that aims to educate the public about Palestinian history, culture and resistance, did an episode with Dr. Steve Salaita, author of Inter/Nationalism: Decolonizing Native America and Palestine (p. 2016) in May 2021. Several reviews have described the writing in the book as heavy on academic language so I believe the podcast will be more digestible.

There is absolutely no way a character like Tristan McLean would ever accept an Israeli role. The man who rejects any Native role because there is no perfect part that is written well and respectful enough for his standard would play the role of an oppressor? What the fuck Rick Riordan? And let's not forget that he is a brown man. He is not white-passing, which is why he can fit different minority identities and the Spartan king role. So of course, Israeli spy is just perfect isn't it? Even if someone wanted to argue that Israel's actions as a colonizing state were not as well-known in 2010 and Riordan's writing is unfortunate ignorance, that argument does not hold up when you remember that he clearly compliments the Israeli role (dashing) which highlights his personal bias. Oh, but maybe he's grown and learned more in the past 13 years and has changed his opinion? Except, remember when he released a really detailed neutral statement on the "conflict"? I will acknowledge that he said, "genocidal proportions" regarding the attacks in Gaza, but he also calls for support and security for Israeli. Whatever, I don't care for dissecting neutrality. I'm not exactly shocked by Riordan's position.

Maybe most young readers would pass over the excerpt as a whole like I first did. But for others, it lingers. The connotations are clear and pervasive despite being a small insight into a tertiary character in the grand scheme of such a large series. Riordan's attempts at representation mean nothing when his writing is flawed, contradictory, and insulting regarding his characters of color.

I am glad that I am rereading TLH. It's reminded me the importance of reading old and new material. I channeled the anger I felt reading this excerpt into writing this post and finding a new informative source on Palestinian and Native American oppression. It is important that we continue to challenge ourselves, our nostalgia, our biases, our understanding of the world. It is important to grow from there and continue learning. Especially for Americans and Canadians, we must understand the systemic censorship against Native Americans in order to unravel the problems caused by these very systems.

Continue fighting. Fight for the oppressed. Fight for Palestine.