DEFENDING ANNABETH MF CHASE
There's been a lot of discourse recently over Annabeths character, which coming from a long-time fan of the riordanverse is surprising to see because so many people adored Annabeth as a character. She was the independent, strong female lead who many young girls looked up to, so what happened today?
Recently, there have been many debates (specifically on tiktok) regarding Annabeths character, stating that she's a horrible character, rude, a bad friend, and the most shocking of all : abusive. I wanted to debunk this in this post, starting with the most ridiculous claim.
There's been a startling amount of people who find the judo flip scene in Mark of Athena a sign that Annabeth is a horrible girlfriend and that she was actually being abusive to Percy when she judo-flipped him after not seeing him for months. Now, the abusive claim is just ridiculous. Firstly, Rick obviously wrote this scene to be a gag. Percy and Annabeth are both demigods with physical strength beyond that of a mortal. Trust me, Percy can handle a judo flip. In fact, the first thing Annabeth does when she sees Percy is kiss him, and after she judo-flipped him, Percy laughs. Both Annabeth and Percy have been abused as children, what makes people think that they would be abusive to each other? Percy in the recent books still talks about how Gabes abuse affects him, so why would he allow Annabeth to do that if it's so offending? Throughout the books we see that Percy isn't afraid to call Annabeth out when she does something wrong, so what would stop him from doing it here. Intact I would argue that this discourse is babying Percy and stupidly hating on Annabeth.
The second thing that people use to describe Annabeth as a bad character is saying that she mistreated both Rachel and Percy, specifically during TBL. Now, no demigod is perfect. Infact, Percy is an absolute asshole throughout the books and yet his behavior is excused, why isn't Annabeth given that same grace? From the beginning, we know that Annabeths fatal flaw is pride, a fatal flaw much more negative and nasty than loyalty. This is going to affect her interactions with other characters—we especially see this with Rachel. In TBL Annabeth finally gets her own quest right after being a 'damsel in distress' in the previous book, which makes her prideful. This is her chance, her chance to prove herself to everyone, to her mom, to Percy. Then, a mortal hijacks her quest because Percy trusts her and she can see through the mist. Annabeth is going to feel prideful. She wants control of her quest, and now she doesn't have that because of something she feels she lacks. That is why she treats Rachel nasty in TBL, not inherently because she doesn't want Rachel near Percy but because her pride is being attacked. It leads to her not being able to form friendships with girls like Rachel, instead opting to be friends with characters similar to her (piper and thalia).
In conclusion, Annabeth was never supposed to be the perfect female heroine, that's what makes her so special. She's realistic, she's flawed— but alas she is a girl, and when fandoms see a girl act a bit mean they're suddenly the devil and are not given the same grace given to male characters who are equally as flawed.
