#powers analysis

How can you tell me that Jason killed a titan with bare hands,without a weapon or his powers,but Percy should be stronger than him? That Nico a 11 was able to banish people in the Underworld without a problem but he now can't stand a normal trip without getting tired? That Thalia is weaker than Percy when she is hunting ancient powerful beasts every time we see her,and every day for her is about survival? That Hazel was able to sink an island at 12 all alone,while killing a giant during it,but now she is focusing on the myst and not her own powers?

Percy I love you,but you definitely aren't the most powerful demigod between the Big Three children. At the very least,they should all be on the same level. Riordan put himself in the corner and decided to stomp on their growth because of the "Percy is the most powerful demigod of this century" agenda he created. The way all of their powers went to 100 to 0 in just a couple of books,while Percy's powers stayed at 100 and more,is fascinating.

Prince of Space

 Prince - Active Destruction class

Space -Aspect of creation, change, randomness and variation

 Go homephysics you're broken.

The Rogue of Time would be able to passively redistribute time.

At lower levels, they’d be able to redistribute the speed at which things move through time. They’d make their team faster, their enemies slower or the other way around, if appropriate. The Rogue would be able to figure out all sorts of unusual uses for this one, creating floating, unmovable, unbreakable objects forever stuck in a single moment.

At higher levels, they’d be able to redistribute pieces of the timeline, moving anything and anyone into the past or the future. This could be used to avoid potential threats or set up easy kills for other players at differing points in time. Or to selectively move a creature’s limbs, causing lots of damage to the creature.

Honestly,I've been wainting to write this.

We all know Nico powers:

Can manipulate the shadows and travel in them (Umbra-kinesis);

Can sense someone's death and soul;

Can summon ghosts and talk to them;

Can summon skeletons that obey to his orders and fight for him;

Can use dreams to send messages;

Can unconsciously split the ground and create cracks or Underworld's openings;

Can turn someone into a ghost and make them forgot their life and ability to speak;

Can turn someone into a skeleton;

Has influence on the dead and can evade them when he has to;

Can create earthquakes (not major ones like Percy);

Technically has Geo-kinesis powers too (like Hazel);

Can summon zombies to serve him;

Can conditionate the CJ's lares speaking ability by forcing them to shut up;

Can influence the dead ones with his mood;

Death-touch;

(If I missed some feel free to add)

Other than this,you need to remember that his title as Ghost King give him some more leverage,and his sword is an uniqueness in the world that give him the ability to suck someone's soul in it.

By only this list you can tell that Nico is extremely powerful,and he is still younger than Percy,with a weak physical body (depression and ED do some wonders to you-) and wasn't never "officially trained" like him since he wasn't around camp much. But he still pulled insane acts even without being 100% ok most of the time.

Nico powers,differently from Percy and Thalia,are extremely versatile. While those two can use whatever source or form of water/lightning to fight,they can't do much outside of their fathers's domains. And then you have Nico. Nico that can use his powers to travel around the world and sending messages with a mental link,other than use them to fight. People always talks about Percy controll over all types of liquid (even poison or the Underworld's rivers),but there is still water in them,so it's normal for him to do so. Thalia can use lightnings because it's normal for her to do so since those are Zeus's main sources of power. But Nico's powers are more than just controlling the dead,he can manipulate dreams (something that only the Hypnos cabin can do if I remember correctly) and can use geo-kinesis too,even tho not as much good or frequent as Hazel (before she started to work with her mist affinity). He can do it all.

I'm not trying to pull the "Nico is more powerful than Percy" argument here,but more focusing on Nico's versatility usage of his powers. And Rick made a mistake here with him,that he realized later and tried to minimize.

You see,when you have a powerscaling system,you usually take the main character as the "default": it's from them that you start to build it so other people can understand where others characters stand,compared to the MC,on the scale. Most of the time,people want their MC to grow stronger after every fight,starting from the bottom,untill they are the most powerful character in the story. It's a format done everywhere (anime,movie,comics,fanfic,books,ecc...) and Rick Riordan also used it with Percy. And when you have as MC the "most powerful character ever" (in this case the most powerful demigod since Heracles times),you need to be careful with your side characters,especially when the author doesn't want them to outshine the MC. For this reason,most of the time,they are either weaker than them or have extremely excessive drowbacks. A good example of this is Jason: Rick introduced him to us as the roman counterpart for Percy,but made us understand that he wasn't never at Percy level of power. And when you have a "side" character as Nico,adding to the fact that he's most of the time the wild card for their victories and always know everything,you have a big problem.

Riordan made it clear that no one (for now) can surpass Percy in term of abilities. But he still went out of his way making Nico's powers more versatile than the others. Logically,he should have been stronger than Percy,especially because death cannot be stoped and it's part of everyone life,but canonically it wasn't going to happen since the MC is Percy. Riordan realized in a second moment that his powers were too much and decided to make sure Nico was always held back by something from going full out (like Jason).

Nico is the only child of the big 3 that,if he use so much of his powers,has extremely horrible drowbacks even when he shouldn't. I could understand during MoA-BoO events in HoO,he was either dying or disappearing into the shadows because of his kidnapping and Tartarus,and still had an extremely draining task to finish. But from HoO to ToA there is a big timeskip (I think 6 months or more but I'm not so sure) where he should had all the time in the world to heal and having back full controll over his powers. But he doesn't. Nico still faint after shadow-travelling,even tho after his trip with the statue he should have been stronger and not having problems for a normal trip. Which sucks,especially when Rick most of the time make him pull some jaw-dropping power-play that give you the full picture on how strong he really is.

I don't think Percy had so many downgrades with his powers,I never saw him almost fainting from controlling the waters. He get tired,yes,but that's it. Thalia has more restrictions because of her fear,but I also never saw her having so many problems after using her powers (after she went with the Hunters we never see her in general anymore). Neither did Hazel with her geo-kinesis powers (before Rick decided to make her learn mist manipulation). Jason is a whole mess because he faint every day when he gets hit by a brick,even when he isn't fighting or using his powers (Rick didn't do him justice either). It's only Nico that has so many negative effects.

And the fandom can explain it,in a canon logic,with: "He's s still young,he will have time to grow stronger." (I agree) ;"He wasn't never in a good physical condition so it's normal that he has this many negative effects." (Even dying he was still able to curse someone to literally becoming a ghost) ; "He was malnourished and depressed,since he didn't take care of himself before he still have problems,wait for him to be healthy." (Again,even in those conditions he still pulled insane stunts). But,outside of the narrative,Riordan totally nerfed him because he realized that he wrote his powers too powerful and useful compared to Percy's,and since he couldn't have his MC outshined,he made sure to slow Nico in any way possible.

In BotL and TLO there are 2 scenes that,for a long time,I thought I was the only one to ever have read them since no one talked about them.

In the end of BotL when Percy get out of the Labyrinth and went with Rachel to see the coffin,Nico created an earth barrier (or something closer to it) to help them escape form Kronos's attack. He never did that after it,and I never saw people acknowledge that scene so I legitimately thought that I was imaginating it. Which was strange since it came right after the famous "Did you just throw a blue brush in the eye of the Titan Lord?" scene,but no. It really happened and Nico did use the earth at his liking. After that Riordan decided to never bought it up and Nico never manipulated the earth in that way (he still split the ground a couple of times) again.

In TLO after Nico went to free Percy from the dungeons,they escaped the palace and went to the Styx. During their escaping Nico glared at the guards,while growing weaker and weaker with each one,and they ignored them. Again,since I never saw someone talk about it I genuinely thought I was remembering things wrong. Especially because it was part of the whole "Betrayal" plot that everyone know. But again,it wasn't the case,Rick just decided to never bring it up again. It was the only time Nico did something like that. Someone can say "Well,those are the royal guards and their boss is his dad they would never go against him." but the guards were against Nico,if he didn't do whatever the fuck he did,they were going to tell Hades about their escape. So,again,Rick realized he gave him a powerful trick and then hoped that one one would remember it after he used it one time.

All of this shows that,even if he is good at writing certain things,when it comes to others topics (like power-scaling,Tartarus's trauma and many more) he just can't write well and try to put patches on the holes,without having success. But that's for another post that I will do.

I know it was a plot device used to make Jason understand him better during their encounter with Cupid,and to make Bryce understand he messed with the wrong people,but that alone is a uniqueness to give to someone.

That some anime-shonen-type-of-power to have. The one you use to make them react to their life like they are in a fanfic and are watching/reading the original material. I don't think I ever saw something like that even in animes,or at least not in this way and not in the ones I watched. And I spent my childhood on those (still do).

And it's also pretty OP because the side effects on Bryce were brutals. He started to bleed because he couldn't handle Tartarus,and Nico had the strength to kill him off even in so much emotional distress. And both Reyna and Hedge felt sick to their stomach too,even tho Nico didn't want to involve them but it's a sign that it's an ability that can cover a bit of ground,and not only the person next to him. He did the same with Cupid and Jason watched (for real) Nico's whole life flashing in front of him in only a couple of seconds. That's sick.

And extremely impressive. Most of it was probably triggered by his anger and negatives emotions (read: do not engage with the son of Hades when he is angry) but it's still part of his power right? So he probably had this ability since the beginning (read: Rick added it only for necessity but for my sanity I'll ignore this) and it's just another one to add to his power list. He just is so versatile.

And if he tries to control it?? Instead of leashing out all of his memories/emotions,what if he can pilot them to make his enemy saw certain things to make them scered? Like with Bryce with Tartarus. But instead of them watching him in Tartarus,is just straight up Tartarus,as if they are there. And if he can exploit it,then maybe he can try to manipulate their own fears against them,making sure they go slowly insane and paranoid.

And I'm not referring to the shadows he almost melted in during the travel with the statue.

I'm talking about that half of the monsters/enemy they met during their travel were connected to the Underworld and he wasn't able to do anything. He was completely defenseless.

At the start of BoO,when we got the first Reyna PoVs,Nico commented about how he didn't want them to land in Pompei because the ghosts there weren't friendly,and that they needed to go away as soon as possible. Cue to Gaia attacking them before going away and you have ghosts,covered with earth,going against Nico. Nico as in the Ghost King,the one that has power over them and influence them. The son of Hades that is able to summon ghosts like nothing. And he couldn't do anything here because the earth was blocking his control over them. And the scepter he was going to use? A scepter connected to death that should had help him since it technically amplified his powers? Gone,destroyed in not even a second (and he was also guilty for it-) He couldn't do nothing except escape.

He was already down because of this,but if we look at this in a critical way,this is incredible traumatic. This is at the same level of Percy being scared of the water because of what Gaia did to him in SoN. And in a way,we have another parallelism here,because she did the same to Nico. Gaia made sure he could also be unsure of his own powers with this. And Nico? Nico fell for it. Gaia was out for him since the beginning.

Then we have Lycaon. Dude started beefing with Reyna in the first 3 lines he had,and then decided to hunt Nico down because he wanted to. He is straight up a menace. But he is actually the only one that was able to cause Nico permanent damage. Before Lycaon I can't remember someone being able to stuck him down and giving him a scar. He got the skeletons out and it helped a bit,but he still couldn't shadow-travel. So at least his powers didn't fail him this time. And then he decided to use Lycaon's shadow to travel. That's were shit went down and Lycaon got to him before disappearing in the shadows. For the first time he got permanently hurt. He was probably freaking out inside because it never happened before.

Lycaon is also the first werewolf,and in modern folklore they are mainly associated with night creatures,the full moon and silver. In Greek mythology,the wolf symbolized death and primal instincts,and as we all know a werewolf is half-human and half-wolf. I'm more of a vampire girl,so I don't know much about them,but we can assume they have a connection to the death,right? (And even if they don't,the point it still stand even without the death connection). Nico certainly wasn't having a good time with him and it probably aggravated his insecurity on his controll ability.

He didn't had much going on during their fight with Orion,it was more a Reyna subplot,but I must say that he is resilient. Bro was dealing with Lycaon's damage,that Reyna specified was something extremely painful; had a break down when he found out Thalia kidnapped Reyna and,almost destroyed the outside of the restaurant; decided to jump in the fight against Orion and hitting him with his own bow,after probably searching Reyna for a bit; shadow-travelled away with the statue even tho he was still in pain and looked like he could drop death at any moment. Give him something for his involvement because he sure as hell is something else. And if he can be so efficient while almost fading away, how efficient can he be without limitations? (We will probably never know because Riordan nerfed him in any way possible to not make him stand out compared to Percy).

What happened to Bryce Lawrence is the standard of "fuck around to find out",something monsters and enemies do a lot with Nico (and Percy). Gotta admit it was extremely satisfied to read and it was a real good hype. But let's focus on the downside.

The whole time Nico was a actively fading away. His last trip was probably aggravated by Lycaon's damage,so he had to pull more shadows to get the hell away from Orion. He was already destinated to fade away with how many trips he was doing,of course,but I think Lycaon's damage accelerated the process. Mortals could walk through him and Reyna and Hedge sometimes couldn't touch him. And that's terrifying. Nico didn't had a solid weight anymore,he was essential an abstract concept at this point. His fingertips started to smoke when they got hit by light?? Like,what? And that is traumatizing enough alone,especially because Nico was aware of it and Hades told him about the risks.

But this got aggravated more by the fact that Nico was loosing control of his powers,and that's something Reyna pointed out since the beginning of BoO. The whole mission costed him his powers,and Gaia made it worst for him. He couldn't sense the deaths in a city that was heavily involved with civil wars. That was his first red flag,but it wasn't the first sing of him loosing touch with his powers,since he already couldn't controll zombies and skeletons from showing up during their jumps (stated by Reyna). And Nico was so lost for that. He is the son of Hades,he controll the death but he couldn't feel it. That was horrible to him because he was loosing touch with his divine parentage,the same powers he use every day. Nico is extremely in tune with his powers (the only one to have this other than him is Percy and maybe Piper),and to have that familiarity stripped away from him? His birthright? That....I don't even have world for this actually because it's like being stripped away from their home without a warning. There is so much anguish and a sense of loss here.

And when he tried to fight Bryce? It got worst. Bryce is another kid with a strong connection with the Underworld,his dad is a Chthonic God after all (Like Lou Ellen,Clovis,Ethan,ecc...),and the death in general. The guy come up to Nico with his little army of ghosts and decided to fight him. And Nico couldn't hit them because he was more incorporeal than anything else. Again. Ghosts. Nico territory,the one where he has extremely controll over. Since the beginning,before even knowing about shadow-travelling,Nico was already summoning ghosts. That was the first thing about his powers we knew about,the ghosts technically are his subjects because he is their king. And they are revolting against him,again. First because of Gaia and now because of another child of the Underworld. Nico completely lost a big part of his nature there.

Y'all know how much I'm obsessed with "Prince of the Underworld Nico di Angelo",and there is a reason for that. Most of my hc are based on that concept,and while noble titles aren't a thing for demigods,for Nico is actually a thing. The title of Ghost King give him an actual position with the ghosts,and help his influence on them. That's a canon thing since Minos was more powerful than most ghosts and it wasn't only because he was a judge,since the other two didn't had so much leverage to go off with Nico because they had a petty fight to settle. So,technically,social standing (beside Hades and Persephone status) in the Underworld is a thing. This mean that Nico position as prince is also canon,even tho it wasn't never acknowledged. And I did all of this talk because,in this case,a son of a minor chthonic god is going against his own prince,putting his own subjects against him (and even if you don't value his prince position,he is still their king so the argument still stand) and that's basically a coup. But also put a distance in the social scale between Bryce and Nico. The dude was battling against someone that was stronger than him,in any possible way,and was winning. That's how much Nico was badly effected by this trip.

And if Nico didn't decided to pull that stunt,because extremely pissed at Bryce,(we need to talk how his powers can actually bring his memories to light and make people witness them,he did that with Jason during Cupid and then here with Bryce.),he was going to loose. Loose to his own powers used against him,by someone that shouldn't have so much influence and authority over him. Few people realize that.

And all of this,without counting that he almost melted in the shadows multiple times. Both here,after he turned Bryce into a ghost,and at Camp,but that's something enough talked about. He was also ready to risk it all for one last trip to kill Octavian. When Will,Lou Ellen and Cecil met him,and Will held his had,he told Nico he was dying. Which again it was something we know,because he almost melted multiple times. But one things is melting in the shadows,another is a skilled healer slapping you in the face with the "you are currently slowly dying,stop doing that". And we really need to talk about this,because the first real thing Will Solace got to know about his future boyfriend,was the fact that he was dying in front of him. That's some nightmare shit to have in the middle of the night. And Nico got to hear the reality of what was happening to him in that moment and decided to say "fuck it,we ball" and went on with his plan. He was able to disarm the 6 roman soldiers (probably heavily armed) that were chasing Will,and he stated that Will could run pretty fast.

After that he still have the strength to fight against all those monsters,and before ever meeting Will he summoned Jules-Albert,put mortals in a deep sleep,and shadow-travelled again. And even after all of this,he was still standing and ready to fight even tho he was dying.

What the fuck? And people think he is weak??? Where?? How?? When??

Honestly,when it cames to his powers,BoO was a whole trumatizing rollercoaster for Nico. He lost his controll over the zombies and skeletons,he lost his controll over the ghosts,he lost a fight against a werewolf that is probably connected to the Underworld,his jump after Orion completely drained him and accelerated his melting process,his couldn't sense deaths on a battleground,he couldn't touch the ghosts he usually use for himself,he almost lost to Bryce,he almost melted in the shadows,he was actively dying in everything he was doing. And he still went on with it,fully aware of every consequences. And in all of this,the statue was probably draining his powers more since it was ancient and full of power itself.

Also,reminder that if he actually melted in the shadows,he wasn't going to go back to his father palace like he said he wanted,when they met in the chapel. Shadows are an integral part of Darkness,something Nico is familiar with and can use,but it's not his father domain. It's Nyx's. If Nico melted he would have been in Nyx domain,not his father like he thought of. And that's actually more depressing to think about.

THIS is a really good question.

Before starting this analysis I would like to remember you all that even tho I bias Nico heavily (he is my ult favorite character ever),I'm actually pretty objective when it came to him and Percy level of powers. I mostly blame the writing of the power-scaling (I already discussed about this in another post) and Rick's decision to give them certain powers. But I already yapped enough about this,let's move on with the actual question.

We need to consider a couple of things when we talk about Percy and Nico powers and how people perceives them.

They are Big Three children,so they will always be extremely powerful in their own rights and elements.

They are on a whole different League when it cames to demigods's nature,so they will always be more powerful and skilled than any other demigod,since they are superior in their nature.

They both have self-esteem issues that doesn't give them the full vision of how much powerful they really are.

Those are factors that are involved in the narrative,because outside of it there are other things to take in consideration,but we will talk about them later.

First thing first,they are both sons of the greeks Big Three Gods. There are already singled out from having a normal demigod standard experience by just their fathers. The Greek pantheon is much older than the Roman one,since Ancient Greece's time was between 1000 a.C. and 146 a.C.,when the Romans conquered the territory. So,this put Nico,Thalia and Percy on their own league that's even different from Hazel and Jason levels,because their source of power is more ancient than the roman's one. They are also more in tune with their powers too and can use them in some versatile way,especially Nico. So,we start at the base that Percy and Nico are extremely powerful by default.

Then we have their differences with the other demigods and how normal demigods see them. As I stated before,since they are children of the Elders Gods,they are the most powerful ones. No ifs,no buts and no "but what about-". No,it doesn't matter who,it will always be them,there is no one else who can reach their levels of power. It's like a default starting. Every demigods can be powerful in their own right,especially if they put effort in it,but they will always be seconds to children of the Big Three no matter how good they try. Cue the campers view of them. There is a pattern here we need to follow: Percy forced isolation after Poseidon claimed him; Thalia being put under pression after she come back from being a vegetable,leading to her feeling alone on her own; Nico's mistreatment by everyone and his isolation being a direct consequences of both CHB and Bianca. You think that's a coincidence that every child of the Big Three got mistreatment? No. It isn't. Campers put too many pressure on them since they are the most powerful ones. Their fathers are leaders in their own domains (and Zeus being literally the King of the Gods),so they expect the same from them. But that aspect is more a roman thing,here is more about how irresponsable everyone is when it cames to fix a situation,and probably a bit of envy too since they will never match their abilities.

Percy and Nico view of themselves doesn't help in this case. They recognize the other as a powerful individual,but they don't see themselves as powerful too. Like,if you ask Percy who is the more powerful person between him and Annabeth,the dude is capable of saying Annabeth when she has no powers at all (her brain doesn't count,everyone have that). And for Nico? We are talking about a guy that doesn't see value in living,you think he has a good analysis skill for his own power? That guy barely think he is powerful. That's why they are both unreliable narrators. And while we as readers should know how much powerful they are,their PoVs can alterate this conception. Yes,I'm talking about people that are like "But Percy/Nico said that X character was more [insert something positive] than him" when it came to prove something. Percy and Nico narratives aren't good ones to hold on when we needs to confirm power levels.

Now,I said all of this because at the end of MoA,Nico told the Seven that Percy is the most powerful demigod he knew. That's canon nd something that has been said by everyone that met him. Canonically Percy Jackson is the most powerful demigod of the modern century.

BUT!

We needs to take in consideration that Nico's powers usually are steps ahead of Percy's,and are more versatile and development than his. Nico himself has more endurance than Percy (maybe not physical,but 100% mental) and that's canon too.

What I'm trying to say is that while Percy strength is in the raw force of his powers,Nico strength lies in the versatility of its powers.

For the books' plots to work they need Nico to actually be more powerful and acknowledged than Percy,since most of the times it's him that take the initiative to save the day. He helped Percy out in the Labyrinth,he helped him escape from Kronus outing himself to their enemy,he found out about Luke living situation,he made a plan to give Percy indestructibility,went out of his way to help him win the war and fighting Kronos with a dead army,brought Hazel back to life,traveled thought Tartarus to find the doors,helped them to travel to their destination,got the scepter from Cupid (fuck him),was the Seven trivia and guide in the second-half of their quest,gave them informations about things they needed to know,actively taking part into fights while extremely weak but could still use his powers (HOW?),took the statue with him and took the weight of helping the Seven to save the world,fought during the travel,turned Bryce into a ghost,summoned a couple of skeletons and zombies,put mortals to sleep and still continued to fight once arrived at camp.

I would like to focus on the "statue point". Nico's travel with the statue is talked about a lot but I never saw the full thought behind what was really happening here. Nico di Angelo wasn't recovered yet from his captivity and was still in an extremely bad shape when he starte his travel. He had to transport the Athena Parthenos,that already had a lot of ancient magic inside,with 2 other people. And it takes a lot of strength for doing this. And if we consider all the things that went down on their trip..... it's really impressive how Nico got that far in his physical condition,before Hedge brought him help. He needed to draw on a lot of powers to accomplish this mission. And he did,while still able to function well enough,and be able to use some of the minor abilities he has.

Nico is extremely powerful,and even tho canonically Percy is in the first place of the classification,the books needs Nico to be more powerful than Percy. So,outside of the narrative,Nico is more powerful.

They are both the most powerful one if we look at the same situation but from a different angle,and all of this if we only focus on the BOOKS NARRATIVE.

Now,if we take an outside look and focus on the writing: Nico is more powerful than Percy with the way his powers operate.

Death is everywhere and part of everyone,it touch and reach whatever you want it to have. It's a universal event. Only for this reason he should be more powerful than Percy. He can instant kill with just a touch or a command,or even trap someone's soul in his sword if he feel like it. That's OP and it's only a little part of things he is able to do.

Pawer-scaling here is a mess because Riordan has the format of "MC is the most powerful character ever" while he adds more and more to Nico's powers. I made a post where I talked about this more in the details,so I won't delve thet much here.

We all know that Riordan favor Percy in any way possible and made him extremely powerful. While I don't mind him having control over poisons (still liquids so it's totally fair) I don't like how he can controll the Underworld Rivers,since they are in the Underworld,Hades's domain. But that's something more about my preference,really.

Other than making Percy OP he also made sure every other child of the Big Three (this times the romans too) couldn't stand out to him. That's the whole reason Jason is this way and Nico has so many downsides in the use of his powers. But even with this,Riordan himself added more and more to Nico's powers,things so unique that even Percy can't do. Which I never understood since he both add and subtract to Nico's powers levels. Riordan can be really weird and indecisive with him,one moment he is bashing someone in the Underworld,the next he is dying in the sun. He needs to decide.

So,we actually have 2 ways to see this:

Canonically Percy Jackson is the most powerful demigod of this century;

Narratively (and outside of it) Nico di Angelo is the most powerful demigod of this time;

And strange enough (knowing Riordan favoritism it is strange),Nico is also the most powerful one when it came to Riordan's writing.

But of course,we need to remember they are BOTH extremely powerful for everyone else in the Riordanverse too,in their own ways.