#toa crit

Think about the aftermath of the war. Nico is accepted at camp. He is hailed as a hero - and maybe it’s a little too much. Now, everyone wants to be friends with him. Everyone wants him on their team for capture the flag. Everyone wants to talk to him now, and maybe he’s socially exhausted. Maybe when he finally gets his own cabin, people start crowding outside his door so he can contact their dead friends and family members, and he’s like “get out of my swamp”. Maybe he feels like people idolize him and only want to be friends with him now because of his powers or what he did in the Titan War. That people accept him for his parentage, but don’t truly see him for who he is - but things are still a lot better than they were

If you still want Nico to have a coming out arc - have him realize it later. He still ran away/didn’t feel accepted because he was the son of Hades, not because he was gay or [insert queer identity you want to give Nico]. Now that things are finally better in his life, he’s able to sit with those feelings. He thought he felt different because he was a demigod, then because he was the son of Hades, but then he realizes maybe there really is something else. Maybe he’s afraid because he doesn’t want to lose the acceptance he has already gained and fought so hard for. He already had to deal with being the Hades kid and is in denial, not necessarily because of internalized queerphobia, but because he refuses to have to deal with another thing that makes him different.

Hon, he's been "trying" since The Lost Hero first came out. Yet, so many books later, he still hasn't learnt from his mistakes. Heck! He can't even represent well a fundamental-of-representation group: Women.

Nor can he represent any aspects of Hellenistic culture, something his books are quite literally built on. Piper and Leo's writing received flack for the racist undertones, but Hazel and Frank are hardly better a book later.

You'd think he would learn by the time House of Hades rolls up, but even then, his first queer character (Nico di Angelo) has his story built on pain and trauma, with a bunch of outdated cliches on the side.

Fast forward to ToA, his a-spec character (Reyna) existed almost out of sheer spite for a sapphic fan-couple (Theyna), and never gets to state her identity on-page.

But Rick Riordan has purposely never given an age for Calypso, only describing her as being “like a teenager” because she had “timeless looks”.

I think it has an interesting concept and introduces some interesting worldbuilding, plus some nice new characters, but overall it's not executed well and is an unnecessary third series. A lot of TOA kind of ends up breaking the theses of the first series by creating a premise that basically every character involved needs to be retconned to be able to fit within. It also focuses way too heavily on unnecessary cameos and retcons/overcorrecting previous mistakes. Not to mention how much new stuff it introduces that is... not great. Altogether it's kind of a mess. But I can see promise in some of the core concepts.

My two main sort of main "takes" on how I think TOA could be improved is either: a.) remove Calypso from HoO and instead have her be re-introduced in TOA as a tritagonist in a trio with Apollo and Meg, with the focal point of the trio's dynamic being the intersection of their experiences and how they relate to one another - with a lot of emphasis on Calypso being a mirror to Apollo in both being stripped of their immortality and thrown into the mortal world and having been unfairly punished. Then have Calypso join the Hunt in approximately TTT (essentially her way of taking control of her own life again and regaining her immortality) so the finale is Meg and Apollo on their own and Calypso's absence is naturally felt because we're used to trio dynamics in the franchise. It'd be a great way to break the convention of the series while also playing with this feeling of loss but also hope leading up to the final fight in a meaningful way without having to lean so heavily on unnecessary (and poorly executed) character death. Calypso is gone because she got her happy ending, and now it's Meg and Apollo's turn.

or b.) - and this is apparently controversial - instead of having the protagonist be Apollo, have it be Ares. Otherwise the overarching plot is the same. This way you can keep the plot structure but not have to entirely retcon Apollo's character to fit the story concept. It also finally ties up that loose thread about Ares never seeing repercussions for his actions and allowing him to have a positive character arc that way more naturally touches upon events from the previous series. As a bonus it also allows for bringing PJO!Ares closer to how he's mythologically portrayed and examining some of his mythological themes and what exactly he's the god of. Mars is an agricultural god! Having his deuteragonist being a daughter of Demeter would be really fun to highlight that! Mythologically he's usually portrayed as a really good father! Let's allow him to have some character development where he stops being such a jerk!