Xolexkathleen’s Series on Piper as Native Rep
I know not everyone is on multiple platforms so I figured I’d share the incredible couple videos by Xolexkathleen on TikTok that discussed Piper from her perspective as a Cherokee person. If she is on Tumblr, I want to be able to credit her so please let me know and I’ll take this down and share her version, but I wanted to try and elevate her voice/videos if she wasn’t.
I’ve created transcripts here for accessibility purposes since the videos themselves don’t include captions, but please actually go watch the videos linked themselves. She also cosplays as Piper so overall just a great person to check out if you’re on TikTok
Video 1: https://www.tiktok.com/@xolexkathleen/video/6860562228358155526
So my nobody thinks what you think Piper video actually got a lot of comments, views and likes and stuff. But I wanted to take this time and explain to you guys from the perspective of a Cherokee Piper fan why Piper is actually pretty harmful representation for Native people and Native girls especially. So firstly the feathers. If you are pretty into the fandom, you probably already know about what happened with Rick Riordan and the whole Piper’s feathers situation, but I’ll explain it to you real quick. Some native fans actually called out Rick Riordan for his use of feathers in writing Piper’s character because it’s stereotypical of Indigineous people and also eagle feathers are sacred so there’s literally no reason she’d be wearing them in her hair. In response, Rick Riordan wrote an extremely trivializing blog post downsizeing these complaints from Native people and saying, “Oh Piper wouldn’t care if other people think she shouldn’t be wearing them, because she’s doing what’s right for her.” Which is completely wrong and speaking over native girls who are literally telling you it’s offensive and that it’s stereotypical and something that wouldn’t be right in their culture. Part 2 coming up.
Video 2: https://www.tiktok.com/@xolexkathleen/video/6860562691744992517
Part 2 of why Piper is not the best rep for native girls. Rick Riordan writes that Piper’s dad, Tristan, grew up on a Cherokee reservation in Tahlequah. There is no reservation in Tahlequah for Cherokees. There is just not. Tahlequah is where the tribal government of the Cherokee nation specifically is housed. The closest thing the Cherokees in general have to a reservation is the Qualla Boundary in North Carolina. That land is owned by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and kept in trust by the federal government. Now I haven’t read all of Trials of Apollo yet, but I have heard that at one point Rick Riordan writes that Piper doesn’t consider herself Cherokee because of the tribe’s views of matrilineal descent, which is when everything descends from your mom. That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard in my life! I know so many Cherokee people whose moms are white or not Cherokee who are still Cherokee even though their dad is. I don’t know why Rick Riordan did this, but I’m pretty sure it’s because he wanted to write Piper like a white girl and not get any criticism, so he decided to make her “Not Cherokee”.
Video 3: https://www.tiktok.com/@xolexkathleen/video/6860563341337709830
Part 3 of why Piper isn’t the best rep for native girls. Going on from my last video, we see a lot of struggle with identity not just from Piper but from her dad as well. Piper said in the Lost Hero that her dad never wants to play a native character because it would “hit too close to home,” but in that we see a lot of internalized racism and you know ashamedness of his culture. We see that again in Piper when she says in the Trials of Apollo that she doesn’t feel like she’s Cherokee because of the tribe’s views of matrilineal descent. These are all issues natives face. It’s like a really real thing, but the way Rick Riordan went about describing them is pretty harmful. Particularly because we don’t see growth in either of these characters in that aspect. In fact, I’m pretty sure throughout the series we see both Tristan and Piper grow further and further apart from their native identities. So how’s that supposed to effect a 12-year-old Cherokee girl reading the stories? Pretty badly right?
Video 4: https://www.tiktok.com/@xolexkathleen/video/6860563960387669254
Part 4 of why Piper is the best rep for native girls. The kaleidoscope eye thing really bothers me. I mentioned that in a comment already, but why does the Cherokee girl have to be the one with changing eye color? Why can’t she just keep her brown eyes? Isn’t that beautiful enough for an Aphrodite kid? Rick describing her as having light brown hair or caramel hair is also weird because now people just draw her with orange hair. Like what’s wrong with black hair? I hate how people describe her as half Cherokee, half white, because it implies the gods are white. They don’t have DNA. They’re gods. Rick writes Piper as having a not like other girls mindset which a lot of the other girls have, but he never specifically addresses the intersection of Piper’s racial identity and her gender identity and how that plays into the whole mindset. Native women are oversexualized. They’re at huge risk for harassment, assault, abuse, etc,which Piper I’m sure knows. Missing and murdered indigenous women is a genocide. So Piper tries to make herself unattractive and unfeminine because she equates being feminine with being harassed. But Rick never talks about that. Neither does the fandom and now everybody hates her.
