Nico, over Iris message: So how is school? Do you hate it yet? Are you coming back soon?
Jason, laughing: I actually really like it, it’s so different from New Rome and Camp Half-Blood.
Nico, vaguely disappointed: That’s good.
Jason: More importantly, how’re you? What have you been up to lately?
Nico, shrugging: Will showed me how to do more things on the computer in the big house.
Jason, encouragingly: That sounds fun.
Nico: I visited you on Google Maps.
Jason, fighting his smile: That’s actually very sweet. Thank you.
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can I say something?
something I've started to not quite dislike, but not appreciate much about pjo was the way rick riordan talked about and characterized some gods- like Ares (still understand why he did that tho).
personally, as a kid who grew up reading myth after myth, I've always loved Ares, and when I re-read after years the pjo books some months ago I noticed how some of the gods are kind of lazy-written, or simply treated badly- as characters ofc.
one of them is Ares.
Ares is kind of impossible to appreciate in the books.
the only good moment he has is the "that's my girl" with Clarisse (but it still happened after years of neglect so yeah, not so great at the end), and then it's all bad, and he kind of gets ignored in favour of other gods- like Poseidon, who does mistakes but still can be appreciated, and is someone we could even relate too. Hades, Persephone, Hermes, Apollo and Artemis, they were we can say well-rounded second characters.
Demetra, Dionysus (except for the "protect my son" bit in the fifth book loved him for that and in general him with pollux and castor) but especially Aphrodite and Ares are just there so symbolize something Percy and us readers dislike.
(this is about Ares, but I could talk ab Aphrodite for hours (another day bud))
Ares is fucking cool.
he's the god of war, so unlike some of his other relatives his domain can never get weak, because humans are always fighting, there's always a war somewhere- but the way rick wrote him kind of erased the part where people prayed to him in order to not only beat someone and win a conflict, but also to survive one.
who attacked first prayed for Ares to help them, who was attacked and fought back prayed for Ares to make them survive and exit the conflict as winners, because there are always two sides in a war, and Ares represents them both.
but I can understand why rick ignored this part of him and reduced him to an extremely strong god who loves conflicts- and why, as a 11ys kid I didn't really got that. I was just sad that my fav god wasn't a cool guy. now I'm older, and I notice that, but still I don't blame him for writing Ares like that.
it's a kids book, and I can't pretend from it to be the greatest thing ever written, and I can appreciate these books with ease.
(and yk, war may be natural, but it doesn't mean it's right, so it's normal that a kids book characterised the god of war as someone despicable.
every god is despicable (as it should be, not so strange from the god of death to steal from earth someone young and all springy and trap them in his realm, it's kind of how life works!!!), but it's hard to explain kids how sexual assault and murder were their breakfasts and lunches, while war=wrong is easy and right! so)
but the show changed that?
it's changing a lot of things, but first of all it's dealing with things about greek gods that were ignored or set to the side in the books- the way it so heavily say, again and again, how the life they expected demigods to live was wrong.
but, honestly, I simply loved Ares.
not only for the twitter fights, but for his talk with grover mainly.
and even though grover said those things in order to manipulate him into telling him what he wanted to know- it was more than nice to see how they fixed and perfected an almost ignored character (in the books a strong, too prideful and not-at-all wise god).
can't what to see what they'll do with aphrodite my wife and pride!!!!
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