Percy Jackson

Perseus "Percy" Jackson is the title character and narrator of Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson & the Olympians series, and one of the main protagonists of the sequel series The Heroes of Olympus, appearing in every book except The Lost Hero.

Character

Percy Jackson is a demigod, the son of the mortal Sally Jackson and the Greek god Poseidon. He has ADHD and dyslexia, allegedly because he is hardwired to read Ancient Greek and has inborn "battlefield reflexes". He has been expelled from almost every school he has ever attended. Percy's birthday is August 18.^[1] In the first novel of the series, The Lightning Thief, he is twelve years old. Like other demigods, he is expected to act as the Olympian gods' agent in the mortal world, taking action when ancient laws forbid direct godly intervention, usually in the form of quests. His personality is described as "changeable like the sea" (a quality he shares with his father) and hard to predict—with the important exception that he is dangerously loyal to his friends and family. He also displays deep regret when he sees others around him being hurt, often even monsters and strangers. His "powers", which start small and develop as the books proceed, include controlling water, making hurricanes, breathing underwater, and talking to horse-like animals and fish. He also becomes an accomplished sword-fighter and leader, as well as being the head counselor of the Poseidon cabin at his demigod summer camp.

Percy Jackson's fatal flaw is loyalty, which he at first does not see as a weakness. Throughout Percy Jackson & The Olympians, Percy grows more confident and courageous.^[2] After The Last Olympian, the next time Percy is seen is in The Son of Neptune, the second book in the sequel series The Heroes of Olympus. He is suffering from amnesia and slowly struggles to regain his memory over the course of the novel.He arrives at a Roman Camp called Camp Jupiter and stays there for 1 month. During the remaining three books in the series, previously unseen or nonexistent facets of his character are revealed—due in part to the series being told in the third person rather than the first. Some of these include a new fear of drowning; the humbling realization that he has become lax and almost cocky in his training; and a tendency to take things too far in defense of his friends and family. One of the darkest moments in the novels comes in The House of Hades when Percy discovers that he can control the water in a person's (specifically the misery goddess Akhlys's) body.^[3] Luckily for him, his girlfriend Annabeth Chase is present and brings him to his senses—showing yet again his loyalty, but also how his moral character remains mostly intact despite all the difficult situations he has been forced to deal with.

At the end of the last book in the series, Percy and Annabeth Chase (his girlfriend) plan to finish their senior year of high school together in New York, and then attend college in New Rome (the demigod-only city located in California).

Friends and Family

Family

Percy is the son of Poseidon; his mother, Sally Jackson, married a man named Gabe Ugliano when Percy was young. Ugliano was abusive towards Percy and Sally, who leaves him in The Lightning Thief.

Between the time of The Battle of the Labyrinth and The Last Olympian, Sally Jackson marries Paul Blofis, a man she met in a writing seminar. Percy likes and respects his new step-father and eventually reveals to him that he is a demigod. Understandably shocked, Paul stays with the Jackson family and accepts Percy's complicated life.

Percy has a brother named Tyson, who is a cyclops. Though Percy is related to virtually every character and creature in Greek mythology through his father Poseidon, Tyson is the only person whom he acknowledges as family other than his parents. Percy first met Tyson at a school called Meriwether Prep, and did not learn of their relationship until much later. Percy is also distantly related to horses, pegasi, and some other monsters through his father.

Friends

Percy's oldest friend is Grover Underwood, a satyr originally tasked with protecting him and bringing him safely to Camp Half-Blood. His next-oldest friend is Annabeth Chase, whom he meets when she helps nurse him back to health after his first fight with the Minotaur. The two accompany him on his first, and most of his subsequent, quests.

Percy is also close to many other characters in the book series. His closest friends include Thalia Grace, daughter of Zeus and leader of the Hunters of Artemis; Luke Castellan, son of Hermes (at first Percy's friend, then his enemy, and finally Percy's friend at the time of his death); Nico Di Angelo, son of Hades; Rachel Elizabeth Dare, a mortal Pythia, or host of a prophetic spirit; Hazel Levesque, daughter of Pluto; and Frank Zhang, son of Mars.

Romantic relationships

Percy's oldest romantic relationship is with Annabeth Chase. His feelings toward her gradually changed throughout Percy Jackson & the Olympians, with the goddess Aphrodite first insinuating that he loved her in The Titan's Curse, when he undertakes a quest to free her from the Titan Atlas. However, Percy's first move towards beginning a relationship with his best friend does not occur until the final pages of The Last Olympian.

Percy's other romantic relationship occurs in the interim of his first. As the final battle with the Titans approaches after The Battle of the Labyrinth, Percy spends time with his mortal friend Rachel Dare. Their relationship causes conflict between Percy and Annabeth Chase. Towards the end of The Last Olympian Rachel realizes that her attraction is not to Percy, but to the world of demigods and her destiny as the next Oracle at Delphi.

Three other characters in the novels are romantically interested in Percy. Nico di Angelo's hero worship of Percy turns into a crush on him, since Percy was the first demigod he ever saw in action; at the same time, he hates Percy because he believes he allowed his sister Bianca di Angelo to die in battle. The second is Calypso, who was banished to the island of Ogygia. Calypso later meets Percy's friend Leo Valdez; he manages to save her, where Percy could not. The third is Reyna Ramírez-Arellano, who, attracted to many of her fellow leader Jason Grace's qualities, finds herself attracted to many of the same traits in Percy.

Magical animal companions

Percy has several animal companions. The first is Blackjack, a black Pegasus that Percy liberates from the Princess Andromeda in The Sea of Monsters. Blackjack is first referred to as a "mare" in The Sea of Monsters, though he is called a stallion in all later books. Blackjack becomes Percy's personal steed and companion. Blackjack is unfailingly loyal to Percy, and on several occasions manages to save Percy's life. Blackjack always calls Percy "boss" and is quite fond of sugar cubes and doughnuts. Blackjack has two friends named Porkpie and Guido, both white pegasi, who sometimes accompany him.

Percy's second magical companion is Mrs. O'Leary, who is introduced in the fourth novel, Battle of the Labyrinth. She is a hellhound that he receives from Daedalus (whom Percy meets as a sword master named Quintus) before the inventor dies. Though Mrs. O'Leary is described as "the size of a tank", the Mist causes her to appear as a poodle to mortals, so Percy often refers to her as his dog. Percy sometimes uses Mrs. O'Leary's ability to "shadow travel" to cross large distances almost instantaneously. His brother Tyson and friend Charles Beckendorf are Mrs. O'Leary's other caretakers, though she is also fond of Nico di Angelo, son of Hades.

He also knows a hippocampus named Rainbow who likes Percy's half brother Tyson. He first appears in The Sea of Monsters where he helps Percy and his friends in entering Luke Castellan's boat Princess Andromeda. He later saves the life of Tyson and returns to help the two brothers on several occasions.

Percy has also traveled with a small calico kitten called Small Bob by Bob the Titan. Small Bob was accidentally created by one of Atlas's servants who was attempting to summon a group of spartoi. When Percy is trapped in Tartarus during The House of Hades, Annabeth, Bob, and he find and travel with the kitten. He is fond of Bob and protective of the traveling group, leading Bob to call him "a good monster". Small Bob can transfer into a full sized sabre toothed tiger at will and occasional appears as an x-ray for a few seconds at a time. His purr is disproportionately loud for an animal of his size. Small Bob remains in Tartarus with Iapetus to help hold open the Doors of Death. It is unclear if he lives or dies, but he is not mentioned again.

Description

Percy is described as handsome, with messy jet black hair, a "Mediterranean" complexion, and sea-green eyes like his father Poseidon. His mother notes that Percy looked just like his father, and his friend Hazel Levesque says that he has the looks of a Roman god.

Abilities

Like most demigods, Percy has ADHD and dyslexia, the former because of his godly battle instincts, and the latter because his brain takes more naturally to Ancient Greek than to English. He has a Greek fighting style (described as unpredictable by his friends in New Rome) and is an expert swordsman. After bathing in the River Styx, Percy was given the curse of Achilles, making him invulnerable except for the small of his back. He loses this power when it is washed away in the Little Tiber surrounding New Rome, as part of his acceptance there. In addition, he has an "empathy link" with his best friend from Camp Half-Blood, Grover.

As a son of Poseidon, one of the "Big Three" (the others being Zeus and Hades), Percy is more powerful than most of the gods' other children. He also has a degree of authority over his father's subjects. Percy is gifted with several super-human abilities: the ability to manipulate water and currents; enhanced strength/energy and senses while near the water; the ability to breathe underwater and operate old sailing ships with his mind; mental communication with marine animals, horse-like animals, water nymphs, and some of his relatives; and the creation of small earthquakes and hurricanes. Water also provides Percy with a measure of protection from injury and fire. All of Percy's abilities correspond to the myths about and abilities of his father.

Weapons

Percy's main weapon is Riptide, a sword made of celestial bronze given to him by Chiron the centaur, on the instructions of Poseidon; the sword's history goes back to Heracles,^[4] who was gifted that sword by the nymph Zoë Nightshade, a daughter of Atlas. Riptide can change shape; when it is not a sword, it appears as a ballpoint pen engraved with the word Anaklusmos (Greek for Riptide). It also always reappears in his pocket when lost. Since it is made of celestial bronze it will harm gods, demigods, and monsters, but simply passes through mortals. On occasion, he uses magic javelins made by his brother Tyson, and magically camouflaging armor made by Charles Beckendorf. In The Sea of Monsters, his half-brother Tyson gives him a wristwatch that changes into a shield covered with designs, but the watch is damaged in The Titan's Curse and lost in The Battle of the Labyrinth.

Percy has several magical items obtained from battles against monsters. The first of these is the horn of the Minotaur, which he obtains after killing the beast on Half-Blood Hill. Another is the head of Medusa, which he cuts off after killing the gorgon. He gives the head away several times, finally leaving it with his mother who "disposes" of it. He also obtains a bullet- and sword-proof lionskin coat when he killed the Nemean lion, which he later sacrifices as an offering to Poseidon.

References