u/Past_Name1279

This is a vent and will contain minor spoilers for book 3 so please be warned.

If I could ask the showmakers to incorporate anything in the upcoming season, it would be - PLEASE make the gods godly!!

The book readers here know (and it has been announced for the show too) that S3 is the first time we get to see the Olympian council together-and like I said please give the gods some freaking aura!

They have introduced some of these gods since S1 and let’s be real whatever little resemblance you see of their book counterpart,its the actors basically carrying their respective characters on their back.

Poseidon is not some depressed guy even in the books, he is incredibly self-assured and stubborn and prideful. Most importantly he is the second most powerful god! Where are the conch shells and the sound of the ocean in the background to signal his arrival? Where is his trident? Show the freaking ground cracking when he slams down his trident- He is the Earthshaker ffs!! Where is the storm as he bellows and argues with Zeus??

Where are the other minor gods/ dieties covering under the wrath of Zeus when he can’t find his lightning bolt? Where are deities bowing as he thunders down a hallway? Why are none of the gods 10 feet tall!? Where is the grand/ intense / powerful background score when these gods are in the scene!?

Do not even get me started on Hades and all the ways the first season did him so dirty.

My long winded point here is- there are so many ways they can and could have made the gods feel more godly and yet so much of it is being carried by the actors’ acting. They have some decent actors playing them, have the production at least match it in some way!

The show has such a good chance to rectify this in S3 please grab the opportunity with both hands and give the gods some much needed aura.

Give us the full spectrum of emotions -Dionysus bored , Apollo and Hermes fooling around, Hephaestus, Hera and Demeter skeptical, Artemis the only one passionately arguing that the demigods deserve to be rewarded, Zeus being only interested in seeing Thalia, Poseidon and Athena bickering whether or not to kill Bessie and Percy. There is so much juice in that one scene, please for the sake of the fates don’t water it down!

Take advantage of the visual medium and have the halls shake, the demigods breaking out in goosebumps or basically anything to highlight the power of the 12 Olympian Gods arguing and debating in one room!

Ik so many people have already raised this point in S1 and I really really hope the show takes note and improves on the gods in S3. Maybe thats wishful thinking atp but oh well😐

I have often seen this critique of HOO that there are too many main characters in HOO and there isn’t enough room to explore them all which is why the 7 don’t feel like a real friendship group and merely acquaintances who share a common goal.

However, I have read other ya series that also have multiple main characters where that friendship dynamic has been handled much better. Some examples would be Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo (6 main characters) and The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater (a slightly weaker example with 5 main characters). The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi also has 6 main characters and from what I have heard of it, the series handles this group dynamic well too.

What I want to discuss is that is this lack of friendship dynamic between the 7 because there are too many characters or is there more to it?

1. Splitting the gang- It takes far too long for the seven characters to come together for the first time. By the time the 7 meet, 40 % of the series is already over which leaves only 3 books for them to be developed as friends.

Now one could argue that Six of Crows still manages to achieve this friendship dynamic within 2 books which HOO couldn’t do as well within the last 3 books which brings me to point 2.

2. Too many conflicts- Immediately as the 7 get together there are far too many interpersonal conflicts set up. Instead of exploring why these 7 demigods fit well as friends/ as a team there is too much arguing going around. Jason vs Hazel on whether or not to trust Nico; Hazel, Leo and Frank have the Sammy issue going on; Leo gets possessed and attacks Camp Jupiter etc.

In comparison in Six of Crows for example, there is only reluctant member of the gang who also goes through a personal arc and eventually comes around which just works to reinforce the friendship between the core group members.

3. Handling multiple characters in a scene- This again is an issue with the structure of the story rather than the number of characters and is something specific to HOO. Even after the 7 characters have come together there are hardly moments of them tackling an obstacle as a whole. More often, they are still spilt into groups to perform a section of the quest which might seem manageable to write about but whether the book pulls it off is another question. Even when the characters are split off into smaller groups at times the book doesn’t know how to handle writing them (Ex- Jason being conveniently knocked out if its Percy’s turn to shine etc.). The point here is that at times the series doesn’t understand how to build on friendship even within one part of the group much less the whole group.

This brings me to point 4.

4. Not picking characters intentionally- This is an extension of the earlier points. There are very few scenes where all 7 characters have to come together to tackle an obstacle. In Six of Crows every character is chosen to contribute something to the story till the very end. Whatever unique abilities that character brings to the table is essential for the plot to work which again works to make the 6 core characters be a team. HOO also could have taken this route where each demigods ability is uniquely required to defeat the giants forcing them to prepare for the final fight as a team. However, it doesn’t choose this route. The fight against the giants is over in basically one page. Once again the issue isn’t if the there are too many characters to write about because there is certainly room for them to all get their space and still be a group, the problem is that the series doesn’t know how to write them like that.

The only place where I think HOO actually gets crowded is BOO where the story shifts from the established main characters to Nico and Reyna.

Now I know its a rule of PJO verse that quests are usually undertaken by 3 so its makes sense on some level that the group is always split up. Also too many demigods attract monsters so they can’t always be together. My counter arguments and examples to this is again point number 2. There are too many interpersonal issues in the downtime that they do have as a group. And like point 3 states at times the series doesn’t really know how to handle the dynamics of the split group itself so not only does it not build on that section of the gang, it takes away room from building the friendship for the 7 as a whole. Also Annabeth takes 4 on her quest in BoTL and nothing happens to the 4 of them. She undertakes a solo quest in MoA. Not to mention this Great Prophecy actually mentions 7 demigods are required so the author has a lot of leeway and precedent to not choose to always split them up and actually write them as a team rather than split factions.

So yeah that’s all I could think of. What do you all think?

TLDR- Heroes of Olympus doesn’t have too many characters to explore. The series suffers more from constantly having the characters split up, not understanding what to do with all / some of them together at times and focusing more on interpersonal conflicts first rather than team building.

I don’t know if this has been discussed here before because I couldn’t find a similar post on this through the search option😅

Anyways to my point. Why on earth did Rick have Jason all of a sudden building temples for the minor gods? Wasn’t this something that Percy wanted to do?

I distinctly remember in one of the books that explicitly Jason mentions Percy was the one with the idea of giving minor gods more respect and it’s something that he is going to continue himself. Honestly, I think that task should have been left to Percy because it fits better with his character.

First off, Percy has been written as someone who wants to work within a system to bring about change. He criticises the gods and still believes they can change. He understands why the minor gods and their children chose Kronos and asks for them to be forgiven. He empathises that the minor gods are discriminated against- they aren’t respected enough and their claimed children don’t get their own cabins. It just seems a natural progression for him to be responsible for building temples for the minor gods after asking for them to be forgiven and asking for cabins for their kids.

Heck he even feels bad about how neglected the Temple of Neptune is at Camp Jupiter. He feels bad that the Temple of Jupiter is so much better maintained than Neptune’s. Again, its a minor detail but it shows that he does care about the state of a neglected temple and that he wants to make sure that the gods receive at least a somewhat equal amount of respect and this has been a change he actively negotiated for at the end of TLO.

In comparison, Jason has been raised as a perfect Roman soldier/ son of Jupiter to unquestionably worship the gods. The Romans as it is don’t have as many interactions with the gods as compared to the Greeks. An important moment for his character is questioning his father’s judgement in BOO in front of the other gods. For me, it was a moment where he evolves from the kid raised to never criticise the gods to actually questioning them. Then having him building temples for the minor gods just feels like a step backwards again. It only makes sense that he wants to build a temple for Kym because he promises that to her in exchange for letting Percy go. One interaction with her and he is the Pontifex Maximus and a bridge between the two camps? Wasn’t Percy the one who was picked for the quest exactly to be this sort of glue?

Percy wanted the gods to free Calypso and it becomes Leo’s job. Ensuring the minor gods are respected is suddenly Jason’s responsibility. Idk maybe its a minor issue but it just seems lazy to me that Percy advocated for so many changes (literally picked them over immortality) and then all of the responsibility of making sure they happen is shafted to other characters.

What do you all think?