Rowling's protagonist is ignorant of much of the wizarding world because he grew up with muggles. Similarly, Percy has never been taught anything about Greek mythology -- oh, wait, no, he's learned some of it from his Latin teacher at school. ARGH. What Percy remembers and doesn't remember from Greek mythology is infuriating. Percy should know the recorded Greek myths. It's the unrecorded details of the myths, and what the gods have been up to for the last 3000 years, where he should be floundering. Athena and Poseidon shouldn't be on bad terms because of a B.C. dalliance; there should be a whole new set of axes that the gods are grinding. Maybe Poseidon continues to defile Athena's temples every few decades and Percy was conceived in the NY Public Library (a temple to Athena if I ever saw one, and wonderful "MOM!" moment when Percy finds out); maybe Poseidon woos a daughter of Athena every so often because he has a weakness for the smart ones. This gives Athena an immediate reason to tell Percy in no uncertain terms to stay away from her daughter! We get a little of the newer grievances with the great prophecy and the agreement between the "big three", but it needs to be consistent and pervasive and there's just so much more one can do with this.
Ron can be a git, but Grover kills every scene he's in. The name choice is bad enough; Grover should be dead as a fictional character name because it immediately conjures the image of a furry blue monster, but you have to read Grover to understand what a disaster he and all the satyrs are.
Satyrs to Grover: You figured out why so many other satyrs failed to complete our important quest for the last two millennia, but haven't made any progress in the last year. You have one week to complete the quest or you're grounded.
Me: Hunh? does this make any sense except as a horribly artificial injection of tension?)
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