This is one of my many gripes with HoO. Rick should have really not included Percy in the main plot if he wanted others to shine. Or just done the whole "Romans were involved in the Titan War, and they fought against Kronos by assaulting his stronghold at Mt. Othrys" thing but with Percy and Annabeth. Because realistically, when everyone meets up for the first time, the Lost Trio should have absolutely known all of Percy's exploits. I refuse to believe that the campers at CHB didn't absolutely rave on about Percy. And the whole who should be the leader situation shouldn't have been a question at all. I mean the Savior of Olympus and the Commander of the Demigod Army of Olympus is among you, but by all means, fight about who to pick as leader. It's not like it's self-explanatory.
Plus, most of the time, they traveled by the sea routes. And it's hard not to make it all about Percy when they are literally in his domain. Plus, the whole Tartarus situation obviously highlighted Percy as well since he was the only realistic choice for someone who could survive Tartarus and fight his way through the pit.
And then some stans have the audacity to blame people who were hyped for Percy the most over the new characters arguing that they are the main characters not Percy. Come on you can't expect all the people who grew up with Percy Jackson books and absolutely love Percy to not be more hyped about his return.
Plus it would have been manageable if Percy was in only one or two books but Percy is 4 of the 5 major books and not just as cameos but literally a main character. So it is natural that he would overshadow the newer characters in comparison no matter what. Because at that point, no one in the Seven had anything that even remotely compared to Percy's feats.
Rick realized how much he fucked up by adding Percy into the story and had to change things up last minute. That's why BoO is such a shit finale. Percy didn’t even have a pov for the entirety of Blood of Olympus but he still he was the one whose blood Gaea awoke to and he was the key player in the last fight at Camp Half Blood. If Rick had been actually consistent throughout HoO and had the balls to continue with the story as is, then Percy would have been the Storm part of "To Storm or Fire the world must fall." Obviously, Percy can summon storms, hurricanes, and so on, but more importantly, we have clear information on which God is associated with storms. Poseidon is literally called Stormbringer multiple times throughout the original series, and Percy is his son so lore wise, logically, and also keeping with plot consistency. The Storm part should have been Percy.
Now, not only does it ruin the entire buildup leading up to the finale, but it also undermines the other characters who were almsot hastily shoveled into their roles in the finale. Jason deserved more and should have ended up in Octavian's position or higher. The Pontifex and so on. Frank should have made Praetor anyway, but I hate that all of his insecurity was resolved by giving him Mar's blessing and pulling a magical transformation. He deserved his own arc and to shine through his own strength and mindset. Leo's was decently done save for the whole Calypso Leo situation. Hazel was awesome in the last two books, but we totally needed more of her. Piper’s arc, I am not really sure about her. Feel free to reblog with your own ideas.
Don't even get me started on the whole Gaea being put back to sleep thing. That's an entire conversation in itself but the point is Rick chose not to exclude Percy or limit Percy's appearances in HoO then realized his monumental mistake and fucked it up at the last second.
when you get kidnapped and get your memories wiped by the queen of the gods for six months, have to trek across california, find this new camp of demigods, go on a quest to find their legion standard, get your memories back by gambling your life, fight off an army to defend this new camp of demigods, reunite with your girlfriend, get chased across the country by the demigods you fought to defend, fight your way through the deadly mediterranean, arrive in rome, send your girlfriend off for a suicide quest, fall into tartarus with said girlfriend, fight your way to the doors of death, escape tartarus, fight giants, get slapped back to camp half-blood, and then you get sidelined for the big fight because apparently you need to "take a step back"