Pjo Hoo Toa - Blog Posts
I ACTUALLY LOVE HOW THIS TURNED OUT (I am always open to constructive criticism!:)) Original drawing I did (made May 11, 2024), and the reference below the cut!
was practising drawing poses and then remembered you can turn baseball bats into swords, enjoy a pjo inspired sketch!
jason is DEAD?!?!?!?!? (I've known for 6 years) (I just can't get over it)
begins... With a blast...
How I stare at the words "And that made me angry" (Percy's bouta go Turbo)
Heyyy, more writing! Which fic ideas would you guys like the most? I'm tagging my moots @ze-melon-lord and @grievetheliving3311
I know I don't post much, but can you guys give me your dunmeshi, soul eater, pjo, hxh, 7ds, obey me, love and deepspace, genshin impact, invincible, gravity falls, death note, or bleach fic requests? I would love some asks and ideas to really get this account going, y'know? Things I will NOT write for are as follows; smut(at least, for now), minor x adult, kinks or fetishes, incest, and anything else I can't think of now but may discover at a later date.
Not me thinking I could fix him when I first read the books in 6th grade (the evilest thing he did was that book haircut)
Aka Luke Castellan with all my awesome headcanons for my fic I’m currently writing
Just to add to this (but with the underworld kids)
Nico and Hazel's eyes change color according to which gem is nearest to them, or whatever their normal eye color is if there isn't one near (Bright, bright gold for hazel, and dark but multicolored eyes for Nico like a gemstone). But both of them naturally have sweet eyes, that are kind, but learned their scary stares
On the other hand, Bianca has the deepest darkest eyes (that don't change color) , this changed slightly after she became a hunter, but she and Nico both have intimidating stares (Bianca was born with it, but Nico learned it from her), while Hazel has a stunning wolf stare.
Nico di Angelo with the biggest doe eyes. Big, wide, adoring brown eyes. People can't help but fall in love when they see those eyes.
Will Solace with the most feline eyes. Pretty, upturned, cynically curious, blue eyes. People can't help but be uncomfortable when they see those eyes.
Nico di Angelo who had been stereotyped as unsettling and strange (he can be BUT) he has been looking out for and helping people nearly all his life.
Will Solace who has been stereotyped as unthinkingly optimistic and trusting (he can be BUT) he is curious, chooses his battles, and helps people through tough love and unconventional guidence.
Bianca lives au
Nico found out that the dead don’t get to eat or taste or see anything so he summons them just so that they’re afterlife isn’t so sad/lonely/stagnant
The Canals
What if Frank had pushed him into the canals. And he just didn't resurface
I wonder what hazel's reaction would be? and the rest of the seven
Bianca and Nico
They both look extremely similar, in fact, if you give them the same hairstyle, they would practically look the same, the difference is that Nico is usually terrifying to be near or look at, but Bianca is nicer ( funnily enough Bianca is more introverted while Nico is an extrovert). But if you look Nico in the eyes and suddenly you both are best friends (you just can't resist the soulful eyes) and also they're colored like earth (brown but with highlights of Gold Green, and Purple mainly but a bunch of other colors, and really, really pretty. Also they change color depending on the closest and biggest Jewel/Mineral nearby). While Bianca's eyes suck in all the light and are dark pitch black, and she gives terrifying death glares. But when blindfolded or something looks extremely nice
Volcano/Lava nymphs
Just think about it, nymphs who took care of volcanos, could control lava, and kept the volcanoes burning ( and when they take a vacation the volcano goes dormant), they also cleaned up the. lava and rocks, and lava didn't hurt them. I have a whole world made up from this, maybe I'll write about it later
Nico
Nico's nickname is niccolo piccolo,
Nico and Hazel
They both have powers ove eachothers "domains" but the reason they don't use it is because of mental blocks
Hazel doesn't control the dead, and shadows (as much as nico) because it reminds her too much about her time in the fields, but she can control them
Nico has just never tried and built up a sort of mental block , so he can't do it but he theoretically could control them if he wanted, as shown in the titan's curse, and the battle of the labyrinth
Roman gods
If the roman god of beginnings, transitions and ending had demigod children would, they see an alternate version of themselves in their shadows and mirrors, like things that happened to them in the past or will happen to them ?
Just to add, these reflections and shadows can move independently and show different images
Hypnos' cabin
The hypnos' cabin is actually really powerful, but like mentally, they can send you to sleep instantly, when using the Lethe water in their cabin, they can give you nightmares, communicate in dreams, and stuff
They have their own dream realm
i'll add more later
Hypnos' kids
So the cabin 15 kids are always stated to be sleeping/sleepy, and randomly falling asleep right
so what if they have Narcolepsy, they don't fall asleep because they're dad is the god of sleep, but they are more likely to/almost certainly have narcolepsy (and it's way worse than usual) if they're dad is hypnos and that's why they're always asleep or sleepy
Bianca lives au
If bianca lives I want her to somehow or the other be there for nico, as the over protective older sister
Examples include,
the battle of manhattan/the final battle, and Nico arrives with the skeleton army, and the 3 gods, and bianca is just like, "well little brother you may be 12 now, but you'll always be my little brother"
When Nico revives Hazel ( in this au, he is trying to revive his mother), bianca and hazel talk, (hazel is 2 years older than bianca and 4 years older than nico), they debate who is actually older, but eventually they just bond over making fun of nico for being the younger brother
For the labyrinth thing, in this version nico is just outcasted and/or ostracised by the camp so he runs away and is found by Minos, it follows a similar plot as the actual book, but this nico is not bitter, he just thought minos was a genuinely nice/helpful ghost and was helping him, but when bianca finds out minos manipulated nico she goes beserk (nico is still the ghost king tho),
after the tartarus and Jar incident, she is mad at the 7 (minus hazel) for ever doubting her brother
then when nico almost fades after the athena parthenos incident, she's mad at reyna + the seven, but does eventually forgive them, but not forget
and after he jumps into tartarus a second time, she doesn't even know who to be mad at, she's just mad at both of them
Now, I'm imagining everytime she wants to find Nico she digs her hand into a shadow and pulls out nico
It physically pains me that little kids are gonna rasd pjo for the first time and read these should-have-never-been-written-but-if-you-MUST-write-them-should-be-their-own-thing books and take them as direct continuations and therefore characterizations of pjo characters. Some little 11 year old is going to read this and genuinely believe that annabeth thinks percy is stupid and he's shocked when she compliments him even though she does it all of the time and theyre gonna think that annabeth has been the mom friend the entire series and think that she should be shocked when percy comforts her as if he hasn't been doing that since day fucking one. And we know that's not the case but most of us have the advantage of developed reading comprehension skills and knowing that's all fucking bull...these little babies reading the series for the first time....
Can we please stop making unwanted, antagonistic rivalries between Percy and the people he genuinely cares about? It's getting tiresome.
Like, some of y'all act like Percy killed Bianca and then laughed in Nico's face with how much part of the fandom likes to act like Percy doesn't care. They'll talk about how he said that he wanted to cut Nico's 'stupid head off,' like he would ever actually do that. Like the same guy who hesitated to harm Luke when he was possessed by Kronos would actually follow through on what was a visceral reaction to betrayal when Percy knew that people's lives were on the line. Like he didn't spend months and months of searching for Nico, concerned for his safety. Like he didn't hide his parentage, wanting to make sure that the other campers didn't treat him differently as a son of Hades. Like he didn't steel his resolve to be the one to fulfill the prophecy so Nico wouldn't be in more danger than necessary. Like he didn't introduce Nico when he first appears in Percy's dream in the Last Olympian as 'My friend, Nico.'
And then there's Leo. And sure, Leo was angry at Percy at first because Calypso thought he had abandoned her to her fate, and that was the side of the story that Leo heard. But some people act like he actually did so, ignoring the fact that he made the gods promise on the River Styx to free her, something that they were then bound to do. And then he was kidnapped and put to sleep for months with his memories wiped. Where on earth would he have had the time to ensure they kept their promise? Even Leo, who still didn't know the whole story, essentially went, "Damn you, you're impossible to stay mad at." Yes, they had a rocky start, but they do form a genuine friendship.
And Will. While I think it be cool to explore how Will felt during the second Titan war, and all the angst that came with it, I don't think he'd blame Percy for Michael's death. Perhaps at first, or maybe even as a little voice in the back of his head, but that isn't going to stop him caring about the campers, Percy included. Y'all act like he wouldn't chain Percy to an infirmary bed if he learned just how many times Percy has had suicidal thoughts or feelings.
Red Skies at Morning Google Docs Link
Super janky formatting but this is the link to my one singular fanfiction that I've put way too much time and effort into:
Will Solace, except I drew him with my left hand
The TA mourned Luke like he had actually died after Kronos took over his body on BotL. Secretly burning a shroud for him and all.
No, I will not elaborate on this.
Selina: Thoughts on Luke?
Chris: So… Luke has thots now…
Alabaster: Crawling all over him like weevils
Ethan: They’re called priests, I think
The Battle of Manhattan didn’t go the way the Fandom thinks it did; we need to address the “massacre” of the Titan Army!
The Battle of Manhattan is the most pivotal event of the first series. And we see the entire thing exclusively from Percy’s point of view. He takes us through the thickest of the fight from one end of Manhattan Island to the next, and shows us a desperate fight of good against evil.
But we have another point of view for the battle, one that comes from the demigods of the Titan army, and one that informs us of a far different, darker side to the conflict. One where an entire army of children is massacred by the victorious Olympians, without a thought or even a care. It’s a shocking, confronting side of the struggle that most fans don’t seem to be aware of.
But it’s also completely inaccurate.
Now I love Alabaster; he’s one of my favorite characters, and I want nothing but the best for him. But he’s a demonstrably unreliable narrator. I don’t even mean that he’s intentionally dishonest; but he’s very badly misinformed about what actually happened. And that gives the fandom three major misconceptions that need to be cleared up.
Alabaster gets the casualty ratio for the battle wrong (the Olympians had more than he thinks).
The Titan army has far fewer demigods than most fans think (not much more than 50 at the most).
Alabaster does say that there was a “massacre” at the end of the battle, but most of the TA demigods had deserted before that!
Part 1) The Olympians Have High Casualties
“It was a massacre. If I remember right, my mother told me that Camp Half-Blood and its allies had sixteen casualties total. We had hundreds.” (pg 219)
This is the only time we get a specific number for Olympian casualties, but it just doesn’t match up with what actually happens in the books. Looking back at all the deaths we do see:
Charlie Beckendorf -1
one [Hellhound] got hold of an Apollo camper and dragged him away. I didn’t see what happened to him next. I didn’t want to know. (pg 182) -1
Michael Yew -1
A young dragon had appeared in Harlem, and a dozen wood nymphs died before the monster was finally defeated. (pg 203) -12
“We lost twenty satyrs against some giants at Fort Washington,” [Grover] said, his voice trembling. (pg 203) -20 Giants smashed through trees, and naiads faded as their life sources were destroyed. (pg 243) -1< Enemy archers returned fire, and a Hunter fell from a high branch. (pg 244) -1 Too many of our friends lay wounded in the streets. Too many were missing. (pg 257) -1< The flagpoles were hung with horrible trophies –helmets and armor pieces from defeated campers. (pg 282) -1< The Drakon lashed out, swallowing three californian centaurs in one gulp before I could even get close. (pg 288) -3 Poison spewed everywhere, melting centaurs into dust along with quite a few monsters, (pg 288) -1< The Drakon snapped up one Ares camper in a gulp. (pg 291) -1
Silena Beauregard -1
Leneus -1
a body covered in the golden burial shroud of Apollo’s cabin. I didn’t know who was underneath. I don't want to find out. (pg 303) -1
Oddly enough, we actually miss the moment that was probably the worst for the Olympians, the final push by Kronos that breaks through their line. After Clarisse slays the drakon and the monsters are driven back again, Percy and co. take the opportunity to go up to Olympus. Percy gives Pandora’s Pithos to Hestia, and then contacts Poseidon via his throne. It’s just as he finishes that Thalia comes up and tells them that Kronos is coming again, but they miss the fighting.
By the time we got to the street, it was too late. Campers and Hunters lay wounded on the ground. Clarisse must have lost a fight with a Hyperborean giant, because she and her chariot were frozen in a block of ice. The centaurs were nowhere to be seen. Either they’d panicked and ran, or they’d been disintegrated. (pg 312) -<500
And finally, Kronos does kill some people on Olympus itself.
A few minor gods and nature spirits had tried to stop Kronos. What remained of them was strewn about the road: shattered armor, ripped clothing, swords and spears broken in half. (pg 322) -1<
The specific deaths we have mentioned during the battle amount to 48 at the very least; and that is an extremely conservative estimate that only includes the deaths Percy has the time and presence of mind to witness in all the carnage. Considering how many others must have happened, factoring the sudden disappearance of the 500 centaurs in particular, it was likely in the hundreds. And most of the centaurs probably ran at the end, but even that would have involved heavy casualties.
It’s true that actual demigods were a smaller fraction of Olympian forces, and so would have made up just a fraction of losses. The number 16 might actually make sense if it were just the number of campers lost, but that’s not what Hecate said, she said total.
It might be significant that Hecate is the actual source of this misinformation. Would she have reason to lie to her own son, or might she herself be out of the loop. Right now, we just can’t know.
And she might be underestimating Titan Army losses too. Considering how many times a wave of several hundred monsters tear into Manhattan, and get thrown back by the Olympians only to return later with no discernable drop in numbers, until the army is finally routed entirely, it wouldn’t surprise me if the TA actually took a thousand or more casualties. But those would be overwhelmingly monsters, because:
Part 2) Less Than Fifty Demigods Were Even In The Titan Army
To prove that there could not possibly have been hundreds of TA demigods killed at Manhattan, we need look no farther than Alabaster's own account.
“There was a war between the gods and titans last summer and most half-bloods–demigods like me–fought for the Olympians.” (pg 218)
So the TA could not have had more demigods than the Olympians; and they had about a hundred. There are forty campers to start with, who are quickly joined by the Hunters, who now have thirty members. Then, in the last hours of the fight, they are finally joined by the Ares cabin, which brings another thirty (jeez Ares, you animal!). So Olympus has an even hundred demigods. (The Hunters aren’t necessarily all demigods by birth, but I don’t think Alabaster would make a distinction based on that.)
So the TA has less than a hundred demigods, significantly less. I would argue they probably had no more than fifty because that lines up with the only solid numbers we ever get for them. And every time the TA is described, demigods are a clear minority. First, look at the foes Percy encounters when he infiltrates the Princess Andromeda:
I saw monsters patrolling the upper decks of the ship–dracaenae snake-women, hellhounds, giants, and the humanoid seal-demons known as telkhines . . . . . “I don’t care what your nose says!” snarled a half-human half-dog voice—a telkhine. “The last time you smelled half-blood, it turned out to be a meatloaf sandwich!” “Meatloaf sandwiches are good!” a second voice snarled . . . . . a telkhine was hunched over a console . . . . . a half dozen telkhines were tromping down the stairs . . . . . past another telkhine . . . . . And in the fountain squatted a giant crab . . . . . a couple of dracaenae slithered across my path . . . . . As I was running up the stairwell, a kid charged down . . . . . Laistrygonian giants filed in on either side of the swimming pool . . . . . demigod archers appeared on the roof . . . . . two hellhounds leapt down . . . . . The crowed of monsters parted . . . . . Giants jeered. Dracaenae hissed with laughter . . . . . throwing monsters off their feet . . . . .I knew him, of course: Ethan Nakamura . . . . . two giants lumbered forward . . . . . Panicked monsters surged backward . . . . . one of the dracaenae hissed . . . . . I pushed through a crowd of monsters . . . . . Monsters yelled at me from above.
That was a quick summary of all the enemies Percy and Charlie encounter on the Princess Andromeda, I’m not crazy enough to try and write the whole chapter. But it’s pretty clear there are only a few demigods amid dozens of monsters. We hear the same thing from Poseidon later, that “there were only a few demigod warriors aboard that ship”; we might question whether or not Poseidon is a trustworthy source, but the evidence does back him up.
When we finally get to the battle, the disparity of demigod numbers in the TA is again evident:
The bronze image showed Long Island Sound near La Guardia. A fleet of a dozen speed boats raced through the dark water toward Manhattan. Each boat was packed with demigods in full Greek armor. At the back of the lead boat, a purple banner emblazoned with a black scythe flapped in the night wind. I’d never seen that design before, but it wasn’t hard to figure out: the battle flag of Kronos. “Scan the perimeter of the island,” I said. “Quick.” Annabeth shifted the scene south to the harbor. A Staten Island Ferry was plowing through the waves near Ellis Island. The deck was crowded with dracaenae and a whole pack of hellhounds. Swimming in front of the ship was a pod of marine mammals. At first I thought they were dolphins. Then I saw their doglike faces and swords strapped to their waists, and I realized they were telkhines—sea demons. The scene shifted again: the Jersey shore, right at the entrance of the Lincoln Tunnel. A hundred assorted monsters were marching past the lanes of stopped traffic: giants with clubs, rogue Cyclopes, a few fire-spitting dragons, and just to rub it in, a World War II-era Sherman tank, pushing cars out of the way as it rumbled into the tunnel. (pg 167)
Here we see the first wave of the Titan Army as a three pronged attack (which Percy says on the next page collectively numbered at least 300) and only one of the units has demigods. It’s the one that Kronos leads, so it’s probably meant to be a more elite unit, at least at first.
We don’t know for sure how many there are. Speedboats are usually made to carry 4-6 people so a dozen would be possible 48 to 72. Considering Alabaster says there were significantly less demigods in the TA than the Olympians, I would guess it’s on the lower end; and that does match another number we see in a moment.
This fleet never reaches Manhattan, since Percy bribes the East River to swamp their boats. Those who say many TA demigods were killed in the battle might point to this as Percy causing a bunch of kids to drown; but Alabaster never mentions a mass drowning in his narrative of the battle, and he would have been on one of those boats, so it’s safe to say they just went for a swim.
(And Kronos was with them, which means that a very angry titan lord was suddenly pitched into the river and had to swim with the rest of them. That’s not really relevant, I just want everyone to know that.)
Percy is then immediately told that “Another army is marching over the Williamsburg bridge.” This fourth prong of the attack, led by the Minotaur, also has no demigods in it.
An entire phalanx of dracaenae marched in the lead . . . About a hundred more monsters marched behind them. (pg 182) More monsters surged forward —snakes and giants and telkines—but the Minotaur roared at them, and they backed off. (pg 186)
But more monsters keep advancing because by the time Percy kills the minotaur and the demigods charge and rout the whole group, it had grown to 200
Finally, the monsters turned and fled—about twenty left alive out of two hundred. (pg 188)
So the grand total for the first TA attack was 500 soldiers or more, with only 40-70 of them demigods. And after the monsters on the Williamsburg bridge retreat, those demigods show back up.
Then I saw the crowd at the base of the bridge. The retreating monsters were running straight toward their reinforcements. It was a small group, maybe thirty or forty demigods in battle armor, mounted on skeletal horses. One of them held a purple banner with the black scythe design. The lead horseman trotted forward. He took off his helm, and I recognized Kronos himself, his eyes like molten gold. (pg1 188)
This is the only time we get anywhere close to a specific number when TA demigods are concerned. It would have been the same group that was sunk in the East River, who then had to swim for Brooklynn; which is where they are now trying to take the Williamsburg bridge. This reinforces the idea that the number of demigods in the boats was only a little more than forty, since they would not have suffered more than a few injuries in the sinkings.
I’m going to come back to this moment later to demonstrate how Percy refrains from killing other demigods, even in his Achilles state, but the other important thing to note is that this is the last time Kronos organizes his demigods into a unit that he leads personally. After they fail to break through here, Kronos just has them take on a secondary role, and puts his faith in bigger and bigger monsters to lead the charge instead.
The Titan Army units on Long Island then spend the evening marching the long way around Manhattan (for some reason) because they make camp for the night in New Jersey, at Medusa’s old lair. Percy again describes demigods as the small minority.
Hundreds of tents and fires surrounded the property. Mostly I saw monsters, but there were some human mercenaries in combat fatigues and demigods in armor too. A purple-and-black banner hung outside the emporium, guarded by two huge blue Hyperboreans.
And this is only part of the Titan army, because there are more troops north of Manhattan.
“Tell my brother Hyperion to move our main force south into Central Park. The halfbloods will be in such disarray they will not be able to defend themselves.” (pg 237)
The army that marches into central park is bigger than the one camped in New Jersey. And it is made up exclusively of monsters.
At the north end of the reservoir, the enemy vanguard broke through the woods—a warrior in golden armor leading a battalion of Laistrygonian giants with huge bronze axes. Hundreds of other monsters poured out behind them. (pg 243)
There is not a single mention of a demigod. However they’re already joining the fight in other places.
When it flew above the rooftops, I could see fires here and there around the city. It looked like my friends were having a rough time. Kronos was attacking on several fronts. (pg 251)
After Percy kills the Clazmonian Sow, the momentum of the battle shifts. With his main force failing to deliver a knockout punch, Kronos has his remaining armies spread out to put equal pressure on the entire defensive line, and catch it in a massive envelopment.
Midtown was a war zone. We flew over little skirmishes everywhere. A giant was ripping up trees in Bryant Park while dryads pelted him with nuts. Outside the Waldorf Astoria, a bronze statue of Benjamin Franklin was whacking a hellhound with a rolled-up newspaper. A trio of Hephaestus campers fought a squad of dracaenae in the middle of Rockefeller Center . . . . . The hunters had set up a defensive line on 37th, just three blocks north of Olympus. To the east on Park Avenue, Jake Mason and some other Hephaestus campers were leading an army of statues against the enemy. To the west, the Demeter cabin and Grover’s nature spirits had turned Sixth Avenue into a jungle that was hampering a squadron of Kronos’s demigods . . . . . I spotted a familiar silver owl banner in the southeast corner of the fight, 33rd at the Park Avenue tunnel. Annabeth and two of her siblings were holding back a Hyperborean giant . . . . . The next hour was a blur. I fought like I’d never fought before—wading into legions of dracaenae, taking out dozens of telkines with every strike, destroying empousai and knocking out enemy demigods . . . . . At one point Grover was next to me, bonking snake women over the head with his cudgel. Then he disappeared in the crowd, and it was Thalia at my side, driving monsters back with the power of her magic shield. Mrs. O’Leary bounded out of nowhere, picked up a Laistrygonian giant in her mouth and flung him like a Frisbee. Annabeth used her invisibility cap to sneak behind enemy lines. Whenever a monster disintegrated for no apparent reason with a surprised look on his face, I knew Annabeth had been there . . . . . Kronos was riding towards us on a golden chariot. A dozen Laistrygonian giants bore torches before him. Two Hyperboreans carried his black-and-purple banners . . .
“THEN THE WINGED HUSSAARSSS AARRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVVVVVVED” SABATON BLASTS ON ELECTRIC GUITAR
Sorry, sorry, I mean then Chiron and the 500 centaurs arrived!
Kronos’s forces looked as confused as we were. Giants lowered their clubs. Dracaenae hissed. Even Kronos’s honor guard looked uneasy. Then, to our left, a hundred monsters cried out at once. Kronos’s entire northern flank surged forward. I thought we were doomed, but they didn’t attack. They ran straight past us and crashed into their southern allies . . . a shower of arrows arced over our heads and slammed into the enemy, vaporizing hundreds of demons. (pg 258)
This is how the second phase of the battle ends. And during the entire night, out of a sea of monsters (hehe) we only see one unit of TA demigods. And it’s the last time we get any reference to them participating in the battle.
After being driven south, the TA apparently did another long march, because they make camp northeast of Manhattan.
The Titan army had set up camp all around the U.N. complex. The flagpoles were hung with horrible trophies—helmets and armor from defeated campers. All along First Avenue, giants sharpened their axes. Telkines repaired armor at makeshift forges. (pg 282)
Ethan is the only demigod mentioned this time. And he doesn’t appear to take part in the next attack, aside from releasing the drakon. We get less of a description of the enemy army this time, but it’s all monsters.
The rest of the battle wasn’t going well. The centaurs had panicked under the onslaught of giants and demons. An occasional orange camp T-shirt appeared in the sea of fighting, but quickly disappeared. (pg 289)
Of course the Ares cabin arrives, the drakon kills Silena, and Clarisse kills it. It’s another rout for the TA.
The monsters retreated toward 35th Street. (pg 298) There was no answer from the enemy. Slowly, they began to fall back behind a dracaenae shield wall, while Clarisse drove in circles around Fifth Avenue, daring anyone to cross her path. (pg 299)
After that we have the final phase of the battle, when the Titan Army finally breaks through the Olympian lines. But once again, we have no reference to demigods other than Ethan.
The Titan Army ringed the building, standing maybe twenty feet from the doors. Kronos’s vanguard was in the lead: Ethan Nakamura, the dracaenae queen in her green armor, and two Hyperboreans. I didn’t see Prometheus. (pg 312) “ROWWF!” Mrs. O’Leary bounded toward me, ignoring the growling monsters on either side. (pg 315) There were thousands of [skeletan soldiers], and as they emerged, the titan’s monsters got jumpy and started to back up. (pg 315) The armies of the dead clashed with the Titan’s monsters. Fifth Avenue exploded into absolute chaos. Mortals screamed and ran for cover. Demeter waved her hand and an entire column of giants turned into a wheat field. Persephone changed the dracaenae spears into sunflowers. Nico slashed and hacked his way through the enemy, trying to protect pedestrians as best as he could. My parents ran toward me , dodging monsters and zombies, but there was nothing I could do to help them. (pg 318).
The fight continues like this, until Typhon is destroyed, and the defenders are joined by the gods, and Poseidon’s army of cyclopes. It’s then that the Titan army is “massacred.” Most of the fandom thinks that the demigods were killed too, but that’s not the case.
PART 3: The TA Demigods Deserted Before The Final Battle
As Alabaster remembers it:
the war didn’t go our way. I fought on the battlefield against the enemy, but most of our allies ran. Kronos himself marched on Olympus, only to be killed by a son of Poseidon. After Kronos’s death, the Olympian gods smashed any remaining resistance. It was a massacre. “We weren’t all destroyed,” Alabaster said. “Most of the remaining half-bloods fled or were captured. They were so demoralized they joined the enemy. (pg 219)
When you look at this narrative, and compare it to The Last Olympian, it’s actually more complicated than the TA demigods simply getting massacred.
Al says that while he was fighting, most of his allies ran. That’s odd, because we don’t see the relative numbers of monsters go down at any point. What we do see, is the number of demigods go down.
As I illustrated in Part 2, the Battle of Manhattan has four distinct phases. Phase one, that ends when the Williamsburg Bridge is destroyed. The second phase, that starts when Hyperion attacks Central Park, and ends when the Party Ponies arrive. The third phase, which is all about the attack of the drakon. And the final phase, when Kronos breaks through.
We only see TA demigods in the first two phases; they attack the Williamsburg Bridge in the first phase as part of the Kronos’s main force, then in the second phase they’re relegated to a supporting role by hitting the defenders western flank. And that’s the last we see of them. After that, Etahn is the only demigod left standing in the TA. Alabaster must be somewhere in the background, as a retcon, but there’s no one beyond the two of them.
You might think that they’ve just already been killed by this point. After all, Percy blows up the Princess Andromeda, then goes into an Achilles Curse fueled berserker mode several times in the first two phases of the battle. Surely he must have killed hundreds of kids, right?
No, not even close.
Maybe not any at all.
On the Princess Andromeda Percy finds lots of monsters, but the number of demigods he finds could be counted on one hand. And the first one he meets; Percy spares him and tells him to get his friends and evacuate. We can’t prove whether or not any demigods were killed in the blast; we just know that the two we can confirm were still on board, Ethan and Alabaster, both survived. And when Alabaster recounts it, he doesn’t mention any bad losses at this point.
As for the Curse of Achilles, it doesn’t send Percy into anything like the berserker state some people think of it as. It might seem like that when Percy lets loose on the Williamsburg Bridge:
You’re going to ask how the whole “invincible” thing worked: if I magically dodged every weapon, or if the weapon hit me and just didn’t harm me. Honestly, I don’t remember. All I knew was that I wasn’t going to let these monsters invade my hometown. I sliced through armor like it was made of paper. Snake women exploded. Hellhounds melted to shadow. I slashed and stabbed and whirled, and I might have even laughed once or twice—a crazy laugh that scared me as much as it did my enemies. (pg 188)
But when push comes to shove, Percy can control the Curse, and what he does during it. That last moment was when he was fighting nothing but monsters. But when the TA demigods arrived, Percy pulled his punches like he always does.
I tried to wound his men, not kill. That slowed me down, but these weren’t monsters. They were demigods who’d fallen under Kronos’s spell. I couldn’t see faces under their helmets, but some of them had probably been my friends. I slashed the legs off their horses and made the skeletal mounts disintegrate. After the first few demigods took a spill, the rest figured out they’d better dismount and fight me on foot. (pg 189)
Percy is still in complete control of what he’s doing; even when the worst happens.
“Annabeth!” I turned in time to see her fall, clutching her arm. A demigod with a bloody knife stood over her . . . . . I locked eyes with the enemy demigod. He wore an eye patch under his helmet: Ethan Nakamura, the son of Nemesis. Somehow he’d survived the explosion on the Princess Andromeda. I slammed him in the face with my sword hilt so hard I dented his helm. (pg 190)
Percy really has all the reason to hate Ethan at this point; after Percy spared his life in Antaeus’ arena, Ethan still joined the side that had been ready to write off his death, and deliberately helped Kronos achieve his physical resurrection. Because of that Percy’s friends and even-Riordan-doesn’t-know how many mortals are going to die in the next few days; and on top of all that, Ethan just stabbed the love of his life.
And all Percy does is knock him out, maybe a little harder than necessary. He makes no effort to kill him. Those aren’t the actions of a berserker with no control.
In fact, the knife turns out to be poisonsed. And Ethan now has an idea where Percy’s Achilles Spot is, and might tell Kronos. And even after all of that, Percy doesn’t seriously think about killing him as an option.
“I’ll bonk him on the head harder next time.” (pg 241)
But more on topic, there is no reason to think the TA demigods have particularly high casualties in this phase of the battle, though they have a few:
Our archers shot a volley, bringing down several of the enemy, but they just kept riding. (pg 189)
Though it’s vague if they are hitting the riders or the horses. In fact, it might actually be Kronos who’s responsible for more of their losses.
[Kronos] struck the bridge with the butt of his scythe, and a wave of pure force blasted me backward. Cars went careening. Demigods—even Luke’s own men—were blown off the edge of the bridge. (pg 192)
I will die on the hill that between this, Ethan, and other implied moments, Kronos killed more of his own demigods than Percy did.
In the second phase of the battle, when we see the TA demigods attack again, they’re in a very different situation.
To the west, the Demeter cabin and Grover’s nature spirits had turned Sixth Avenue into a jungle that was hampering a squadron of Kronos’s demigods. (pg 255)
This is the only thing we see the TA demigods do as a group in this phase; and they’re fighting people who are using very defensive tactics, more hampering than harmful. They’re not likely to lose many fighters. A few of them do cross Percy’s path in the chaos, but even at his most Achilles fueled chaos he never loses control.
The next hour was a blur. I fought like I’d never fought before—wading into legions of dracaenae, taking out dozens of telkines with every strike, destroying empousai and knocking out enemy demigods. (pg 257)
He talks about killing monsters, but always “knocking out” demigods. Finally, that phase of the battle ends when the centaurs show up. Did the centaurs kill any demigods? After all, Percy said they “trampled everything in their path.”
Well the only report we get on the TA demigods puts them to the west. When the centaurs attack, they come out of the north east and drive the enemy south, and start off a wave of panic that ripples down the enemy lines ahead of them. The demigods were probably running before any centaur reached them, and might have had better chances of being trampled by their own monsters.
So if the TA demigods aren’t taking many losses, where do they all go in the third and fourth phases, when we don’t see any except Ethan?
They desert.
Alabaster: “I fought on the battlefield against the enemy, but most of our allies ran.”
I think the demigods of the TA signed up with no real idea of what would happen when they fought the Olympians. They thought they were going to have a sure victory.
Chris Rodriguez said it in SOM:
“I hear they got two more [drakon] coming,” [Chris] said. “They keep arriving at this rate, oh, man—no contest!” (pg 122)
Alabaster C. Torrington said it in SOM:
“Kronos wasn’t supposed to lose! You said the odds of winning were in the Titan’s favor! You told me Camp Half-Blood would be destroyed!” (pg 196)
And they probably weren’t well prepared for the war either. At one point Luke says they will fight well because he has been training the army. But most of them join because they are the children of minor gods who swear for Kronos, and that doesn’t happen until the end of BOTL, after Luke has been possessed. Most of the TA demigods never got training from him; including their two highest ranking members, Ethan and Alabaster. It’s no wonder most of them weren’t prepared.
As I was running up the stairwell, a kid charged down. He looked like he had just woken up from a nap. His armor was half on. He drew his sword and yelled, “Kronos!” but he sounded more scared than angry . . . . No way was I going to hurt him. I didn’t need a weapon for this. I stepped inside his strike and grabbed his wrist, slamming it against the wall. His sword clattered out of his hand. (pg 18)
And the demigods might not hold much loyalty to Kronos, a violent and temperamental eldritch horror!
Ethan moistened his lips. “He’s still fighting you, isn’t he? Luke—” “Nonesense,” Kronos spat. “Repeat that lie, and I will cut out your tongue. The boy’s soul has been crushed.” (pg 236) “But, my lord,” Ethan said. “Your regeneration.” Kronos pointed at Ethan, and the demigod froze. “Does it seem,” Kronos hissed. “that I need to regenerate?” Ethan didn’t respond. Kind of hard to do when you’re immobilized in time. Kronos snapped his fingers and Ethan collapsed. (pg 284)
And the demigods might have witnessed a darker side to his army that we didn’t.
Back on my first visit to the Princess Andromeda, my old enemy Luke had kept dazed tourists on board for show, shrouded in Mist so they didn’t realize they were on a monster infested ship. Now i didn’t see any sign of tourists. I hated to think what had happened to them, but I kind of doubted they’d been allowed to go home with their bingo winnings. (pg 15)
So, the demigods deserted. After the second phase of the battle we don’t see any at the Titan camp at the U.N., or taking any part in the last phases of the battle. They had been fed false promises, were treated badly, and were being sent against enemies out of their league.
“Most of the remaining half-bloods fled or were captured. They were so demoralized they joined the enemy.”
All except two, Alabaster and Ethan. The son of Nemesis, who has already given so much and is so desperate to see something good and fair come out of it; and the son of Hecate, who was promised victory, and is desperate to avenge the death of his siblings. Ironically, the two demigods who stayed loyal to Kronos the longest, did so because they had faith in their godly parents.
So if there was no “massacre” of TA demigods at the end of the Battle of Manhattan, why is Alabaster so insistent that there was one?
“Yes,” Alabaster said bitterly. “Camp Half-Blood decided that they would accept any children of the minor gods. They would build us cabins at camp and pretend that they didn’t just blindly massacre us for resisting. (pg 220) “But I’ll never bow to the Olympian gods after the atrocities they committed. Their followers are blind. I’d never set foot in their camp, and if I did, it would only be to give that son of Poseidon what he deserves.” (pg 221)
Well, it’s because the children of Hecate suffered the most in the war. She didn’t have as many children as other gods, and Alabaster was the only one to fight in it and survive. He claims he convinced “most” of his siblings to join; but if Hecate does not have many children, and he is the only survivor of the battle, how are there still enough of his siblings to decently fill a cabin, it’s likely “most” was only slightly more than half. The sad irony is that the fact that the smaller group of demigods had more casualties than the larger ones (and it sounds like not just more proportionately, but more in actual numbers), also kind of disproves that there could have been a large massacre that affected them all.
Alabaster was a scared, frustrated, exhausted kid; who convinced his siblings to fight in a destructive war, and was the only one of them to survive. To him, that is probably always going to feel like a brutal massacre.
So y’know how 2 of the curses Percy got in HoH were a stabbing in the gut and an uncontrollable tic in his right eye.
Ethan Nakamura a boy who only had his right eye remaining got killed by being stabbed in the stomach and then he fell from Olympus.
Now here’s where I put my theorist hat on because I do not believe Ethan would curse Percy especially not with pain in his eye. But there is a character who would curse Percy, who has quite a hatred for him, who would have known Ethan as a fellow member of the Titan Army and who would’ve been there at the battle of Manhattan to find Ethan’s body.
Alabaster Torrington
Alabaster would have wanted to curse Percy especially after the tragedy that happened to his siblings finding Ethan’s body would’ve been the last straw and I can imagine him thinking “I wish it had been you, Jackson. I wish you got stabbed. I wish you had your eye taken. I wish you would feel the pain he felt.”
I also have to add that another curse he got was feeling like his body had been blown up by a blowtorch and I fully believe that was a curse from the Andromeda explosion
Annabeth fell first, Percy fell harder
Will fell first, Nico fell harder
Alabaster fell head first and broke his nose, Ethan is doing fine
Someone should tell Nico that Yugoslavia broke up
Luke, staring at the grumpy wet cat sewer rat looking mf that is Alabaster: Why are you with him?
Ethan: He makes me laugh