Zoë Nightshade

"Stars. I can see the stars, my lady."

- Zoë

Zoë Nightshade, was a former Huntress of Artemis, a daughter of the Titan Atlas and the goddess Pleione. She formerly was a Hesperide, but later she was exiled. Zoë became the loyal lieutenant of Lady Artemis.

She was turned into a new constellation by Artemis in The Titan's Curse right after she died, it shows a girl drawing a bow, and is called "The Huntress", by the characters.

History
Zoë served in The Garden of the Hesperides, but she was exiled by her sisters after helping Hercules trick Atlas. She gave Hercules her hair pin (a gift from her mother Pleione) that he reformed into Anaklusmos (Riptide), a powerful sword which Percy now wields (now disguised as a ballpoint pen). Eventually, she joined Artemis' Huntresses, and became their lieutenant to get away from men like Hercules. She holds a grudge against male heroes, for Hercules gave her no credit for her clever plan for him to complete his quest on Mount Othrys.

She once ran into Thalia, Luke, and Annabeth when they were wandering around the country and almost got Thalia to join them. However Thalia did not want to leave Luke, causing Zoë Nightshade to become very angry. Feeling offended, she and Thalia got into a huge and heated argument. She told Thalia she was being stupid, and that she would regret it, and that Luke would let her down (which eventually turned out to be somewhat true).

The Titan's Curse
Zoë and the Hunters rescue Percy, Thalia, Grover, and Bianca and Nico di Angelo from a Manticore, Dr. Thorn who disappeared with Annabeth. She convinced Bianca to join the Hunters and accompanied her 'sisters' to Camp Half-Blood. The Hunters won the match of Capture the Flag when The Oracle left the attic and approached Zoë Nightshade for a quest to save Artemis, who had gone missing.

Zoë went on the doomed quest along with Thalia, Bianca, and Grover, but could not bring Phoebe, another Hunter, as planned for the Stolls sprayed centaur blood into a shirt and gave it to her and caused her to be covered in hives; Percy followed them secretly, wanting to make sure that Annabeth is found safe and sound, having also promised Nico that he will keep Bianca, his sister, safe. Zoë is furious with Percy but he warns them that a Nemean lion and a dozen skeletal warriors are on their way.

They all fight against the lion, and Zoë manages to kill it with some of her arrows, but she lets Percy keep the pelt because it was his plan that gave Zoë the opening to kill it. She then says the first joke Percy had ever heard her say: "It was thy ice-cream sandwich that did it," referring to the astronaut food from the Smithsonian gift shop, which Percy force-fed the lion with.

They continue their quest, going west to find Artemis. Zoë is very worried about the goddess and anxious to find her. They get help from Apollo, but giving them transportation is all he can do, as by divine law, he is not allowed to interfere.

While in the desert, going through Hephaestus' junkyard, a prototype and defective version

of Talos attacks them, and Bianca is killed while subduing the automaton. Zoë feels guilty over Bianca's death, which is understandable, as Zoë picked an amateur Hunter who was only twelve for a suicide mission. She believed that Bianca had the potential to replace her, as Zoë couldn't be the lieutenant forever. Percy tries to comfort Zoë after Bianca's death, and later dreams from Hercules' point of view of his relationship and betrayal of Zoë.

Percy later gives up the Nemean lion's pelt as a sacrifice to his father, Poseidon, to keep Grover and Bessie the Ophiotaurus safe on their journey to Olympus, and tells everyone, Zoë in particular, that he is nothing like Hercules.

To reach Artemis, they are forced to go through The Garden of Hesperides. There, Zoë encounters her sisters who disowned her, and tells them that they never had the courage, and wakes Ladon. The dragon, after a while, sensed Zoë wasn't really who she "used to be" and almost killed her. However, when the dragon attempted to kill Zoë, she dodged but was still hit in the side. The dragon's teeth were venomous, one of the main reasons for her death.

They found Artemis holding up the sky which she had taken from Annabeth. The General, Atlas, was revealed to be Zoë's father. Percy took Artemis's burden, and Zoë, in her attempts at keeping Atlas from destroying, was knocked aside by her father, causing massive internal injuries and big emotional injuries. She becomes very ill and loses the will to live because her father's blow caused her too much pain. When she died, Artemis turned her into a star constellation, "the Huntress", in the Southern sky. The form of the stars was her shooting an arrow. Her death was meant to be because the last line of the prophecy stated that: " One shall perish by a parent's hand".

The Battle of the Labyrinth
She doesn't appear, but her constellation is shining in the night sky, mentioned when Percy is telling Calypso (a child of Atlas) on Ogygia that he had met another daughter of Atlas and that she was one of the "bravest people he had ever met."

The Son of Neptune
When Percy sees Mount Tam, Hazel tells him about Camp Jupiter's assault on the Titan base. Percy has a flashback of fighting there, remembering when he was there with Zoë, Artemis, and Thalia fighting Atlas, but he can't remember their names and the memory soon leaves him.



Personality
"He was all the things I'd originally disliked about Zoë, with none of the good I'd come to appreciate."

- Percy

Zoë was a loyal lieutenant to Artemis, never wavering in over 2000 years. In The Titan's Curse, Zoë fights with Thalia quite often. This was because (before the books) Thalia had refused to join the Hunters when Zoë offered her the chance. However, she eventually changes her mind, influenced no doubt by Zoë and Bianca's bravery. Zoë has a extreme hatred of campers, especially males, but eventually warmed up to Percy during their quest to save Artemis. Throughout when Zoë is mentioned and when she talks, Zoë speaks Old English. She is said to speak in a strange accent more heavily when she is upset. She shows an interest in stars, a trait that would probably come from being immortal. She is offended when Percy says Ursa Major was "the bear thing" and when Percy talks about the bear simply being a constellation, Zoë claims "It was a worthy opponent!" She does seem irritated when Thalia corrects her speech, saying "I hate this language! It changes too often!" referring to the way the English language has changed over the centuries. She also has some of her father's traits, but is a much kinder person that Percy had come to respect.

In the beginning, she seems aloof and unfriendly, but she turns out to have a big heart and endless loyalty to her lady Artemis. Deep down, Zoë was loyal and kind. When Atlas was about to kill Percy, she screamed, "NO!" and fired a handful of arrows into his armpit so he would turn on her and give Percy a chance to recover, showing that she has come to like him. She risked her life to save Artemis despite knowing that the line in the prophecy saying "One shall perish by a parent's hand" was about her. With her dying breaths she told Percy, "You spoke the truth. You are nothing like... like Hercules. I am honored that you carry this sword," referring to the fact that she used to own Riptide and was also the one that made it.

Finally, in the end, Zoë's legacy remains as her persuasion seemed to come through and Thalia declares that she will join the Hunt, to forsake men like Luke and not be the demigod in The Great Prophecy. In the end she died a hero.

Artemis
Zoe was a loyal lieutenant to Artemis. She loved Artemis over anyone, and Artemis loved her back. She said that Zoe was one of her finest attendants when at Zoe's death.

Abilities

 * Immortality due to being one of Artemis' Hunters (except if she falls in battle or breaks her oath).
 * Expert archer.
 * Highly skilled Hunter.
 * Leadership skills.
 * Can make a bow appear when she wants and also she can make them disappear.
 * Perhaps more powerful, unseen powers as she is the daughter of Atlas.
 * While not seen in the series, Zoë may possess hydrokinetic abilities, as her mother Pleione is a minor sea goddess.

Weaknesses

 * Can die if beaten in battle or if her immortality is revoked, whether forced or voluntary.
 * Is reluctant to accept help from men and campers from Camp Half-Blood.
 * Protective of her Hunters (shown in The Titan's Curse when she refused to take another Hunter on her quest when Phoebe got poisoned by the centaur blood T-shirt in fear of losing another Hunter).

Appearance
Zoë is described by Percy as having has long, silky black hair, coppery-like skin, a silver circlet around her head, a slightly upturned nose and black eyes like volcanic rocks. She gives off the aura of royalty, and makes Percy feel awkward around her by the glares she gives him (similar to the ones her father gives). She is tall, very graceful and in Percy's point of view she is very beautiful and follows some of her father's traits. She is also mentioned to look like a Persian princess.

Debatable Species
There is some confusion about Zoë's race. She is the daughter of a Titan and a sea goddess, and has immortal sisters. If she were a Titan or a sea goddess, she would not be able to be killed by her father, but Rick Riordan says that when she was disowned she lost her immortality. She regained her infinite longevity when she joined the Hunt, but could now be killed, and eventually was. A similar case is with the son of Poseidon and Gaea, Antaeus. Being a mortal daughter of a Titan, she may be the only known example of a Demi-Titan in history, the Titan version of a Half Blood, of which none have been explicitly shown in the series, other than possibly herself (However, it is known that the Titan Helios had at least one Demi-Titan son in ancient myth).

Trivia

 * In The Titan's Curse, Percy has a dream about Zoë's past. In the dream, Zoë claims that her mother is Pleione, but in the myths the mother of the Hesperides is Hesperius.
 * Her name is of Greek origin, and the meaning is "life" or "full of life."
 * She is known to speak an older form of English (e.g. instead of saying you, she says thee), because she has been immortal with the Hunters for so long. She openly admits that she hates English, because "the language changes too much." This can be used for comic relief, as when they visited Hoover Dam she makes a comment about the "Dam snack bar," oblivious to the humor. Percy, Grover, and Thalia start putting the word dam in front of everything they wanted to see.
 * Interestingly, she says that her last name is Nightshade, although back in Ancient Greece, no one had a last name. It's possible this is a title of sorts that she's picked up over the years.
 * Nightshade is an appropriate last name for Zoë as:
 * Nightshade: shadow of night and Hesperide: nymph of the sunset. Possibly foreshadowing to her lineage.
 * Her bitter relationship with Percy may be a reference to the fact that the nightshade flower is poisonous to horses, which Percy's dad created.
 * In the brazilian translation she is referred to as "'Zöe Doce-Amarga" (Zöe Sweet-Bitter).