Nico di Angelo

"The way to beat Luke. If I'm right, it's the only way you'll stand a chance."

- Nico di Angelo

Nico di Angelo is the son of Hades and Maria di Angelo. He is the younger brother of Bianca di Angelo. He is 12 years old, although he supposed to be about 82 years old (revealed in The Titan's Curse) by the end of The Last Olympian.

History
Nico is the son of Hades and Maria di Angelo, and the younger brother of Bianca di Angelo. Not much is known about his or his sister's past.

Nico and Bianca were born before World War II, so Hades never broke the oath he took to never have any half-blood children again. They both lived in Washington DC. When Nico was about ten years old and Bianca twelve years old, their mother died as Zeus struck the hotel they were staying in with lightning while trying to kill Nico and Bianca. Both were brought to the Lotus Hotel and Casino by Alecto, a Fury, disguised as a lawyer in order to protect them. Alecto was also instructed by Hades to let them bathe in Lethe to clear their memories. After his mother died, the Oracle, showing up shortly after the destruction of the hotel, was cursed by Hades to never have her soul rest and to stay in her dead body until he and his children became accepted in Olympus, which resulted in her being the Oracle of Delphi at Camp Half-Blood Hill.

After what they thought was a month in the Lotus Hotel and Casino, which was actually about 70 years, they were taken out by Alecto who was disguised as a lawyer. Hades did this because he wanted one of them to be the child in the prophecy and not an "idiot" and "idiot" son of Poseidon, referring to Percy.

The Titan's Curse
Nico first appears with his sister, in a military school called Westover Hall, in Bar Harbor, Maine. Bianca and Nico are almost kidnapped by a manticore named Dr. Thorn. Thalia, Grover, Percy, and Annabeth Chase attempt to save them, but it is the Hunters of Artemis who come to the rescue. They are sought out by Grover Underwood, who believes them to be two very powerful unknown half-bloods. Nico is about ten, and seems to be very interested in Mythomagic, a game about Greek mythology. But when Bianca accepts Artemis's proposal to become a Hunter, Nico gets angry at her for abandoning him. Percy finds Nico eavesdropping on Bianca and Zoë, and Nico successfully convinces Percy to promise to keep his sister safe. He doesn't appear again until the end of the book, where Percy explains to him that Bianca died to save the others on the quest. He immediately turns on Percy, telling him he hates him, and reminding him of the oath he took to keep Bianca safe. Percy tries to comfort him, and Nico claims he can sense her soul being judged. When four skeleton warriors appear in the camp, Nico tells them to "Go away!" and they are swallowed by a hole in the ground that Nico creates by accident. Nico is last seen running into the woods at night. Percy then figures out that Nico is a son a of Hades after slipping on the god statue that Bianca told Percy to give to Nico if anything happened to her. The statue was of Hades, Lord of the Underworld.

The Battle of the Labyrinth
Nico is first seen through the Iris message that Bianca sent to Percy. He has honed his powers as the son of Hades by the ghost of King Minos, who had been training him. He tried to summon Bianca's ghost many times, but failed. Frustrated, he seeks to make a deal with his father by trading "a soul for a soul." Percy thinks that Nico is after him but Nico is after somebody else.

He decides to find the soul of someone who cheated death and trade it for Bianca's. Later, Nico meets Percy, Annabeth, Tyson, and Grover at the Triple G Ranch. He'd entered Triple G Ranch to discuss finding the soul he needed with Geryon. Angered, he threatens them, but is stopped by Geryon. He still blames Percy for Bianca's death, and tells him so. He is then captured by Geryon to be sold to the Titans. When Percy offers a deal to Geryon to save him, Nico shouts that he does not want to be saved by Percy.

But Percy saves Nico, and convinces him to try and summon Bianca's spirit again. However, Bianca tells Nico not to be angry at Percy or hold grudges, because that is the fatal flaw of the children of Hades. She says to stop blaming Percy because it is really she that Nico is angry at for abandoning him, gives a warning about Kronos sensing Nico, and then disappears.

He stays at the Triple G Ranch while the others leave. Nico is tricked by Minos into going back into the maze to save Percy, but is captured by two dracanae of Kronos's. He tells Percy that only the dead accept him, and they only do that out of fear.

He escapes with Percy, Annabeth, and Rachel, who have to go back into the Labyrinth to find Grover and Tyson. Along the way, they see Kronos (in the form of Luke), and Nico, in a desperate attempt to save everyone, shows his true powers, and makes it known to Kronos that he is a son of Hades.

In the battle of the labyrinth, Nico summons undead warriors to fight. The effort tires him out so much that he collapses for the rest of the battle, Percy finds him and helps him by giving him nectar. He releases Daedalus's soul after that, who offers his soul for ransom, but Nico decides Bianca should stay where she is.

He feels out of place at Camp Half-Blood, and refuses to eat with the other demigods. Nico summons Bianca's spirit one last time. He tells Percy that he will leave Camp Half-Blood because he feels that he does not belong there like his father doesn't belong on Olympus. Before he leaves, Percy gives him the small Hades statue that Bianca had given him before she died.

He appears again at the very end to Percy and offers a way to defeat Kronos, but is distracted by Percy's blue birthday cake (assuming he's most likely never had a birthday party in his life), and Percy offers him some, and they both go inside, which leads into the next book.

The Demigod Files
Nico is one of the three demigods (along with Thalia and Percy, or all the children of the big three) whom are summoned by his step-mother Persephone to find the unfinished Sword of Hades. His knowledge of the underworld and of its occupants within it help them complete their quest. He remains in the underworld afterwards to discuss the oncoming war with his father. Before his friends leave, he reminds Percy of his idea to defeat the Titans.

The Last Olympian
His theory to gain an edge over the Titans is to make Percy invincible by having him bathe in the River Styx, similar to the myth of Achilles. It is shown that after Bianca died, Hades feels he has no competent child, repeatedly mentioning that Bianca could do a better job at fulfilling their father's demands.

Nico is first seen in one of Percy's dreams where he is eavesdropping on some Titans. It is later confirmed that this was true. Percy sees him again when walking Mrs. O'Leary. Nico is with Juniper and Leneus, discussing Grover's disappearance. Him, Percy, and Mrs. O'Leary then visit May Castellan by shadow-travel. They then enter the Underworld, where Percy is trapped by Hades and rescued by Nico. Nico helps Percy bathe in the River Styx.

It is also revealed that the lawyer who removed the children from the Lotus Hotel and Casino was the lead Fury, Alecto, in disguise. Nico attempts to summon the ghost of his mother, but Bianca tells him not to. He sees the scene of their mother's death in which Zeus blasted the building she, Hades, and the children where in to pieces. Hades, having realized what was happening too late, only managed to save the children. He then tells Alecto to wipe the children's memories of their mother's death.

In the fifth book, he finds out who his mother is, and is able to convince his father to help the campers fight. He fought in the Battle of Manhattan, with some skeleton soldiers he summoned. He is last seen ordering un-dead workers to build the Hades cabin, made up of solid obsidian walls with a skull over the door, and equipped with torches of green fire that never die out.

The Lost Hero
Nico is mentioned in The Lost Hero to be searching for Percy along with Tyson, Grover and the Hunters of Artemis, but otherwise doesn't appear. It is to be assumed that he doesn't stay at Camp Half-Blood much because Annabeth said he sometimes shows up.

Personality
In The Titan's Curse, Nico is a young, mysterious demigod who enjoys playing with his Mythomagic Cards that none of the others truly seem to understand. He is totally clueless and asks many questions, always annoying Percy, especially when he asks questions about Annabeth, which eventually makes Percy consider "Stuffing him in a meat flavored sack and throwing him to the wolves." He is excited about finding out that he is a Demigod, and compares monsters to Mythomagic creatures. He feels abandoned when Bianca becomes a Hunter of Artemis, and, after her death, develops a grudge toward Percy for letting her die. Once he realizes that he is a son of Hades, he casts away his childhood interests and runs off on his own.

He becomes more a dark and solitary character during The Battle of the Labyrinth, saying that "only the dead respect him... and only out of fear". He believes that he will never be accepted by the living, but forgives Percy after Bianca's ghost tells him that it wasn't his fault that she died. He also accepts the small figurine of Hades that Bianca wanted him to have.

In the fifth book, The Last Olympian he brings Percy to his father to get information about his mother that proves to be the least his father can give, and his father ends up putting Percy in a dungeon. Nico later comes to help Percy escape by busting him out and by pointing at skeletons they meet which puts them to sleep. This tires him and he collapses before making the remark, "With great power. . .comes great need to take a nap." before Percy bathes in the River Styx. Even though he tricks Percy, he is quite sincere in wanting to help him with the prophecy and the war.

Nico is later proven wrong in the belief he will not be accepted by the living. All the campers of Camp Half-Blood welcome Nico cheerfully, and it is stated that "If you come into battle with a hundred undead soldiers to save the day, you're everyone's friend."

Physical description
He is said to have shaggy and messy black hair, olive skin, dark brown (wild) eyes, and wears mostly black (a pair of ripped black jeans, black shirt) sort of gothic, and by the end of The Battle of the Labyrinth, a silver skull ring. He is also mentioned on several occasions wearing an aviator's jacket, most likely because he had distant relatives in WWII.

Flaw
Nico di Angelo's fatal flaw is holding grudges, as Bianca's ghost tells him - which, in his case, can lead to not wanting help or asking to be saved in deadly situations because he doesn't like someone. Examples are his not wanting to be helped by Percy, even when Geryon was going to sell him to the Titans and not wanting to go back in the Labyrinth with them. Bianca shares this with him, as she also had the same fatal flaw in life, although this didn't lead to her death. Bianca also says that holding grudges is the fatal flaw of Hades' demigod children. In the fifth book, Nico tells his father that he (Hades) is holding a grudge that could end up killing the Olympians and the campers.

Items

 * A Stygian iron sword. It is three feet long, and black. It helps Nico to channel his power to control and summon the dead, and it can also drain souls to give the sword more power. The sword is unlike the normal demigod ones, because only Hades and his children can use it. It is difficult to forge, because it must be cooled in the River Styx, which made it indestructible.
 * He is seen wearing black armor in The Last Olympian with a skull shaped visor.
 * A skull ring shown in numerous books, possibly made out of stygian iron to help control his powers.
 * Mythomagic figurines and cards. He throws them in a fire in fury in The Battle of the Labyrinth.
 * In The Battle of the Labyrinth he had a pair of Daedalus' wings.
 * A red travel rose he didn't use in The Sword of Hades.
 * A Hades Mythomagic figurine, given to him by Percy.
 * A watch that activates his armor.

Powers
As a demigod, Nico has ADHD and Dyslexia. As a son of Hades, Nico is himself an underworld deity. He is considerably more trained in using his powers than other children of the Big Three, such as Thalia and Percy. His confirmed powers include:


 * Shadow travel.
 * Nico Can cause earth tremors so powerful, they can shatter the pillars of a mountain fortress.
 * Summoning of the dead.
 * Putting the dead to sleep.
 * Communing with the dead.
 * Umbrakinesis, control over darkness for various uses such as solidifying it for attacks and to hide in the shadows.
 * Destroying skeleton warriors.
 * Banishing the dead.
 * Releasing people who should have died (i.e. Daedalus).
 * Knowing when a person dies, which manifests as a ringing in his ears.
 * Deep knowledge of the Underworld.
 * Geokinesis (control of the earth,ability to create earth tremors,and open fissures in the earth)
 * Knows when a person's life is being evaluated in the Underworld.
 * Can create fissures that swallows up creatures and traps them in the Underworld.
 * Dark Pyrokinesis, use of dark flames of Hell, like his father.

Some of these powers are (like all demigods) tiring for Nico, particularly Shadow Travel, summoning the dead, and putting the dead to sleep.

Nico also has several notable underworld traits, Nico radiates fear and death, albeit, not to the same degree as his father (a typical Underworld trait) the creatures of the Underworld and has a small amount of control over the three Furies and uses ghosts as messengers. Like Hades, he is unnaturally good at lying, even noting himself saying in The Titan's curse: "I'll make something up; I'm good at that". Nico is also very stealthy due to the time he often spends on his own doing reconnaissance. Nico also possesses the natural ability to travel in and out of the underworld alive due to the fact that the underworld is part of him and he of it; Hermes is the only non-underworld god that is known to be capable of this, marking it as a rare ability. And create entrances to the underworld when banishing a dead person, Hellhound, skeleton etc, however they often appear unnavigable, as mostly they are pits and flaming fissures in the earth. His powers seem to always drain him of energy, such as shadow traveling, summoning the dead, etc.

Film
Nico's character has not been cast, and likely will not be until the film version of The Titan's Curse begins production. Although a few people have been reported to have been interested in the job.

Etymology

 * The name Nico is the diminutive form of Nicolò, the Italian form of the Greek Nikolaos (Nicholas), meaning "victory of the people." It is most likely intended to evoke the prefix necro-, meaning the death. His surname is Italian for "of angels," alluding to at his role as the Lord of the Dead's son, as angels are the spirits of those who've died.