User blog comment:SayuriDarling/The Mark of Athena Official Discussion/@comment-3146930-20121030192421

So after reading a comment below wondering what Aphrodite told Reyna, it made me notice something. There are a few moments in this book where things are mentioned, but we don't really get any details. There of course is the thing with Reyna talking with Aphrodite/Venus. All we know is that it made Reyna seem "shaken up. Maybe she got a prophecy or some bad news. Reyna never acted the same around [Jason] after that." Then when we meet Aphrodite/Venus, all she says is that they had a nice little chat in the park. Knowing Aphrodite from her meeting with Percy in The Titan's Curse, she most likely got Reyna to notice that she had feelings for Jason, something she herself may not have noticed at the time. But that is speculation and we really don't know what they talked about.

We also have the statue of Athena. It is somehow the bane of the giants and has the power to heal the rift between Roman and Greek demigods, but we never learn how. I mean how it is supposed to heal the rift is never explained. Maybe by Romans helping the Greeks find it would settle the score, make Athena forgive the Romans, but I don't know. The statue also is said to radiate some kind of power so maybe it can somehow help defeat the giants or whatever, but once again it is never explained.

We also never really get a clear answer to why the members of Camp Fish-Blood don't want to meet Percy besides undersea politics. It seems like it was only put in there to make Percy feel bad. While I know we are going to get a few answers in the next book, I don't see why some of this stuff wasn't included in this book.