Medusa

Medusa (Μέδουσα in Ancient Greek) is a Gorgon which appears in The Lightning Thief. She was a daughter of Phorcys and Ceto. After Medusa and Poseidon desecrated Athena's virgin temple, Athena cursed Medusa and her sisters. Her hair was turned to snakes and anyone who would look upon her gaze would turn to stone. She was once a beautiful woman before Athena cursed her. Her only company is her statues. However sometimes her curse only affects men and women could not enter her "temple" ( lair)

The Lightning Thief
Posing as an old lady, Medusa lures people into "Aunty Em's Gnome Emporium" and then turns them into statues by making them look at her face, mostly of all, directly at her eyes. At one point, Percy, Annabeth, and Grover are lured into the shop by the smell of food, during their Quest. Medusa feigns kindness, but then attempts to turn them into statues. After a long struggle, Percy defeats Medusa by severing her head with Riptide, his celestial bronze sword, in which he then sends to Olympus via the Hermes Express. Her severed head is later used by Percy for several other purposes such as giving it to his mom, who later uses the head to turn Smelly Gabe to stone. Medusa had turned many people and creatures into statues, including Grover's Uncle Ferdinand (Who was revealed to be a searcher like his brother and nephew.) Grover mentioned the statue looking like his uncle from the start but did not realize that it was actually him until Medusa revealed herself.

The Last Olympian
Although Medusa does not appear in this book, her lair was being used by Kronos as his base in the Second Titan War; while speaking to Ethan, he mentioned that unfortunately for him (and good for Ethan), Medusa had not reformed yet ever since Percy had defeated her.

Personality


Medusa was also kind to Percy in her own strange way, and wanted him to stay with her forever by becoming a statue because, according to Annabeth, she and Poseidon had a thing in the past. Since Percy was Poseidon's son, she didn't want him to suffer, unlike Annabeth who she wanted to turn to a statue and destroy her because Annabeth's Olympian goddess mother was Athena. That thing also led to part of the (and probably the most important) reason Athena resents Poseidon; he desecrated her virgin temple with Medusa by going in and having a sexual relationship with Medusa in the temple. Medusa wanted to turn Annabeth to stone as revenge on Athena for turning her into a Gorgon.

Oddly, she referred to Percy and Annabeth as Godlings, a term used in the Kane Chronicles to describe people possessed by the Egyptian Gods. It is unknown why she referred to them as this.

Physical Appearances
Medusa is described as an old woman with wrinkled, coffee colored skin and snakes for hair. She also has a middle eastern accent.

Powers

 * If someone looks into her eyes, he/she turns to stone. She is said to be petrifyingly ugly.
 * She can use the snakes in her hair as a offensive weapon.
 * Her hands curl into sharp claws that can tear through flesh.
 * She has an extremely persuasive voice; she could slightly charmspeak.

Film
In The Lightning Thief movie, Uma Thurman plays Medusa. Percy is seen using an Apple iPod Touch (so he can see what he's fighting without getting turned to stone) to fight Medusa in the film, as opposed to the globe he uses in the book. In the book, she never gets near turning Percy to stone but in the film, Percy is only stopped from opening his eyes (Medusa's snakes were opening Percy's eyes forcefully) by Medusa being run over by Annabeth and Grover in a pickup truck formerly used by one of Medusa's customers that had been turned into stome.

She is shown as being a beautiful middle aged woman with flawless Caucasian skin.

Also See

 * Medusa's head