User blog comment:SayuriDarling/The Mark of Athena Official Discussion/@comment-4737110-20121015073040/@comment-74.103.167.208-20130311201251

I think Piper wasn't useless, but out of the seven, she is the most unimportant. Like the whole thing with Mr. B. Someone explain to me how she gets credit for this? She saw it with a knife. A knife. She did nothing, the knife did it. And the idea for the ship drowning in coke thing was Percy's. She says how much she hates the Aphrodite cabin and their girly uselessness but is she really any better? In my opinion, she's a weak underdeveloped character. I don't see why Annabeth and her are friends. In TLH, Annabeth and Rachel thought she could be a daughter of Athena, but I have no idea why. She's obsessive over Jason, defeating Hercules because she's obsessing over Jason. And she almost kills the rest of them by iris messaging Leo. And the fight with Jason and Percy could be stopped with anyone with half a brain. If Annabeth was there, she could have calmed down Percy or at least knock them both out. As soon as she found out they were possessed, it was obvious that she would either have to convince them to stop (which she failed at) or knock them both out. Leo, Frank, or Hazel would be able to do that. I think the point of her character in TLH was to prove that Aphrodite wasn't useless (I think Silena was also meant to prove that), but in MoA she only proved that Aphrodite was useless. Yes, love is really powerful, it kept Percy and Annabeth together. It made Hazel rescue Nico. But Piper didn't really show how important Aphrodite is. I think she needs a big win in HoH or to play a big part in the final battle to be worthy of the seven.