Board Thread:Antaeus' Arena: Audience Chamber/@comment-1515612-20160617203709/@comment-5471249-20160619130442

Sonofchaos2222 wrote: Chrysaor is a better swordsman because he bested Percy, and Percy bested Ares Not necessarily, as such a conclusion would only come from scanty analysis of the context of both respective duels. Recall how Percy refers to Chrysaor as a being that is just as skilled a swordsman as Ares is, so, taking into account that experienced 16-year-old Percy was swiftly beaten by Chrysaor, and that Ares managed to beat Luke Castellan (who had himself defeated a 13-year-old Percy, without much effort), that would mean that inexperienced 12-year-old Percy had managed to defeat Ares only because the god of war had held back in that duel quite a bit, due to him being overconfident. Otherwise, we would have a huge paradoxical plot hole, which, in turn, would be out of character for Riordan. As such, going back to Percy's statement, since he says that Chrysaor is equivalently skilled in swordsmanship as Ares, a duel btw the two ultimately becomes a toss-up.