Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-35094745-20180504013804/@comment-39666245-20190603195435

I hate to admit it, but it was very well played on Rick's part.

For the entire HoH series, we've been told that there are no consequences whatsoever. No one died. And then TBM comes out and BOOM! Jason is dead.

I couldn't believe it when I had first read TBM last summer and gods I cried. I grew close to him despite my initial reactions to TLH being "uh, he's such a sorry replacement for Percy". He was kind, brave, and extremely patient (TLH? Basically everyone screaming questions at him and him explaining multiple times that he doesn't know because he's amnesiac. Gosh he's just too nice.) not to mention his over-humbleness, yet this boy dies at the hands of a maniac. He had an entire life ahead of him.

There you go, Apollo. Cry. Sob. Take that and try harder.

Apollo needed this death. Jason... just strikes a bit too close to home for him. He's one of the most powerful demigods alive, Apollo's half-brother, yet his life appears to be so dispensable, it hurts Apollo and it certainly hurts us because for the first time, we can see Jason as himself, not "one of the Seven" or "Percy's equivalence". He's Jason. Like a good Roman, he plays by the rules. He protects.

I love how TBM ends with Apollo saying "I'm Apollo. And I'll remember." You know at once that this is a promise he's going to keep. At first, he probably took Jason a bit too lightly in a "sure, sounds sweet, I'll do it" way. But when that promise becomes the closing line of TBM? I'm seriously proud.

Guys, Jason didn't die in vain. And that's the best death a character can ask for.