Nico di Angelo

Nico di Angelo is the son of Hades and Maria di Angelo, a younger brother to Bianca di Angelo, and a main character in the Percy Jackson series. He first appears in The Titan's Curse as a minor character, although he reappears in both The Battle of the Labyrinth and The Last Olympian as a main character. He is over 70 years old, although he looks to be about 12 by the end of The Last Olympian.

History
Nico is the son of Hades and Maria di Angelo, and the younger brother of Bianca di Angelo. Not much is known about his or his sister's past.

Nico and Bianca were born before World War II, so Hades never broke the oath he took to never have any half-blood children again. They both lived in Washington DC. When Nico was nine and Bianca was ten, their mother died as Zeus struck the hotel they were staying in with lightning while trying to kill Nico and Bianca. Both were brought to the Lotus Hotel and Casino by Alecto, a Fury, disguised as a lawyer in order to protect them. After his mother died, the Oracle, showing up shortly after the destruction of the hotel, was cursed by Hades to never have her soul rest and to stay in her dead body until he and his children became accepted in Olympus, which resulted in her being the Oracle of Delphi at Camp Half-Blood Hill. He cursed her because she kept telling him that he should have given Bianca and Nico to Zeus as she knew their future. Hades erased their memories in the River Lethe so they wouldn't know who they were.

After what they thought was a month in the Lotus Hotel and Casino, which was actually about 70 years, they were taken out by the same Fury. Hades did this because he wanted one of them to be the child in the prophecy.

The Titan's Curse
Nico first appears with his sister, in a military school called Westover Hall, in Bar Harbor, Maine. Bianca and Nico are almost kidnapped by a manticore named Dr. Thorn. Thalia, Grover, Percy, and Annabeth attempt to save them, but it is the Hunters of Artemis who come to the rescue. They are sought out by Grover Underwood, who believes them to be two very powerful unknown half-bloods. Nico is about ten, and seems to be very interested in MythoMagic, a game about Greek mythology. But when Bianca accepts Artemis's proposal to become a Hunter, Nico gets angry at her for abandoning him. Percy finds Nico eavesdropping on Bianca and Zoë, and Nico successfully convinces Percy to promise to keep his sister safe. He doesn't appear again until the end of the book, where Percy explains to him that Bianca died to save the others on the quest. He immediately turns on Percy, telling him he hates him, and reminding him of the oath he took to keep Bianca safe. Percy tries to comfort him, and Nico claims he can sense her soul being judged. When four skeleton warriors appear in the camp, Nico tells them to "Go away!"' and they are swallowed by a hole in the ground that Nico creates by accident. Nico is last seen running into the woods at night. Percy then figures out that Nico is a son a of Hades after slipping on the god statue that Bianca told Percy to give to Nico if anything happened to her. The statue was of Hades, Lord of the Dead.

The Battle of the Labyrinth
Nico is first seen through the Iris message that Bianca sent to Percy. He has honed his powers as the son of Hades by the ghost of King Minos. He tried to summon Bianca's ghost many times, but failed. Frustrated, he seeks to make a deal with his father by trading "a soul for a soul."

He decides to find the soul of someone who cheated death and trade it for Bianca's. Later, Nico meets Percy, Annabeth, Tyson, and Grover at the Triple G Ranch. He'd entered Triple G Ranch to discuss finding the soul he needed with Geryon. Angered, he threatens them, but is stopped by Geryon. He still blames Percy for Bianca's death, and tells him so. He is then captured by Geryon to be sold to the Titans. When Percy offers a deal to Geryon to save him, Nico shouts that he does not want to be saved by Percy.

But Percy saves Nico, and convinces him to try and summon Bianca's spirit again. However, Bianca tells Nico not to be angry at Percy or hold grudges, because that is the fatal flaw of the children of Hades. She says to stop blaming Percy because it is really she that Nico is angry at for abandoning him, gives a warning about Kronos sensing Nico, and then disappears.

He stays at the Triple G Ranch while the others leave. Nico is tricked by Minos into going back into the maze to save Percy, but is captured by two dracanae of Kronos's. He tells Percy that only the dead accept him, and they only do that out of fear.

He escapes with Percy, Annabeth, and Rachel Elizabeth Dare, who have to go back into the Labyrinth to find Grover and Tyson. Along the way, they see Kronos (in the form of Luke), and Nico, in a desperate attempt to save everyone, shows his true powers, and makes it known to Kronos that he is a son of Hades.

In the battle of the labyrinth, Nico summons undead warriors to fight. The effort tires him out so much that he collapses for the rest of the battle, Percy finds him and helps him by giving him nectar. He releases Daedalus's soul after that, who offers his soul for ransom, but Nico decides Bianca should stay where she is.

He feels out of place at Camp Half-Blood, and refuses to eat with the other demigods. Nico summons Bianca's spirit one last time. He tells Percy that he will leave Camp Half-Blood because he feels that he does not belong there like his father doesn't belong on Olympus. Before he leaves, Percy gives him the small Hades statue that Bianca had given him before she died.

He appears again at the very end to Percy and offers a way to defeat Kronos, but is distracted by Percy's blue birthday cake (assuming he's most likely never had a birthday party in his life), and Percy offers him some, and they both go inside, which leads into the next book.

The Demigod Files
Nico is one of the three demigods (along with Thalia and Percy, or all the children of the big three) whom are summoned by his step-mother Persephone to find the unfinished Sword of Hades. His knowledge of the underworld and of its occupants within it help them complete their quest. He remains in the underworld afterwards to discuss the oncoming war with his father. Before his friends leave, he reminds Percy of his idea to defeat the Titans.

The Last Olympian
His theory to gain an edge over the Titans is to make Percy invincible by having him bathe in the River Styx, similar to the myth of Achilles. It is shown that after Bianca died, Hades feels he has no competent child, repeatedly mentioning that Bianca could do a better job at fulfilling their father's demands.

Nico is first seen in one of Percy's dreams where he is eavesdropping on some titans. It is later confirmed that this was true. Percy sees him again when walking Mrs. O'Leary. Nico is with Juniper and Leneus, discussing Grover's disappearance. Him, Percy, and Mrs. O'Leary then visit May Castellan by shadow-travel. They then enter the Underworld, where Percy is trapped by Hades and rescued by Nico. Nico helps Percy bathe in the River Styx.

It is also revealed that the lawyer who removed the children from the Lotus Hotel and Casino was the lead Fury, Alecto, in disguise. Nico attempts to summon the ghost of his mother, but Bianca tells him not to. He sees the scene of their mother's death in which Zeus blasted the building she, Hades, and the children where in to pieces. Hades, having realized what was happening too late, only managed to save the children. He then tells Alecto to wipe the children's memories of their mother's death.

In the fifth book, he finds out who his mother is, and is able to convince his father to help the campers fight. He fought in the Battle of Manhattan, with some skeleton soldiers he summoned. He is last seen ordering undead workers to build the Hades cabin, made up of solid obsidian walls with a skull over the door, and equipped with torches of green fire that never die out.

Personality
In The Titan's Curse, Nico is an annoying demigod who enjoys playing with his Mythomagic Cards that none of the others truly seem to understand. He is totally clueless and asks many questions, always annoying Percy, especially when he asks questions about Annabeth, which eventually makes Percy consider "Stuffing him in a meat flavored sack and throwing him to the wolves." He is excited about finding out that he is a demigod, and compares monsters to Mythomagic creatures. He feels abandoned when Bianca becomes a Hunter of Artemis, and, under her death, develops a grudge toward Percy for letting her die. Once he realizes that he is a son of Hades, he casts away his childhood interests and runs off on his own.

He becomes more a dark and solitary character during The Battle of the Labyrinth, saying that "only the dead respect him... and only out of fear". He believes that he will never be accepted by the living, but forgives Percy after Bianca's ghost tells him that it wasn't his fault that she died. He also accepts the small figurine of Hades that Bianca wanted him to have.

In the fifth book, The Last Olympian he brings Percy to his father to get information about his mother that proves to be the least his father can give, and his father ends up putting Percy in a dungeon. Nico later comes to help Percy escape by busting him out and by pointng at skeletons they meet which puts them to sleep. This tires him and he collapses before making the remark, "With great power. . .comes great need to take a nap." before Percy bathes in the River Styx. Even though he tricks Percy, he is quite sincere in wanting to help him with the prophecy and the war.

Nico is later proven wrong in the belief he will not be accepted by the living. All the campers of Camp Half-Blood welcome Nico cheerfully, and it is stated that "If you come into battle with a hundred undead soldiers to save the day, you're everyone's friend."

Physical description
He is said to have shaggy and messy black hair, olive skin, dark brown (wild) eyes, and wears mostly black (a pair of ripped black jeans, black shirt) sort of gothic, and by the end of The Battle of the Labyrinth, a skull ring. He is also mentioned on several occasions wearing an aviator's jacket, most likely because he had distant relatives in WWII. He usually wears a shirt with a skull on it.

Flaw
Nico di Angelo's fatal flaw is holding grudges, as Bianca tells him - which, in his case, can lead to not wanting help or asking to be saved in deadly situations because he doesn't like someone. Examples are his not wanting to be helped by Percy, even when Geryon was going to sell him to the Titans and not wanting to go back in the Labyrinth with them. Bianca shares this with him, as she also had the same fatal flaw in life, although this didn't lead to her death. Bianca also says that holding grudges is the fatal flaw of Hades' demigod children. In the fifth book, Nico tells his father that he (Hades) is holding a grudge that could end up killing the Olympians and the campers.

Items

 * A Stygian iron sword. It is three feet long, and black. It helps Nico to channel his power to control and summon the dead, and it can also drain souls to give the sword more power. The sword is unlike the normal demigod ones, because only Hades and his children can use it. It is difficult to forge, because it must be cooled in the River Styx.
 * Though not actually qualified as a "Magic Item", he is seen wearing black armor in The Last Olympian with a skull shaped visor.
 * A skull ring shown in numerous books.
 * A Hades Mythomagic figurine, given to him by Percy after Bianca died.
 * In the battle of the labyrinth he had a pair of Daedalus' wings.

Powers
As a child of Hades, Nico has many powers, often relating to death, shadows, and the Underworld; he is considerably more trained in using his powers than other children of the Big Three, such as Thalia and Percy. His confirmed powers include:
 * Shadow Travel.
 * Summoning of the dead.
 * Putting the dead to sleep.
 * Communing with the dead.
 * Umbrakinesis, control over darkness for various uses such as solidifying it for attacks and to hide in the shadows.
 * Destroying skeleton warriors.
 * Banishing the dead.
 * Releasing the souls of people who should have died (i.e. Daedalus).
 * Knowing when a person dies.
 * Deep knowledge of the Underworld.
 * Geokinesis.
 * May resurrect the deceased.
 * Knows when a person's life is being evaluated in the Underworld.
 * Can create fissures that swallows up dead creatures and traps them in the Underworld; it is not known if he can trap the living.
 * He might possess pyrokinesis like his father made blackfire balls.

Some of these powers are tiring for Nico, particularly Shadow Travel, summoning the dead, and putting the dead to sleep.

Nico also has several notable traits associated with his father that may not necessarily be considered powers. Nico radiates fear and death, albeit, not to the same degree as his father. He can get along well with the creatures of the Underworld and has a small amount of control over the three Furies and uses ghosts as messengers. Like Hades, he is unnaturally good at lying. Nico is also very stealthy due to the time he often spends on his own doing reconnaissance. Nico also possesses the rare ability to travel in and out of the underworld alive; Hermes is the only other being that is known to be capable of this.

Also, he is a former master at the game Mythomagic,which may be because of his Immortal Greek relatives. After the death of his sister, however, Nico comes to loathe his old life and burns his Mythomagic cards in The Battle of the Labyrinth. He later accepts Bianca's posthumous gift of a Hades figurine and reveals he still remembers many battle stats from the game.

Film
Nico's character has not been cast, and likely will not be until the film version of The Titan's Curse begins production.

Etymology

 * The name Nico is most likely derived from the prefix necro-, meaning the dead. His surname is Italian for "of angels," alluding to at his role as the Lord of the Dead's son, as angels are the spirits of those who've died.