User blog comment:SayuriDarling/The House of Hades Official Discussion/@comment-4503464-20131107130909

IceFireWarden's Sort Of Review On The House of Hades

(Prepare For All Hades To Break Loose)

Good morning/noon/evening/night everyone, IceFireWarden here. Some of you on this wiki know who I am. Others don't probably, I'm sort of a Lurker-Lover. Anyway, just think of me as that annoying grumpy uncle who sold your pet puppy to the neighbor only to replace it with a puppy dragon. Oh, and I sell cookie brownie pizza out of my garage. I've been busy lately, which is why it's taken me so long to post this. This was actually on my bucket list…. *shudders*

And I'm rambling. Let's get started, shall we?

HAZEL, FRANK, AND PERCY ARE NOW SERIOUSLY OVERPOWERED

One of the major things that bothered me about the House of Hades is that some of the characters have become seriously to powerful for their own good:

HAZEL: I don't know about you all, but I thought Hazel getting the power to vastly manipulate the Mist was a sleazy shot at making her stronger, even though she was pretty strong already. In the Son of Neptune, I loved the segments where Hazel used her powers over gems and precious metals to her advantage. That made her unique among the PJO/HOO series because nobody else had something like that. But the whole thing with Hecate wanting to speak with her and make her all magical was confusing for me. Why? Why does she need the power to perform Jedi Mind tricks on the enemy? Not only was it a strange concept, but completely out of the blue. And I found both scenes involving her using the power on Turtle Man and Heifer Woman equally confusing.

FRANK: I seriously hated how RR retconned Frank from being the big clumsy but lovable oaf he was and made him into the typical muscle bound Ares/Mars kid. It was like Riordan went "Oh man, Frank is such a klutz and stuff. I need to make him better looking and more physically attracting to the eye!". And the parts where he used the Blessing of Ares/Mars like Prince Adam yelling 'I HAVE THE POWER' to turn into He-Man disappointed me. The first time was okay, even though I hated how he took on all the monsters himself. The second time was full blown irritating to be completely honest.

PERCY: Obviously the worst out of everyone, and I'm not just saying this to be a jerk. Percy being able to conjure water out of no where? That makes sense, he is a son of Poseidon. Creating personal hurricanes? Makes since to a bit, goes with the Hades/Zeus/Poseidon Circle of Power thing, since you can't evoke one of them without evoking the other (Water forms the hurricane, which gathers darkness, and lightning forms in the darkness). But being able to control blood and poison? What in Hades? That's way overpowered. I mean, that's like Jason going "I'm a son of Zeus, I can use my air powers to suffocate you in your sleep!" or Nico going "Hah, when it's night time I'm going to have the darkness eat you alive!". C'mon, RR? I know that Percy is based off your son and all but you don't have to keep shoving he is awesome in our faces, no disrespect intended.

JASON IS BECOMING INTERESTING

One of the best things in the book was Jason's character development. While he's still far from being his own man, he's no longer in the Generic Male Teenage Hero crowd anymore. He's really becoming a remarkable character in more ways than one. He's starting to realize that he doesn't have any fun as a Roman and actually wants to be a Greek. He also appears to be no longer brooding over being a leader; in fact he gave up his Praetorship to Frank so they could reach the Doors of Death. And the parts where he sticks up for Nico and actually tries to befriend him (unlike the others, who don't even want to be in the vicinity of the poor kid) made me deeply respect him on a personal level. He's no longer the empty guy in The Lost Hero, he's grown as a character and is trying to live his life his way, not Hera's or anyone else's.

PIPER IS STILL AS USELESS AS EVER

Piper, the girl who makes the two women I've dated seem sane in comparison, is still as annoying as ever. Yes, while she seems to no longer just care about Jason anymore, and is actually trying to improve her fighting skills by sparring with Hazel is commendable, but it just ain't good enough (start's singing that song in his head; don't judge me). Her charmspeaking Festus to life was, to be brutally honest, one of the worst plot devices in the PJO/HOO books. If books could have Cutscene Power To The Max, that scene would be it. That was dumb, there is no reason for a girl with a horn that shoots food and probably uses it too fantasize about – okay, let me stop before I say something X Rated. But yeah, using the Power of Love to awaken a machine was so cliche it almost hurt. Besides, she only got like one POV. That just shows how much RR values her as a character.

REYNA IS BEING PRESSURED

I don't like what's happening to my sweet, little, insanely hot Reyna, not at all. But at the same time, I'm loving it (Oh good, I've just discovered I'm a horrible boyfriend in both real life and in the sick bowels of my head). She's being pressured by everything at once. Her troops, her enemies, and her allies. She hasn't gotten a break and you can visibly tell she's breaking because of all the emotional abuse and I'm not there to hold her hand and kiss her goodnight. I can't way to see what happens to her in the last book.

LEO AND CALYPSO IS WEIRD, BUT PROBABLE

This was one of the weirder segments of the book. I mean, we have Percy finding out that he got cursed by Calypso because he left her to be with Annabeth. Now we have some weird cliche "I LOVE YOU I HATE YOU I LOVE YOU AGAIN" scenario with Leo and the immortal goddess. I mean, it's cute from the cute angle. But from the harsh unforgiving light of the IFW angle it's not going to workout in the end. I mean, Leo is a mortal and Calypso is a immortal being. The Oath on the River Styx was retarded to me. "I PROMISE TO COME BACK FOR YOU, MY LOVE! EVEN THOUGH I'LL END UP DYING BEFORE YOU DO". Unless Calypso loses her divinity, then this "Leso" as you will, ain't going to work out.

ANNABETH BECAME THE NAGGING EX-GIRLFRIEND (IN THEORY)

Almost to the end of this rant. You guys and gals happy about that? The Tartarus parts were intolerable for only one reason: Percabeth and their cliche undying love *shudders*. Annabeth to me, while being a great partner and thinker while in the metaphorically unholy pit, was whining. It was getting irritating reading her praise Percy and all his awesome-bleugh. Romance is endearing, but to much is annoying. I want Percabeth to have a full on fight in BoO about something.

NICO BEING GAY IS A NICE CHANGE, BUT CAME COMPLETELY OUT OF NOWHERE

And so I save the best for last. I have no qualms at all of Nico di Angelo being a homosexual. Heck, I've been reading about homosexual characters in books for years before it was a thing (Oh yeah, I said it. Come at me bros). But there was no foreshadowing, no hints, no anything. Jeez, the only thing that we got was "he's nervous around girls and he looks up too Percy". Oh, and trust me, him liking Percy was a huge disappointment for me. I mean, now Even The Guys Want Him? Annoying. It could've been anyone else but Percy. Even Chiron- Oh gods, wait I take that one back.

OTHER

Other things I didn't like was how Nyx, one of the most powerful beings in existence, got trolled by a bunch of annoying teenagers. How every freaking normal enemy in every freaking book is a child of Poseidon (c'mon, now. There's been a total of about 8+ Sea Kids in the PJO/HOO series. Give them a break and find us another monster to hate). Oh, and Bob. I metaphorically hate you, Papa RR, for making me cry about Bob. I will never let go of the pain…

All and all, the book was good. I give it a 8.5 out of 10. Now, I don't know if anybody is going to read this but I just want to say that I'm glad I finally wrote this. It's…been a bit hectic in my life right now and I didn't know if I could even pull something like this off. I'm going to try to be on a bit more and edit some stuff actually. Been thinking of making a "Rivalries" and "Deceased" page on the wiki (if anybody does this I swear I will murder your soul). And I'll be able to speak to you guys on Saturdays and Sundays too, so…get on chat, like y'know?

This was IceFireWarden, signing out. Good night/evening/noon/morning everyone, and tell some jokes and kick some butt at whatever you are doing. Peace.

P.S: I didn't use a single curse word or kinky material. I'm maturing/evolving again *forcibly ejects food from stomach*…ew

P.S.S: I lo-*gags*-ve you a*gags again*ll. Don't tell anyone.