User blog comment:SayuriDarling/The House of Hades Official Discussion/@comment-24062679-20131031014832/@comment-24062146-20131031023121

I think the detachment from the newer characters has to do with the changing viewpoints. In the first series it was all Percy. The people we saw most were those important to him, making them important to us. Now, we get 3 new characters, then for a whole book we don't even see them, except for Leo's cameo at the end of SoN  -in which we had several more new characters. The 3rd book we suddenly have 7 main characters, some of which we don't get a POV. HoH was the first time we had Jason's point of view since way back in the beginning. We haven't had a chance to get to know him enough to be truly attached to him. If you go to a party and spend 10 minutes talking to each person, how well will you get to know them, compared to going to a quiet dinner the night before and sitting with only a few people?

That said, I still found Leo very easy to relate to, hands down one of my faves, right up there with with Neville Longbottom. In fact if my puppy had been a boy, I was going to name hime Leo.