I really enyjoyed making the other one, so I decided to make another,
Part A: My frustration over Hazel
Rick really sold Hazel short, and it pisses me off. Due to Rick's toxic female ideologies which he dubs as "feminism", she naturally wasn't going to be the best-written character. However, the way he wrote her really pisses me off because of the potential she had, but he never made the effort to touch it.
I don't like the way she was written. Rick didn't even try to make her act her age, she has the emotional maturity of an adult and acts as a mother figure to 17 and 16-year-olds. She has lost most of the hobbies that she used to have, like drawing, and has no defining traits that make her seem her age. Hazel not being written as a child adds to the popular idea that young black girls are older and more mature when they are children just like their white counterparts. And then Rick cursed, killed, raised from the dead, and then tossed her into a random love triangle in the middle of a literal war. This all circles back to how poorly written Rick's female characters are, but Hazel was one of those examples that I kind of brushed over.
Part B: Trials of Apollo was lowkey underwhelming.
I just think that there were a lot of loose ends that still needed to be tied by the end of the series. Like, what the hell happened to Micheal Yew? That Apollo kid that went missing? I thought he was going to come crip walking out of the Grove of Dodona or something like that. I'm not sure what exactly I was expecting to be honest, but I expected a lot more since it's the last series.
Part C: Has glowstick Will been canon since 2019?
I recently revisited the ReadRiordan site and I happened to see this article posted in the winter of 2019. And I saw this:
First of all, since when did Nico learn how to use a phone? Second, since when did Mythomagic (I'm assuming) become an online game, I thought it was a card game. And lastly, "glowy"? This could be interpreted two ways, either literal (which happens to be canon), or figuratively. But either way, I flipped out when I read it (in a good way) and I don't even like Solangelo that much.
Part D: Jason's relationship with Nico is severely underrated.
Though I don't appreciate the fact that he was one of the people who wanted to leave Nico to die in Mark of Athena and was highly rude to him at first, I really appreciate his friendship with Nico. I gained a lot more respect for him after he defended Nico after Leo made an offensive comment about him behind his back. And I really like this line from Blood of Olympus:
"Gods … Nico. Over the past few days, every time Jason sacrificed a portion of a meal to Jupiter, he prayed to his dad to help Nico. That kid had gone through so much, and yet he had volunteered for the most difficult job: transporting the Athena Parthenos statue to Camp Half-Blood. If he didn’t succeed, the Roman and Greek demigods would slaughter each other."
The quote really speaks for itself. And the fact that he sacrificed meals for Nico makes me a little misty-eyed not gonna lie. He cared so much for him and actually appreciated him and the risk he was taking. And then at the end of the same book, this happens:
"‘I’m staying.’ (...) ‘That’s – that’s fantastic! Dude!’ Jason opened his arms for a hug, then froze. ‘Right. No touching. Sorry.’ Nico grunted. ‘I suppose we can make an exception.’ Jason squeezed him so hard Nico thought his ribs would crack. ‘Oh, man,’ Jason said. ‘Wait till I tell Piper. Hey, since I’m all alone in my cabin too, you and I can share a table in the dining hall. We can team up for capture the flag and sing-along contests and –’"
I think this is the last time we see them interact with each other, and then in the next series Jason dies (cue more trauma and loss or Nico). He cared so much for him and treated him with so much respect (the rest of the Seven could never, except Hazel).
Part E: The Seven (Mark of Athena)
Heroes of Olympus was full of disappointments, and the Seven is, unfortunately, one of them. I mean, they weren't even a decent team, they were all just awkwardly there and quickly paired off into relationships. Mark of Athena and the way they handled Nico literally dying in a jar was the tipping point for me.
First of all, I hate how there was no sense of urgency from anyone on the crew when Hazel expressed that her brother was suffocating in a jar. Percy of all people there should be concerned since he literally swore to protect him in the previous series. He was so obsessed with Annabeth that nothing or no one else mattered. If Hazel hadn't brought him to his senses, would he have saved him? Probably not. As for the rest of the crew, I didn't like the way they treated Nico after he got out of Tartarus. They were all like "omg he's so scary lol", "why is he acting like that? He's so moody". Like, he just got back from super hell, what do you expect him to do? Dance? And then we have Percy who almost threw bread at him despite being on the literal brink of death. Wtf?
Anyways...
I want to wish everyone a very happy Juneteenth! For those of y'all who don't know what that is, Juneteenth is a federal holiday celebrated on 19 June to commemorate the emancipation of enslaved people in the US. I probably won't be on Fandom that much (I'm going to be eating and playing Spades all day lol) so I just wanted to say this in advance.
Thoughts?