| “ | Hot? You dare insult me? I am cold, Leo Valdez. Very, very cold. | ” |
–Khione, to Leo after he calls her hot in The Lost Hero. | ||
Khione (pronounced "KIE-oh-nee") is the Greek goddess of snow, daughter of Boreas, god of the North Wind and Winter, and sister of Zethes and Calais. She is depicted as a goddess in the series, although in some myths she is visualized as a snow nymph. Her Roman counterpart, Chione, is sometimes used as merely an alternative way of spelling her name. Khione likes to turn people into ice sculptures.
History[]
Khione is the daughter of Boreas, the North Wind, and the Athenian princess Oreithyia, whom he abducted. She was loved by Poseidon and bore him a son, Eumolpus. In fear of her father's wrath, she cast the child in the sea, but Poseidon saved him and entrusted him to the care of Benthesikyme. The Eumolpidae in charge of the Eleusinian Mysteries claimed descent from her, as the mother of Eumolpus with Poseidon. She was hardly ever represented in Greek or Roman mythology. However, in some myths, it is claimed that she had a daughter, Sais, with an unknown man and the baby was killed by the Fates as soon as she was born. She also had an affair with Apollo. She later gained self-confidence and boasted that she was better than Artemis, because two gods fell in love with her, and zero in her. According to some versions of the goddess for her pride she pierced her guard, and according to others, Khione was protected by the power of Poseidon and Apollo.
The Heroes of Olympus[]
The Lost Hero[]
When Jason Grace, Piper McLean, and Leo Valdez visit Boreas's penthouse suite in Quebec, they were given a "not-so-warm" welcome by Khione and her two immortal demigod brothers Zethes and Calais. As soon as he sees her, Leo develops an instant crush on her, but she doesn't like him because she can sense the fire within him. She makes him wait with Calais while she and Zethes take Jason and Piper to see her father, Boreas. She supports the idea of turning them into ice statues, but her father disagrees and she is extremely angry at him, but was forced to listen resulting in her letting them go.
Later when the demigods were flying over Detroit, she summons a strong wind to knock Festus out of the sky and freezes the wires in his head which damages the control disk, thus preventing him from flying. Leo is confused about the frozen wires but didn't suspect it was Khione.
After encountering Midas, Jason, Leo, Piper, and Coach Hedge camp out on Pike's Peak, where Khione tells Lycaon to track them down and kill them. She also summons a blizzard to block Jason's lightning bolt. When they visit Aeolus, their godly parents convince him to help them, but before he does, Khione whispers in his ear, telling him that Gaea is awakening and that he must kill the demigods, but Mellie, his assistant, helps to save them and get them to California.
Finally, Khione appears at the Wolf House, revealing her connections to all the problems the demigods faced on their quest and that she is working to awaken Gaea. She tells them that she plans to overthrow her father and orders the monsters to kill them. She also reveals that she is the cause for the closure of Olympus, and she used her power to suggest (in a whisper) to Zeus, that the gods being so active on Earth was causing Gaea to awaken. In an effort to stop this, he closed Olympus off from the mortal world. Khione then invites Leo to join her on the conquest, but Leo declines, and uses fire to fight her, knocks her down, and tries to hit her with a flaming hammer, but she turns into snow and melts. It is unknown whether she is actually gone or just retreated into the snow. It is possible that, like Porphyrion, she warped to Mount Olympus in Greece.
The Mark of Athena[]
Leo remembers Khione talking about wanting to spill Jason's blood at the Wolf House and how she had said that it would taint the place for generations.
The House of Hades[]
Khione and her brothers, Calais and Zethes, ambush the Seven on their way to the Necromanteion, in Epirus Greece. She blasts Leo off the Argo II and freezes the rest of the crew, except for Piper. Before she can take any further action against them, Piper is able to activate Festus with charmspeak and drives her brothers away. Khione then tries to kill Piper by freezing her, but Piper defeats her and she disappears in a flurry of snow.
Appearance[]
Khione has a mane of lush black hair, coffee-brown eyes, and unnaturally pale skin that was the color of snow. Khione was also said to be the fairest and most beautiful woman in all the land. She wore a white dress, and sometimes had a silver crown atop her hair. She was so beautiful that when Leo first met her, he thought of her as the most dazzling girl he had ever seen, and later even compared Thalia to her. However, unlike her father and brothers, Khione has no wings.
Abilities[]
Khione using her powers.
She presumably has the standard powers of a goddess.
- Cryokinesis: As the Goddess of Snow, Khione has divine authority and absolute control over snow and cold.
- Freezing: Khione can turn humans or demigods into ice. Anyone who goes near the ice statue will possibly be frozen as well, hinted at the end of The Lost Hero.
- Cooling: Khione can make something grow colder and colder to the point where it feels like it's burning. In The House of Hades, Khione threatened to show Piper "the horrors of frostbite."
- Cryo-Aerokinesis: Khione can make icy wind blow something out of the air, like she did with Leo in The House of Hades.
- Snow Transformation: Khione can turn herself into anything associated with snow.
- Cold Nuclear Blast: She has the ability to create something similar to a nuclear blast, only instead of heat and radiation, it is made of cold.
- Blizzards: Khione can can summon very violent blizzards and other snow-associated calamities with a wave of her hand. In The Lost Hero, the blizzard she summoned at Pike's Peak was believed to be the reason why Jason couldn't summon lightning.
- Heat Sensitivity: Khione can sense fire, as she did with Leo in The Lost Hero, due to the latter's pyrokinetic abilities.
- Aerokinesis: As the daughter of Boreas, she can control and manipulate the wind.
- Flight (possibly): It is also possible that Khione can fly or levitate herself with wind, like Jason, since her father is a wind god and one of her spheres of control is icy winter winds.
- French fluency: Khione can speak fluent French, although this is because her father is based in Quebec.
- Charmspeak (possibly): Khione can do something similar to charmspeak, by whispering in people's ears. She can do this because, as stated at the Wolf House, her voice is "like snow, soft, and very cold", and because she is only confirming peoples' greatest fears. She has done this to Aeolus and even Zeus himself.
- Banishment: Khione was able to banish Leo to Ogygia whilst the Olympians where incapacitated.
Trivia[]
- Khione shares many similarities with Luke Castellan.
- They both hate their respective fathers (Boreas, Hermes)
- They both appeared to be on friendly terms with the main character(s), only to try and kill them later and reveal they were working with the enemy.
- They are both very close in command to their masters. (Luke was Kronos' second-in-command aside from Kronos' brothers, the Titans, while Khione appears to be second-in-command to Gaea, next to her children, the Giants.)
- They both disappeared at the end of the first book in their respective series; Luke in The Lightning Thief and Khione in The Lost Hero, leaving their ultimate fates unknown, although Luke's fate was much more obvious. Also, the last words they spoke before disappearing were very similar.
- She hates mortals for two reasons: one was because they never honored her, even in ancient times, and the other reason was because many mortals believe in the concept of global warming and she thinks that the concept is ridiculous since she keeps the world cold.
- Even though it hardly ever snowed in Greece, they still had a snow goddess, albeit mentioned in passing. Interestingly, Rick Riordan always assumed that there wasn't a goddess of snow because of where Greece was until sometime before making The Lost Hero. This is probably why she didn't get a cabin at Camp Half-Blood at the end of The Last Olympian, although it is assumed that she doesn't have demigod children anyway.
- In most myths Khione is just a minor nymph, and not even a goddess.
- She's insulted when she's called "hot," because she's the goddess of snow.
- It could be implied that Khione was attracted to Jason because when she saw Jason and Piper holding hands, she burned their hands with cold, although, this may have been because their contact caused warmth. Lycaon said that Jason also made an impression on "her" referring to Khione, but that could be because Jason shocked Khione really badly. She also wanted to keep Jason as an ice statue for herself.
- She has a cold personality.
- According to Apollodorus, Khione had a child named Eumolpus with Poseidon.
- Khione was labeled as a "Meddlesome D-list Goddess," by Hera.
- Khione has been known to underestimate mortals, a weakness that Piper exploits.
- Khione does not have any active demigod children in the series, but it is assumed she can and does have them from time to time, probably not keeping any contact with their mortal parents or them, whilst still protecting them from Boreas like it was done with Eumolpus.
- Khione's final fate after The House of Hades is unknown but since her father Boreas was shown to defect from the Giant Army and help Zeus defeat the Gigantes at Olympus during The Blood of Olympus, it's likely that Khione was punished for role in the war and aiding Gaea.
- In their first meeting, Leo Valdez developed a crush on her.
- Her Norse equivalent is Skadi.