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It's true, I'm Medea. But I'm so misunderstood. Oh, Piper, my dear, you don't know what it was like for women in the old days. We had no power, no leverage. Often we couldn't even choose our own husbands. But I was different. I chose my own destiny by becoming a sorceress. Is that so wrong?

–Medea to Piper, Leo, and Jason in The Lost Hero.

Medea was the Princess of Colchis, the land that held the Golden Fleece during the time of the original Jason, as well as a powerful sorceress. After the Doors of Death were opened, Medea returned to the land of the living, but was killed again. Medea was once again resurrected before the Doors were closed and allied herself with Triumvirate Holdings, Caligula in particular.

History

As a descendant of the Titan Helios, the niece of the sorceress Circe, and a priestess of the goddess Hecate, Medea was a powerful sorceress renowned for her healing skills and her proficiency in using herbs and drugs.

Helios EM

Helios, her grandfather.

Medea claimed that when the original Jason was sent on a quest to find the Golden Fleece, Aphrodite made her fall deeply in love with him. Medea's father agreed to grant Jason his request, but only if he accomplished impossible and deadly tasks. Medea instructed him on how to accomplish them, only if he agreed to marry her.

Later, with the help of Medea's magic, Jason was able to steal the Golden Fleece from the king and escape. Afterwards, she defeated Talos with magic by tricking the Automaton to taking his nail out.

Jason married her upon returning to Greece, fulfilling his end of the bargain. But after the death of Jason's uncle, Pelias, Jason left her in order to marry Princess Glauce instead. Glauce (also known as Creusa) was a daughter of Creon, king of Corinth. Medea was heartbroken by Jason's betrayal and wrought a terrible revenge. She poisoned Princess Glauce and the people of Corinth. In her anger, she even murdered her two children from her marriage to Jason. Helios, her grandfather, then sent a flying chariot driven by golden sun dragons to take her away to Athens.

Other references tell a different story. After obtaining the Golden Fleece, they went to Iolcos to renew the youth of Pelias. Aeson, Jason's father, was the rightful King of Iolcos but Pelias (his half brother and a son of Poseidon) usurped the throne. He sent Jason to find the Golden Fleece so that no one would get in his way of usurping the throne, and so that he would regain his youth. Pelias assumed that Jason would die in the mission and told Aeson about his intentions. In grief, Aeson drank poison.

SD

The sun dragons sent by her grandfather.

Unexpectedly for Pelias, Jason succeeded in the mission, with Medea's help. When Jason and Medea returned, Pelias refused to give up the throne until he dies. That was when Medea tricked Pelias' daughters into killing him: she told them to cut him up into pieces and boil the pieces, assuring them that this was for restoring their father's youth. Jason was unfaithful to Medea and sought to replace her with Princess Glauce as his new wife. Medea murdered Glauce and, to spite Jason, killed their children as well. Then she escaped to Athens.

At Athens, Medea was married to King Aegeus and had another son, Medus. One day, Theseus came to Athens. Medea recognized him as King Aegeus' son and worried that Theseus would become king instead of her son, Medus. So she sent Theseus to capture the Marathonian Bull, an emblem of Cretan power. Theseus returned victorious, and sacrificed the bull. Medea then tried to kill him by mixing poison in his wine. Just before Theseus could drink the wine, Aegeus knocked the wine cup out of his hands. Aegeus recognized Theseus as his son and successor and became aware of Medea's deceptions. Aegeus banished Medea and she supposedly fled to Asia subsequently called Media, whose inhabitants thereupon changed their name to Medes. Eventually, she died, but no myths [1] ever explained the cause of her death.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians

The Sea of Monsters

Annabeth Chase tells Percy Jackson that they cannot fight Colchis bulls without Medea's Sunscreen SPF 50,000.[2] Circe also mentions Medea as a powerful woman that Annabeth should look up to. [3]

The Titan's Curse

Dionysus mentions Medea as one of the people Percy should ask if he wants to know how heroes always betray women and confirm that heroes are a selfish lot.

The Heroes of Olympus

The Lost Hero

Medea's Department Store

Medea's Department Store.

Jason Grace, Piper McLean, and Leo Valdez come to her underground mall, M's, after following some venti, where Medea introduces herself only as the Princess of Colchis. She begins to show the demigods her stock of magic objects and potions. She shows a momentary flash of anger when she hears the name of Jason, same as that of the hero who betrayed her. Soon, Piper realizes that Medea is up to no good. When Jason and Leo seem to want to keep shopping, Piper notices that Medea is charmspeaking them into buying whatever she wants them to. Piper attempts to snap them out of it with her own charmspeak and the stories of the horrible things Medea committed in the past.

Medea is revealed to have captured Gleeson Hedge and the venti (caged in the bottom floor of the mall). The demigods ask for the price to retrieve the captives. Medea says the price would be quite high since the trade is unfair, and that the person buying the product is named Jason. She continues to charmspeak them to the point where they are barely listening to Piper. Medea tells them to chop each other into pieces so she could bring them back to life even stronger (the same way she killed Pelias). Leo and Jason pull out their weapons.

Piper gets Medea to admit that she can see the future. Medea reveals that she divined that Leo would rise up against Gaea, so she warned Gaea from the Underworld. This event set in motion the awakening of Gaea and the death of Leo's mother. As a reward, Medea was set free of the Underworld and allowed to return to the land of the living, as long as her mall remained underground so Gaea could keep watch on anyone that entered.

Eventually, Jason and Leo come to their senses. Medea immediately releases her two sun dragons on the two demigods. She tries to run away and Piper chases her. Piper fatally wounds Medea by throwing poisonous chemicals on her. Meanwhile, Leo summons Festus, who helps Leo and Jason to defeat the sun dragons and pick up the cages containing Coach Hedge and the storm spirits.

Just before the demigods escape, Medea cries out that she doesn't want to be abandoned again as she was by the original Jason. She almost manages to gain Piper's sympathy by offering to cure Jason of his amnesia. The demigods choose to leave Medea, however, when they realize that she is only trying to buy more time to destroy them. She is an agent of Gaea, and the one who Hera warned them about. As they fly away with Coach Hedge and the storm spirits, they look back to make sure the she isn't chasing them.

Later in the book, Aphrodite appears to Piper in her dream where she is shopping in Medea's mall. Aphrodite warns Piper that Medea will return later on, along with others.

The House of Hades

After realizing that something had happened to Leo to do with Calypso, Jason remembers that Calypso is a sorceress like Circe or Medea, leaving Jason confused as to why Leo would be so sad if he'd escaped from an evil sorceress' lair.

Clytius mentions Medea to Hazel Levesque as a reason she should not trust the goddess Hecate.

Between the Series

Having been resurrected once again before the Doors of Death were closed, Medea forms an alliance with Caligula and begins plotting to turn him into the new sun god. To this end, she begins summoning the faded Titan Helios out of Tartarus and into a part of the Labyrinth that becomes known as the Burning Maze.

The Trials of Apollo

The Hidden Oracle

After Apollo states that the Triumvirate are not modern demigods, Rachel Elizabeth Dare asks if he means that they are ancient demigods that came back through the Doors of Death like Medea and Midas before dismissing the idea since Triumvirate Holdings has been around since way before Gaea started to wake up.

The Burning Maze

BurningMaze

Medea and her sun dragons

While Apollo, Meg, and Piper are exploring the Labyrinth, Medea flew on a golden chariot pulled by her sun dragons and tried to charmspeak Meg McCaffrey into taking her to be with her stepfather. She then explained how she was going to extract the last of Apollo's immortal essence, add it to leftover power of her grandfather Helios, and take the combined power of Apollo and Helios and put it into Caligula to make him the new god of the sun. She fought the daughter of Aphrodite but is taken out by a poison dart.

She is later seen in Caligula’s throne room, holding Meg and Jason in tornadoes and asking Caligula to perform the ritual. After Apollo stabs himself she and Caligula rush to perform the ritual before he dies. Because her attention is on Apollo, her tornado prisons start to weaken. She is then punched in the face by Piper and disappears in the wreckage of the ship.

After Apollo and company reach Herophile in her holding room, Medea arrives and begins to extract Apollo’s immortal essence. As Apollo recites a prophecy he seals the fires below them and Crest distracts her. Pushed to her limits, Medea stabs the Pandos and moves in to kill Apollo. Before she can however, she is stabbed in the back by Piper and pushed into her grandfather’s flames. As a last spiteful gift, Piper tells her to say hello to Jason Grace in the Underworld but says he'll be in Elysium while she will end up in the Fields of Punishment.

Appearance

Medea evil grin

In Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes, Medea is described as being beautiful in a mysterious yet dangerous way, with shadow-dark hair that tumbled over her shoulders, eyes that flickered with knowledge of dark things, and a remorseless detached face that flushed like a girl's when she looked at Jason. She wore a black silk dress, and a golden necklace on which gleamed the symbol of Hecate - two crossed torches.

In The Lost Hero, Medea is described to look like a retired fashion model, with long dark hair swept over one shoulder, talon-like fingers with long red-painted nails, and a face that was gorgeous in a surreal super-model way. She wore an elegant black dress with diamond jewelry, and her voice was rich and exotic, with a pleasing accent.

After rising from the Underworld, she seemed to have a faint glow around her. When she got angry, her face would literally glow to the extent where one could see her skull beneath her skin.

In The Burning Maze, she still had that regal look about her and wore a black silk dress that rippled around her. She wore her dark hair in a braided hairdo. She no longer wore the crown as the Princess of Colchis, but instead, she wore a gleaming gold pendant of the crossed torches of Hecate around her throat.

Personality

Medea is often shown as a vicious psychopath. She displays great ruthlessness and is willing to kill and decieve to achieve what she desires. Medea also shows that she is unable to get over past grudges, Jason's betrayal as a prime example. She displays the mentality that she is never at fault, and that others are always to blame.

In The Lost Hero, Medea is stunningly charismatic and persuasive. She was able to control Jason Grace, Leo Valdez, and even the McLean's assistant Jane. She is shown to be absolutely confident in her magic persuasion, completely sure that she'd succeed in the end.

In Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes, the goddess Aphrodite describes that she was heartless, cold, and power-hungry, similar to her father. She warns that, even under a love spell, she'd be as fierce in romance as she was in magic.

Abilities

Medea Teleportation

Medea teleporting.

As a powerful sorceress descended from Helios, the Titan of the Sun, Medea possessed the abilities of:

  • Mystiokinesis: Medea had the ability to control and cast magic, which she learned from her aunt, Circe. As shown in the graphic novel, her magic color is magenta. Examples of other powers she derived from her magic are:
    • Amokinesis: As shown in Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes, Medea had the ability to control the emotion of love and desire - she once made Selene, the Titaness of the Moon, fall in love with a mortal.
    • Magical Manufacturing: As shown also in Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes, Medea had the ability to create objects that possess mystical properties - she concocted a special ointment that granted Jason superhuman strength as well as immunity to heat and flame, and later used a magical dust to deepen the enchanted sleep that she induced upon the guardian dragon of the Golden Fleece.
    • Potion Making: Medea is highly skilled in making potions. In The Lost Hero, it was shown that she was also able to make magical potions that range from healing any disease to manipulating memories.
    • Chlorokinesis (possibly): As shown again in Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes, it was possible that Medea had the ability to control and manipulate plants - when the enchanted trees of the Grove of the Golden Fleece became too aggressive in their "attacks" towards Jason, Medea caused them to stop by muttering a spell.
    • Charmspeak: As shown in Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes and The Lost Hero, Medea had been trained by Circe in the ability of charmspeaking, and was therefore a skillful charmspeaker despite not being a child of Aphrodite. She used this ability to sing a song of enchantment that lulled the guardian dragon of the Golden Fleece to sleep, and later on used it to put Jason and Leo under her influence, to the extent where it was only Piper's timely interference that prevented them from fighting each other to the death. Her charmspeak was so powerful that even Piper, who was herself a skillful charmspeaker, found it difficult to resist.
    • Prophecy: As shown in The Lost Hero, Medea had the ability to see into the future, which she used to aid Gaea.
    • Teleportation: As shown also in The Lost Hero, Medea had the ability to instantaneously transport herself from one place to another without having to physically travel through space, which manifested itself in the form of smoke.
    • Vitakinesis: As stated by Apollo in The Burning Maze, Medea had healing powers and was almost as skilled as Asclepius. Her cures tended to involve dark magic, vile ingredients, and the tears of small children.
    • Aerokinesis: As shown in Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes, Medea is shown to be able to control air and wind. She summoned a fog bank so the Argonauts temporarily lost their pursuers. In The Burning Maze, Medea attacked Meg, Piper McLean, and Apollo with gusts of wind.
    • Summoning: Medea has the ability to summon other beings to aid her in battle, such as the Venti.
    • Power Draining: Medea can drain the divine power of a god if they are weak enough.
    • Resurrection: In The Burning Maze, Medea was able to summon the faded Titan Helios from the depths of Tartarus, resurrecting him against his will.
      • Pyrokinesis: While controlling what was left of Helios' consciousness, Medea temporarily gained pyrokinetic abilities, as she could manipulate, control and summoning the fire from Helios and unleash powerful bolts and blasts of fire capable of turning anyone to ash. If she were to get knocked down, the fire of Helios will be released, completely causing a supernova that would destroy everything in its path.
  • Knifemanship: When helping Jason and his crew escape Colchis, she threw a dagger at her brother Aspyrtus, who tried to stop her, with deadly accuracy and killed him instantly.

Trivia

Circe GN

Circe, her aunt and teacher.

  • Medea was known for potions, and was granted the ability of charmspeaking by her aunt, Circe.
  • As revealed in Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes, by Hera's request, Aphrodite and her son, Eros, enchanted Medea to fall in love with Jason.
  • As revealed by Piper in The Lost Hero, it was Medea who killed the children that she had with Jason, not the people of Corinth.
  • Medea still kept the sun dragons that her grandfather, Helios, had given to her when she escaped from Corinth.
  • Medea was mentioned three times in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series: by Circe and Annabeth in The Sea of Monsters, and by Dionysus in The Titan's Curse, before her appearance in The Lost Hero.
  • Medea used a diamond instead of a drachma for an Iris Message in The Lost Hero. This indicates that any ancient form of payment can be used for that matter, not just drachmas.
  • During Hercules' last task, he joined the Argonauts and later, left them to continue with his labors. Jason and the other Argonauts met Medea a few months later. Hercules rescued Theseus from the Underworld after he left the Argonauts. Medea left Jason to immediately go to Athens and married Aegeus, the king. Theseus met her in the palace before he set out to slay the Minotaur. But he went to the Underworld only after he slew the Minotaur. It is unknown how this can happen, since the timelines don't match.
  • According to Apollo, Medea was the most brutal and power-hungry of Hecate's followers, and also the most formidable.
  • Her magic was great enough to pull Helios from Tartarus, so his power could be absorbed, and even destroy a god.
  • According to Greek Mythology, the paternity of her final son Medes is disputed. he was said to be an ancestor of the Medes tribes which dominated Media.
  • Despite mentioning that she did not officially join him until some time prior to The Burning Maze, Medea was already unknowingly aiding Caligula in The Lost Hero. She had been using her charmspeak on Jane, a member of Caligula's division of Triumvirate Holdings, to capture Tristan McLean, who Caligula had deemed a threat.
  • In some older accounts of mythology, Medea explicitly went to Elysium upon death despite her numerous crimes. When the hero Achilles went to Elysium following his death, he married Medea.
  • Medea has the second longest gap between the time she was first appeared and the next time she appears in the series, as she appeared in The Lost Hero, but didn't appear again until The Burning Maze, a seven book gap. The only characters with a larger gap are the Gray Sisters, with a thirteen book gap from The Sea of Monsters to The Tower of Nero.

Gallery

References

  1. https://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/Mortals/Medea/medea.html
  2. SoM, Page 37, UK Copy
  3. SoM, Page 172, UK Copy
The Heroes of Olympus
Core Series: The Lost Hero | The Son of Neptune | The Mark of Athena | The House of Hades | The Blood of Olympus
Main Characters: Jason Grace | Piper McLean | Leo Valdez | Percy Jackson | Frank Zhang | Hazel Levesque | Annabeth Chase | Iapetus/Bob | Reyna Ramírez-Arellano | Nico di Angelo | Gleeson Hedge
Secondary Characters: Hylla Ramírez-Arellano | Dakota | Tyson | Ella | Octavian | Halcyon Green | Dr. Howard Claymore | Alabaster C. Torrington | Lamia
Minor Characters: Rachel Elizabeth Dare | Grover Underwood | Thalia Grace | Clarisse La Rue | Fleecy | Mrs. O'Leary | Kinzie | Arion | Calypso | Lou Ellen Blackstone | Chiron | Will Solace | Tristan McLean | Don | Julia | Jacob | Michael Varus | Burly Black | Medea | Midas | Lityerses | Phineas | Otrera | Echo | Narcissus | Sciron | Pasiphaë | Lycaon
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Primordial Gods: Gaea | Tartarus | Ourae | Nyx | Chaos | Ouranos | Akhlys | Hemera | Elpis | Spes
Monsters and Magical Creatures: Cynocephali | Gorgon | Gryphon | Harpy | Basilisk | Lycanthrope | Gegeines | Cyclops | Katobleps | Unicorn | Giant Eagle | Ichthyocentaur | Satyr/Faun | Storm Spirit | Laistrygonian Giant | Lares | Mania
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