I promised after I finished watching the whole of ‘Percy Jackson and the Olympians’ Series/Season 1 (with hopefully more to come) I would write a review of the quality of writing, among other things I’ll briefly mention. I had many things, through watching the episodes each week, to say, but to make sure I really remembered as much as possible I decided on the last release day to marathon all of the episodes together, including the finale. As I discovered, many of the faults I found with the show actually improved on watching them side-by-side with one another. This show was made to binge, I’d argue more than watching one every week.
Okay, okay, I should probably explain what I mean and to do so I really have to go back to my initial thoughts during my once-a-week watch. During the first episode of Percy Jackson I loved the cinematography, I loved the design of the monsters and most of the acting. I had issues, however, with some of the dialogue and the pacing, which I’ve seen many people bring up as a negative. When I first watched this episode, before seeing any of the rest of the show, I felt the scenes were moving by too quickly. I wasn’t able to take any of the information in as they wouldn’t let you sit in a scene with these characters (probably out of the need to get him to the Camp so that the main body of the story can start). I had issues with some of the speech for, oddly, the opposite reason. Scenes where Percy and Sally are talking often felt long and drawn out—the actors clearly ‘acting’ and not truly being thrown into the words because the words are over-explaining everything.
On rewatch did this problem disappear? No, they were still there but they weren’t as dominant. After having seen most of the show it clicked with why it was written this way and it felt more comfortable, more attention-grabbing somehow. Knowing the scenes with Sally and Percy in future episodes added a great deal of emotional weight to the scenes in the first episode… and that made it more captivating. As well as being a great show to binge, I discovered, it’s a great show to rewatch because the emotional weight hits harder knowing these characters deeper.
Now, if you’ve read my last post ‘Stories Turned Into Food: Percy Jackson Hot Chocolate Bombs’ you may know that I had already read the books before watching the series. I quite literally have read the book, worn the T-Shirt (though for the marathon I was wearing my new Camp Jupiter shirt as my Mum borrowed my Camp Half Blood one—we wanted to be in theme). I already knew these characters, especially our mains, and I knew the big twists that were to come… but I still felt differently than I did when reading the books, and not in a bad way.
When I read the books, although I liked Sally Jackson (Percy’s Mom), I never really fell in love with her. That might be because I never really took Percy as my favourite character and/or that most of the books don’t have Sally in it. Percy spends the majority of his time in the books away from his Mom and when he is with her you only really see her being his Mom. The Sally in the show however—well, she became one of my favourites by the second to last episode. The emotional weight and character they added to Sally by showing her relationship with Poseidon, the stress she was under protecting her child and how she could never explain to her child why she was doing the things she was doing—it was a perfect addition and really made me sympathise with a character I didn’t feel as close to before.
One of the most heart-wrenching lines, for me, was when young Percy asked Sally ‘Why are you doing this to me? I would never do this to you.’ The choice for her not to answer back. For her to walk away, trying to hold back tears whilst keeping a positive attitude for her young son. Not only is it clever writing, allowing the actor to show their skills and make us feel without telling us why, it also feels very real. What kid hasn’t thought the same thing of their parent? What parent hasn’t been stressed about what they can and can’t tell their child? One of my family members and I had a discussion just about this recently—about how much she should tell her daughter about her own feelings… Whether a child can really take on the burden of bad feelings or whether it’s better to share so they feel like they can share with you. It’s a complicated line to walk and Sally is walking a tightrope, scared they’re both going to drop but being able to do nothing about it. This scene alone cemented what I’d already realised—these writers know what they’re doing. They know how to write.
That isn’t to say that this show’s writing is completely without fault. A term coined online described one character as ‘Encyclopaedia Grover’ because he would explain everything to the audience throughout the show. However, I would argue Grover isn’t the cause of this problem. Every story, to some degree, (especially in fantasy) has to explain parts of the world to move the story forward. The old adage of ‘show, don’t tell’ isn’t actually accurate. The truth is more ‘show more than tell’. There’ll always be a percentage of telling and it’s finding that balance (between show and tell) that can be tricky when writing any length piece.
The issue isn’t that Grover explains things as they go. It’s that the only reason he’s explaining it is clearly the audience. In the original books you’ll find people explaining things to Percy constantly because Percy is the reader’s eyes and ears. Percy represents (like an Ambassador) the reader and so he learns along with us. It’s the most used way to drop information. Have a character who knows nothing (or not much) who can learn with the reader/watcher. The issue with the show is that we learn early on that Percy already knows all of the answers. He explains many of the creatures etc. he runs into himself. So Percy doesn’t need anything explained to him beyond ‘this is…’ because the only information he lacks is what these people etc. look like.
However, saying to an average viewer ‘This is Procrustes’ or ‘This is Hephaestus’, without any further explanation, isn’t going to do anything. Because the person watching may not know who they are, they won’t understand the stakes… and because we run into so many of them and the pace has to keep moving the story forward to get to the next scene of the Quest, if we didn’t have things explained, we wouldn’t understand what was happening and it would end up losing our attention (especially for any of those with ADHD out there—which, since this show and book was specifically wrote to represent these people would be a big fail). So because all three of our leads know this information already we end up finding out information by one character questioning the other on whether they heard right/remembered right (these aren’t the actual lines, just paraphrasing):
‘This park’s made by Hephaestus.’
‘The God of Blacksmiths etc.?’
OR
‘I know this story. This is Hephaestus’ story. Not loved by his mother… etc.’
OR even pop quizzes to check that they do know the information:
‘Have you ever read the Odessey?’
‘The graphic novel. It counts.’
‘Did you read about the Lotus flowers?’
‘Yeah. They… etc.’
Would this happen realistically? Maybe, at first, but the likelihood is that once you know the others know something you wouldn’t need to explain as much as you’d be confident in their knowledge unless they said otherwise. The writers’ trapped/wrote themselves into a corner when they decided to make all their characters knowledgeable, therefore weakening the story they were telling with unnecessary explanations to characters that already know the answers. I even heard them in Episode 7 resort to Annabeth saying she’d ‘Read it in a book’ which, although would work if it hadn’t come out of nowhere with nobody asking, would have been fine but comes across as an excuse to leak more information.
However, I forgive them (and also believe they can do better with these things by bringing in new characters etc. as they’re clearly good writers) and I forgive them for this reason: The change for why Sally taught Percy everything about Greek mythology and why she kept him away from Camp Half Blood added so much depth to the story.
In the books, it’s never really explained why Percy didn’t know much, other than he ‘couldn’t know because the monsters would find him sooner’. At least, that’s what I remember of it. It made sense but it didn’t make Sally shine as the show does. Sally in the show is driven by making sure Percy becomes a good person—She wants him to be better than other half-bloods throughout Ancient History/Mythology. She wants him to see that the difference between heroes and monsters is all based on perspective of a story… which brilliantly ties into other aspects of the story.
Annabeth represents everything that Sally feared Percy would be. She’s a child raised from very young in Camp Half-Blood, with no connection to the outside world, who’s blindly obedient to the Gods even when she feels that what they’re doing is wrong. You see this represented best when Annabeth is punished by her Mother for Percy’s ‘impertinent’ actions, by her Mother allowing Echidna and the Chimera into what should have been sanctuary to her daughter. Athena would let Annabeth die to punish her for a mistake she wasn’t directly involved with, to prove a point, but Annabeth blames herself for it. Of course she did. It’s even explained perfectly on the train why she does this (again paraphrasing): ‘At least the Gods have specific rules. They’re not as hard to deal with as mortals’.
Her Dad changed when he got a new family, but regardless of how bad the situation with her Mother can be, at least she’s consistent. Annabeth learns through her journey with Percy to question those beliefs, to actively try to see whether her ‘monster’ (her Step-Mother and Dad) is the real monster. Percy, who actively defies the Gods, is—from her eyes—a hero and he challenges whether she should choose the harder path or remain where she’s safe (ironically she sees this as with the Gods). This lesson is doubled down on when Hephaestus, one of the Gods she follows and believes in, allows Percy to be turned back from gold when Annabeth tells him that the Gods are wrong and she didn’t want to be the same as them. She’s rewarded for thinking like Percy and they succeed on their quest because of thinking more like Percy. A thinking instilled in him from Sally’s efforts and sacrifice.
Luke is another example of Sally’s message. Percy saw Luke as a friend and a hero. He’s perceived that way by, seemingly, the rest of the camp as well (and definitely by Annabeth). So when Percy realises that Luke is working with the very monster who almost caused his death and made him lose his Mom, it’s a hard example of a hero turned monster. Even more so because Percy had been agreeing with Luke throughout most of the show, until he got to know and meet some of the Gods throughout his journey and then his beliefs became less black and white. Sally’s message is what helped Percy realise that Luke betraying them was an option and it’s what will hopefully help Percy continue to empathise with Luke as the story goes forward. Annabeth, also, an addition to the betrayal scene (as she wasn’t there in the books) gets a real life example of the thin line between hero and monster. Percy didn’t necessarily need to learn this, but Annabeth did and it was a great addition to have her there (not to mention that it’s continuing to show the running theme of the show that Annabeth is intelligent enough to spot any monsters).
There are, of course, many plot points that have been added or changed from the books but each one (from what I remember) has been added to further Sally’s message, the message that became the running theme of the show: Medusa: an innocent who was forced to become a monster by the Gods, a parallel to Annabeth who blindly followed and was punished for it; Echidna who questioned whether the half-bloods were the true monsters, as they slaughtered her children; Grover explaining how the expansion of the human world has lessened the populations of mythological creatures; Hermes telling the trio how ‘hard it is to know you can’t be together without hurting each other’’; Hades not wanting to take part in any fight whilst his brothers squabble up in Olympus. Each character introduced makes the black-and-white view of hero vs monster slowly disappear and leaves the characters (even the monsters) lingering in a grey area. It’s clever writing (and great planning) that can only be appreciated when re-watching and binging the entire show from start to finish.
I could talk about this show for a long time and point out the many things I noticed but I won’t take up any more of your time. I don’t think this show is perfect. It has it’s faults, even some more than the ones I’ve mentioned above, but they’re all either minor or they exist because of an active choice by the writers to aide other parts of the show. There’s definitely things to improve going forward into a second season but, based on the first season, I have faith that these writers know what they’re doing and will work on fixing them.
As for the actors, I can’t praise them enough. The adult actors all worked brilliantly with some of the best lines in the show. The many children cast as extras were a joy to see and I hope they really enjoyed their experience on the show. And all of our main ‘kid’ characters: Luke, Clarisse (she terrified me, truly spectacular), Chris, Grover, Percy and Annabeth were perfectly cast and are such a joy to watch. Annabeth, again like Percy never a favourite of mine in the books (I prefer all the characters Rick cruelly kept killing off), was a stand out for me in this series. I loved all of them but Leah (especially towards the end of the series) really sold Annabeth: her insecurities and how closed off she was whilst still remaining fun, friendly and somebody you could trust. A hard balance to do, especially at such a young age.
I also would like to quickly mention the music and scoring. I don’t like it… No, I mean it. I’ve had the theme song stuck in my head too often and I don’t like how much it gets stuck in my head or that I can’t stop humming it. Joking aside, the score was amazing and perfectly accentuates every moment.
Thank you for reading. How did you find Percy Jackson and the Olympians? What was your favourite scene? Who was your favourite God or character? For me it’s a hard fight between Hermes and Hephaestus… But might be edging more to Hephaestus. (I also can’t stop singing ‘What is Love?’ and when I hear it I picture the Thrill Ride of Love… Help).
Signed,
The Literary Onion
P.S. I am so glad they changed the Gabe being turned to stone scene from the original story. Gabe in the show is a jerk but he’s not ‘murder’ worthy. In the books it felt like a story of a woman trapped in an abusive relationship which she won’t be able to escape from and so she resorts to whatever she can to escape… In the show, Sally takes charge of the situation and shuts him down pretty quickly so he’s worth divorcing and it would be fairly easy to do so. It seems somehow more fitting that Gabe ultimately got himself turned into stone by trying to take what didn’t belong to him. It also keeps the morals of Percy and Sally intact, whilst showing how low the Greek Gods are (they definitely intended for Percy to be the one turned to stone, right?). I actually prefer this end for Gabe than the one in the book. However, the show never actually showed or explained why Sally was married to Gabe and I felt should have been included for non-book readers. I honestly don’t know if they forgot to show it—but it makes Sally look a bit less strong to be married to somebody so horrible when she apparently still loved Poseidon (or seemed to).
The Literary Onion 