Opinion | Really, the Percy Jackson present shouldn’t be utterly correct to the books

Look, I didn’t need to have to put in writing this column.

However I’m apprehensive concerning the upcoming Percy Jackson present. The books that supplied an escape for me as a child are about to be placed on the display once more. However not like with the mess that was the 2010 Percy Jackson film, creator Rick Riordan is heavily involved on this new Disney collection and has assured followers that accuracy and faithfulness to the unique books shall be prioritized.

However that’s my downside. 

Don’t get me fallacious, I don’t need one other Percy Jackson film fiasco — though I’d like to see Logan Lerman return as Poseidon. However after having reread the books as an grownup, I understand that Riordan made some majorly questionable, borderline unforgivable, errors in his books — particularly relating to gender. Disney’s Percy Jackson adaptation, if it could actually do something proper, wants some main narrative surgical procedure. 

Riordan based mostly the Percy Jackson collection on Greek mythology, which wasn’t precisely type to ladies. Many tales embrace violence against women or blame placed on women — in the event that they embrace ladies in any respect. The Greek mythology we all know was totally formed by males — advised, then retold, then written down and preserved by males. Girls could have advised their very own variations of well-known tales that positioned their views first, however with out the assets to save lots of them, these tales disappeared. Thus, the sources we have now to signify mythology in historic Greece at this time mirror males’s views. 

Riordan didn’t take this skewed perspective under consideration when writing the Percy Jackson collection. Really, he didn’t appear to query the mythology in any respect. If he learn {that a} feminine character was a villain, he most likely wrote her as a villain in his tales. Any worthwhile adaptation requires actual evaluation of the fabric — understanding what biases the fabric holds and what the author’s agenda was. From there, a very good author would make statements on it. Riordan may’ve dove into the accepted narratives of feminine characters and why they had been portrayed as they had been and what their conditions actually would’ve appeared like. However he didn’t. 

Riordan accepted the supply materials because it was, hardly ever offering sympathy to feminine characters who had been victims of a violent patriarchy. Medusa, who in ancient sources was rarely portrayed as aggressive, is now broadly thought-about a monster that wanted to be subdued — one who wanted to be killed, for the nice of the individuals. In “The Lightning Thief,” Riordan made a bloodthirsty monster out of Medusa, utilizing her as Percy’s first large kill as after studying he was demigod. He didn’t do a lot better by another historic feminine figures in his tales, just like the sorceress Circe, who grew to become a manipulative man-hating witch. 

If Riordan had simply made the error of a poor adaptation, that will have been unlucky, however forgivable. However Riordan majorly screwed over his unique feminine characters as effectively, proving it’s not a supply materials downside — it’s a sexism downside. Thus, we get his behavior of writing extra boy characters than lady characters. Or his behavior of giving boys earth-shattering, world-changing superpowers, whereas giving the ladies a lot quieter ones — like simply being actually sensible. Or his behavior of pairing up two boys and one lady on a quest and incapacitating the lady in order that the boys have to save lots of her. I haven’t stored monitor, however I wouldn’t be stunned if Riordan has thrown this trope into each single guide he’s ever written. 

And it’s not solely his unique feminine characters Riordan does soiled — he additionally likes to depower his goddesses. Take, for instance, the clinching thought of Riordan’s total world — that the demigod kids of the “large three” are extraordinarily harmful and might trigger paramount harm to the world. Thus, these “large three” gods vow to not have any extra demigod kids — till Percy Jackson comes alongside, in fact. These “large three” gods are Zeus, Poseidon and Hades and are all males. Is it actually that unbelievable that an historic feminine deity may move alongside world-destroying energy in a world the place historic deities exist in any respect? 

However even worse, the final word prophecy of the Percy Jackson collection identifies one particular “half-blood of the eldest gods” as both the savior or the destroyer of the world. Riordan explains to us that the phrase “eldest gods” right here refers to a baby of the “large three,” however Zeus, Poseidon and Hades are usually not even the eldest gods. In response to the mythology Riordan adopts in his world constructing, Aphrodite, the goddess of affection, is a whole era older than the remainder of the Olympian pantheon. But it surely’s not solely Aphrodite that’s older than the “large three” — Zeus, Poseidon and Hades have three sisters. And whereas the conditions surrounding the delivery of those six siblings are debatable — since they contain a little bit of baby eating — it’s nonetheless unattainable to argue that the boys are strictly older than the ladies. 

With all these inequalities and inaccuracies that blatantly favor males, it nearly appears intentional that Rick Riordan is reducing his feminine characters down on the knees each step of the best way. 

I really like the Percy Jackson collection — I used to be obsessive about it as a child and rereading it makes me simply as feverishly obsessive about getting by means of the following chapter. However amongst all of the women-driven mythology diversifications at this time — the Madeline Miller, Pat Barker and Natalie Haynes stories which give victimized ladies voices — the OG Percy Jackson simply doesn’t stand as much as the problem. 

I don’t need the present to fail and I don’t assume it would. However I do imagine that if Riordan doesn’t step up his sport and rethink most of the issues he didn’t consider in any respect within the early 2000s, his beloved present will do his feminine followers a disservice. The Percy Jackson world he created has been a haven for neurodivergent youngsters for near twenty years now, however the brand new present received’t fulfill its meant function of constructing each child really feel seen until Rick Riordan and all of the creatives engaged on the present make integral modifications to rewrite misogynist narratives. 

Anna Ehlers remains to be obsessive about the identical issues she was obsessive about at 12. You may attain her at [email protected].