over time 1st person/ “pjo” percy has been equated with goofier, screw-up, loose cannon percy (contrasted with a perceived more powerful and capable 3rd person version) and cotg suffers from this, because darker themes are bubbling up under the surface of his narration (self-loathing, potential anger issues, fear, anxiety, depression) and the narrative is stuffing them under floorboards refusing to let them be serious because it’s goofy pjo percy time and this is a low-stakes book and we gotta keep it light
not to belabor this (except i will absolutely belabor this) but the thing is that, given what’s gestured at with percy’s mental state and how suffocating-to-abusive being a child of a god still is, a ‘low-stakes’ book doesn’t work for me because the high stakes of hoo contributed a lot to keeping those issues at bay. percy couldn’t focus on those things when gaea was waking, but now there’s no gaea, and the gods are still sending him on deadly quests. the difference is that now percy isn’t risking his life to save the world that he and his loved ones live in, he’s been singled out as the gods’ special errand boy because he’s still paying the price for his own existence. it feels pretty hollow to have that going on and underplay how much it would exacerbate percy’s issues when the stakes are just “going to college” and “growing up”
