Percy Jackson and the Olympians

About

Percy Jackson and the Olympians, often shortened to Percy Jackson, is a series of urban fantasy adventure novels written by Rick Riordan and started in 2005. The series, about the titular Percy Jackson, his adventures at Camp Half-Blood, and his interactions with figures of Greek mythology, garnered a following that would lead to the creation of four more books in the original series and two sequel series, alongside two movie adaptations, a widely praised musical adaptation, and a niche yet strong fandom.

The success of Percy Jackson would also lead to other series that focused on the same premise of mythology in everyday life such as The Kane Chronicles and Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, incorporating Egyptian and Norse mythology respectively.

Premise

The first series centers around the titular Perseus "Percy" Jackson (artwork shown below, left), a New York teenager diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia who at age 12 is revealed to be a half-blood or demigod, the offspring of the Greek god of the sea Poseidon and a mortal human. After finding and settling into Camp Half-Blood, a Long Island camp and training grounds for demigods, he is joined by Annabeth Chase, a daughter of Athena (artwork shown below, middle), and Grover Underwood, a satyr and Percy's protector (artwork shown below, right). Together, the three experience run-ins and adventures with figures of Greek mythology throughout the series, such as retrieving the Golden Fleece from the cyclops Polyphemus, or retrieving Zeus' master lightning bolt, before eventually attempting to prevent a long-dormant evil from destroying both the godly world and the world of mortals.

History

Percy Jackson and the Olympians was written by Rick Riordan, who created the first book after telling various tales and bedtime stories from Greek mythology to his younger son Haley. After running out of tales to tell him, he began to create new stories that used characters from Greek myths in a new way at his son's request. From these stories, the character of Percy Jackson was created, alongside his adventure to retrieve the lightning bolt of Zeus.^[1] The choice of making Percy being diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia also stems from his son, who was diagnosed with both.^[2][78] Percy's adventure of getting Zeus's bolt became the basis for the first book in the series The Lightning Thief, which was published on June 28th, 2005^[3] originally by Miramax Books, and later by Disney-Hyperion.

The Lightning Thief would later be followed up with four more books in the series: The Sea of Monsters, published on April 1st, 2006^[4], The Titan's Curse, published on May 1st, 2007^[5], The Battle of the Labyrinth, published on May 6th, 2008^[6], and the last book in the original series, The Last Olympian, published on May 5th, 2009.^[7] The entirety of the series alongside companion books, sequel series, and other related media, would be categorized under a media franchise known as the Camp Half-Blood Chronicles.^[8]

Related Content

The Heroes of Olympus

The Heroes of Olympus is the sequel series to Percy Jackson and the second series in the Camp Half-Blood Chronicles.^[9] Introducing a focus on Roman mythology, the series debuts and emphasizes focus on new locations such as Camp Jupiter, the Roman equivalent of Camp Half-Blood located near San Francisco, and characters such as Jason Grace, a son of Jupiter, and Piper McLean, a daughter of Aphrodite, as they, along with faces new and old, become the center of a new prophecy to save the world.^[10] The series started in 2010, with the release of the first book in the series The Lost Hero, first published on October 12th^[11], and was followed by the yearly release of the books The Son of Neptune, The Mark of Athena, and The House of Hades, until the final book, The Blood of Olympus, was published on October 7th, 2014^[12], for a total of five.

The Trials of Apollo

The Trials of Apollo is the third and current series in the Camp Half-Blood Chronicles and the follow-up to The Heroes of Olympus.^[13] Inspired by tales and myths of Apollo being banished to the mortal world^[14], this series centers around the Greek god Apollo, flung down to Earth as a mortal without powers after angering Zeus, and his adventures at Camp Half-Blood as his human form, the 16 year-old Lester Papadopoulos, as he tries to gain the forgiveness of the Olympians with the help of returning characters and new ones such as Meg McCaffrey, a daughter of Demeter.^[15] The series began in 2016 with the release of The Hidden Oracle, first published on May 3rd^[53], and is still ongoing. The final book in the series, The Tower of Nero, is to be released in September 2020.^[16]

Other Series

Characters from Percy Jackson and the Camp Half-Blood Chronicles as a whole have had cameo appearances or mentions in other series by Rick Riordan, specifically The Kane Chronicles and Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, with the three series mentioned all taking place in the same universe, known by most fans as the Riordanverse. All three series deal with the same premise of gods and mythology hiding or blending into everyday life while also containing a sense of adventure and the same genre of urban fantasy, with the theme of Egyptian mythology and Norse mythology respectively. The character Magnus Chase is canonically referred to as a relative of Annabeth Chase^[34] for instance, with Annabeth even appearing in the first book of Magnus Chase^[35], though The Kane Chronicles' interactions in the universe are more limited to short stories and brief mentions, allusions, and cameos.^[36][37]

Adaptations

Movies

In 2010, the first book was adapted into a movie, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, first released on February 2nd for Canada and February 12th for the US. The film was directed by Chris Columbus^[17] and released by 20th Century Fox after originally obtaining the film rights in 2004.^[18] The film would later receive a sequel based upon the second book, Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, directed by Thor Freudenthal and released on August 7, 2013.^[19] The films starred Logan Lerman, Brandon T. Jackson, and Alexandra Daddario as Percy, Grover, and Annabeth respectively (trailers shown below).

Upon release, both received mixed to negative reviews from critics^{[20][21][22][23]} and are generally looked down upon by the fandom^[24][25][26] due to unfaithfulness to the source material, with Riordan himself having a particular distaste towards them, even penning a letter to teachers saying to provide alternative activities than watching the movie adaptations^[27] alongside either expressing disdain for and jokingly dismissing the existence of the movies on social media^[28][29], the latter being an action also taken by a majority of the fandom. Riordan would later release two emails sent to the producers for the movies detailing further criticisms with the films.^[54]

Musical

In 2017, an off-Broadway musical based upon the first book in the series titled The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical premiered on March 23rd at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in New York. Originally introduced by theater group Theatreworks USA in 2014^[30], the musical has received positive reviews, with Frank Scheck, writing for the Hollywood Reporter, claiming that the musical "proves far more enjoyable than the misbegotten 2010 film version or its 2013 sequel."^[31] The musical received nominations in 3 categories at the 2017 Drama Desk Awards.^[32] After its last show at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, the show began its National Tour in January 2019.^[33] (trailer shown below)

Disney+ Adaptation

Since Disney's 2019 acquisition of 20th Century Fox, who own the movie rights for the series, there has been speculation as to whether or not a new adaptation of some form would be created, due to the generally poor performance and reception of the Fox movies, especially as the company would be making new series based on old properties for its recent Disney+ streaming service. On December 10th, after the fan-driven hashtag #DisneyAdaptPercyJackson was brought to trending worldwide, including being covered by Twitter Events^[73], Riordan revealed he was "trying hard to convince the powers-that-be that this needs to happen for you."^[74] Intermittent updates would follow, including a blog post on his official site.^[75][76]

On May 14th, 2020, Rick announced on Twitter a Disney+ live-action series that would adapt the entire original five-book storyline of the series would be produced, with the first season adapting the first book in the series The Lightning Thief. He would also state that the series would have his involvement compared to the two poorly-received movie adaptations released previously.^[77]

Pssst. Hey, demigods . . . pic.twitter.com/7ep4aeyS3I

— Rick Riordan (@rickriordan) May 14, 2020

Reception

The series has seen generally positive reviews since the release of the first book in 2005. On the book rating website Goodreads, The Percy Jackson series^[8], and the main entries in the Camp Half-Blood Chronicles^[38], have all averaged a rating of around or somewhat over 4 stars out of 5, with the highest ranking book in each series being The Last Olympian, The House of Hades, and The Burning Maze, with a 4.50^[39], 4.55^[40], and 4.39^[41] out of 5 respectively. The series has also been listed as a New York Times children's series bestseller having been on the list for 458 weeks by the end of 2017^[42], alongside the books in the series being as a best-seller in other newspapers^[43][44] and earning literary accolades such as the first book earning the 2008 intermediate level Young Reader's Choice Award^[45] and the distinction of being marked as a Notable Children's Book by the American Library Association in 2006.^[46]

Some criticism has been directed towards Riordan's focus on pagan gods, however, especially Christian critics, though Riordan responded in an interview on his site, saying that in regards to the first book, it "explores Greek mythology in a modern setting, but it does so as a humorous work of fantasy. I’m certainly not interested in changing or contradicting anyone’s religious beliefs," also adding that one character makes a clear distinction between the Abrahamic God, and the Greek gods of myth, even mentioning that the issue of God is something he doesn't want to delve into.^[2] Rebecca Read, writing for The New Yorker, makes mention of how the series' juvenility, termed as "teen goofiness," has turned away adult readers, unlike the Harry Potter series, which has been embraced by both adults and children alike.^[52]

Online Relevance

On Twitter, Rick Riordan's official Twitter account has over 672,000 followers.^[55] The official Twitter for the Lightning Thief musical has also garnered over 51,800 followers^[56] while the Twitter account for the Riordan-affiliated site Read Riordan has over 27,900 followers.^[57] A subreddit dedicated to the Camp Half-Blood Chronicles and its affiliated series was started by Redditor Guyinthehall8 on October 4th, 2011 and has since gained over 34,000 subscribers.^[58] A wiki also exists for the entirety of the Camp Half-Blood Chronicles and related series with over 2,000 pages since creation.^[59] Facebook and Instagram accounts for the users of the aforementioned Twitter accounts also exist with the Facebook pages at over 130,000 followers^[60], over 18,000 likes^[61] and over 2.3 million likes^[62], respectively. On Instagram, the accounts have over 607,000 followers^[63], over 56,800 followers^[64], and over 135,000 followers respectively.^[65]

Fandom

On Deviantart, results for the search term "percy jackson" rack up a total of over 104,000 total results^[66], with "the heroes of olympus" and "the trials of apollo" garnering less results, with over 29,000^[67] and over 3000^[68], respectively. On Fanfiction.net, over 66,200 submissions are available, and 10.400 crossover works with other series and franchises, the most popular crossover choice being Harry Potter, at over 3,000 results.^[69][70] On Archive of our Own, over 15,000 results are available for derivative literary work.^[71] On Tumblr, numerous amounts of fan content can be found under tags such as "percy jackson", "heroes of olympus", "trials of apollo", and its abbreviated tags "pjo", "hoo", and "toa".

Fan Art

Related Memes

Dam Jokes

Dam Jokes refer to wordplay jokes and puns made to replace the curse word "damn" with the word dam, as in the barrier or blockade for water. The joke originates from the third book in the series, The Titan's Curse, where it is spoken by Zoë Nightshade, a member and Lieutenant of the Hunters of Artemis, while at the Hoover Dam, saying that they should "find the dam snack bar", before being followed up by other puns using the word dam, such as "dam T-shirt", "dam French fries", and "dam restroom", despite Zoë not understanding the joke to begin with.

Uncle Rick

Uncle Rick is a nickname associated with the author of the Camp Half-Blood Chronicles and its associated series, Rick Riordan. Originating in 2013 from Brazilian fans, who affectionately called him "Tio Rick"^[72], the name has since seen widespread usage among fans of the Riordanverse, with some common moves and tricks becoming associated with him, such as never letting characters catch a break or rest after the end of the series, creating and messing with ships, and cliffhangers that don't get followed up until at least a year later, when the next installment usually releases.

Search Interest

External References