Athena Pjo - Blog Posts

Based on read riordan Ares' guide to parenhood https://www.readriordan.com/2022/11/09/ares-guide-to-fatherhood/

Not gonna lie if I was born from my mother thoughts I would brag about it all day

Thinking about my godswap AU a little more, specifically about Annabeth and Grover. I think I want Annabeth to either be a child of hades, ares, or Aphrodite?? I could honestly see Ares or Aphrodite a bit more seeing as they’re both seem to have very emotional demigod children. I thought of Hades because of this one fan art I remember seeing so??

I also thought of Zeus for Annabeth so maybe Zeus? I think in this AU the big three pact may not be a thing so it gives me more freedom for sure. I’ve also thought about giving her a minor godly parent so any suggestions are welcome.

As for Grover I’m not sure. Honestly I don’t have alot ideas. I’ve either thought of:

- Keeping him a Satyr

- Demeter Child?

- Child of Silenus (God of Drunkenness, Forests, and Mine-Making, also tutor of Dionysus)

I feel like I could do alot of cool things with Grover if I made him a demigod but these are all just thoughts.

EDIT:

Please comment your thoughts I’d appreciate them 🙏🙏

Completely random, but I just skipped through RR's Greek gods book and OH MY GODS. I already knew that he has a hate boner for Athena, but this? I regret having eyes. Is it weird that the ending of that fucking chapter infuriated me the most, like a cherry on top? "Well, just like that she can have kids, don't come at me with that virgin goddess bs lol" I will strangle you in your kitchen ricky you jackass

No need to worry about random posts, I'll answer all of them.

Yeah........I wonder how knowledgeable he is about the Greek Gods. Did he get a degree in Classical Studies or did he just read the myths and go 'Yeah I can do that'. It seems more likely that he did the second one.

Rick Riordan's PJO book on Greek Gods is the last thing I would recommend to anyone who wanted to read about them-actually, I wouldn't recommend it at gunpoint.

It's not about the literal sense of having kids through brain magic-it's about the symbolism, the fact that Athena cannot fall in love and have kids because that is directly contradictory to her domain as a goddess of wisdom and war. If she fell in love and had children with men, then she would no longer be able to stop love from clouding her head and she'd no longer have her wits about her head and she would no longer be able to call those domains her own.

EXACTLY. Rick's misogyny should be crystal clear to anyone with good media literacy and a good understanding of Greek Gods and myths. He somehow manages to destroy every Greek God-someone give him the Golden Raspberry award for his portrayal of the Greek Gods.

Whatever Rick doesn't like, Percy doesn't like. Honestly, I can see why some people would think that he's a Gary Stu-literally everyone seems to like him and those who don't are villains or bad side characters. It's pretty tiring.

Why would the gods abandon Greece-especially Athena abandon Athens? It makes no sense, but American superiority takes precedence to actual respect for another country's culture.

He most probably did use his brains on denigrating Athena. And there were totally ways to make Poseidon morally gray, even in Percy's POV (have him threaten Annabeth like Athena threatened Percy. It fits him more too.)

On a side note, I do think that it would be interesting to see Persephone and Demeter have a good relationship but have Demeter not like Hades because, you know, the whole kidnapping thing.

I mean, it's symbolic of course, but if you look at it from their POVs, Demeter would obviously dislike Hades because he kidnapped and kept her daughter from her for 4 months or a half a year.

Maybe have it so that Hades tries to please Demeter and is very apologetic to her? She would probably mellow out with time but she'd still be a little upset with him of course.

Just my thoughts.

One thing I find so interesting about the PJO fandom is how they actually accepted how Rick fucked up 90% of the goddesses. Even when he uses a version of a myth that specifically talks about men being idiots, he villainizes women. Like, no one complained about how fucked up is that he used the story of Hephaestus trying to rape Athena and turning it into a “poor guy cried bc he was rejected by a girl” thing?

The true story is literally Hephaestus trying to rape Athena, she fights him off but his semen falls into her skirt and cleans it with a piece of cloth and tosses it into the ground (earth, which is Gaia) and from there, Erictonio is born. And Athena raised the child as her own even tho he was the product of the assault she suffered. The guy ruled Athens.

Rick turned it into Hephaestus falling in love with Athena and crying on her lap, making her reject and KICK him plus being disgusted by the tears and the dirt.

He also used all of Ovid versions he could possibly find to fuck Athena up. Arachne doesn’t happen with Greek writers and Medusa was never cursed (or assaulted) when we talk about the OG Myth. She was already born a monster and Athena only helps Perseus kill her bc yeah, Medusa killed people.

Also, Medusa’s version by Ovid is a lot alike Cassandra of Troy story, and let me tell ya, Cassandra was cursed but it wasn’t by a woman. And when she was raped by Ajax, Athena made sure that he didn’t made it back to Greece.

Now I’m gonna talk about Demeter. Demeter, who had her daughter kidnapped, raped and imprisoned, and was turned into the typical “mother in law who hated son in law bc she thinks her daughter could do better” when yeah…she has all the right to feel angry bc her daughter was KIDNAPPED.

Artemis doesn’t hate men and her followers also don’t hate men. Feminism isn’t about hating men.

Aphrodite. I cannot even describe how dirty they made Aphrodite’s children. Like be fr one of her children helped build what it would’ve been Rome. He was a fighter. And her cabin there is just so different of what she is truly like. They should have a lot of other powers.

Also, a lot of women from the books follows the same stereotype of “omg I hate makeup it’s so girlish and I’d rather fight” like you can be feminine, wear makeup and STILL FIGHT. One doesn’t erase the other.

Another thing, but this one is about MOTHERS! I truly cannot understand the way Rick creates his women. I’m serious tho. Like, I’m sorry but sometimes it seems that his thing some goddesses (Athena, for example) are personal. The “abandoning Athens” thing, the “should’ve chosen Poseidon”, the way he wrote her as being cold towards her kids…in one of the versions, Athena was the one who saved Dionysus from Hera. She raised a child and made him a king even though he was the product of her almost rapist. She was there helping heroes all along. She fought for Odysseus for ten years.

Also, this fandom is incapable of seeing the difference between Minerva and Athena. Minerva gave Annabeth the mark, Athena had nothing to do with this. Annabeth is her favorite daughter, she made her architect of Olympus, protected her through her journey to find Luke and Thalia, disobeyed her fathers orders trying to help to find Annabeth, made battle plans with her and all…and she always claimed all of her children.

I think people just don’t like her bc she doesn’t trust Percy. And she shouldn’t. I love him, but Athena IS the goddess of wisdom after all and as such, it would be pretty dumb to trust a demigod that won a battle against the god of war when he was only twelve. Not to mention that everyone kinda thought the “preserve or destroy Olympus” was on his hands. And he tortured a goddess…I’m sorry but she was pretty much right. Wouldn’t trust someone that had the power to fuck me and my family up either. She dint made the choice based on “omg I hate my rival and his children” even more so bc she was trained by one of his children and bunch of grandchildren. She made the choice based on what she thought was less risky.

If she was so against Percabeth, I can assure you she would’ve killed Percy and probably wouldn’t even suffer much consequences. She admires some things about Percy but she was right about his flaw. And she also helped him during one of his quest to go to college. Does she loves the idea of the relationship? No. But that’s bc she is precisely the opposite of love. She doesn’t make decisions based on what her heart says, but on what her brain says. If she succumbs to the heart, then she would seize to be goddess of wisdom, reason and all of what she values. That’s why she vowed to never marry.

And, as Helenist, I do not take the myths that seriously bc when we talk about religion, I have a clear mind that those myth were made by humans who used the gods as a tool to justify some of their actions, and I hate almost all of the retellings that those authors do, but is so wild to see how much power they have on society bc now I cannot see anything about the gods without someone saying shit about them. But I do know all about the myths and I gotta say, doesn’t make much sense to use a Roman author to talk about Greek Gods. He made them dirty. Also doesn’t make much sense to use this versions of Ovid but still change it to make it more sweet for the men. Poseidon and Athena didn’t spend that much time beefing, they even have a city together (Troezen) and she definitely doesn’t hate his children. Her best friend was literally his grandchild.

Safe to say that y’all should probably question Rick on how he treats women bc I was seeing the PJO series (the cast is amazing btw, safe to say that Leah/Annabeth is my fav) and by the looks of it, saying on how he changed Athena’s personality one more time, I legit think that Annie won’t jump to save her friends on season 3, she will probably be pushed by her mother or whatever.

Another thing: apparently only the women that like and have a friendship with Percy are treated as cool. But that’s on the fandom, not the author.

I forgot to add one thing and I’m gonna fix the grammar later but the “this is for children” excuse isn’t really valid considering that we saw Gabe being aggressive with Sally, we also saw Ares being a jerk to Clarisse (which also doesn’t make sense) and the story clearly states cheating, fights, death and a lot of other terrors. If you’re gonna use a rape version of a myth bc you chose to fuck a Goddess up, then you should state that the man is to blame. In the books we see Medusa saying she was Poseidon’s girlfriend/lover…she was his lover on the og myth, not in the version Rick chose. In the version that he chose, she was clearly raped. But he erased that and replaced rapist with boyfriend. He could’ve chosen to do another path if he didn’t want to talk about sexual abuse, I can tell y’all a hundred of ways this could go, but he chose this path and changed it, favoring the man. Again.

He could’ve gone with the theogony and said what was there that basically is: she was a monster, BORN a monster, daughter of other two monsters, no one wanted to get close to her, but he did. They slept together in a camp of flowers.

Athena only enters the story wayyy after this. And, as y’all can see, no curse. Yet, he chose to go with the rape version were Medusa is a maiden, loyal to Athena, gets raped on Athena’s temple by Poseidon and Athena curses her. And what did the author do? He made this: Medusa, loyal to Athena, fell in love with Poseidon and they did things on her temple. Athena cursed her. Again erasing the men’s fault.

The hate on Athena doesn’t make any sense at all. Y’all love some other male characters that don’t have a single sense of responsibility and possibly did everything wrong in the book. I saw people condemn Athena for her treatment of Deadalus when the guy literally killed his nephew bc he was more praised than him. And Athena gave him a mark that burned and did some shit to teach him a lesson. Poseidon wanted a trial to avenge his rapist son that was killed by Ares bc he tried to rape one of Ares daughters. A RAPIST. And Poseidon is treated like and angel bc what??? He likes Percy? Is his father and got him a gift? And Athena is being hated bc she isn’t his number one fan and her Roman part decided to give Annabeth a Mark? And mind you she’s just like that with him bc she knows more than everyone else and knows that he is dangerous. A good guy? Yes, Percy is the most amazing guy. Still dangerous. Still had the power to torture a goddess and win against the god of war. And she doesn’t dislike him, she dislikes his relationship with her daughter. And even so, she didn’t stop the relationship. So yeah I won’t ever get why the women always get more hate than the men considering this.

Again, as a Helenist, I don’t take the myths seriously when I talk about the religion in general bc the Gods are superiors. They don’t have human flaws. But, as someone who knows about the myths, is safe to say I hate those stories that uses myths like that and turns it against the Goddesses and make them out to be the worst ever. All the gods deserved way better than what they got with those retellings.

PJO Athena didn't have to have kids-a possible alternative to this

So anyone who's read about Greek Mythology probably knows that Athena is a virgin goddess-and Ancient Greeks considered marriage and children as losing your virginity.

Ancient Greek were also taken very seriously. In fact, if you lose your virginity whether consensual or not, you were executed. Even MoA says this-you die in a horrible way if you lose your virginity, which is why the Romans ignored Annabeth so much.

So............Athena did not need to have children. Even brain children formed from her's and her lover's thoughts, because they're still children.

But! you say. But Annabeth!

Uh, let me speak, please. Some silence is required. Yes, thank you.

ANNABETH SHOULD'VE BEEN ATHENA'S CHOSEN, HER CHAMPION, NOT HER CHILD.

Let me explain about this.

So, Athena fell in love with Frederick, right?

Well, let's change it to she platonically liked Frederick and was impressed with his intelligence and wit, so she told him and his wife that as a gift, she could bless their daughter Annabeth with demigod powers, a chosen champion of Athena-

but she warns them of all the risks that'll happen, and tells them that Annabeth will be turned into a demigod directly, and she tells them how to raise Annabeth in the right environment.

And have Annabeth's parents be thrilled because both of them can fully see through the Mist. And honestly, they didn't think that it would be so hard to raise a demigod!

And once Annabeth is blessed, they keep pushing her-they think that she should be smart enough, but they don't put her in a proper environment for all of this because they're unable to get one because 1) It would be difficult to get tons of books in Ancient Greek

2) They didn't realise the actual consequences of having a child with ADHD and dyslexia because they were too excited with Annabeth becoming 'magical' as they put it, so they thought that she'd be insanely smart even though Athena warned them against this, and they keep pushing her, they're disappointed that she's not in middle school by only seven years old.

3) And by then, the monsters start coming and the spiders start coming too and they realise how difficult it is so they blame her for it.

And so she runs away and then everything else happens, and Athena feels guilty and angry about making Annabeth her champion when she was just an infant, so she guides her and helps her.

And then Annabeth could be isolated at camp without anyone in her cabin, because Athena's demigods aren't 'real' demigods-they have two mortal parents and are only blessed by Athena, so the camp doesn't treat them like demigods and kind of looks down on them.

So Annabeth feels the need to prove herself and this also makes her cling to Luke more. Also, she finally finds a real friend in Percy, which makes more sense, because how come she just makes friends with a random guy at camp, even a son of the Big 3, when she's been there for 5 years?

This makes Annabeth more relatable because there are people who's parents didn't think twice before having children and there are people whose parents pressure them academically too much.

And now you're probably wondering about Malcolm.

Yeah, what about Malcolm?

He's barely there in the original PJO series. Once in BOTL where he walks in on Percabeth hugging? Well, have another demigod walk in for another purpose.

Malcolm in TLO? Change it to another cabin. Simple.

BOO when he's attending the meeting? Have it be Clarisse.

TON when Apollo interacts with him? Have it be an Ares camper (Sherman Yang, maybe) who's gathering information, because Ares campers aren't just violent dickheads, they can gather information too. Information gathering is a part of war, and Ares campers don't just fight.

When he's mentioned coming out as gay because of Nico? Put another camper there. Whichever one you want.

Malcolm Pace lovers, I'm sorry about dissing Malcolm-I don't hate him, it's just that he's not even that important. If you took all the children of Athena (ruling out the historical ones which can be cut out) then Annabeth Chase is more important than all the other three combined. I'm not even sure if Zane is canon or not.

All right, ok, LISTEN. I don't know who needs to hear this, but I'm pretty sure that some people do. It's ok to hate Percy Jackson because it depicts the Greek Gods in a terrible way. Rick Riordan has the creative license to write them however he wants, but it's still fine to be annoyed at how they're portrayed.

It's ok to hate the fact that PJO wasn't in Greece and that the explanation for why it was in America was terrible.

It's ok to hate the fact that Zeus, Hera, Ares, Athena and a whole lot of other gods were portrayed in a negative light.

It's ok to be furious because Ares is a bad parent in PJO.

It's ok to tear your hair out over the way Artemis and her hunt were written.

It's ok to be angry that Athena had children with mortals when she was a virgin goddess in the myths.

It's ok to be angry that Hades cheated on Persephone in PJO (even if you like Nico and Bianca and Hazel. It's fine to do both).

It's ok to be angry that Persephone and Demeter don't have a good relationship and that Demeter is largely painted to be an overbearing, helicopter mother.

It's ok to resent the fact that Artemis, the former's hunt and Hestia, the goddess of the hearth and another virgin goddess, were portrayed as literal CHILDREN despite there being no reason for Rick to do that.

It's ok to be annoyed with the fact that Poseidon was sanitized when he could've been such a morally gray character.

It's fine to cry about the fact that Aphrodite was largely reduced to a stereotypical, modern cartoonish version of RomANtiC lOvE when she was the goddess of LOVE, not just ROMANCE, SEX AND BEAUTY.

It's ok to like Trials of Apollo but want to smash things because Apollo was depicted as an incompetent dumbass. It's ok to seethe at the fact that Zeus was portrayed as an abusive father to Apollo when in the myths, he was quite loving.

It's ok to do this because PJO is one of the if not THE MOST major media that depicts Greek Mythology. It's basically a Greek Mythology fanfiction MODERN AU. And yes, it's helped thousands of children and adults and made them feel better, and it's almost as popular as Harry Potter for a reason. But it's still fine for Greek people, Hellenistic Pagans and even people who aren't Greek or Hellenistic to be angry with how Rick Riordan is continuously bastardising the Greek Gods and making them look more and more of a joke.

A lot of people who got into Greek Mythology used PERCY JACKSON as their first reference, and while Percy Jackson is a great start for venturing into Greek Mythology- PLEASE, PLEASE BEAR IN MIND THAT PJO GODS ARE NOT AS ACCURATE AS THE ORIGINAL.

POSEIDON IS NOT THAT GOOD.

HADES IS NOT SO VILLANOUS.

ATHENA IS NOT SO COLD AND UNCARING. SHE'S A MAIN PATRON OF HEROES AND RARELY ABANDONS THEM EVEN AFTER THEY'VE COMMITTED WAR CRIMES

DIONYSUS IS NOTHING LIKE HIS PJO COUNTERPART.

ARES IS A GOOD FATHER.

DEMETER AND PERSEPHONE HAD A BEAUTIFUL, LOVING RELATIONSHIP.

HERA IS NOT SO HORRIBLE. SHE HAD HER GOOD MOMENTS

ZEUS WAS NOT THAT BAD IN GREEK MYTHOLOGY AND HE WAS ALSO A CARING FATHER. HE SENT BLOOD RAIN DOWN TO MOURN HIS SON SARPEDON WHO WAS FATED TO DIE.

I know this sounds like I hate PJO, but I really do like the series. It's fine to like PJO and its characters while also disliking how the gods were portrayed. It's ok.

WHO HERE THINKS THAT WE SHOULD'VE GOTTEN MORE ANNABETH AND POSEIDON MOMENTS?

You know how Athena disapproves of and threatened Percy? Well………….DO THAT WITH POSEIDON AND ANNABETH! Let them meet. Let Annabeth squirm. Let Poseidon smile, but let it not quite reach his suddenly cold green eyes.

Let him size her up, and let her be found wanting. LET HIM SILENTLY THREATEN HER NOT TO HIT PERCY AGAIN!

Let him disapprove of Annabeth's nickname for him! Let Percy defend it, defend Annabeth from Poseidon!

Let Poseidon tell Percy that if things don't work out (in a way that he implies that he hopes it doesn't work out) that he can hook up with a sea nymph or naiad or something! This was SUCH a missed opportunity to show that Poseidon loves Percy and thinks that he can do better than a plain daughter of Athena! (Or at least Poseidon thinks so).

Can someone write this, please? I would, but I already have something else going on.

I GUARANTEE you that if Rick didn't make Athena have children, he would also have made her be a child somehow.

You know what Rick should have done to make Athena more sympathetic?

Simple. Make Frederick ask Athena for a child so that he can have an actual demigod to raise and observe, rather like a science experiment or something (which makes him a bad parent, treating Annabeth like a project instead of an actual child, that Rick could've gone into later).

She's unsure, because he doesn't seem like the type to be able to raise a child, but he insists, so she gives him one. INSTEAD OF THE WHOLE NONCON WEIRD MENTAL THING WE GOT.

And then Frederick finds out that hey, kids aren't always the way you picture them, surprise! So he just kind of leaves Annabeth alone and then we get the whole stepmother plot and it continues in canon.

There are definitely parents like that in real life, so it would be more realistic and I think that more people might be able to relate to that.

And Athena guides her daughter and is angry at Frederick for not helping the child enough and with herself not to see how bad he would be at parenting, because she is the literal goddess of wisdom.