The Sun And The Star Was Amazing.

The sun and the star was amazing.

Why the TV Show Version of Luke is a Better Person Than the Book Version

(Percy Jackson and the Olympians Spoilers)

While I will not argue about which version of Luke is a better character or better written, I can confidently say that the show version is a better person than the book version, and we see this mostly in the finale.

But before that, let’s go over what the book version of Luke did that the show version didn’t do.

1) Go unnecessarily hard on Percy during training, especially after he found out that he was the son of Poseidon.

2) When asked about who might have stolen the master bolt, imply that Annabeth could have in an attempt to plant seeds of distrust between them.

3) Immediately try to kill Percy after he got back to camp.

The show version of Luke is blatantly more sympathetic to Percy than the book version. He doesn’t antagonize Percy for succeeding on his quest or for gaining his father’s approval. In fact, he actually tries to recruit Percy at first. He doesn’t want to fight him.

However, the extent of the show version of Luke’s compassion can be seen with what he did for Clarisse. Or rather, what he didn’t do.

Percy, Annabeth, and Grover were the ones who came up with the idea that Clarisse stole the master bolt. Luke just went along with it. They even asked Luke to warn Chiron and the rest of the camp about her. It would have been trivially easy. Whether Chiron believed him or not would have been irrelevant. Either way, it would have helped his plan immensely, since he would still be sowing discord into the camp.

But Luke didn’t do that. And by not telling Chiron, they were able to figure his plan out. So why didn’t he do it?

Simple. Because he sympathizes with Clarisse.

I haven’t gotten a good look at how many beads Clarisse has, but it’s clearly around the same number as Luke and Annabeth, so it can be assumed that she’s been at camp for about the same amount of time as them, which is longer than most of the other campers. In fact, it’s not improbable that they were all in the Hermes cabin at one point while they were still unclaimed. And she’s one of the handful of campers confirmed to stay at camp all year round.

And Luke understands Clarisse. He understands her desperate obsession for glory. He understands her longing for her father’s affection. He understands her frustration when she is repeatedly ignored. He understands her contempt when her father finally does pay attention to her but it doesn’t go the way she wants. He understands her resentment towards heroes like Percy who seem to do the impossible without any training, with a seemingly perfect home life, getting both a mommy and daddy who love him.

It wouldn’t have been right to frame Clarisse. Actually, it would have gone against everything Luke was actively fighting for. All of the misdeeds Luke commits, it’s for the sake of his fellow demigods. And no matter what your opinions are about the show, this version of Luke reminds us of that.

WHERES MY SON?!?!?!

“Wheres the pink poodle?!” “wheres the Stoll brothers??!” “Wheres Nico and Bianca?!!”

WHERE'S BECKENDORF. WHERE IS MY POOKIE. WHERE IS HE. WHERE'S CHARLES BECKENDORF, CHILD OF HEPHAESTUS, WHERE IS HE

in an alternate universe where Rick had actually planned Hoo from the start:

I really love the idea of jason and bianca being dual 'ghosts of the narrative' during Pjo. Like. They're both big three kids. They're both the siblings OF main characters. They're both thought to be dead. And I get that no one knowing about Jason is a big plot point in TLH, but I would've killed for a scene, just after Bianca's death, where Thalia tells Percy about her baby brother, the one she left behind, the one who was murdered (she thinks he's dead) . And the only other person who knows is Luke, so Thalia makes Percy promise not to tell anyone else, even Annabeth. Percy being Percy, he keeps this promise, but also gets slightly obsessed with Jason and his story, this little boy who was killed by the Queen of the Gods for no fault of his own. It really drives home the gods cruelty, and makes Luke's offer even more tempting. And then Nico runs away, the same way Thalia did when her brother died, and Percy is FUCKING OBSESSED, with these two ghosts, who represent the dangers if demigod life, especially for Big 3 kids. One of them died on a mission for the gods, the other was killed by one. They were both innocents. They were both spares. So when he makes the gods promise, he's hoping to put their ghosts to rest, so that nothing like this will ever happen again.

It also makes his and Jason's first meeting much, much funnier, because. He finds out that the dude who's been HAUNTING him for the past few years is actually alive and healthy. And Percy is like, personally offended because "I obsessed over your death, and not only are you NOT DEAD, you also don't seem to give many fucks about me. After all the time I spent thinking about you."

in my defence i'm stupid as hell your honor

I think the dead mother / reluctant father figure trope is way too oversaturated when it comes to coming-of-age hero epics.

It's always the father who stepped up but never the mother who stayed.

I just love when a camper tells Percy that demigods can burn their favorite food as offering to their godly parent so they can be heard and he burns the blue candy Sally got him to pray to his mortal mom.

He really was like god of the seas or no, he's a deadbeat.

My human mom would NEVER.

Sally Jackson you truly are singular 💖