Why I Like Annabeth Chase - Tumblr Posts
Annabeth Chase - Character Growth at its Finest
I’m writing this because recently I have seen many people say that they really dislike or hate Annabeth and don’t know why people like her. I want to explain why people like Annabeth and why I personally find Annabeth a compelling character who I can relate to.
Annabeth starts out the series as a jaded young girl who has lead a rough life. She has been experiencing monster attacks since she was five or six. She ran away from home at the age of seven because of the emotional abuse her stepmother put her through due to the near constant monster attacks. She had terrible nightmares and her father neglected her. She would have died from either monsters or starvation if she wasn’t found by Thalia and Luke. They quickly became her new family. Annabeth loses this newfound family Thalia through sacrifice and Luke through betrayal. Due to these events she doesn’t trust others easily and avoids attachment because anyone she does get attached to leaves by either their own free will or force. Annabeth tries to solve her own problems and doesn’t trust others to solve her problems. This is partially due to her hubris, her fatal flaw, and her negative experiences with her father and step mother in her early life. All of these flaws come from an understandable place and they grow and change as the series goes on.
Annabeth’s inability to easily trust others and fear of being left by her loved ones is a large part of her character in the Percy Jackson series and even affects her in the heroes of olympus series. She initially treats Percy with indifference and even uses him as a distraction, so she can capture the opposing team’s flag. It’s only when she goes on a life threatening quest with him that he gains her trust fully. In the sea of monsters she is wary of Tyson because he is a cyclops one of the monsters that almost killed her and her makeshift family. She grows to realize that he isn’t like most cyclopes. Then later there is Rachel Elizabeth Dare. Annabeth feels that Rachel threatens her place in her new “family”. Rachel can see through the mist and likes Percy. This essentially makes Annabeth useless in her own eyes. Rachel can lead them through the labyrinth and all of Annabeth’s research was for naught. Rachel also has the guts to admit to Percy that she likes him, something that Annabeth herself hasn’t been able to do. She feels as though she is losing her place in the group as well as Percy. Annabeth later comes to terms with Rachel and they become good friends. Later Annabeth is put into a similar situation with Reyna. Reyna developed feelings for Percy and made a move on him. She doesn’t dote on that fact and has grown enough to where she knows that Percy won’t leave her like others in her life. She also comes around to trusting Reyna much quicker than Rachel. Annabeth trusts her enough to ask her to take the Athena Parthenos to camp half blood and solidify the bond between the greek and roman demigods. This is also why she desperately wants to prevent losing Percy in Tartarus. She has already lost her family twice and she doesn’t want it to happen a third time. Percy is the only person who hasn’t left her at any point and been with her through both her highest highs and lowest lows and vice versa.
Annabeth’s fatal flaw causes her a lot of problems throughout the Percy Jackson and heroes of olympus series, but in the Magnus Chase series she understands she can’t solve every problem by herself and sometimes she needs to let others sort out their own problems. In the Percy Jackson series her hubris causes her problems when it comes to Luke Castellan. She believes that Luke’s betrayal is her problem and that she should be the one to solve it. This backfires for her until the final book. In the last olympian she talks to Luke and tries to convince him to see the error of his ways, but she ultimately lets Percy and Luke make their own choices. In the mark of Athena she realizes there is a time and place to rely on others and do things herself. While it may not seem that significant, but this is a turning point where she realizes that just like how she needed to follow the mark of Athena on her own others have things they need to do on their own separate from her.
This is an overview of her growth as a character and her reasoning behind her actions. It is because of these changes and actions that she is one of my favorite characters throughout Rick Riordan’s mythological world.