Rick Riordan introduces Greek Mythology to a young audience, but how does it compare to the old stories? Can you really make Greek Mythology child friendly, or do things get lost in translation?
Sources:
https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/tragedy/v-1/sections/from-aristotle-to-rome
https://www.thecollector.com/greek-heroes-hubris/
https://www.jstor.org/stable/26809403
https://journals.co.za/doi/epdf/10.10520/EJC166207
The Odyssey- Emily Wilson translation
Mythos- Stephen Fry
Percy Jackson and the Olypians series- Rick Riordan
Rick Riordan introduces Greek Mythology to a young audience, but how does it compare to the old stories? Can you really make Greek Mythology child friendly, or do things get lost in translation?
Sources:
https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/tragedy/v-1/sections/from-aristotle-to-rome
https://www.thecollector.com/greek-heroes-hubris/
https://www.jstor.org/stable/26809403
https://journals.co.za/doi/epdf/10.10520/EJC166207
The Odyssey- Emily Wilson translation
Mythos- Stephen Fry
Percy Jackson and the Olypians series- Rick Riordan
Hello and welcome to Greeks and Geeks: Myth and Fantasy Explained, the podcast where I take us on a persnickety but fun journey deep diving into the lore behind our favourite stories. I’m your host Sabrina and in this episode, the first of a two-parter to open this series, I’m inviting you all to come with me as I jump right back into my childhood Greek Mythology phase with Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief. I’ll be explaining the myths behind the Greek Gods and Demigods. What are the parallels between Rick Riordan’s Americanized retelling and the original myths? Why does Ares suck so much? What even is a demigod? And what do I think the biggest mistake of the whole book is?
Disclaimer: I wanted to point out that for everything I say here, there are hundreds of other versions of the myths or interpretations of Gods which contradict the one I just spoke about and we just don’t have time to cover them all. I don’t blame Rick Riordan for choosing the most popular ones and putting his own twist on them. That’s what good storytellers do. I think there’s a reason why the Greek Gods are often compared to the modern-day comic book heroes beyond the general “they’re both groups of super-human beings.” Much like explaining my Spanish style of cooking to my very English fiancé, Greek mythology is beautifully complex, often contradictory, and densely infuriating. How much garlic do you need? What does your heart tell you? What really was Dionysus origin? Whatever one you like best. I also want to point out that his version of the myths are highly sanitized versions, of course they are, because his audience is mainly children. Reading his stories, you aren’t going to get a full picture of Greek Mythology, and in some instances you get a completely wrong or twisted version, but what his books DO give you is a gateway, an invitation to explore more in your own terms. Which, for kids especially, is great! Encourage more learning WOO!
Right so who is Percy Jackson? Ok humour me, I know most of you know Percy Jackson, I know you all read it when you were school aged, but I DIDN’T ok? I’m one of the few who missed the Percy Jackson boat (haha get it cause he’s a son of Poseidon and…ok anyways) I only recently got into the series as an adult. I’m currently on (INSERT BOOK HERE) and it’s because I started recording my reactions on Tiktok that I’m even here now to begin with. The community and fandom is so wonderful that they got me obsessed with Greek Mythology again! So gotta give my boy his dues ok?
Percy Jackson and the Olympians is a 5 book series written by Rick Riordan, a former teacher turned best selling author who initially created the story for his son. The series follows Percy, the demigod son of Poseidon living in modern day New York, as he attempts to stop the evil Titan Kronos from rising up and destroying the world and the Greek Gods who imprisoned him. Percy has help from his friends, Annabeth Chase (demigod daughter of Athena can I get another woo for a fellow Cabin 6 rep), and Grover a sweet satyr whose goal in life is to find the missing god Pan and who has never done anything wrong a day in his life ever.
Today we’re going to be focusing on the first book in the series, Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief. Come with me as we look at the very first thing Rick Riordan introduces: Demigods.
Demigods
The start of Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief introduces us to the concept of demigods with this iconic passage:
(AMERICAN ACCENT) Look, I didn’t want to be a half-blood. If you’re readi-
Nope absolutely not I can’t do the accent I’m sorry haha! You’re going to have to pretend Percy is British for the time being. Anyways…
If you’re reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life.
Being a half-blood is dangerous. It’s scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways. If you’re a normal kid, reading this because you think it’s fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened. But if you recognize yourself in these pages – if you feel something stirring inside – stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it’s only a matter of time before they sense it too, and they’ll come for you.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
I could gush about this opening passage until Thanatos himself comes to get me and take me to Hades (Sidenote: I should definitely talk about that video game in a future podcast. If you want me to, comment!). Listen. The immediate world building??? the talking to the reader, the sense of danger and mystery Rick sets up here??? It all captivates the reader straight away. All of these are tools I teach the kids in my own class and here he is proving me right! It’s also near painful to me, as a budding author, how perfect this beginning is. My rambling first draft could never.
But we’re not here to fangirl (ok maybe lets take 3 seconds to geek out about it are you ready? 3, 2, 1 annnnnd back to the regular schedule).
Is Percy right? Is the life of a half-blood really so hard? Are most half-bloods doomed to a miserable, gruesome fate? Well before we even get into that, we’re going to get PROPER geeky with the language. That’s right! LANGUAGE. Because what even is a half-blood?
Demigods are people with one mortal, and one godly parent. For example, Percy is a demigod because his mum Sally is a Queen- sorry- I mean mortal. His father is Poseidon, God of the Sea. The fact that one half of his parentage is divine makes him a demigod.
What I find interesting is Rick makes a decision to call them half-bloods rather than demigods here. The term half-blood doesn’t appear in any of the old myths I’ve read. Even the term demigod didn’t actually appear until about the late 16th century, which is CRAZY. I didn’t know that until I started researching for this episode. The word demigod is so ubiquitous in our culture, it feels like it just HAS to be ancient you know? But no! In actuality the word is derived from Latin rather than Greek! LATIN! Insanity! Basically what I’m saying is neither of these terms are accurate to ancient Greek myths, though demigod is closer.
Well then if these half-god beings weren’t called demigods or half bloods, what were they called then? When we look back to ancient sources like the Odyssey and the Iliad most demigods are referred to as their name, followed by which of the gods sired them and oh my god did I just say sired? Yeah maybe I’ve been reading the Iliad too much recently.
Ok take this for example. Helen of Troy, most people know her as the lady who ran away from her husband with her not-so-secret boyfriend and started a whole long war because of it right? Face which launched a thousand ships and all that messy business? Subject of copious amounts of downright unsettling misogyny especially in the translation I read (it was terrifying and I wanted Emily Wilson- the first woman who officially translated the Odyssey in English- to pick me up cause I got scared). But did you know Helen is also a demigod in her own right? In the Iliad, one of the ways she is introduced is “Helen, daughter of Zeus.” It’s an absolutely mouthful but it makes sense why they have the epithets. You have to remember these ancient stories were told orally. I’ve read lots of theories about this, from the fact that it made the characters easier to remember for the listener, to invoke a certain feeling towards the character (you know how a villain character might be introduced with a spooky minor-key theme song) to the fact that they’re simply “filler” words to help make up the syllable counts needed for that particular line of poetry which is the funniest theory to me and the one that as I writer I want to accept the most.
I can understand why Rick would choose to refer to them as demigods or half-bloods. Modern day children’s authors have around 25-50 thousand words to tell their story, and those ephitets add up! Plus the term half-blood is quite catchy and demigod too is easy for children to understand and to be honest, could you IMAGINE Percy walking around saying “I am Perseus Jackson, son of Poseidon, who shakes the Earth and rules over the oceans.” I mean it sounds cool but as someone who teaches kids, they would definitely consider that language “old fashion.” Mainly because no matter how much I mark their work they forget to put the “ed” at the end of the phrase, but also because such language really is pretty stilted and not what they’re used to. I think Percy himself couldn’t finish the sentence with a straight face. Plus it would get real old, real fast.
Unless theres a future book where they go back in time and Talk Like That. I don’t know. Please don’t spoil it for me!
Right we’ve nerded out about the language, now we need to see if Percy was right. Is the demigod life really so risky?
The short answer is yes and the long answer is oh no oh gosh oh hecking heck, please gods and goddesses spare me yes. It’s less that Percy is offering us a kernel of truth and more like an entire pools worth of exploded popcorns worth of truth. In short, the life of a demigod is usually really disfficult. You actually have to work pretty hard to find a demigod who’s life isn’t tragically cut short in one way or another.
And yet, they’re so incredibly revered. I just read the iliad where almost every other person is depicted as the Best of the Greeks or Godlike, even if they aren’t a demigod. Godlike Achilles, Godlike Hector, Godlike Odysseus who was as smart as Zeus. They are characters close to the gods, beings above us mere mortals. But they suffer.
Why is this? Why do most demigods suffer such hardships? Well, the famous Greek philosopher Aristotle believed that it is important for tragic characters to be seen as “better” than ordinary people (be it kings, or demigods) so that they are more worthy of our pity when something terrible happens to them, even if the tragedy happens due to their own mistakes or errors in judgement, because ultimately they live in a world beyond their control. They, too, are subject to the whims of the Gods. This makes the audience both feel fear for the characters and pity. There’s a contradiction, a relief that the audience feels. Basically they might wander home from seeing one of those ancient plays thinking “I may have to worry about earning a good wage or being a victim of a passionless crime but at LEAST I don’t have to gouge my own eyes out because I married my own mother and my kids are also my siblings. Like sheesh. Hate to be that guy.”
When you think about it, this makes the demigods a perfect set of characters for children and young adults to latch onto. No wait I don’t mean the eye gouging mother kissing stuff, absolutely not. I meant the tamer, easier to sanitise demigod stories. Let me explain. Growing up is becoming more aware of the world and the dangers in it. Percy Jackson does this in an exciting way, with monsters and Titans rather than the more realistic evils of regular life such as bullying, muggings or car accidents. Children feel powerless to the whims of the universe, so they gain a sense of catharsis seeing Percy struggle and prevail, in a similar way to the ancient Greeks.
On top of this, demigod lives often end poorly due to their own flaws. If Achilles had let go of his hubris and anger when Agamemnon first apologised, both his own life and Patroclus’ life might have been spared. Listen, I get it, Agamemnon is the worst and you might have to get used to Agamemnon slander if you keep listening to this podcast because I CAN and WILL go into heavy detail. But in that instance, he was offering A LOT to Achilles by way of an apology for offending him in the first place. Achilles refused the apology and wanted the Greeks, his own side, to suffer. So eventually Patroclus took his place on the battlefield and did fantastically until the God Apollo intervened and he died.
That’s just one example. Ultimately, when it comes to Greek Mythology, bad things happen if you make poor choices, if you succumb to your Fatal Flaw which is similar to morality in children’s stories. And we know this is an intentional parallel and a good one, because Rick Riordans teaching supplies have questions about morality on his own website.
In conclusion, Rick Riordan does a great job in introducing the reader to the world of Greek Mythology in a modern world. Whilst half-blood is a bit of an odd term, it helps children understand the idea of half-human, half-god beings. In terms of world building, it makes sense to introduce the most relatable concept to reader first. But after accidentally exploding his algebra teacher, we along with Percy, slowly get introduced to the Greek Mythology world at large, which leads us onto the next part of this podcast.
Gods
So one thing that I find interesting is that the series is called “Percy Jackson and the Olympians.” I will fully admit that I’m being a totally pedantic geek here, but hey this podcast is called “Greeks and Geeks” not “Greeks and people who have totally moderate reactions to things.” It’s my podcast let me have my pedantic cake and eat it too! It’s salted caramel flavoured and REALLY tasty ok? Ok…
Why do I find it interesting? Well the Olympian gods are part of the main cast of mythological characters that Percy interacts with throughout the series, but they aren’t the only gods.
Let me explain. The Olympians are the 12 main gods and goddesses of the pantheon. They are Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Aphrodite, Demeter, Hermes, Ares, Apollo, Artemis, Athena (hi mum!), Hephaestus and Dionysus though sometimes it’s Hestia. It really depends. It’s important that they were called Olympians because they reside on mount Olympus.
This is all pretty common knowledge, I know.
But here’s the thing. One of the biggest conflicts of The Lightning Thief is that Percy shouldn’t exist. The Big Three Gods made a pact to not have any more demigod children after their children were responsible for the second world war. Those three main Gods? Zeus, Poseidon and Hades.
Wait Hades?
Hold on let me check my notes.
Hades isn’t on that list I mentioned before! Wait but Hades is one of the most well known Greek Gods, he’s literally the eldest son of Kronus and Rhea. He is one third of The Big Three. How is he not an Olympian?
Well Hades is a Chthonic God. Gods were divided into two different categories “those above” and “those below.” Chtonic literally translates to Under the Earth. Hades doesn’t live on Olympus, but instead rules and resides in the underworld. Other Chthonic gods include Persephone the Goddess of the Underworld and Spring (also Hades wife), Hecate the goddess of witchcraft and crossroads (one of the coolest gods) and Thanatos the God of Death who also happens to be the hottest character in the 2020 Hades video game apart from Zagreus himself but I’m now getting distracted.
Also Demeter is sometimes considered both an Olympic and Cthonic god because Greek mythology is confusing and contradictory. It’s an ancient and noble game of telephone. But honestly the reasons I can work out is that some gods who ruled over agriculture had some control over life and death, both of plants and of people. Think about the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, where Demeter’s daughter Persephone is abducted by Hades and thus Demeter causes crops fail (sometimes due to an eternal winter or drought, depending on the retelling or translation) because she so distraught and searching for her lost daughter. This causes the death and suffering of untold amounts of mortals.
Right ok I’ve waffled a lot. We’ve now established that one third of the Big Three is not an Olympian. I think it’s the teacher in me that overly worries that Hades will be considered an Olympian to the kids who get into the series. I know it might seem small but as an educator, part of my job is to help children avoid misconceptions and here they might fall into a BIG misconception- that all Greek Gods are Olympians, when that’s not true.
But then I have to think to myself, ok Sabrina what’s the solution? Call it Percy Jackson and the Olympians and the Chthonic Gods? That’s a bit of a mouthful. Plus kids could struggle with the pronounciation of Chthonic anyways, Athena knows I sure do. Right how about Percy Jackson and the Greek Gods? I guess that’s ok. I will admit that Percy Jackson and the Olympians is a much grander and epic title. Of course I want to point out that the Olympians are a huge focus of the first series because the Prophecy about a child of the Big Three has potentially huge consequences for the Olympians. There’s totally valid reasons why the overarching series has that name. It’s just…a little worry for me. A pequito worry, if you will.
But I’m reassured by the fact that most children who get into these books do go on to having a big Greek Mythology phase if they weren’t already in one. I’ve seen that happen with my own students. So they may come to learn these facts on their own. Children enjoy correcting adults more than ANYTHING and I’m sure they’d be delighted to find out Hades isn’t an Olympian. One of the ways I engage children, especially in subjects like Maths, is to deliberately get something wrong. You will not believe the amount of hands that shoot up to correct me. It’s hilarious though I do often joke with them that if they spent as much energy trying to correct me as they did editing their own work, they’d probably have perfect scores, which we do chuckle at. But kids are kids, it’s their job to get stuff wrong and challenge adults. It’s why I love what I do.
Plus I have it on good authority that a few of them actually enjoy my inane rants about why Disney’s Hercules is so incorrect but that’s the subject of a future podcast if you’re interested.
Ok we’ve talked about Hades and his pivotal role in the book despite not being an Olympian. Who are the other Greek Gods that Percy meets in The Lightning Thief? Considering this is the first book, he meets quite a few. Today I want to discuss the way Rick interprets two of the most prominent gods to feature in the book: Dionysus and Ares. Then we’ll come back to Hades as I do have a genuine frustration, not a silly jokey nitpick, which I want to discuss.
Let’s start with Dionysus, or Mr D as he’s known in the books. He did initially confuse me when he was first introduced. Dionysus is the god of many, many, MANY things, but to put it bluntly he’s the God of- wait I can’t say what I want to say in case my students run across this podcast- he’s the god of err…shall we say, excess? Wine, madness, insanity, theatre, the drama of it all. Just a proper lad in every sense of the world. He’s a god who has a number of different origins, one of the most interesting being that he himself was a demigod who rose to full godhood. There’s an aura of mystery around Dionysus which has always fascinated me. A lot of the worship that surrounds him, such as the Dionysian Mysteries, have been lost to time because his followers had to be initiated and keep the rights secret. It’s super freaking cool but also super freaking annoying because I’m a nosy nelly and I WANNA KNOW. Tell me your SECRETS three thousand year old people! I’ll bribe you with blue cookies if you don’t try to kill me for speaking in a language that hasn’t been invented yet in your time!
I’m getting distracted again. Why did Mr D confuse me? Well to put it simply, this god of wild good times is a pretty huge downer. He’s rude and irritable and just like this mean headmaster type figure. We know Dionysus had a dark side in myths too, but he like the rest had his good moments too (hello Ariadne!). So why is it that he’s just stuck in one dark gloomy mood? Then of course we discover the reason why is because he’s being forced to stay sober because he’s been a bit too naughty and annoyed Zeus. So the God of literal Wine is having the mother of all withdrawals. This is an example of some brilliant writing and something I think is there for the kids to recognise as they get older. You know those cheeky jokes in kids movies that went over your head when you were little but you totally get now? Like that.
Honestly I know I’m supposed to dislike Mr D the way Percy does (and why wouldn’t he?) but I could never find it in my heart to hate him entirely. Yes I do get frustrated with his lack of care towards children, and there’s been a number of times where I’ve wanted to have a go at him because of it, but I think back to times where as a Teacher, I’ve come into school with a headache or a tummy ache or not feeling 100% and 31 mortal children that make up my class, asking me endless questions, testing boundaries as children do, or even just chatting at a normal volume, can end up being overstimulating.
Now unlike Mr D I do my best to just pop an asprin and not allow it to affect me but I digress. As a former Teacher himself, I can’t help but wonder if Rick Riordan drew inspiration for Mr D from his experiences within education.
So yes, even though Dionysus is The Lightning Thief is a far cry from the youthful, mischievous, but also dark and complex god of the ancient world, he’s an interesting interpretation and one who has a lot of potential as the series continues.
Ok so let’s move onto Ares. In Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, he is a cruel, ill tempered and dangerously threatening god. Does that track with the Ares from antiquity? Yes. Sort of. Also I really love the word antiquity. It’s just a good word you know?
But I digress. Ares is the least liked of all the Olympian gods. Even in the Illiad, Zeus himself says this to Ares:
“To me you are the most hateful of all gods who hold Olympus.
Forever quarrelling is dear to your heart.”
Like, yikes right? Let it be known that Zeus gets to the bloody point. The confrontation-adverse Brit inside me wants to crawl under the desk in sheer second hand embarrassment at the bluntness of it all. Passive aggressive? Nah man that’s just aggressive-aggressive.
So Ares isn’t just the god of war, but rather the primal aspects of war, the bloodlust, the rage, the frenzy and destruction of it all. What I absolutely love about Rick’s interpretation of him, is that Percy is really affected by being around Ares. Just from being in Ares’ presence, he becomes more confrontational, angrier and aggressive. It’s such an interesting take on the affect that Ares has on demigods and mortals alike. I would say out of all the Gods introduced in this book, Ares is probably the closest to being a true interpretation vs an interpretation with a twist like Mr D. Motorbikes aside. Later on, I have some bigger issues with how Ares is portrayed but those are in later books and right now I’m only focusing on the interpretations from the Lightning Thief. Don’t worry though, I’ll be talking about the other books eventually and especially once I finish all of the series!
Which leads us back to Hades.
Right.
This is the part of the podcast where I do put on my frowny face a little bit because of the way Hades is portrayed in The Lightning Thief. Remember we’re only focusing on the first book, not any others in the series.
So the Big Three, as previously mentioned, made a pact that they’d have no more demigod children, after the events of World War 2. It’s explained to the reader that they didn’t want to have anymore demigod children because they were too powerful and interfering too much with the course of world history. This implies quite strongly that the leaders of the countries who took part in the second world war, were demigods. That means the good side and the evil side.
This is a really fascinating idea, true, but it’s heavily implied that the evil side came from Hades because of this line in Chapter 19:
“The lord of the dead resembled pictures I’d seen of Adolph Hitler, or Napoleon, or the terrorist leaders… Hades had the same intense eyes, the same kind of mesmerising, evil charisma.”
Now I’m not going to lie, this really annoyed me when I first read it. Remember I’m not fully finished with the series, so I don’t know if Rick has retconned this though I’ve heard this is a widely debated issue. Knowing what I know now, from having read further on however, we do know that this is Percy’s biased view of Hades in a sense. He’s being quite an unreliable narrator here. And I’m not going to lie, Hades threatening and holding Percy’s mum to ransom doesn’t paint him in the best light, but we come to understand his desperation with the fact that his helmet was stolen and he believed Percy to be the culprit behind it all.
This interpretation of Hades does bug me, because Hades, whilst feared, is not a villainous God. It seems to me that in a lot of modern media, Hades is the designated Evil Guy just because his domain is something fearful and spooky to us humans. It leans into the more modern stereotypes that underworld=bad. I’m probably the last person to make this connection, but I think it’s likely due to a cultural awareness that Hell is where Satan lives and Hell is underground, so if Hades is a god that lives underground, that must mean he’s evil too right?
But in ancient myths, he’s pretty chill and more beaurecratic than anything. For example he actually feels moved by Orpheus and allows him to try and rescue his dead girlfriend Euridice from the underworld, which is a MASSIVE rule break, and even lends Heracles his dog Cerberus! Anyone who lets you borrow their dog has to be pretty ok in my book. His biggest crime is taking Persephone to marry her without Demeter’s knowledge or permission, the consequences for this act being disastrous. Although in quite a few interpretations I will say that Hades is one of the few Greek Gods who’s actually loyal and faithful to his wife (his lovers like Leuce came before Persephone). LOOKING AT YOU ZEUS, CONSTANTLY CHEATING ON YOUR LITERAL GODDESS OF MARRIAGE WIFE.
So, considering future books for a second, whilst it’s most likely not true that Hitler was the demigod son of Hades, there’s enough in the first book on it’s own that you could make that link and that to me is just…icky right? Can we just agree that it’s icky? World War 2 is pretty recent, there are still veterans and survivors alive who remember that war. It comes across as pretty insensitive to me.
In my opinion, this is the biggest mistake Rick Riordan made in the book, arguably in the series thus far. I think it would have been fine to keep the reason for the Big Three’s Pact being World War 2, and leave it much more open to interpretation as to who the demigods could have been and which side they’d have fallen on. I personally would have loved Zeus’ children to be on the villainous side of things. But I think I would have scrapped the line about Hades resembling Hitler. It’s really hard because we know that this is 1st person POV and Percy is extremely biased against Hades at that point, he’s the red herring of this story, he’s supposed to be seen as a villain. And that’s great, it’s a really good twist that it ends up not being Hades.
However, I think it just went a little bit too far and then didn’t clear Hades name enough for me to be fully satisfied at the end. At least not in The Lightning Thief anyway. But we’re focusing ONLY on the Lightning Thief here, I’m only analysing the interpretations present in the Lightning Thief themselves and to me, Hades interpretation was quite saddening to me however there was promise and potential. I like the interpretation of a grumpy beaurecrat Hades and we seemed to get that, icky comparisons aside, he just complained about Charon and that was great. More of that type of Hades please!
Now I don’t want to end this podcast on a Debbie downer. Like I said, I really love this book. Despite that one line that gave me the ick, I actually gave the book five stars because of it’s impact on me and how much I adored it.
In summary, then, whilst Rick Riordan has made a number of changes, put some interesting twists on the gods and even invented his own words to describe ancient beings, the biggest triumph is that he brought these ancient stories to life in a way that children and adults alike can truly connect to. I have a lot of fun comparing and contrasting the ancient stories to his more modern takes, but aside from one or two ill-conceived twists, I can never ever be angry at him because of how successfully he brings these stories into the modern world. Through introducing these stories to children, he provides a gateway for them into learning more about ancient history, and all that that entails. When I was growing up, one of my favourite sitcoms to watch was Frasier. I absolutely adored not only how funny it was, but the way they discussed the matters of psychology, ethics, the human condition. I can definitely count Frasier as being one of the reasons why my undergraduate degree is in the field of Psychology.
Media has a certain kind of influence over us, both bad and good. In my opinion the best type of media inspires us to become investigators, to dig deeper, to become learners or creators. Whether that’s loving the original Star Wars so much you read the Extended Universe or liking Star Trek enough that you start the modern era of fanfiction writing. To me, if even one child was inspired to further their education, to read and expand their love of Greek Mythology, because of Rick Riordans books it doesn’t really matter to me if Dionysus drinks Diet Coke instead of Red Wine.
But hey, it sure is fun to talk about!
Next episode will be the second of this two-part opener, where we compare Percy Jackson to his Greek Namesake “Perseus.” Every book in the The Percy Jackson and the Olympians series is inspired by one of the Greek Heroes, so how does The Lightning Thief compare to the myths and Legends of Perseus? I can’t wait to find out.
In the meantime, if you liked this episode please do hit that follow button and don’t forget to leave a comment or a rating as that would really help this new podcast find it’s feet! Plus I’m an Athena cabin girlie and we just like getting good grades.
Thank you for listening to the first episode of Greeks and Geeks: Myth and Fantasy Explained. I hope you had a good time. I’ve been you’re host Sabrina and I’m Geeking Out! See ya next time!