Percy Jackson and the Underworld

In this episode we'll be exploring the Underworld of Percy Jackson in the first book series, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, as well as the TV show on Disney Plus and yes... I will be joining Rick in giving the first movie a thorough roasting.

How does the Underworld in Percy Jackson compare to the ancient myths? Does it ring true or not?

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Transcript

Greeks and Geeks season 3 episode 4: Percy Jackson, Hades and The Underworld

Hello and welcome to Greeks and Geeks the podcast where I take us on a persnickity but fun journey deep diving into the lore behind our favourite stories. As season 3 starts in spooky season, all 6 episodes are themed around the underworld of ancient Greek mythology. Our first episode was all about the underworld itself, following the journey of our girl Kalliope, the second episode was all about Hades and Persephone and last week’s episode we talked all about Hades the video game so do check those out if you haven’t already.

Today we’re baking up a batch of blue cookies and donning our orange t-shirts as we’re looking at the underworld in Percy Jackson and its various interpretations. We will be talking about it from the first book series, Percy Jackson and The Olympians, discussing the visual interpretation of the new Disney+ show and of course, we’ll be tearing into the movies too which is always fun- but I’ll save that until the end because a) Rick Riordan didn’t have anything really to do with those movies and b) if I talk about it too early I’ll give myself a tummy ache. 

Now I’d like to mention that I’m still making my way through Heroes of Olympus (you can see this journey on my tiktok) so I’m not going to talk about any underworld representation in those books. The only exception to this is talking about the demigod children of Hades, where I’ll be talking about Hazel and how much I love her because I do, I adore her so much. Please don’t spoil, as of the time of writing this I’m about halfway through The Mark of Athena and loving it.

I’ve discussed Percy Jackson and Rick Riordan’s interpretation of Hades before right at the very start of this podcast so do check out those episodes too as I won’t go into as much detail. Let’s instead look at how Rick Riordan interprets The Underworld in the book and TV show.

(Music)

In Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, Percy and his companions Annabeth and Grover have to travel to the underworld. The entrance of their underworld is in LA rather than a nondescript cave like in so many other ancient myths such as Orpheus and Eurydice or the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. I do like how far apart the entrances to the underworld and Olympus are. Olympus is in New York and LA being on the opposite side of the country in California. I think that’s a good reflection of ancient myths, since the underworld and Olympus are supposed to be far away from each other. But what I REALLY like, and what I often think about is, why LA of all places? Is it because it’s the place dreams go to die? Is it because Hollywood is seen as soulless by some people? I’m not really sure, but I’d love any of my American listeners to chime in with their thoughts on this.

The exact entrance to the underworld is a place called DOA recording studios, DOA standing for Dead on Arrival by the way which is just *chefs kiss* delightful. It seems like a dark and very, for lack of a better phrase, emo-like place. There are plants that look like skeleton fingers and everything is grey. 

Charon, too, is here as a security guard in a fancy suit as opposed to simply being the mad looking ferryman from episode 1 of this series. Percy bribes him to let Annabeth, Grover and himself into the underworld and Charon gruffly agrees. But before they get to the ferry, they enter an elevator which takes them down. He also mentions that if they don’t have money, he can charge adults using their credit cards. However children don’t usually “come prepared” so spirits sometimes have to wait centuries before they’re allowed passage. It’s up to him to decide when exactly.

So we have some classic features from mythology. Needing payment for the ferryman, having to wait if you don’t, things being dull. But here we see a modern twist. See what Rick Riordan is doing, quite expertly is weaving in the modern era with ancient myths. He’s asking us to not imagine an underworld from mythological times, but one that has evolved for a modern era. So. Elevators of death. Pretty rad I must say.

But as the heroes venture further down, things start to become a bit more classic. The spirits around them become grey and wear hooded cloaks. They cross the river Styx in Charon’s ferry. One thing I thought was interesting, however, is that Rick Riordan gives Charon a more tradition grim-reaper like appearance once he’s in the underworld, which I have seen from Charon before, but you can correct me if I’m wrong, I believe it’s a much more modern interpretation. If you go back to the first episode of this series, you’ll note that Charon is depicted by Virgil as someone pretty wild looking, with a long scraggly beard, not a spooky scary skeleton (sends shivers down your spine). 

So, Virgil’s Charon is bit of an unnerving version but nothing like the skeletal figure of death from The Lightning Thief. Still, gotta respect the man (Rick not Virgil) for the aesthetic choices. If I’d read it when I was younger, I’m 100% sure I would have loved it as, I confess I was an emo/scene kid. Yes, I did love The Nightmare Before Christmas and I STILL do. No regrets. I may be cringe but I’m free.

The underworld is described as vast, with lots of black sand, large walls and volcanic rock. This paints a picture of an underworld that is pretty grey, dull place which is accurate to a lot of the myths too. However, once again, we get those delightful modernisms. The souls are lining up almost like at airport security. There are two queues, one for instant access to asphodel and the other access to be judged. Annabeth says the “E Z death” line is for people who don’t want to risk being judged. It’s a good way to tackle the sheer number of humans the underworld has to deal with now.

The court of the judges has now been added to as well. Instead of the original 3, there are now others such as Shakespeare and Thomas Jefferson which to me is hilarious. I can imagine Rick, being a fellow teacher, trying to think of names of famous people who middle-grade American kids would know. But now I’m thinking of other famous people from British history that would be good judges or TERRIBLE judges. So like Charles I? Yeah he was in a position of power, but he did end up with his head chopped off so you know, bad judge. Jane Austen would be brilliant though, could you imagine her quick wit in judging the soul of an evil guy? She’d incinerate him before he even got to Tartarus.

What were we talking about?

Oh yeah the underworld.

Ok so one thing Percy mentioned that had me like “huh?” to put it in very scholarly terms, is that he can see the fields of punishment, with Sisyphus pushing up a boulder up the hill.

This puzzled me because the fields of punishment I think is supposed to be an alternative name for Tartarus? I’ve been trying to find anything concrete about it (except on ye olde Wikipedia which I sometimes use for these episodes to verify sources. Yes, this teacher DOES advocate for Wikipedia. Steven Fry used it for his Mythos series too so I can use it to double check also!). Anyways I can’t find anything else about it so if anyone can help me with that, that would be great. Regardless, Sisyphus shouldn’t be on the same level as Asphodel and the palace of Hades, as he’s supposed to be in Tartarus. Tartarus is below the underworld, far, far, far below it.

However, there IS a Tartarus in the Percy Jackson series too. Grover almost gets sucked into it! So yeah. Bit of a weird one but I think it’s probably just Rick Riordan trying to introduce factors of the underworld to the best of his ability.

On the positive side, the gang stumble upon a garden Persephone has made! Love that. They also remind the reader that you should never eat anything in the underworld, as it will tie you there forever. Here I have to admire Rick because all of this insane amount of information is conveyed in Percy’s fun was of speaking and in such a succinct manner. Regardless if a few things are a bit off, he paints a picture of an underworld similarly in line with the myths.

Cerberus is here in the underworld too, helping to guard as normal. But perhaps because she is a demigod, Annabeth is able to tame him. As far as I’m aware, there aren’t any myths where Cerberus gets trained with a red ball. I think the closest thing might be Hades letting Heracles borrow Cerberus for a bit but that’s all I can think of. Either way, iconic and cute.

They also go to Hades palace but I want to save that for a bit later. Right now, I want to talk about the TV show. 

So the Underworld in the Percy Jackson TV show, quite frankly, gives me the heebie jeebies. It. Is. CREEPY. They make everything a lot more menacing. A cold grey mist swirls around, making everything mysterious and slightly obscured. Once again, the colourless underworld is accurately depicted. But the way they depicted Asphodel would have given me SERIOUS nightmares as a kid.

The souls in asphodel, are all standing stock still. They barely look human anymore. Not reacting at all. Under their robes, you can see roots, confirming that they’re turning into trees maybe? Annabeth says that this is a place where humans are haunted by their choices and regrets. It’s super creepy and effective, yes, but it also makes asphodel seem like a prison, which it’s not really supposed to be. Spirits in mythology are free to roam the fields of asphodel, and usually they do spend their time lamenting or feeling sorry. But it’s a neutral place, where neither the excellent or terrible go. Excellent for TV and effective creepiness, but not as accurate to the myths.

Outside of Asphodel are miles and miles of empty sand dunes. I’ve never seen anything about sand dunes in the underworld, but I think it’s meant to symbolise just how vast everything is. The palace of Hades is super far away from where the souls to be judged are though so the map of the underworld is definitely different in PJTV, which I’m calling the Percy Jackson TV show for now.

So although I like PJTV, it’s not the best interpretation of the underworld. However I can’t be too mad at it, since it gave us this gem of an exchange between Charon and Percy.

“You’re not dead”

“I mean we’re all dying to some extent”

Speaking of, the Palace of Hades isn’t described as deeply in the myths I’ve read about, so Rick Riordan fills in the blanks. In the book, he makes it seem like a dark and sinister place, with artistic depictions of death such as the atomic bomb. There are tons of jewels, signifying Hades’ wealthy status. Meanwhile, his palace in PJTV is like a huge mountain, like cold, grey rock. It’s kind of giving Sauron’s/Sauruman’s tower in the lord of the Rings, but if it was a palace. It’s supposed to be a foil to what Olympus looks like in PJTV, which is all shining white marble and gold. Which makes sense since in this books we’re supposed to consider Hades as the evil counterpart to Olympus, which we know he is not. Personally I think, in the books, Rick Riordan leaned a little TOO hard in the direction of Hades being evil but that’s a rant I’ve already done in one of my first ever episodes.

What I think is interesting however, is in the throne room, we see two thrones. One is smaller than the other. Much smaller than the other. So the large one is Hades, we’re lead to assume, and the smaller is for Persephone. This is interesting since, in one of the rare depictions we have from Greco-Roman times, we see Hades and Persephone on thrones of equal standing and of equal size. In myths too, Hades defers to Persephone an awful lot. Their marriage and rulership over the underworld seems to be a lot more equal than that of Hera and Zeus. I wonder if in the Riordanverse, this is true, or have our own cultural biases come into play here for this depiction? It’s interesting to think about. I have a link to the relief in the description box of this episode. However if you happen to live in Italy, you can actually see it in the National Museum of Magna Graecia. If you do, please PLEASE tag me on socials cause that would be so exciting to see!

But for now, lets move on to the depiction of demigods children of Hades in the Riordanverse.

(Music)

So one of the first things to note is that I’m pretty sure Hades doesn’t actually have any demigod children in myths. There are children of Hades and Persephone, Melinoe and Zagreus, but they are gods in their own right. Also there was this one absolutely one wild time where Tumblr invented a goddess called Mesperiyan, who was the most beloved daughter of Hades and apparently Aphrodite burned half her face off for being even more beautiful than her. That spread like wildfire for a bit before it came out as false. But yeah. No demigod children.

Hades in the modern age is considered the most faithful Greek God as he doesn’t cheat on his wife. There are myths that contradict this, however, because of course there are. Hades did have a girlfriend, Minthe. Although most consider their relationship to predate Persephone, and Minthe’s jealous slandering of Persephone causes Demeter to turn the nymph into a mint plant in her fury at the slight against her daughter. There is another myth where Minthe and Hades have a moment but Persephone, in blind rage, is the one to turn her into a plant. So like with most myths, you can consider it from all angles and pick the interpretation you like best. I personally prefer the first one, since Hades is still faithful and I think that’s nice.

So yes I did feel a certain way about Hades being unfaithful to Persephone in the Rick Riordan books, but I understand that’s come from my own biases. I’ve noticed in online spaces there tends to be rather black-and-white thinking. Your favourite interpretation, or the one you heard first, is the correct one or “the canonical” one in your head. And that just doesn’t work in Greek myths. So whilst yeah I am sad that Hades cheats on Persephone in the Riordanverse, I understand Rick is doing it for the emo kids, which I mad respect and…did I just type the words “mad respect”? Better yet did I actually keep them and record them? Yeah I guess I did but you get me. If we didn’t have an unfaithful Hades, we wouldn’t get the amazing demigod children. Bianca, Nico and Hazel.

I’m going to start with Bianca here and spoilers for those of you that haven’t read the Titans Curse. We get so little time with her before she dies. She comes across as kind and caring, and wise beyond her years. As a demigod of the big 3, she’s extremely powerful but only gets to use a little bit of it before she passes away in the confrontation with Talos. She can control and kill…errr…re-kill? Banish? Anyways she can defeat the undead skeletons with ease. She has command over the dead the same way her brother does. 

What I like about all 3 children of the underworld is that their powers are slightly different. I just wish we had more time with Bianca. I’m about to say something quite controversial here. Lots of you who watched my reactions to the Titans Curse know that I was devastated by Bianca’s death. Not just because of the effect on Nico, but because of the fact this poor little girl didn’t even get a chance to live her life. She was only twelve, and she spent her whole life living for her younger brother. She finally chose something for herself and she immediately died afterwards.

I think this is one of the nastiest things Rick Riordan has written, and I don’t use the phrase “nasty” lightly.

See the thing I’ve always heard, is that Rick Riordan wants every child to see themselves in his books. Children who have to grow up too soon, children who become young carers, are real and exist. The term “parentification” essentially means a minor who is given the responsibilities of an adult looking after another child. It is a form of abuse and can cause a lot of trauma for these parentified children to grow up looking after another younger children. No child should be given that responsibility. Bianca was a child. 

So the only representation of a Young Carer or parentified child gets murdered when they finally experience freedom. Imagine a young carer, seeing themselves in Bianca, reading that. That’s why I personally have really strong feelings about it and why it makes The Titans Curse my least favourite in the original 5 books. Well that and the lack of my girl Annabeth.

But now on to her brother, Nico. We first meet him when he’s a precocious little kid, full of big questions and annoying the heck out of Percy, who having lost Annabeth, absolutely doesn’t have the time for it. I think the fandom has a really strong connection to Nico due to the coolness factor of him being a child of Hades, but also the fact that we meet him as this vulnerable kid, even younger than our main characters, and we see him grow up and become a bit more jaded with the world. We watch his emo-fi-cation first hand (yes I’m making that a word). And although I’m not at that part of Heroes of Olympus yet, I’m aware that Nico is gay. So that must have been a MASSIVE revelation at the time. So where I think Rick failed in his representation of young carers, I believe Nico is great rep for young children questioning their identities. I could be wrong there though, like I said I haven’t gotten to that bit yet. I can only infer based on the fact that Nico is SO SO beloved in the fandom.

Nico also has the benefit of growing up where his sister was unable to, so we get to see his powers develop and BOY….BOOOOOOOOOY when I tell you that moment with the skeleton army at the end of The Last Olympian? Iconic. Truly. I had Welcome to the Black Parade by My Chemical Romance in my head for a WEEK afterwards.

Nico has a great power to communicate with the dead and to command them, like his sister. Hence the skeleton army. One of my other favourite scenes is when he uses Happy Meals to communicate with ghosts. I also love this because it’s very Odyssey-esque in nature, with a modern twist again. When Odysseus communicates with the dead, he makes a vile concoction of honey, sweet wine, water, barley and blood. The ghosts need to drink this in order to speak. Nico replaces this with McDonalds and fizzy drinks. Absolutely wonderful. I adore it.

I think it’s really fun too, that the Nico and Bianca have similar powers to each other whereas the third demigod child of Hades, has a completely different type of power. Or at least it’s the one she’s most adept in. But this could also be because she’s technically not a demigod child of Hades, but a child of Pluto.

Hazel is a child of Pluto, the Roman equivalent of Hades. She is also someone who was raised from the dead, out of her own time (the 1940s) into the modern era. As such she has some very sweet sensibilities such as getting flustered at Percy and Annabeth’s couple-y shenanigans and fanning herself like an old southern lady. I love her to pieces for that alone. I also think her powers are super cool since they’re so different from Nico and Bianca’s. But her powers are rather like a curse. Hazel can summon precious metals and stones from the earth, however if a human keeps them they will experience bad luck. This power makes a lot of sense to me since, as I’ve already stated in the episode about Hades and Persephone, Pluto is based on the Greek word Pluton, meaning wealthy. So Hazel’s powers are based on her father’s namesake.

Finally I want to talk about the fatal flaw all these demigod children share. Well at least as far as I’m aware, Hazel has it too. I’m not sure if she does actually, since it’s not been confirmed if Roman and Greek demigods share the same fatal flaws at the part I’m at in the story. I’m going to assume, for now, it’s true. All demigod children of Hades have the fatal flaw of holding a grudge. I really like this because there are many Greek Heroes who have been wronged in some way, and act out, resulting in more misfortune or even death. For example Achilles sees himself as wronged by Hector, who murdered his most beloved Patroclus on the battlefield. In his rage and thirst for revenge, Achilles chokes rivers with bodies, desecrates Hectors body and becomes a fighting machine for the Greeks until he is killed by an arrow. Just want to point out Achilles isn’t a son of Hades, but just giving you an example of what grudges can do in the ancient world.

But mainly I just like the idea of the demigod children of Hades’ fatal flaws being grudge holding cool because I think it ties in nicely to that famous proverb “before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.” Get it? Cause…they’re children of the underworld and it’s graves? And they hold grudges so they might want to seek revenge? Ahem, anyways…I’ll see myself out.

And so finally we’re onto THAT part of the podcast. I think I’m going to need a peppermint tea because we’re going into something that make me lose my marbles. Let’s talk about it shall we? Let’s discuss the Underworld in the first Percy Jackson movie: Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief. 

(MUSIC)

I thought you ought to know that before I started typing this part, I sat with my hair pressed into my mouth, staring into the void. I try to be fair and not slander media on here. Especially as I’m an aspiring author myself, I think it might be classless of me to talk smack on other peoples art. I do it from time to time if I think the book is genuinely harmful, but yeah it’s just not my style overall. And if I ever DO become a published author, I will stop saying anything negative completely. I’m probably overthinking it I know.

However, with the Percy Jackson movie I’m giving myself a free pass since that movie was such a terrible adaptation that even Rick Riordan wrote emails disparaging the movie to the studio and even released them to the general public. I did have some people asking if I was going to quote the emails and I won’t quote the whole thing, however there are some things he says better than I can. I also want to give a shout out to one of my favourite lines in his email: “When I first read the script I’ll admit I was plunged into despair at just how bad it was. If I were intentionally trying to sabotage this project, I doubt I could have done a better job than this script.”

I’m also focusing only on the first movie’s interpretation of the Underworld, Hades and Persephone and why it- spoiler alert- sucks so much. I’m not going to disparage the actors or anything like that, but simply compare it to the myths

And suffice to say, it does not hold up well. I did a live reaction to me watching the movie and if you were there for that, that’s probably the angriest anyone has ever seen me on a live I bet. I also wrote some notes as I watched it for the first time, which I’m now going to share with you so without further adieu, here are my written first hand account reactions to the first Percy Jackson movie.

When Hades first appears, he threatens the camp early on in the movie. He appears from the camp fire as a raging demonic-like beast. Literally. He looks like the devil monster thingy from Fantasia. The one that gave me nightmares as a kid. Except made with fire. 

My reactions was this:

“No
 No
 No
 That’s not Hades.
 No.
 Please.
 STOP”
 
 

I want to point out that I’m reading these notes again fresh for the first time ever and I’ve completely forgotten the context to some of them. There’s A LOT of all-caps which are mostly angry but then there’s this random one where I’ve written KE$HA! :D 

But I digress, that campfire scene filled me with dread. They made Hades a demonic figure when he was never that to begin with. Hades never had a demonic form in the myths. In fact, a lot of his ephitets are about him being unseen. “The Unseen One” because he has a helm of darkness, which can make him invisible. If you look at the relief of Hades and Persephone on the throne again you’ll see that Persephone is not sat next to HECKING SATAN because he’s a god and not SID, LORD OF THE FLAME!

But of course there’s more! One part they kept in the film is that Percy and the gang go to the Underworld. But of course- well let’s defer to my notes shall we?

Ahem “THEY MADE THE UNDERWORLD HELL OH MY GOD NO.”

So yes, they made the Underworld a world of fire, brimstone and suffering. I am dead serious right now (I can’t believe I made it 4 episodes without making a pun like that, go me). I- I just- why was this decision made? The book and TV show, whilst not being TOTALLY accurate to the underworld of myths, gets the spirit of it right (2 in a row, sorry). This just automatically assumes Hades is the devil and the underworld is hell and I HATE IT SO MUCH. Greek Mythology pre-dates Christianity by THOUSANDS of years. It was there first dang-nabbit! And the reason I find this SO insulting, is because Hellenism is still a religion practised today. Can you imagine Hellenists taking a movie about the last supper and reframing it as a festival of Dionysus or something? I don’t know, I’m just spitballing here. It’s lazy, insulting and it’s disappointing to the nth degree because it shows how little care was taken.

Speaking of which, my next note is literally about Persephone saying that “she’s in hell” which just proves my point. ALSO ALSO IT’S SUMMER. WHY IS PERSEPHONE IN THE UNDERWORLD IN SUMMER? The whole point is she going above in the Spring/Summer and in the Autumn/Winter she goes below. That’s the whole reason, according to Greek myths, why we even HAVE seasons to begin with.

And oh Persephone. Persephone. Why? Why do they bring her in. I’m going to let Rick Riordan explain this one. In the movie they have this random, not-book-accurate quest to find Persephone’s pearls. They’re pearls which can transport anyone from the underworld to anywhere else of their choosing. So…yeah that doesn’t make sense for so many reasons, but I’ll let Rick tell you why.

Persephone’s pearls. A truly bad plot device. In the original, Percy must go across country because he cannot fly, as Zeus would zap him out of the sky. He’s got a timer – the summer solstice. He’s got double motivation – find his mother, and find Hades, who supposedly has the lightning bolt. He’s got a goal: Los Angeles. This gives him plenty of reason to go to the Underworld without tagging on some superficial quest for pearls that don’t have any basis in Greek mythology. This is the point where the script takes a hard left turn into weird. The story ceases to be the Lightning Thief, and it will have fans squirming in their seats and demanding a refund.

He also calls Persephone a deus ex machina which I think is funny because deus ex machina means god machine and derives from the ancient Greek play of Medea (who uses a god machine to flee at the end of the play).

Now this part of my notes was intriguing. It simply says 1:27:59 breaking point. I haven’t watched the movie since the first time but now I’ve got to see what was my breaking point?... let me…

Oh

Oh

Ha

Ha like

Ok 

Ok I see why I broke. I see. Why. I broke.

DO YOU GUYS KNOW WHAT HADES SAYS IN THIS MOVIE? HE SAYS THAT HE WAS BANISHED BY ZEUS AND POSEIDON AND THAT HE WAS “DAMNED”

Listen this podcast is supposed to be persnickity and fun. How can I be persnickity and look at all the silly fun details of stuff when something is so GLARINGLY wrong AND insulting that it ends up actually being painful? Comparing this to the slightly-off version of the Underworld of the Percy Jackson TV show is like the difference between a flick on the nose and being struck dead on by the Luftwaffe. One is a little baffling but you get over it and the other one is like bro I’m straight up not having a good time.

So, suffice to say, that the Underworld in the Percy Jackson movie is one of the most insulting adaptations of the Underworld I’ve ever had the misfortune to look at with my eyes. It’s lazy, used the wrong religion as a basis for its look, and treated Hades as more of a lucifer type figure, rather than the oldest Olympian he actually is. He was not a banished god, but instead was a well-respected one who, when they drew lots, simply ended up with the Underworld. Nothing more than that.

I feel like I got a tad bit angry there. Just a smidge. So I thought I’d end the episode with one last note of mine, not relevant to the Underworld but just because I think it’s funny and I want to know if you agree. In the movie, Chiron admits that Percy is his favourite.

I wrote “Chiron would NEVER admit to a fave (and it would be Annabeth if it was anyway)” 

But what do you think? Let me know in the comments!