people will get mad at calypso for treating leo unfairly when she first met him as if annabeth hasn’t been doing the same thing to percy for 10 whole ass books
Annabeth stans are like “well characters are allowed to have flaws >:(” — like yes, characters having flaws is great, but if they’re written as flaws. If the so called flaws are never so much as acknowledged as flaws within the narrative, maybe that’s not the Deep Nuanced writing you all act like it is. “She’s like that because of her trauma!!!1!” Maybe, but if a character treats people like shit because of her trauma and then never recovers from said trauma, that’s not satisfactory writing.
The issue is not Annabeth having flaws or being traumatized or using unhealthy coping mechanisms or whatever. The issue is said behaviours being written as inherent to her character and not even being shown as flaws or trauma response, and her never developing to heal from her trauma or overcome her flaws. Rick never tried to make Annabeth get her shit together and become a better person because fans love her as she is and it gets him money.
you guys are talking about how annabeth had absolutely no one before percy came along but… what about her siblings? y'know, the ones that she’s lived with since she was seven? or what about grover? you can’t tell me that “the friendliest girl that everyone loves” had absolutely no friends before someone she could use to her advantage came along.
i think putting my finger on the fact that annabeth has ultimately not grown or matured as a person throughout either series and is still the same bratty and immature person she was when she was 12 years old was good because it explains all of my issues with her character, and in turn, percabeth.
to start, all of my issues, like i said, stem from the fact annabeth simply does not grow or mature. i constantly see the fact she’s a traumatized teen used in defense of this fact when… no. that just doesn’t work, not from a real life or writing standpoint. look at percy, for example, he’s also a traumatized teen. at his core, he is, of course, the same person he was in the beginning of pjo. but he’s changed and grown. key aspects of who you are won’t change but you can still grow and mature as a person. percy has done that. the opposite to percy, annabeth still behaves the Exact same as she did when she was young.
you can’t pinpoint important growths in character because they aren’t there. they just aren’t. people worshiped the bratty and entitled annabeth that was in the original books (for whatever reason), so rick never bothered to change it. don’t change what makes you money, right?
in not changing annabeth and continuing to write her as controlling, entitled and frankly, toxic, rick has played a major role in the downfall of percabeth. while yes, it’s still popular and hasn’t had a downfall within the fandom, that doesn’t mean it’s good or healthy— hence it’s downfall with how it’s handled.
in order to keep annabeth how she was, he had to sacrifice parts of percy’s character and growth in the heroes of olympus. we see this most notably in percy’s handling of annabeth always calling him “seaweed brain.” in pjo, he remarks that he doesn’t like it, he’s only grown used to it. he also says that it still bothers him, despite that. which is why he likes rachel more than annabeth. because she isn’t like that. he also doesn’t have to walk on eggshells around rachel, either. in heroes of olympus, percy suddenly loves when she insults him and loves when she gets physical with him.
this is not consistent with percy in pjo. not only does it not work because the change was never shown, it just… happened, but it also doesn’t work because it absolves annabeth from the responsibility of it. it hurt percy and it made him uncomfortable around annabeth. annabeth will never be held accountable for that and it will never be addressed. if this relationship were healthy and were handled correctly by rick, this issue would involve communication.
rick consistently sacrifices parts of percy’s character to put annabeth and percabeth on a pedestal. it’s a massive issue, and unfortunately one most of the fandom will never acknowledge and will be aggressively and angrily against acknowledging. after all, percabeth and annabeth are so perfect! /s
love triangles tend to be insufferable because of poor writing and the rachel/percy/annabeth triangle is no exception. it exists only to give annabeth a petty rival and solidify her status as a love interest that isn’t “like the other girls”. the interactions between annabeth and percy in this book are unbearable and the fact that she only accepts rachel as a person once she becomes the oracle and is off limits for romance is terrible.
not to mention the fandom’s tendency to insult rachel on those very same grounds. even the mention of perachel is still enough to send some fans in an incontrollable rage. it is 2021. we need to be better than this.
Ever think about the time when Reyna indirectly told Percy that he was useless without Annabeth and Annabeth completely agreed with her?? Because i do…
Look at it from her point of view. She’s been left by every hero that came to her island and everytime there was a girl involved. It makes sense of her to think that percy left her for annabeth and had she not been there he would have stayed with her.
Also, she had no idea of knowing that her curse would literally come alive and harm annabeth. People curse each other all the time, nobody stops to think whether your curse will come true or not lol.
Also you’re telling me that annabeth never cursed rachel when she was interested in percy?
Imagine spending an eternity alone, imagine loving someone and getting your heart broken everytime. Her anger is totally justified and she is bound to be a little salty. She should not be hated for it.
People shit on Rachel just for liking Percy, but why do I not see anyone criticising annabeth for loving luke (and blowing up whenever someone said anything against him) even though he was a mass murderer and a pedophile with no conscience trying to destroy the world and kill all her friends?
I saw a lot of posts over the years defending percabeth saying ‘its only fiction’.
This is in fact wrong, fiction does affect reality.
A lot of what children reads goes on to shape their minds and their thoughts.
Imagine a 10 year old reading the books seeing annabeth judo-flip percy, now that kid is gonna join the fandom and see people praising her or excusing her for that instead of calling her out.
That kid is gonna learn that its okay to physically assault other people for no reason and that its considered a testament to your 'strongness’.
Imagine kids reading about annabeth being toxic to rachel and percy and imagine them growing up and being toxic to others, imagine them learning that its okay to constantly belittle and insult your friends and of them doing the same….
In hindsight, i would not have had a problem with percabeth had the other charecters called annabeth out on her behaviour. I would not have had a problem if the fandom had accepted that percabeth is not the perfect ship they think it is and that annabeth is complex charecter with a lot of flaws.
I don’t care if you ship percabeth or if you love annabeth but overlooking everything wrong with their relationship and every wrong thing that annabeth does and pretending that they are perfect and hating on everyone criticising them is just wrong.
