Discussing the parental-child relationship dynamics represented in the critically acclaimed Disney+ original television series, Percy Jackson and the Olympians.
The ‘save the world before set deadline’ trope is not lost on me as a member of Gen Z. Our generation has grown up in a time where technology is rapidly advancing while the climate crisis seems more impending every day. Many of us became adults amidst a global pandemic. Many of us are living through economic hardship at a time when world leaders a using their platforms to commit acts of violence. Some might say we’ve inherited a broken world, and it’s our job to fix it. But I'm not so sure. We’re just the first generation to live in the post-modern information age where the only constant is change.
That period just before you become a teenager or the “middle school” stage, is a precarious time for a lot of young people. The stability of childhood evaporates and suddenly life becomes inconsistent. Your body is changing, you’re transitioning into teenagehood which is typically more uncomfortable than childhood for all the reasons I’ve just mentioned. Your course load at school suddenly doubles and now you must start thinking about your future—so many changes. The first time I read Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief was during this stage.
I remember I was around the same age as Percy Jackson was in the book. Just your average 12-year-old. I remember falling in love with literature while reading this book. I did not read any of the assigned summer readings the summer prior. Reading wasn’t something that came easy to me. But while reading Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief for my 6th grade English class, there was something about the story that entranced me. Percy felt like a real person; he felt like a friend who was sharing his crazy adventures.
Of course, part of that captivating quality is attributed to author Rick Riordan’s sarcastic humour which informs much of Percy’s personality. But then there’s the imagination of a 12-year-old who wants nothing to do with the responsibilities of life. I spent so much time daydreaming I was a half-blood myself. I wanted to be a child of Poseidon who could control the seas. The irony is that the life of a half-blood is anything but free of responsibility. This is something I think the live-action adaptation captures perfectly.
Throughout its 1st season 8-episode run, we follow demi-gods Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase and their satyr protector Grover as they journey to retrieve Zeus's master bolt and return it to Olympus where it belongs. We see these children fight monsters and endure emotional abuse from some of the immortal goods of the Greek pantheon. At one point Percy is killed and turned into gold only to be resurrected 5 minutes later.
They are forced to go on a quest that wasn’t their choice and all the while they’re still just a bunch of children! I often play around with the idea that I am living a life I was forced to live. Like when I get all dramatic when I have to do some chore I’m not particularly thrilled about. Or when I have social obligations that I dread. None of us asks to exist yet here we are. Whether you like it or not, life is full of challenges and you have to deal with them. As an adult, I’ve made peace with that hard reality, but as a 12-year-old and throughout my teenage years, I felt it unfair how many expectations were being placed on me and my peers by our parents and the other adults in our lives.
There was always a lot of pressure to perform well in school. Anyone with African parents can attest to how strict they can be when it comes to academic performance. My father once jokingly said to my sister and me that we wouldn’t have a home to come back to if we didn’t finish the year with good grades. He probably doesn't remember that exchange, but I do. I remember how it made me feel powerless as a kid.
Bear with me as I therapize myself, but can we talk about the bizarre nature of parent-child relationships? Watching this show as an adult has been the healing elixir for my inner child. Now before I go further I should explain my parents are the best. They are nothing like the neglectful, emotionally absent gods depicted both in the book series and in the show. This isn’t by any means a smear campaign. If you're reading this, I love you, Mum and Dad!
Now where were we? Oh, yes. Parent-child relationships. If ever there was a dynamic where the imbalance of power is the foremost feature of the relationship, it would be this one. Children are entirely dependent on their parents for the bulk of their pre-adult lives. Even when they become adults, they still rely on their parents for so much. In exchange, parents are typically the authoritative figures in the home. What they say goes. This is the standard dynamic though there are variations to the code. Atypical family structures (such as the ones where one or both parents are absent and children are forced to take on adult responsibilities), status (class), religion, and cultural background– all these can influence the way typical parent-child relations work.
In the case of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, the authority of the Greek gods over their demigod children is an obvious marker of the parent-child power imbalance. The gods rule the mythical world. They have powers unlike any other and if you are familiar with Greek mythology then you know that it would be foolish to defy them. But there’s a catch to their “omnipotence”. The show makes sure to tell us that the gods cannot do whatever they want. There are rules. So they often must use the demigods to break the rules for them. And it is here we begin to see the parent-child dynamic flipped on its head.
Powerful as the gods may be, they need their children to do their bidding. Should they fail, then the gods will surely punish them. When Percy ships Medusa’s head to Olympys in episode 3, much to the protest of his quest companions, Athena, Goddess of Wisdom and Battle Strategy decides to let them know how pissed she is in the next episode. Caught in a hunt by a Chimera and the Mother of Monsters, the young heroes are denied refuge at Athena’s temple.
Annabeth, who is the daughter of Athena, understands immediately that this is her mother's way of “punishing” her for disrespecting the gods. What Athena might call “discipline” I view as sadistic. Not only is this life-threatening quest forced onto our young heroes, but even after slaying Medusa, who was going to kill them, the gods are seemingly only concerned with their pride.
Make no mistake it is their pride that is responsible for the majority of the conflicts and issues we see in the world of Percy Jackson. Ironically they too inherited dominion over the cosmos from the Titans, whom the book series portrays as being worse than the gods. We have yet to see the multi-generational struggle for control play out on screen in the show, but I do not doubt that when we do it will be provocative and exciting.
The Titans want revenge on the gods who usurped their seat of power. The gods want to maintain the status quo they fought hard to create all the while pacifying the next generation from rising. And the demigods? They just want control of their own destinies.
I know. I’m getting ahead of myself. The show hasn’t yet explored the full extent of the multi-generational conflict that makes up the bulk of the Percy Jackson lore, but the first season has already laid the groundwork for what is shaping out to be a generation-defining saga. We’ve already caught a glimpse of the emotional core behind the story through Sally Jackson, Percy’s human mother.
Throughout the first season, we learn that Poseidon, God of the Seas and Percy’s father, is forbidden by Zeus, from being in a close relationship with Percy and his mother. The decree applies to all the other gods as well for reasons the books explore better than I can here, but that’s beside the point. The point is Poseidon is unable to be there for Percy and Sally which makes things difficult for Sally because she now has to raise a demigod on her own, making her the de facto single mom.
Her relationship with Percy is one of the hallmarks of the live-action show even more so than in the books because it acts as the antithesis to the gods’ twisted family relations. Sally raises Percy to know that the gods are not always what they seem. She prepares Percy for his destiny as a child of one of the big three gods (Zeus, Hades and Poseidon) by teaching him that the gods are messy and untrustworthy. She teaches him to “hold fast” when things look bleak and to trust in his instincts and in the friends and allies he meets along the way. All of those traits that make Percy the hero he is, come from Sally. Just your ordinary woman in a world where gods can mess with the fabric of space-time.
To say the parallel of parenting styles in the show between Sally Jackson and the gods is poetic justice, would be an understatement. Like the books, the television show’s themes force us to ask ourselves what it means to be a child; what it means to be a parent; and what can we make of all of the many intersections that lie in between? The show wrestles with all of this while telling a story where the children are the ones who end up saving the day.
Now do you see what I mean when I say, “generation-defining”?
Thanks for reading!
All episodes of Percy Jackson and the Olympians are now available to stream only on Disney+.
Paperback and e-book copies of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians novel series are available to purchase on Amazon.
This blog post is not sponsored by Disney. I just love the book series and this show so much and I wanted to share it with you all. Have fun reading and watching! And let me know in the comments below how this show and/or book series has impacted you.
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