Rick Riordan Presents

In contrast to my Harry Potter post, I wanted to also talk about Percy Jackson and the Olympians. It’s funny that these two get paired together so much, because they’re really not that much alike. They just had a lot of audience overlap, I think, being YA fantasy series published around the same time.

Now, while on a much smaller scale than JK Rowling, Rick Riordan has received some criticism for his work in recent years. The main one I see is that there are flaws (technical flaws, not to be confused with character flaws) with some of his racially diverse characters, and people argue that they don’t receive the attention that his white characters do. Some people feel that the second series was unnecessary and doesn’t add to the narrative, or are angry that it undoes some of the character development of the first series.

But to be honest, these criticisms of Rick Riordan have never bothered me the way JK Rowling’s failings have. They’re not unfounded. But I feel strongly that Riordan is a good writer and a good person. My fanfiction series, Constellations, is essentially a love letter to the work. And I wanted to examine why these issues are so vastly different.

The most important, I think, is that Riordan has grown over time. Of course, I have a soft spot for him because the very first thing he did with his world was make most of the characters disabled. Every single demigod (save Frank) has ADHD and dyslexia. Do you know how rare that is? Think of your favorite books, or movies, or TV shows. How many disabled characters are there? How many of those answers were ‘zero?’

A lot of people say that the first series was Riordan warming up to introduce ‘real’ diversity in later books, and they say this because LGBT characters and major characters of color were not introduced until the second series. But I think that does the first series, and more importantly the issue of disability, a major disservice.

Percy’s learning disabilities are a beautifully integrated part of his character. They aren’t an add-on, or a footnote. His lifelong struggles with ADHD and dyslexia are a key part of his insecurities, and they define his relationship with school, which in turn defines his relationship with his mother, with Camp Half-Blood, and with his friends. His learning disabilities are not his primary traits, but they add complexity. In my opinion, this puts him in a category with characters like Matt Murdock and Charles Xavier, who also have disabilities that are an integrated part of their story.

I emphasize integration because that can be difficult to get a hang of. Mad-Eye Moody is missing a leg and an eye, but these are footnotes to his personality; the integration is incomplete. He has a wooden leg – we hear him limp and see it fall off the imposter – but it’s not part of his identity. You could give him back his leg, and he would still be exactly the same character. You could put his magic eye on the back of his head, and it would serve the same purpose.

I think that the increasing diversity of his work is a sign of Rick Riordan’s growth over time. As he learns, he adds more characters and more thoughtful details. He started with disability because disability was the issue that was close to him, not because he didn’t care about other causes; he’s since started a program to boost viewership of authors of color. Moreover, he doesn’t push back against criticism, and he doesn’t stop learning. These are important traits in a person and in a public figure. You can contrast that with JK Rowling, who is being actively radicalized by the rapidly mounting criticisms of her work.

Ultimately, I think it’s that growth that makes the difference for me. Are there flaws in Rick Riordan’s work? Of course. It’s true that Beckendorf’s sacrifice played into a harmful trope, and that Percy’s early interactions with Artemis’ Hunters spoke a little toward ‘not all men.’ Drew lacks dimension as a character, and Nico’s arc is somewhat clumsily done – you know, like it was written by a straight man who’s never written about queer issues before. But these are forgivable flaws, because Riordan does not defend them, and you can see that his later works are more thoughtful. They're better.

It's not the flaws that matter most. It’s that. It’s growth.