The Blood of Olympus

The daughter of Roman goddess of war Bellona and Julian Ramirez-Arellano, a soldier who served in Iraq, Reyna has an older sister, Hylla, who appears in the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series as an attendant of Circe and is the queen of the Amazons in The Heroes of Olympus series. Although it’s said that Reyna was with her sister on Circe’s island, her character is formally introduced, by name, in the second series. Reyna is the only demigod among those on a quest whose divine parent has a solely Roman identity. She’s a Roman praetor who served with Jason and anticipated having a romantic relationship with him. Her discovery of his relationship with Piper contributed to the conflict between the Greek and Roman demigods.

Reyna narrates three sections (or 12 chapters) of the novel, primarily while on the quest to deliver the Athena Parthenos. She epitomizes the Roman value of pietas, always being ready to serve and sacrifice herself for her friends and whatever cause she’s fighting for as well as leadership on these terms. Her fear throughout The Blood of Olympus is that she made a mistake by leaving Camp Jupiter in Octavian’s hands. Part of her knows that she needed to deliver the Athena Parthenos for the rift between the Greeks and Romans to heal, but she can’t stop worrying about the fate of the people at Camp Jupiter.

The bond that Nico and Reyna develop on their quest promotes Reyna’s emotional healing and growth. She carries a burden of grief around her father’s death, for which she feels responsible, and fratricide is a capital offense in Rome. However, as Nico points out to her, her father was no longer human when he died but a mania, so she can’t properly consider herself his killer. In her final narrated section, Reyna throws herself on a flaming sword intending to sacrifice herself to save the winged horses in her care. In the moment, she fears that her opportunity to deliver the statue has passed her by, but she’s still willing to give up her life to protect those for whom she feels responsible. The explosion never comes because Athena transforms Reyna’s cloak into her own aegis, saving her life. Reyna then defeats Orion with the help of two goddesses of war, Greek Athena and Roman Bellona. Her sense of duty (pietas) and her personal excellence (aristeia) in carrying out her responsibilities fittingly bring one Greek and one Roman goddess together in a moment of triumph.

A son of Hephaestus and Esperanza Valdez, Leo is introduced as a character earlier in The Heroes of Olympus series. When he was a child, his mother died in a warehouse fire provoked by Gaea to break Leo’s spirit. After his mother's death, Leo was blamed for her death, and he felt responsible for it, though it wasn’t his doing. Small in stature, Leo was bullied and felt like an outsider, a feeling that he carried with him when he arrived at Camp Half-Blood. He uses humor to cope with his feelings of alienation despite his important contributions.

Like Piper, Leo narrates nine chapters—two four-chapter sections and the book’s final chapter. As a son of the smithing god, Hephaestus, Leo’s excellence is machine work. He jokes that he connects better with machines than with people, though this further fuels his sense of himself as an outsider among his friends. Nevertheless, he’s loyal and protective of his fellow demigods, using his insight into machines and how they work to save both them and him. Although he has a plan that he hopes will enable him to survive, he’s willing to sacrifice himself either way.

For most of the series, he’s without a romantic partner. In The House of Hades, he meets and falls for Calypso. He must leave her behind but promises to return for her. Throughout The Blood of Olympus, he seeks a means of finding his way back to her to fulfill his promise while also maintaining his focus on destroying Gaea. The final chapter of the book reveals that his plan, which is referred to critically throughout the novel, has succeeded. He destroyed Gaea, successfully programmed Festus to deliver the cure to him after he died, and returned to save Calypso. Leo’s is the last word in the novel.

The son of Hades and Maria di Angelo, Nico is a main character in both the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series and The Heroes of Olympus series. His sister, Bianca di Angelo, joined the Hunters of Artemis and later died (in The Titan’s Curse, the third book in the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series), and his half-sister, Hazel (a daughter of Pluto), is on the quest to Athens. In The Heroes of Olympus series, Nico is the link between Camp Jupiter and Camp Half-Blood. He was the only demigod who knew about the existence of both camps, having been appointed the ambassador of Pluto.

Nico narrates four sections (or 16 chapters) of the novel on the quest to deliver the Athena Parthenos to Camp Half-Blood. In the previous book in the series, The House of Hades, Nico agreed to shadow-travel the statue back to Long Island with Coach Hedge and Reyna. His chapters in The Blood of Olympus are split between the quest and events at Camp Half-Blood after Gaea’s appearance. He undergoes a maturation process across the two series. One part of his growth is a consequence of transitioning from childhood into adolescence. As a child, Nico was in awe of Percy, then developed a crush on him, later blamed him for Bianca’s death, and in the final book is able to let the crush go and feel happy to know Percy as a friend. The other part of his maturation involves coming to terms with the events of his life, especially the underworld powers he holds and the anxiety he experiences about how others see him.

His capacity to manipulate spirits, summon zombies, and turn mortals into ghosts unsettles his peers. This mirrors the views toward Hades in Greek myth: Hades maintains a presence on Olympus because he makes other gods uncomfortable. However, Nico has many friends and supporters—among both the Greek and Roman camps—who go out of their way to support him. On the quest with Reyna and Hedge, Nico develops a strong bond with Reyna based on their similar struggles to reconcile with their pasts and choices they made that they think others will judge harshly. After Nico mercilessly destroys Bryce—in response to Bryce’s cruelty to Reyna—he expects Hedge and Reyna to be repulsed, but instead, they fully support him, ensuring that he’s healed and doesn’t put himself in further danger. Reyna and Hedge’s friendship and loyalty are important to Nico’s growth, but he’s not convinced that others will feel similarly until the final sections he narrates at Camp Half-Blood, when he connects with Will Solace, the son of Apollo, whom the narrative implies is romantically interested in Nico. Pairing the sons of Hades and Apollo is fitting given ancient Greek texts’ emphasis on duality: The underworld is a place beyond the light. Will is unintimidated by Nico and his underworld powers—and even bickers with Nico and bosses him around, surprising him and provoking him to realize that he’s not alone.