The Chalice of the Gods

“When you’ve helped each other through Tartarus, the deepest and most horrifying place in the universe, and you’ve come out alive and stronger than you were to begin with…well, that isn’t a relationship you could ever replace, or should ever want to.”

Percy and Annabeth were friends before they started dating, and their relationship is built on their long history of saving each other’s lives. The Power of Friendship and love allows them to support each other through new challenges in every book; they trust each other implicitly.

“My second thought was: Why do the gods keep losing their magic items? It was like a job requirement for them: 1) become a god, 2) get a cool magic thing, 3) lose it, 4) ask a demigod to find it.”

In the first Percy Jackson book, Percy had to recover Zeus’s missing lightning bolt. Several other books have featured similar quests, with The Chalice of the Gods being the most recent. Locating these items, which the gods could find for themselves, is one of The Challenges of Being a Demigod that illustrates the demigods’ social status.

“Being eight years old again was terrifying. The idea that I might have to go through all those years again…I felt tears welling in my eyes.”

Unlike many people, Percy does not look back on his childhood with fondness. With monsters and gods constantly attacking him, he needs the strength and autonomy that come with age. He barely survived his childhood; Embracing the Passage of Time lets him better understand the world around him and avoid all kinds of gruesome fates.

“Maybe that was because I was so close to graduating and hopefully starting a new life in California. Only a few steps to go, but the ground was starting to crack beneath my feet. I didn’t trust that the world could hold my weight much longer.”

Percy’s fears about the future are common to many students as they approach high school graduation. The closer he gets to his goals, the more uncertain they feel. That uncertainty makes Embracing the Passage of Time much more difficult.

“‘It’s also okay to doubt yourself,’ my mom added. ‘That’s completely normal.’ ‘Even for demigods?’ ‘Especially for them.’”

Sally cannot fight monsters for Percy, but she can provide him with stability and love. Percy’s relationship with his mother is much stronger than his relationship with his father, and he greatly admires her strength and wisdom.

“The scene reminded me of the Fields of Asphodel down in Hades’s realm.”

The Fields of Asphodel are a part of the ancient Greek underworld where ordinary souls are sent after death. The afterworld in Greek mythology is divided into three parts: The Fields of Asphodel; Elysium, where heroes go; and Tartarus, where wicked souls are punished. References to Asphodel appear in Greek literature dating as far back as Homer’s Odyssey. This reference illustrates the novel’s close engagement with Greek myth.

“Sometimes I forgot he wasn’t a scared junior satyr protector anymore, but a scared Cloven Council elder. I guess we’d both grown up a lot.”

It is easy for Percy to forget that Grover is actually in his thirties; he only looks like a teenager because satyrs age slower than humans. Percy and Grover have been friends for a long time and have been on many dangerous quests together. The Power of Friendship has kept them together as they have grown and matured.

“But what surprised me most was that Annabeth mentioned Luke Castellan, our old friend-turned-enemy. Since the Battle of Manhattan, she’d almost never said his name. It seemed like a bad omen that she was bringing him up now.”

Luke Castellan was one of the primary antagonists in the first five Percy Jackson books. He attempted to bring back the titan Kronos to bring down the Olympian gods, but he ultimately sacrificed himself to save Olympus and his fellow demigods. This reference to Luke emphasizes the continuity between Rick Riordan’s books and reminds the reader of the many challenges Percy and his friends have faced.

“I flashed back to the time basilisks had chased my buddies Frank and Hazel and me through a similar grassy field in California. Come to think of it, I’d spent entirely too much of my life playing hide-and-seek with deadly reptiles.”

Frank Zhang and Hazel Levesque are both the children of Roman gods. They first appear in The Son of Neptune, the second book in The Heroes of Olympus, which is a sequel series to the first five Percy Jackson and the Olympians books. Percy appears in this series as well. Referring to being hunted by reptiles as “playing hide-and-seek” emphasizes Percy’s dangerous childhood: Instead of being a light-hearted game, hide-and-seek had life-or-death consequences for the younger Percy.

“I was a scared kid again, screaming for the big bad world to leave me alone. My rage exploded.”

For Percy, childhood and fear are inextricably linked. His powers are connected to his emotions, and he accesses them most easily when he is angry, afraid, or frustrated. Because he is the son of such a major god, Percy’s powers can be more volatile than those of other demigods.

“What if I’m worried about you and Annabeth leaving me next summer?”

It is easy for Percy to get caught up in his own problems, but he is not the only one who is worried about what the future holds. Grover cannot come to California, so he worries about his friends forgetting him. Percy assures him that The Power of Friendship will always keep them together.

“But also, it made my own departure seem even more real. I would be leaving just as my mom and Paul were starting a new chapter. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.”

Percy realizes that Embracing the Passage of Time sometimes means accepting that his life will change. He wants to go to college, but he also feels that the future is coming at him too quickly; he will miss seeing his sibling grow up. Embracing change is difficult and comes with sacrifices, even if the change is a positive one.

“At that moment, though, both options felt okay…I could make either one work. Multiple positive outcomes? Wow. There was a first time for everything.”

Percy reconciles his inner conflict by accepting both potential outcomes. Whether he attends New Rome University or not, he will be able to accept what happens to him. This conclusion points to Percy’s maturity and indicates that he has resolved some of his fears about the future.

“As usual, the myths basically only told Zeus’s side of the story. But it was obvious that Ganymede wasn’t doing so great in the mental-health department.”

The gods tend to center themselves and ignore the problems facing mortals. Zeus brought Ganymede to Olympus without considering Ganymede’s wishes for his future. The gods’ selfishness is one of The Challenges of Being a Demigod.

“Also, the word nectar means overcoming death. Did you know that?”

The etymology of the word nectar is indeed related to the idea of overcoming death (“nectar (n.)” Online Etymology Dictionary). Nectar, or nektar in ancient Greek, is a compound word that blends the Proto-Indo-European root nek, meaning death, and tere, which means to cross over or pass through.

“He was like the painting in that story about the guy who never ages, but his portrait does. Earl Grey? No. That’s a kind of tea.”

The story that Percy is referring to here is The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. Dorian Gray, a vain and beautiful young man, hides a portrait of himself that ages and decays whenever Dorian sins, allowing him to remain young and beautiful forever. Eventually, Dorian Gray destroys the painting and breaks the spell, dying in the process. This reference emphasizes the theme of Embracing the Passage of Time.

“And he wasn’t wrong about immortality being a curse. The gods were the most messed-up people I’d ever met. They’d had centuries to work out their problems. They just didn’t. Sure, they changed their clothes and modernized their lifestyles once in a while, but at heart, they were still exactly who they had been back in the Bronze Age.”

Percy understands that Embracing the Passage of Time is important, but he also recognizes that it is something unique to mortals. The gods refuse to change or grow because, as immortals, they never need to; this is why they are so unsettled by Geras.

“Getting old might be scary and difficult. It involved things I didn’t want to think about, like arthritis and varicose veins and hearing aids. But if you grew older with people you loved, wasn’t that better than any other alternative?”

A lot of demigods die before they reach adulthood, which makes Embracing the Passage of Time a frightening concept. Percy realizes that it is better to grow old with his loved ones than to die young during a violent battle, even if growing old comes with its own challenges.

“I thought about poor Ganymede, frozen as a beautiful teen, but stuck with all his anxiety, self-doubt, and fears forever. No thank you.”

Ganymede is a foil for Percy: They are not so different in age, but Ganymede prefers miserable immortality to happy mortality. Percy, on the other hand, has realized that adolescence is a difficult time of great uncertainty that he does not have to or want to stay in forever.

“I’m not sure what I found more insulting—the fact that the gods treated their kids like pets, or the fact that Poseidon had never once brought me any leftovers.”

One of the biggest challenges of being a demigod is that the Greek gods do not make good parents. Percy can never have a normal relationship with Poseidon, but even compared to other gods, Poseidon is a singularly absent parent. Percy never confronts his father, but he does feel his absence keenly.

“Had Paul called the school? That didn’t make sense. He wouldn’t even know I was running late, and he was careful never to misrepresent himself as my father. But who else…? Surely not…?”

Poseidon is such a hands-off father that Percy struggles to believe he would ever actually do something helpful. This moment emphasizes just how strained the relationship between Percy and Poseidon is, especially compared to the relationship between Percy and Paul.

“‘Instead,’ he continued, ‘you honored your promise. You risked your life for a cupbearer you barely know. Not for a letter. Not because the fate of the world was at stake. But because that’s just who you are. Today, you created a small wave, and you showed what the ocean is capable of.’”

This is a rare moment of connection between Percy and Poseidon. The stakes of Percy’s quest for Ganymede were relatively low, but Poseidon still thought his son’s actions were impressive. This interaction paves the way for an improved relationship between Percy and Poseidon in future books.

“It’s one thing being called the son of Poseidon. Getting noticed for being anything like my mom, though…that’s a compliment.”

Percy is much closer with his mother than his father, and he greatly admires her. He subverts the expectation that his divine status would be the most important thing in his life: He truly values the human side of his family.