100 pages • 3 hours read
Rick RiordanThe Red Pyramid
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2010A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 23-25Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 23 Summary: “Professor Thoth’s Final Exam”
Back in human form, Sadie takes over the telling as Carter wakes from his ba excursion. Sadie transformed back to a human about an hour before, thanks to everything Carter said about focusing on her humanity, but she can’t bring herself to tell him he helped. Carter explains what he saw, including the demon’s suggestion for even more chaos. The news unsettles Bast, who ominously proclaims that “this is not like Set” (279).
The group goes to the University of Memphis, the most likely place to find Thoth, and comes across a group of baboons playing basketball, one of which is Khufu. Khufu returned to the destroyed mansion to wait. When no one came, he went to Thoth because baboons are under the god’s protection. Since Bast has had a rocky road with Thoth, she leaves, and Carter plays a terrible basketball game with the monkeys before going to see the god.
Thoth is a hippie in his early twenties who is newly obsessed with blues music and barbecue. He believes Horus and Isis are in charge of Sadie’s and Carter’s bodies and can’t believe the gods have the nerve to ask for help with Set after the disaster last time. Thoth warns them to be careful because if Horus and Isis start another war with Set, the god “will use chaos to turn you against each other” (290). He also warns the kids they won’t be able to control the gods for long and gives them the truth about Ra. Rather than leaving of his own accord, Isis poisoned Ra and tricked him into giving her his secret name, which gave her the power to banish him. Osiris assumed power, and the war with Set has raged ever since.
Sadie is startled by the story but maintains she’s in control, even if she’s now worried about losing it. Carter hands over the book he found in Desjardins’s library and asks what it says. Thoth will help them, but first, they must prove they are acting on their own and without influence from the gods. He sends them to retrieve an item from a magician’s study, promising that “if you succeed, we’ll have barbecue” (295).
Chapter 24 Summary: “I Blow Up Some Blue Suede Shoes”
Thoth sends them to Graceland, Elvis Presley’s mansion and the location of his tomb. Two magicians arrive and attack, turning Carter into a tiny lizard. With her brother in her pocket, Sadie finds Elvis’s trophy room, where she dims the lights and brings empty rhinestone suits to life to attack the magicians. Isis urges Sadie to finish off the magicians, but she doesn’t feel right killing them while they’re “being tackled by Elvis suits” (303).
Sadie finds her way to the backyard and Elvis’s tomb. One of the magicians attacks. She disables him, but the other arrives and magics her staff to him. Sadie uses a piece of twine to trap him and a silence spell to keep him from casting more spells before managing to return Carter to human form. The magicians stop moving entirely. Golden balls shoot from their mouths, and they turn to clay. They were shabti enchanted to do combat. Sadie does magic to repair the mansion and nearly passes out. They find the item Thoth sent them for on Elvis’s tomb—a necklace with an ankh and a scroll with an image of Muffin fighting a snake. Carter theorizes that the monster Bast fought in captivity was Apophis.
Chapter 25 Summary: “We Win an All-Expenses-Paid Trip to Death”
Carter and Sadie come through the portal to find Thoth has set up a picnic lunch of barbecue in downtown Memphis. Thoth congratulates them on jobs well done—Sadie for controlling Isis and Carter for turning into a lizard. Thoth warns them they will face worse in Phoenix but will also “find friends where you least expect them” (314).
Carter demands an explanation for the picture of Bast, but Thoth doesn’t give one. He confirms that the spell in the book they brought will banish Set deep into the Duat. It can only be read in Set’s presence and requires Set’s secret name and a feather of truth from the land of the dead. A boat appears on the nearby river that Sadie and Carter can take to find Anubis, keeper of the feathers of truth. Carter turns to ask Thoth one more thing, but the god has disappeared and “taken the barbecue with him” (318).
Chapters 23-25 Analysis
These chapters introduce the idea that Apophis is back in the world and promoting chaos. Bast’s proclamation that Set is not acting like himself suggests there are greater forces of chaos at work. Since Bast was tasked with fighting Apophis, she may know or suspect that the serpent has escaped but not wish to alarm Sadie and Carter in case she’s wrong. The picture of Bast foreshadows Bast’s later explanation that Ra had bid her to do battle with Apophis forever so he could never rise again. The fact that Thoth won’t discuss the picture suggests that he doesn’t know Apophis is free, which seems unlikely, or that he is being cryptic, as gods tend to be. Thoth’s interest in Elvis and barbecue is yet another way Riordan updated the myths.
The shabti in Chapter 24 show a few things. First, they expand the uses for which shabti may be created. Rather than gathering information or running errands, these shabti were made for combat. They are virtually indistinguishable from humans until they revert to their clay forms, and they have access to magic like magicians do. The golden balls they release are a hint that Zia is a shabti. The blue ball she released in Chapter 17 is similar. No explanation is given for the color of the shabti spheres. It may depend on who cast the spell to animate the shabti or the purpose for which the shabti was created.
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