Character Name; Perseus "Percy" Jackson

Canon; Percy Jackson and the Olympians + Heroes of Olympus (specifically HoO)

Canon Point; End of Mark of Athena

Age; 16

 

House; Heimdall 

Power; Energy Lending

Personality; 

"I once warned you, Percy Jackson, that to save a friend you would destroy the world. Perhaps I was mistaken. You seem to have saved both your friends and the world. But think very carefully about how you proceed from here. I have given you the benefit of the doubt. Don't mess up."

-Athena to Percy in the Last Olympian

"Am I a troubled kid? Yeah. You could say that," is one of the very first lines Percy uses to describe himself in the Lightning Thief. Being a demigod has its perks, but it also has its downfalls, especially if you're a child of one of the oldest gods. And, unfortunately for Percy, he very much happens to be right in the tango of all the disasters. As a child, he'd constantly get expelled from schools for various reasons-- accidentally blowing up the school bus, dumping his fourth-grade class into a shark tank, and more. While he didn't actually mean to do those things, Percy says in the newest book, Son of Neptune, that he's been expelled for less when confronted with a sailor’s mouth on a horse (which he understood because he can communicate with horses). The point is, Percy has a knack for getting into trouble and staying in it. Take his orientation day for ninth grade, for example, where some psycho cheerleaders attacked him and he ended up in a fight that blew up half the band room... yeah, it's not really pretty.

But despite his tendency to get into trouble, it's not exactly like he goes looking for it. All of it sort of finds him and Percy's not a person who always backs down when confronted ('not always' being the operative phrase, but we'll get to that). He's labeled a troubled kid automatically for various reasons the biggest being: normally his teachers are monsters out to kill him (literally) and two, he has both ADHD and dyslexia. His ADHD isn't nearly as profound as others in the series, such as Leo, but is enough so that he can hardly sit still or focus on any one thing for a long time if he has to. He's impulsive-- so if you tell him he can't touch that button and he really, really wants to? Guess what, he's touching that button regardless of the consequences. This is how most of the things he touches get destroyed, because in heated situations he acts before he really thinks things through.

That lack of impulse control doesn’t really work well with his constant need to disobey authority. See, ever since he was really young he's been faced with adults that did things like belittle him or mistreat others, and that really bothers him. The biggest example is his mother’s ex-husband who mysteriously disappeared, only to be replaced by a statue that looked like him suddenly appearing when Percy was twelve, who mentally and physically abuse his mother any chance he got and treated both of them,Percy and his mother, like they were the scum of the world. Percy, even at twelve, ended up back talking and standing up against the man, to the point even years later he was still defying authority. The kid has no fear in speaking out against what he thinks is wrong, which is why he's made enemies with Zeus and Ares. Ares, funnily enough, that even in Son of Neptune when he met the god in his Roman form as Mars... was still like 'I hate this jerk' and openly ridiculed the Roman's patron God.

Unfortunately, his poor impulse control happens to be helped along by his short temper. Percy's laidback about most things beyond injustices. One thing that can tick him off is bullying in any form, especially to those that one would consider "underdogs". Even long before he learned of his duty as a hero, Percy would get in trouble for reacting to bullies mocking people such as his friend Grover, who at the time pretended to have a muscular disease in his legs. He gets this idea in his head he must protect Grover from the likes of them and stands by the idea rigidly. This justice stance doesn't just stand for people he claims to be friends, as he spoke out against Clarisse as one of his first acts in Camp Half-blood. His impulse and morality works against him in these situations causing him to act rashly, so it's no wonder he made enemies with some of the Gods.

All heroes have a fatal flaw and Percy is no different in the fact that his own is personal loyalty. Athena, as aforementioned before the personality section began, once told Percy that because he wanted to try and save someone important to him the world would be destroyed. Percy is an odd guy, he's incredibly loyal to the people he cares about to the point he almost thinks they can do no wrong. He gets warned that Annabeth is going to cause disaster in Rome by Hera and basically rejects that, saying there was no way that would happen. He thinks highly of the people he calls friends and doesn't take any form of disrespect for them. He confronts Annabeth once on why Luke thinks Thalia would join the side of the Titans and, in turn, Annabeth used Percy as a reference point. She asked him if, even though he hated his father at points, would he betray him to the Titans; Percy's immediate answer was no.

Which goes to say something, considering how often Percy had a tendency to get angry at his father. To further put his loyalty in perspective, when Hades kidnaps and traps his mother in his domain and it's on Percy to stop an oncoming war on the surface, Percy acts only to save his mother. That's his main goal and, in that way, his loyalty can become pretty one-track which is more or less where the trouble comes in, because; he gets so focused on this one thing-- protecting the person-- that he foregoes everything else. He walks a thin line when it comes to his friends, willing to put him and everything n the line for them if it comes down to it. It's why loyalty is his fatal flaw, because in the end it is what will likely be the death of him. 

Stemming from his loyalty, we return to Percy's protective nature. Percy feels like he should be strong enough to protect his friends. He doesn't want to see anymore of his friends get hurt and in that respect feels like he should be capable of doing all the heavy-duty things. He doesn't want Annabeth to go on a quest alone where he can't keep her safe and, likewise, doesn't want to abandon the others when they need him most. Through Son of Neptune and Mark of Athena Percy struggles with feeling useless. He's being faced with not being able to save and help people like he wants to and his friends having to help him instead. It's something he's frankly not okay with and has difficulty accepting.

The thing about Percy is he can come off incredibly dumb, mostly because he comes off slow or acts too much on impulse. His dyslexia and ADHD constantly working against him, but as Annabeth points out, who is noted to be the most intelligent of the children shown, is that he's smarter than he looks. Often times he's slow because he's thinking about things, seeing them in his own way. While we don't often see this in battle there are times, like when his ADHD in his battle with Ares was in overdrive, that he's able to figure things out even then. Overall, he comes off slow because he's putting it in his perspective and getting it right to his views.

Mostly this intelligence comes off in wit and sarcasm. The boy has a lot of both, to the point he shoots off to Annabeth in the middle of a fight for their lives that she should kiss him for good luck (they end up bantering like that a lot). Sarcasm and wit aside, Percy has been shown to show an amazing insight and memory from time that nearly always occurs when he wasn't paying attention as opposed to when he was. Oh, and never with emotions. Percy is awful at deciphering what people's emotions really are and ends up just giving up figuring out what goes on in their head. He says he likes hanging out with Rachel because she's straightforward and doesn't hide anything from him as opposed to other girls he knows, which he quite likes.

Now that all that's covered, it's time to cover the bit of contradiction the lies in his character. All those talk of defying authority and being impulsive and loyal enough that it may be his fault the world ends? Well, right, now we have to backtrack and point out that there are things Percy runs from. Mostly in the case of that fact that it results in his own death. In the Battle of the Labyrinth he knows and figures he has to go save and stop Nico before Luke finds him, but he can't bring himself to do it as he' sure the kid has it out for him. He both wants to save him and then avoid him at all costs. This sort of repeats itself, too, in the Last Olympian when he learns the whole prophecy about his birth and believes it will cost him his life. If he can't find hope in something he gets fatalistic, and Annabeth says it pretty well: that when things scare him, he runs away. There's not a whole lot of things that scare Percy, but when they do, it's difficult for him to overcome and face and sometimes? He doesn't face it unless he has to, and most of the time that's just how it ends up happening.

So since he was eleven, Percy's had some pretty crazy stuff happen to him. He's had monsters attack, Gods try and frame him, Titans try and destroy the world, and has been faced with having to see kids die that were just like him. In all, he's faced some pretty heavy stuff, and that's taken its toll. He's had to come to face the facts that, yeah, he doesn't have as long to live as a normal kid. Even as far back as the first book he states that being a half-blood gets you killed and, more often than not, it gets you killed in gruesome, nasty ways. He's fought in a war that nearly killed everyone he loved, saw most of his comrades die, and let's face it if they lost the world would have ended... And for all that? Percy just wants to live a normal life as long as he can. In Son of Neptune, when he arrives at the Roman Camp the only thing he remembers is Annabeth and how different life was there sparked something in him. Percy doesn't want to fight, he's all of sixteen and he's thinking of settling down and having a family with Annabeth. He's wound down fast from any teenage antics and just wants to be able to have what everyone else has: normalcy. Really, if you look at any demigod around his age, most of them are pretty much set on the same thing. They don't have long to live, so they want all they can get.

Percy also comes off as an unintentional leader. When he first appears in the series, he’s pretty clueless, but because he was a child of one of the oldest gods, he was sent on and led a quest. From then on, Percy was considered one of the topmost campers at Camp Half-blood, seen leading them even in the Battle of the Labyrinth when older campers were still alive. His bravery and trueness to who he was as a person, the fact he doesn’t easily back down all somehow put him in a position of leadership. His loyalty inspires it among the group and it's what drives them to rally behind him. Because of this, Percy can take charge and do pretty well at it. This continues further where on the first day at Camp Jupiter, Reyna demands he becomes praetor alongside her.

…But, see, there’s a catch about Percy. Initially he turns Reyna down, until he realizes the camp really needs someone to work with her, because he doesn’t want that kind of power. Percy’s laidback, he just wants to be a normal kid and do normal things. That was his whole plan for after the war with the titans—to lead a normal high school life with his friends, but then Gaea had to start acting up and Hera kidnapped him and took away his memories. He’s just as all right with being led as opposed to leading and, really, he leans more on a teamwork basis than anything else. He doesn’t really care for any of it up to the point that Annabeth once questions him: if he could change the world and make it any way he wanted, he immediately shoots her down, going so far as to say that any world led by him would be in trouble. The fact of the matter is that characters in the series are drawn to him because he has what they describe as “this quiet sort of power”, and all Percy wants to be is himself.

In all, Percy’s a kid that’s faced a whole hell of a lot of trouble and most of it’s not always his fault. He spent most of his childhood fighting when he never really wanted to and now just wants to settle down and have a simple life. He’s not as impulsive as he used to be, but he hasn’t quite learned how to shut his mouth when someone rubs him the wrong way about something. In the Son of Neptune, Hazel says he reminds her of her friend Jason in the fact that he’s seen his own destiny and has accepted. If that, at sixteen, he’s already thinking of marriage and children says anything, then he definitely has. He sometimes gets scared, though after all the things he’s seen things in the mortal world no longer does; so he doesn’t think about thing since, hey, if he can jump out of a burning building then crashing a car’s pretty simple. Something along those lines. He’s easy to make jumps to save his friends, sometimes even enemies, and this can be used against him—has even been exploited against him once. He’s a leader of two camps and has been offered immortality but what he really wants is to have a regular high school career and mess up a few times while goofing off with his friends. Unfortunately, he never really gets that.

"Because I know you, Percy Jackson. In many ways, you are impulsive, but when it comes to your friends, you are as constant as a compass needle. You are unswervingly loyal, and you inspire loyalty." 

-Hera to Percy in the Son of Neptune