Walker Scobell, Leah Sava Jeffries, and Aryan Simhadri return as the famous “Golden Trio” in Season 2 of the Disney+ adaptation of Rick Riordan’s bestselling middle-grade book series Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Riordan’s series profoundly shaped my childhood — insofar as prompting me to begin my own writing journey. I read nearly every mythology-based series Riordan released, falling in love with the world he created — and with the art of creative writing — with every chapter. After the disappointment of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians movies (as far as book accuracy goes, not entertainment), which I watched a few years ago, the news of a new TV show, executive-produced by Uncle Rick himself, thrilled me.
*DISCLAIMER: Spoilers ahead!*
Season 1 of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, the TV show, premiered in December 2023, and demonstrated a much more accurate cinematic portrayal of Riordan’s first book, The Lightning Thief, than the movies did. Nine-year-old me geeked out when the voice of Walker Scobell as Percy Jackson narrated over the opening scene, reciting the first paragraph of the series word-for-word. Watching Percy and his two best friends, Annabeth Chase and Grover Underwood, interact on-screen through their iconic adventures reinvigorated my love for this series. The main actors embodied their characters with an accuracy that blew me away — I was hooked. Season 1 exceeded my expectations.
Unfortunately for Season 2 (which adapted the second book, The Sea of Monsters), my overwhelming approval of Season 1 left me with much higher expectations for Season 2 than I had for its predecessor. Fortunately, Season 2 met many of my expectations.
However, certain changes disappointed me. Many years have passed since I read the books, but from what I remember, certain elements of the TV show threw me off. I’ve come to accept many of these changes, though I would have preferred a more book-faithful adaptation. Below are a few of the times Season 2 strayed from the book series, along with my reasons for disliking and/or accepting them.
1. The Defeat of Polyphemus
The most glaring change to Percy and his friends’ time on Polyphemus the Cyclops’s island was the arrival of Luke Castellan, their main enemy, corrupted by the Titan Kronos. Luke comes to steal the Golden Fleece from the heroes before they can leave with it. However, the show’s screenwriters decided to give him a larger role: saving an injured Annabeth while Percy and his friends watched helplessly, trapped in Polyphemus’s cave (never mentioned in the book), and taking her (and the Fleece) back to his cruise-ship headquarters.
I waited specifically for this scene (which also changed in the movie version) to see if this adaptation would faithfully recreate the original. I cannot deny my small disappointment when it did not happen because I looked forward to seeing Percy lash out at Polyphemus for injuring Annabeth, as he had in the books. However, I can accept this version for two reasons:
- It humanizes Luke, showing he still cares for Annabeth, as he could have run off with the Fleece instead of healing her; and
- It aptly displays Percy’s fatal flaw: choosing his friends over the fate of the world, momentarily sacrificing the Fleece that would save all of the Greek demigods at Camp Half-Blood to save Annabeth.
2. Earlier Revelation of the Great Prophecy
In the books, Chiron, Camp Half-Blood’s activities director, reveals the “Great Prophecy” to Annabeth, with instructions not to tell Percy. The Prophecy ominously foretold that a child of the Big Three Olympian Gods (Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades) would determine whether Olympus triumphed or crumbled. This scene unfolds in the TV show, as well; the difference is that Percy learns more of the Great Prophecy at this stage in his battle against Kronos than he does in the books (he finds out in Book 5, which would theoretically correspond to Season 5).
I’ll be honest, this change probably has little impact on the overall storyline. However, to me, the pacing felt more rushed as a result of giving Percy greater knowledge and awareness than he had for the majority of the book series.
3. Thalia’s Sacrifice
The change that irked me the most arrived at the very end of the season. Thalia Grace (the daughter of Zeus who died about six years prior while defending Luke, Annabeth, and Grover so they could enter Camp Half-Blood) became a magical tree — courtesy of her father — to protect the camp’s borders from monsters, in honor of her sacrifice.
In the TV series, though, this version of events appears as a story fabricated by Zeus to hide the fact that he actually turned Thalia into a tree because he could not convince her to declare her undying loyalty to him in light of the Great Prophecy.
While the show’s version does preserve Thalia’s precarious relationship with her father, her transformation into a tree — because of Zeus’s fear — completely de-characterizes her. The sacrifice for which we originally knew her, the legacy of heroism represented by her tree, which defends the camp as she did, completely disappears. What was a mark of demigod courage and love for others becomes a symbol of the gods’ whimsicality. Personally, I think this change takes a lot away from Thalia’s character, hence why I dislike it the most.
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With all that said, I truly enjoyed Season 2, and I trust that Uncle Rick has good reasons for approving these changes. Ultimately, I believe he will tell the same story, and I trust that his reflections on the characters he created so many years ago led him to consider this adaptation a better way to teach the same lessons. I will continue to follow the series and look out for any other adaptations, considering how they preserve, or perhaps deepen, the original Percy Jackson and the Olympians narrative and messaging.
If you follow both the books and the TV show, did you notice the same changes? What do you think of this adaptation? Will you keep watching?