Rick Riordan’s children’s fantasy novel The House of Hades (2013) caused controversy when it was released for the explicit inclusion of the first queer child, Nico di Angelo, in mainstream children’s fantasy. Though Nico had been present in six instalments beforehand, in The House of Hades Nico came out as having feelings for Percy Jackson. Since The House of Hades, Riordan’s novels have featured gay, bisexual, and transgender characters. While queer themes may not be explicit in the rest of his works, many of his queer characters exist in novels that are not considered to be queer. Some of them, like Nico di Angelo and Magnus Chase, are initially implied to be queer before coming out. Through symbolism attached to queer characters, it can
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It Better Be Worth The Trip, he says of contemporary queer literature, “a character’s gayness is usually simply something that reinforces whatever the book’s central theme happens to be”, which Riordan prioritizes with all his characters (212). While Percy Jackson and the Olympians began as a way to provide children with learning disabilities a role model, Riordan’s recent novels emphasizes that everyone deserves a role model; everyone can be a hero. All of his characters are ostracized at some point for who they are, but end up finding a place where they feel as if they fit in. This is analogous to the experience that many queer children …show more content…
Thalia Grace and Nico never meet, but they share similar qualities: displacement in time, and an intimidating godly parent. Furthermore, while Thalia never explicitly comes out, in the third book of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, she joins the Hunters of Artemis, which requires her to swear an oath to “turn [her] back on the company of men” (The Titan’s Curse 292). This also connects back to Nico: his sister Bianca, before her death, had also joined the Hunters of Artemis. After coming out, Nico states that “The only one who ever accepted me was Bianca, and she died” (House of Hades 428), implying that Bianca. All three are in similar situations, and while Nico is the only one that has come out as explicitly non-heterosexual, both Thalia and Bianca can be read as queer from their introductions in The Titan’s Curse onward because of the symbols that reinforce Nico’s queer
It Better Be Worth The Trip, he says of contemporary queer literature, “a character’s gayness is usually simply something that reinforces whatever the book’s central theme happens to be”, which Riordan prioritizes with all his characters (212). While Percy Jackson and the Olympians began as a way to provide children with learning disabilities a role model, Riordan’s recent novels emphasizes that everyone deserves a role model; everyone can be a hero. All of his characters are ostracized at some point for who they are, but end up finding a place where they feel as if they fit in. This is analogous to the experience that many queer children …show more content…
Thalia Grace and Nico never meet, but they share similar qualities: displacement in time, and an intimidating godly parent. Furthermore, while Thalia never explicitly comes out, in the third book of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, she joins the Hunters of Artemis, which requires her to swear an oath to “turn [her] back on the company of men” (The Titan’s Curse 292). This also connects back to Nico: his sister Bianca, before her death, had also joined the Hunters of Artemis. After coming out, Nico states that “The only one who ever accepted me was Bianca, and she died” (House of Hades 428), implying that Bianca. All three are in similar situations, and while Nico is the only one that has come out as explicitly non-heterosexual, both Thalia and Bianca can be read as queer from their introductions in The Titan’s Curse onward because of the symbols that reinforce Nico’s queer