come on, yesterday i posted a quick headcanon about heroes of olimpos entering the environmentalist agenda and today iwant to do a text to detail a little more my numerous thoughts on this (i thought a lot about it before sleeping) and well, let's go.
first, it is important to point out that percy jackson and the olimpians already brings some environmental issues since the first book (ray thief) so we already have a taste of this plot in the first saga, and I think that the end of pjo leaves an open door for heroes of olimpo to be a saga that would go into these environmental issues.
let's talk about how the villain of heroes of olympus is gaia the goddess of nature and mother earth?+?+ and how she could rebel against humanity for this neglect.
grover underwood: grover is a very important character in the olimpians and for sure hdo could have been a way to get deeper into the emotional side of this character, not only because of the environmental agenda that is an issue that makes grover upset, in the lightning thief he tells percy that it has been a hard time for the satyrs, that there are no stars in the sky because of the severe pollution that humans cause. It would have been amazing to work with the underwood boy in hdo. *screaming angrily**
percy and grover's friendship: can we talk about how there is no in-depth information about their empathic connection? for me, rick riordan could have used these gaps to develop these not so explored issues, but that would have made a very interesting subject for the story, (going into the friendship, given the fact that in hdo the friendship development is left aside.)
Tartarus: Grover is very afraid of the underground, this could be a tip to explore his emotional as a character, his fears and deeper disturbances. I think the empathetic connection of the two in the tartarus could be an amazing plot for the narrative equally.
Grover and insecurity: I don't see many in the fandom talking about, but grover is a very insecure character about himself and his abilities, even though he is a dreamy satyr.
Excerpts that highlight this insecurity:
"It's just my luck. I'm the weakest satyr ever, and I meet the two most powerful half-bloods of the century, Thalia and Percy." " the ray thief
"I have to leave. Juniper is waiting for me. It's a good thing she finds cowards attractive. " - the battle of the labyrinth.
These are just two of the sentences where he tended to be self-deprecating in percy jackson, he blamed himself for having "failed" in his two missions as a satyr-protector, he was seen as a late satyr by the council of the cracked hulk elders. (or how surprised he had been in the ray thief when percy had said he wanted him on the mission.)
Think of grover being >>protagonist<< of a heroes prophecy, the first nature spirit (satyr) to be part of a prophecy, it would be of great symbolism for us to explore this character and these insecurities.
*Beautiful ethan, but what about the heroes of olympus characters and cj?*
I think that the heroes of Olympus characters don't need to be exclusive, this is not exactly my intention, but we have characters in Percy Jackson and the Olympians that had great potential to be properly explored in HFO, we have the Stoll brothers, Clarice, Rachel Dare, and even Alabaster, an exile who fought in the Chronos war. (I don't even need to mention how grover was forgotten in heroes of olimpos)
Camp cj: as I said some elements would not need to be mutually exclusive, let's remember that the jupiter camp has a great disregard for nature figures and this could be an issue to be worked on.
Nature powers: NEED I SAY THAT GROVER HAS INCREDIBLE POWERS? incredible powers that deserved to be explored by rick, he can talk to animals and even give >blessings< to animals, something that no other figure can do except the gods. He can read emotions and is a natural sniffer, plus over the course of the books he has gotten better at woodland magic. Imagine these powers having a voice in heroes of Olympus, imagine a grover discovering that he can be his inner traveler and change the world even more underwood style.
*Ok, ethan, but grover is a character who values tranquility, he would be ok in this scenario? so what? *
it is worth noting that grover values cautious ways, he is a cautious character, but he can get pretty bloodthirsty when he sees cowardice and animal cruelty, percy's words in the thief of rays, and heroes of olimpos would be dealing with that. Grover is also a traveler who has been and fought in the chronos war, he has seen many of his nature friends die, seen biomes burned down, and I can venture that all his life he has witnessed neglect and deforestation of his home.
Interesting conflicts: one of my favorite parts of this text, conflicts in percy and grover's friendship, with the return of mother nature we could have a loophole to develop percy and grover's friendship on a more catastrophic level, with the rise of gaia recruiting nature spirits and forming a legion (army) of natural figures ready to charge humanity. Grover would preside over his calmness and caution even with a new war that would charge so much of him ... what would he turn his upset into ... what weight would the deaths of his friends carry? Would he give reason to the conflict and his fellow recruits to gaia's army? Would Percy and grover have to regain their friendship? Would there be a deserting hero?
and about to tartaro is that I still want to do a text just to deal with tartaro+percy&grover.
well i'ii stop here i would probably have a lot to discuss about this subject and about how Heroes of Olympus could have been a phenomenal saga working with socio-environmental agendas, I could talk about it for eternity thoroughly and still have more to say, but I'll stop here.