67 pages • 2-hour read
The Mark Of Athena
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Chapters 49-52Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 49 Summary: “Annabeth”
Knowing that “trickery and brains” are her only hope against Arachne, Annabeth thinks of the weaver’s fatal flaw, pride, and gets her talking about her tapestries (400). Annabeth mentions that she is redesigning Mount Olympus and says the tapestries belong on display there, where the gods can admire them. Arachne complains that Athena destroyed her best work since they “depicted the gods in rather unflattering ways” (402). Annabeth notes that the gods would enjoy tapestries that depict their divine antagonists in an unflattering light, goading Arachne with promises of revenge on Athena even sweeter than killing her favorite child. Annabeth would be her agent and see Arachne’s tapestries adorning the gods’ palaces. If she dies, and Gaea destroys the gods, however, they will never realize that Arachne was the better weaver.
When Annabeth shifts her weight, another crack opens in the floor. Arachne warns her about the fragility of the room, eaten away by the hatred boiling in Tartarus beneath them. Only Arachne’s webbing keeps the room together. Consumed with a desire to have her work displayed on Olympus, Arachne refuses to kill Annabeth, who says Arachne will have to create an audition piece, an abstract structure. She shows Arachne the design for an enormous version of Chinese handcuffs, but Arachne will have to use the webbing that currently wraps the Athena Parthenos. She gets to work immediately.
Chapter 50 Summary: “Annabeth”
While Arachne works, Annabeth can feel the ambrosia slowly healing her ankle. Power radiates off the Athena Parthenos as Arachne slowly unravels it to reuse the thread. Each time the statue shifts, more cracks open across the floor. Annabeth silently begs the statue and her mother to help her. Admiring Arachne’s work, Annabeth experiences doubt about her mother and the fairness of Arachne’s punishment. Arachne completes the trap, and Annabeth crawls through to inspect it and announces that it has a flaw. Arachne refuses to believe it. Annabeth instructs her to see for herself, convincing her that it is small enough to fix and elevate her to goddess status. When Arachne crawls into the trap, she gets stuck.
Arachne demands to be released but then admits that she would have killed Annabeth either way. Annabeth’s fear, anger, and resentment drive her to goad Arachne. She tells Arachne that she has done Athena a great service by keeping her statue safe all these centuries. Now the statue, not Arachne’s tapestries, will be prominently displayed on Olympus, bringing peace and unity between the Greeks and Romans. Arachne screams and flails, determined to bring the cavern down and calling on the spiders to help. As they swarm Annabeth, she understands that “her best efforts had not been enough” and silently apologizes to Percy. A flash of light blasts apart the room’s ceiling.
Chapter 51 Summary: “Annabeth”
The Argo hovers over the gaping ceiling. The statue remains undamaged, protected by its power that radiates like a forcefield. Annabeth avoids being hit, but Arachne disappears through the floor in her trap. Percy calls to Annabeth, and they embrace. Annabeth tells her friends they must bring the statue to Greece; its power will help the demigods in their fight against Gaea. Hazel quotes the lines of the prophecy: “The giants’ bane stands gold and pale, […] Won with pain from a woven jail” (416, italics in original).
Leo plans how to lift the statue into the Argo. Percy catches Annabeth up about the Doors of Death needing to be closed on both sides. Feeling a blast of cold air from the chasm below them, Percy guides Annabeth away from the ledge. The room groans, and the statue leans to the side, its foundation crumbling. Frank quickly flies Leo up to the ship, and he uses grappling lines to secure the statue. Jason rides Piper up to the ship on the wind. Hazel urges the others to rush for the ladder. Nico just makes it when Annabeth suddenly stumbles.
She is tangled in the spider’s silk threads, and she is being pulled into Tartarus. Percy’s grip is the only thing keeping her from falling in, and she urges him to let go. He refuses. Just before they go over the edge together into Tartarus, he tells Nico to meet them on the Greek side. Locking eyes with Annabeth, he tells her they are staying together. She recalls the lines of the prophecy: “A one-way trip. A very hard fall” (420, italics in original). Holding hands, they fall.
Chapter 52 Summary: “Leo”
Dazed Leo is overwhelmed with grief, convinced that opening the fortune cookie to save Hazel and Frank meant the loss Percy and Annabeth. Hazel reminds him that Gaea, not Leo, is to blame. Nico is sure that Percy and Annabeth are still alive, and if anyone can survive Tartarus, it is the two of them. Hazel agrees. The group is determined: They will go to Greece, find the House of Hades, and secure the Doors of Death. Leo personally intends to “make Gaea sorry she had ever messed with Leo Valdez” (425).
Chapters 49-52 Analysis
In her previous chapters, Annabeth embraced her capacity for trickery. Now, she leans into that capacity, constructing a plot that Arachne will weave for herself. In the process, the narrative brings together and anticipates several plot threads. Earlier in the novel, Frank had asked Annabeth to explain the trick behind the Chinese handcuffs, knowledge that Annabeth uses to design Arachne’s trap. The reference to a woven trap from the prophecy proves to have a double meaning, referring both to the trap Arachne lures Annabeth into and the trap Annabeth designs herself. Arachne’s repeated warnings that the room’s infrastructure is compromised anticipates the climactic moment when Annabeth and Percy fall through the gaping holes in the floor.
Annabeth’s confrontation with Arachne leads her to have doubts about her mother, picking up threads from Riordan’s previous series, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, in which the demigods scold the gods for the ways they can take advantage of or otherwise undervalue mortals. That critique recurs in the encounter between Arachne and Annabeth. Looking at Arachne’s beautiful creations, Annabeth wonders if Athena may indeed have been jealous of this mortal woman’s skill and destroyed her work as a result. Though Arachne herself admits that she will kill Annabeth if given the opportunity, Annabeth still allows herself to feel some pity for her antagonist and to see the situation from her point of view.
Despite feeling sorry for Arachne, Annabeth does allow her emotions to get the best of her, and it leads to a tragic outcome, a traditional feature of heroes in ancient versions of the myths as well. Because they possess extraordinary strength, heroes are also subject to extremes of emotion and action, which lead to catastrophic outcomes. Annabeth had trapped the spider by feeding into her deepest desires—to be honored by the gods and elevated to their status. Overwhelmed by pain, exhaustion, and anger, Annabeth cannot resist goading Arachne by tapping into her deepest resentments, the opposite extreme. Annabeth’s mistake contributes to the tragic outcome that she and Percy experience. Leo, however, is unaware of this and feels responsible because he opened Nemesis’s fortune cookie.
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