The Titan's Curse

Thalia is the daughter of Zeus. She is typically dressed in punk clothes with “the ripped up army jacket, black leather pants and chain jewelry” (3). When Percy asks about her mom, Thalia defers, giving him a dark look and making it clear that her other parent is strictly off-limits.

She first met Annabeth and Luke when they were younger, and she was transformed into a tree while protecting them from monsters as they crossed into Camp Half-Blood. However, in the novel preceding The Titan’s Curse, she becomes human again when the golden fleece is placed upon the tree marking the boundary to the camp. As a result, she knows little about Luke’s fall to Kronos’s side and is extra protective of Annabeth. She shares this bond with Percy, though, at the start of the book, she blames him for Annabeth’s capture by Luke and the General, citing his impulsiveness and saying, “If we’d stuck together, we could’ve taken him without the Hunters getting involved. Annabeth might still be here. Did you think of that?” (33). However, she also lashes out in place of expressing her own feelings, and, just after this moment, Percy notices her stifle tears. Likely because she had to fend for herself as a child, she is reticent to show true emotion, and she makes Percy swear not to tell anyone when he realizes that she’s afraid of heights, a deeply ironic fact for a daughter of the god of the sky.

Like many of the demigods, Thalia receives little attention from her divine parent, and it is her resentment that almost turns her to Luke’s side. Even after Dr. Thorn reminds her of her bond and her potential to overthrow Olympus, Luke tries to tempt her himself, saying, “Don’t you remember all those times we talked? All those times we cursed the gods? Our fathers have done nothing for us. They have no right to rule the world!” (264). Thalia grows between those two moments, steeling herself, though Percy still notices that “[f]or a terrible moment, Thalia hesitated. She gazed at Luke, her eyes full of pain, as if the only thing she wanted int the world was to believe him” (265). However, this time she quickly pushes Luke away and stands with her father and the rest of the Olympians. This is rewarded, as she basks in Zeus’s quick compliment at the end of the novel, a feeling Percy relates to deeply in his narration as well.

Thalia’s relationship with Luke is initially a thorn between her and the Hunters, especially Zoë Nightshade. When Thalia initially refused to join the Hunters to stay with Annabeth and Luke, Zoë told her that all men were trouble, a fact Thalia resented due to her closeness with Luke. However, she tells Zoë as she is dying that she was right, but Zoë suggests that Percy has demonstrated that perhaps not all men are. Ultimately, Thalia joins the Hunters as Artemis’s new lieutenant both because of the respect she has gained for Zoë (although she has passed) and because it will prevent her from being the half-blood of the prophecy, given that she would turn 16 the day after The Titan’s Curse ends.

At the start of The Titan’s Curse, Zoë Nightshade is the goddess Artemis’s lieutenant within the Hunters, making her the second-in-command. She dislikes men, as she makes clear from her first extended conversation with Percy during his audience with Artemis. When Artemis references that she appears as a young girl, she suggests because it is the age before which young women “go astray” (38). When Percy expresses his confusion about what the goddess means, Zoë adds, “Grow up. Become smitten with boys. Become silly, preoccupied, insecure. Forget themselves,” suggesting that she believes that men can only have negative effects on women’s lives (38). This is because the Greek hero Hercules took advantage of her willingness to help him retrieve a golden apple, giving him Anaklusmos (Riptide), the weapon that Percy wields. As a result, she was banished from the garden of twilight, no longer recognized as one of the Hesperides.

Zoë’s past comes back to haunt her from the start of the quest. Her father, Atlas, is Kronos’s general, and Percy realizes at the end of the novel that “Zoë had known all along that the Oracle’s prophecy was about her: she would die by a parent’s hand. And yet she’d taken the quest anyway. She had chosen to save me, and Atlas’s fury had broken her inside” (277). Zoë is reticent to reveal her past and does so only when necessary, but Percy’s realization suggests that she was mindful of how she would reckon with it during the entire course of the quest.

Gradually, Zoë warms up to Percy, and likewise, Percy comes to respect her. When they meet Atlas, Percy thinks:

I could see the family resemblance. Atlas had the same regal expression as Zoë, the same cold proud look in his eyes that Zoë sometimes got when she was mad, though on him it looked a thousand times more evil. He was all the things I’d originally disliked about Zoë, with none of the good I’d come to appreciate (262).

She sacrifices herself with only the intention of serving Artemis with honor, a fact that Artemis rewards by creating a new constellation of Zoë in the night sky when she passes away.

Grover is a satyr and, like most satyrs at Camp Half-Blood, is tasked with bringing new half-bloods back to camp, though he truly wishes to find Pan, the god of the Wild. Pan went missing years ago, but Grover feels a special connection to the god and believes that he will be the one to find him. Twice in the novel, Grover experiences a connection with Pan. First is the appearance of the boar that provides transportation and second is the closing scene in which Grover hears Pan tell him, “I await you” (312). This leaves an open plot point as Riordan heads into the next book in the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series, and it suggests that Pan will continue to play an ever-bigger role and that Grover will continue his search.

Annabeth Chase is a daughter of Athena, and Percy’s best friend. She is also his primary romantic interest, a fact that he wrestles with as a teenager coming to terms with his feelings. Annabeth has accompanied Percy on two of his previous quests but has not had any of her own. She wishes to be an architect and has a strained relationship with her father, which is explored further in The Titan’s Curse.

At the start of the book, Annabeth dances with Percy at the school dance, having learned that her father is moving to San Francisco, a city particularly unsafe for demigods. She thinks this is very inconsiderate, and Percy later discovers that she was thinking of joining the Hunters of Artemis. As a result, her father’s appearance not only in providing a vehicle for Thalia, Percy, and Zoë but also in his plane at the end of the novel is crucial for cementing a stronger relationship with him. Even her stepmother wants to make it clear to Annabeth that she always has a home with them, especially since Annabeth used to stay at Camp Half-Blood year-round rather than just in the summers like Percy. Her stepmother, who assures Percy that she has heard of him (and sowing the seeds of Annabeth’s reciprocation of his feelings), tells him to pass along to her stepdaughter that “she still has a home here, will you? Remind her of that” (249). When Professor Chase appears to save the day, Annabeth is starstruck by her father and ends up deciding that she will go to San Francisco after all.

Finally, Annabeth’s fatal flaw is her pride. She believes that she can save Luke from Kronos, but Percy and Thalia both believe that it’s too late for him. When Percy initially believes that Luke died during their altercation with Atlas, Annabeth resists, and it’s not until Poseidon reveals to Percy that Annabeth’s suspicions are correct that Percy believes her. However, he worries that Annabeth’s desire to save Luke could endanger them all.