The House of Hades

The Heroes of Olympus series is the story of a fight between good and evil. The heroes—Percy, Annabeth, Jason, Piper, Frank, Hazel, and Leo—are the good guys trying to stop the forces of evil, Gaea and her monstrous army, from overthrowing the world. The House of Hades explores the difference between good and evil.

The heroes sometimes do bad things, but what separates them from villains is their recognition of the mistake and how they go about making amends. For example, Percy has been the hero since the Percy Jackson books. He has a good heart and tries to do what is best, but when he’s traveling through Tartarus, he realizes that he has done some bad things and does not deserve Bob’s help. When he is fighting the arai and gets curses from all the monsters he’s fought, Bob deserts Percy because Percy manipulated him. This causes Percy to face the full weight of his mistakes:

He couldn’t blame anyone else for his troubles. Not the gods. Not Bob. He couldn’t even blame Calypso, the girl he’d left alone on that island. Maybe she’d turned bitter and cursed Percy’s girlfriend out of despair. Still…Percy should have followed up with Calypso, made sure the gods sprang her from her exile on Ogygia like they’d promised. He hadn’t treated her any better than he’d treated Bob (240).

In his moments before death, Percy accepts responsibility for his actions and apologizes but not expecting anything to change. Although Bob hears his apology and helps Percy, Percy had to accept responsibility and recognize his own mistakes and how they affected others. For the rest of the narrative, Percy doesn’t manipulate Bob to help him anymore but gives him the choice of helping because he now recognizes that heroes don’t manipulate friends to get what they want.

The other aspect of good and evil the narrative explores is the idea of who is good and who is evil. In Tartarus, Percy and Annabeth are surrounded by monsters, but not all of them are bad. Bob, the Titan formerly known as Iapetus, is a good Titan. There is even a good Giant, which Annabeth doesn’t believe when Bob tells her. Bob insists one is good and takes them to Damasen, and Annabeth realizes he is a good Giant. She thought all Giants were bad because they were created to be, but Damasen is the anti-Ares, so he is a peaceful Giant and helps them. In the end, the only way they escape the Doors of Death is because a Titan and Giant, foes that bear arms to the Doors of Death, help them. Bob and Damasen choose good even though they’ve been told they are bad, proving that good and evil are more nuanced than somebody being all good or all bad.