62 pages • 2 hours read
Rick RiordanThe Last Olympian
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2009A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 9-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 9 Summary: “Two Snakes Save My Life”
Percy leaves the Underworld, and he meets the other campers at the Empire State Building. In all, 40 campers have come, excluding Clarisse and the Ares cabin. Chiron puts Percy in charge and says he himself will not be going to Mount Olympus.
The campers enter the Empire State Building, where Mount Olympus is located. They go to the 600th floor, which contains a stone bridge leading to the clouds of Mount Olympus. After walking through the quiet city, the campers enter the palace. Percy sees Hestia, and she shows him a vision. Luke and Thalia are very young, looking tired and hungry in an alley. They encounter a 7-year-old Annabeth who has just run away from home. Luke and Thalia welcome her into their group, and they then travel to May Castellan’s house.
Percy wakes from the vision, and Hermes, Luke’s father, appears. They explain the issues and try to convince Hermes that Zeus must come to defend the city from Kronos’s attack. Hermes argues with them, saying Typhon is the bigger priority. He gives a message from Athena, Annabeth’s mother. She has said to use plan 23. The campers leave Mount Olympus and look down at the city from an overpass. Every resident has been put to sleep by Morpheus, and the city is silent.
Chapter 10 Summary: “I Buy Some New Friends”
Annabeth produces a video shield, one of Daedalus’s inventions. When the sun or moon hits it, the viewer can see invaders approaching. The campers see Kronos’s army approaching from many directions, and Percy divides the campers up to guard various bridges and entrances. In all, there are about 300 enemies. Thalia Grace shows up with the “Hunters of Artemis” (172), a pack of women. She is an immortal daughter of Zeus who is physically 16 years old. She and her hunters will help defend the city.
Percy and Annabeth drive off on a Vespa together. They stop at a park by 23rd Street, and Annabeth approaches a bronze statue. As part of Plan 23, Daedalus planted automatons all throughout the city in case of an attack. Annabeth wakes the statue and gives it instructions to defend the city. The automaton walks off and will wake up others.
Percy and Annabeth continue on to Battery Park. Percy jumps into the river, hoping to rouse the river gods. Both the gods of the Hudson and the East come to see him, at first attacking him. However, Percy gives the gods each half of a sand dollar from Poseidon. In return, they will defend the rivers against Kronos. Annabeth reveals that the Minotaur is leading an army across the Williamsburg Bridge.
Chapter 11 Summary: “We Break a Bridge”
Percy summons the pegasi Blackjack and Porkpie, and he and Annabeth ride them to the Williamsburg Bridge. The Apollo cabin is in the midst of fighting the Minotaur’s army. Percy and Annabeth land on the bridge, and Percy fights the Minotaur. Percy wins and throw the Minotaur off the bridge, and he turns into dust.
Percy continues fighting the 200-person army: “I sliced through armor like it was made of paper” (188). He defeats the entire army, but he then notices Kronos advancing over the bridge. Percy fights Kronos, and Annabeth is injured when she protects his weak spot from a blow. Blackjack swoops down to rescue Annabeth. Percy drives Riptide into the bridge, forcing it to collapse. Kronos’s army retreats to Brooklyn, and Kronos says, “Until this evening, Jackson” (192).Percy receives a call saying Annabeth is injured at the Plaza Hotel.
Chapter 12 Summary: “Rachel Makes a Bad Deal”
Percy rides a motorcycle to the Plaza Hotel, which the demigods are using as a headquarters. Annabeth has sustained a wound from a poison dagger and is in critical condition. Will Solace applies nectar and silver paste over the wound and “hummed words in Ancient Greek” (197). Silena offers to visit Clarisse and convince her to fight.
Percy reveals his vulnerable spot to Annabeth, who seemed to intuit where it is. Annabeth tells Percy that Luke had come to see her in San Francisco before he was overtaken by Kronos. He proposed running away together, but Annabeth refused. She says, “Maybe if I’d gone with him, I could’ve changed his mind” (201) or killed him. She concludes by saying the war is her fault. Grover and Thalia both report on the war efforts.
Percy sleeps and dreams of Nico trying to channel his mother, Maria. At first, his sister Bianca appears and tells him not to channel Maria. However, Nico persists and conjures a vision of Maria and Hades in a hotel together. Hades tries to convince Maria to come to the Underworld for protection, but she refuses. She goes upstairs, and the hotel explodes. The Oracle of Delphi arrives in the body of a young woman and reveals that Zeus ordered the explosion to destroy the children as Hades has gone against his will (gods should not have children with mortals). Hades curses the Oracle and says that “the Oracle of Delphi will never have another mortal host” (211).
Next, Percy dreams of Rachel on the beach writing his name in the sand in Ancient Greek. She runs to her father and says there is trouble in New York, and they must go immediately so that she can deliver a message to Percy. Her father agrees only when Rachel promises to attend Clarion Ladies’ Academy.
Chapters 9-12 Analysis
These chapters delve into the theme of Otherness and interconnectivity. As demigods, the characters in the novel are caught between two worlds—that of the gods and that of mortals. In a sense, they do not fully fit in either and must live a life caught between the two. Thus, they are a type of Other. The novel explores this through the interaction between Luke, Thalia, and Annabeth. As a child, Annabeth runs away because she says her family hates her and does not understand her. Since she is a demigod, she cannot fully fit into the mortal world.
This Otherness leads the way into interconnectivity. Since Luke and Thalia know what it is like to be an Other, they welcome Annabeth into their community. These characters, as well as other demigods, have a deep sense of interconnectivity. The author further demonstrates this interconnectivity in the relationship between Percy and Annabeth. When she is hit in battle, Percy says, “I felt a chill down my spine” (190). Because the two are so connected, his body physically manifests her pain. Even though Percy has not told Annabeth where his vulnerable spot is, she nonetheless intuits it and saves him from a fatal blow.
So, too, does Percy share a connection with Rachel. Even though she is a mortal, she can see through the Mist, which makes her a type of Other. Rachel writes Percy’s name in the sand, and she psychically absorbs message for him. The connection is so strong that she must travel to New York to tell him. Like Annabeth, she makes a sacrifice for Percy, telling her father she will attend a school that is against her wishes.
These chapters also continue the humorous, colloquial tone that makes foreign concepts approachable and relatable to the reader. For example, when the campers are in the Empire State Building, Percy notes:“Different elevator music was playing since my last visit—that old disco song “Stayin’ Alive.” A terrifying image flashes through my mind of Apollo in bell-bottom pants and a slinky silk shirt” (145). Here, Percy’s narration lightens the heavy mood. He pokes fun at the god Apollo by painting a humorous image of him. So, too, does Hermes come across in a humorous way. He says of his role as the messenger god:“No one cares what I have to say. It’s always about other people’s messages” (156). The author makes the god seem more like a person by having Hermes act insecure and complain about his role. In this way, the tone continues to make the heavy subject matter digestible.
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