The Sun and the Star: A Nico di Angelo Adventure

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2023

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Chapter 9

Chapters 10-20

Chapters 21-30

Chapters 31-40

Chapters 41-51

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Themes

Trauma and Mental Health

The novel deals openly and often with subjects relating to trauma and mental health. Both Nico and Will work through their traumatic memories in the Underworld and tend to their mental wellness by examining their relationship to darkness. In the novel, “darkness” is a mutable signifier whose precise meaning is contextually dependent. At times it refers to negative emotions like sadness, pain, or jealousy. Other times it refers to mental health, which is “our emotional, psychological, and social well-being” (“About Mental Health.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2023). The book also sometimes refers to Nico’s specific mental health conditions, like PTSD, which in his case is related to traumas he experienced.

Readers should thus take care to closely examine a passage before assuming the word darkness refers to a specific mental health condition. For instance, when Will talks about his darkness, he is not referencing mental health, even though he does have painful memories. As the camp healer, he knows how “heartbreakingly mortal” (101) his friends are after seeing them dead and dying after battles featured throughout the Camp Half-Blood Chronicles. As he grew up, his mother was constantly touring, so he is familiar with isolation. The dreams Epiales and Nyx send Will exploit this fear of being alone: They show him “slowing [Nico] down” (103) until Nico abandons him. Epiales and Nyx use a pre-existing hurtful memory and its associated emotion to create new fears for Will. Deep down, Will fears that Nico’s darkness will overcome him and he’ll abandon Will.

Nico’s traumatic memories inform his PTSD. People with PTSD often uncontrollably relive past traumas. This is literalized in Nico’s frequent nightmares and flashbacks sent by Nyx and Epiales. Nico relives memories that make him feel unsafe. One of his most traumatic memories is when Cupid forcibly outed him. Nico kept his distance from other demigods partly because he feared how they would react if they knew he was gay. Will tells Gorgyra that “in our world, you learn to tread carefullly” (214) if you are part of the LGBTQ+ community. While the novel’s 2020s setting differs greatly from the 1930s Italy where Nico was born, LGBTQ+ youth are still more likely than their cis-hetero peers to have “been bullied at school,” “seriously considered suicide,” “felt sad or hopeless,” and “used illicit drugs” (Health Disparities Among LGBTQ Youth. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2019). Anti-LGBTQ+ policy and legislation in the United States in the 2020s continues to make life dangerous for youths who are trying to be “who [they] really are” (214), as Will says. Some of these legislative policies would force schools to out LGBTQ+ youth, particularly transgender young people. Though Nico is gay and cisgender, his experience with Cupid and his subsequent PTSD reveal how damaging forced outings can be. Nico considers his forced outing “one of the worst things” to happen to him (31), along with the deaths of his mother and sister.

Nico and Will learn to accept that their memories are a part of who they are: They can’t get rid of them, but they can let go of the idea that their past must dictate their future. While this strategy works for them, it is not a universal solution for all people managing traumatic memories. The best lesson Nico and Will teach readers is that we should find the method that works best for us, both when dealing with mental health concerns or supporting the people we care about.

Accepting Yourself and Others

Nico and Will’s personal journeys show how important it is to accept ourselves and others. Will must accept the darkness in himself and Nico. Nico, who “burned brightly” (411) for other people, must learn to shine that light brightly on himself.

Will seems comfortable with himself and well adjusted. However, he employs a behavior called toxic positivity: “the act of avoiding, suppressing, or rejecting negative emotions or experiences” regarding your emotions or someone else’s (“Toxic Positivity.” Psychology Today). While it’s good to be positive, it can become harmful when people use positivity to repress all negative emotions.

Will makes jokes to “lighten the mood” (196), but these jokes don’t sit well with Nico, who finds them dismissive or condescending. For example, when Will jokes, “hey, if Nyx wants your darkness so bad, you can just leave some of it with her! That wouldn’t be so bad” (184), the joke hurts Nico, who wishes it really were “that easy” to leave behind “the dark and scary and sad” parts of himself” (186). Will implying he could easily leave behind the dark parts of himself feels to Nico like Will is refusing to accept what makes Nico who he is.

Will also initially refuses to accept that he shares some of these emotions. He is in disbelief when a flower that only opens in the presence of darkness blooms in his hand, making Persephone ask, “Do you think that because you are a child of Apollo, there is no darkness within you?” (244) Not only does Will think Nico’s darkness is something to be healed, but he also believes that he himself has none, refusing to accept the part of himself that feels negative emotions.

Conversely, Nico believes he is fully characterized by his negative feelings. He “never let anyone believe that [he] was anything but a ball of darkness” (461). Nico values others but does not show the same generosity to himself. The trogs tell Nico he is special because he shows “new ways through the dark” (183). Screech-Bling elaborates: “You see the trogs […] You see Bob the Titan” (183). Nico doesn’t realize that he shines a light on historically marginalized beings like the trogs, or forgotten like Bob.

Nico’s main challenge is to give himself the same measure of grace he gives others. When Nico stands up against Nyx’s temptation, Will sees him fighting with “a power and fury that could scorch the galaxy when he battled for those he cared for,” but this time, Nico is “using it to fight for himself” (411). He accepts himself, including his demonic Cocoa Puffs. This inspires Will: If Nico can shine his light on himself, Will can “find a little darkness within” (411). Will allows himself to feel the pain, isolation, jealousy, and fear he used to push away. This self-acceptance allows Will to see that Nico’s darkness isn’t something to be “conquered or healed” (431), but also accepted.

Nico and Will’s journey shows how often accepting yourself and others go together. Will learns to accept his and Nico’s darkness, while Nico learns to accept his light.

The Duality of Light and Dark

Nico and Will learn that light and darkness are not opposites, but necessary to each other’s existence. Will’s assumption is that the Underworld is “dark, scary […] surrounded by death and sadness and misery” (78). He thinks these things mean the Underworld is “bad,” and that “it’s not meant for someone like me” (96). As a child of the sun, he sees himself as diametrically opposed to darkness. Persephone teaches him that “[t]here cannot be light without darkness, nor darkness without light. You must have contrast for both to exist” (244). In other words, light and dark are complementary and dependent on each other.

While Will learns about the role darkness plays within his life of light, Nico learns about the role light should play in his darkness: Will “came into his life and shone his brightness on him,” which taught Nico “not to be afraid of the light anymore” (461). Nico learns that he has lightness within himself. This keeps him hopeful through difficult times and loving toward Will and his friends.

Bob calls Will and Nico “my sun and my star” (431), though neither demigod know what he means. He is using symbolism to describe their natures. The sun seems bright while the distant star seems enveloped in the darkness of space. However, a sun and a star are the same thing and the proportions of light and dark we attribute to them is a matter of perspective. The closer you get to a star, the more it seems like a sun. The farther you get from the sun, the more it seems to shrink in the darkness of space. Bob understands that the duality of light and dark is only a matter of perspective. Light and dark both coexist in the sun and the star, just like they coexist in all people. As the “sun” and “star,” both Will and Nico contain the duality of light and dark within themselves.