Sunday, August 23, 2020

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Battle of the Labyrinth by: Rick Riordan

 

A penultimate novel in a series is almost always an interesting read.  It’s at this point in a series where the author prepares to finish the series, but must also not fall into the trap of making the book completely setup.  The Battle of the Labyrinth is the fourth installment in Percy Jackson and the Olympians and Rick Riordan deserves praise for writing a book that straddles the line between setup and its own story brilliantly.  The formula for these books is well established at this point, but it is The Battle of the Labyrinth that experiments with this about halfway through.  Riordan decides to shoot Percy out of a volcano and it is at this point where instead of the standard searching for a quest goal while encountering monsters every so often Riordan opts for a focused goal of the characters trying their best to stop Kronos’ ascension and invasion of Camp Half-Blood.  One of those goals is successful, the other is not.  The end of The Battle of the Labyrinth has an extreme bittersweet element as there is time spent on the fallout of the titular battle where people die and Kronos is essentially free to enact his own plans.  The great prophecy in the background of the entire series is going to be the subject of the final novel in the series and it’s coming to completion.  The book ends with Percy turning 15, having one year left before the prophecy is to be set in motion.  Riordan reflects on the fact that he didn’t give the normal campers personalities by showing Percy not quite know how to act when some of them dies.  There’s also this moment with Dionysius (his only scene in the novel) which is incredibly effective at giving the god of wine one little moment where it shows he cares in his own way.

 

Riordan also does an excellent job of foreshadowing later events in the novel as early as the first chapter.  The first chapter is a standard monsters attack at a school, but it brings back a minor character from The Titan’s Curse who becomes incredibly important for this book.  Rachel Elizabeth Dare appeared in the scene at Hoover Dam where Percy stabbed her with his sword, and it turns out she lives in New York and is at the same high school orientation with Percy.  Percy’s anxiety at seeing her is what causes him to run off and get cornered.  She can see through the Mist and is eventually used as a guide through the Labyrinth in the second half of the book.  Rachel brings an outside perspective to the book’s proceedings: she’s incredibly sarcastic and doesn’t put up with much of the insanity that the situation she finds herself in is.  She isn’t scared off by the gods and monsters she encounters, but she doesn’t want to take any of Percy’s weak explanations.  Riordan is clearly setting up a love triangle between Percy, Rachel, and Annabeth, and while Annabeth’s reaction to Rachel is catty, Rachel proves to be the bigger person.  She’s got her own family problems (parents who are rich and distant) and is just happy to get explanations to the mythological world around her.

 

Annabeth and Percy’s romance (or slight lack thereof) is also really interesting, as Riordan writes the book with everyone else essentially knowing that they’re in love and eventually going to be together, except for Percy and Annabeth.  Annabeth is still hung up on Luke and leading a quest in this book to realize while Percy just hasn’t thought of that yet.  Annabeth’s best moments in this book are when she is in the role as leader.  There is a choice foreshadowed early in the novel and she makes it, not quite knowing if it’s the right decision.  Hera, goddess of marriage, essentially represents keeping the status quo and a happy family, avoiding the oncoming war, and is treated (rightly so) as almost a villain in her two appearances in the book.  Annabeth also chooses not two, but three companions to join her on the quest which apparently breaks ancient laws, making it harder to succeed.  Along with her and Percy is Grover and Tyson who both have their own arcs.  Tyson is the easiest to discuss here as Riordan has improved with his portrayal since The Sea of Monsters: gone is a character written like an idiot and in his place is a Cyclops who is intelligent.  Tyson may not be typically intelligent, but he does make decisions and shows a creativity to problem solving.  There is a scene where he meets one of his heroes and essentially convinces him to keep living and fighting the fight against the Titans.  He also shows that he has a selfless side to him in many ways, caring deeply about his friends, treating Percy as his brother.  He’s become a character who can grow and change.  Grover, on the other hand, gets his character arc of wanting to find Pan brought to a conclusion here, ahead of the final book.  While this may have detrimental effects on the final book, for this book it feels like the completion of his arc is necessary.  He finds Pan in this book, and finally stands up to the council of satyrs who has been harassing him since The Lightning Thief.  His life now has a new purpose, no longer on a quest to find, but on a quest to protect nature and the wild with his own.  He also forms a friendship with Tyson and gets a girlfriend which allows him to grow out of the role of sidekick to Percy Jackson.

 

For someone who’s name is in the title, Percy Jackson isn’t really the hero in this one.  Yes, he is the point of view character and there are plenty of heroic moments, but The Battle of the Labyrinth is all about the people around him, the people he cares about.  On his own in this book, Percy gets a diversion on Calypso’s island to expose him to the other side of the argument and he does show just how dangerous being a son of Poseidon can be, but his best moments are the quiet ones.  There’s a moment near the end of the book where Paul Blofis who has been dating Percy’s mother asks for his blessing in proposing to her which is a brilliant scene.  The Labyrinth and Daedelus are really characters in their own right, providing an oppressive atmosphere to the quest and a variety of confusions.  Riordan draws from myth and the film Labyrinth in many places for scenery and encounters in the book which work incredibly well.  It creates a sense of confusion which is reflected in all of the characters: it’s a place where choices are made and allegiances are formed, past mistakes are revealed and characters find their own way to essentially a final battle.  Clarisse, who has already been given development in The Sea of Monsters, is further changed by the maze in this book, showing motherly instincts and a real sense of caring for a traitor whom she falls in love with.  The character who makes the most important choices here is Nico Di Angelo, son of Hades.  Throughout the book Percy is trying to guide him away from anger and the possibility of being seduced by Luke and Kronos’ promises of a better world.  Nico throughout the book is in a deep stage of grief and all the anger which comes with it.  There is something amazing about how he is able to overcome it and realize that while he may not be accepted at Camp Half-Blood (in his own mind), that trying to destroy it is not the right answer.  He has grown from the little kid from the previous book, foolishly putting aside childish things, but eventually rediscovering them for what they are and can provide.  There is a plan in the final chapter that he proposes to Percy, something that won’t be revealed until the next book, but this also becomes the first point in his own life that he’s treated almost like family indicating that his life may be on the up and up.

 

Overall, The Battle of the Labyrinth does a lot to take what worked from the previous three novels while trying something new.  There is a lot of character work here as Rick Riordan prepares to have the final confrontation with the armies of Kronos and Luke in The Last Olympian.  Everybody grows at the very least a little bit and it finally feels like Camp Half-Blood is fleshed out with a variety of people who will stand or fall together.  It is also the best book yet, reaching Riordan’s highest highs.  10/10.

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