“You are not broken. You are singular.”
This line, uttered by a hardworking and put-upon single mother named Sally Jackson during the first episode of Disney Plus’ Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, broke me. Literally made me cry. Ugly cry, no less- one of my roommates rushed into the room to make sure I was okay when he heard me. And the reason this line elicited such an emotional response from me is… Complicated, so let me back up and offer some context.
Percy Jackson and the Olympians is based on Rick Riordan’s middle grade urban fantasy adventure novel series of the same name, with the first season adapting the first book, The Lightning Thief. It’s about a twelve-year-old boy who finds out he’s the demigod son of Poseidon, attends a camp for his fellow demigods, and goes on an epic quest to return to the stolen master bolt of Zeus before the gods go to war over it.
I first encountered Percy Jackson when I was the same age as the protagonist- an awkward, insecure little twelve-year-old with a chip on her shoulder and no attention span whatsoever. And I always felt… Wrong, as a kid. Like I was a square peg constantly being jammed into a round hole by the world around me. My teachers told me my head was in the clouds, my so-called-friends thought I was a freakshow, and I thought I was broken. Angry and warped on the inside and stupid.
And that’s exactly how Percy felt. How he still feels in the first episode. It’s an idea of himself he spends the whole first season unlearning as he becomes the glorious, clever, and incredibly badass hero he never knew he always meant to be.
Obviously, I’m not a demigod- my health would probably be better if I was- but the Percy Jackson books, about neurodivergent kids who come together and find out they’re greater than they thought they were, both individually and as a group, fostering a sense of belong and community and purpose, were probably the first time I felt truly SEEN by a book series. Like maybe there was a place for me in the world; like somewhere out there were people like me, who saw the world differently and felt things differently but were no less valid for it.
“You are not broken, you are singular.”
This adaptation plays up that aspect a lot more, in part due to increasing awareness and acceptance of neurodiversity and mental illness in the nearly twenty years since The Lightning Thief was first published, and honestly, they freaking nail it. Percy’s actor, Walker Scobell, hits all the right notes as a scatterbrained but intelligent kid with a strong drive to do the right thing and a yearning for a sense of belonging and acceptance; the writing strikes a great balance between progressive and subtle; the direction illustrates how Percy and his fellow half-bloods see the world in clever and interesting ways, in addition to adding to the epic scope of their quest.
It’s a very loyal adaptation, with most of the changes being either cosmetic in terms of characters’ appearances or in service of streamlining the story for the new medium. There are a few places where it feels a bit rushed, but the soul of the story- about striving for greatness and glory and finding friends along the way- is completely intact. Pitch perfect set design and casting- both with the veteran character actors playing the Greek gods and the young child actors making names for themselves as the leads- brings the feeling of a hidden fantastical world nestled within the mundane one to life beautifully. Strong and well-choreographed action set pieces add to the tension and excitement. The story’s sardonic sense humor of is realized through Percy’s dry wit and Annabeth’s blunt sarcasm and Grover’s earnest awkwardness. And it all comes together into a beautiful finale about Percy doing the right thing in the face of unspeakable danger, tapping into the potential he always had but sincerely did not believe in.
“You are not broken, you are singular.”
Parts of this story hit a bit differently for me at 27 than they did at 12. I… Spent a lot of time going back and forth about whether or not I wanted to be a parent someday. It’s a long story, wrapped up in childhood trauma and gender dysphoria, but a lot of years of therapy later I’ve ultimately come around to the idea that yeah, I do want to be a mom someday. But one thing I’ve wondered about since coming to that realization is how am I going to handle it if my kids go through the same pain that I went through? Or, an even scarier idea- what if they go through a pain I don’t recognize, that I didn’t experience growing up but have to help them get through regardless?
This show dedicates a lot of time to that question. Most of it comes from very powerful flashback scenes involving Sally and her struggles to help her son fit in and receive an education and get through his childhood with even a modicum of self-esteem. And she does her best, but a lot of what Percy’s going through is stuff she has no context for and no idea how to help him with. And she’s not the only one who deals with that- a recurring theme is that the gods are absentee parents, and when our heroes actually confront one of the Olympians (Hermes, specifically) about this, he confesses that it’s because as a parent you wind up feeling powerless a lot of the time, when your kid is struggling and you have to stand there and watch them try to figure it out on their own, and there’s nothing a god hates more than feeling powerless.
Cue the waterworks from me again.
It’s a tough pill to swallow, both for parents and children: sometimes, you need to figure things out yourself, and sometimes you can’t help someone with their problems no matter how much you want to. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to really appreciate the times my parents let me figure things out myself, let me take some proverbial hits so I could see how strong I was. And I hope, beyond all hope, that if I’m lucky enough to have children of my own someday, I’ll be strong enough to do the same, to recognize when I should step in and when I should let my kids come into their own. It’s a difficult job, and while my parents aren’t perfect, they did their best. And I love them for that.
So yeah, this show got a real reaction out of me. Some of that is probably nostalgia for a property I’ve long been very attached to, but at the same time it felt like I was experiencing the story again through new eyes, from a new perspective. And I really appreciate how much it handles all these complicated emotions without sacrificing any of the adventure or fun of the source material. Whether you’re a new fan or an old one, a kid or an adult, I think there’s a lot to love about this show, about this story and these characters and these themes.
And I can’t wait for season two.
Happy viewing, half-bloods! And remember- all that comes from the sea can return to it once again.
