Percy Jackson is a 12 year old demigod on a quest to save his mother from the underworld after she is a casualty of the powerful monsters attracted to the son of one of the big three Gods Poseidon. Percy is accused of stealing Zeus’s signature lighting bolt. Finding and returning it to Zeus is the only way to stop Godly war.
Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash[/caption]
So his quest also involves saving the world.Percy was based on Rick Riaorden’s son Haley. “Once he related all the myths he knew, Riordan began making up stories, and the idea for Percy Jackson was created. Percy is a 12-year-old boy with both attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and dyslexia, and he embarks on various adventures after learning that he is a demigod.” (Britannica)
These adventures have little connections to his learning disabilities. When Percy meets the other demigods it is common for them to have ADHD and Dyslexia.
“The ADHD—you’re impulsive, can’t sit still in the classroom. That’s your battlefield reflexes. In a real fight, they’d keep you alive. As for the attention problems, that’s because you see too much, Percy, not too little. Your senses are better than a regular mortal’s.”
(Lightning Thief, Chapter 6)
When Percy arrives at camp half blood he is exposed to the concept that most demigods have ADHD and Dyslexia because his mind is
“hardwired for ancient Greek.” And his ADHD is not a deficit but a sign of battle reflexes.
In the podcast Newest Olympian the guest Fay Onyx said
“There’s a reason battle reflex and ADHD have different names. When you take a real experience and directly put fictional elements in; some people will identify with the real experience. Finding the fictitious elements is fun.
Others will say that’s not my experience anymore.”
(Newest Olympian, Episode 22, Disability Representation in The Lightning Thief with Fay Onyx)
Considering the Percy Jackson series started in 2005 having this world include subtle disability representation reflects the disabilities rights movement happening at the time. Similar to Finding Nemo (2003) the main protagonist has a disability that he accepts without question.
He knows he’s different. Percy doesn’t struggle with family relationships because of his disability, instead he struggles with his father who left his mom. Adding to that Sally (Percy’s mom) stays in an abusive relationship with “smelly Gabe.” He has an overpowering scent that masks Percy’s unique signature as a demigod of one of the big three Gods.
In chapter twelve of The Lightning Thief Grover explains “You should be grateful, Percy. Your stepfather smells so repulsively human he could mask the presence of any demigod. As soon as I took a whiff inside his Camaro, I knew: Gabe has been covering your scent for years.
Sources
Rick Riordan. (2017, March 23). Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rick-Riordan
Riordan, R. (2005). The lightning thief: Percy Jackson and the olympians. Miramax Books. https://rickriordan.com/book/the-lightning-thief/
Schubert, M. (2022, February 14). Disability representation in the lightning thief w/ Fay Onyx. Newest Olympian [Audio Podcast]. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-newest-olympian/id1583114801?i=1000550994730