Percy Jackson and The Olympians--Part 2 (Book 4~5)

     This week, I am going to introduce the last two volumes of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. Because they are the final part of Percy Jackson's adventures, the second great war (basically) between the Olympians and the Titan Lord, Kronos drew an end in these two volumes. Personally speaking, Percy seems more mature and his actions were much less irrational. He started his journey in the mythological world as a bold but also sometimes idiotic young man. And now, after all the hardships and the adventures he's been through, he became more and more worthy of the title---a hero.

     Book four: The Battle of the Labyrinth.

     This time, trouble came for Percy without a sign during his orientation day at the new school. If not for the   help of  Rachel Elizabeth Dare, a mortal girl who can see through the "mist" ("Mist" was something that veiled the true sight of the mythological world. Normal mortals weren't able to see through the mist, only the Greek Gods have the ability to do so. Even demigods could be tricked by the mist sometimes.) Percy might not have survived from the empousai cheerleaders' fatal attack. Mystified and horror-stricken, Percy returned to Camp Half-Blood and learned about Annabeth's quest to the labyrinth. He then joined Annabeth in her quest to go into the labyrinth to find Daedalus' workshop. Though Percy won't be leading this quest, the prophecy Annabeth got still sounded dreadful (Note:  Each time a camper was granted a quest, he or she would go to the Big House and listens to the Oracle's prophecy beforehand on the regular basis.):

You shall delve in the darkness of the endless maze,
The dead, the traitor and the lost one raise,
You shall rise or fall by the ghost king's hand,
The child of Athena's final stand,
Destroy with a hero's final breath,
And lose a love to worse than death......

     Book five: The Last Olympian  

     The title refers to Hestia, the goddess of the hearth, who refers to herself as such in a conversation with Percy on Mount Olympus. This volume mainly revolves around Percy Jackson as he leads his friends in a last stand to protect Mount Olympus. Finally, it's time for the completion of the great prophecy that has been affecting every quest Percy has ever went on. 

    A half-blood of the eldest gods
    Shall reach sixteen against all odds
    And see the world in endless sleep
    The hero's soul, cursed blade shall reap
     A single choice shall end his days
     Olympus to preserve or raze.

     In the end, Percy realized that the greatest enemy wasn't the Titan Lord Kronos (in Luke's form) that stood in front of him, but himself. Because he was the one that must made the choice mentioned in the great prophecy---The hero's soul, cursed blade shall reap. A single choice shall end his days. 

     To me, the most admirable thing Percy did was giving up immortality in exchange for the Olympians' promise to give all demigods a real home and treat them with respect. This heroic act, as his father Poseidon had said:  “Anyone else must choose to take the burden of their own free will. Only a hero, someone with strength, a true heart and great courage, would do such a thing.” was something that only a hero would do.

   

Percy Jackson and The Olympians--Part 1 (Book 1~3)

     Well, after publishing few posts regarding mythology, I suppose it's time to introduce my steppingstone to the mythology field---The Percy Jackson and The Olympians series. This series of novels have five volumes in total, which are: The Lightning Thief (book one), The Sea of Monsters (book two), The Titan's Curse (book three), The Battle of The Labyrinth (book four) and The Last Olympian (book five). Each book, from book one to four, is about a quest that Percy went on (even though sometimes he wasn't permitted to go). As to the last volume, it is the exciting ending of Percy Jackson's adventures and the completion of the Great Prophecy. According to my personal experience, this series won't give you a moment to catch your breath once you have started reading. So now, fasten your seat belt and get ready for an adventure!
     Book one: The Lightning Thief

     Twelve-year-old Percy Jackson is in trouble again. This time, it's not just about getting kicked out of boarding school again. The gods and monsters in Greek mythology seem to walk straight into Percy's life and what's worse, he is regarded as a thief by some of them. Soon, with the new identity he just received---The son of Poseidon, Percy started his quest with two other friends that heads to the Underworld to find out the true thief of Zeus's lightning bolt and bring it to Mount Olympus before the gods wage a three-way-war on each other...

     Book two: The Sea of Monsters
     Returning to Camp Half-Blood as a hero from last summer's quest, Percy found his favorite camp, as well as the only safe heaven for demigods, in grave danger. The magical borders that shield the camp have been poisoned by a mysterious enemy. Nevertheless, the new activities director, Tantalus, seems at ease with this terrifying situation. Unless the campers find a way to solve this problem, the mythological monsters could march straight through the borders and into the camp anytime. And the ones who set out for the cure of the poison must sail through the Sea of Monsters, the same sea which Odysseus, Jason, Aeneas and all the other heroes have sailed through...
     Book three: The Titan's Curse
     When Percy Jackson and his friends receive an urgent distress call from their friend Grover, they got themselves ready in no time.  This rescue mission was supposed to bring two new powerful demigods safe to Camp Half-Blood, yet the heroes didn't know they have just fallen prey to the Titan lord Kronos' devious trap. The original rescue mission took a sudden turn and now Percy's friend Annabeth along with the goddess Artemis were both missing. The  Hunters and the campers soon form a quest team (which, of course, didn't include Percy) to search for Artemis. Sensing something wrong, Percy secretly followed the quest team on their quest with the hope of finding his lost friend, Annabeth...

The Red Pyramid

     Following on from my introduction to Egyptian mythology in the last post , this week, I'd like to present an Egyptian-myth-based novel to you. This book is the first book of "The Kane Chronicles" series, and it is also written by the author of The Percy Jackson and The Olympians series. The Kane Chronicles had its name from the two main characters---Carter and Sadie Kane. And this book, The Red Pyramid, got its name from the magical red pyramid of  Egyptian god Set mentioned in the story.
     The author presented the story in the way of the Kane's digital recording's transcript in which Carter and Sadie told the story alternately. The siblings had been near-strangers after their mother's death. And the story started on one of their twice-in-a-year visitation day.
     Ever since their mother's death, Sadie lived with their grandparents in London. As to Sadie's older brother, Carter, he traveled the world with their father, Dr. Julius Kane. On that regular visitation day during Christmas holiday, Carter and his father Julius Kane went to London to pick up Sadie as usual. Being an Egyptologist, Dr. Julius Kane brought the kids to the British Museum to finish some "final tasks". However,  Dr. Julius Kane accidentally unleashes five Egyptian gods including the worst one Set duing the process. Set banished Julius to oblivion and made the siblings flee for their lives. With one of the most powerful gods chasing behind them, Carter and Sadie embarked on a dangerous journey to save their dad and find out the truth of their mother's death.....

The Secret Power of Names in Egyptian Myth

      It is said that each Egyptian god and goddess has a secret name. The secret name is the name aside from the name that is known by the others. In other words, each god and goddess has a "public" name, a name that is shown to the outside world and  used to communicate with others and also a "secret" name. The secret name is usually known only to the god himself or the goddess herself. This secret name has unlimited power for anyone else. Whoever has learned the secret name of a god or goddess can gain control over the god or goddess. (But note that the secret name must come from the owner's own lips to give the other power over the owner.)  Thus, one can well imagine, the secret name of the great god Ra is the most desirable gift to those ambitious for the throne of Ra.


Stories of Egyptian mythology

     Among the competitors for Ra's secret name, the final champion is the cunning granddaughter of Ra--Isis. According to Egyptian mythology, Isis took a very nasty approach to learn Ra's name. She took the chance when Ra was old and sick. By poisoning her grandfather with cure only known to herself, Isis asked Ra to tell her his secret name in exchange for the single remedy against the poison. Under such great agonies, Ra submitted to Isis's request. In the end, Isis did heal Ra but Ra's secret name business also gave her power over Ra.

     Isis's true aim isn't Ra's throne though. She simply used this secret name as a threat to force Ra to retreat into the heavens and opened the way for her beloved, Osiris, to become the new king of the gods.

How The World Started--- A Brief Introduction of The Greek's World View

      According to Greek mythology, before anything in this world appeared, there existed only "chaos". The word "chaos" was derived from the ancient Greek word "khaos".  It is a neutral word and it's the name of the first god of the world---Chaos. Unlike all other masculine gods and feminine goddesses, Chaos doesn't have a specific gender. Chaos is the great void of nothingness as well as the primary source of everything. Chaos then gave birth without a mate to Gaia, the Earth Goddess, Erebos, the god that stands for Darkness and Nux, the goddess of Night. Perhaps all the statements above sounds quite unreasonable and weird to most of us. Yet it reflects the way how the Greek view the origin of the world. The earth, the darkness and the night all came into the world after chaos.
     Now, let's take a look at Gaia's descendants. Ouranos, the Sky God and Pontos, the god of Water were both born from Gaia without a mate. Ouranos later married Gaia and they produced the Titans, the Cyclops and the Hekatonchires. Encouraged by his mother, the youngest Titan, Kronos, stood up against Ouranos and overthrew his father as the new king of the whole world. Ever since then, the sky became separated from the earth and the reign of the Titans then began.
    

The Journey of A Hero--Percy Jackson's amazing adventure

     Perhaps after reading all the adventure stories of heroes around the world, you soon discover the similarities between each different stories.--Yes indeed there are some similarities between them, and  American mythologist Joseph Campbell generalized the collective components in all heroes' adventures into his famous book: The Hero With A Thousand Faces and named it " The adventure of a hero". He’s not the first person that brought up the idea, though. In fact, Vladimir Propp had induced similar ideas in the book Morphology of the Folk Tale (published in 1928).
    Anyway, in his book, Campbell sorted the phases of  a hero's adventure into three main gradations:
departure, initiation and return. This is how he introduced the monomyth (the basic structures shared in adventure stories from all over the world) in his book: " A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won. The hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man."
     In the following, I'd like to use one of my favorite novels-- The Percy Jackson and the Olympians series as an example and summarily apply it to the three main gradations (departure, initiation and return) of a hero's journey.
    I. Departure
       Growing up in a step family, Percy Jackson, real name Perseus Jackson, was found out to be a demigod at the age of twelve. It was also in that year when Percy first discovered who his real father is – Poseidon, god of the sea, earthshaker, strombringer and father of horses. The moment Percy crossed the threshold of Camp Half-Blood (a camp for demigods like Percy), he also set his foot in a world he used to call it "…myths, to explain lightning and the seasons and stuff. They’re what people believed before there was science.” And this is the beginning of his adventure.
    II. Initiation
         Book one--Accused of stealing the lightning bolt, Percy was compelled to take up a quest in order to ferret out the bolt and the real thief. Though Percy thought finding Zeus’s master bolt was the main purpose of this quest, he didn’t realize that the most important part of this quest was the conversion of his relationship with his father and his interpretation  of a " friend".
         Book three--With his friend Annabeth lost, Percy secretly followed Zoe, Bianca, Thalia and Grover to their quest searching the goddess Artemis, hoping to find Annabeth. He confronted a lot of dangerous monsters and situations. He had close calls coming up against the manticore(Dr.Thorn), the Nemean Lion(only beaten by Hercules before), the skeleton worriors(grown from the rannosaurs’ teeth),the Erymanthian Boar, the Talos(in the junkyard of the gods), Ladon the dragon(guarding the garden of twilight and the apples of immortality) and the cutest but also the most dangerous—Bessie, the Ophiotaurus.
        In conclusion, all the trials Percy faced are defined as the phase of initiation according to the notion "The adventure of a hero".
     III. Return
           Giving up immortality meant saying goodbye to the dignity as a hero and becoming a regular guy in the ordinary mortal world. Percy Jackson once again crossed the threshold between the two worlds. Not with a hero’s pride, though, he brought hope into the world. For, “They (all demigods) won’t be left out in the world on their own at the mercy of monsters… No unclaimed demigods will be crammed into the Hermes cabin anymore, wondering who their parents are… All children of the gods will be welcome and treated with respect.”
           And of course, Percy could live a "normal" life ever after. “For once, I didn’t look back.”
     Last, what I have to say about all these.....
               Heroes are the masters of two worlds. They brought the views of another world into this world. Just as what Jackson did, he brought the Olympians the sufferings of the mortal world. And he delivered the half-bloods from their miseries at a price of the chance of immortality. This, as once his father Poseidon had said: “Anyone else must choose to take the burden of their own free will. Only a hero, someone with strength, a true heart and great courage, would do such a thing.”