The Chalice of the Gods

“Being gods, the Big Three still found ways to break the pact and not get in trouble. Instead, it was us demigod kids who suffered.”

Having immensely powerful parents is one of the many Challenges of Being a Demigod. Percy is not meant to exist, and Poseidon tells him that he has to work off the “debt” he owes simply by existing. His status as Poseidon’s son sometimes makes Percy feel unwelcome in the world.

“When you’ve helped each other through Tartarus, the deepest and most horrifying place in the universe, and you’ve come out alive and stronger than you were to begin with…well, that isn’t a relationship you could ever replace, or should ever want to.”

Percy and Annabeth were friends before they started dating, and their relationship is built on their long history of saving each other’s lives. The Power of Friendship and love allows them to support each other through new challenges in every book; they trust each other implicitly.

“My second thought was: Why do the gods keep losing their magic items? It was like a job requirement for them: 1) become a god, 2) get a cool magic thing, 3) lose it, 4) ask a demigod to find it.”

In the first Percy Jackson book, Percy had to recover Zeus’s missing lightning bolt. Several other books have featured similar quests, with The Chalice of the Gods being the most recent. Locating these items, which the gods could find for themselves, is one of The Challenges of Being a Demigod that illustrates the demigods’ social status.