Demigods and Monsters Read Free

it is holding a grudge and would be happy to help you along to your doom.
    Percy Jackson has this harsh reality thrust upon him in no uncertain terms, and it’s an experience we can learn from: Nothing says “your days are numbered” like a Minotaur on your doorstep.
    It should be noted that children of the less powerful gods aren’t going to attract as much monstrous attention as those with more powerful parents. You might think it would be “cool” if your Olympian parent was one of the major gods, but that kind of status comes with a big price tag.
    Percy is the perfect example of this. Having Poseidon as his father may give him some awesome powers, but it also makes him a very high-profile target. So even if you had skills remarkable for a demigod, this in no way would guarantee you an easy time of it. 3
    The world of gods and monsters is a harsh one. A hero can’t rely on his immortal parent for help. There are rules against direct interference,
and it seems as though the higher in the echelon a god is, the more limited he or she is in stepping in to help. After Annabeth Chase runs away from her father’s house, her mother Athena helps her by making sure she meets up with an older, more powerful half-blood. Thalia, daughter of Zeus, 4 leads her friends almost to the safety of the camp, but when she is about to be killed by a horde of monsters, all that Zeus can do is turn her into a tree on top of Half-Blood Hill.
    Ultimately it is up to young heroes to watch out for themselves. A parent or patron may be some help, but it’s the nature of the hero to have to face the monsters on his or her own.

Lesson Two: Types of Monsters
    Monsters could be categorized in many different ways: by habitat, allegiance, intelligence, lethality, and so on. For the purpose of this lesson, I’ll separate them into two main types: those who will kill you on purpose—whether it’s personal, or because you’ve blundered into their lair—and those who will kill you by accident.
    For the most part, monsters are very territorial; they tend to stake out a hunting ground and protect it viciously. When Percy’s brother Tyson is attacked by a sphinx in the city, it may have been just because he ventured into its territory. Notice that the fact that Tyson himself is a monster gives him no protection.
    Here we see the type of monster who may have nothing against you personally, but will not hesitate to kill you anyway. This may be because it is (a) guarding something it thinks you want to steal; (b) hungry; or (c) both.
    Young heroes seem to encounter these types of monsters most frequently when they are on a quest, but not always. Monsters can be found just about anywhere, and if you stumble onto a Hydra’s
hunting grounds, chances are that one of seven heads would eat you before you could explain that you were merely on your way to the corner deli for a pastrami on rye.
    Some monsters stay very isolated from the mortal world. Percy has to go to the Sea of Monsters to encounter Polyphemus, the Cyclops shepherd with the carnivorous sheep, and Scylla and Charybdis, who between them destroy (again) the ironclad ship, CSS Birmingham , and its crew. But other creatures rely on humankind for survival. In ancient times, monsters often lived off of humans by stealing their sheep and goats (or sometimes by making off with one of their maidens). In Percy’s modern world, many monsters have moved into retail, making a living off of humans in an entirely different way.
    This kind of magical creature doesn’t mean to kill you, but is simply going about its business, completely indifferent to your fate. Take, for example, the chain of Monster Donut shops. They spread across the country, each of them connected to the life force of a monster. The stores multiply like Hydra heads, but whether their success actually comes at the expense of their human customers—the modern equivalent of the