Chapter 2

Mark of Athena Conclusions–I'm posting up updates to my suspicions and stuff like that. I tried to make this as easy to read as possible! Please feel free to tell me what you think about this and any additions/objections you have!


Based on Twitter Q&A:

1. Nico will have a key role. (I'm not a Nico fangirl much, but I do like seeing him. And seeing what reaction Annabeth and Percy will have after they're relieved that he's all right–that is, if he lives…)

2. Percy and Annabeth's grey streaks will be addressed. (YES! I've wondered why no one has noticed it so far.)

3. Leo/Sammy thingy will be explained. (Oh, gods, I hope he's not Sammy reincarnated! I hope he's just a descendant!)

4. Quick Percabeth reunion. (Quick in the way that it comes soon, not like *snaps finger* quick).

5. MoA ends in a cliffhanger (or 'rickhanger') that will leave the characters in danger and that will make us hate him yet succumb to his power and mill around lifelessly yet full of life
for the next year until the next book comes out.
(Just what I think, but you all know that it's true!)

6. Which leads me to that we will find out the name of HoO 4 at the end of MoA. (I'm placing my money on a The _ of _. You?)

7. We will find out Jason's date of birth. (Maybe it's during the summer and so they celebrate it on the Argo II? Or it's a flashback?)

8. Thalia will not appear in MoA (Aw. I wanted to see Percy's physical reaction when he sees Jason and Thalia together and thinks, Huh, that's funny. They look more similar than most children of the
same god doohmygods!
But the discovery will still be hilarious nonetheless!)

9. Percy will not have a reunion with his family, as he will be quite preoccupied with the quest. (I hope there's some sort of IM scene, though!)

10. Clarisse does not have much of a role in HoO. (Too bad. I wanted to see her almost beat Percy up!)

11. Rachel will not appear in MoA. (NO! RACHEL NEEDS TO COMPLETELY TRUMP OCTAVIAN!)

12. Luke will NEVER come back to life! He's moved on! (So stop it with all the Luke-comes-back-and-he-and-Thalia-get-together junk.)

13. We will not see more of Bianca except for in Nico's memories. (I think he might have a PoV in MoA because of that statement)

14. Apparently not all of Athena's children are blonde. (I know that has nothing to do with MoA, but I wonder then why did it say that they all did in TLT?)

15. Grover won't have a major role in HoO since he's currently doing nature stuff. He will, however, show up in MoA in an excerpt that will be read at RR's tour stops. (I'm going to have
to YouTube that.)

16. We will see a Titan or two in HoO. (One is definitely Calypso.)

17. Reyna will have an important role in MoA. She was born in Puerto Rico and so far she does not have a last name. (I love that RR put 'lol' after that! :D)

18. Percy might have demigod siblings. RR said, "Demigod siblings? No. Not as far as he is aware. " (Whadabuhalkfw?! That will be so weird/awesome to have another child of Poseidon!)


Also from Twitter, I found this:
Q:
Kadija_B you said you got teary eyed when you wrote a scene in MOA. Does that mean we're all gonna have a heart attack?
A: No, I don't think so. It's just kind of a sweet, sad scene. Not a major tragedy or anything. I can't get more specific.

For some reason the above is giving me a really bad feeling that there's going to be a Percabeth breakup. Don't kill me! It's just what I feel. I think it has something to do with the 'Annabeth causing Percy trouble' thing. Or maybe someone dies and it's sad because they're dying but it's sweet because people are happy since they're moving on and the person who's dying wants to die. If there is a Percabeth breakup, then I think the sweet bit of it is like with the Malec breakup in CoLS (that's Mortal Instruments, by the way).


From friends and reviewers:

1. SpringFling pointed out way back when that the gift that Athena gave Annabeth that's in Annabeth's pocket might not be a physical object. After all, Pandora's pithos didn't hold
physical objects, but rather sicknesses and hardships and hope.

2. DianeJasmine said, "I disagree. I think that the Mark of Athena actually is a curse, and special powers (told you she needed them to be part of the seven), so that Annabeth is the
'special type of demigod that can follow the signs to the doors of death' (Thanatos). Also, fire is Leo. (Or Frank.) And the oath is either Percy or Frank."

Personally, I don't think that the Mark of Athena has special powers. Annabeth doesn't need anything more that her brains, wits, knife, and invisibility cap to get into the quest! But I do agree that the
oath is either Percy, as he swore on his life that if the Greeks attacked then he would fight with them. If Percy breaks that oath and joins up with the CHB camper if/when they attack CJ, then Octavian's
going to lead a headhunt to get him! If it refers to Frank… Well, I don't think it'll be Frank so far because he doesn't have an oath so far.

4. GirlWithTheMustache04 said, "But I think Annabeth isn't the fourth demigod. Since MoA will have four POVs, I'm guessing the fourth one will be the Seventh. I'm not sure, tho."

I know for a fact now that Annabeth is the seventh demigod. Why? Because she would never let anyone take her place. Also because The Demigod Diaries had a word scramble of the seven demigods,
and one of them was Annabeth. The others were the obvious ones: Jason, Leo, Piper, Percy, Frank, and Hazel.


About this thing:

PERCY is confused.
JASON has a problem.
PIPER has a secret.
LEO has a way with tools.
HAZEL is supposed to be dead.
FRANK is a klutz.
ANNABETH is terrified.

I think this was not official but was about the past two books, with Annabeth added in there.

Percy was confused because he didn't have his memory, yet Reyna seemed familiar and he did remember a girl named Annabeth and that she was from a camp and that he was from a camp, but when he got CJ, he knew it wasn't the right camp.

Jason had the issue of not having his memory, like Percy. What makes him not as confused as Percy is the fact that nothing is left from his past life except for the belief of Roman gods.

Piper had the secret of her dreams from Enceladus (I hope I spelt that correctly) about her father being kidnapped.

Leo having a way with tools is no surprise. He's a son of Hephaestus.

Hazel being dead, that's nothing new.

Frank being a klutz is also nothing new.

Annabeth is, of course, terrified because of the mark of Athena.


WARNING: RANDOM FANGIRL MOMENT WHILE LISTENING TO LAST KISS BY TAYLOR SWIFT!

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP PP! THE MARK OF ATHENA IS SOOOOOOO CLOSE! WHY TROLL US AND MAKE US WAIT, RR? WE MUST HAVE THAT DANG BOOOOOOOKKKKelfnopqwiebgpoui ;weqjkbgnv[oiqesht[0wefio! (I don't use caps lock, only shift. :) )

Okay, random fangirling moment over. You should see the copy/paste Google doc that DianeJasmine set up for all of our friends XD I completely flipped out about MoA being only a few days away (using BUI, the largest font size and an uncountable number of exclamation marks) and then below it DianeJasmine said, "In case you missed it, [TWBG] is excited." Lol.


Okey dokey. :) Let's move on, shall we?


So, I'm going to now review what I put in the last chapter.

Chapter: Basically what I said last time. To recap, Annabeth's 'worst gift ever'=mark of Athena=vengeance? Physical object? Metaphysical object?

Blurb: Well, we now know for sure that the Greeks and Romans are going to have some sort of conflict and that Annabeth is going to be the only one who can stop it.

Cover: Percy and Jason are no doubt going to fight. That's a no-brainer. The British cover also shows them fighting, though not on steeds but on the Argo II. Either it's
1) a GIGANTIC P/J PC (Percy/Jason Personality Clash) seeing as that they're both used to being leaders and they both will want to lead the quest, so both of them try to, but they get really
agitated with each other. Also think about the P/T PCs (Percy/Thalia Personality Clashes).
2) they're fighting because of the whole Greek/Roman thing.
3) they are fighting over whether or not something should happen and it gets rough.
4) a seemingly harmless conversation begins and then one says something that offends the other or ticks them off slightly, then they say something back to the other, and then it escalades
until it gets a bit…too out of hand to say the least. Nevertheless, I'm still quite suspicious about the owl. What is with that thing? It's not on the British cover, so maybe it's just there to
arouse our suspicions and tension?

Prophecy: I still stand by what I said before–

Seven half-bloods will answer the call,
Obvious: Jason, Piper, Leo, Frank, Hazel, Percy, and Annabeth

To storm or fire the world would fall.
This might relate to the cover: Jason and Percy fighting, but I'm not sure what the fire would be... the background IS red, though...

An oath to keep with a final breath,
Maybe it's Percy's oath to fight with the Romans, should the Greeks attack, or it might refer to Athena's order for Annabeth to avenge her.

And foes bear arms to the doors of death.
Again, obvious: Gaia is able to control the doors of death, but ever since the SoN, we also know that Nico is being kept at the doors of death, and the demigods will have to close them to have any hope in destroying Gaia.

Wisdom's child walks alone
I'm very sure that 'wisdom's child' refers to Annabeth, and I'm thinking that maybe the 'walks alone' part means that she makes some bad decision to do something (as she says in the first chapter of MoA: "...she thought she could hear the presence laughing, as if it was delighted by the bad choices she was making." [page 11]) and by doing so, ends up going through something alone. It could also mean that Annabeth will be the only one to read the signs to the doors of death, and in doing so is alone in it, but I don't think that's very likely. Another interpretation of the line ties in with the blurb. Maybe Annabeth 'walks alone' by trying to keep peace between the two camps.

The mark of Athena burns through Rome
Well, obviously the characters go to Rome, and maybe 'The mark of Athena' refers to the thing that's in Annabeth's pocket. if so, then somehow that object 'burns through Rome'. Then again, it may not even be an object. SpringFling pointed this out the other day. She reminded me that Pandora's pithos held not objects, but diseases and many things awful. So maybe the mark of Athena is something like that, but it gets free from Annabeth's pocket and the object is loose throughout Rome.


Okay. I think I've brought closure to what I wanted to say! I can't wait. I feel like I'm five again and waiting for Santa to come!

"May the force be ever in your favour, wizards! Now go beat up some erasers!"
-Gandolf to the demigods of New Rome and Camp Half-Blood, The Chronicles of Narnia
(page ∞) Haha! Get it? Infinity? The Never Ending Story?

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP P!!!!!!!!!!!

Are you CHB or CJ? Please try to persuade me to your side! I don't know what I am!