I actually got most of that (Not Nyx screwing him up, I didn't take the attention as malicious) on the first go, but I still feel like I missed everything beyond the surface details. Which fits a Mythos story, but it does mean there's a certain baselevel of bewilderedness that never goes away.
The attention might not have even been malicious. Nyx might have thought he was a spawn. Perhaps she disapproved a bit of how his mother has coddled him so far. Perhaps she was legitimately unaware that his mother even had plans for him as opposed to being typical Greek parent. Perhaps she knew exactly what he was and what was planned for him and decided to alter the deal.
So, question about that. What made you associate Rhea with *checks wiki* Zystulzhemgni? Was it the matriarch thing?
So, this is Riordan's fault, honestly. Rhea in the Hidden Oracle literally rants against the patriarchy (in reference to the Titans, Nero and company and the very concept of Western Civilization to boot) as a bit of a New Age, Hippie caricature. I was less than impressed with that take, mostly because Riordan can't seem to decide who Kronos is.
In PJO, we are told the Golden Age of Man and such was propaganda and Kronos was a bad ruler from the start to the point that he suspected his family members of avoiding him. He fell in love with Rhea and convinced her that he would be better. They got married. He got Prophecy from Koios apparently? (Because Riordan changed things from classic myth to make HoO work so Ouranos was 'scattered' from the dethroning so who Zeus got his Prophecy about Athena from is never explained) Kids were born, he was still an ass, you know the story.
However, the obvious problem with being an asshole, is that no one like you. We have Kronos is a bad ruler, very cruel going around using time powers on mortals to watch them die, etc so the first Titanomachy was super righteous. In the second Titanomachy, we then turn around and have Hecate (who fought in the first war
against Kronos) and Oceanus (who was neutral) join Kronos
despite knowing what he was like. So either Olympus had somehow sunk low enough that they honestly thought 'yeah, Kronos is better than this' which is not depicted in the story so it looks like Hecate flipped for...reasons and Oceanus comes out of literally nowhere. Hecate and Oceanus are morons of the highest order. Or Riordan went full idiot on the simplistic morality and all "Titans" are on the wrong side because reasons and he wrote himself into a corner with the 'world in sleep' line of his prophecy so he needed Morpheus too (because the mortals can't actually hurt any of them or *see* them since Hecate is the goddess of the Mist so why did they even bother with that sleep spell aaaaahhhh).
Then we get to Trials of Apollo and Rhea rants about him like he was a 1930s husband where her primary concern was him being 'so square' you could cut corners off him being super traditional wanting her to pop out kids all the time as if what we're told in PJ and the Greek Gods about them was also thrown out the window and she married him from societal pressure and goes on to say that Iris and the younger goddess weren't around the the 'revolution' of feminism or something...
So out of sheer spite and annoyance, I went the complete opposite direction. Rhea's world view is centered around her literally popping out kids all the time as a queen of a swarm, but in a matriarchy. Nero and co getting their hands on her isn't bad because she doesn't want to be subjected to patriarchal nonsense, but because her existence is a doomsday weapon greedy idiots wanting to control all Oracles might trip. Rhea willingly married Kronos and was happy about it. She is someone who could keep Titans like Iapetus and Hyperion
in line. Zeus and Poseidon care about her enough to argue about who is her favorite as per Chiron in TLT, but she's not on Olympus mediating and seems to have just left her kids to do whatever to the world is a loose end shared by PJO and classic myth that this ties off. And in the next update, why it took 5 swallowed kids for her to do anything about Kronos.
As it happens I hadn't picked up on the foreshadowing that Nyx had done stuff she shouldn't have to Percy, but to be clear what I was referring to is the places that seem deliberately confusing. Rhea assuming Percy is a Young God and why, and the implication that there's something going on there for her to assume that, confirmed shortly after with how Percy 'greets' Apollo. What Rhea specifically means when she talks to Apollo about seeing humans as 'defective', and something going on with 'formally adopting mortals', and why Apollo stopped around Rome's time. The visions the Beyond shows him, besides Luke complaining to Kronos. You know, the things that feel like they're not meant to make sense, at least not yet.
Oh, that's fair. My bad. People being confused about WTF Percy is was a bit of a running theme? Athena double checks him being mortal. Artemis bluntly asks Apollo 'What is he?' Nemesis and Alecto are confused about it. The only notable thing is Rhea being super old is
also weirded out. What she specifically means about defective is literally Kronos' issue with modern humanity being lesser than what he's used to/started as. Same issue. She mentions earlier when talking about Percy's conception that 'humanity is not that far gone....I think.' I actually thought the visions were straight forward, but I guess it requires a little meta knowledge since we didn't have nearly as much chatter here and I only recently posted the Informational.
Nyx is a Name of Shub-Niggurath. She's the three eyed goat in the vision. Ananke is a Name of Nyarlathotep. She was the bat. It was a mimic of the eagle vs horse vision of Zeus and Poseidon canon!Percy saw in The Lightning Thief. Tartarus is also a Lovecraft god, as is Pontus.
