There’s a key line in Percy Jackson #1, The Lightning Thief, that I have interpreted in 2 different ways on different occasions.

Analysing The Quote

Percy has reached camp half blood and is recovering from the minotaur fight. Chiron, Grover and Dionysus introduce him to the camp while playing cards.

‘Wait,’ I told Chiron. ‘You’re telling me there’s such a thing as God.’

‘Well, now,’ Chiron said. ‘God - capital G, God. That’s a different matter altogether. We shan’t deal with the metaphysical.’

‘Metaphysical? But you were just talking about -’

‘Ah, gods, plural, as in, great beings that control the forces of nature and human endeavours: the immortal gods of Olympus. That’s a smaller matter.’

So having read that, my first interpretation was that Chiron is suggesting the greek gods exist “under” whatever greater God runs the universe. This would be why he calls greek gods a “smaller matter,” and the initial use of the term “different matter altogether” implies it’s a real topic, one that he knows the answer to, but doesn’t quite want to get into. The fact he doesn’t shut down the line of inquiry at least suggests one of two things. Either:

  • A) Chiron cannot objectively state greek gods are the ultimate power
  • or, B) R. Riordan is avoiding creating a Godless universe because it could turn away any monotheistic readers. Remember, this was the first book after all, and other YA fantasy books faced backlash for far less.

But as you all know, exploring the question of “does Christian God (for example) co-exist with the greek gods?” never really comes up again. I also don’t remember encountering any characters in the books who display anything other than

  • A) atheism, or
  • B) pagan devotion (i.e to the greek, roman, egyptian or norse gods).
  • (EDIT: well actually there are a bunch of referenced historical figures cited as demigods, and they generally would have practiced Christianity in the real world. Undoubtedly they had to hide their pagan beliefs, but I wonder if some of them truly believed there was a God ruling over the gods.)

I would say that lends credence to interpretation 2 - that Chiron was subtly dissing the concept of God. After all, in this dialogue Chiron describes the God question as “deal(ing) with the Metaphysical,” and contrasts against it the greek pantheon; “beings that control the forces of nature and human endeavours.” In this way, Chiron directly highlights that he knows the Greek gods are real because they have physical presence and influence, but regards God as something distinct from physical reality. So while Chiron doesn’t shut down the discussion possibility of a God, you might therefore interpret it as a tongue-in-cheek slight to the very idea. Following from this, the term “a smaller matter,” could be seen as a legitimising qualifier to the existence of greek gods - they’re just simpler to understand, which (to Chiron) makes them more real.

Growth of the argument over the course of the books.

However, as the books developed, we learn that there are more gods than we are initially presented with. Heroes of Olympus builds on this idea by revealing that members of the Greek Pantheon each have a Roman persona, since they’re essentially the same beings but worshipped in a (slightly) different religion.

But Kane Chronicles and Magnus Chase paint a trickier picture. They present us with the Egyptian and Norse pantheon respectively, which is tricky because it raises questions like “who really is the Thunder God?” As in, who has final say over where a lightning storm strikes? The way I would answer this is that these 3 (or 4) different pantheons somehow share duties. And there may be even more pantheons of gods - Celtic, Persian, or Aboriginal, for instance.

I think the existence of multiple parallel pantheons builds on each interpretation of Chiron’s quote.

  • 1st interp.: big G is real. If there are multiple pantheons of Gods, each with members who control overlapping domains (Zeus + Thor, Hades + Osiris) then clearly there exists a boss who A) distributes their use of the domain B) is more powerful than them, and C) has final say on the use of their power / control of that domain.
  • 2nd interp.: big G isn’t real and Chiron finds the idea laughable. I forgot what i was gonna say for this bit. uhh. Oh yeah, so if Chiron was evading the question [“You’re telling me there’s such a thing as God?”] it MIGHT be because he knows there are also Roman, Egyptian, and Norse Gods. Maybe even more.
  • If they have split personality between Greek/Roman, do they perhaps have split personality between Greek/Roman/Egyptian and Norse? Well if I remember correctly, it is said that they don’t - it’s only a Greek/Roman thing. There’s also the problem of non-overlapping-domains; e.g Zeus is king of the gods but Thor is not. Thoth is a moon god but Athena is not. So we should assume these pairs cannot be 2 sides of one being.
  • But, let’s get METAPHYSICAL about this. Even Greek/Roman lacks perfect overlap - e.g Pluto is also a god of Riches whereas Hades is not. So what if the religion presented is more about the human you’re presenting it to? Of course we know that’s the case for Greek/Roman demigods… but take it to the next step.
  • In Hinduism, they believe that every god is a smaller aspect of the true God, Brahman. A Big G god can do whatever they want, they’re Big G.
  • If this concept is true, where each god is a drop in one divine pool of god juice, it would explain away the divine incest problem. [e.g Zeus and Hera are siblings. All the gods are cousins. Gods love fucking their cousins.] Because any time 2 gods copulate, it would just be big G generating more G from 2 of their avatars

Man I’ve been typing for quite some time. You’d probably expect me to come to some conclusion to this essay. I don’t have one. I’d like to just say, “I guess we’ll never know” and leave it at that - just like in the real world, it looks like you can believe whatever you want; the gods could each be smaller parts of one true divine, or they could be lesser gods to a monotheistic big G. Either way, it presents as the same thing - a pantheon of divine characters running different aspects of reality.

But I did start this post off expecting it to be a small and simple question, so I’d like to hear what everyone thinks! And don’t worry if you didn’t read the whole thing.