How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
"The gods are busy. They have a lot of kids and they don't always…Well, sometimes they don't care about us, Percy. They ignore us."
I thought about some of the kids I'd seen in the Hermes cabin, teenagers who looked sullen and depressed, as if they were waiting for a call that would never come. I'd known kids like that at Yancy Academy, shuffled off to boarding school by rich parents who didn't have the time to deal with them. But the gods should behave better. (7.46-47)
Why might the gods ignore their demi-god children, and what does Percy mean when he says, "the gods should behave better"? Do the gods behave better than humans in this story? Do the humans behave better than the gods? What does it mean to behave well in this story? Does Athena love Annabeth, do you think?
Quote #8
"Don't worry about it, Percy. The campers here, they're mostly good people. After all, we're extended family, right? We take care of each other." (7.97)
Percy not only finds a camp full of kids just like him, but he also finds a family – literally. How are the Olympians related to one another? Do we see instances of campers taking care of each other?
Quote #9
"About sixty years ago, after World War II, the Big Three agreed they wouldn't sire any more heroes. Their children were just too powerful. They were affecting the course of human events too much, causing too much carnage. World War II, you know, that was basically a fight between the sons of Zeus and Poseidon on one side, and the sons of Hades on the other. The winning side, Zeus and Poseidon, made Hades swear an oath with them: no more affairs with mortal women. They all swore on the River Styx." (8.64)
Maybe the gods don't typically like their demi-god children because their demi-god children cause too much damage on earth. It's interesting here to see that Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades care about humans to a degree; that they don't want too much destruction to go down in the mortal world. Why do you think they would want this?