Let’s be real. If you were a Rick Riordan fan back in 2014, you probably remember exactly where you were when you cracked open The Blood of Olympus. The hype was basically at a fever pitch. We’d spent four years following the Argo II, watching Greek and Roman demigods learn to play nice, and surviving that literal cliffhanger in Rome.
But then the book actually came out.
It was a bestseller, obviously. Disney-Hyperion printed 3 million copies for the first run alone. But the reaction? It was complicated. Even now, over a decade later, the conversation around this book is a weird mix of "that was the perfect ending for Leo" and "wait, why didn't Percy get a POV chapter?"
Honestly, The Blood of Olympus is a masterclass in how to wrap up a massive series while simultaneously frustrating half your audience.
The Percy Jackson POV Controversy
One of the biggest shocks for readers was the choice of perspectives. By the time we got to this fifth book, we had "The Seven"—the prophesied heroes meant to save the world. You’d think the final book would give everyone a voice, right? Especially Percy and Annabeth, the characters who literally started it all.
Instead, Riordan focused the chapters on:
- Jason
- Piper
- Leo
- Nico
- Reyna
Percy, Annabeth, Frank, and Hazel were relegated to the background. To some, it felt like a betrayal. You spend ten books with Percy Jackson only for him to be a side character in the "final" battle? It felt wrong.
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But there’s a nuance here that experts and longtime readers often point out. By silencing Percy’s internal monologue, Riordan forced us to see him through the eyes of others. To Jason, Percy looks like a terrifyingly powerful, slightly unpredictable whirlwind. To Nico, he’s the guy who couldn't save his sister. It made the world feel larger, even if it left a Percy-sized hole in our hearts.
What Really Happened with Gaea?
The stakes were high. The Earth Mother, Gaea, was waking up. She needed "the blood of Olympus"—two demigods spilled on the ancient stones of Athens—to fully rise.
The plot split the team in two. While the Argo II crew (Jason, Piper, Leo, Percy, Annabeth, Frank, Hazel) headed to Greece to stop the giants, Nico di Angelo, Reyna Ramírez-Arellano, and the ever-grumpy Coach Hedge were shadow-traveling across the Atlantic with the Athena Parthenos. Their mission? Get that statue back to Camp Half-Blood to stop a civil war between the Greeks and the Romans.
The battle in Athens was massive. The gods actually showed up in their dual Greek/Roman forms to fight alongside their kids. It was the kind of epic scale we’d been waiting for.
The Anti-Climax?
Here’s where people get salty. After five books of buildup, the actual defeat of Gaea happened... fast.
Leo Valdez, being the absolute legend he is, used the bronze dragon Festus to snatch Gaea up into the sky. Away from her source of power (the earth), she was vulnerable. Leo then detonated himself along with the onagers’ fire, basically turning the sky into a gold-and-fire show.
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Many fans felt this was "too easy." Gaea had been hyped as this primordial force, and she was down in a couple of pages. It’s a valid criticism. When you compare it to the gritty, block-by-block defense of Manhattan in The Last Olympian, the final skirmish at Camp Half-Blood felt a little rushed.
The Nico di Angelo Redemption
If the Gaea fight was the "action" peak, the emotional peak of The Blood of Olympus was undoubtedly Nico di Angelo.
For years, Nico was the outsider. The creepy kid. The one who lived in the shadows. This book changed everything for him. We got to see his friendship with Reyna bloom—a "sisterly" bond that gave him the stability he never had.
And then there’s the scene. You know the one.
Nico finally walks up to Percy and admits he had a crush on him. He says it, he leaves it there, and he walks away to go talk to Will Solace. It was a massive moment for representation in middle-grade fiction at the time. It wasn't a "tragic" end for him; it was a beginning.
Fact-Checking the Ending: What’s Real and What’s Fan Theory
Because the ending left so many threads hanging, people often get confused about what actually happened in the text versus what Riordan wrote later in The Trials of Apollo.
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- Did Leo actually die? Technically, yes. But he had the "Physician’s Cure"—a potion the team hunted down earlier in the book. It revived him just in time for him to find his way back to Ogygia and rescue Calypso.
- What about the Roman/Greek war? It ended. Reyna delivering the statue, combined with the shared threat of Gaea, forced Octavian (the main antagonist on the Roman side) into a corner.
- How did Octavian die? This is a weirdly dark detail. He got caught in his own onager (catapult) firing mechanism and launched himself into the air, essentially blowing himself up. Talk about poetic justice.
Why It Still Matters Today
Despite the "rushed" feeling some readers had, The Blood of Olympus remains a cornerstone of the Riordanverse. It bridged the gap between the original series and the newer stuff like The Trials of Apollo and The Sun and the Star.
It taught a generation of readers that:
- Unity is hard. Putting aside deep-seated cultural differences (like the Greeks vs. Romans) takes more than just a common enemy; it takes individual sacrifice.
- Sacrifice looks different for everyone. For Leo, it was a literal explosion. For Nico, it was the bravery to be vulnerable.
- The gods are kind of the worst parents. Let's be honest, the Olympians being "useless" because of their identity crisis was a perfect metaphor for the demigods having to grow up and solve their own problems.
Looking Back
If you’re planning a reread, pay attention to the chapters involving the "Physician’s Cure." It’s often criticized as a deus ex machina (a lucky plot device), but it was actually carefully seeded through encounters with Nike, Asclepius, and Apollo.
The book isn't perfect. The pacing in the middle is a bit of a slog, especially with the constant travel delays. But the character growth for the "new" heroes—Jason and Piper specifically—finally landed. Jason choosing to be a "Pontifex" to honor all the minor gods was a huge shift from the boy who just followed Roman orders at the start of the series.
What to do next
If you just finished the book or are looking for that next fix:
- Read "The Hidden Oracle": This is the first book of the Trials of Apollo series. It picks up right where this one leaves off, specifically explaining why the Oracle of Delphi stopped working and what happened to Apollo after the Gaea fight.
- Track the "Minor Gods": Jason promised to build shrines for the overlooked gods. If you read the subsequent series, you can actually see him keeping that promise, which is a rare bit of continuity that pays off.
- Check out "The Sun and the Star": If you want more of the Nico/Will Solace dynamic that started in these final chapters, this standalone novel (co-written by Mark Oshiro) is essential reading.
The ending might have felt like a fizzle to some, but the ripples it sent through the Riordanverse are still being felt in the books coming out today. It wasn't just an end; it was a pivot.
Next Steps for Your Reread
To get the most out of your return to this world, I recommend focusing on the themes of identity in the Reyna and Nico chapters. They are widely considered the strongest parts of the book. Compare how Reyna deals with her past in Pompeii to how Jason deals with his mother's ghost in Ithaca—it shows two very different ways of handling trauma that the earlier books only scratched the surface of.