So the idea of disability as both the mark of a hero and an advantage to the hero is a solid tradition which Riordan uses in his own way to create the world of Percy Jackson.
Can You Read Ancient Greek? Dyslexia as the Gift of the Gods
Dyslexia is a language-based learning disability. It can occur at all levels of intelligence, and it is not a sight disorder, though it does affect the way people see words. It’s a decoding problem. It most commonly causes trouble with reading; the word comes from the Greek words dys, meaning “impaired,” and lexis, meaning “word.” Dyslexia doesn’t affect a person’s ability to learn to talk, but it can produce trouble (and often does) with spelling, writing, and pronouncing words. It can hamper one’s ability to read and process math problems too, although it doesn’t adversely affect the ability to do math (that’s called dyscalculia).
There are many different ways dyslexia can impair learning, and these usually overlap. Percy’s dyslexia seems to be strictly visual, but of course we don’t see him writing a lot of notes or trying to spell when he’s in the middle of fighting off monsters. He doesn’t seem to have any trouble filling out the delivery slip when he sends Medusa’s head to Olympus in The Lightning Thief, at least. That his dyslexia is chiefly visual makes sense, though, because it’s supposed to be connected to Percy’s natural ability to read in another alphabet. For Percy and the other half-bloods, it’s incredibly ironic that a reading disability with a Greek name is actually a sign of an innate ability to read Ancient Greek.
Because dyslexia makes learning to read so difficult, it can cause you social problems too, when other people don’t fully understand or recognize your disorder. It can frustrate teachers and make them impatient; it can turn you into a target for other kids. If you’ve got other difficulties like ADHD, even though they may not be related to dyslexia, the separate problems can aggravate each other and you’ll end up labeled as a Big Problem—like Percy—and maybe you’ll get kicked out of six schools in as many years.
In the Percy Jackson books, the reader is given far more reminders of the difficulties dyslexia causes than about its supposed benefits. When Percy reads a sign or notice, there’s often something wonky about it. “AUNTY EM’S GARDEN GNOME EMPORIUM” becomes the utterly unintelligible “ATNYU MES GDERAN GOMEN MEPROIUM” in The Lightning Thief; “CLOSED FOR PIRATE EVENT” really means “CLOSED FOR PRIVATE EVENT” in The Titan’s Curse. But Percy can usually figure out pretty quickly from the context what written words mean, and sometimes he gets lucky, like when the “Kindness International” truck in The Lightning Thief has white letters reverse-printed on black, which makes it easier for him to read. Like many dyslexic kids, he’s learned to compensate.
Of course, Percy isn’t the only half-blood who is dyslexic: They all are. Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena, has it; when she and Percy are on a quest together, they more or less have to guess at the signs along the way or else get someone like Grover Underwood the satyr to interpret. But that doesn’t stop Annabeth from reading all the time. It’s what she’s doing when Percy first gets to know her (of course, she’s reading in Greek, because it’s easier). Nor does her dyslexia stop her from persistently pursuing her long-term plan to become an architect. And the message Riordan gives us is that it shouldn’t stop anyone else, either.
The Gods Are Impulsive: Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
Anyone, even mortals, can have Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) along with dyslexia, but they are not related. ADHD is a neurological developmental disorder which affects 5 percent of the world’s population. “Neurological” means related to the nervous system, and a “developmental disorder” indicates a lag—not necessarily permanent—in normal rate of growth. There are three main characteristics of ADHD: inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. These characteristics combine to create each individual’s own personal disorder: You can be mostly inattentive, mostly hyperactive and impulsive, or a combination of all three.
Percy, it seems, is meant to have the combined form of all three, but I think he’s more convincing as the “mostly hyperactive and impulsive” type. He doesn’t show many signs of being inattentive. His grasp of Greek myth is impressive, even if he sometimes complains that he can’t remember it all. He remembers just about everything Annabeth ever says to him, and keeps track of complicated plot twists and a huge number of friends and enemies with a whole lot more facility than I can as a reader. There is one place near the end of The Titan’s Curse where Grover has to remind Percy of Apollo’s instruction to find Nereus, the “old man of the sea,” but as a reader I’d forgotten about it too, so plot-wise the timing was just about right for it to come up again.
The National Institute of Mental Health’s Web site points out that “Not everyone who is overly hyperactive, inattentive, or impulsive has ADHD,” and I do wonder about the Yancy Academy counselor who appears to have made the diagnosis. An ADHD diagnosis tracks consistent behavior over a six-month period and rates the problem level against a scale. The Yancy counselor must have been pretty hot off the mark to come up with an accurate diagnosis, given that Percy was only at the Yancy Academy from September to the following June. At the rate of six schools in six years, it doesn’t really sound like Percy has had enough stability for anyone to have assessed his difficulties accurately.
But he is a good fighter (though modest about it). Impulsive behavior and hyperactivity in a half-blood are supposed to be connected to fighting ability, and a thing called “battle fury” or “battle ardor” is another commonly recognized motif in literature; it’s even a historical phenomenon. ADHD seems like a clever way to explain the crazy impulsivity that can seize an enraged warrior. People who are fighting under the spell of “battle ardor” seem to go crazy and kill everything within reach without any thought for their own safety. Literary heroes who go into a “battle ardor” include Gawain, one of King Arthur’s noblest knights (it gets him in trouble sometimes, because he is so uncontrollable when he’s fighting); Cuchullain, the hero of Irish legend; and the Ancient Greek hero Achilles. Historically, Gaulish warriors were known and admired by the Romans for their battle frenzy. The English word “berserk” comes from “berserkers,” the name of the Norse warriors who fought in a trance of rage.
At Camp Half-Blood, this fighting frenzy is most likely to turn up in the Ares Cabin. The sons and daughters of Ares are beyond impulsive (I suspect that the ADHD feature of a half-blood may vary in its intensity depending on which god your father or mother is). Not all warfare is dependent on pure fighting ability, and in fact there are two warrior gods in Greek mythology: Ares, the impulsive one, and Athena, patron of soldiers. But Athena doesn’t fight impulsively. She’s the goddess of wisdom. Thus, George Washington turns out to be a child of Athena: a general, a wise and careful planner, as well as a soldier. Ares wreaks mayhem; Athena inspires thought.
Historically, it is thought that battle rage was more likely to have been induced with mind-altering drugs than to be the result of a neurological disorder. In actual fact, anyone who is on medication—for ADHD or any other reason—would not be admitted to the U.S. military services. You can just imagine how useful a disorder that makes you inattentive and impulsive would be if you were holed up in a bunker in the Iraqi desert. But fortunately for Percy his battles are mostly with monsters, who tend to be extra stupid and have heads that turn you to stone or grow back in duplicate when you cut them off. A touch of impulsiveness in battle can’t hurt against enemies like that.
Lame and Slow: Other Disabilities in the Percy Jackson Series
Dyslexia, a learning disability, and ADHD, a developmental disorder, are the two specific impairments that mark half-bloods, but other disabilities, particularly physical ones, can also hide remarkable characteristics in the world of the Greek gods. Chiron the centaur disguises his horse’s body in a wheelchair. He appears to be a man who has lost the use of his legs, but in fact he is a powerful, beautiful being. Grover hides his s
atyr feet in oversized shoes which impede his ability to walk, and his hidden goat legs make him seem to have abnormal musculature development. Both Chiron and Grover endure the difficulties of these strange arrangements because by doing so they are enabled: They can inhabit two worlds, the world of gods and the world of men. The ability to pass between the two worlds makes the difficulty—the disability—worthwhile.
As with all Riordan’s themes, this one of disability going hand-in-hand with giftedness has precedents in Greek myth itself. Hephaestus the blacksmith, Aphrodite’s husband, is crippled and deformed, but he is a master craftsman who forged Apollo’s chariot, Eros’s bow and arrows, and many other heroes’ weapons. Another disabled yet gifted Greek character, who has not turned up in Riordan’s series (but who may yet), is Tiresias, who is blinded by Athena because he has the bad luck of accidentally seeing her naked in her bath (though she has taken a liking to mortal lovers in the Percy Jackson series, she is traditionally a virgin and extremely modest). When his mother pleads for him, Athena takes pity on Tiresias and compensates him for his blindness by giving him the gift of prophecy.
Tyson, Percy’s Cyclops half-brother, is a character who appears to suffer from some kind of unidentified learning disability (compounded by his apparent homelessness)—he’s extremely slow, and it shows in his speech, which isn’t much more advanced than baby talk. His toddler’s way of talking is strange coming out of his overgrown and lumbering body. Like the half-bloods’ dyslexia, these defects are keys to his true nature. Tyson talks like a baby because he is a baby (although the full grown Cyclops Polyphemus doesn’t seem a whole lot more advanced than Tyson in intelligence, and Tyson has got it all over Polyphemus in emotional maturity).
Tyson is slow to learn the things we mortals value in school because they’re fairly irrelevant to his inheritance or his existence. What he is good at he excels at—communing with mythical sea beasts, and making incredibly complex mechanical instruments, such as the watch that converts into a shield he makes for Percy. Tyson is the ultimate techie, and a natural; his talent is innate. So his apparent defects, like those of the other half-bloods, both reveal his true nature and disguise it.
“Troubled Kid” with a Learning Disability = Probably a Demigod. Make Sense?
One of the keen readers in our house, who like Percy in The Lightning Thief is now in sixth grade, wolfed the first three books down in about ten days and is rereading them as I write—we have to fight over who gets the books because she wants to read them and I need to refer to them. But when I asked her what she thought of Percy’s disabilities, she actually denied their existence.
“Percy’s not dyslexic!”
She speaks with some experience of dyslexia, having a close friend who is severely affected by it. “Yes he is,” I said. “It says so, here in the first chapter. And here later there’s an example of him having trouble reading.”
“Oh—” she said, looking at the proof. “Well, he doesn’t seem dyslexic to me; he’s very talkative.” Her friend only talks to a small group of familiar people who can be trusted not to tease or ask embarrassing questions—or leave preschool picture books lying on her desk as a “joke.”
Isabel Brittain has come up with a list of what she calls “The Six Pitfalls of Disability Fiction.” Her research is based on several previous studies and is presented in a paper for the journal of the Society for Disability Studies based in Columbus, Ohio. (The word “pitfalls” is misleadingly negative, as here it simply refers to recurring themes in fiction featuring disabled characters; Brittain calls them pitfalls because they just don’t offer the reader a particularly realistic option for living with or thinking about disability.) Very briefly, Brittain’s “six pitfalls” are that the disabled character may be shown as 1) otherworldly, 2) extraordinary, and 3) may appear only as a sidekick and not as a fully developed character (Tyson falls into this category); 4) the disability may not be accurately researched or described in detail, and 5) the impaired character may be alienated or isolated. The final “pitfall” is that 6) the author may not be able to see how the character can live successfully with his or her disability in the future.
Riordan’s portrayal of Percy’s own disabilities makes use of at least half of these, and all six turn up in his portrayal of disabilities in general, at least in the sense that characters like Grover will never be physically comfortable in the mortal world where they are required to spend so much of their lives. There is also a sense that few half-blood children will be able to function as happy, successful humans outside the boundaries of Camp Half-Blood.
I reckon our sixth grade reader didn’t notice Percy’s disabilities because Riordan doesn’t always portray them consistently. In The Lightning Thief there are, if anything, more written signs, notices, and newspaper stories that Percy reads without any apparent effort than there are confusing ones. Percy is very quick to spot that Mr. D has misspelled his name on the form letter requesting he register to stay at Camp Half-Blood year-round.
Throughout these books Riordan does not so much demonstrate Percy’s ADHD as he constantly reminds the reader with little narrative elbow nudges. Every time Percy does something without thinking it through, he attributes it to his ADHD through narration: “What I did next was so impulsive and dangerous I should have been named ADHD poster child of the year,” or, “The ADHD part of me wondered, off task, whether the rest of [Hades’] clothes were made the same way” (The Lightning Thief). On most of these occasions, though, I didn’t see why ADHD had to come into it. When Percy snatches the steering wheel of the bus from the driver in the Lincoln Tunnel, it’s to avoid battling the three Furies, who are wielding fiery whips in the back. Given the alternative, running the bus out of control doesn’t seem so crazy.
Without these occasional reminders, these verbal nudges, you might not notice Percy’s lack of fixed attention. He seems extremely adaptable and capable—more so than most people, regardless of learning disabilities (though perhaps this is only true because we mostly see him thinking and acting in his predestined context as a hero). As far as getting kicked out of school is concerned, we don’t have much of his past history, but the reality of the present is that it’s never actually his fault. He is framed by monsters, teachers, classmates, and the press, time and again. Great bloody, godly battles during school museum trips and basketball games are not the way to lead a quiet life.
But whether or not the disabilities Riordan describes in the Percy Jackson series are convincing in their realism, his use of disability is an excellent device. Disability is both a mark of heroism and a way to disguise your heroism, but more importantly, it is a constant reminder that everyone is flawed in some way, even the bravest, strongest, and smartest people. In The Titan’s Curse, the goddess Athena reminds Percy that every hero has a fatal flaw; Annabeth’s is pride, and Percy’s is personal loyalty.
Hang on—personal loyalty surely isn’t a flaw! Fidelity is a virtue! But if it’s used against our hero, in the wrong context, Percy refusing to sacrifice a loved one to save the world could mean the downfall of Olympus. Even a virtue can become a weapon for wrongdoing if it is manipulated by an evil force, just as a disability can serve as a mark of heroism and strength. And maybe, just maybe, that twist in point of view will make the reader think twice about those people who can’t walk or read. Why not try to find out what heroic characteristics their disabilities disguise?
For further information on the disabilities discussed in this essay, check out these Web sites:
International Dyslexia Association
http://www.interdys.org
National Institute of Mental Health
http://www.nimh.nih.gov
For NIMH’s information on ADHD, see
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/adhd/complete-publication.shtml
Epilepsy Foundation
http://www.epilepsyfoundation.org
Disability is a subject that is close to home for Elizabeth E. Wein. Her brother, who wa
s severely brain-damaged in a car accident at the age of eleven, is permanently confined to a wheelchair. The hero of her latest books is missing an arm.
Elizabeth’s young adult novels include The Winter Prince, A Coalition of Lions, and The Sunbird, all set in Arthurian Britain and sixth-century Ethiopia. The cycle continues in The Mark of Solomon (Viking), published in two parts as The Lion Hunter (2007) and The Empty Kingdom (2008). Recent short fiction appears in Sharyn November’s Firebirds Soaring (Firebird 2009).
Elizabeth has a Ph.D. in folklore from the University of Pennsylvania. She and her husband share a passion for maps, and fly small planes. They live in Scotland with their two children.
Elizabeth’s Web site is www.elizabethwein.com.
Frozen Eyeballs
Oracles and Prophecies
Kathi Appelt
Let’s talk about me. I’m five. My younger sister is four and possibly the most annoying creature ever born. She wants to do everything I do, including use the very same crayon that I am using at the same time that I am using it. Cardinal red. It’s my favorite color, and I need it for the rainbow picture that I am making for my grandmother. All the other colors are filled in. I need the cardinal red crayon. All I want, all I ever wanted, is for this pesky little sister to go away and leave me alone, so I give her the “evil eye,” which means that I’m crossing my eyes at her and sticking out my tongue. My mother is standing at the kitchen sink, her back to us, so how can she possibly know I am doing this mean thing to my little sister? But out of her mouth I hear this prophecy: “Your eyeballs are going to freeze like that.”