Suddenly all I can think about are eyeballs, the one that must be hidden somewhere in the back of my mother’s head and my own two that are about to turn into ice cubes. It’s enough to make me quickly slip my tongue back into my mouth and uncross my eyeballs. Even though my tongue wasn’t mentioned, can it be far behind?
Beyond that, which is more threatening? The prospect of my cold eyes forever seeing only the fuzzy ridge of my own nose, or my mother who seems to see all and know all? Here was a person in authority, who held some power over me and who also seemed to know what I was up to without even watching. My mother, ruler of the household, goddess of the realm. At that moment the future was certain. Frozen eyeballs were going to happen, unless. . . .
My omnipotent mother was just as convincing to five-year-old me as the Oracle at Delphi must have been to all those pilgrims who sought answers from her while she sat on her odd tripod perch, breathing in the wafting fumes from the fissure below her and delivering her pithy prophecies. Like the Oracle, there was no real explaining where or how my mother got her information. She just did.
In fact, every culture has had and continues to have its various prophets, seers, and soothsayers, from the ridiculous to the divine and there are those who gaze into crystal balls and read tea leaves. There are those in the same league as John the Baptist, who foresaw the coming of Jesus in the New Testament. In fact, many of the most significant prophets were alike in that they foretold the coming of a divine figure.
Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson is hardly divine, but at the very core of his series is an overarching prophecy, one that we don’t fully learn of until well into the third book, The Titan’s Curse: “Years ago, Chiron had had a prophecy about the next child of the Big Three—Zeus, Poseidon, or Hades—who turned sixteen. Supposedly, that kid would make a decision that would save or destroy the gods forever.”
That, my friends, is one whopper of a prophecy! And while we certainly can’t assume that Chiron is equal to John the Baptist, or that Percy, the half-human son of Poseidon, is divine, the larger prophecy does bespeak the coming of an important person, one who is born of both a human and one of the three major gods—Zeus, Poseidon, or Hades. By the end of that fourth tale, we’re not even certain that Percy is the child of Chiron’s prophecy. It could just as easily be Thalia (should she abandon Artemis’s Hunters), or even, should Percy not make it to sixteen, Nico di Angelo, the son of Hades, whose very name conjures up a foreshadowing of death and angels. When we leave Percy at the end of The Battle of the Labyrinth, he is barely fifteen, and if he is indeed the one, we won’t know it for another year and another book.
What we do know, however, is that Percy will play an integral role in the battle that is sure to come. In fact, Riordan uses prophecies throughout the series, in both large ways and small.
Who among us isn’t fascinated by the prospect of learning the future? Think about Genesis: Eve’s transgressions were as much a result of temptation and curiosity as they were of inquiry. There is now and always has been an entire underground industry in fortunetellers, palmists, and psychics.
But there’s a dark side to learning the future too. The future can be terrifying. And even when it isn’t, having the knowledge of it is still a serious, often scary thing. Once you know something, you can’t go back to not knowing it.
It’s appropriate, I think, that a tree marks the border to Camp Half-Blood. Just as the tree in the Garden of Eden signifies knowledge, so too does the tree that stands at the entry to the camp. Once Percy discovers who he is and what is at stake for him, that knowledge seals the deal: He can’t return to his prior innocence any more than Adam and Eve could return to theirs.
As well, it’s no coincidence that the mist that surrounds the Oracle in the attic of Camp Half-Blood takes on the shape of a snake, “a huge green serpent . . . slithering back into the mouth of the mummy.” The ancient Oracle at Delphi was known as Pythia, named for the great dragon that was slain by Apollo. The giver of prophecies—whether it’s the mummy in the attic or the serpent in Eden—often dons the guise of something to be feared. Even in our popular games, the notion of prophesying takes on an ominous look. The triangular form of the popular Ouija board disc, after all, is the same shape as the head of a poisonous snake. (It’s worth noting that it’s also a “tripod,” similar to the three-legged bench upon which the Oracle sat.)
The message is clear: Knowledge, especially the kind that comes from prophecy, is a very serious thing indeed.
The most obvious prophecies in the Percy Jackson series come from that musty old Oracle in the attic. We can assume that she’s either the direct descendant of one of the original Oracles, or more likely she’s one of the actual Oracles who has survived in freeze-dried condition. In Ancient Greece, the Oracle of Delphi was a kind of “channeler,” typically a young priestess who received her information from the gods and then passed it on to a priest, who in turn shared it with whomever had come looking for an answer. According to Heraclitus (circa 500 B.C.E.), as related by Ron Lead-better in the Encyclopedia Mythica, “the oracle neither concealed nor revealed the truth, but only hinted at it.” In effect, the offering from the oracle was usually a puzzle, something to be unraveled and figured out by the recipient.
The Oracle as portrayed in Riordan’s stories is anything but a beautiful priestess perched on a tall stool. Instead, she appears as a mummified corpse and is described as looking like “death warmed over.” She’s not a reassuring motherly type, but her very age endows her with authority. And she lives right in the center of Camp Half-Blood.
Interestingly, according to legend, the site of the Oracle was known as the omphalos, which literally means “navel of the world.” Camp Half-Blood, with its ability to protect its young, serves as a kind of central secure womb, at least for a little while. It’s as safe as my mother’s kitchen, but the connection to the outside world and what awaits the campers beyond its boundaries, the Oracle, resides in their midst. Right there in the attic. She’s the belly button.
It’s this figure that Riordan taps in order to offer up a prophecy for each of the three quests that Percy and his friends must embark upon. And in all three cases, Percy and his fellow sojourners use the different elements of her prophecies to guide their quests.
The first of the Oracle’s prophecies is given to Percy himself. The quest is his to take.
You shall go west and face the god who has turned . . .
You shall find what was stolen, and see it safely returned . . .
You shall be betrayed by one who calls you friend . . .
And you shall fail to save what matters most, in the end . . .
Sure enough, the prophecy comes true, albeit in some surprising ways, particularly the part about being betrayed by “one who calls you friend.” And this is an integral part of prophecies—they’re not always what they seem on the surface. Back in the old days, the most famous of the ancient Oracles’ prophecies was given to King Croesus of Lydia. When he asked her whether he should go to battle against the Persians, the Oracle replied that if he did, a great empire would be destroyed. So, Croesus invaded. The thing is, it wasn’t the Persians who were brought down. Rather, it was his own empire that was lost.
Percy’s prophecy is filled with riddles too. The first two lines are easy enough to figure out. But the last two are more obtuse. On the surface they seem obvious, but by the end of the tale, it’s clear that they weren’t exactly what they seemed. The last line especially appears to be the most ominous of all. What matters most to Percy—his mother—is also the one thing he can least afford to lose. By the end, we see that Percy does fail to save her; instead she saves herself, by mysteriously dispatching her brutish husband Gabe. “She’d reported him missing to the police, but she had a funny feeling they would never find him.”
As it turns out, it’s not the fourth line that holds the most peril, it’s the third. Until the very last chapter, Percy believes that it’s Ares who is the traitor—the blust
ery god did pose as a friend, after all, and then turns his back. But in the very last chapter, the true traitor shows his face: Luke.
The very fact that Luke is a fellow camper and not one of the gods or even someone from Percy’s human village makes him all the more menacing. And this holds true throughout the series, with Luke’s power becoming increasingly stronger and more vengeful.
The quests in The Sea of Monsters, The Titan’s Curse, and The Battle of the Labyrinth are also dictated by the Oracle’s prophecies. But even though Percy is a hero in these three adventures, the Oracle’s prophecies are not given directly to him.
The second prophecy in The Sea of Monsters is actually delivered to Clarisse, the daughter of Ares. Clarisse, like her father, is enigmatic, half-friend and half-nemesis. She’s strong, brave, and competitive—the perfect qualities for a warrior, not necessarily perfect qualities for a friend. But unlike the prophecy given to Percy in book one, Riordan doesn’t share this prophecy until close to the very end of book two. Only Clarisse knows what the Oracle has told her: You shall sail the iron ship with warriors of bone,
You shall find what you seek and make it your own,
But despair for your life entombed within stone,
And fail without friends, to fly home alone.
By the time Percy discovers the prophecy, the first three lines have come to pass, so it’s easy enough to figure out what they mean. It takes some brainwork to figure out what the last line means: Clarisse will have to take the Golden Fleece home by herself on a plane to Camp Half-Blood. The group does not have enough money to purchase more than one ticket.
As it did in The Lightning Thief, the Oracle’s prophecy for The Sea of Monsters comes true. Just because this particular prophecy is not directly given to Percy, his combined experiences with the two prophecies allow him to trust in their efficacy. In this way, Riordan has infused the use of prophecy with reliability. While the meaning of the prophecy may not be clear at the outset, Percy can believe with some certainty that if he continues on his quest, the truth of the Oracle’s messages will undoubtedly reveal itself.
By the time Percy gets to book three, the notion of prophecies and the power inherent in them are stronger than ever, which is both reassuring and terrifying. Here in our human world, for example, it’s easy enough to shrug off our daily horoscope. But if that same horoscope continued to hold true day after day for an extended length of time, eventually we’d begin to trust that whatever it offered was going to occur, good or bad. It’s no different with Percy. As each adventure unfolds, Percy can see that the words of the Oracle can be depended upon, even though he may not know what they mean at first. Ominous or not, confusing and strange, he can rely upon them to become true.
In The Titan’s Curse, the Oracle again gives the prophecy to someone other than Percy. This time it’s granted to Zoë Nightshade, Artemis’s most faithful huntress.
Five shall go west to the goddess in chains,
One shall be lost in the land without rain,
The bane of Olympus shows the trail,
Campers and Hunters combined prevail,
The Titan’s curse must one withstand,
And one shall perish by a parent’s hand.
The prophecy in The Battle of the Labyrinth is given to Annabeth and is more enigmatic, a reflection of both Percy and Annabeth’s increasing maturity and ability to analyze the Oracle’s elusive meanings.
You shall delve in the darkness of the endless maze,
The dead, the traitor, and the lost one raise,
You shall rise or fall by the ghost king’s hand,
The child of Athena’s final stand.
Destroy with a hero’s final breath . . .
But just as Clarisse withholds her prophecy in the Sea of Monsters until the very end, Annabeth maintains claim to the final line of her prophecy until the close of The Battle of the Labyrinth. Her reasons are more personal than Clarisse’s, however, and Percy, in his widening awareness of the power of prophecy, realizes that Annabeth’s reasons for the secret are much deeper and more intimate than anything he has previously encountered. When Annabeth reveals that final line “. . . And lose a love to worse than death,” its impact is powerful because it also reveals the depth of Annabeth’s twin feelings of love for and sorrow over Luke. All at once, Percy realizes that Annabeth has gone to a place where he cannot go with her, a place filled with her own memories—memories that have nothing to do with Percy and their blossoming relationship. And at that moment Percy’s own sense of loss is equally profound.
Just as the second prophecy is direr than the first, and the third is more menacing than the second, the fourth trumps everything to date, not because the physical challenges are greater, but because the emotional risks are so much higher. By the time the fourth prophecy rolls around, Percy takes it at face value. He knows with certainty that they will unfold, just as the Oracle predicted.
In all four of these tales, the Oracle is true. The prophecies that she espouses come to pass. And with each one, Percy comes to understand something more about prophecies themselves. In the first, he discovers their riddle-like nature; their face value is often misleading, hiding something underneath that same face. Because of this, Percy learns something about making assumptions. It isn’t Ares who betrays him; it’s Luke.
Nevertheless, by the time the second and third prophecies come to pass, the main thing that Percy has learned is that they are reliable. Which means that the prophecy about a child of the Big Three, whether it’s about Percy or not, will come true too.
But the Oracle’s prophecies are not the only ones guiding Percy Jackson. Recall that in both The Sea of Monsters and The Titan’s Curse the prophecies pronounced by the mummy in the attic were not given to Percy. Nevertheless, prophecy was at play. Only in these tales, it showed up in the form of dreams. But are dreams the same as prophecies?
I think that Riordan’s Apollo would agree with me: “‘If it weren’t for dreams,’ he said, ‘I wouldn’t know half the things I know about the future. They’re better than Olympus tabloids.’”
In fact, The Sea of Monsters begins with Percy’s nightmare, one that features his best friend Grover draped in a wedding dress and desperately trying to escape from . . . something.
Later, Riordan expands the dream so that it becomes a form of communication between Percy and Grover. He calls it “an empathy link.” Does it seem far-fetched to presume that two friends like Percy and Grover could talk to each other through dreams? Perhaps. But one of the hallmarks of any good work of fantasy is the author’s ability to ground that work in reality. For a fictional work to work, we must be able to empathize with the main character, regardless of how nonhuman that character may be. Any of us who have had a dream of warning can believe that the same could happen for Percy too. Who among us hasn’t had that “naked on the school bus” dream? Or the one about showing up in our classroom for a test and not being able to remember a single answer?
We can take these as warnings: Get up in time to get dressed and study harder for the test.
Percy’s dreams of Grover are a warning too: Get there or risk losing your friend forever.
The prophecy given by the Oracle in book two is Clarisse’s, and it is integral to her journey to recover the Golden Fleece. Percy is along to help, but his own quest is to rescue Grover. Percy’s prophecy comes from his dream, not from the Oracle.
In The Titan’s Curse, Percy’s prophecy appears in the form of dream again. And again, the dream is about a close friend: Annabeth. But unlike the comfortable relationship that Percy shares with Grover, his feelings about Annabeth are more complex. In this case, he did not share the “empathy link” that allowed for communication. No, this time it is left to Percy to figure out the meaning on his own, which he does.
And it’s a good thing, too, because in The Battle of the Labyrinth Percy’s dreams are not about his friends, but rather those he will soon encounter, namely Daedalus and his arch-enemy King M
inos. Percy’s dreams in this volume serve as both prophecy and history lesson, preparing Percy for the meeting we know is coming, but they also allow him to use his increasing maturity to see the complexities that underlie human (and godly) actions and decisions.
I think it’s important to note that Percy’s dreams are no less puzzling than the prophecies issued by the Oracle. He still has to learn to interpret them. They do, however, provide a more personal look at the way that Percy operates, especially in terms of his relationships with his fellow campers. The dreams are his alone.
Boiled down, Riordan uses the Oracle for public prophecy and Percy’s dreams for private prophecy. The former serves to illuminate the larger, global challenges for Percy and his friends. The latter allow us to get to know Percy at a more intimate level. A person who dreams of his friends, who recognizes through those dreams that his companions need him, is a person we can pull for.
But where does Percy’s loyalty come from? To answer that, we have to go back to our early glimpses of Percy. And we find out through them that Percy has, in a way, always been a child of prophecy.
When we first meet him, we discover that by the age of twelve, he’s already been put on probation for misbehavior resulting from his inability to sit still, a product of his ADHD, and he’s about to be faced with the challenge of a field trip. Nothing has ever gone right on the field trips that Percy has taken before. Why should it be any different this time? The headmaster has threatened him “with death by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.” It doesn’t take an oracle to see the writing on the wall. Percy is bound for trouble. No ifs, ands, or buts. Because he himself believes that he can’t avoid trouble, or that trouble can’t avoid him, he is the perpetual victim of what is known as a “selffulfilling prophecy.” He sees himself as the source of trouble and so becomes the source of trouble. Trouble seems to single him out.