wo of the best writers who have succeeded in convincing the world that parallel realities exist where magic and superpowers are found in ordinary humans like us are JK Rowling who introduced Harry Potter and Rick Riordan who came up with the idea of Percy Jackson. Yes, they wrote books for children in their early teens, but their audience includes everyone.

A brief recap would include the keyword demi-god. Percy Jackson, a 12-year-old dyslexic, finds it hard to fit in normal schools until, one day, mythical creatures decide to follow him to his doorstep. Percy, the son of Poseidon and Sally Jackson, a half-blood and a forbidden child with excessive power, kills a minotaur within a week of finding out his true nature, loses his mother and learns that the fate of the entire world is resting on his shoulders.

Rick Riordan’s best writing skill is perhaps maintaining the innocence and childish nature of the characters while they take on the world with only a few dollars and drachmas to their name. The witty humour, the inconsolable grief and the childish brawls and feuds leave the readers in lighthearted laughter. The Disney+ series manages to maintain that astoundingly well.

The cast includes Walker Scobell who plays Percy Jackson, Leah Jeffries who plays Annabeth Chase, and Aryan Simhadri who played Grover Underwood. While the casting might have left room for improvement, the characters themselves are exceptional in their roles and truly embrace those.

Rick Riordan’s best writing skill is perhaps maintaining the innocence and childish nature of the characters while they take on the world with only a few dollars and drachmas to their name. The witty humour, the inconsolable grief and the childish brawls and feuds leave the readers in lighthearted laughter. The Disney+ series manages to maintain that astoundingly well. 

Percy Jackson, with his childish demeanour and firm resolve, depicts his character in the book perfectly. His best friend, Grover Underwood, follows closely in his steps yet keeps his naive nature intact throughout the series. Annabeth Chase, with her responsible, stern and calculating attitude, is seen to come head-on against Percy and rebut and call out the silly mistakes he’d make, keeping them on track for their quest to retrieve Zeus’s bolt. Despite their conflicts and differences, Percy and Annabeth eventually became friends. Grover is seen to be the adhesive glue holding the group together.

The series revolves around retrieving Zeus’s stolen bolt. Along the way, the youths discover the cold-hearted nature of the Olympians, finding out how everybody in the big crazy family betrays everybody and how they backstab one another at every instance possible.

When the three set out for their quest, Percy and Grover are in a conflicted headspace. Percy sets out for the underworld only because he realises that his mother might still be alive. Grover, on the other hand, finds out how Satyrs did not even reach halfway across the US in their search for Pan.

The Disney Plus series Percy Jackson and the Olympians does deviate from the plot in the book. It has a more subtle nature. The murders are skipped, the brutal nature of lying and dishonesty is cushioned and the Olympian family is presented in a more positive light, which was not the case in the book where deceiving, conniving and cunning nature were the highlight.

The series has crisp graphics; Camp Half-blood is depicted extraordinarily well and creatures such as Medusa and the three-headed dog in Hades realm, to name a few, are created with CGI lending a very realistic quality to them. It shows how the Olympians, at the end of the day, despite being gods, mingle with the humans, talke and wear clothes similar to the humans and are fallible. The simple costumes, sarcastic humour and the ease with which the actors portray 12-year-olds travelling alone and venturing out to save the world as a normal behaviour with no guardian make the series a good watch.

Even though the entire series is based on the novel, it is fast-paced and skims over some critical moments in the plot. Despite this, unlike other movie adaptations, it does not skip details. Like most movie adaptations, Percy Jackson and The Olympians fails to keep facts the same as in the novel, The Lightning Thief. Diehard fans have been upset that the series does not meet their expectations. However, for those who read the novel a while back, the series is an interesting take after the last movies came in 2010 end 2013, with no follow-up.

The writer is an undergraduate student of psychology at FC College, Lahore