I don't think Riorden is a bad guy. I believe his heart was in the right place writing the series with the intention of giving kids a story where they can see themselves represented as the heroes. But good intentions or not I defiantly agree the portrayal of piper is racist and he owes it to his young fanbase to do the research and apologize for his mistakes and acknowledge them and do better in the future.
I think Riordan is a guy with an incredibly enflated sense of entitlement that feels like he’s the mightiest of the mighty whities and white saviors because he once won a stonewall award.
his intentions might have been good when he first wrote hoo, but you know... we’re well beyond that point, it’s been years since the series was finished, and the road to hell is paved with good intentions. there are many things that people forget when they mention riordan’s “well-meaning representation:”
- in percy jackson and the olympians, every character of color is either a monster (medusa, kelly the empusai) or dies (ethan, beckendorf, zoe nightshade, arguably michael yew) with the exception of chris rodriguez (who i’m assuming is latino on the basis of his name and what little we know of his looks). this does not show any “well-meaning-ness” on his part, even in the beginning.
- despite his poor choices when writing heroes of olympus, he still stands by them, as he says in his essay defending his writing of piper.
- despite claiming that he didn’t know about sensitivity readers, or that they weren’t a thing in the early 2010s when he wrote hoo, the issues continue with his current works, as seen in TOA, where piper is still sexualised (this time, by apollo), and riordan uses reyna as a mouthpice to make fun of those who hc reyna as a lesbian and those who thought apollo/reyna was going to be a thing, as was foreshadowed in hoo (despite how objectively bad that would’ve been, considering caleo and sadie/anubis it wouldn’t have been that out there for riordan to write it, no?).
- his acknowledgement of criticism, plus what happened with the big lesbian reyna fiasco of 2017, when he deleted his tumblr, shows that the criticism is reaching his ears, and that he’s choosing to ignore it.
- he’s only ever acknowledged three points of criticism: why he didn’t make reyna a lesbian, why he doesn’t think piper is not written in a racist way, and why he thinks samirah (from magnus chase) wasn’t written in a racist and islamophobic way (more on that by a muslim iraqi american). in all three of them he refuses to see where he went wrong.
- he accuses his fanbase, mostly teenagers and middleschoolers, of “bullying” him when they point out why his writing is problematic:
- If he knows about sensitivity readers, why didn’t he consult one when writing lavinia, who was introduced in 2019, just last year? if he knows about the piper criticism, why did he still sexualise her in the burning maze? if he knows about the particular way in which readers have imagined reyna, why did he shit all over that and made fun of them in the meanwhile? he could’ve had her join the hunters, if that’s what she truly wanted (show me a 17 year old that would willingly spend eternity with a bunch of preteens....) without even MENTIONING thalia (thalia/reyna has its own problems, but i digress) or ““shipping””.
- if he’s got “good intentions” why did he do all that?
- if he’s got “good intentions” why does he imply his fans of color are only fixating in his works and not reading own voices?
- if he’s got “good intentions” why does he call criticism “bullying” and escentially throw his fans of color under the bus?
- what about everything he hasn’t acknowledged?
- what about fatphobia and racism when depicting frank?
- what about his antiblack depiction of hazel (light hair and golden eyes)?
- what about his “edgy” age gaps (frank/hazel, sadie/anubis, calypso/leo - incidentally, all between at least one poc)?
- what about his lesbophobia in the dark prophecy?
- what about his racist depiction of leo?
- what about his xenophobic depiction of irish people?
- what about him hiring an artist for his official art that used to have a public blog where she drew child porn? (@viriasecrets, which has gone private after it was FINALLY called out a few months ago, despite being up for years)
- the same artist that draws annabeth, a white girl, darker than (or at least just as dark as) some of the characters of color?
- what about having the holocaust and the american civil war be conflicts between demigods, and having those same “sides” be alies and heroes? and not acknowledging it ever other than hazel being like “oh, that’s not cool”?
- hades is literally said to look like hitler in the lightning thief, because of the heavy implication that hitler was a son of hades. how is that “well-intentioned”?
If you had sent this ask about his good intentions in oh, 2016 / early 2017, maybe it would stand on its own a little bit more. Even if his depictions were problematic, only hoo was out, and that had been his first* “inclusive” series, and we knew toa was coming along, so some of it could’ve been fixed. He still had a chance to fix it and show growth, show that he truly cared about the people he’s representing, despite being sloppy about how he did it the first time.
Now, however, having seen how Riordan has turned out to be... not so much. His attitude doesn’t show caring, it shows entitlement and a steadfast refusal to listen to his fans, listen to constructive criticism, and grow as a writer.
*this is not counting tkc, which was posted at around the same time as hoo but was never as big as pjo or hoo, and which, as far as i know and taking away some issues, like sadie’s romantic relationships, was not as problematic or controversial. ~mod ara.
