Five Reasons Why Percy Jackson Tops Harry Potter

Teens with magical powers, surrounded by fantastical monsters and sinister bad guys, who are on a quest to save the world. The description is equally fitting -- for both J.K. Rowling's famous Harry Potter series, and for Rick Riordan's bestselling Heroes of Olympus books.

You don't have to be a fan to know that Harry Potter is a boy wizard who attends a magical boarding school called Hogwarts and finds himself locked in battle with the evil Lord Voldemort. But you may not have heard of Percy Jackson, star of both Percy Jackson and the Olympians, as well as the follow-up series Heroes of Olympus. Percy thinks he's just a normal kid -- that is, until he discovers his dad is actually one of the mythical Greek gods (Poseidon, to be exact.) In between his normal mortal life, and his time at Camp Half-Blood (training to be a demigod), Percy always seems to find a way to get into trouble -- and to save the world while he's at it. At least he's got a good sense of humor about it all ...

After releasing five books in the original Percy Jackson series, author Riordan went on to write a sequel series, Heroes of Olympus, which introduced an even greater threat than anything Percy had ever faced before. Luckily, this time, Percy has a whole bunch of new characters to help him out!  The final book in the series, The Blood of Olympus, was released just a few weeks ago, and I found it to be a fantastic, heartbreaking, wholly satisfying ending to the story.

I may be a long-time Potter fan, but I know where my loyalties lie. Read on for a highly subjective list of why the Percy Jackson series may just top that boy wizard ...



-- Hogwarts vs. Camp Half-Blood

Sure, Hogwarts has a lot going for it. Magical staircases, classes in spell-casting, ghost professors, and fantastic extracurricular activities like Quidditch and the Yule Ball.

But Camp Half-Blood -- the summer camp where young demigods go to train their skills and hone their powers -- is nothing to sneeze at, either. There's an archery field, a sword-fighting arena, a fantastic armory, and a dining pavilion that always has your favorite foods on hand. And if you need to travel, you can always borrow a pegasus -- or even the mechanical dragon, if Festus is feeling up to it.

But to me, the appeal of Camp Half-Blood is that campers remain there only for the summer -- giving the demigods a chance to put their skills to use in the real world. As demigod Annabeth Chase observes:

"At camp you train and train. And that's all cool and everything, but the real world is where the monsters are. That's where you learn whether you're any good or not." 



-- Houses vs. Cabins

Are you brave like a Gryffindor, or cunning like a Slytherin?  Smart like a Ravenclaw, or loyal like a Hufflepuff?  There are four different House dormitories in the Harry Potter books, and each student is selected (or chooses for themselves) which House they'll join when they first arrive at Hogwarts. Part of the fun of the Potter books is watching each character be Sorted into their respective Houses, and imagining which House you might be if you were in their shoes.

But on the whole, I prefer Camp Half-Blood's method, where campers are assigned to the cabin of their godly parent. The reason is simple: your Olympian cabin has nothing to do with the type of person you are. No one is divided up into groups based on a single personality trait. Instead, campers share cabins with their brothers and sisters -- while deciding for themselves what kind of person they're going to be like. And while there's still some competition from cabin to cabin, the lack of prestige for any one cabin makes it easier for the whole camp to band together when the chips are down.



-- Camping vs. Adventure

Some Potter fans have argued that J.K. Rowling could've used a more forceful editor for the last few books of the series. While I don't think a book needs to be edited simply because it's long, I did find the pace to be dragging in a few of the later books -- particularly in the final installment of the series, where the high action and dire stakes were often interrupted by long stretches of pages of the characters hiding in the woods. (Really!)

While I've no interest in a story that is non-stop action and leaves no time for character development, I found the pacing of the Heroes of Olympus to be much more satisfying, always balancing the character with the action and, as often as not, intertwining them both to create more rewarding scenes. Characters in the Olympus books face off against a variety of challenges, often ones that are intensely personal, and come out of their battles changed as who they are. It makes for a more rip-roaring read -- and one that feels richer.



-- Epilogue vs. Epilogue

Not gonna spoil this one, for those of you who haven't read it. Let's just say that the sacrifice is a little more demanding in The Blood of Olympus than Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I also liked the Olympus ending far better than Deathly Hallows. With Harry Potter, we flash-forward nineteen years and discover everything has been wrapped up, leaving little to the imagination. I far prefer the final chapter in Olympus, that, while answering some of our questions, still leaves us with a more open-ended ending that is far fuller of possibilities.



-- The Chosen One vs. Seven Halfbloods

It's not really fair to complain that Harry Potter is the star of the Harry Potter series. In fact, it's not really a complaint at all; Harry was always my favorite character of the series (well, apart from Professor Lupin), and it made for a more fun, more insightful story to spend our time from his point of view.

But in Heroes of Olympus, we are treated to not one, not two, but seven main characters (stretching to nine by the final installment of the series). And far from making the plotlines overcrowded, it instead offers a unique way of exploring the story, with each character possessing their own flaws, strengths, challenges, and triumphs. There's Frank, a guy who's big and strong but whose secret vulnerability leaves him struggling to find his path; Piper, who no one ever takes seriously (always hard to manage when your mom is Aphrodite), but who soon finds herself taking on challenges of sacrifice and self-discovery; and Leo, my personal favorite, the tongue-in-cheek mechanic who always finds a way to fix things -- even if it costs him.

These teens may be superpowered -- but, like Harry Potter, it's their all-too-understandable struggles to help each other, and find themselves, that makes the story utterly engaging and deeply worthwhile. So if you've already read Harry Potter, give Percy Jackson and his friends a try. You won't be disappointed.

Just watch out for the dragon.


-- Request The Blood of Olympus from the Catalog



-- Post by Ms. B