When Your Greatest Weakness Becomes A Superpower
Posted by meredith on 07-01-2009
As I reluctantly near the end of Rick Riordan’s Greek mythology-inspired Percy Jackson series (book five, here I come!), I’ve found myself thinking more about the author’s choice to distinguish Percy and his fellow demigods, or half-bloods, by the telltale learning disabilities of ADHD and dyslexia.
For those who aren’t familiar with the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series: the first book The Lighting Thief begins with sixth grader Percy — who on top of said disabilities, also has a knack for landing on teachers’ bad sides –discovering that the root of all these issues is actually his divine heritage. As the son of the sea god Poseidon, he, a with all “half-bloods,” is marked by a difficulty with reading (their brains are hardwired for Ancient Greek), trouble focusing (this translates into battle-ready reflexes) and a host of mythological monsters that often disguise themselves as antagonistic administrators at school.
No doubt, it’s a brilliant rhetorical device. Just one of the many instances I was impressed by how Riordan seamlessly merged the two realities of myth and modernity throughout the books, truly paying tribute to the genre by using the one to lend structure to the other. And when I read about Rick Riordan’s personal reasons for incorporating the traits as a way of “honoring the potential of all the kids [he's] known who have these conditions,” I was touched. Middle school was right around the time I was diagnosed with ADD, and even though I had plenty of support, I think hearing about the special (vs. “special”) qualities of the disorder — the creativity, out-of-the-box thinking — would have definitely helped relieve some of the insecurities I felt at the time. I know I would have related to Annabeth, a.k.a. the daughter of Athena, and felt inspired by how she didn’t let her disabilities get in the way of her bookworm habits.
That said, I still have one nagging issue with the setup — the lack of progress. As far as I can remember, we never see or hear about Percy and friends really making any clear strides towards being any more comfortable in the classroom setting. I know, I know. These kids have a lot more harrowing obstacles to face in their extraordinary lives, and the books do take place during the summer. Still, there was a part of me wondering — especially with the books spanning the course of four years, including the beginning of high school– how Percy was dealing and, hopefully overcoming, the more common challenges he faced for those three-fourths of the year he wasn’t saving the world.
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