C&E

Cause and Effect

By: Elias Dorsey

Authors Note: I wrote this piece to display my understanding of the topic of the cause and effect of the climax in “Son of Neptune” Written by Rick Riordan.

            The book “Son of Neptune” is about a young man by the name of Percy Jackson. The goddess, Hera, wiped Percy’s memory of the past couple of years clean. Even then, he does remember one thing. Annabeth, his girlfriend. After he enrolls in the camp in Rome, That memory causes Percy to be even more determined than before. That is what fuels him. He will stop at nothing, to get his memory, and his girlfriend, back. Also with his new friends Hazel and Frank at his side they’re unstoppable.

With Thanatos (The god of death, Not Hades though, there’s a difference) in chains, the enemy has never had such an upper hand. Rather than their enemies dying, they reform in seconds after what seems to be death. Without anyone patrolling the borders of the underworld, how will the dead stay dead? Oh, and did I mention that a colossal army led by the titan Polybotes is headed straight for Percy and he has to stop them? Must’ve slipped my mind.

            Although it’s pretty blatant that a gigantic army is headed their way, they had no idea what was going on until the climax of the book. The climax of the book is when Frank’s godly parent (Mars: God of War) decides to show up after a camper dies and comes back to life, due to Thanatos not being able to survey the border between life and death. He states that Polybotes and his bold army are marching toward the camp at a considerable speed at the current time. This is the climax because it exposes what the main characters are up against, and what they have to do for the rest of the plot.

            There are so many events leading up to the climax, even ones in different books. However, the most significant ones are that Gaea (Goddess of Earth) has risen to start a war against the absent gods. I say absent because the entrance and all communications of mount Olympus have been brought to a halt. Thus only letting gods talk through their alternate forms. Which they cannot do often, since they have more important matters to attend to, other than talking to “mere mortals and demigods.” So Mars talking to the camp for demigods must mean something is urgent.

Ultimately Gaea caused the climax to occur, reason being because she wants to have full control over our world and theirs. The effect of this cause is that Mars had Percy, Hazel, and Frank go and find where the titans are hiding Thanatos so they can free him and send him back to the underworld to make sure the dead stay dead.