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Thinking about the parallels and differences between Marie Levesque's relationship with Pluto and Maria di Angelo's relationship with Hades

In both flashbacks, we see Hades/Pluto trying to convince them to stay/go somewhere for their and their children's protection and both women refuse his request, but where those scenes differ is in how they respond to him

Maria is so patient and loving towards Hades. She never raises her voice, she repeatedly calls him my love, and yet is firm about not raising their children in the underworld. She only sees the good in Hades - calls him kind, generous, insists the other gods wouldn't be afraid of him if they saw him the way she does. She has unwavering faith that he will protect her, and won't allow any harm to come to Nico and Bianca. There is actual love there, and we get the sense that they did have a good relationship despite him being a god

Queen Marie, on the other hand, deeply resents Pluto. She's angry to the point of throwing and breaking things around her home, and blames him for all of their misfortune. It's Pluto's fault that Hazel is cursed, it's Pluto's fault that people around them are dying, it's Pluto's fault that the police thinks she's a murderer and her clients think she's a witch. Unlike Maria, Queen Marie doesn't believe that Pluto has ever protected them, nor does she want him to, not after how much he has ruined her and Hazel's life. There's little love there like with Maria and Hades, little trust - just bitter angry resentment.

And it makes sense that they would react so differently! We don't get the sense that Hades's godhood has affected Nico or Bianca in any tangible way (at this point, anyway). They're playing together when Hades visits Maria and seem happy. They're not cursed the way Hazel is. They don't have dangerous and harmful powers that they can't control (that we know of). Of course Queen Marie would resent Pluto in ways that Maria doesn't; the wish Pluto granted Queen Marie has actively made their life worse. The di Angelos were fine. The di Angelos were thriving. They had nothing to worry about until the Great Prophecy was issued, and Maria had no reason to believe that Hades couldn't protect them from Zeus when he had protected them thus far. He hadn't done anything to hurt her the way that Queen Marie believed Pluto hurt them.

But here's the thing though: Queen Marie was being manipulated by Gaia. Both she and Pluto tell Hazel that The Voice turned her against him. Just before Queen Marie and Pluto speak to each other in the first flashback, we see her push back against Gaia's request to go to Alaska precisely because Pluto told her it wasn't safe and that he wouldn't be able to protect her and Hazel there. Gaia was the one who convinced her that it was Pluto's fault that Hazel was cursed; after all, it's much easier to blame him than to admit to herself that it was her wish and her greed for "all the riches in the world" that lead to Hazel's predicament.

Gaia preyed on Queen Marie's frustration with herself and with Pluto to manipulate her into bringing Hazel to Alaska to raise her son from the earth. It was this manipulation that lead her to blowing up at Pluto when he tries to convince her to stay in New Orleans. Maria didn't hate Hades because the gods didn't torment her the way Gaia tormented Queen Marie.

Which raises the question: if Gaia hadn't messed with her head, would Queen Marie have loved and trusted Pluto the way Maria loved and trusted Hades? Could Pluto and the Levesques have played happy families the way the di Angelos did with Hades? It's more complicated because Gaia's absence would not have fixed Hazel's curse so it's entirely possible she still would have resented him, but I have to wonder:

Was there ever a world where the Levesques could have been happy?

[ID: Tags by @/hazellvsq: #what's so interesting is that Hades is generous to them but it backfires so bad #he set both of them up to fail. Marie's wish backfired and maria moving into the underworld was also clearly unsustainable #being like "I don't care what Persephone thinks!" before putting his mortal girlfriend children directly in her turf? he's DUMB #what's also interesting is that Maria is clearly wealthy and living the life Marie aspired towards #which like you said is why Maria feels safe and Marie does not so they have different answers to his offers #also her saying that he warned her meant that they were still in touch which is so chewy to me #anyway amazing post #marie levesque #maria di angelo #nico #hazel #bianca #underworld siblings /end ID]

@happyk44 I’d love to hear the long version of your hc about marie and pluto (I see where it comes from, it’s an interesting perspective 🤔🤔)

[Text ID: #this made me think about my marie raped pluto hc again #he definitely loves hazel #his relationship with marie is likely way more complicated no matter how you look at it #pjo #pjo text posts #text posts #hades (pjo) #nico di angelo #bianca di angelo #hazel levesque /end ID]

I actually came up with the concept after the first time I read SoN, but forgot about it until last year. The idea is that when Marie summoned Pluto, she trapped him as well and refused to free him until he agreed to give her the wealth she wanted, which she wound up taking in the forming Hazel. Like he warned her about the weight of the curse her greed would cause, so she found a loophole that would work in her favour. Basically, "Okay, well surely a child of his would be exempt from such a curse? And if not, they would not be completely mortal and so would be able to withstand it."

So she rapes him repeatedly, which he is powerless to stop since he's trapped at her discretion. When he is finally freed, he speaks nothing of it because he loves his children and has zero interest in them being involved in any fallout once his family discovers what happened, no matter how they came into the world.

And Hades/Pluto is notoriously a "I deal with my shit on my own" kind of person anyway, so if it weren't for the fact that he suddenly comes back with a new kid with someone none of them knew about while also refusing to explain where he vanished of to for several months, they probably wouldn't have figured it out.

Persephone/Proserpina is not happy and her relationship with Hecate is incredibly strained for a few decades. She loves Hazel even if she despises her mother though. However if she knew about it before Hazel was born, then Hazel would not be born because Marie would be very dead.

I don't think Pluto is classically traumatized by the event the way many people would be (not because he's a god, but due to how I view him and his ability to compartmentalize things that happen to him), but being around Hazel can be uncomfortable at times because it's still a fucked up thing that happened to him. Nonetheless he does adore her and is reluctant to admit it when she pushes him on it as he knows it will greatly affect how she views her mother (with whom she already has a complicated relationship with).

Hazel definitely struggles with it quite intensely once she does find out. While her upbringing was difficult, ultimately she loves her mother enough to look past the abuse because she believes, in the end, her mother loves her and that is enough. But now the love she clung to in the midst of all her mother's erratic behaviour feels tainted. She is an active, living reminder of an atrocity against her father, and, when compared to Nico, who was an outcome of love and consent, she feels tainted too.

I wrote a couple fics about it a while back as well.

I always find it ironic that so much of tumblr is horny and rearing to go with villains most of the time, yet so much of the pjo fandom hates Luke. And I just... don’t get it?

The gods were neglectful and used their own children as pawns so often and he understood that and rebelled. Was it the best course of action? Of course not, but... eventually... it worked. And it was even caused or lead up to the biggest decision or event of the entire series, the prophecy. Both narrative wise and writing wise, it was a great choice.

Fandom used to love Luke, albeit there was still a lot of fanon misinterpretation (aint there always?) but there was appreciation for his character and how he was led astray, and his backstory with his mom, and then Annabeth and Thalia, and then struggling to gain his father's recognition, and then rebelling against the gods.

He and Percy aren't even different sides of the same coin, they are almost exactly the same side of the same coin. Annabeth too, and Thalia, and Nico, and even Bianca and Clarisse and Silena and Zoë and all of them. They all have vastly similar experiences with their parents, and they ALL want to do something about it, and they (mostly) don't want to fight but have had little to no choice in it. They all hold resentment towards the gods in very tangible ways, even the characters who are generally pretty friendly with gods (Zoë with Artemis, Nico with Hestia and sometimes Hades etc) have deep problems with Olympus.

But Percy, Luke, Thalia, and sometimes Annabeth are the most notable with the extent their leadership and actions go. Thalia very explicitly made a conscious choice to stay out of the main conflict, even though she still takes a big leadership position and fights in the war. Luke and Percy both flung themselves in headfirst and pretty much chose the prophecy with their actions, with Annabeth doing the same in a milder way. These books could have SO easily told the story from Luke's POV. Like so incredibly easily, and we would have seen many of the same beats as we did in Percy's version of the story. And that's without altering anything but the POV! If we altered even just a little bit we could completely frame Luke as the hero and Percy as the villain with minimal effort and it would be very convincing.

I have to applaud Rick for choosing his characters and their roles the way he did though, especially in this first series. He wrote a real Greek Mythology tragedy, woven together from other tragic myths, and if you view it in just the right way you can see one ultimate victory among the rubble. What I like about Luke's story and how he is inherently compared to Percy is that Luke is shown to do a lot of good. He is defended by good characters several times. And Percy is shown to do a lot of bad, and criticized by good characters as well as praised by bad characters at times. And sometimes this criticism, praise, and defense of them is unfair and unreasonable, and sometimes it's humbly just. And by the end of the series both of them have adjusted their actions several times, but it's too late for either of them to step out of their chosen paths.

In Percy Jackson we get a look at Luke's backstory. Several characters like Annabeth, Thalia, Grover, Chiron, and Hermes tell us about Luke directly, and Nico brings us to Mae Castellan for a deeper perspective. Even characters like Silena, Chris, and Rachel tie us back to Luke. Ethan gives us insight into Luke's ideology. And we also get material written FROM Luke's POV in companion novels too. We are shown Luke in a sympathetic light so heavily that it seems impossible to miss, while also showing that he's not that person anymore and the choices he made have led to his fate. This is starkly different than in Harry Potter, when we glimpse into Voldemort's childhood and conception and see a young Tom Riddle who is simply bound to be a bad person, seemingly born that way because he wasn't made from love like Harry was. Unfixable, unpreventable, unjustified. Luke WAS Percy, and love plays a big part in their stories too, but even though he is fated by a prophecy we can see how easily Luke's story could have changed, and we see so many other characters with just as similar stories avoid his fate through their choices. Really brilliant use of a villain.

#Not even going to address the groomer or misogyny stuff because it's pretty absurd#Annabeth is more misogynistic than Luke is and honestly? That's justified to an extent too#It's part of character development#I also don't think Luke is a groomer for manipulating Silena specifically#SILENA was the one who brought up Luke's looks#Luke was recruiting for his cause and did not even intend to date Silena#He was obviously shitty to her but it doesn't need to be grooming for it to be shitty#I think we can criticize his actions and their harm without exagerating them#If this was irl Silena would still deserve help and sympathy for what she went through#And I'm tired of everything needing to be exagerated just for people to think it's finally worth caring about some type of pain#Why is there more criticism about Luke asking Annabeth if she loved him than there is about him KILLING BECKENDORF???#Percy and Thalia also both recruited underage demigods to fight in a war btw... many of them younger than 12 too#The bulk of Luke's army was monsters who respawned#Not exactly hating Percy for that either because his hand was somewhat forced but damn.#Not fair yknow? Give them both static

As I said before,I see Silena as an emotional girl who's loyal to a fault and somewhat of a coward. Many people are like that IRL,and those are flaws she could've grown out of or,at least,learned to deal with as she became older. However,considering the PJO books are "Greek Mythology,but make it 21st century USA",said flaws were used against her and caused a lot of tragedy. Luke wasn't above being manipulative "for the cause",and there's a huge chance he exploited Silena's vulnerabilities. At the same time,Luke himself was a victim of Kronos' machinations,not to mention the clusterfuck that's Olympus on itself. Therefore,I'm pretty sure he learned to normalize fucked up stuff due to his upbringing.

And yes. Not everything that's harmful can be defined by big words.

@tybalt-you-saucy-boi I super agree that luke was percy at some point, hell, for all that HoO has its issues, one of the things I did like was that percy begins to be more sympathetic towards luke, he starts to get angry just like luke did (at approximately the same age too)

your tags are so legit too, btw, "luke built a child army" yeah, borrowing the child soldiers from the child army he was part of before?? like to the fella that was the norm, wasn't it?

@hellisanhonourstudent "not everything that's harmful can be defined by big words" the issue is that fandoms in tumblr take actual words with real, horrible meanings and apply them to characters they dislike so they can use a moral highground of hypocrisy instead of just saying "yea no, I hate this one" (and in luke's case, I love the guy and all, but they do have legit reasons not to like him and still insist on the one inconsistency that frankly, doesn't matter at all next to y'know, actual murder and whatnot)

do we think at any point post thalia being brought back that anyone at chb (including luke) felt guilty or bad or just overall shocked at the fact that they possibly could’ve brought her back at any point during those years she was locked away as a tree

like obv it’s not their fault that they didn’t really seem to try anything bc why would they ? but afterwards do we think they were like “bruh that’s all we needed to do😐?”

low-key i feel like annabeth and luke would’ve had a little voice in the back of their minds for like a week after she was back just being like “are you fr rn” like watching her live life thinking “wow she really missed out on a lot and all we had to do was get that fucking fleece to bring her back” like i highly doubt they’d/annabeth wld STILL feel that way but i feel like every so often maybe as annabeth gets older and she watches thalia stay the same age she has little moments where she’s just like a little sad but to me that is just so crazy

like how disrespectful is that for her to just come back right as rain all bc of that random fleece i just KNOW luke was FLABBERGASTED when he found out

imo luke was pissed the absolute fuck off. like up to SoM he's an arse but not the worst, after that, he does become much more like angry and careless about what happens to his fellow demigods (or the people in the princess andromeda, they sort of disappear, don't they)

imagine luke, after having been given a shite repetition quest to earn some glory, or the gods' respect, when he could've been given a new quest, to save the person he missed the most!!! he wasted his time and energy in something he wasn't focused enough to succeed in when he could've brought back thalia!!

and.. bc I like it when characters are not perfectly good, did chiron know or even suspect a magical thing like the fleece could resuscitate her? did he ignore the possibility on purpose bc he'd heard luke and annabeth mention in passing how thalia hated zeus or something like that? he seems mildly wary of her power in SoM and TTC

((even if chiron never said or thought that luke would've thought so for sure, specially if kronos guided him to that conclusion))

as for annabeth, she had been asking for a quest for a million years by TLT, and we know ofc that she was too young before that, but you bet her guilty arse was anguished about never coming up with the fleece solution before