u/Smegma_Sniffing100

Every time I see someone call Percy Jackson and Katniss Everdeen an “unreliable narrator”, I *immediately* get irritated- and yes those are the examples I’m using because this is what I see the most often

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t an unreliable narrator a character/voice in a story that either outright lies, lies by omission, and or paints the narrative in a dishonest way to *intentionally* mislead the reader ?

I keep seeing people call these first person characters “unreliable” simply for being biased or not knowing the whole truth- but a character being biased doesn’t make that character unreliable, it just means they’re not objective/omniscient, which is practically EVERY first person character, isn’t it ??

It really fucking confounds me, a character being insecure and us reading them having those thoughts doesn’t make them “unreliable” because they’re “not telling the truth”, they’re not trying to mislead the audience, they just have low self esteem- “Percy Jackson is an unreliable narrator because he thinks he’s a loser when he’s actually not”- that’s not what an unreliable narrator is 🫩

It’s even more aggravating in the case of Katniss when the whole og trilogy has a constant theme of propaganda- and clearly shows that every character, INCLUDING KATNISS, has their biases BECAUSE of the environment they live in -no Katniss isn’t “unreliable” because she’s “a better archer than she says she is” or because “she doesn’t realize she’s in love with Peeta”- that’s not what an unreliable narrator is 🫩, these characters have their biases/perspectives BECAUSE of who they are/what they’re going through, not because they’re trying to mislead the audience

It makes me confused as to what people mean/what people want- Is an unreliable narrator really just a character that “doesn’t tell the truth unequivocally no matter what” to some people ? Do people want characters that are more “objective”? Why ? That would make books significantly less fun to read, right ?? 😭

I dunno, I feel like in general I’m seeing people misuse literary terms on social media all the fucking time and it’s genuinely starting to irk me 💀 like if you aren’t sure what it means just look it up ? I’m getting really tired of people not understanding what words mean 😭

EDIT: For some reason, I literally cannot see the comments, idk why and it’s a shame but 🤷🏾‍♀️ I mean shit, idk what to do about it

anyways, I see (some) of what people are saying about intent, so I double checked my definitions, and it’s seems like more of a sliding scale then an exact descriptor- and atp I might be being pedantic, but the reason why I say they’re “biased” but not “unreliable” -despite the fact that being non objective by definition can make a character unreliable, is because I feel like calling any character that has any amount of bias or doesn’t know the whole truth (yet- or ever) -makes practically every first person character an unreliable narrator ?

Because then it would seem like the only way to have a “truly reliable narrator”, is if they knew everything right off the bat, were right all the time, and were completely non objective, and I really can’t think of any characters like that ? I can’t even think of a way for a character to be a “truly reliable narrator” and still have an arc, dramatic irony, etc etc.- so maybe they don’t have to be aware of the fact that they’re not as “true” as they believe themselves to be-

but I still feel like calling characters having moments of insecurity, or being dense-examples of them being unreliable narrators is a stretch, because if that’s all it takes, then any character with any minor flaw is unreliable, and I just don’t believe that to be the case 🤷🏾‍♀️

Edit 2: nvm I can see the comments now ! Don’t know wtf happened but they’re back lmao

I tried to download audiobooks using audiobookbay, but got stuck right after getting a torrent file-
looking up how to open it/what to use to access it to get the audio has been kinda overwhelming and very confusing to me

I genuinely have no idea how/where everybody already has the info from ? Is there a class I don’t know about ? Some tutorial site or YouTuber I don’t know about ?

All the things that you need to be able to do these piracy things don’t seem all that simple, I don’t know about file types, or converting things, or torrenting, or- anything apart from basic things I guess 💀

It also doesn’t help that I’ve got an iPhone now and no access to a PC 🫠

If there’s any beginner (and I mean VERY beginner, like if it were to be explained to a toddler beginner) information sites/general places -please let me know, I’ll be damned if I pay for literally anything 💀

Annabeth Chase has got to be one of the most “potential” characters I’ve ever seen (imo), ESPECIALLY concerning her intelligence

Now I understand that a fictional character can only be as smart as the author, but at the same time, the way you circumvent something like that is by giving the intelligent character a “niche” (for lack of better word) to fill in that the other character may not have- and NOT dumbing down the rest of the cast to make one character look smarter
(That or just copying/taking inspiration from plans real geniuses have used in real life I guess lol)

My problem with Annabeths intelligence is that I-

1. don’t believe it’s something that hardly anyone else on the team can do
   (Percy often strategizes just as well if not BETTER than she does)
   -and
2. her “niche” isn’t utilized well or expanded upon (in a way that I find interesting)

Let me give good examples and bad examples

A Good One:
In the very first book when they’re in the Tunnel of Love, Annabeth is the ONLY one on the team able to fill the niche of calculating the right time/angle to jump so that her and Percy don’t end up as red spots on the ground

Another Good One:
When she takes into account the structure of the building she’s in to determine when it will collapse, while also calculating the time it would take to get out of there unharmed
(Pretty sure this was during the Mark of Athena when she met that cult, correct me if wrong)

A Bad One:
Basically every time she info dumps is a lackluster way of showing intelligence, I know it may seem like I’m arguing semantics/splitting hairs, but being intelligent is NOT the same thing as being knowledgeable, anyone can look up and memorize things, her having a “store of information” doesn’t make her seem smart, it just makes everyone else around her look dumb as fuck in comparison (because why would you NOT look up this pertinent information when you KNOW you’re frequently involved in mythological life and death quests 😒😒)

Another Bad One:
When she uses very basic context clues to “outsmart” the cultists in The Mark of Athena, again, this is not a “niche” that only her could fill, anyone else on the team could have pieced things together to *infer* how to get out of the situation from looking up prior information, if anything it just makes the cultists look stupid as fuck in comparison

Yet ANOTHER Bad Example:
When she used a tactic on an enemy that had *already* been used on that enemy- when she pretended to be “Nobody”- it’s one thing to take inspo from geniuses, but using the EXACT same tactic on the EXACT same antagonist has got to count as cheating or something 🫩, I can’t even count that as a her “being smart” moment- since she didn’t even come up with it on her own, that counts way more as- “an antagonist being stupid as fuck” moment- like genuinely how are you gonna fall for the SAME EXACT thing TWICE and THIS TIME to a MIDDLE SCHOOLER 💀💀 be ffr

-That’s all I can think of at the top of my head, there’s probably other examples of both but I can’t remember them right now 🤷🏾‍♀️
-Anyway, I really don’t like how Annabeth is often more knowledgeable than she is actually intelligent, knowledge is knowing things, intelligence is:

1. Curiosity
2. Knowledge
3. Comprehension
4. Application

The good examples show that she was curios enough to learn about those technical things on her own, understand what they mean/how to use them, then actually apply them to the situation at hand
The bad examples are when she just “says smart things” that basically anyone else could say, ykwim ?

Now let me get even more in depth on why her supposed intelligence really doesn’t hit for me-

1. Concerning Curiosity
   She’s only really curious about Architectural things and Mythological things, which would be FINE, since it fits a niche, but when you go up against greater and more diverse antagonists/situations and continue to stick to the whole “just be knowledgeable” thing instead of adapting/learning more, it makes her look kind of stupid 🫩
   For example: her fatal flaw, perfectly fine that she’s a flawed character, but hardly EVER doing ANY introspection to rectify it ? (especially when it nearly gets you and your friends killed MULTIPLE times) is definitely a choice 🤨 like it gets to a point where it CLEARLY begs the question of, “Am I going about this the right way?”, I hardly see her being curious about that or actively trying to fix it honestly 🫩
   -So basically if it’s sticking to her area of expertise/niche and being a flawed character ? No problem, if it’s continuously running face first into the SAME fucking issue without asking why it’s there or what you can do to stop it ? Genuine honest to good bullshittery 😭

It gets to a point where it’s less like, “the character has a fatal flaw” -and more like, “the author refuses to give the character an arc because the conflict stemming from their flaw is just to juicy to give up”- if that makes sense-
but he can’t have his cake and eat it too 💀 how can you go on about how smart she is then have her act THIS fucking stupid, it’s not even a matter of being “unwise”, arrogance/hubris as an “unwise” flaw is fine, CONTINUING to be arrogant when you KNOW FIRSTHAND that it fucks you (and your loved ones) over is simply idiotic
(Okay I’ll stop hammering my point now I think I got it across lmao)

2. Concerning Knowledge
   I’m not gonna be redundant since I’ve pretty much got my point across on this, but there is *one* thing that really bothers me, in The Mark of Athena, Annabeth taps into her natural affinity for weaving to get herself out of a bad situation, *fantastic*, EXCEPT, where the fuck has this been all this time 😭?? Like ? Is this the ONE thing you decided to NOT learn about/store knowledge for ? Why the fuck not ??
   See, even if it’s because Annabeth tends to be pretty tunnel visioned/ridged when it comes to strategy (which is something I’m not gonna expand upon too much now because this is already getting way too fucking long 💀), why not have it be part of her (theoretical) humility arc to be less one track minded on HOW to solve issues and open up to more possibilities ? If that’s what the author was trying to demonstrate by randomly throwing it into MOA despite it basically being absent until then, it just misses its mark because it comes across less as “character being introspective and putting in the work to expand their mindset”, and more like, “character doing something they would probably never do purely out of desperation”, which is less satisfying imo 🫩

Like Annabeth we already KNOW you’re good at learning and remembering things, why limit yourself like this ? (Or why write her like this more accurately)

3. Concerning Comprehension
   This one I have the least issue with, the things she knows she seems to understand just fine, it’s more so everything else around it that I don’t really like

4. Concerning Application
   Again, it’d be redundant to go over this point, the things she knows she can usually apply just fine, (as seen in the good examples), it’s mainly just the writing around everything else

About Everything Else:
Give her a fucking spear, genuinely, why the hell is she going around with that fuck ass dagger 😭😭 (which I’m pretty sure she LOST)
Like girl, be so serious, have multiple weapons if you want, if you need that dagger so god damn bad; then keep a dagger AND a spear 💀
Going up against monsters thrice your size with some fuck ass dagger 🫩 girl what-the hell-ever

You can’t try to convince me that she’s “brains and brawn” that do that bullshit 💀 stop fucking around and give that girl a spear

-Now bear with me, cause at this point I’m basically writing fanfiction, but imagine this-

Annabeth Chase keeps multiple weapons on her, and is proficient or at least adept to using them (which would make sense given how long she’s been at camp and how much she trains)-
Now, combine this with her technical skills, and she could truly be doing some baller shit, imagine her calculating the trajectory of things and taking advantage of the layout to place traps/use weapons ? She could be doing trick shots and shit, throwing spears and using them to swing around to different areas as if she were in some platformer/puzzle game, but NO, all we get is that fuckass dagger 😒😒

And that’s not even where the lack of utilization ends 😭😭 (Rick when I fucking catch you)
She has a HAT that turns her INVISIBLE, I don’t know about YALL but I would be wearing that shit ALL THE FUCKING TIME, why give a character something that makes them INVISIBLE then NOT lean heavily into stealth based strategy, we could have had ninja Annabeth Chase 😩😩 (Rick when I fucking get you 😒)

She could have been WEAVING traps, GOING invisible to survey areas/set things up for strategy, then CALCULATING how to utilize her weapons when she’s in the thick of it, but god forbid we get something fun like that 🫩
(And I haven’t even talked about the laptop but I’m sure you know how I feel about it at this point 💀 lowkey why is Percy like the only character allowed to keep his cool shit ? Lmao)

Anyway, it’s mostly misses and SOME hits when it comes to Annabeth Chase, which is a *shame*, cause it’s not like it’s IMPOSSIBLE for her to be as smart as she/the text claims her to be, the groundwork is there for it, we just don’t get to HAVE it (Rick when I FUCKING get you)

I want BATMAN, I want ERWIN SMITH, but all I get is a fuckass dagger and a bunch of fucking bullshit !! 😭😭