Wrath of the Triple Goddess

Annabeth is the daughter of the goddess Athena and the mortal Frederick Chase. Ambitious and driven, Annabeth is used to getting things done and to being the friend everyone relies on who always has a well-thought-out plan. Typically, Annabeth is the one who saves the day. In Wrath of the Triple Goddess, Riordan gives Annabeth an opportunity to grow, showing that no matter how accomplished one is, everyone needs their community to thrive. 

At the beginning of the novel, Annabeth characteristically takes charge, sending Percy to school when she feels it is important for him to go and risking the dangers of Hecate’s library to conduct much-needed research. She directs the boys on what to do and chastises them when they go to the perfume district without protective gear. In all this, Annabeth is behaving as she does in earlier books, so readers might believe there is nothing left for her to learn, making her a flat character.

Her growth arc occurs when she summons Peter Stuyvesant and the other ghosts in his cemetery. As always, Annabeth has a plan that she has thought through carefully and executed with precision, but something unexpected happens: She realizes that she overestimated her strength and has risked her own and her friends’ lives by doing so. Percy, who is always ready to assist, takes up the torches and ultimately saves the day. Annabeth is upset and confused, experiencing a crisis of confidence, but Percy puts her mistakes into perspective, reminding her, “We’ve all got our fatal flaws, right?” (259). Percy’s pep-talk impresses Annabeth, who admits, “[Y]ou’re a pretty smart guy” (260), showing that she has a new level of respect for her boyfriend.

Grover is a satyr (human from the waist up, with the legs of a goat) and Percy’s best friend. In the previous series, Grover undergoes a significant character arc, from having failed to protect his charges, to finding the god Pan, to becoming a Cloven Elder. Despite having achieved these significant accomplishments, Grover is not a flat character in Wrath of the Triple Goddess. He is subject to mistakes and “fatal flaws” like any other mortal. In his case, his (almost) fatal flaw is to drink Hecate’s magical strawberry milkshake. This transforms him into a much larger and more destructive version of himself, and in his magically altered state, Grover destroys the mansion and allows Hecate’s beloved animals to escape. This makes things much harder for Percy, whom he was supposed to be helping.

Immediately after the mansion’s destruction, Grover admits to feeling guilty, but he is not initially transparent about exactly what he feels guilty for. After he nearly allows himself to be absorbed to get information on Gale’s whereabouts—a sign of the depth of his guilt—Grover admits the feeling’s true source: He fears that he drank the milkshake in an unconscious act of sabotage because he dreads his best friend leaving for college. This gives the old friends an opportunity to have a conversation that Percy admits they should have had a long time ago. He reassures Grover that they will always be connected no matter where or how far apart they live, a message reinforced by Grover’s girlfriend, Juniper, at the end of the novel, when she reminds him, “[N]o matter where you go, your roots are where you’re planted” (276). Grover ends the book assuring Percy that no matter what the third recommendation letter quest is, Grover will be there to help him, trusting that their friendship will remain secure and strong.

In Greek mythology, Hecate is a goddess associated with crossroads, sorcery, and occult arts. Because these associations have sometimes had negative connotations, Hecate has been viewed as a sinister goddess, though ancient sources describe her as benevolent. In Theogony, Hesiod devotes a lengthy description to her, characterizing her as a goddess whom Zeus honors “above all others” with a share of earth, sea, and sky. An only child according to Hesiod, Hecate has the power to make humans stand out in assemblies, on the battlefield, and in competitions; she can also grant wealth, prosperity, and success. Because of the benefits of her favor, mortals offer her sacrifices and prayers.

As in Greek mythology, Riordan’s Hecate is the “[g]oddess of magic, crossroads, necromancy” (11). Percy describes her as “goddess of creepy stuff” (13), because of her association with sorcery and the dead, but her behavior in the novel is neither entirely sinister nor entirely benevolent. In Riordan’s novels, all the gods are self-absorbed, to varying degrees, and Hecate fits this pattern. For example, she instructed the other gods to stay away from Percy so that he would be free for her pet-sitting quest, never considering whether Percy himself would want to do that quest or whether he would have been better served doing the other gods’ quests. She also assumes Halloween is her personal sacred day and that every event around the world with a Halloween theme is connected to worshiping her. 

Though she does not appear in the narrative long enough to develop as a fully round character, Riordan portrays her as capable of growth. When she returns to Gramercy, she gives Percy his recommendation and dismisses him, but after he confesses everything that happened, she agrees to listen to his plan. At the end of the novel, when Percy visits Eudora, readers learn that Hecate has also agreed to implement it, reopening her school for magic.

According to a range of ancient Greek and Roman sources, Hecuba was the queen of the legendary city of Troy, the wife of king Priam, and the mother of many sons, most or all of whom (depending on the source) perished during the Greek siege and sack of Troy. In some traditions, Hecuba throws herself off a ship that is carrying her to enslavement. The moment she hits the water, she is transformed into a large, fiery-eyed dog. Riordan’s novel draws on both of these aspects of her myth: the grieving mother and the mortal woman transformed into a dog.

Hecuba is a round character who evolves across the novel. When Percy first meets Hecuba, she has been a hellhound for centuries, but he senses “the echo of a human personality” behind her eyes (53). It makes him worry that she might be planning something, and in a sense she is, for revenge against the Greeks consumes her mind. This becomes apparent the first time the demigods and Grover take her for her walk, and she attacks a Greek food cart. After she escapes her confines, she goes to Astoria to terrorize patrons at Greek restaurants.

Hecuba’s grief and rage are soothed through empathy. When Percy acknowledges her grief, shares his own experiences, and connects her to Nope, Hecuba becomes calmer, “no longer interested in destroying Greek restaurants or rampaging through discos” (49). Percy acknowledges that her sadness and grief remain with her, but they no longer trap her in the past. She is willing to return to Gramercy, take Nope under her wing, and reunite with Hecate, but now on her own terms: without a leash.