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That's the thing about Annabeth. Her development is only surface level and one dimensional and limited to other aspects that don't cover her fatal flaw or judging persona. Her character is the one that keeps surprising in the worst ways possible, and as I often say, Annabeth is a character that keeps devolving.
Part of the problem is how Rick refuses to address her fatal flaw to the extent that is necessary. He goes on and on about Percy's fatal flaw, or even the fatal flaw of children of Hades like Nico and Bianca, and even Thalia at times but not Annabeth. And Hubris is the most lethal flaw out of them all, too. I mean, between personal loyalty, ambition, and holding grudges and hubris, it is definitely the most detrimental. Rick refuses to critically analyze Annabeth's flaws, and it's not one or two it's many.
And with that alone, coupled with his romance, solves everything attitude towards characters he's permanently ruined some great plot ideas, potential relationships, and even entire books.
Even in a relationship, Rick let's Annabeth be the one calling the shots and pushes her agendas on them so much so that he has made Percy who is the main character and the focus of many books turn one dimensional. His whole personality has become Annabeth. Do Percabeth stans understand that Rick is literally making Percy an entirely different person just to achieve the ship? When it literally goes against Percy's nature of heavily disliking being told what to do, let alone being controlled.
Do you ever think about the fact that Annabeth started out the series by setting up Percy to be bait for the Ares kids and not even giving him a heads up/back up about it? Like we don't talk about the fact that he had less than a week's amount of training under his belt, barely knew how to hold a sword and shield and he was up against 5 Ares warriors - the strongest kids at camp who all had a vendetta against him and weren't known for following the no-maiming rules?
And then at the end of the series Annabeth literally shoves Percy off a cliff into a river with no warning whatso ever where Percy gets beat up by a river god while Annabeth sitting in safety tapping her wrist impatiently. When he finally wins she's there comforting the god that just gave Percy a bleeding head wound and triggered literal years worth of trauma???
Like. This girl does not grow. At all. She has not changed one bit. And Percy at least snapped at her once at the beginning of the series even if nothing came of it. By the end? He doesn't even get mad - he's so used to being treated like shit with no respect and no loyalty he just accepts it. He jokes and romanticizes it as a way of coping. Its so sad.
That's PJO's no.1 couple? Really?
I can Almost imagine how Impressive you have to be To Pull THE percy Jackson. Like pulling any Demi-God is great but PERCY?!? The son of posiden?!? THE SAVIOR of Olympus?!?
I headcanon that Percy is really just out of Anyone's League And You gotta be Pretty damn Special to be able to Pull him
Like imagine Fumbling him or breaking his heart
THIS IS HOW IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN.
Like come on Rick you are telling me Percy the greatest demigod of all time Jackson has to be paired up with someone who has nothing in common with him, frequently condescends him, literally forces her own views on him, hates his father, has a mother who tried to kill Percy, is controlling and toxically possessive of him and most importantly someone who has completely different life goals than him?? It doesn't even make sense when you look at it rationally.
I think Rick himself was trying to put Percy down in post Son of Neptune books by making his personality all about Annabeth.
We are talking about the Savior of Olympus, the bearer of Achilles Curse, the strongest demigod, the man who denied immortality from the King of Gods, Poseidon's favorite son, the only demigod to have been approached by other Pantheons first and well respected among their demigod equivalents, the only male demigod to have respect of Artemis, only one to be favored by so many Gods on the Olympian Council and that's only pre-Heroes of Olympus.
The Survivor of Tartarus, the demigod whose blood even Gaia wanted to wake to due to his power, the first and only Greek to be made a Praetor and now two times savior of Olympus. This is all without mentioning his singular and unique feats, and he has many.
AND THIS IS WHAT RICK DOES WITH HIS CHARACTER ARC????
Had Rick not been so obsessed with shoving Percabeth down our throats, he could have totally made Seafam Arc, and all our fics would have not been fics. We wouldn't even have needed headcanons for seafam cause Amphitrite and Triton and all of Atlantis would have absolutely loved him cause come on, it's Percy. It's impossible not to love him. So let's assume that's exactly what happened.
So the whole of Atlantis, Seafam, and most of the Olympian Gods love Percy and not to mention Sally and Paul, who are also very protective of Percy.
The new Lord of the Wild is his best friend, The Lieutenant of Artemis is his other best friend and cousin, both the children of Hades/Pluto are his best friends/cousins, the only other demigod to be blessed by Poseidon with a rare gift is also his very close friend not to mention other members of the Seven also respect him greatly and owe him quite a bit.
Hestia, Apollo, Hermes, Aphrodite, Artemis,Hades, Hepheastus, and even Dionysus and River gods either openly favor him or have much respect for him. (Poseidon and the Seafam are implied, Bob and Damasen as well).
This isn't even taking into account all the pegasi and nymphs and sea creatures who love him and that he has a literal hell hound.
Percy not only has friends in high places and the favor of literal gods on top of being Poseidon's favorite son as told by Poseidon himself, all the people with special abilities are all close friends with him.
In Riordanverse, Percy is like the only person you don't want to cross like ever.
So you know logically if anyone needs an explanation as to why Annabeth isn't a good match for him and someone like Rachel would have fit much better. A mortal blessed with sight much like his Mother later turned Oracle of Delphi, the girl who saved his life in literally the very first two encounters they have, a girl under protection of Olympians and blessed by Apollo?
Apollo could have definitely waived the celibacy rule as there have been mentions of married women later becoming oracles in Greek mythology( May Castellan too if you count the books) and that the rule is only to prove devotion to the God nothing more. And if Apollo can't, then Delphi, who is a spirit older than Gods themselves, could just change allegiances. She once belonged to Poseidons' domain, so there's that.
But since I am biased in favor of Rachel, literally any other ship but Percabeth would have been logical and fitting and better off compatibility wise.
This should have been obvious enough, but apparently, the fandom is blind. It's literally scientific. Natural red hair and green eyes alone have Rachel winning the genetic lottery, not to mention Percy, who has seen many goddesses found her to be extremely beautiful. The only reason we have to even debate this is due to toxic Annabeth stans who seek to deny anything that puts Annabeth in a lesser light, which is basically in most things.
The only reason Percy claimed that Aphrodite looked like Annabeth was because he's never seen Rachel, who is actually the hottest woman in the Riordanverse series, other than Zia Rashid, and sometimes Alex Fierro.