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“Didn’t you feel it —the darkness gathering, the monsters growing stronger? Didn’t you realize how useless it all is? All the heroics—being pawns of the gods. They should’ve been overthrown thousands of years ago, but they’ve hung on, thanks to us half-bloods.”
Luke delivers this quote to Percy at the end of the novel in Chapter Twenty-Two. Percy has just realized that Luke has betrayed him and all of the other demigods by working with Kronos and Ares to start a war between the gods. Chapter Twenty-Two is appropriately titled “The Prophecy Comes True”; at last, Percy (and the reader) learns that Luke is the deceitful friend from the Oracle’s prophecy. Percy is horrified that Luke could turn on the gods and his fellow demigods, and Luke offers the above quote as explanation. He is angry because he believes that Zeus and the other Olympians have too much power; if it were not for the deference of the demigods, who are trained to treat them with the utmost respect, the gods would have been overthrown long ago. Luke has decided to align himself with Kronos because he wants to humble the gods and strip them of their power. He is especially resentful because he feels like the gods treat their children as mere “pawns” in a game for them to use and dispose of as they please. Luke’s tirade against the gods is fascinating because, in a way, it is not entirely unfounded. The gods do abuse their power and they do expect total obedience from their children. The messaging in Luke’s resentful speech is not that different from Percy’s own criticism of the gods—the difference is that Luke has allowed himself to give in to his hatred. This moment is essential to our understanding of Luke because it becomes clear that he is not a black-and-white villain. He is a kid who has come to resent a system that failed him. In a similar vein, Luke’s speech also reveals Kronos’s powerful manipulation skills—he was able to prey on Luke’s existing anger and use it to his advantage. Kronos does not really care about Luke, but Luke is too blind and too hurt by the gods to realize.
