Annoying Percy Jackson fanfiction tropes

Percy's intelligence or lack thereof

Percy being dumb is not only inaccurate to the books it's a meme of overgrown popularity. Which makes it that much more annoying to read a story where Percy is a genuine helpless moron. Unlike the previous chapter there's not really any excuse for following this trope, since it's a decision to write him this way.

Many times throughout the books Percy proves himself a great on the fly strategist and fighter. Deducing his opponents weaknesses with ease and outsmarting beings with centuries of experience. For some examples.

Instead of destroying Ethan in a fight he makes him chase around the arena to tire him out. Beating him without even fighting him.

In the son of Neptune, Percy takes one look at the legion and accurately guess what's wrong with the fifth cohort and why they are pretty much hated. Hazel literally makes a mental note that Percy is a lot smarter than he seems.

He acutely sums up the capacities of Reyna and how she's at a political disadvantage against Octavian after only meeting both once.

He takes an educated gamble from what he knew about Gaia and reversed the effects of gorgon blood onto Phineas.

Those are only a few examples.

Does that sound like a helpless moron who needs his hand held to you?

Is Percy a Nobel prize physicist? Hell no and I'm not saying you should make him one. Speaking of which Percy is on his way to become a marine biologist. Which is far from a simple profession that requires Percy to be efficient in several scientific fields. To act like he's stupid or completely oblivious is such a blatant disservice and insult to his character i can't help, but cringe whenever he's reduced to a goofy caricature.

He's not even that oblivious, Reyna didn't even make a move remotely obvious on him and he instantly caught on. Personally I'm pretty sure Percy knew Annabeth liked him at some point and only repressed his feelings because he was terrified. Who could blame him, it's probably why Annabeth called him a coward in the last Olympian, but that falls in theory category.

He's a calculating warrior more often than not and knows how to exploit the flaws and weakness of his opponents to come out on top. Which in itself is it's own type of intelligence.

Using Annabeth to make Percy seem dumb is also an insult to both characters. Since it simply overlooks Annabeth's own flaws and turns her into a boring archetype to push the plot forward.

Percy being made into a silly borderline moronic protagonist is like people trying to make him a shonen main character like Son Goku or Luffy who are often depicted as dumb.

When it's not the case in Percy.

Even Annabeth one of the canonically smartest book smart characters in the series state that Percy's intelligence shouldn't be underestimated.

So why oh why is his entire personality toned down.

His anger issues, none he's a goofy oblivious guy too busy being a himbo to be rightfully pissed off.

His dark side, either the forefront of the story that turns him into something two steps behind an edge lord. It's never brought up tastefully or with nuance like in the books.

Percy is a nuanced character and it's not easy to write, but the amount of effort to not make him a borderline worthless caricature of himself is far from the amount of efforts needed to make a fully accurate representation of his character.

Essentially what I mean is that writers have the choice to stay where they are and flanderize Percy with traits he doesn't even have, because and I feel I need to hammer this in one last time, he's not stupid!

Sadly most writers don't chose to leap over a metaphorical puddle and not write Percy as a fool. That's the amount of efforts that's needed.

For those wondering what Flanderization means.

Flanderization is the process through which a complex fictional character's essential traits are oversimplified to the point where they constitute their entire personality, or at least exaggerated while other traits remain, over the course of a serial work.

This alone sums up the trend of making Percy stupid.

And how stupid it is in itself