Favorite Character

As I have finished The House of Hades by Rick Riordan I have been left with many new and conflicting feelings. It was a good ending that was completely different from the last book in the series, which was good because it didn’t seem like the author was doing the same old thing in all his books. The best thing that I believe that Rick Riordan did was he had many character developments in this latest book. He opened up on one of the characters who has been the secretive, shy and awkward person in all of the books. The amazing insight was that this character, Nico Diangalo, turned out to be gay and he has a crush on one of the other main characters Percy Jackson. When Nico revealed this, I had to reread it THREE times to make sure I was reading it right. It made me think, had Rick Riordan planned this for this character the whole time? In the sentence where he introduced Nico into the story line, did he know that almost six books later he would come out as being gay, in a dramatic turn of events? I don’t think Rick Riordan could have possibly planned that from the moment that he introduced Nico, because he had the opportunity to do so not only in the first three books of this series, but also in the other books in the original series. I just feel with it being such a big secret it would be hard to hold that back from the readers, and it would shock me if he planned a whole SERIES ahead to release such a monumental fact. The fact does make a lot of sense though, and it explains things from previous books, so maybe it was a idea that he had in the back of his mind, that he thought he could maybe use sometime. Or perhaps it is a fact added to make the story feel current in response to all the controversy surrounding gay and lesbians and laws being passed on these topics. Either way I think that I like this addition. I personally feel like it does make the story line seem more current even though some reviews about this book show a lot of negative comments on this new character aspect. I feel like it’s a nice new and different character development addition that I have never seen in a book. And only one other character knows about Nico’s confession, so I can’t wait until Nico "comes out" and admits his sexual orientation to the other characters, especially Percy. With this admission, I feel like Nico is easier to like and more open, because he overcame his fear to reveal his secret. His honesty and courage have made him my favorite character in this book. Because of his revelation, I now better understand some of his actions in previous books.