Percy Jackson - The Titan's Curse
Percy Jackson - The Curse of the Titans (Original title: Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Titan's Curse ) is a fantasy - novel of the US youth book author Rick Riordan . It is the third part of the Percy Jackson series after Percy Jackson - Thieves in Olympus and Percy Jackson - Under the Bane of the Cyclops . The book was published in 2008 and the German translation by Gabriele Haefs was published by Carlsen Verlag .
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The novel begins in mid-December, six months after the events of Percy Jackson - The Bane of the Cyclops . The demigods Percy Jackson , son of Poseidon , Thalia Grace , daughter of Zeus and Annabeth Chase , daughter of Athena , are cited by the satyr Grover Underwood to a military school in Maine . Grover has tracked down two demigods of unknown origin; the siblings Bianca and Nico di Angelo. The academy's vice director, Thorn, who is actually a manticore , has his eye on them and needs to be stopped. During the evacuation, Percy and the siblings are separated from the rest and Thorn drives them to the coast. The manticore wants to bring the three to his employer, Percy's adversary Luke Castellan. An attack by Thalia, Annabeth and Grover as well as the unexpected intervention of immortal warriors with bows and arrows puts Thorn to flight, but he manages to kidnap Annabeth.
The warriors, who call themselves hunters , are led by the virgin goddess Artemis , to whom they are all bound by an oath of celibacy. You can neither age nor die of old age. Thalia, who apparently once tried to recruit the hunters unsuccessfully, hates her and is especially at odds with a girl named Zoë Nightshade. In order to recover from the sisterly responsibilities towards her younger brother Nico, Bianca di Angelo swore the oath of loyalty that same night. Artemis wants to hunt and kill a monster mentioned by Thorn, as this will play an important role in the inevitable war between the titans and the Olympic gods . The huntsmen are supposed to wait for them in the meantime at Camp Half-Blood and are brought there together with the demigods of Apollon .
Once at the camp, the events develop against Percy's hopes: Dionysus refuses to start a search for Annabeth, and the oracle only answers Percy's questions with silence. In his nightmares he sees Luke Castellan imposing an unimaginable burden on the prisoner Annabeth, similar to the ceiling of a cave that has almost collapsed. At the same time, Zoë dreams that Artemis was captured by the Titans and dragged to the same place as Annabeth. Without being asked, the oracle Zoë proclaims the following prophecy in the forest of the camp:
"Five go west to the goddess
One is lost in the land without rain
The enemy of Olympus shows them the way
Camp and hunt together in the spirit of victory
Resistance grows against the titan's curse
One, however, dies at the hands of parents"
Dionysus and the centaur Chiron have Zoë put together the rescue team, in which, according to the instructions of the oracle, she integrates not only Bianca di Angelo and the huntress Phoebe but also Grover and Thalia. However, she refuses to work with Percy. He is angry and frustrated, hoping for participation and Annabeth's rescue. During the night, Percy helps a sea creature, as he has often done before, to escape the fishing nets in Long Island Sound , this time a hybrid between a cow and a sea snake that he calls Bessie. On his return to camp, he and Nico overheard a conversation between Bianca and Zoë. Phoebe is unable to accompany the team due to centaur blood poisoning. Since time is pressing, Zoë decides to leave with only four people. Percy secretly wants to follow the group to fulfill the first line of the prophecy, and Nico makes him promise to protect Bianca. Percy breaks out with Pegasus Blackjack.
Blackjack drops Percy in Washington, DC , where he watches the rescue team follow Grover's track spell into the National Air and Space Museum . He also notes that the four have been followed by Thorn since leaving New York. Invisible through Annabeth's magic hat, he witnesses a meeting between Thorn, Luke Castellan and the mysterious general . The general summons twelve undead warriors before Percy's eyes, which he puts on the trail of the group. Percy, who wants to warn the others, goes to the adjoining museum as soon as possible and is unexpectedly involved in a fight against the Nemean lion , who has attracted Grover's tracking spell, alongside Zoë, Bianca, Thalia and Grover . The lion is killed and Percy keeps his fur as a trophy and protection. Zoë reluctantly accepts him into the group and the five of them travel on together.
In order to escape the persecution by Thorn's people, Apollon takes them to a mountain village in New Mexico within a short time by car train . A little later the undead warriors arrive and a fight ensues. Only Bianca inexplicably manages to kill one of the immortal skeletons. The battle seems hopeless when Grover feels an unnaturally strong natural spell and the Erymanthian boar , another monster from Greek mythology, appears in the village. Grover considers the boar to be a saving gift from the great god Pan , and indeed the five manage to get to safety on his back and also to the edge of the Nevada desert .
At the campfire in the desert, the hunters and the three camp residents thaw something and start talking to each other. Grover and Percy are shocked to find out that Bianca and Nico were apparently in the clutches of the lotophages before their time at the military school in Las Vegas and are therefore several decades old without being noticeably aged. At this point an unexpected visitor appears in the form of the deities Ares and Aphrodite . Aphrodite tries to convince Percy to forget about Artemis' rescue mission. He should cut off the connection with the Slayers and find Annabeth for love.
In order to get ahead, the group has to cross the huge junkyard of the god Hephaestus in the desert the next day . When Bianca tries to take an object with her despite Aphrodite's warnings, she accidentally awakens the bronze giant Talos . He can hardly be knocked down and finally Bianca sacrifices herself to save the life of her friends. Thus the second line of the oracle is fulfilled. Percy feels guilty because he couldn't keep his promise to Nico.
The four friends continue the journey. Two days before the winter solstice, when their deadline expires, they come to the Hoover Dam on the Arizona border . Percy is separated from the rest when he spots Bessie in the water and suddenly has to flee from the undead warriors through the generator rooms. A so-called clear - sighted mortal girl by the name of Rachel Elizabeth Dare favors his escape, as does the goddess Athena, who with the metal angels of Zeus enables them to escape and continue their journey to San Francisco , the new location of the Titan fortress Othrys .
After defeating him in a duel, Percy receives answers to his questions from the omniscient sea god Nereus : The monster Artemis sought is Bessie, an Ophiotaurus . Sacrificing and burning his entrails would give a hero the power to overthrow the Olympian gods. Kronos' plan is to get Thalia on his side, as she will already be sixteen on the day after the winter solstice and thus fulfill the prophecy to either save or destroy Olympus. Lure is said to be her lost love, Luke Castellan, the supreme commander of Kronos' army. However, the god Dionysus turns off Thorn and his people before Thalia can be blinded. Percy then sacrifices the skin of the Nemean lion to his father Poseidon so that Grover and Bessie can travel safely through the sea to camp and then to Olympus. Meanwhile, with the help of Annabeth's father, Zoë, Percy and Thalia arrive at the Gardens of the Hesperides - Zoë's sisters who exiled them long ago. While they fight their way past the dragon Ladon to the top of the titan mountain, Kronos tries one last time to change Thalia's side by missing her with one of Zeus' lightning bolts.
In the ruins of Othrys, the point where earth and sky meet, the last inconsistencies are resolved: Thorn's client, the general, is the Titan Atlas , father of Zoë and bearer of the vault of heaven. Freed from Kronos, he first let Luke Castellan and Annabeth serve as porters before he could load Artemis with the burden of heaven. A major battle ensues, in the course of which Percy has to briefly carry the roof of the sky himself in order to enable Artemis to intervene in the battle. According to the prophecy, Zoë is slain by her own father, Atlas, and Castellan allegedly falls to his death while fighting Thalia and Annabeth. Even Annabeth's father takes part in the confrontation with a Sopwith F.1 Camel and favors the victory of the demigods. Atlas is tricked and finally banished again under the Pillar of Heaven and Artemis immortalizes her long-time comrade in battle Zoë as a constellation in the sky before she sets off for the Winter Council meeting of Olympus with Annabeth, Percy and Thalia.
They arrive at the Council of Gods shortly after Grover and Bessie. Athene considers both Thalia and Percy to be a security risk; to give Olympus more time, Thalia then joins the hunters. So the prophecy now refers to Percy after all and leaves two more years of leeway. With the support of Artemis and Poseidon, he can also assert himself against Athena, Ares and Dionysus, so that Bessie, instead of being destroyed, is kept hidden from the titans. After all decisions have been made, Zeus opens a celebration in honor of the demigods.
Back at camp, Chiron is also informed about the events and background of the adventure. Percy also has to tell Nico di Angelo the news of his sister Bianca's death and his own failure. When the general's remaining skeletal warriors appear just at this hour, Nico believes Percy wants to kill him. In fear and hatred, he inexplicably disappears the warriors into a crack and then leaves the camp grounds. Percy, Annabeth and Grover look in vain for him in the woods. All three now know that Nico is descended from Hades , the last of the big three. And although it was conceived by the lotophage time difference before the Second World War and thus does not violate the oath of the big three, it creates new opportunities for the titans to use divination to their advantage. You decide not to tell anyone, not even Chiron, of Nico's parentage in order to protect him.
At the end of the book, Grover hears in his mind a cry for help from the god Pan, again accompanied by enigmatic natural magic: "I'm waiting for you!"
First-time characters
- Thalia Grace
After her rebirth from a spruce tree at the end of the second volume, Thalia plays a major role in The Curse of the Titan for the first time. She gets along very well with Percy, but the two can quickly get into an argument. As the daughter of Zeus , Thalia is able to fire electric lightning bolts. She also has the mighty shield Aigis . However, she feels uncomfortable at high altitude. In order not to become a plaything in Kronos' hands and not to have to take responsibility for the fate of Olympus, she joins Artemis at the end of the book.
- Zoë nightshade
Zoë is a lieutenant and deputy commander of the hunters and is about sixteen years old from a visual point of view. Originally one of the Hesperides, she was cast out by Atlas after she helped the hero Hercules steal the golden apples. Because of her old age, she has a rather old-fashioned way of speaking. Percy initially thinks she and the other hunters are arrogant, but learns to appreciate Zoë more and more during their adventures together. Zoe knew from the beginning that the oracle that someone was killed by parents' hands was related to her. She dies in the last battle of Atlas and is immortalized by Artemis as the constellation The Huntress .
- Bianca di Angelo
Bianca is the daughter of the god Hades and twelve years old at the beginning of the book. However, she and her brother Nico were stuck in the Lotos Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas for a long time without knowing it , without getting any noticeably older. After being accepted by the hunters, she becomes more self-confident than before. She sacrifices herself in the desert to take out the mechanical giant Talos.
- Nico di Angelo
Bianca's younger brother is blown away by Greek mythology and has many trading cards and figurines on the subject. Bianca wakes Talos when she takes the last missing figure in Nico's collection at the junkyard. It's a statue of his father Hades.
- Artemis
The goddess of hunting and animals travels through the country with her virgin hunters to defeat monsters, protect nature and recruit new members. She prefers to take the form of a young girl. In search of the Ophiotaurus, despite her divine power, she is captured by Atlas.
- Apollo
Apollo is the twin brother of Artemis and is worshiped as the god of medicine and prophecy. In the Percy Jackson novels he is equated with the sun god Helios . Apollon himself explains this in such a way that the Romans slightly limited the number of gods when they adopted Greek mythology for Roman mythology and thus equated him and Helios as well as Artemis and Selene and transferred them to one another. His sun chariot is shown as a red Maserati , but can change its shape as desired. According to Apollon, it is the philosophical representation of the sun that exists parallel to the astronomical representation. Apollon is described in the novel as an older teenager with an iPod and sunglasses , who talks a lot and likes to write haikus . Percy Jackson uses his Latin spelling Apollo .
- The manticore
The manticore is the monster that was put on Bianca and Nico. He is a hybrid of human and lion and can shoot stings like arrows. In human form he disguises himself as Dr. Thorn. He also has different colored eyes and a French accent. The manticore is later killed by Dionysus.
- Frederick Chase
Dr. Frederick Chase is Annabeth's mortal father. He lives in San Francisco with his wife and two mortal sons. Dr. Chase is portrayed as a professor of military history who buys and restores warplanes from the First World War and also reenacts historical battles with tin soldiers. Although his coexistence with Annabeth has not worked out so far, he helps her friends and defends them in the final battle with his plane from Luke's monsters.
Audio book
Percy Jackson - The Curse of the Titans was also released as an audio book , read by Marius Clarén .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Carlsen.de: Percy Jackson, Volume 3: Percy Jackson - The Curse of the Titan
- ↑ Musicload.ch: The Titan's Curse