NICO-DI-ANGELO

WARNING 1- If you're looking for some grade-A humour that's frequent in my blog, my advice - Turn around now. This is a post about some serious sentimental stuff.

WARNING 2-If you haven't read the Percy Jackson series, you MIGHT want to stop reading in order to avoid dying of boredom .

WARNING 3-  If you've just started reading this series, TURN AWAY NOW! The following post contains serious spoilers. Just go and check out my previous posts.  You'll enjoy them. 

For the rest of you little rebels out there. Good luck. Let's see if you can survive the onslaught.

Let's get another thing clear - this is not an opinion about only one character, but rather my viewpoint about a particular type of character.

Now, the character of WHAT exactly? Not 1 book or series, but rather I'm gonna take references to a variety of different characters from various books, movies, TV shows, etc.

When most people are asked about their favourite characters in say, my favourite series " Percy Jackson and the Olympians", they tend to pick the lead characters like Percy or Jason or Annabeth.

But my favourite - Nico-Di-Angelo.

THAT'S HIM

                                           

He's not the lead character, not by a long shot. Yet I love this character for one key characteristics- Courage. (Or is that Endurance? I have no idea. Anyway, I'll explain what I meant.) Let's look at his case -

NICO - The son of Hades, the God of the dead. Hades is an outcast on Olympus, the home of the Gods, and Nico isn't treated any better.  Born in the 1930's, he lost his mother when he was little, murdered by his uncle Zeus, the king of the Gods (who basically is untouchable and so he got away with it).

Hades put Nico and his sister Bianca in a magic hotel in Vegas, where time stands still. They practically went from WWII to 21st century in a month and didn't even feel like it.

Later, Bianca and Nico are found by Camp Half-Blood, a camp for demigods (children of gods).  Bianca goes on a quest (like in those Hercules game we used to play), but she dies on the way.

Nico then gets angry and scared and runs away into the Labyrinth, an endless maze. There he spends half a year, wandering around with only the ghost of the evil king Minos for company. Percy finds him and talks him into joining their side in the war against the Titans.

But Nico still doesn't stay in camp for too long, because he IS the son of Hades, which makes him an outcast.  Later, Nico becomes an important character, using his parent's powers to summon legions of undead soldiers to fight against the Titans. 

Ultra fast forward - After the Titan War, people respect Nico, but still have a hard time accepting him as one of their own.

As the war with the Giants loom closer, the demigods discover that the Doors of Death had been opened. The doors are a magical gate that prevents the dead from being resurrected.

In search for the Doors, he gets trapped in Tartarus, an endless abyss and is taken prisoner by the Giants.

Now, Tartarus is a prison for monsters, not mortals. The very air in that pit was poisoning Nico. Eventually Percy and his friends rescue Nico and nurse him back to health.

Just when you thought his hardships were over........

After being rescued, Nico offers to show the way to the Doors of Death.

On the way, Nico faces Cupid, the Roman God of Love, who forces Nico into a confession- Nico had a crush on Percy ever since he recruited Nico into the camp.  But Percy never reciprocated his feelings. Heck, he didn't even KNOW Nico was gay.

That is why he was such a loner, always wandering, rarely making friends.

The War continues, the Gods win, humanity is back in order. But Nico? His story ends with him developing feelings for another guy, Will Solace.

Ahem. So as I saying, Nico is my favourite character because ever since he was introduced, he was suffering. It seems as if his only purpose in life was too SUFFER. He had to put up with so much crap, yet he never gave up, nor did the Rick Riordan let him die. He is the darkest character in the entire series and that is why I love him (as a character, I mean). The loner, the guy who never belonged. In my opinion, he is more worthy of Elysium than anyone else, even Percy.

NOTE TO OBSESSIVE FANGIRLS ALL OVER THE WORLD -  I may have "over simplified"  some  points a bit, but that was only in order to get to the points that I consider more relevant to the case. So I would appreciate it if you would, you know, NOT hunt me down and kill me. Thanks.

Okay, back to the topic. It's not just Nico, even characters like Reyna and Calypso are among my favourites just because they've had rotten luck. 

In fact, if I may quote my own words in a manner used by PJO/HOO fangirls - "I ship CalLeo more than Percabeth. CalLeo is soooo cute."

Gah! That was terrible. I nearly barfed.  You too? Good. Fangirls are annoying. They should go get themselves a job. Again, sorry :/ .

Moving away from the Percy Jackson series, let me tell you about some other characteristics of some other characters from some other movies, series, etc.

The Amazing Spiderman –

 Again,  he's my favourite for the same reasons.  He lost his parents, then his uncle,  even his first girlfriend Gwen.

 

 I mean.... Come on!! That kind of bad luck is just insane. On top of that, he faces more villains than any other comic character,  all alone.  He rarely teams up with any other superhero. He even had the strength and willpower to battle 6 supervillains AT ONCE!

THAT'S IT! WILLPOWER! That's the word I was looking for. The one 'key characteristic' of Nico. Not courage, not endurance, but Will (ahaha, Will, get it?). In other words, his ability to give a sh*t. 

I'm gonna have to break the Willpower rule with this one. But my other favourite character- BATMAN!!

Because I'M BATMAAAAN!!!!!!!!!!!

Why do I love him? Because HE'S BATMAN!! He’s packed with too much awesomeness for one person.

YEAHHH!!!!!!!

I also love Aquaman, because he's the most UNDERRATED hero who ever kicked Superman's butt EVER! In fact, I feel ashamed to have only a short paragraph dedicated to him. But, whatever. I might as well write a paragraph.

LOGGING OFF

 WAIT! I forgot! I just wanted to have this on record. Gwen Stacy's death in the Amazing Spiderman 2 was the one time I almost cried. Not saying I did, because I didn't. I have cried in other movies, but that's for another post.

 Yours in demigodishness, 

Unniposeidon.