Welcome, my friends, to the hell-hole that is my head. This is an essay that came to the forefront of my mind at the end of one of my classes, where I was perusing fanfiction for a good, interesting story to read. And I got close to zip. There are some amazing fanfiction stories out there, for which I created a community called Well Done (Top-Tier Percy Jackson Fanfics). Check out what I think makes for good fanfiction and please disagree with me! The following essay is meant to be provocative. I would love some amazing conversations, either through PMing or reviews, to come out of this essay, and any others I may end up writing. So, without further ado, my unfiltered mind:

"And during the seven days that Eurymedon, after his arrival, stayed there with his sixty ships, the Corcyraeans continued slaughtering such of their fellow-citizens as they considered to be their personal enemies. The charge they brought was of conspiring to overthrow the democracy, but some were in fact put to death merely to satisfy private enmity, and others, because money was owing to them, were slain by those who had borrowed it. Death in every form ensued, and whatever horrors are wont to be perpetrated at such times all happened then—aye, and even worse. For father slew son, men were dragged from the temples and slain near them, and some were even walled up in the temple of Dionysus and perished there." (Thucydides, 3.81)

I've read a lot of fanfiction. Mostly Percy Jackson, a good amount of A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones. In that time, I've matured. I think the first fanfiction I ever read was a PJO "vampire diaries" fanfiction, the next was… I think some sort of overdramatic Percabeth. I loved both for ages until I recently went back and re-read them. Boy oh boy, I was an idiot middle schooler. They were poorly written, with a convoluted plot and one-dimensional characters. Everyone was mopy for no reason and every villain was automatically the worst person in the world. I mean why does Annabeth always have a terribly abusive boyfriend when she isn't dating Percy? Can't the guy just be, I dunno, decent?

Anyways.

Why did I have you read one of the most important passages in Western thought? (If you didn't read the quote from Thukydides, go back and read it now. It's important. Like, really important.) Because, although I once loved "what if PJO was vampire diaries?" or "what if PJO was really a cheesy chick-flick you buy while depressed?" I have matured. I've read a lot of non-fanfiction-fiction, a lot of nonfiction history and journalism since my reading (and then writing) my first fanfic. Most importantly, I dove head-first into the Classics; the Classical authors Uncle Rick supposedly based his stories on. Sophocles, Thukydides, Homer, Hesiod, Virgil. Many of you have probably read their stories too. If you have, you will have immediately noted the distinction between Uncle Rick and these ancient authors.

Whereas Uncle Rick portrays his gods as nothing more than all-powerful, immortal humans, the ancient authors did not. Their gods were humanoid, yes, and subject to many of the worst vices humanity is subject to. They were extremely prideful and vengeful:

"Tell me, O Muse, the cause; wherein thwarted in will or wherefore angered, did the Queen of heaven drive a man, of goodness so wondrous, to traverse so many perils, to face so many toils. Can heavenly spirits cherish resentment so dire?" (Virgil, Aeneid I.8-11).

But they were not so for reasons that more base creatures (humans) are. Their anger is not without cause. The gods, the ancients understood, were gods. They are not mortal nor are they subject to mortal justice. In most instances, it is Zeus — or Prometheus — who is the bringer of Justice: "Law, the king of all, / of mortals and immortals, / guides them as it justifies the utmost violence / with a sovereign hand" (Pindar, Fragments). Justice, according to Pindar, is the daughter of Zeus, whom he kept at his side at all times. Therefore, if Zeus is the dispenser of Justice, how can he be subject to it? This explains the anger Hera and Athena felt at Paris' judgment. No mortal can judge the gods, and most definitely not negatively.

The gods are not cruel because they are bad, but because they are above humans. What humans view as cruel is to the gods justice. Humans must stay in their place, as Aristophanes' story in Plato's Symposium shows. Aristophanes supposed, perhaps humorously, that humans were once two humans combined in a great big ball of flesh that would roll instead of run. There were, then, three genders: male-male, female-female, and male-female (hermaphrodite). "They were of surprising strength and vigour, and so lofty in their notions that they even conspired against the gods" (Plato, Symposium 190C). In response, the gods cut these spherical humans in half and rearranged their anatomy before allowing them to go out into the world once more. If they threatened Olympus again, Zeus warned that he would once more cut humans in half.

Okay, so Zeus dispensed justice and jealously guarded his power. What does this mean for Fanfiction? Well, Zeus' dispense of justice in Aristophanes' speech, and in the Iliad, and in the Odyssey, and in the Aeneid, and in Pindar — it is all part of a broader pre-Platonic tradition warning humans to, essentially, stay in their own lanes. Gods are gods, and humans are humans. If humans try to reach too high, obtain too much, the gods will cut them down without second thought. This is even shown in non-fiction works, such as Herodotus and Thukydides. Herodotus' main proem, at the beginning of the first book, is that all that is great can fall and all that is small can rise, depending on the ambitions of men. Xerxes and Darius wanted Europe and Scythia, respectively, and lost everything for it, for one example. I will not bore you with too many examples. The basics of what I am trying to say is that in the pre-Platonic tradition which Uncle Rick claims to place his story into heroes do not survive.

Wait, what? you might be asking yourself now. This goes against everything we have ever learned about the archetypal heroes journey or seen in any major movie. Most heroes win, and if they die they die when it is the right time for them to die (i.e. Tony Stark).

But the ancient Greeks were different. Think about it. Why is Percy named after Perseus? Because he was the only hero who had a happy ending. Though even Perseus gets killed, by the son of a man he killed. Unlike our current belief that creation is so great and living is wonderful and happy and yay! the ancient Greeks believed that life fucking sucked. To bring up Herodotus again:

"I was thinking," Xerxes replied… "how pitifully short human life is…"

"Yet," said Artabanus, "we suffer sadder things in life even than that. Short as it is, there is not a man in the world, either here or elsewhere, who is happy enough not to wish — not once only but again and again — to be dead rather than alive." (Herodotus, 7.46).

Okay, okay, now you're either very mad or have left — please, please tell us what you want to actually say instead of bragging that you know some classics, you all are probably saying. I get it, but I had to prove some things with examples first. So, here's my argument:

PLEASE START WRITING MATURE FANFICTIONS THANK YOU VERY MUCH

And by mature, I do not mean go look up a synonym for "said" and put that in your story or give us a poetic description of a dress. No, what I mean is let us all write fanfictions that deal with this unacknowledged portion of Percy Jackson. We all dance around this topic of the tragic hero, even Uncle Rick. For how long was Percy built up to be the main hero in the first five books? A long-ass time. And then Luke is actually the hero, and he sacrifices himself to save the world. Now, obviously, Percy cannot die because it's a young adult novel and that's a big no-no. So Uncle Rick takes this idea from the ancient authors that he really likes — that humans live short and nasty lives (yes, Hobbes stole this from the pre-Platonics) — and twists it on its head so that Percy can survive.

Am I especially upset by this? No, not really. I love Percy and don't really want to see him die, but then again I love Robb and Ned and Dany and they all get snuffed.

Yes, Jason dies.

Moving on.

(But really, I mean, c'mon! Jason is far from the most loved character, his arc was done, and there was no use for him other than Uncle Rick using him to pretend he was a real author now.)

I cannot entirely get upset with Uncle Rick for writing a children's book. Really, I can't. Sometimes stories have to have happy endings. What I can, and am, upset about is the fact that the children Uncle Rick wrote the Lightning Thief for are no longer children. We grew up. So why haven't our fanfictions? I have a few reasons.

First reason: most of us who grew up and still wanted to write decided that they had better uses of their time than fanfiction. I know that right now I should be writing an essay or reading research papers, not screaming about the sorry state of PJO fanfiction. So, yeah, most of us moved on. But not all of us. Which brings me to my second reason.

Second reason: those of us who are older and still writing are left writing for a younger audience. We are stuck in the same trap Uncle Rick is — as much as we wish to write something older or more mature, the audience we are writing to is, more or less, middle schoolers. But this is not a valid reason, for it assumes that middle schoolers can't grasp difficult concepts. They can, and many of them enjoy it and might become better for reading them.

So, on to the most damning, probably too elitist reason: most fanfiction writers either do not care for more meaningful fanfictions (i.e. just feeding plot to us) or cannot write more meaningful fanfictions. The latter of these two reasons is not necessarily a true critique, in that I don't find it uncurably bad. I was a very shitty fanfiction writer once. Still am, actually. But some effort would be nice.

I get it — it's fanfiction, why should I be clamoring for Nobel-prize winning literature on this site? And I'm not, I would just like to see some effort. Some effort at symbols less obvert than a necklace, some meaning less general than "high school sucks," some character dimensions other than "do they love me?", some plot development greater than acquire MacGuffin X, some allusions to the whole tradition of Camp Half-Blood more than the mythology, some attempts to place PJO into works of higher quality than Vampire Diaries.

Is this an easy task? No, of course not. Writing complex characters and plots is not an easy task to accomplish. Foreshadowing, adding symbols, creating coherency in a serially published story is even moreso. But it is far from impossible. This fandom has great, great stories (check out my community, Well-Done). But by the gods, it could be so much better. This isn't just for my viewing pleasure, it is also for your own development as a writer. Push yourself, and you may find just how good of a writer you really are.

Time to go take a midterm that I didn't study for in favor of ranting about this.

P.S. Just because I spent most of the first half of this essay ranting about symphora and divine justice in ancient Greek philosophy does not mean that this is the only mature theme that can be displayed in fanfiction. Just an example.

Remember — this was meant to be provocative. A conversation starter. So let's get this conversation started! Additionally, if there is anything else in fanfiction you would be interested to see me write about, let me know. I'd love to start multiple conversations on many different topics. And if you want me to review (and possibly beta) your own fanfics, let me know. I would be more than happy to. There's nothing I love more than helping people become better writers. It's my favorite part about reviews, because they can really challenge what you think about your own writing. Anyways, I hope you all got something out of this essay.

Striving to provide Southern Hospitality the world over,

LoverBoi (yes, I'm a guy)