Everything You Need to Know Before Watching ‘Percy Jackson’

The tried-and-true formula of a young misfit finding out they are special and having to restore the balance between good and evil never misses. We’ve seen it at work with heroes like Peter Parker, Harry Potter, and Katniss Everdeen. The latest to come to the small screen is Percy Jackson—an American boy who finds out he is actually a demigod, which upends his whole life.

If you were obsessed with Greek and Roman mythology and/or a young teen in the mid-aughts and early 2010s, you know who Percy Jackson is. For the rest of you, here’s the gist: He’s the star of one of the biggest fantasy novel franchises of that era that mixes Greek and Roman mythology with everyday high school life. You may or may not recall the two not-so-great film adaptations that came out around the same time, to capitalize on the books’ popularity. This pair of films, which starred Logan Lerman as Percy, combined five books’ worth of source material into two very messy movies, with author Rick Riordan having barely any creative agency throughout the process. (He later disavowed them entirely.)

That changes now with Disney’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, the first season of which premiered on Disney+ Dec. 20; new episodes will air every Wednesday. This time, Riordan has full creative control, with the promise that Season 1 will focus on just the first book. Better yet, Riordan not only co-wrote the first episode, but he also even created a reference guide to the books for the cast and crew to work from.

This is great news for fans who have wanted to see Percy come to life again. But even if you aren’t already a Percy diehard, if you like fantasy shows and Greek/Roman mythology, this show should definitely be on your radar. But because the Percy Jackson series has so much lore behind it, there are some things you’re going to want to know before you dive in.

Here’s everything you need to know before watching the upcoming series, because a faithful Percy Jackson adaptation has been a long time coming—and this just might be it.

(Warning: Minor spoilers for Percy Jackson and the Olympians ahead.)

Who is Percy Jackson?

We first met Percy Jackson in the first installment of Rick Riordan’s Heroes of Olympus series—Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief—in 2005. Percy is a 12-year-old boy from New York City, and he’s long felt different from the other kids around him. After a series of bizarre events that involve fighting monsters with a pen that is actually a sword, he ends up at Camp Half-Blood where he discovers that he is actually a demigod and (spoiler!) that his father is Poseidon, the Greek god of the seas—which is very controversial. He also discovers that his best friend Grover is a satyr: half-human, half-goat.

Normally, finding out you’re a demigod would not be controversial. But Percy learns that the big three Greek gods—Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades—had taken an oath to not bear children, because their offspring would be too powerful. There is also a prophecy that states that a child of the so-called Big Three would decide the fate of the gods, which is something they wanted to prevent. This oath was broken once by Zeus, but his daughter, Thalia, was killed by monsters. Zeus then turned her spirit into a tree that protected Camp Half-Blood.

When Zeus’ lightning bolt gets stolen, Poseidon has no choice but to claim Percy as his own in order to protect him—because everyone assumes that the god of the sea is responsible for the crime. Finding out that Percy is the second “forbidden” child changes the course of his life and, thus, the series from that point on.

What does the Percy Jackson series have in store for us? Does the show follow the books?

If the trailers are anything to go by, the first season of the show will be a faithful adaptation of the first book in the series, The Lightning Thief. This series of books then spawned two additional sequel series, so there is a lot of source material for the Disney+ series to play with going forward.

If Season 1 sticks just to The Lightning Thief, we can expect to see Percy (Walker Scobell), along with his best friends (and fellow mythical humans and creatures) Annabeth (Leah Sava Jeffries) and Grover (Aryan Simhadri), embark upon a quest to retrieve Zeus’ all-important weapon and clear Percy’s name. Along the way, Percy will have to quickly discover who his real allies are as he encounters monsters and gods—and not all of them will have his best interests at heart.

But the hunt for the lightning thief isn’t the only journey Percy goes on. Throughout the other books, Percy travels across the country and to Olympus (which is basically like a god parliament), enters hell, navigates a labyrinth, explores the seas, loses and regains his memory, saves the world multiple times, resolves a conflict between Greek and Roman gods, and also somehow finds time to do regular preteen and teenage stuff. Along the way, he finds lifelong friends and unshakeable love (trust me, even the literal depths of hell couldn’t break them apart), and every adventure is filled with tons of heart and humor.

So there’s Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades—which other gods will we meet?

In Season 1, we can expect to see live-action versions of many other gods and their children. The ones who are confirmed to appear are Dionysus (Jason Mantzoukas), who is the god of wine and camp director of Camp Half-Blood; Hermes (Lin-Manuel Miranda), the messenger god; Ares (Adam Copeland), the god of war; and Hephaestus (Timothy Omundson), the god of blacksmiths.

Percy and his friends run into other mythological creatures too. Season 1 will introduce us to teacher-turned-monster Mrs. Dodds/Alecto (Megan Mullally), and teacher-turned-centaur-and-mentor Mr. Brunner/Chiron (Glynn Turman). Other characters that will appear in the show include Luke Castellan (Charlie Bushnell), son of Hermes; Clarisse La Rue (Dior Goodjohn), daughter of Ares; and Medusa (Jessica Parker Kennedy), a gorgon who lives in solitude because anyone who looks her in the eye will turn into stone.

What was wrong with the previous Percy Jackson adaptations?

There’s a reason neither fans nor Riordan likes to talk about the two live-action film adaptations, released in 2010 and 2013: The filmmakers compressed five books’ worth of content into two movies, with the bulk of that appearing in the second film.

Naturally, if you try to condense so much content into roughly five hours of screen time, you are going to omit extremely important plot points. Done poorly, this will infuriate loyal fans of the books—which is exactly what happened. In the second film, the filmmakers skipped two books’ worth of character development entirely, leaving plot holes at every turn. Rick Riordan didn’t have much of a creative input in the films either, which left viewers feeling apprehensive to begin with.

While Logan Lerman (who played Percy) and the rest of the cast did their best, these films failed to capture the spirit of Percy Jackson. While the second film set up another sequel, one never materialized. Not only were fans and Riordan displeased, the films received poor reviews and underperformed at the box office, sealing its fate.

Why is this series still so popular, all these years later?

When Percy Jackson burst into the literary scene, it became an instant hit. As of today, the books reportedly have sold more than 180 million copies in over 35 countries and have been translated into 37 languages. It also helps that the Percy Jackson story didn’t end with the initial set of five books: It spawned an additional series and multiple spin-offs, in which Percy still made regular appearances. This year, Riordan even released a new book in the series, called Percy Jackson and the Chalice of Gods, which continues after the events of 2011’s Percy Jackson and the Last Olympian. In total, there are 22 Percy Jackson books and counting.

Readers have also found multiple ways to celebrate the characters over the years, keeping the fanbase active. That includes some familiar activities, like writing fanfiction and hosting book clubs. But fans also celebrate Percy’s birthday by either eating or wearing something blue—even the Empire State Building, which is the gateway to Mount Olympus in the books, turned blue to honor his birthday when the Disney+ series was announced. Fans have continued to embrace the series’ world wholeheartedly.

And while Percy is out defeating monsters in a fantasy world, his adventure is much more than the action. At the heart of it is the story of a boy reckoning with his identity and navigating the hardships of growing up alongside his best friends, which is why the books resonated so well with young readers in the first place. That Riordan combined all this with the fantasy world of Greek and Roman mythology helped to distinguish the series too, as it was a coming-of-age story mash-up unlike anything else on bookshelves.

The legacy of this literary franchise is a huge burden to carry, especially with some disappointing attempts at a live-action translation in the past. But the Disney+ show just might manage to appease us fans—and get plenty of new ones diving into the books alongside the rest of us.