The Lightning Thief Characters

Percy Jackson is perhaps the best chapter-titler known to man. He is our narrator and the hero of The Lightning Thief. To get a taste of his personality and his sense of humor, just glance at this...

Annabeth is Percy's friend and sometime competitor. Her mom is Athena, so you can imagine that she is one smart cookie. Thanks to Annabeth, we learn pretty quickly that Athena and Poseidon don't ge...

The G-man. Percy's best and only friend in the world. Grover has stuck by Percy throughout sixth grade and has kept watch over him. Percy meets Grover at Yancy Academy and spends much of the time p...

Mr. Brunner is Percy's favorite teacher, and teaches Latin. Later, Percy realizes that Mr. Brunner is Chiron, a very smart centaur who has trained many heroes before Percy's time, including Hercule...

Sally Jackson is Percy's mom. She works at a candy shop in Manhattan and lives in an apartment in Queens, NY with her smelly, mean husband, Gabe. She has a love of life, and she loves her son more...

Gabe is Percy's stepdad, and, as his last name indicates, he is ugly in body, mind, and soul. Gabe hates Percy's guts. All he likes to do is sit on his booty all day, eating chips and dip, and play...

"Luke's the best swordsman in the last three hundred years" (8.15). He is the counselor in Hermes cabin, and he helps Percy a lot in Percy's first days at Camp Half-Blood, showing him the ropes and...

Clarisse lives in cabin #5. Ares, God of War, is her dad. She is the resident bully at Camp Half-Blood. When she tries to "initiate" Percy into camp culture by sticking his head in a toilet, Percy...

Thalia is a demi-goddess who died trying to protect Annabeth, Luke, and Grover from the Furies on Half-Blood Hill. She was the illegal daughter of Zeus, born after the Big Three had pledged not to...

The Olympians are all of the major Greek gods and goddesses who rule on Mount Olympus. Zeus is the supreme ruler of them all. Zeus's siblings are Hades, Poseidon, Hera, Hestia, and Demeter. His dad...

Percy's father rules the sea. He is a member of the Big Three, the three sons of Kronos, along with Zeus and Hades. Just like the sea, Poseidon can be difficult to read and interpret – Percy...

Zeus is the god of the sky and the leader of the Olympians. He has an awful temper, so don't get on his bad side. He controls the weather and everything in the sky. His symbol of power is a master...

He was the third god I'd met, but the first who really struck me as godlike" (19.86). Hades is a member of the Big Three and he governs the land of the dead – the Underworld. He reminds Percy of...

Though we never actually see Kronos, he definitely has a presence in Percy's story. He talks to Percy through Percy's dreams, luring Percy down to the Underworld. Percy believes that Kronos, who is...

Ares is the God of War, and he is Zeus's son. We first meet him in Denver when he rolls up in a Harley outside of the diner where Percy, Grover, and Annabeth are about to eat. Ares gives them a min...

Mr. D is the irritable director of Camp Half-Blood and the God of Wine. His father, Zeus, has sentenced him to centuries of servitude at Camp Half-Blood for bad behavior: "Mr. D offended his father...

Annabeth's mom is really cool. She is the Goddess of Wisdom and is Zeus's daughter. We know that she and Poseidon don't get along very well: Athena once caught Poseidon and his girlfriend at the ti...

Aphrodite is the Goddess of Love, Hephaestus's wife, and Ares's girlfriend. We don't see her at all in this particular story, but we do know that she has left her scarf next to Ares's shield in the...

Hera is Zeus's wife and the Goddess of Marriage. Grover explains why her cabin (Cabin #2) is empty at Camp Half-Blood: "That's another honorary thing. She's the goddess of marriage, so of course sh...

Demeter is Zeus's sister and the Goddess of Agriculture. She makes sure things grow and that crops are bountiful. Her daughter is Persephone, Hades's kidnapped wife. When Persephone was first kidna...

Hermes is Luke's dad, the messenger of the gods, and the god of thieves and travelers. Hermes is Zeus's son. We discover that Hermes doesn't always claim his demi-god children, and, even when he do...

Artemis is Zeus's daughter, Hermes's sister, and the goddess of the hunt. Grover tells us, "She vowed to be a maiden forever. So of course, no kids. The cabin is, you know, honorary. If she didn't...

We never meet Hephaestus officially, but we see his handiwork when Percy and Annabeth get trapped in the Tunnel of Love ride – a trap meant for Aphrodite and Ares. Hephaestus is always trying to...

Charon is the dude who ferries dead spirits into the Underworld, across the River Styx. He is very suave and wears a fancy Italian suit and cool-looking shades. There is a huge waiting list to get...

Though we mortals don't notice them, the world is full of monsters. Percy and his demi-god friends encounter plenty of monsters, because monsters can smell half-bloods and like to chase them down a...

This huge, horned dude attacks Percy, Grover, and Sally Jackson as they try to get Percy safely to Camp Half-Blood for the first time. The Minotaur nearly kills Percy's mom, making Percy furious. P...

Medusa disguises herself as Aunty Em, who owns a roadside curio-shop ("Auntie Em's Garden Gnome Emporium") in the middle of the woods in New York. Percy, Grover, and Annabeth don't recognize her at...

The Furies are just some of the monsters that hang out in the Underworld and that guard Hades, but they are a pretty deadly trio. They are sisters. One of the Furies poses as Percy's math teacher a...

Chimera is Echidna's son. He is part fire-breathing lion and part goat, with a diamond back rattlesnake for a tail.

We don't hear much about Echidna in this story, except that she is Chimera's mommy. She disguises herself as a human and rides the elevator with Percy, Grover, and Annabeth to the observation deck...

Crusty owns a water bed store in West Hollywood, about a block away from the gates to the Underworld. He likes to lure his customers into lying down on his water beds, which are exactly six feet lo...

Such a cute little puppy. Cerberus guards the entrance to the underworld. He's a ginormous doggy with three heads. His job is to sniff out the living who might be trying to sneak into the Underworl...

The world Percy finds himself in isn't just full of gods, goddesses, and monsters, there are plenty of other important Ancient Greek beings too. For detailed information about other Ancient Greek b...

The Oracle can see into the future and can offer prophecies, or predictions. She lives in the attic in a decaying mummy's mouth and her prophecies take the form of a magical green mist. While she d...

Annabeth calls them "terrible flirts" when Percy sees them in the lake (7.13). They are part of the colorful community at Camp Half-Blood. A naiad is a kind of nymph that lives in bodies of fresh-w...

Chiron is a centaur, or half-man, half-horse. They tend to be really wild and even violent, and they love to get their drink on. Percy sees centaurs running wild in the countryside as he looks out...

Grover is a satyr. Satyrs are half-man, half-other creature (not always half-goat). They serve Pan, the God of Wild Places, and make it their life's work to find him (he has disappeared). Satyrs ca...

Beautiful lady creatures who live in the woods. Literally, they live in the trees. They come out of the woodwork and drag Percy to safety when he is nearly killed by a scorpion at the very end of T...

The Cyclopses are giants who are really good at building and making stuff. They live under the ocean. Chiron tells us, "the forges of the Cyclopses are under the ocean which gives Poseidon some inf...