And If He Hadn't Had That Interaction With Poseidon Ig - Tumblr Posts
If I may go on about Luke Castellan for a moment... (and no, not in a simp kinda way but genuine book discourse this time)
SPOILERS FOR PJO AHEAD IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE BOOKS CLICK OFF NOW!!!
Something I realized the other day is that Luke himself was... never actually evil. Let me explain.
Everything Luke did was for the betterment of his life and the life of his peers. He wanted to make a better world for his kind (his kind being demigods everywhere), the goal was never some cartoonish supervillain plot of "taking over the world". He wanted to overthrow the gods so that no demigod would be ignored, neglected, abused and used ever again. That's why he did what he did.
Luke is all about the greater good. You could even make an argument for him being morally gray (meaning he doesn't care about "right" or "wrong", he only cares about his own interests and cause). He would murder the twelve year old kid he just met for the sake of bettering the entire world for good. Killing Percy would suck, yes, but in Luke's eyes, it has to be done. (Enter: the pit scorpion.)
Luke did many, many, bad and even evil things, yes. But a lot of that was under the guidance or even control of Kronos. Kronos, who was inherently evil. When we meet Luke in TLT, he's already under the influence of Kronos, and he's already scared to disobey, and he won't. Not just because he's scared, but because he truly believes in the cause he thinks he's fighting for, and because he trusted Kronos.
That's what all of this is really about. Luke put his trust in the wrong place. Kronos promised him what he wanted, yes, but was he ever going to actually give it to him? No. That's actually something I think the movies did pretty well was emphasize Kronos not actually caring about Luke or his cause, only caring about rising into power. Using him, just like the gods always had.
Luke was desperate and foolish, yes, but he himself was not evil. This is why he's able to kill himself and end the war with Kronos. He's able to regain that control and make that decision and be the hero, all because he himself is still good, despite it all. He can see what he did was wrong and does the only thing he can to fix it. He still wanted to do the right thing in the end.
Was Luke justified in his actions? Absolutely not. But was he justified in the way he felt, and what he wanted? Yes.
His whole life all he'd ever done was care for others. His mom, Thalia, Annabeth, the entirety of cabin 11, siblings or not. All of camp, really. And even though he was wrong about how he did it, him trying to overthrow the gods was for them, too. Was it a bit for himself and out of anger? Yeah, definitely. But he wanted a better life for the others, and that's why he pushed so hard for Annabeth and Thalia to join him. For his siblings and camp friends to join him.
He was misguided and put his trust in the wrong place out of desperation, but everything he did, the cause he fought for, was out of good intentions and maybe a bit of justified anger.
rant over have a nice day 😍