62 pages • 2 hours read
Rick RiordanThe Last Olympian
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2009A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 5-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 5 Summary: “I Drive My Dog Into a Tree”
Percy visits Mrs. O’Leary, “the world’s only friendly hellhound” (79), in the camp arena. She runs off into the woods, and Percy follows her to find three individuals gathered together: Nico di Angelo, Juniper, a tree nymph, and Leneus, an old satyr. They are arguing about Grover Underwood, a satyr who has been missing from camp for the past two months. Juniper, Grover’s girlfriend, insists that he should be contacted and brought back so that he can help fight against Kronos. Both Nico and Leneus deny knowledge of his whereabouts.
Juniper and Leneus depart, and Nico reveals that he has been speaking to Charles’s ghost, who now resides in Elysium. Nico also reveals that he was spying on the Titans just as Percy saw in his dream in Chapter 1. In order to defeat Kronos, Nico has a plan to make Percy “invincible” (87). The reader later learns that this ultimately entails Percy bathing in the River Styx, which will make him powerful and invulnerable to his enemies. However, the first step is to learn more about Luke’s childhood and visit his mother in Westport, Connecticut. Percy rides Mrs. O’Leary to Westport, and they use “shadow travel” (89).
Chapter 6 Summary: “My Cookies Get Scorched”
Within a minute of shadow travel, Percy arrives in Connecticut at Luke’s house. Nico has shadow travelled himself and joins Percy. May Castellan opens the door and greets both Nico and Percy as “Luke” and invites them in. She says, “Oh, I told them you would come back” (93). She moves back and forth between thinking the boys are Luke and answering their questions. She reports that Luke ran away when he was in third grade.
A green glow comes into her eyes, and she has an episode in which she shouts: “My child […] must protect him! Hermes, help! Not my child!” (97). She also reveals that Luke had recently visited her before being overtaken by Kronos and had asked her blessing before going to a river.
Outside, Mrs. O’Leary has made friends with a little girl tending a fire. She is Hestia, goddess of the hearth. Hestia waves her hand and produces a hearty meal for Percy and Nico. She gives her blessing for Percy to fight the Titans then waves her hand again, and the boys are transported to Percy’s apartment on the Upper East Side. Percy tells his mother, Sally, and step-father, Paul, about their trip to see Mrs. Castellan as well as the whole war being waged against the gods.
Sally gives her blessing, and she makes Percy promise to send her a signal if he survives, clarifying that the signal should be something blue.
Chapter 7 Summary: “My Math Teacher Gives Me a Lift”
Percy, Nico, and Mrs. O’Leary shadow travel to Central Park and go to the Door of Orpheus, a portal that leads to the Underworld. They need music to open it. Percy has an empathy link with Grover, which is a sort of psychic connection. Percy senses Grover in the park and summons him telepathically. Grover has been sleeping for the past two months, which is why no one has heard from him. Morpheus, god of dreams, put him to sleep while he was walking through the park. Grover plays his lute, and boulders begin to crack open “revealing a triangular crevice” (115).
Nico, Percy, and Mrs. O’Leary enter this gate to the Underworld. They are planning to travel to the River Styx, but before they can, they encounter the Furies. Nico reveals that he has made a deal with his father, Hades: allow Hades to talk to Percy so that Hades will reveal information about Nico’s mother and his past.
The three have an audience with Hades, his wife Persephone, and her mother, Demeter. Hades explains that he met Nico’s mother during World War II and decided to freeze Nico and his sister so that they could avoid the issues of the war. Hades wants Nico to fulfill the prophecy instead of Percy. He sends Percy the dungeon in hopes of preventing him from fulfilling the prophecy.
Chapter 8 Summary: “I Take The Worst Bath Ever”
Percy sits in Hades’s dungeon and falls asleep. He dreams he is on the porch of Rachel’s house in St. Thomas where the whole family is on vacation. He realizes “how much it sucked that [he] wasn’t on vacation with them” (128). Next, he dreams he is in St. Louis, Missouri. There, “a thunderstorm boiled and buildings were destroyed” (128). He sees a “smoky fist appear out of the clouds” (129), and it smashes the tower. Artemis comes to help.
Percy wakes to find Nico in the dungeon, attempting to rescue him. Nico makes a part of the wall vanish, and the two escape down a corridor. Nico makes all of the skeletal guards fall asleep, which, in turn, makes Nico very tired. The boys find Mrs. O’Leary, and she takes them to the River Styx.
The ghost of Achilles appears and warns Percy that the River will make him powerful but also make him more vulnerable. There must be one part of the body that remains vulnerable, and Percy chooses the small of his back. Percy enters the river, and the experience is very painful: “I felt like every inch of my body had been broiled over a slow flame” (137).
Hades’s army appears and starts to attack the small group. Percy is now invulnerable, and he single-handedly attacks the army, making most of them dissolve. He overpowers Hades, who then dissolves. Percy tells Nico to go find Hades and figure out what the plan against Olympus entails.
Chapters 5-8 Analysis
This section delves into the theme of the hero’s journey, a prototypical path that the hero follows in literature. Like all heroes, Percy experiences the call to action, which is the Great Prophecy. At first, he resists the Prophecy, which is another typical action called the refusal of the call. Later, he decides to accept it, and his bathing in the River Styx confirms his mission. However, Percy still feels burdened by it. He feels as if he is fated to die, no matter what choice he makes. However, Nico feels that Percy can fight he prophecy and that he does not necessarily have to die. In this way, Nico suggests that free will is a force on this hero’s journey.
Nico’s father, Hades, also believes that the prophecy and the hero’s journey can be challenged. Hades wants Nico to fulfill the prophecy, not Percy. To this end, Hades imprisons Percy in the Underworld in hopes of allowing Nico to take on this role. However, Nico reverses Hades plan by rescuing Percy and helping him bathe in the River Styx. By doing so, Nico puts Percy back on his hero’s journey.
Percy further adheres to the journey and the prophecy when he bathes in the River Styx. This choice harkens back to other heroes in Greek mythology, such as Achilles. Here, Percy must take the step that other heroes before him have taken. In this way, he adheres to the prophecy and does not challenge it. Before Percy bathes in the River, Achilles says, “Whether you survive this or not, you have sealed your doom” (134). This former hero suggests that once Percy embarks on this journey, he cannot turn back.
These chapters also continue the motif of magical objects that figure into the world of the story. In order to enter the Underworld, Grover must use his magical reed pipes to open the Gate of Orpheus. The object of the pipes as well as the power of music are crucial in furthering Percy on his journey. When Nico becomes tired in the Underworld, Percy feeds him ambrosia, “the emergency god food [he] always kept with me” (132). It provides healing to demigods in small amounts. Finally, the most significant magical object is the River Styx—it renders demigods invulnerable. All of these objects further Percy’s journey and reinforce the theme of predestination.
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