Remember those ghouls that were chasing the kids last chapter?  Yeah?  The book doesn’t.  This chapter opens with them wandering around so that Percy can describe all the different parts of the underworld.

But I thought of how few people there were in Elysium, how tiny it was compared to the Fields of Asphodel or even the Fields of Punishment. So few people did good in their lives. It was depressing.

Okay, really, this is starting to bug me.  What counts as good?  Do you have to be Mother Theresa to get into Elysium?  Can you get by with just being a pillar of the community, or just not kicking puppies?  What’s this world’s view of “good”?  I can’t tell if the book thinks there’s a tiny number of saints or a tiny number of people who aren’t complete assholes.

And if you’re sad that there’s no more people who are exceptional, then I suggest you go look up the definition of exceptional again. 

There’s also a ‘judgment pavilion,’ but no comment on why they’ve got that and the gates from last chapter, both doing the same thing.

They start walking towards Hades’s palace, and suddenly Grover’s flying shoes come to life.  They pull him away from the palace and down a tunnel to the same dark pit Percy’s been dreaming about, but before they can pull him in, his fake feet/shoes come off.

Annabeth tells us that the pit is Tartarus, and some voices from down there start chanting magic stuff. They get out by…running away.  Sure, there’s some magic wind that tries to drag them back, but it doesn’t start until they conveniently are just far enough away for it to not work.

Annabeth and I looked at each other. I could tell she was nursing an idea, probably the same one she’d gotten during the taxi ride to L.A., but she was too scared to share it.

Annabeth has clearly been putting the pieces together for a while now, but she consistently refuses to talk about it.  This would be fine, except she seems stuck at the exact same point of “I basically know what’s going on but won’t talk” with every new bit of information, and she’s only holding back because the plot demands it. 

They move on to Hades’s palace anyway, and it’s full of death-y scenes and a garden of poisonous plants.

Precious jewels made up for the lack of flowers, piles of rubies as big as my fist, clumps of raw diamonds.

So, the god of riches has a garden and he…just leaves piles of rubies in it?  Doesn’t even get someone to carve them in the shape of a rose or something?

I am disappoint, Hades.

In fact, the further go, the more disappointed I become.  For as creative as this book has been so far, Hades’s palace really drops the ball.  It’s just black rock and skeletons.  I’m surprised there’s not scary music playing in the background.

The Lord of the Dead resembled pictures I’d seen of Adolph Hitler, or Napoleon, or the terrorist leaders who direct suicide bombers.

Oh for fuck’s sake, REALLY?

You know, Ares has more deaths to his credit than Hades, but you didn’t compare him to Hitler. 

Percy asks for the master bolt back, and Hades gets furious that Percy is daring to continue the fiction that he stole the bolt to start a war.  Percy asks, well, don’t you want a war so that there will be more dead people?

“Have you any idea how much my kingdom has swollen in this past century alone, how many subdivisions I’ve had to open?”

I opened my mouth to respond, but Hades was on a roll now.

 “More security ghouls,” he moaned. “Traffic problems at the judgment pavilion. Double overtime for the staff. I used to be a rich god, Percy Jackson. I control all the precious metals under the earth. But my expenses!”

 “Charon wants a pay raise,” I blurted, just remembering the fact. As soon as I said it, I wished I could sew up my mouth.

 “Don’t get me started on Charon!” Hades yelled. “He’s been impossible ever since he discovered Italian suits! Problems everywhere, and I’ve got to handle all of them personally. The commute time alone from the palace to the gates is enough to drive me insane!

Now this is more along the lines of the humor and style I was expecting from the book.  This is hilarious.  I’m just curious as to why we don’t see more of this reflected in his palace.  I guess the answer is “because the author wanted to write this funny reveal, so we had to keep up the ‘evil’ pretense,” but that’s a weak excuse.

They find out that Hades’s Helm of Darkness is also missing, and Hades is convinced that Percy stole both the bolt and the helm, so that’s what the Furies were looking for when they attacked him.

I wanted you brought before me alive so you might face every torture in the Fields of Punishment. Why do you think I let you enter my kingdom so easily?”

 “Easily?”

Oh, hush Percy.

When Percy says he doesn’t have the bolt, Hades says it’s in his backpack.  Low and behold, it is!  When Percy insists that he still doesn’t know where the helm is, Hades brings out Sally.  He’s the one that took her before she died, so she’s still alive. 

Percy thinks maybe the pearls will save him.

Bring them forth, Percy Jackson.”

My hand moved against my will and brought out the pearls.

If Hades can force someone to do something, why can’t he force Percy to give up the helm?  And then, when he can’t do that, realize that Percy doesn’t have it?  These powers are very confusing.

There’s some arguing back and forth about who to save, because there’s three pearls and four people now.  Grover and Annabeth both insist on being left behind, but in the end, Percy leaves his mom behind.  Because the other two are volunteering, but his mom never did, but whatever because she’s not a main character? 

Well, the three kids use the pearls and that lets them float out of the Underworld and arrive on Santa Monica Pier again.