Injustice Between Social Classes

Have you ever felt like the higher class people– in authority–treat you badly? In The Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan, seven demigods go off on a quest to keep the evil Earth goddess, Gaea, from waking up and destroying the world. The seven demigods are Annabeth Chase, Percy Jackson, Jason Grace, Leo Valdez, Piper McLean, Hazel Levesque, and Frank Zhang. Multiple times, I noticed that the gods have tormented the demigods for ridiculous or selfish reasons.

I noticed that, throughout the book, the gods have made it difficult for the demigods to continue their quest. One example of this was when Gaea taunted, "Until then, I will allow you to watch your friends perish. Please...enjoy this glimpse of your failed quest." She had said that after deliberately luring Leo, Hazel, and Frank into a trap and torturing the rest of the demigods. Gaea wanted to torture and murder all the children of the gods because the gods trapped or killed her children. She started with those seven demigods because they were trying to stop her from completing her plan. Later on, the Roman god of wine, Bacchus, made Percy and Jason go through more pain after they had already went through excruciating pain. In fact, Bacchus said, "At any rate, you got my attention. I'm here. Now I need to see if you're worthy of my help. If I'm impressed, I'll jump in for the grand finale." He had said this after Percy and Jason already proved themselves several times that they were worthy enough. They had nearly died a lot of times before this. This shows that he made them suffer just because he wanted them to 'prove themselves'. Those are some examples of how the gods tortured the demigods.

This observation that I made about the gods treating the demigods badly made me think deeper about humanity. It made me think about how our government treats us. They treat us a whole lot better then the gods treat the demigods. It made me realize that we have a much better life here. I bet that the demigods would love to have our lives. It would be a whole lot safer. There would be no monsters to fight or quests to go on. They would be able to live peaceful lives. It made me think about humanity as a whole. About how sometimes, with leaders, the power can just go to your head. And other times you were born to be a leader therefore you could be the most fair leader there could be. I understand that the government isn't always the most fair but, relatively, the government treats us more fair than some of the gods treat the demigods.