"Sacrifice" - A Personal Essay on Percy Jackson

Sacrifice

By Felix Leveau In The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan, Percy was not the hero of the prophecy, Luke was. When Percy and Beckendorf go on a mission to blow up the “Princess Andromeda”, Beckendorf was killed in the explosion. Percy then goes to war against Kronos and in the end, makes the choice to give Luke (Who was half possessed by Kronos) Annabeth’s knife to dispel Kronos.

To do this, Luke had to sacrifice himself to kill Kronos. In the end, Percy learned that choices must be made.

In the beginning of the text, Percy is believed to be the hero. When Percy is reading the “Great Prophecy”, the text says, “The hero’s soul, cursed blade shall reap.” The prophecy also says, “A single choice shall end his days.” This shows that a certain hero would die. Also, when he is done reading the prophecy, Annabeth says, “It might not literally mean you die.” When Percy is arguing with Annabeth, he says, “And I’m supposed to get my stupid soul reaped.” This shows both Percy and Annabeth believed Percy was the hero of the prophecy.

Later in the story, Rachel tells Percy a message she predicted (Though at the time she did not know she could predict the future). The message was, “Perseus, you are not the hero.” This shows Percy knew he was not the hero when he chose to give Luke the knife. In the end, when Annabeth is fighting Kronos, who was possessing Luke, she tells Luke,“ The prophecy: She saw what you would do. It applies to you!” This shows Annabeth finally understands Luke was the hero who would die. The text also says, “Luke was the hero.” This shows that Luke was the hero for sacrificing himself, even though he needed Percy to give him the knife.

As you can see, Luke was the hero, because he sacrificed himself to destroy Kronos. In life, many choices have to be made. In my life, I make choices, especially when I am about to do a bad thing, I tell myself that it might have a good outcome, but when I make the wrong choice, the outcome is never good. This connects to the story, because had Percy made the wrong choice, the outcome would have destroyed the world. This is important because the author wanted to show that Luke changed over the course of the series, because first he was evil, but then he realized what the right thing to do was in the end by saving Percy and the others and sacrificing himself.