'Percy Jackson' Finale Preview With Writer Daphne Olive
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What's up, bad babies? I'm Jenna Robinson. I'm flying somewhat solo today because our beloved Mallory Rubin is on tour with the Rewatchables live shows. So she is out of town for the next couple of days and hopefully you get to catch her in one of the various fun and exciting cities that she will be in. We will be back together on Friday to cover the Percy Jackson finale.

to laugh and cry and pull out our hair about what happens in the Percy Jackson finale. But in anticipation of that finale, we have a special little episode for you today, which is a conversation that I had with Percy Jackson staff writer, Daphne Olive. Daphne, phenomenally brilliant writer,

intelligent, wonderful person who I've known for a long time. When I first met, she was a podcaster about black sales. So you will admire the sound of her microphone that she uses in this interview. She worked as a staff writer and then on season two as a story editor on The Old Man, the Jeff Bridges show that's on FX.

She's just like a Renaissance woman. She's a jewelry designer. She is the mom of an incredible young woman. She just does a million things. I'm so impressed and dazzled by her. So I asked her a bunch of questions. We went off topic a little bit, but mostly we talked about Percy and then also some fate and prophecy stuff and a little bit about the old man and all kinds of stuff that was going on. So yeah.

This is my conversation with Daphne. We'll be back, as I said, on Friday with Mallory. You can always email us hobbitsanddragons at gmail.com with your Percy Jackson finale responses to your responses to this interview, any questions, comments, or concerns you have, any Apple thoughts you might have.

Anything. The email is always open. As far as spoilers, Daphne obviously knows way in the future what happens to Percy Jackson. We kept it contained to everything we've seen on the show so far. So everything up through the penultimate episode of the season. I haven't seen the finale. Daphne did not want to spoil anything the finale for me. And then, you know, book knowledge just from really the first book.

vague, maybe light touches on future books, but nothing really serious. So if you're caught up with the show, you should be all set to listen to this and not get spoiled on anything. Like I said, we're back on Friday with Mallory. And until then, bad babies, enjoy this conversation with Daphne Olive.

Daphne, I'm so happy to have you here. I'm going to be selfish and start with the thing that I can't stop thinking about, which is the introduction of Poseidon on screen and his interaction with Sally Jackson in the penultimate episode. This is wholly invented for the show. It's not in the book. Can you talk about your decision to put this in here? I was like gasping and, you know...

clutching a pillow and just like shrieking. And I was so, it was like so powerful, so dynamic, so upsetting, so uplifting, all these things all at once. So can you talk about like the idea behind doing that scene, the steps to making it? Tell me, tell me everything. I would love to. I mean, first of all, I have to start by saying that I'm so excited to be here because you have been and continue to be my favorite podcaster. So-

You're biased. You're so biased. I am so biased. It's true. Okay. So this is like, I mean, it's funny. Like it's a scene that I'm just so pleased with. It turned out so well, which is none of that has to do with me personally. So I get to say it exactly like that. But I think that, you know, this, the choice probably started with like,

Early, early, early days in the writer's room, the thing that, you know, everyone's been saying in interviews, but it's true, is like there's a beauty in adapting a book that was in close first-person narrative that you know the inside of one character's head really, really well.

And now you get to develop the inside of everyone's heads. And it was so much fun because we only ever met all of these other characters, including Sally, including Poseidon, from the perspective of a boy between the ages of 12 and 16. And so Sally for us felt like...

one of the people we really wanted to flesh out.

For multiple reasons. One of my favorite reasons is because, and Rick Riordan says this all the time, is that Sally is based on his amazing wife, Becky, who I adore. And Rick and Becky were in the writers' room with us all the time. So we always got to hash that out with them, which was really fun. But especially with the first season, because she is...

She is the quest for Percy in so many ways. I mean, he has, you know, by the end, he kind of has multiple quests, but she's the initial quest. And she's his mom. I mean, she raised him. She made him into the person he is. Also, one of the things the book offered us was this...

This truth that Sally kept him home with her. I mean, okay, also sent to an aborting school, but Sally kept him away from the mythological world longer than most demigods would.

And so that was kind of a data point that we had for like starting to figure out like, why did she do that? Why, you know, because he, you know, a 12 year old kid doesn't know why his mom does stuff. Like, so like we had to start filling in those blanks of like, who is she? Why did she make these choices?

There are things we learn about her in later books that also, you know, another benefit of doing adaptation of a series that already exists is like we could pull stuff from anywhere. And especially if it's really stuff that became important to the overall five book story, it made so much sense for us to like,

Perhaps Rick thought of something in book three, let's say, about Sally or book five that we could... Not only can we pull that forward, it has to be true in book one, right? In season one. Right. Right? So there's certain things that we learn later about her that also inform her decisions and

And sorry, I'm talking really wide way around this question, but. No, I mean, I, I mean, genuinely another question I have was just like Sally Jackson go. So like, this is great. I mean, obviously link, but yeah. So like, so like all of this ended up fleshing out these, these new aspects of her and her experience. And so like, I think that scene came a lot

I mean, if you've seen the scene, you can see it's about her choices to keep Percy with her. And, you know, just a basic TV thing, because you can't be in someone's head, they need someone to speak to. This is a very unromantic way to talk about an extremely romantic scene. But this idea that Poseidon, he wasn't not paying attention.

Right. So like you get that in book one. Right. You have that about like the narrative talking about, you know, or Percy remembering the faces in the water and like the sense that like somebody was watching him. They were they weren't unaware of him. I mean, also, they weren't unaware of him because his childhood, big three and all these these big questions. But so it just made so much sense to like.

I don't know, just create a moment like that. Like create a moment where she got to speak to someone. Like, I love that he, you know, that they ended up writing it, that he said, like, you don't have anyone else to talk to, so you might as well say it. Which is like so true. Like her loneliness. You're like logistically...

Logistically, from a screenwriting perspective, that's true, but also from a character perspective.

to give these two a moment where they could speak to each other about it. But with all of the tension of like, they can't even look at each other because they know they can't be together. Was it written on the page? Like, where does that, they don't look at each other?

idea come from? I believe it was written on the page. I mean, you and I both love romance, so that's just good romance stuff. But I think part of it is to show how hard it was for all of them. Like that the circumstance, I mean, just to get into plot stuff, like the circumstance of

He had to be kept secret. Like, there was an agreement between the three brothers that they would not have children. And we know Thalia's story. Like, we know that that was, you know, it was deadly to these children to exist. So, like...

For him to, like, even if he wanted desperately to be part of his life, although, you know, it is text in the show in a way that, not in the books, but in the show that, like, he told Hermes that that doesn't work out well. Well, it is text in the books that actually in Hermes' story it doesn't work out well. But we had to recognize that these parents had to make whatever decisions they are with all of that knowledge.

And so for him to show up there is actually dangerous, but he did it to support her. And so it's like, you know, there's just all this tension, especially for people who've read the books, but hopefully also for people who haven't, all of this tension of this situation where he cannot, he could not at that point before he had claimed Percy, say,

If he was ever going to claim Percy, he could not treat him like a son because that would have endangered him. There's so many things I want to talk about. I do want to say on the Sally Jackson front, something that I love, thinking of all her moments with Percy.

In flashback, et cetera, is how much you've highlighted like her girlhood as you know, because to your point, we're seeing her as she's the mom in a in a book series that is narrated by, you know, a kid, you know, a.

an adolescent kid. But when we meet her sitting in the rain listening to Olivia Rodrigo or when she talks about, like, you know, meeting this man that she fell in love with on the beach or this scene here with him and this, like, yearning, there's so much honoring who she was before Percy and who she is outside of the mom lens. Do you know what I mean? That's not a question. That's just an observation. Okay. Well, I'm glad that came through. A question. Yeah.

A question is, I know you and I both love Toby so much in general. Can you talk about why he was...

the right casting for this Poseidon. And then I want to talk about some of the other gods and casting as well. Okay. Well, I have to, I have to say, I mean, in full disclosure, I experienced the casting of Toby Stevens, uh, as a, as a Toby Stevens fan, because I'm not one of the people who makes those decisions. Right. But why was he right for me? Um,

I mean, I guess, is this where I get to say, like, everyone in the world should watch Black Sails? Because, you know, it was bound to happen sooner or later. You held out longer than I thought you would, Deb. So record, record. Yeah, honestly, I think it is. It's, everyone should watch Black Sails. And one of the main reasons is that Toby Stevens is, he's like freakishly good at, at

showing emotion in a way that could be experienced as quiet. I mean, he's also good at showing emotion in very not quiet ways. But one of the things that I am constantly just flabbergasted by in his skill set is that he can show emotion without doing much of anything.

It seems. And yet, you know, so like I was so excited. I was like, the rest of the world gets to experience how Toby Stevens can break your heart in two minutes without like even saying much or moving, which is amazing. So I feel like that is why he was perfect for this. Because in the books, Poseidon actually does not have...

There are gods that have larger roles than him, weirdly. Yeah. Like more speaking time and stuff. And I mean, I don't know what we're going to do in future seasons, if we get future seasons, hopefully. But to be able to experience, you know, to show this much emotion now.

about things that we don't, we didn't really want them talking about, right? We don't want them being like, oh, you really remember that thing that we talked about when he was born about how it's dangerous for him and said, you know, it's like, we didn't want that. That's not romantic. So he's just the right person to make you feel all of the stuff that isn't spoken about.

But it needs to be there. And honestly, Virginia, I can't even begin. Like, she has, like, I was so excited. I didn't, I was never on set when she was there. I was so excited when I got to meet her at the premiere because she was the person I most wanted to say hi to.

Nice to meet you. You broke my heart in a million pieces and I could not be more happy about it. She's just amazing. She's amazing. She's phenomenal. It's been really enjoyable watching the longtime book readers react to the show, their ups and their downs or whatever it may be. But I think one of the most enjoyable, delightful reactions is

The Poseidon haters, the people who are like, Poseidon's a deadbeat dad and like terrible and we hate him. It's just like that. Then Toby Stevens like waltzes it and they're like, maybe I was hasty. Maybe there's something else there. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. You know, for me, fitness has always been about finding that groove, whether it's hitting the pavement outside, which I've been a lot of, or dialing up a sweat session indoors.

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There are far more gods showing up in the first season than there are in the first book in various adventures and interactions. What do you think that does to the story to add a number of other members of the Pantheon into the main plot? Well, it was things that we talked about a lot, as you can imagine. I mean, these were huge topics in the writer's room.

I think the goal and my greatest hope is that what we manage to do with that is both

Not exactly Easter eggs. So I'm going to now separate this into how book readers experience the show or how I hope they do and how I hope non-book readers experience the show. So our hope was that for the book readers, like again, like I said about Stuff with Sally, there are things, like in any book series, because...

One of the greatest fallacies I think in the world is that people think that somehow a writer is more genius if they know everything they're going to do ahead of time rather than learning from their own process. But so there are things that Rick figured out along the way to get to. Like, I honestly, Joanne, I'm so excited for you to get to the end of the series so we can talk about it.

It's so good. So the book series, I'm just, I cannot wait for the day when you and I could talk about that. Cause it's just beautiful. So, you know,

Not only were we trying to honor that, right, and have a mutual experience with the book readers, like, yes, we know where this is going in a way that Rick probably didn't when he wrote the first book so that we can bring things that are relevant to the later part of the story and especially the end of the story. We can bring those elements in earlier so that we can show how they influenced the overall story, the direction of the story.

And honoring them, honestly, like, you know, honoring what the book readers love about the story by showing that all of that stuff was happening, right? Like, when you take the book series as a whole, even when an author doesn't know where they're going to go through the whole five books or whatever, right?

All of those things, in theory, just like all of those people had their own thoughts and experiences outside of Percy's experience of them, all of those other parts of the story were happening in the timeline of the first book, right? So like Hermes and Luke were having the relationship they were having, or story in relation to each other, that they were having. All these other things were happening in the world, even if Percy didn't perceive them.

And they're all relevant to where the story is going. So like that's for, I mean, I guess in a way I'm saying this for both groups, like for the non-book readers, I think it's very important for us knowing where the story is going to start laying those tracks. Like just like giving you the information if you didn't read the books, these bits of information that are important for you to understand the entire arc of the story and the individual arcs of the characters. Right.

So, like, it's kind of a dual thing there. And I understand that it's, you know, there are people who don't like deviations from text. Our hope and, you know, our hopes and dreams were to, that every change we made, if not

in the exact wording or plot of the text was to always be honoring the spirit of the text. And to be perfectly honest, one of the things I didn't anticipate was how much Rick Riordan enjoyed playing in that playground with us. Yeah.

That's what I wanted to ask you about. Yeah. It's like, what a gift for a writer, you know, who has written prolifically these incredibly popular books, but you and I have written in our lives and what a dream to like have like a slight do over on something that you are proud of and people love and you're like, great, but were I to do it again, these are the seeds I would have planted earlier just so that it all feels like it pays off in a satisfying way. That's a gift to a writer. And like, I imagine, I mean, A,

And we go through this all the time when we talk about, you know, rings of power, what is House of the Dragon doing and all that sort of stuff. There will be book purists who are upset at any deviation from the book. And I'm really happy on your behalf that you have Rick in the writer's room and there's just this sort of like...

coat of protection of like you had, you know, the blessing of, of I'll go Rick himself as you're, as you're making this. But yeah, I want to ask you, like, this is not a legal court of law, so I'm not cross-examining you, but I don't want you to feel like I'm asking you to speak for someone, but from your observation of Rick, like,

What were the aspects that he was most excited to dig into in a different way than he had on the page? He was happy to, like, go in with us and pull things apart and analyze them and figure out how to adapt them for television, which is very different because you can, I mean, ideally you don't just have voiceovers. You can't be in people's heads. So you have to find new structures for expressing what's in people's heads. Yeah.

The other thing, like, honestly was so nice is he, as much as he wanted to play in the playground, he also was like very politely setting guardrails for us, you know? So like we felt comfort,

Because it was like, okay, we can play with stuff. And we know that he's going to be like, no, this is your guardrail. Now you've gone too far. Yes, you have to have Krusty. No matter what. There were things like that where he was just like, you must have this, this, this, and this because I know my fans. And these are the things they will most want. Yeah, I think he was very excited to expand Sally.

I think he was very, I mean, I know he was very excited about the casting because unlike me, he was very much a part of that, you know, completely. No casting happened without him being involved in it. So he was very excited about that opportunity. He really happy to like,

Like, for the opportunity to kind of erase the movies from... So that was good. To go back to that idea of like, what a gift for him to get to sort of tinker with a story that he's already proud of. The double gift of...

still licking his wounds from like a truly, truly an adaptation just like really didn't feel like it got it. It didn't get it. It did not get it. And that's such a hard thing as an author to see, you know, oh, my book's going to be a movie. Oh no, what is that? Yeah. Okay. Let me ask you other than Toby Stevens as Poseidon,

Which is the God depiction that you have personally taken the most delight in or felt like really underlined something that you want to make a point with in the story? I mean, that's hard because...

uh okay book book readers will understand what i'm saying uh hermes and hades are both crucial to the end i mean i think the end game i think i can say great prophecy like that you know that's that does we do not use those words we're talking about prophecy in a second yet but um so for me personally it was very exciting to be able to play those tracks um

Hades in particular is probably one of my favorite characters in the books. So it's just...

Jay's casting is so wild and so good. He's so good in his little interaction that we got with him. It was so great. And it was just like, it was so funny because I remember reading the script and being like, oh, I love this idea that his voice is so different than the Kronos voice. So that's part of how Percy figures it out. It's just literally he sounds so different. But then the version that he came up with

It was like above and beyond anything I could imagine delighting me. It's just, it's so good and so funny and weird. And it's like, I think like, even though he's quite different, I think I feel like then how I would imagine or how I did imagine the voice of

of Rick's Hades, I think he's so, it's so perfectly aligned with the humor of the book and the voice of the book. And just like, it's just very good. Like I get to enjoy that also as a fan. It's just so much fun. I seldom cahoot. I seldom cahoot is top tier. Yeah, it's quite good. I cannot take responsibility for that one. So I definitely get to just enjoy that with everyone else. Yeah.

Okay, you mentioned, let's just keep it prophecy. No need to put an adjective in front of it. Prophecy in general. We've already experienced prophecy in the show, and we got that

line from Percy in episode five about fate and free will and the choices you made. You texted me like a week and a half ago or whatever about how you want to talk to me about fate versus free will in Lord of the Rings, I believe it was. Or in general. In general, just in general, but inspired by Lord of the Rings. So let's talk about fate versus free will. And like when you're working, when you're operating in a story that is so prophecy dependent, you're

Because, you know, there's a little prophecy at the beginning of book one and that operates throughout the season. But we are by no means done with prophecy as the series goes forward. So this is a very prophecy-based story. How do you wrap your head around that idea of fate versus free will when you think about this story? So there's like fate, you know.

in the world, right? The philosophical concept of fate, which manifests in different ways, in different mythologies and philosophies and people's personal views of how, what their life means. The thing that's interesting to me, I will get there, I promise, but I'm getting, roundabout way. The thing that's interesting to me about these books, we are doing this adaptation of a book series, right?

The book series is an adaptation of Greek mythology. Like that's how I see the book series. And so fate is obviously something that exists throughout Greek mythology. I mean, the Perseus story in particular. And that was like one of the ways that I serve the collective that is the writer's room is I love to bring in

Other aspects of the Greek myths that we can use. Like that's just, you know, it's like a writer's room is just basically a bunch of people, ideally, who get along. In our case, yes. And everyone brings in tools from their personal toolkits. And then it becomes like kind of a buffet of tools. And...

And that's one of mine. I am not as thorough a researcher as you are, which is one of the things I've always enjoyed about you. But I do my best. And fate has always been something I love. Like, I don't know why. Like, honestly, I still haven't quite unpacked why. Like, that is one of the aspects of story that makes me so happy. Yeah.

And it's interesting in this story in particular, I think maybe because they're kids. Because we don't often have kids talking about faith. It feels a lot of times like something that it's a later in life thing. But one of the things about the Perseus story that I really latched onto, which I hadn't thought about a lot, like the actual Perseus story, is...

That feels very relevant to the book series in ways I won't get into because of spoilers. But like one of the things that's always been so interesting to me about fate in Greek mythology is that when people try to avoid their fate, they often not, I mean, they're going to get there, right? Because it's their fate. Right.

But the choices they make in trying to avoid the fate often get to a worse version of that fate than had they made different choices. And the funny thing is, like, I found this about the Perseus story in a different way. Like, if you just Google Perseus, it's like not focusing on the grandfather. Right.

But like weirdly, weirdly for the other show I work on, for The Old Man, I've done a lot of research on twin mythologies. I know this may not have been a direction you thought I was going to go with this. So like, so I talk about, I've done a lot of research on twin mythologies for The Old Man. And his grandfather in some versions of the Perseus myth was a twin. And in some of those versions where he's a twin, he and his brother split the kingdom together.

That their father had, and in some, the grandfather had the kingdom and the brother was kind of like out of the picture. So his choice, I'm going to try to tell this in a short way. So the grandfather's choice to cast his grandson in the sea to try to avoid the fate of having his grandson kill him actually led to the line of his brother becoming the line of

that ruled Argos going forward. So let's say, which for me is the perfect encapsulation for how I look at fate. And I think that aligns well with the book series is like, whatever is fated, whatever is prophesized, which are basically the same thing, right? Prophecy is just the speaking through an oracle of fate, right?

So, whatever is fated is going to happen. Obviously, this is something we talk about a lot with oracles. They speak in riddles, you know, poetry, however you want to look at it. So, there's also the thing of like, do how to, you know, if you try too hard to understand it, you can also misread it, right? Right.

But if you try to avoid fate, and this is a very important thing about the big picture story in Percy Jackson, if you try to avoid fate, you're going to get there either way. But let's say with Perseus, the mythological Perseus, had his grandfather said, okay, that's a bummer, but that is my fate. My grandson will kill me in one way or another. I don't know how. Had he not thrown them into sea, had he raised his grandson,

and had a relationship with him and taught him to be a king after him, his line would have continued to rule Argos. God, I hope it's Argos. I keep forgetting. But his line would have continued to rule his kingdom rather than it go to his brother. But because he cast his grandson in the sea and Perseus had his whole story,

and was the king of somewhere else, and didn't want to inherit a kingdom because he killed his grandfather by accident. The grandfather not only lost a relationship with his daughter and his grandson, not only was killed by his grandson himself,

in the end, because that was his fate, but he also lost his kingdom. So I think that is the perfect depiction of how fate and free choice interact with each other. That's a really interesting and satisfying way to think about it. It's so different from the way that I've always interpreted those kinds of self-fulfilling prophecies and fates in Greek mythology, because I've always taken it as, like, the easiest example is Oedipus. And

What happens with Oedipus in, you know, marrying his mother, killing his father, all that sort of stuff, I feel like doesn't happen if they don't abandon him in the woods. If they raise, you know what I mean? It's sort of like, to me, I always felt like those various prophesized fates are

We're taking into account the psychology of humans and how they would react. So whatever they're trying to do to avoid it is sort of like woven into the prophecy in the first place. Like, I know when you hear this, you're going to leave your son in the middle of the woods, die.

And that's how it's going to happen. That's how, because I just don't, like, what's the version of the story where they raise Oedipus and he, you know, fucks his mom and kills his dad? No, no, it's totally true. These are two ways to it. I mean, we're basically in the Matrix right now, right? We're talking about that spin, right? Right, right, right. It's fascinating to me because, like, when we talked, when Mallory and I first really sort of dug into that when we were talking about Rings of Power and Lord of the Rings, that story, we're talking about how

How unsatisfactory...

It is if a story is just faded, if it's just prophesied, like how uninteresting that is to be like, well, okay, if you know every single step that the person is going to take to the end goal, then like, what's, where's the, where's the dramatic tension here? If we know what's going to happen at the end. So I almost think oftentimes with those, with especially the Greek versions of it, it's the struggle against that provides the tension and,

Uh, cause you're just being like dragged by fate, uh, down your path. Uh, or, um, you know, I think, but I think the way that Tolkien thinks about it is more like, you know, I see the end goal in the far distance, be it like, you know, Mount Doom, let's say that's, that's where you're going, but there are many paths to get there.

And you get to decide which, which road you take, which is sort of your point. You could, you can keep your kingdom, be it Argos or anything else. Or whatever it actually is. Sorry, I forgot that. Your actual bloodline. Or you can fucking toss a baby into the sea. It's up to you what you want to do. So, yeah. I mean, I think that, you know, again, this is my perspective. I'm not speaking for the writer's room. I'm definitely not speaking for Rick, but it, I,

I felt like when I read his books, like it felt like it resonated very well with the way I've always thought about these things. So I had a conversation with a friend of mine who's actually, I won't name names, but an actor from Black Sails who's not in Percy Jackson. And...

She was like, I hate fate. I hate the idea of fate. And I was like, well, you know, I said the thing I just said to you, but I said, you know, I think all, I do believe this generally, not just about fate, all stories, any story that resonates, resonates because it is like at, it is touching the core of human experience, right? Because it's like, what else do we want to look at but ourselves ultimately? And I mean, there's one thing we're all fated to, right? We're all going to die.

And no, I was not the person who inspired those lines for Percy. But we are all. He said it like three times at this point, I think. We are all kind of dying. Yeah. So that is fate. Like there is a fate. Without an oracle, we don't need an oracle to tell us. There is a thing we are all fated to. And yet, even though every single human being has this shared fate, we all make unbelievably different choices with the time we have.

Right. Thank you, Peter Jackson. I don't think that was Tolkien. I think that was Peter Jackson. Right. Yeah. And I don't know. I mean, I just feel like that's that's ultimately the basis of where I come at it. And the Perseus, my interpretation of the Perseus grandfather story is is came out of that. It just it also it just aligned so beautifully with something that I kind of knew was true without knowing it was true.

is that we, it's like you said, it's the path you take. Like there's the end thing that is faded. There might be points along the way that are faded, but even between those points, there's always choices. And those choices define how you affect the world, whether you do good, whether you don't do good, whether you do nothing, whether you, you know,

Like another version of that was that Perseus's grandfather could have just like locked himself in a tower, right? If I lock myself in a tower, my grandson can't kill me.

Like that would have led to a very different story. Somehow his grandson still would have ended up killing him. We don't know how. But everything in between would have been so different. Well, it's interesting because I think whether it's us living our lives with the death deadline looming or whatever the case may be, there are things you can do to hasten your fate, right? Hasten it or delay it. But you can't delay it.

Indefinitely. It's coming at some point. Okay, let's move off this fairly uncheery subject that we've wandered ourselves into. Okay.

I will say we don't love committing to shows too far in advance, but I will say that one of the tropes courses that we're thinking of doing in the near future, inspired by a couple of emails we got from listeners, is something that's like fellowships slash golden trio. Golden trio is the name. I know I'm not going to give you a Harry Potter pop quiz, I promise, but Harry, Hermione, and Ron are called the golden trio in that book. So this idea of like,

The Power of Three, you could look at it. Buffy, there's a golden trio. This crops up a lot in storytelling. Certainly, J.K. Rowling did not invent it. But I was just wondering if you wanted to talk about

When you think about these three kids or I'm sorry, Grover's not a kid, but like these three individuals on the road. He's 24. Thank you very much. He's 24. When you think about them on the road and you think about their particular strengths and weaknesses and how they complement each other and how they, how their relationship grows, like,

What is most important to you? Are you referencing other adventuring relationships? What are you thinking about when you're putting that dynamic together on the screen? Well, I can't speak for all of the writers in the room about what threesomes they're thinking about.

Weirdly, because I am the person who's bringing themes from mythology and such, I honestly have to say I did not think about other threesomes when I talk about them. I mean, not in that way. You think about balance, but there wasn't a different three characters I was thinking about. But we think about balance differently.

And again, with this, you know, this thing of the adaptation part is like we had all this room now because Grover and Annabeth, we only knew them through Percy's eyes. So we like had all this latitude to kind of to figure out, you know, the thing you do when you're reading is you do, you always make those connections. Even if you're just, you know, in first person POV, like you're going to always like your brain will start like fleshing out those people.

And so we got to do that.

So, right. So like, oh, shoot. I always forget what it's like. There is a model of threes that I love where it's like the one is the analytical one. Oh, goodness. What is, I've forgotten what that is, but there is like, like it's like this. I don't know, is it like a psychology thing? I think it might, yeah, I think it is. But it's like, it's used a lot in story structure that I have thought about when I used to be a podcaster and analyze black sales because black sales has a lot of threesomes of all sorts. Yeah.

I know, you keep using the word threesome and I want to be like, Daphne, maybe we shouldn't use the word threesome, but it's worth it to get to Black Sails because those are- A trio. A trio. We'll say a trio. Yeah. And, right. But I know like people talk about this with like, you know, with like Spock and Kirk and Bones, where you have like the analytical one, you have the one who's like, the one who's like action, and then the one who's like the heart, right? Yeah.

So, you know, Percy Jackson has that exactly. Buffy Vampire Slayer has it. Harry Potter has it. Like 100%. Yeah, that's a fascinating... Again, we'll do a whole podcast episode of this and I will spend some time researching and getting to the bottom of the origins of this. But I think that's interesting that it sort of echoes down...

I mean, I only went back to the 90s with Buffy, but like, well, I'll take Buffy as an example, as I want to do and say this, that like, and you don't need to know anything about the show to know this, but

The trio in that show is Buffy, Willow, and Xander. That's our golden trio. And people come and people go. People get added. It expands. It contracts. All that sort of stuff. But that's the core. And one of my favorite – I was just like a baby but like a TV fan listening to the audio commentary on the DVDs of my favorite television show.

And it was like my first concept of a writer's room came from this one DVD commentary where they were talking about a line that like, you know, Joss Whedon for all his ills, like we don't need to get into it right now, but like, you know, was the driving writing voice on that show. And he was like out for the day. So the writer's room, like we're putting a scene together without Joss there. And he comes back,

And they read the scene back to him. And they were like looking at the line allocation and they're like, oh, you know, Willow doesn't have any lines in the scene and Xander has too many lines. So let's just give some of Xander's lines to Willow. And Jessica's back in the room and he's like,

These are Xander lines. Why is it really saying that? Exactly. And it just, like, it, like, blew my mind because I was just sort of like, yeah, it's like you can't just, like, put lines from one. And especially if you're doing the head, the heart, the, you know, the noif or, like, whatever you want to say. Like, you can't just swap one for another. But it was, like, it was such, like, an insight into...

a writer's room dynamic where there's like a keeper of the flame and they're like, no, you just can't. That's not what we do here. We don't just swap lines around from characters. You can't do that. Um,

But yeah, I just, I think the, I love the dynamic on both on the page and on the screen of these three. And, you know, something that Mal and I have talked about a bit, and again, this is the freedom that you've been talking about in terms of not always being in Percy's perspective, is like,

people peeling off grover staying behind while annabeth and percy do this or that the other thing or annabeth leaving the underworld early so it's just grover and percy doing this thing can you talk about some of the thought behind that about like giving them little like twosome adventures inside of their uh not threesome we'll call it a trio sorry uh so that's okay

Yeah. I mean, part of that was to, you know, I feel like to flesh things out. I mean, sometimes it's just intuitive. You just kind of feel what is the right way to do it. I mean, collectively feel like, you know, part of the beauty of a writer's room is like for us, to the extent that we can remember, it's like so many of these episodes exist in multiple forms that were discussed. Yeah.

But I mean, especially, I felt like especially Grover really needed his own story more. Like the Grover in the books is delightful and we love him. And I honestly just wanted to get to know him better. And Aryan is unbelievable. He's just so good. Yeah.

He's so much fun. But so it was just really fun to be able, like, it was like, it was interesting on a different podcast, a fan podcast that I did an interview, like they asked about his fatal flaw because Grover doesn't have a fatal flaw in the books. And, and it's just, and I think that's part of it is like Grover later in the story does have more kind of his own quest, his own hero story, but,

But he is a hero, right? Like he, you know, okay, we could argue that, you know, things didn't go great with Dahlia, but like, but he tried, you know, he just, he cares so much and he is a hero. He is a protector of demigods and will be other things later as well. And, and so it's just, it just, I think it just felt so important to all of us to have Grover have a story and not be just part of

Percy's story or Percy and Annabeth's story, you know? And sometimes also I think, you know, sometimes just a scene with two people is, is, is more conducive to like really deep, like deep,

talking about your feelings and stuff, like the minute there's a third, I mean, this is true, I think in reality too, like the minute there's a third person, the dynamic changes. So it's like sometimes really needed for two characters to be without the third so that they can really talk about their feelings. And, you know, and then, you know, hopefully you're making the right choices about which character needs to be with which character in those moments.

Hey y'all, Marci Martin here with a little Tampax story. One time I went on vacation in the Bahamas with some friends, and of course I got my period. I didn't want anything to stop me from living my best life on my trip. So I was like, why not be brave and try Tampax? Before that, I really just thought tampons were for adults, and I definitely thought they'd be uncomfortable. Guess what y'all, they really aren't. It might take a few tries, but once it's in right, you shouldn't feel it, which is great.

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As someone who spent so long thinking about the books, about the book readers, about the fans and wanting to give them like everything they want, everything and all of that. What has been the most enjoyable for you to see them react to something like a change maybe? And like what the reaction has been and how have you been like, yes, we did it. The two that, well, the two that have been most exciting for me personally are...

was the reaction to the flashback in the first episode and the Medusa story overall, which are basically two parts that are connected to each other.

That was really fun. It was also like, you know, with the first one was very nerve wracking because I had never worked on a TV show that was an adaptation. So it was like, you know, it's one of those things where it's like you care a lot about it and you just really hope other people like that you managed to show them why you care about it a lot.

And so that was really gratifying for me a lot because I love it. And it was just overall thinking about Sally's character has been, I think for all of us, but I can only speak for myself, just such a fun part of doing this, truly. Yeah.

John was very careful to credit you on the Medusa front in the interview with Variety. So I feel emboldened to ask you specifically about the Medusa contribution. How did this come about? Were they saying procedurally, whatever you can tell me, did they say...

Hey, Daph, what do you think we should do with Medusa? Or are you looking at the story and you're like, hey, I think we have an opportunity here to do something. I have my suspicions knowing you, but what was the order of operations? Okay. Well, first of all, I think this is the opportunity for me to say the thing that I always want to say because I would like...

to just credit John Steinberg and Dan Schatz for being the most supportive, wonderful people to work with. Which is, you know, not just my opinion. This is something you can see in the... It is known. If you go through IMDb for any of their shows, you will see how many people are in common from show to show, which I think is the testament to just how brilliant it is to work with them.

So, and one aspect of that is I just honestly have never felt so seen and heard as I am when I work with them. So the minute, there are certain things that like the minute, and I mean, this is something you know about me, is that just I get, when I'm excited about something, I am just excited about it. And there's just really...

There is just no way I'm not going to talk about it. No stopping yet. No stopping yet. Yeah. Correct. So it was just like, there are certain things, like the funny thing is I'm obsessed with Medusa and Athena. I actually like, and part of the way I contribute to a writer's room, I think I said this already, but part of the way I contribute is like, I really love Medusa.

talking about archetypes and larger structures and Greek mythology has always been my go-to for that. I, I partly because I grew up with it because it was so important to me when I was a kid. So I know it better than a lot of other mythologies. Partly I do think that there's like, there are just some elements of it that just like, it's like any structure you would want for story could actually be found there, which is probably not true, but that's how it feels to me. So like,

Anyone who's ever listened to my podcast about black sales will know that it is a go-to for me there, too. In fact, we did a whole episode like that with John Steinberg where I used Greek mythology to analyze his show at him. But... Listen, that episode may or may not have landed you a stop writing job. That's what I'm saying.

It was bold and hilarious. And, you know, luckily he and I were already friends. So that's part of, I think, why I felt like I'm allowed to just be like, let me cast all of your characters as Greek gods. We got someone, someone was asking us to cast all of the Roy siblings in succession as Greek gods. That's something we can think about if we want to at some point in the future, Daphne and I. That's so interesting. They were just, because they were talking about like,

I think off the back of Ares talking about Athena and like sort of how it felt a little like Roy's sibling squabbling succession a bit in the person's story. Which is...

because Succession is drawing from Shakespeare and Shakespeare is drawing from Greek mythology. So it's all, it's all one anyway, but like, I just thought that was a funny prompt. Anyway, sorry. I love that. No, that's a great prompt. I, yes, I like to do that. Like, I know there are other people who like to do these with other things like, like Harry Potter houses and such. For me, it was, and I, and it was funny. Like, it was really fun because I actually was like reading, I'm forgetting the author, right? Oh, Edinger. There was a, he's a Jungian psychologist slash,

of story that John actually introduced me to because he wrote a book, like a Jungian analysis of Moby Dick that was an inspiration in, well, Moby Dick and the Jungian analysis of Moby Dick were both inspirations, particularly in season three of Black Sails.

And so I just continued then to read all of his books. And he has one, a Greek mythology, like he has a few that touch on Greek mythology, but there's one specifically about Greek mythology. So I was actually reading his versions of the gods while trying to cast the black sales characters. And it was really fun. And yeah. And I'm like, that's, I mean, this is,

I have already forgotten what the question was. Oh, right. Now I remember. But like, yes, the episode five, you know, is a sibling episode. Like, you know, it's not an Ares episode. It's not a Hephaestus episode. It's a sibling episode because Athena doesn't appear there, but, you know, but she's there, right? Because those three siblings are siblings. And so they have...

I mean, this is how all of us would talk about the Pantheon. They are a family. Barring Zeus, who we know is going to appear in the finale because we've watched the trailers, Athena is the god talked about the most that we don't see. Was there ever an idea that should we put Athena in season one? I feel like that probably was a conversation at some point. And I feel like the conversation I do remember was talking about like...

Bringing her in strategically so that it's important that she showed up like that. So like, you know what I mean? It's like, it is almost like, it's almost like she's weightier right now because we only talk about her and haven't met her yet. And so like her, it kind of demands that her appearance have the same weight to match her presence in the story. Yeah.

And there wasn't really a place for that in this story. Also, longing is such a wonderful part of a story, right? So like, you can't, I mean, you can. I mean, I think the Sally and Poseidon scene is proof that you can actually depict longing when people are in each other's proximity. But sometimes the best longing requires longing

that the person not be there. And it elevates her that everyone's talking about her, but we haven't seen her yet.

So that entrance is, I don't know when we're going to do it or how we're going to do it, but that entrance is going to have to be pretty special. It's going to have to be good. A lot of buildup. And we will eagerly await any casting news. But the reason we went down that last path was actually goes back to Medusa. So tell me, take us back to how the Medusa story got sort of

More in depth. So yeah, I can't speak exactly to that. I can only speak to my experience of it. But the funny thing and the reason why I started talking about how much I love working with John and Dan is like, there was a time when I used Athena and Medusa as a way to talk about characters also in Black, not in Black Sides, as a way to talk about characters in The Old Man. So the funny thing is like, like not the version that Jessica Parker Kennedy says, but the funny thing is like,

They were already aware that this is an archetypal relationship about gender and about how women relate to other women in a world in which men are generally more powerful than women. And power is such a big part of this story, right? Where you have demigods and monsters. They're the gods. I mean, the Titans also. Yeah.

I'm not going to talk about them right now, but they're the gods. And then there are all these other types of beings that have to live in a world in proximity to the gods, right? So like all this stuff about gender and power and, you know, and what women often do to each other in relation to in a world,

Where they are less empowered than men. Or in general, where people... What sometimes happens when power dynamics make people turn against each other who, you know, one could argue maybe should be more aligned. Banding together. So just like all of that stuff was just kind of like stuff that they knew was important to me to begin with. So I guess, you know, that's...

ended up being a bit, you know, a part of the direction it went. It wasn't, you know, it wasn't like something I was like, we must do this. But it was, you know, it was just, I think they, you know, they had had a preview. So they knew I was going to end up talking about this way of looking at things with, when we were talking about episode three and Monica, who is the writer of episode three, and I like, this was like,

We just had so much fun talking about this together. Like, it's really like, she's amazing. And she and I just, we had so much fun just playing with this, like just, you know, thinking about this.

how to depict this, you know, honoring the version to the, you know, that's in the book. And also like taking it in, again, it's just that thing where it's like, you want, I don't think there's anything we did with Medusa that isn't in the story, maybe not in that chapter necessarily, but it's all rooted in stuff that exists in the greater story of the books. So,

So those are all the elements. But yes, it was super fun for me. And yes, I do generally feel very hurt and seen. And this happens to be a story that I'm hilariously obsessed with. That's amazing. I love how it complicated everything. You know what I mean? Because it's like, you know, I would say from just from adopting one book, not the series, but one book, it is a much different view of that character. And still and yet...

She is a threat as their time together closes. You know what I mean? Like, she can be both someone who was terribly used and someone who is doing something that we are not actively rooting for at the same time. Isn't that all of us? Isn't that all of us? Isn't that just how it is in the world? Well, and sometimes we can...

want to have control over our anger and not in the end have control over our anger. And, you know, they're just, I mean, she is a quote unquote monster, but she's also, you know,

us in a lot of ways. Like she was, she was a really neat monster to have in the beginning because her experience in any version of the myth, I think, or any version of, of the character in the story, like she speaks so, so clearly to the experience of these demigods. No, I mean, absolutely. And, and like sets a really, a great tone for, you know, especially complicating the,

A character like Poseidon or, you know, where we've got Sally's here's Sally's version of Poseidon. Then here's Medusa's version of Poseidon and both of those characters.

stories can be 100% true. They can. They can. I mean, right, which is going to be just like a giant question mark that I feel like, you know, that's part of what's fun about a story. It's like that we, as we learn more things and have different feelings and align with, you know, feel like we can identify with different characters, like anything that came early on can

can be redefined and viewers ideally, you know, are having a relationship with that that feels like you're learning. I mean, I think my favorite experience of story is when I think I know a thing and then the story's like, but do you? And then I learn about myself because I have to engage with what- The assumptions you made. Exactly. Yeah. Speaking of assumptions-

This is not me digging for a spoiler, so please feel free to say no. Thank you, Joanna. But there were some questions around when Annabeth leaves the underworld earlier than she does in the book, and it's a question of regret that traps her. Is that something that you feel like we should all be able to infer from what we've already seen? Or is that something that you feel like we'll understand even better as the story goes on? That's a good question. Yeah.

To be perfectly honest, I know how I read that. And I'm not sure if it's, this isn't even about like spoilers, not spoilers. This is my job and I, you know, I shouldn't spoil stuff, but it's, it's more like, I actually, I think that that question is better left open because for the thing I just said, I think that I, I feel like even if people experience it as us answering that question, um,

That question is best left open to some extent so that people who experience this very complicated character of Annabeth and her very complicated arc going backwards and going forwards, I feel like, I hope that the experience will be that there's a little bit of room for people to experience that in a way that's most meaningful for them.

I don't mean to ask... This might be, like, putting a little unnecessary anxiety juice on the fire, but, like, these kids are growing, man. Oh, yeah, I know. Yeah.

I saw a side-by-side the other day of Percy and Annabeth in their first episode together and then in the most recent one. And Walker has grown a foot taller than he was. They're the same height, and now he's a foot looming over her. I know. Twitter's having a lot of fun with that. Yeah.

But, you know, what is that? What is I don't know. How do you feel about that? I mean, I am not one of the people who makes decisions. So I can only speak for myself is that I really hope that if

That if we get to make season two, we get to do it soon before they grow more? I don't know. Like, it's just... We have to start, like, digging little holes for people to stand in or get out the Apple box for someone else to stand on. I mean, it's... This is the Stranger Things problem. It was always going to be part of the process because the post-production for this show is so lengthy, right? It's just, they worked so hard. There's a lot of visual effects. Yeah, a lot of visual effects. So many people worked so hard to get...

this show finished as quickly as they could and as well as they could. And, and so that's always going to be true of this show. Like it's, you know, trying, trying to make a show that is both beautiful and feels like

this very hard thing to do, which is a show based in realism. Ideally, you feel like the chimera is actually in our world because that is how Rick created it. He created not a separate world, but a world that is coexisting with our world. You and I just can't see it because you and I, sadly, not seers and cannot see through the mist. Yeah.

Yet. So far. Yet. Let's hope. Maybe someday. The other thing I love, let me try to say something I love and ask it as a question rather than just saying statements at you. And maybe you're going to just be like, yeah, Duran, that's the point of the book. But I... Don't try to be more interesting than that. No, but something that I think is so interesting about comparing, again, to circle back to Sally Jackson, comparing...

This depiction of Percy Jackson versus Perseus or Percy Jackson versus any of the, like, demigods of Greek mythology of yore is that...

The whole point of those various abandoned children of gods was for them to show their godly, you know, inheritance. The qualities that they have that come from their divine parents. And they're like, you know, and then their heroism shown through or their valor shown through or their brilliance shown through and stuff like that. And what I love about Percy, and you guys are doing such a good job of underlining this, especially like,

And the speech that Annabeth gives in the Thrill Ride O' Love sequence, et cetera, about Percy is that what he is most, what is most important about him is how he's like his mom and not how he's like his dad.

So how do you make that a question? So can you talk about why that is of interest or importance to you? That is of so much interest and importance to me. And I think it might be the thing I most fell in love with in the books. It's hard to say most. There are a lot of things I fell in love with in the books. But, you know, I feel like in early talks, I don't remember who coined this, but like this idea of like radical humanity.

Um, and just like that, that is so deep. I mean, those words do not come up in the books, obviously, nor in the show, but like, it's so deep in the books. It's so embedded in the books that this idea that like Percy's greatest strength is not, I mean, he, you know, he has powers that will grow as he does, but I mean, okay, he's really tall, but they will grow as he does in the story. Um, but, but, um,

The thing I love about Percy Jackson, the character, is that it is not his superpowers that are ultimately his greatest powers. His greatest powers are the connections he makes with other people.

And what he's willing to do for those people and how he doesn't need to center himself. And so in a world, you know, anything that is based in Greek mythology is always going to be to some extent about glory. I'll say kleos for John Steinberg because he loves that word. But so to create a character within that world who actually ends up

When he is truly at his greatest heroic, it's not because he can control water or speak to horses. It is because of the person he is. It's who he is, not what he is as the son of Poseidon. That's a tool that he can use in a way. The way I see it, it's like his powers are what he can use for

to express his true heroism. And that is about the person he is, which again, like he said in the first episode, I am Sally Jackson's son. And this is like the nature of a demigod. This is why demigods are so interesting to me. And I think to a lot of people is like, they are not just mini gods.

They are both. They are both things. They are bridges between the godly world, the immortals, and the mortals. On the one hand, I agree with you, but on the other hand, a thing that I love about Greek mythology is that the messiest humans in the stories are always the gods. No, no, for sure. The sloppiest people. Totally true. And right, I feel like these books...

Absolutely express that too. And I, you know, this is like, this is where the fun is for me. I think in, you know, in doing the adaptation, it's like, they are so messy. They are so like, the humans are so much more together. No, that's true. But I'm just saying in terms of like,

Again, if you think about hierarchy and power, not so much about emotional messiness, which definitely the gods are more, but that actually makes it much more dangerous to have these all-powerful beings that do not remotely have the maturity to be responsible about their power.

Who are impulsive and petty and, you know. Right, right. And dangerous. Very dangerous. I'm getting ready to let you off the hook and stop peppering you with questions, but I want to circle back to... You mentioned the guardrails, and I like thinking about it that way, that Rick in the writer's room is like, here are some things we're not going to do. And you mentioned specifics like crusty or et cetera. But in terms of like...

Were there any big picture, whether from John and Dan or from Rick, this is what a Percy Jackson story is and this is what it isn't? Like, for example, I will say, this is more of like a logistical example, but I love a flashback. I know you made me watch Black Sails. I made you watch Lost. This is just who we are as friends. Yes, it's true.

So, you know, I love a flashback because I love Lost. But I remember before they slightly broke their rule that Weiss and Benioff, when they were doing Thrones for the first four seasons, were like, we don't do flashbacks on the show. We don't do it. It's not what Thrones is about. And then they're like, okay, we're going to break our rule here and there. Yeah.

Were there any, like, big capital D do's and capital D's don'ts of a Percy Jackson story for you all? Interesting. I mean, I don't feel like there were any, like, hello, writer's room, here are the mandates. So I don't think we, I don't feel like there was any of that. Yeah.

I mean, the thing I said about rooted in the real world, like, I feel like that was something that Rick, John, and Dan, like, all, like, that was very important as just, like, an overall aesthetic, both visually, but also in story. Yeah.

I don't, yeah. I mean, obviously we did do flashbacks, but I mean, I think that, you know, things, devices like flashbacks, you know, just from working with John and Dan on now in multiple shows, like devices like that are things one should always make sure that they are warranted. Like that, that is the best way to tell the story.

I think sometimes people lose track of things that feel like flourishes, but if they're not actually doing the best job in the moment, then they are merely flourishes. So that just feels like a general thing I've learned from being a person who works with them overall.

I mean, just, you know, it is the intent of every single person on every level of the show to be true to the books. And I, again, I don't mean true to every moment exactly as it happened, but true to the spirit of the books. And with the fans in mind, like every person at every level just read them and reread them. I mean, the, you know, just props, costumes, like just everything.

overall experience of the art department because I got to be in meeting some and on set a bunch. So I was very lucky to like watch that process. I mean, you know, you and I happen to know what the experience is of truly loving and adaptation of books that we truly love, which is how we started our conversation here was talking about Lord of the Rings. So, yeah,

In addition to the amazing experience of getting to meet Dan Hanna and tell him what a fan I am. I mean, we very much wanted this show to be truly satisfying to people who have never read the books, but also truly satisfying to people who have loved them dearly, have incorporated them. You know, kids reading these books, like I know...

so many kids and young adults who are like, these were my first books. This is how I became a reader. Just like that they have become part of their personalities, like part of who they understand themselves to be. My nephew is obsessed, obsessed with these books. I don't know. Actually, I don't know if he's watched the show only because they don't watch any television in their house. So it's possibly he hasn't seen the show, but I feel like if he's going to watch any show,

it's going to be this one. And I haven't, I haven't checked in to see if they're doing that, but yeah, I, it feels listening to you talk, listening to John talk. It's so crystal clear, could not be clearer that you guys know what a sort of precious thing you have. You know, it's such an honor to be perfectly honest. Like is it's an amazing thing to be able to,

To be any part of hopefully making people who love this story love a new version of it. I've heard so many people, and a lot of people who are new to the story, just like really... And I think the reaction you hear most of all... Yeah, there are plenty of detractors exist. You know they exist. I know they exist. Of course, of course. People who are, it's not what they wanted, that exists. But also the main reaction I've been seeing...

Outside of that is people being like, this is so much better than it even needed to be. Do you know what I mean? That there's just like a depth of story and a level of care and a level of entertainment that most stories directed or starring pre-adolescent kids, adolescent kids don't feel like they need to reach. And you guys were like, well, what if...

What if that story is also as deep as we could make it? And so congratulations. Thank you. You've done an amazing job. That was definitely our hope.

We're loving it. Mal and I love it, as you know. Okay, that made me so happy, to be perfectly honest. Like, I don't think I imagined long before I was a podcaster and I listened to you podcasting about Game of Thrones and loved your coverage. Like, I don't think if someone had told me back then, like, oh, someday Joanna Robinson is going to be talking about a show that you're a writer on.

That would have cracked me up. Here we are now. Never imagined. Here we are. Thank you so much for chatting with me. I'm really excited to see the finale and see how that all plays out. I have like other questions I want to ask you, but they're all like, I know your answer is just going to be like, stay tuned. Later this week.

So I'll just spare you that, spare everyone that procedure. But this has been wonderful. You know me. I love talking about process. I love talking about mythology. I love talking to you. So what a joy for me and a treat. Thank you. Me too. Thank you so much for inviting me on.

All right, that does it for our little mini Percy Jackson finale preview. Thank you so much to the great Daphne Olive for that conversation. Thank you, as always, to Steve Allman for editing it. Thank you to Arjun Arun Gopal for his production work. Always, everywhere, always. And to Jomia Dinaran, the great traveler, for his work on The Social. And I said, we'll see you on Friday with our Percy Jackson finale preview.

recap, commiseration, exaltation, and I'll be back for that. And until then stay bad babies. All right. Bye.