What Makes You Different Makes You Strong: Inclusion and The Lightning Thief
Written by Director of Education Brendan Shea
Percy Jackson & the Olympians is having a moment. What started as a five-part series of novels for young adults has exploded into several spin-off book series, a popular Disney+ show, a Broadway musical and several Hollywood movies (though real fans would rather pretend the movies don’t exist). There are tomes of fan art on Pinterest. Tons of merch on Amazon. And the books themselves? On the short list for all-time best-selling series. One of my collaborators on the production called it “Harry Potter for Gen Z.” So, what is so special about Percy and his friends that they’ve captured the modern zeitgeist so completely? I think it’s in that very word: special.
Author Rick Riordan often tells the story of how Percy Jackson came to be. His son, Haley, was struggling in school. The only subject he enjoyed was Greek Mythology. Naturally, the bedtime stories Rick would tell his son would revolve around Greek gods and monsters. “When I ran out of myths to tell him,” says Riordan, “I made up the story of Percy Jackson. Percy has ADHD and dyslexia because my son does… It empowered him to see himself represented in the story, and he was the reason I wrote the novel in the first place.”
Riordan goes on to address the stigma that neurodivergent people often face at school or at work: “Dyslexic/ADHD kids are creative, outside-the-box thinkers. They have to be, because they don’t see or solve problems the same way other kids do. In school, unfortunately, they are sometimes written off as lazy, unmotivated, rude, or even stupid. They aren’t… Marking Percy ADHD/dyslexic was my way of honoring the potential of all the kids I’ve known who have those conditions. It’s not a bad thing to be different. Sometimes, it’s the mark of being very, very talented. That’s what Percy discovers about himself in The Lightning Thief.”
The musical adaptation of The Lightning Thief (book one of Percy Jackson & the Olympians series) highlights this theme in a way that only musicals can do: there’s a whole ballad about it. “Strong” is sung by Percy’s mom Sally—a human who has, up until now, protected Percy from the truth of his godly heritage—as she prepares to send him to Camp Half-Blood, where he’ll be safe. The repeated refrain: “normal is a myth, everyone has issues they’re dealing with” takes on renewed import when cast against this backdrop of learning difference, intellectual disability, and the sense of displacement that can come with diagnosis. Percy disagrees, responding “if you’re weird, you’re weak,” to which Sally presses on: “that’s where you’re wrong…the things that make you different, are the very things that make you strong.”
The theatre is a place where we celebrate differences. Like Camp Half-Blood, QCT is a sanctuary for anyone and everyone that yearns for community, that perhaps feels out of step in “normal” society due to a perceived difference or personal obstacle. The stories on our stage celebrate difference, acceptance and the power of love. The people on our stage that tell those stories are of backgrounds as varied as there are deities in the Greek pantheon (perhaps more so). In fact, several of the heroes that grace our stage in The Lightning Thief have the same differences as Percy and, I suspect, many of our audience members. And yet, by making theatre, maybe we’re creating our own mythology—one that doesn’t bother with defining “normal.” In our new mythology, we’re all heroes whose differences make them mighty.