Compare+Contrast+Model

**Just Your Typical 12-year-old ADHD/** **Dyslexic Hero that Saves the World**
 * [[image:Compare_Contrast_Characters_Organizer.gif]] ||
 * ** Percy Jackson: **

Although Percy Jackson begins his journey as a lonely, trouble-making kid with ADHD and dyslexia, eventually he learns to use his gifts to save the world, beat up a god, and make some amazing, loyal friends. Percy is the ultimate, modern-day, normal-kid hero, improving in just the right ways as he travels across the United States in order to save the modern-day Greek gods from fighting and destroying human lives in the process.

Not everything about Percy changed. He had some great qualities to start with that he kept throughout his journey. When we first met Percy’s mom, we could tell she was the light of his life, and that never changed. Neither did his lack of love for Gabe, his step-dad. Percy’s whole purpose of taking on the quest was to save his mom, which he finally did, and he was still trying to save her (from Gabe!) at the end of the book. Percy was also loyal to his friends, even though in the beginning he only claimed Grover as a friend, and by the end of the book Annabeth was another close friend, and Percy seemed to be making many more at camp. An essential part of Percy’s personality was his sense of humor, which he also kept from start to finish.

Just as he kept some of those personality traits that people love to see, Percy improved some of his more negative traits at the same time. Although he still didn’t //really// know his dad at the end of the book, at least then Percy knew his name, yet he still didn’t know what to think of him. Percy’s circle of support grew immensely during his quest, going from just his mom and Grover up to having a whole camp, a larger circle of friends, and even several Olympian Gods ready to back him up. Partly because of this, Percy’s self-confidence increased as well. It would be hard not to feel pretty great about yourself when you’ve saved the world from destruction, beat up a god, and saved the world (and your mom!) all in a week or so. Ultimately, Percy’s greatest improvement came in the way he treated his disabilities. In the beginning, Percy defined himself by the disabilities, as if those were what people wanted to know about him first. By the end of his quest, Percy has learned to use his disabilities as gifts, and retrains himself to think of himself first as a hero, and no longer IS his disabilities.

Percy Jackson is the classic “Unlikely Hero.” These heroes have been around as long as books have been written, and Percy is a perfect modern example. He begins the story with plenty of loveable qualities and some ugly negative ones, and throughout an almost epic challenge, improves the good and gets rid of the bad. It is the story all of us can relate to, being fairly normal and average ourselves, and as unlikely as anyone to be a hero. But because Percy was just a regular guy and showed that once he was thrown the challenge he could do it, then why can’t we? ||