Greek Mythology in Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief Rick Riordan's "Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief" focuses on Greek mythology and interprets it in a children's story . Throughout the story there are many references and adaptations to mythological tales, and each is represented differently. Riordan writes this story as if Hercules, Zeus, and Poseidon were still around today, and this would be the effect they would have on people these days. Percy Jackson is the main character of this story, who is a demigod, who mortals are after. His name is short for Perseus and his father is one of the three great gods, Poseidon. He suffers from dyslexia and ADHD, which could be deliberately added to the character by Riordan, to show that he is destined to be a hero and not do well in school. This shows that school is not what he is good at, and he is destined to be a hero and save people. The character Grover, who plays Percy's best friend, is paralleled by a Satyr who is human from the waist up and goat from the waist down. and is a companion of the god of wine, Dionysus, who we later learn is the director of Camp Half-Blood. As the reader, Grover is portrayed as a very concerned friend from the beginning, however, we know that he is more than that, and it is his job to protect Percy from whatever harm may befall him. Grover shows some signs of heroism himself, especially towards the end where he offers to sacrifice himself so that Percy can save his mother, (Riordan, 2005, p.316) “He may torture me to death, but he won't take me forever.” .' and as a reader, Grover may seem a little stupid and clumsy, but this makes us look at Grover with admiration and forces us to reconsider our opinions about Grover. The main mythological... middle of paper... ...you don't realize it until you analyze the text and look at it. I believe Riordan does this, because these are the places where today's Gods and Heroes would be found. In big cities, where children aspire to go, which makes the story much more relatable to audiences who don't know much about the myth and can't interpret the story, and also offers a modern perspective of the mythology. Overall, Riordan uses several mythological characters, to create a modern adaptation of the story of Perseus. Riordan does this in a way that a younger audience can understand and even relate to nowadays. The main point Riordan is trying to convey is the idea of ​​heroism and using children's imaginations to achieve it. However he doesn't just use Percy to be portrayed as the hero, he also uses Grover and Annabeth who both help Percy in his quest..