The Lightning Thief Themes

The Lightning Thief introduces readers to 12-year-old Percy Jackson. Percy is a troubled kid—he wants to be good and do well in school, but he struggles with dyslexia and ADHD, and he has a knack for getting into major trouble at every opportunity. Percy’s sixth-grade year is shaping up to be much the same as previous years—except that once summer vacation starts, Percy discovers why he has such a hard time in school: he’s…

Family is a somewhat difficult subject for Percy and his demigod friends, as well as for the actual gods in the story. Every character, no matter how divine or mortal they might be, has a difficult relationship with at least one family member: Percy hates his stepdad, Smelly Gabe, and he resents his father at times; his friend Annabeth has a rocky relationship with her dad and stepmom; and the sibling relationships between the…

Though The Lightning Thief by its very nature concerns gods, Riordan nevertheless goes to great lengths to humanize (and add a humorous aspect to) every god, goddess, and mythical being in the novel. From Medusa’s roadside fast food restaurant and sculpture garden to Dionysus’s obvious displeasure at being forced to run Camp Half-Blood and remain sober, all the gods and monsters read as distinctly human—just with magical abilities and a great deal of…