The Battle of the Labyrinth

The novel explores the nature of being a creature of myth, making divinity not just dependent on the faith of others, but also a matter of self-belief. Briares’s brothers faded away when they lost “their will to stay immortal” (123) and Briares’s pessimistic demeanor shows that he is close to a similar fate. However, Tyson’s belief in Briares as a hero proves crucial to Briares’s continued existence. Tyson’s encouragement becomes a turning point for Briares, who will eventually regain belief in himself and help in the fight.

Riordan bases Percy’s task and the immortals he meets at the Triple G Ranch on two parts of the myth of Hercules’s Labors. In one part of the myth, Eurytion and Orthus guard Geryon’s red cattle herd. Hercules steals the red cattle as his tenth labor, killing Eurytion and Orthus in the process. Hercules kills Geryon in the same way Percy eventually does—with an arrow through all three hearts at once. Riordan changes the myth, making Eurytion and Orthus the only ones who died in the original fight with Hercules. This slight change intensifies Eurytion’s resentment towards Geryon and leads him to disobey Geryon’s demand to fight Percy to the death. The second part of the myth Riordan uses is Hercules’s fifth labor, cleaning out King Augeas’s stables. Hercules uses his strength to redirect the river to wash away the mountains of poop. In the myth, Augeas betrays Hercules after the task; in the novel, Riordan gives this action to Geryon, who goes back on his promise to release Nico and the others to display Geryon’s greed and self-interest.

These chapters introduce the theme of environmental protection that runs through the rest of the book. Percy “remembered how Hercules had” cleaned the stables (149), but unlike Hercules, Percy chooses to clean in a way that creates less pollution in the surrounding environment. The horrible conditions Geryon’s animals live in upset the questers. The red cattle of Apollo are sacred creatures protected by “ancient laws” (142), but Geryon kills and sells the cattle for meat to feed the Titan army. Geryon also raises endangered creatures to sell their eggs; instead of growing their population so they are no longer endangered, he exploits their rare status to earn extra money. When Geryon dies, Eurytion agrees to “be nice to the animals” (160) so that the ranch can be a better environment for them.