The Burning Maze

Meg is the 12-year-old daughter of Demeter (the goddess of agriculture and grain) and Phillip McCaffrey, a botanist and descendent of the ancient Greek king Plemnaeus, whom Demeter favored. Apollo describes Meg as “small for her age,” with a fondness for “stoplight-colored clothes” (3). She wears rhinestone-studded cat-eye classes that she often fails to clean, causing Apollo to wonder how she can see through them. Her magical object consists of two rings that can turn into scimitars.

Meg experienced trauma in her childhood. She has never met her mother, and when she was five years old, she had to flee with her father when their idyllic home burned down, leaving behind the many plants they had nurtured together. When she was six, Nero, the Roman emperor-turned-god, killed her father in anger and blamed Meg for his death, claiming that she had provoked “the beast.” Nero then adopted her, keeping her under his tight control by threatening her not to force “the beast” to make an appearance. As a consequence of her upbringing, Meg has difficulty sharing her memories and experiences. Rather than telling Apollo her memories of Aeithales, she grants him direct access to her mind. Like Apollo, Meg is a complex character, and she slowly grows to care for him.

Meg has power over plants and seeds and can enable them to grow rapidly. By using her power to make plants grow, Meg repeatedly saves the day. Her escape from the maze with Grover and Apollo at the start of the novel is only possible because she creates massive growth of plants that form a barrier between them and the killer strixes. She also inflicts the pandai with hay fever to stop them from killing her. Most significantly, she plants the seeds that grow into the formidable ancient ash trees, the Meliai, whose intervention enables the heroes to escape the maze at the end of the novel.

Jason is the son of the Roman god Jupiter and a mortal television star named Beryl Grace. He has sky blue eyes and blond hair. When he was two years old, Beryl abandoned him to Hera as a gesture of peace and later died in a car accident. By the age of 16, Jason had risen in the ranks at Camp Jupiter, but Hera wiped his memory and sent him to Camp Half-Blood. Across his experiences in the Heroes of Olympus series, Jason develops a dual sense of identity, connecting to both the Greek and Roman camps. His girlfriend during the series is the Greek demigod, Piper McLean.

Although he is a central protagonist and complex character in the Heroes of Olympus series, Jason is a secondary character in The Burning Maze. Even so, he plays a crucial role. Through Jason’s example, Apollo deepens his respect for and appreciation of being human. Jason fulfills the archetype of the hero when he sacrifices his life to save his former girlfriend, Piper. Apollo seeks him out because he believes that Jason holds key information about how to stop Caligula. Jason initially hides this information because he does not want Piper to know about the Oracle’s warning. Herophile told him that if he and Piper were to face Caligula, one of them would die. He wants Piper to be safe, so he accepts the prophecy and embraces death himself. His willingness to put Piper first stands as a sobering lesson for Apollo: one that he promises to remember and live up to.

Like Jason, Piper is a central protagonist and complex character in the Heroes of Olympus, and she becomes a secondary character in The Burning Maze. In the former series, she is the daughter of Greek goddess Aphrodite and Cherokee movie star Tristan McLean. Piper is initially ambivalent about and resistant to being the daughter of the goddess of love, but she grows to respect and appreciate her powers of charmspeak (the ability to use her voice to persuade and enchant others). Her magical object is Katoptris, a dagger that once belonged to Helen of Troy.

Her role in The Burning Maze is to serve as a foil for Jason. The two are no longer in a romantic relationship but remain friends. They previously traveled into the maze together but became separated. Jason then heard the prophecy alone and kept its details from Piper. Now, Piper does not want Jason to sacrifice himself for her, but she also acknowledges that she would sacrifice herself for him. Ultimately, she does not get the chance, and at the end of the novel, she grieves his loss and asking Apollo to escort his body back to Camp Jupiter for a hero’s funeral.