The Son of Neptune

Hazel begins the novel filled with a heavy sense of guilt. She feels guilty for being alive, being at Camp Jupiter, and being on a quest to save Thanatos. Some of her guilt is relieved when she finally confesses to Percy and Frank the truth about her background. Even with her confession, her guilt is still driven by the fact that she helped Gaea raise Alcyoneus in the summer of 1941. While Hazel did rebury Alcyoneus when she finally understood that Gaea was possessing her mother, she still feels a great deal of shame for what she did. Her shame is so deep that she fights for her mother’s right to a sense of peace in the Underworld, instead of the punishment she was to receive in the afterlife for assisting Gaea. As a compromise and to sate her own guilt, Hazel secures herself and her mother a place in the Fields of Asphodel. They are sentenced to an eternity of wandering alone, even though Hazel’s own fate was to go to Elysium, a paradise for demigods. Even when her friends compliment Hazel on her bravery for standing up to Gaea alone, she does not fully release her guilt until she is finally able to kill Alcyoneus once and for all.