67 pages • 2 hours read
Rick RiordanThe Lightning Thief
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2005A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 7-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary: “Dinner Goes up in Smoke”
Annabeth finishes Percy’s tour and takes him back to the cabins. Feeling overwhelmed from the toilet incident, Percy says he wants to go home. Annabeth tells him he is home and that Camp Half-Blood is the only safe place for kids like them: half-god kids. Annabeth is the daughter of Athena (goddess of wisdom and battle), and Percy’s not “determined” status means he doesn’t know who his god parent is. The only way he’ll find out is if his father claims him with a sign, and depending on who Percy’s father is, he may have to stay at Camp Half-Blood all the time (what Annabeth calls being a “year-rounder”). If his dad is a powerful god, it might be “too dangerous to leave” because Percy will attract monsters in the mortal world (95).
Percy asks Annabeth about the summer solstice deadline he overheard Chiron and Grover discussing. She guesses something was stolen, but she doesn’t know what. She thought Percy, as a newcomer, would have information and figured she could work with him so long as he wasn’t the son of Ares or Poseidon, two gods Athena has feuds with.
Later that night, Percy joins the rest of camp for dinner. Before eating, every camper offers a bit of food to the gods by tossing it in the fire. After dinner, the entire camp participates in a sing-along. For the first time since arriving, Percy feels like he’s home, but the feeling doesn’t last long. Percy ends the chapter by saying he wished he’d “known how briefly I would get to enjoy my new home” (106).
Chapter 8 Summary: “We Capture a Flag”
The next several days become a routine of classes and outdoor activities. Percy sees Grover for the first time since arriving at camp. They discuss the cabins, and Grover demystifies the empty cabins. Two are honorary and belong to Artemis and Hera. The other three are for the “Big Three,” the “sons of Kronos” (113): Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades. After World War II, the Big Three swore on the River Styx not to have any more children because their offspring were too powerful, and except for one slip by Zeus, they haven’t. Percy asks about Zeus’s daughter, but Grover says nothing more.
That night, Percy participates in his first game of Capture the Flag. After Annabeth’s declaration about wanting him on her team, he runs to ask her what his job is, and she shrugs him off. Out in the woods, Percy hears a noise like a dog growling, but before he can investigate, Clarisse and her buddies from cabin five surround and attack him. One boy pushes Percy into the river, and Percy feels the water “wake up my senses” (121). Clarisse and her friends jump in to attack, but this time, Percy defeats them easily. While he’s fighting, Luke crosses the game border with Ares’s flag, winning the game. Percy climbs out of the stream and instantly loses his energy. He hears the dog growl again. It’s a hell hound, which Chiron kills just as it attacks Percy. An injured Percy goes back in the water, which heals his wounds. An image of a trident appears above his head, and Chiron announces Percy is “Son of the Sea God” Poseidon (126).
Chapter 9 Summary: “I Am Offered a Quest”
The next day, Percy moves into cabin three (Poseidon’s cabin). Though no one says anything to him directly, he senses people are talking about how much danger he brings to the camp. The only way the hell hound (one of Hades’s monsters) could have gotten into the forest was if someone from inside camp summoned it.
One morning, Percy meets with Chiron, who tells Percy “your father and Zeus are having their worst quarrel in centuries” (134). Zeus believes Percy stole his lightning bolt on behalf of Poseidon. He demands the bolt be returned by the summer solstice or else there will be war.
Percy consults the oracle about his quest, and the oracle gives him a prophesy. Percy will travel west to confront a turncoat god, find what was stolen, be betrayed by a friend, and “fail to save what matters most, in the end” (141). The god in the west is Hades. Percy must journey to the Underworld to retrieve Zeus’s bolt, and he only has 10 days to complete his quest.
Chapters 7-9 Analysis
Poseidon claims Percy in Chapter 8. Though Percy now knows who his father is, the knowledge doesn’t make his life at camp any better. After starting to feel like he belonged, Percy learns he is a forbidden child and moves into a cabin by himself. Not only does his father’s identity take him away from the other campers, but it also puts up a hypothetical wall between him and the other kids. Percy both belongs (as a demigod) and doesn’t belong (as a forbidden son of Poseidon) at camp. It’s not until Percy accepts his identity that he feels home at Camp Half-Blood again.
These chapters reveal more information about the book’s main plotline. The meaning of the summer solstice deadline becomes clear, putting an urgency on subsequent chapters. The current feud between Poseidon and Zeus shows how gods are not so different from humans. While they are immortal, they still fall victim to human emotions—anger, among others. Percy’s dream in Chapter 3 foreshadowed this meeting. Zeus’s appearance as the golden eagle represents Zeus’s dominion over the sky, and now that Zeus has accused Percy of stealing the bolt, the sky is unsafe territory.
The prophesy in Chapter 9 represents events that take place throughout the rest of the book. Prophesies are riddles and can be difficult to decipher. Percy’s interpretations are only partially correct, and they therefore cause problems with Ares and Luke in later chapters. Percy correctly identifies his mother as the thing he’ll fail to save, but the god in the west is Ares, not Hades, and Percy only finds out Luke is the betrayer just before Luke flees Camp Half-Blood.
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By Rick Riordan
