The Percy Jackson Season 2 Finale Made A Huge Change From The Books
We're really in uncharted territory now.
Spoiler alert: This post discusses the Season 2 finale of Percy Jackson and the Olympians.
The Disney+ adaptation of Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson novels has made a lot of changes from the books — like, a lot. But nobody could have predicted Season 2’s finale altering a key character’s backstory. The altered ending sets up some unexpected twists in Season 3.
In the Percy Jackson books, Zeus’ daughter Thalia is lethally wounded on the border of Camp Half-Blood. To save her life, Zeus turned his daughter into a pine tree. Up until the show’s second season finale, this all seemed to be unchanged. However, as Percy, Annabeth, and the rest of camp revived Thalia with the Golden Fleece, Chiron revealed that the demigod was not actually injured at all — but was turned into a tree as punishment from Zeus for her refusal to fight Kronos at his side.
This critical change to Thalia’s story removes her sacrifice from the books, and adds a darker, vengeful layer to Zeus’ personality. It also makes Thalia much more of a wildcard ahead of Season 3, which will heavily feature the newly revived demigod.
While Walker Scobell was surprised by the change, he doesn’t see it as anything radical enough to alter the core story.
“Oh, I was — I mean, it just makes sense,” Scobell told TheWrap. “I think it’s those kind of twists that I love, and I think it’s one of those things that as a book reader, I see that and I’m not like, ‘Oh, that changes everything!’ Because it does change everything, but it’s not one of those things that is vital to the story. It just makes it a lot — I’m looking for a different word than dramatic, but it kind of just ramps it up for Season 3.”
Percy Jackson has already been renewed for its third season, which will adapt The Titan’s Curse. It’s slated to premiere later in 2026.
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