In Defense of Silena Beauregard

After listening to the Q&A portion of this week’s episode (162), I’m once again reminded of my feelings around Silena and some of the criticism around her.

The way I always read the situation between her and Luke was that she was groomed and threatened by him to become the spy during the Titan war. In The Last Olympian, she describes it as having had a crush on Luke “before”, which I always took to mean before he left camp. Knowing that she’s about the same age as Percy, this would have put her as 12 or 13 at the time, when Luke was 19. The fandom often talks about this dynamic between Luke and Annabeth - why don’t we extend the same to Silena? It’s a very serious issue, and I don’t think it’s talked about enough.

As someone who was around the age Silena would’ve been when interacting with Luke when I first read these books, I find it unkind at the very least to see the flippant way that this background information is disregarded. I’m not saying it shouldn’t be brought up, or that she should be completely excused of her actions, but maybe the conversation deserves a little more grace and perspective.