Percy Jackson Thirty Day Meme: Day 29

Day 29: Best Seaweed Brain moment

There's one thing that always makes me laugh because it's just so random.

It takes place in the second book of the Sea of Monsters. Percy, using his freakish Poseidon powers, has just rescued Annabeth from the Sirens, who in a fit of desperate curiosity decided that instead of putting earplugs in her ears like a normal person, she'd tie herself to the mast and listen to the Sirens song, because you only live once, right? Apparently the Sirens sing, like, truths about you, and that's part of the enchantment, and Annabeth wanted to hear what they had to say about her. So, surprise surprise, that went horribly awry, and Annabeth dived into the ocean to swim towards the Sirens, which is of course what happened in all the myths. Percy barely manages to save her by diving in after her and manipulating the ocean to keep her safe, and pulls her underwater where the sound is muffled and doesn't have any effect, and then brings her back to the ship.

Nothing Seaweed Brainy so far.

Then, when they're beyond the song of the Sirens, Annabeth starts to explain what it was that she heard, and that the Sirens had revealed to her that her fatal flaw (every hero has one) is hubris. The rest of the conversation goes like this:

Annabeth: My fatal flaw. That's what the Sirens showed me. My fatal flaw is hubris. 

Percy: That brown stuff they spread on veggie sandwiches?

Annabeth: No, Seaweed Brain. That's hummus. Hubris is worse. 

Percy: What could be worse than hummus?

Gotta say, that cracks me up.

Also, just for the record, Percy may not be totally book-smart, but he's definitely not incompetent. I just feel like people have this idea of Percy as this complete bonehead who stumbles head-first into every stupid situation, and the latter half of that is pretty true, but he's actually pretty smart. He just gets outshined all the time by having the smartest girlfriend at camp (although, during The Sea of Monsters, they aren't really together. Might as well be, though). He's got good instincts, good strategies, and he's very good at adapting - and my Conversations teacher M. Larrivee (qu'il repose en paix), would argue that the ability to adapt is true intelligence (that was one of the main things I took from that class, and it definitely isn't untrue).

But the hubris/hummus thing is still hilarious.