Rick Riordan: From “You’re Racist” to “Broaden Representation”

Television

After Percy Jackson author Rick Riordan came out and called his fans “racist” for saying that Annabeth Chase is a white, blonde female, it turns out that he, in fact, had more to say on the matter! Variety released a new interview with Rick in which he talks about Leah Sava Jeffries, the new “Annabeth Chase.”

“Leah impressed me from the moment I met her. She has that sort of steel that makes her a leader, but there’s a bit of vulnerability to her.” He adds, “Now, again, does she look like Annabeth looks in the books? No. Was that important to me? No. If anything, it was a massive benefit to broaden the cast in terms of representation.”

Isn’t it a bit ironic that he knew Leah looked nothing like Annabeth’s descriptions in the book yet still gaslighted his fans and called them “racist?”

Additionally, Becky Riordan, Rick’s wife, has said that Annabeth couldn’t be white back in 2002 due to “default publishing.” Yes, that’s right; Becky is trying to blame the publishing company for not allowing Annabeth to be white, even though it was never suggested otherwise OR ever mentioned that she could be black until the casting of Leah.

In other PJ news, there have been more casting photos released of various characters, one of which is the late Lance Reddick, portraying Zeus… which, again, the character was race-swapped. Click here to view more photos of the cast. For all Percy Jackson news, be sure to click here.