Lore

Lore’s character arc comes full circle here. In earlier chapters, Lore admits she never killed Wrath because doing so would make her ascend, something she didn’t want. With Wrath dead and the raging sea fire, Lore recognizes killing Athena and ascending is her only option to save New York and those she loves. Lore achieves her epic destiny and, in a moment of irony, kleos. One of Athena’s roles is protector of cities. Throughout the book, Lore refers to New York as “her city,” each time foreshadowing for what she becomes—Athena reborn and the city’s protector. Much like Athena, Lore does what must be done, showing the similarities between them.

Athena is the last of the original Olympians, and her death ends an era. She accepts her death because she knows, as a protector, it is the only way to save New York and because she has lived long enough to realize she isn’t her original self anymore. Athena sided with Wrath because she wanted to be believed in. His plan spoke to her desire to have people pray to her again, but once she realized Wrath never intended to include her, she understood the world had moved on and that she couldn’t force it to change.

Wrath introduces two weapons of ancient Greece—one real and one mythological. Sea fire (also known as liquid fire or Greek fire) was invented by the Byzantine Empire in the 7th Century and, once ignited, spreads when it touches water. Wrath used Tidebringer to bring the wave in Chapter 39 in order to make the entire city susceptible to the sea fire. Hydra poison comes from the blood of the hydra, a nine-headed sea serpent of Greek mythology. In modern-day, hydra is a genus of fresh water creatures with multiple tentacles, which suggests either that hydra still exist or that these creatures are the hydra’s descendants within the world of the Agon.