Did you notice something? Something, like, BIG. Like, OMGs-THE-SON-OF-NEPTUNE’S-FIRST-CHAPTER-CAME-OUT-ON-THE-OFFICIAL-WEBSITE big? Oh well, the first chapter of the Son of Neptune just came out. And so did the cover. And boy, have I got a cover analysis for YOU.

Let’s start with the main piece. That would be Percy. Or presumably Percy seing as the guy has the first PoV of the book, dude on the cover is coming out of water that must be freezing cold, he is a ‘son of Neptune’ and he seems to be holding a magical item that is probably not his. But it could be another Son of Neptune with the beautiful ability to get his paws on god items that aren’t his; or another demigod period. I have another friend who thinks its Leo! But I’m going to go ahead, assume he is and call him Percy because it helps my brain not-grill, and it's him or his brother, so...

Which brings me to the magic item in question. What is it? Well; it is a staff with an eagle. I bet most of you guys zeroed in on ‘eagle= Zeus, Zeus=Percy’s certain death OMG PERCY DROP THE FREAKING STAFF!’

Well you’re right. It is possibly Zeus’ staff (enforced seeing as there’s a bunch of lightning going around the eagle), but guess who wields it? His second in command… Athena. Only she can handle it during war and peace. The key word in this is ‘war’. The gods need that staff to command during wartime, and for those who are reading this either really fast, half-awake, or are just confused; we’ve got a war coming our way. A guess here? Zeus lost his staff or it got stolen or something like that. And guess who is possibly sent to fix that again? That’s right; Percy Jackson.
Whether he’s going because he feels like getting into Lupa/Zeus (PFFF)/the roman campers’ good book, or maybe he’s being bated, is another story. In this case, I think I may know what’s baiting him. The only person he still remembers. Annabeth. (aww…. Hey! This means no Roman girl! (depending on to what extent Percy remembers her)) Hera could bait him to go on this quest with his memories, or with Annabeth. The later would be harder seeing as I’m sure Annabeth puts up a better fight than Percy’s memories and that she won’t let Hera get within 5 feet of her. But isn’t that a sweet idea? Or maybe Annabeth got kidnapped by Gaia D: But she’s not on the cover, so it’s all good. He might also be getting forced to. Maybe they figure ‘we need you on this trip, so you will come whether you like it or not or you die’. Maybe he’s going for his memories (although that is very much déjà vue). The possibilities are endless! Either way, the guy’s getting a quest.

There are other things that the staff can be. The eagle is a symbol of the Roman Empire like it is to America (this also means that the eagle on Jason’s tattoo might not only refer to his parentage, but also to Rome in general). We already know there’s some form of a government system at Camp Caesar Salad; Jason told Porphyrion that he is a consul (which is right under emperor in terms of power in Ancient Rome). What if there are consuls and an emperor, and the staff disappeared with Jason?
Or it might, yet again, be Jupiter’s staff but Jason had it for some reason and when Hera took him Gaea got her filthy paws on it. What if, what if, what if… Either way, those are my ideas about the staff.

Okay, so we’ve covered the main piece, now what about his surroundings? Well; piece of genius here, I greatly doubt Percy is in California.
He’s somewhere with huge glaciers, ice chunks floating in water (it could be natural or someone did something to destroy the edge of ice, like global warming).
So obviously, Percy has traveled quite a bit (I’ve been walking around all day going ‘why is he in Alaska!’ because it’s the only place I can think of). Where do I think he is? I think he’s in Alaska. No; don’t look at me that way, I’ll explain.
Zeus’ staff is really not supposed to be where it is, right? (not with Zeus or Athena, earth not Olympus, icy place, in Percy’s hands…) Someone stole it, or Zeus has a real weird way to hide out his weapons. Let’s go with the first idea. Khione stole it. She has it at her pad. Percy and 2 romans that we have yet to meet must travel there and retrieve it. Well, it would obviously be in a snowy place, right? The toundra is pretty snowy.

If she stays in Canada like her dad, Khione’s palace might be in one of the Canadian territories; Yukon, Nunavut or the North-West territories, or maybe a private island in the Arctic circle. But I still like Alaska for 3 reasons.
1)    Alaska is a beautiful place on earth, look at the pictures I found! Gods like beautiful places or gods create beautiful things.
2)    Keep looking at the pictures I found, and you’ll see that the two places actually look the same, except the cover looks more isolated and more into winter.
3)    I know RR has already been to Alaska and the places demigods visit in his books are often places he’s been to himself. It was actually a cruise, which fits in with the idea of going by air or sea (fyi, I know this because it was on his blog, so for all of you people who are like ‘how does she know?’…).


So that explains the scenery and the staff. But not quite…

There’s a temple, crumbling behind Percy in the background. That’s another thing that leads to the ‘probably Percy right there’ conclusion. What did he do? That’s not what I’m interested in. What I’m interested in is why in Hades there is a temple on a snowy cliff. It’s even the same color as the ice and snowy glacier, which to me spells out ‘Khione’s palace’. Maybe she does have her own place to stay, away from most gods like she always was, but she gets lonely and hangs out at dad’s place (or she just stays there because she’s too lazy to lug her ice statues there). Maybe she had to get a pad built after she openly yelled out ‘DAMN YOU OLYMPUS!’ The idea that the staff has spent some quality time in Khione’s bachelorette pad makes sense not only because of the picture, but because of the second part of the picture. Notice the icicles hanging off the eagle? It spells out ‘winter’ which spells out ‘Khione’ which spells out ‘trouble’ which spells ‘Percy is SO probably there!’
That’s my favourite theory and here is the next.

Ever heard of the lost city of Atlantis? That’s a Greek myth too. This place was heaven on earth. But the people were vain and prideful and downright mean. So the gods stroke them down and sunk the whole city. Hey, they don’t do things halfway, do they? Gaea brought back baddy after baddy; her next step is cities and peoples (which works out well seeing as the Romans defeated a bunch of those, which just gives our crouton friends more trouble). Maybe to avoid detection, the city was brought to a domain where Khione could protect it, so snow, snow, snow. And my guess is, a whole city of prideful, mean, vain and rich people against Olympus wouldn’t be good. They would sure like for a little demigod to come around and bash it down. Maybe that’s what’s happening in the background.

Also, Poseidon and Khione have history according to link

That history's name is Eumolpos, and let's just say she's about as good of a mother as Hera (thankfully Poseidon's got the parenting thing a bit nailed down). Do I think we'll see Percy's most-likely-creepy half-brother? No. Khione seems a little too young and bratty to actually have a child, but she and Poseidon might have flirted a little (then Poseidon ran away for dear life becuase that is one CREEPY person). Either way, just thought I'd mention that variant of mythology.

Oh, another thing I’d like to bring up even if it has nothing to do with it; Percy is wearing clothing that is strikingly similar to Logan Lerman’s costume. Check it out, BAM:



So there you have it folks, my first Son of Neptune theory article that has some chances at being valid. Is anything in it actually valid? RR knows! And until we do, I’ll be writing more articles. You have been warned; ciao, brush your teeth, eat your vegetables, go green and theorise in the next 126 days!