The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS) will induct Nintendo composer and sound director Koji Kondo into its Hall of Fame at the 27th DICE Awards.
17.01.2024 - 06:09 / polygon.com / Percy Jackson
“We Take a Zebra to Vegas,” the sixth episode of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, is one that fans of the book series have been waiting for. Percy (Walker Scobell), Annabeth (Leah Jeffries), and Grover (Aryan Simhadri) make their way to Las Vegas and enter the infamous Lotus Hotel and Casino — where the fans have been hoping a specific favorite character might make an appearance, due to what they already know about this location from Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson novels.
[Ed. note: Slight spoilers ahead for the Percy Jackson books.]
Introduced in The Titan’s Curse, book three of the Percy Jackson series, Nico and Bianca di Angelo are at the Lotus Hotel and Casino at the same time as Percy and his friends, at least in the books’ canon. That’s why many fans have theorized that the di Angelo siblings might have cameos in this episode.
Nico and Bianca are mysterious siblings with an unknown parentage. Eventually, Percy and his friends learn that even though they look like preteens, Nico and Bianca were actually born in the 1930s, some 70 years before the events of The Titan’s Curse. They just spent decades of their lives in the Lotus Hotel and Casino, without realizing how much time had passed.
Nico goes on to become a major player throughout the Percy Jackson series and the Riordan books that follow. As for Bianca… let’s just say she doesn’t really appear much beyond the third book.
Short answer — no, they do not!
Long answer — while there are some children and teenagers also in the casino when Percy and his friends are there in “We Take a Zebra to Vegas,” the episode doesn’t focus on them or highlight them in any way. They just appear in the background.
But we do get to see one other important character: Hermes (as played by Lin-Manuel Miranda) has a long conversation with Percy and Annabeth. This is new to the series, since Hermes doesn’t make an appearance until the second Percy Jackson book, The Sea of Monsters. (Also, Grover runs into an old satyr friend named Augustus, who doesn’t have a book equivalent.)
All in all, this episode plays out very differently than its equivalent chapter in the books. In the first book of the Percy Jackson series, The Lightning Thief, Percy and his friends initially stumble upon the casino and fall victim to its gimmick: Designed by the lotus-eaters of mythology, who abandon everything else in life to eat narcotic, pleasure-giving lotus flowers, the casino similarly offers hedonistic indulgences so travelers never want to leave.
The trio gets swept up in the casino’s cool arcade games: Annabeth in particular spends a lot of time with some 3D city-builder simulation, which sounded like the coolest shit when I read the books at age 12. Percy doesn’t realize what’s
The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS) will induct Nintendo composer and sound director Koji Kondo into its Hall of Fame at the 27th DICE Awards.
Koji Kondo, the Nintendo composer and sound director best known for his work on The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros. series, will be inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences’ (AIAS) Hall of Fame during the 27th D.I.C.E. Awards.
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