post from 2021 09 30

my thoughts on the depiction of Washington, D.C. in The Titan's Curse (the third book in the first Percy Jackson series)

(with help, especially on the stuff in Virginia)

I’ve been re-reading the Percy Jackson series. I haven’t read it since I was a kid, so this is my first time reading it actually with some knowledge of the places that Percy travels. It’s a little weird but also kind of neat! Anyway, it’s fun to see what Rick got right (and wrong).

They enter DC from the north: main group is in a van and Percy is on a Pegasus. They are coming from New York via New Jersey and Maryland.

Screenshot of the text of the Titan's Curse that reads: Fortunately, the van began to slow down. It crossed the Potomac River into central Washington. I started thinking about air patrols and missiles and stuff like that. I didn't know exactly how all those defenses worked, and wasn't sure if pegasi even showed up on your typical military radar, but I didn't want to find out by getting shot out of the sky. 'Set me down there,' I told Blackjack. 'That's close enough.' Blackjack was so tired he didn't complain. He dropped toward the Washington Monument and set me on the grass.

While the fear of DC’s strict airspace regulations is extremely reasonable and accurate, it is extremely unlikely that they crossed the Potomac to enter the district. Chances are, they crossed the Anacostia.

Map of central DC: there is a route mapped that comes from the northeast and goes across the Anacostia River into DC. The Potomac River is to the west

(The end of the mapped route from NYC to the Washington Monument, where they stop.) [A/N: No I am not doxxing myself with the markers on the map. Yes, I have at some point in time lived in D.C., but none of the markers are for anywhere I currently reside or anything similar.]

Screenshot of the text of the Titan's Curse that reads: getting out. Grover pointed toward one of the big buildings lining the Mall. Thalia nodded

They immediately go from the monument to the Air and Space museum. The distance from the Washington Monument to the Air and Space museum is about a mile; notably, you can’t see the Air and Space museum from the monument, so Grover would have struggled to point at it.

Map of the national mall. It is a mile long, and you can see the Air and Space Museum on the eastern end with the Museum of Natural History in the middle.

(The Washington monument is on the far left.)

While a mile is not an unreasonable walk for a group of demigods, they could have easily just parked on the other side of the mall (by the capitol building) and been right next to it. That also would have made sense because they would have been coming from the east, having just crossed the Anacostia when entering the city. Unless Zoë just decided to go the long way around and enter DC from the west! That would explain a lot of this. OR she got confused about the road signs and ended up going all the way around the Beltway accidentally which would actually also be pretty realistic.

Anyway, at this point the main group heads to the Air and Space museum while Percy goes to the National Museum of Natural History (great museum, btw).

Screenshot of the text of the Titan's Curse that reads: Finally, Grover stopped in front of a big building that said NATIONAL AIR AND SPACE MUSEUM. The Smithsonian! I'd been here a million years ago with my mom, but everything had looked much bigger then. Thalia checked the door. It was open, but there weren't many people going in. Too cold, and school was out of session. They slipped inside. Dr. Thorn hesitated. I wasn't sure why, but he didn't go into the museum. He turned and headed across the Mall. I made a split-second decision and followed him. Thorn crossed the street and climbed the steps of the Museum of Natural History. There was a big sign on the door. At first I thought it said CLOSED FOR PIRATE EVENT. Then I realized PIRATE must be PRIVATE.

The Air and Space and Natural History museums are about half a mile from each other, and the Air and Space museum is significantly further east. If they are coming from the Washington monument, they would have reached the Natural History museum halfway to the Air and Space museum. Again, while half a mile is not particularly far for a half-blood to run quickly, these museums are not right across the mall from each other (like Rick makes it sound). I also think it’s pretty unlikely that any Smithsonian would close for a private event, especially during normal business hours, but I guess this is evil Titan shit so maybe forgivable.

Okay: inside the museum. (Disclaimer: this museum has been renovated in the time between the writing of this book and my visiting it, so some of my commentary might not be accurate.)

Screenshot of the text of the Titan's Curse that reads: I followed Dr. Thorn inside, through a chamber full of mastodons and dinosaur skeletons. There were voices up ahead

If Percy is entering from the mall-facing side of the museum, the fossil hall should be across the building from him. So it’s a little weird that there’s mastodons there. However, the later description of a round room with a balcony ringing the second level is (I think) very accurate; that’s what the main rotunda looks like (there’s also an elephant in there, which you’d think Percy might have mentioned). There is a big pit of soil in the ground (in the book) which definitely is just for the sake of plot and does not normally exist. Maybe that’s where the elephant normally is.

After this, Percy books it out of the Natural History museum and back to the Air and Space. Again, Rick acts like they’re right across from each other when they’re about half a mile apart. Maybe Percy is just so speedy that half a mile feels like just crossing the mall! It’s possible.

I don’t have commentary on the interior of the Air and Space museum as it is the worst Smithsonian and therefore I have not spent very much time there. They definitely do sell astronaut ice cream in their gift shop, though.

After this, they get back in the van and cross the Potomac again but this time it makes sense that they crossed the Potomac because they’re trying to go south. This brings us to what I feel is the most accurate depiction of DC you could possibly get:

Screenshot of the text of Titan's Curse that reads: Sometimes mortals can be worse than monsters. The helicopter kept coming, making a lot better time than we were through D.C. traffic.

Traffic? Mysterious low-flying military helicopters? Shitty people? Yeah.

That said, having crossed the Potomac, they would be in Virginia now and not DC. Still the DMV, though, so I’ll let it slide.

Next, they go south.

Screenshot of the text of Titan's Curse that reads: Zoe shot across two lanes of traffic and into a mall parking lot on the south bank of the river. We left the van and followed Bianca down some steps. 'Subway entrance,' Bianca said. 'Let's go south. Alexandria.' 'Anything,' Thalia agreed. We bought tickets and got through the turnstiles, looking behind us for any signs of pursuit. A few minutes later we were safely aboard a southbound train, riding away from D.C. As our train came above ground, we could see the helicopter circling the parking lot, but it didn't come after us.

Chances are, they crossed the Potomac using the Rochambeau bridge (which is right by the national mall), bringing them to Pentagon City. There’s a big (shopping) mall there as well as a subway station, and Zoë definitely could have swerved through two lanes to get to it. However, there is not a big parking lot by the metro; maybe there was in 2007 (when the book was written), but there isn’t now. There is also a possibility that they crossed further north on the Theodore Roosevelt bridge and the metro station they’re near is Rosslyn, but it seems less likely based on the description of the surrounding area.

Screenshot of the text of Titan's Curse that reads: 'We need to change trains,' I said. 'Next station.' Over the next half hour, all we thought about was getting away safely. We changed trains twice. I had no idea where we were going, but after a while we lost the helicopter.

Now we get into some funky stuff with WMATA and (presumably) VA regional rail. The blue and yellow metro lines definitely go down to Alexandria, and those lines do go aboveground pretty soon after Pentagon City. However, (to the best of our sleuthing anyhow) there isn’t a way to easily change to regional rail from the metro. You can in Crystal City or Alexandria, but you’d have to go into a different building – it wouldn’t just be quickly switching trains. And, their first train swap seems like it happens really quickly after the metro goes aboveground, so only a stop or two after they got on so … are they just switching from the blue to yellow lines? and ending up on a different train going exactly the same direction on the same tracks? Probably not very helpful for avoiding a malicious helicopter.

Maybe they did switch over the regional rail (or even Amtrak) in Alexandria and Percy just doesn’t linger on it because it feels inconsequential compared with everything else going on. They must have gotten on an actual train at some point, though, because they end up here:

Screenshot of the text of the Titan's Curse that reads: Unfortunately, when we got off the train we found ourselves at the end of the line, in an industrial area with nothing but warehouses and railway tracks. And snow. Lots of snow. It seemed much colder here. I was glad for my new lion's fur coat. We wandered through the railway yard, thinking there might be another passenger train somewhere, but there were just rows and rows of freight cars, most of which were covered in snow, like they hadn't moved in years.

Which definitely doesn’t sound like either of Franconia-Springfield or Huntington.

In conclusion: Does Rick get the details of DC geography correct? Definitely not. However, he extremely accurately captures the essence of DC: the feeling of being followed by military helicopters and mysterious black vans while also being stuck in traffic. Nice!

← okay, I'm ready to go back now