‘Percy Jackson and The Olympians’ Casting Choices Continue to be Great—Just Look at Hephaestus

After its fourth episode, the plot of Percy Jackson and The Olympians has started to progress beyond worldbuilding—which means that more and more well-known figures from Greek mythology are going to make their appearance as Walker Scobll’s Percy, Leah Jeffries’ Annabeth and Aryan Simhadri’s Grover continue with their quest to retrieve Zeus’s stolen lightning bolt.

So far, we’ve mostly encountered mythical creatures and monsters alongside our favorite demigods-and-satyr trio—from Jessica Parker Kennedy’s Medusa to Glynn Turman’s Chiron, from Suzanne Cryer as Echidna, the Mother of Monsters, to Megan Mullally as the Fury Alecto. 

We actually saw only two of the Olympian gods, and both of them very briefly—one was Dionysus, played by Jason Mantzoukas, who is currently acting as the director of Camp Half-Blood as punishment from Zeus. The other is Hermes, the messenger of the gods, played by Lin-Manuel Miranda, whom we saw deliver the severed head of Medusa that Percy and Annabeth shipped to Olympus.

Still, the gods and goddesses of the Greek pantheon obviously play a major part in the story besides being the very absent parents of the demigods at Camp Half-Blood—which means that a good chunk of them are going to make an appearance in future episodes. 

We know that Percy’s dad, Poseidon, is eventually going to have to show his face—be still my Black Sails and Toby Stephens-loving heart—as well as Ares, god of war, played by Adam Copeland aka Edge, who actually is set to be the main event of the show’s fifth episode.

Those who are already familiar with the plot of The Lightning Thief, though, know that those are not the only gods who will appear during Percy’s quest. According to the casting news, one god that our heroes will have to contend with is Hephaestus, god of the forge, who is going to be played by Timothy Omundson of Judging Amy, Psych, and Galavant fame. So let’s have a refresher on who Hephaestus actually is.

Who is Hephaestus in Greek mythology?

One of the few children that Zeus had with his wife Hera—as opposed to those born out of his countless not-always-consensual dalliances with goddesses, nymphs, mortal women, and everything in between—Hephaestus is the god of the forge and of blacksmiths, artisans, carpenters, craftsmen, fire and volcanoes, engineering, sculpture, and metalworking.

It was believed that his workshops were located deep inside volcanoes—especially Mount Etna in Sicily—and that those volcanoes erupting were a sign of Hephaestus and his team of cyclops being hard at work on their forges. Hephaestus is famously the one who helps create Zeus’s thunderbolts, but he’s also the hand behind a wide variety of objects in Greek mythology, from Apollo and Artemis’s arrows to Achilles’s famous suit of armor described in the Iliad. He also created Pandora, the first woman according to Greek mythos, and her box containing all the evils of the world.

Hephaestus has always been depicted as a disabled man—with sources debating on whether his disability was a result of his mother Hera throwing him off of Olympus as an infant or whether he had been born disabled—and he possesses incredible strength and very sharp wit. He used that wit and his engineering skills to get back at his mother, trapping her on a golden throne, and reveal his wife Aphrodite’s affair with her lover Ares, catching them both in an indestructible net. As a result of the affair being discovered, Hephaestus abandons Olympus and establishes his residence inside Mount Etna, something that sets him somewhat apart from his fellow Olympians.

Who is Hephaestus in Percy Jackson?

*** Watch out for spoilers for the upcoming episodes of Percy Jackson and The Olympians based on The Lightning Thief.***

Variety reports that, according to his official character description, Timothy Omundson’s Hephaestus “became disabled when he was thrown off Mount Olympus as a babe. Despite that, his strength is legendary, and his capacity for kindness and mercy sets him apart from his brothers and sisters in the dog-eat-dog world of the gods”.

He never appears in The Lightning Thief, even though his work already causes some troubles for our trio—Percy and Annabeth get trapped in a net Hephaestus laid out to catch Aphrodite and Ares while at a water park near Denver, and their embarrassment is broadcast live on Olympus via Hephaestus TV. The first time Hephaestus is fully on the page is in The Battle of the Labyrinth, the fourth book of the Percy Jackson and The Olympians series.

Still, considering that Omundson was cast for season one of the Percy Jackson and The Olympians show and that pictures of him in his full Hephaestus costume have already been released, we can expect him to make an appearance. Maybe he will indeed appear during the whole water park situation, rather than let his inventions sort of speak for him.

(featured image: ABC)