In The Lightning Thief and Twilight, different experiences occur within both main characters Bella Swan and Percy Jackson. Both characters follow a path that will guide them into a new world. Bella and Percy are new to almost everything they discover within their new journey with the help of some close friends. Though from different mythologies, Twilight and The Lightning Thief share an archetypal pattern that requires a mentor’s guidance; as the protagonist becomes aware of a previously unknown parallel world, a mentor surfaces to escort along the path of knowledge and survival.
In Twilight, Bella Swan moves with her father to Forks, Washington. Bella is soon introduced to her present best friend Jacob Black (Taylor, Web). Bella is attending a new high school where she meets a strange boy named Edward Cullen. Both Swan and Cullen spark up a new relationship which leaves Black worried about Swan and what could possibly happen to her. Swan discovers that Cullen is a vampire and Black is a werewolf. Black warns Swan about the history of the vampires and how they are dangerous to her and other civilians.
In this case Jacob is the mentor to Bella because he will guide her and teach her about the parallel worlds of both vampires and werewolves. Bella needs to know this information because both worlds will possibly become apart of her life now and maybe forever. In The Lightning Thief, Percy Jackson has been sent off to a boarding school to protect him from a family secret that his father is Poseideon; Greek king of the land of Crete.
Percy ends up getting kicked out of his boarding school and his forced to be sent with his father where he discovers the new Greek mythology world he never knew of with the help of his best friends Grover and Annabeth. They are also apart of the Greek world as Grover is a satyr and Annabeth who is the daughter of Athena; who is the virgin goddess (Castelitto, Web). With the help of Grover and Annabeth, Percy will understand as to why he was chosen as the first demi-god and his purpose for being the chosen one. Both Bella and Percy have very much in common when it comes to the mythological world.
The both characters are becoming aware of their new unordinary surroundings. They are both new to everything they are about to discover. This is when the mentor’s guidance starts to come into effect with the knowledge stage. Bella and Percy start to notice all these things that the Greek gods/vampires are doing and their true innocence of not knowing what is going on starts to show through. Even though Bella is dealing with blood sucking creatures and Percy is dealing with Greek gods, they both represent the archetypal innocence.
Bella and Percy are very new and unfamiliar to what they see and the information that the guides have given to them. With Bella, she is aware of Edward’s condition but she decides to search up other signs that Edward is giving to her in order for her to finally believe and admit to herself that he is in fact a vampire. (Taylor, Web). Once she confronts him about his situation, he ends up revealing to Bella that the reason he avoided her on the first day was because of the scent of her blood and his temptation for her. With Percy, all these new changes happen at school one day when he started to notice that things he would touch would change.
When he was tossed a pen by one of his teachers and it turned into a sword. During that time, Percy ends up going back home with his mother and then finds himself awake in an infirmary at camp half-blood, where Grover tells him he is a demigod, meaning half mortal and half god (Riordan,Ch. 7). That’s the first time he truly finds out about the Greek gods and his father being the king of them all. Although both characters have their mentor’s guidance to help them uncover some information, they are still yet undone discovering the secrets to their worlds.
Like everyone, Percy and Bella go through obstacles in life in trials that were very much complicated by: both characters are on the hunt to find out what it is that everyone knows about but they don’t. For example, everyone knows the latest gossip about someone and you don’t, so you do all this research and digging until you find out what it is everyone knew about. Same thing goes for Bella and Percy, they do all this digging and searching for the vampires and the Greek gods. After all of that, this is where the mentors come into play.
Percy and Bella need that guidance to help them with surviving with these different creatures. For Bella, that would be Jacob. He’s the one who knows about the Vampires because Bella later finds out that Jacob is a werewolf (Taylor, Web). While with Percy, his best friends Grover and Annabeth are the ones who will help him through all of this because Grover is a satyr and Annabeth is the goddess of wisdom, meaning they are apart of the Greek world (Castelitto, Web). In Twilight, once Bella finds out about Edward and he’s told her himself, this is when the mentor’s guidance of survival comes into play.
Jacob and Edward are not trying to harm Bella in anyway but simply trying to protect her. One of the main things that Bella noticed that she knew Edward was not going to harm her was when she was nearly ran over by a classmate’s van and Edward swarmed in and pushed the van with his bare hands (Taylor, Web). After realizing that Edward will not hurt her, she finds comfort in him. Jacob tries to still warn Bella that she needs to be careful because Edward may not be like that, but it does not mean that the others won’t be.
While in the Lightning Thief, After figuring out that he his a demigod and that his father is Poseidon, he decides that he is going to go all over Los Angeles with his best friends Grover and Annabeth and try to find more people like him to get some insight and really understand how and why he is half mortal and half god. This is when the survival stage comes in for Percy. Both of his friends are there to help him understand that he has the powers not most of these creatures do and he needs to be careful as to who he uses these powers on. The guides not only are there for Bella and Percy as friends, but they re there to make sure they are okay in every situation that they may encounter. Knowledge and survival is one of the main things the guides are providing for the Bella and Percy. Another way they help Percy is; Grover and Annabeth provide both knowledge and survival skills by helping him understand that he is the half human half demigod.
They also help him understand that he needs to be familiar with all the different Greek gods that he will become to know. One thing that they really help him realize is that he is known as the “God of The Sea”, “Father of Horses”, etc. nd Percy needs to be able to understand what he is capable of doing. With Bella, Jacob provides his knowledge and survival by basically telling her that all the vampires are bad and that she needs to stay away from all of them. Another way Jacob helps her is by letting Bella know all the Cullen’s background information and how they became vampires. Throughout the whole process, Jacob continues to tell Bella to stay away but she does not. Now that Bella and Percy are aware of everything they need to know, this is when they are finally able to experience these things on their own.
Hanging around the Cullen’s leads Bella into some serious trouble. Sure the Cullen’s may be the nice ones, but that does not mean that there are not any bad ones around. Bella ends up finding herself in a conflict when these three vampires try to come and get her. In the end Jacob and Edward are there to rescue and save her from what could have ended really badly. For Percy, his best friends help him go on this adventure but just like Bella, he gets himself into a battle. As they are traveling and searching for different demigods, they run across the Furies attacking them.
They are a group of Greek people who were targeting Percy. As for Percy and his friends, they are able to defeat them and complete their mission. Along the way they meet a ton of people who are like them and he discovers a whole new world that Percy wish he had known all along. In the end, both characters are going to be similar in sharing the humanity of innocence. As for Percy and Bella, they will always be very different but will always have that common background when it comes to the archetypal pattern of the mentor’s guidance and having that knowledge of the parallel world.
