HOUSE OF CARDS. percy jackson & olympians

House of Cards / Play the Cards Right

I guess humans like to watch a little destruction. Sand castles, houses of cards, that's where they begin. Their great skills is their capacity to escalate.

Markus Zusak / The Book Thief

HOUSE OF CARDS!
( ❝ don't call me twinkle toes. ❞ )
PLAY THE CARDS RIGHT!
( ❝ i mean, if the shoe fits ... ❞ )

━━━━━ WHEN THE GREEKS BUILT, they built to last. They built for the ages — for the end of time. They built temples for the gods, and the gods were everlasting. The gods would see the world to the end. So why shouldn't the Greeks construct anything with the intent for it to last?

But nothing lasts forever. Everything eventually becomes ruins; anything can turn into just a glimpse into the past. It's all just a moment in time — blink and you'll miss it. That's how it was — no matter what the Greeks wanted. They wanted to believe they could best fate, they believed they could withstand it all. Call it hope, call it hubris.

Maybe it was both. But time will always move on, and so will the gods. The gods will outlive anything and everything. They will have to watch the temples built in their names crumble into ruins, watch until those ruins eventually just become dust, carried away by the wind.

Genevieve Archer (but please just call her Genna; Genevieve was so overly-formal) had become okay with that fact. That she would eventually die, and probably not be a name worth remembering. In fact, she longed for the days of death (but she's not saying she's going out looking for an early death, don't think that) — just no more monsters, no more having to deal with her annoying siblings, either. And especially no more days of waiting for the façade — the house of cards — she lived to finally come crumbling down.

She wasn't necessarily living a lie, per sé — she was just lying. (Which she did often, Genna has always been good at lying; just tell someone what they want to hear.) Perhaps the house of cards she was living was the fear of it all finally unraveling; her lies, her past (besides that one fight she had no recollection of, but that she knew got booted her out of California), her anger, her resentment. Especially her resentment.

Genna Archer is the human embodiment of bottled-up emotions. She's been through a lot, and has always been the one person in her own corner. She was the one building a place for herself, whether it was her old bedroom back in California, or her little bunk in Cabin Eleven. She had been the one building the wall of the character she played for others.