Percy Jackson and the knightly virtues

Compose a character study of a favorite character (from any contemporary book, movie, or TV show) as seen through the seven knightly virtues. Your reader response essay should describe what the chosen character does throughout the course of the movie/story that indicates how he or she demonstrates at least three of these virtues. The essay should describe the sacrifices the character makes in order to remain true to these ideals, and how the knightly virtues are central to the conflict of the story line.

The contemporary code of chivalry has 7 aspects: Courage, justice, mercy, generosity, faith, nobility and hope. I'm going to focus on courage, hope and justice.

The first book of the Percy Jackson series is Percy Jackson and the lightning thief.

 Percy Jackson is obviously brave- even when he's absolutely terrified, he's willing to stand and fight, even without any previous training. This is shown when he fights Mrs. Dodds in the first chapter, and again, even more prominently, when he fights the Minotaur- without any weapons, even- to defend his unconscious friend.

He also has to be extremely brave to accept the quest to find Zeus's lightning bolt, which leads into the idea of his sense of justice. While his justifications lie in simply wanting to clear his name and bring back his mother, he is still going on a quest to locate and return something stolen. The quest is extremely dangerous and it would have made more sense to take a less dangerous quest at a later time.

Despite this, Percy's sense of justice- he has been falsely accused, and something important has been stolen- outweighs this, and his bravery combines with this to encourage him on his quest. He is shown to break some rules, however, this mostly seems to occur when there is a clear and present danger to others- such as the Chimera at the St. Luis Arch.

It should be pointed out that there is a parallel between Zeus and Percy in this book: Something central to Zeus's power and identity has been stolen, and Percy's mother, who is central to Percy's sense of self and life over all,  was kidnapped. Percy goes on the quest more out of a desire to free his mother, but the parallel still exists.

On the surface, Percy is extremely pessimistic and sarcastic. Deeper down, though, there is a sense of hope- he never gives up on the thought of bringing his mother back from the dead, even with the lack of a successful precedent. So even if he is pessimistic regarding his chances of passing a math test, he holds out hope for the things that do matter.

Percy is an unconventional display of the knight's virtues, but nonetheless they are present and the subversion to the expectations regarding his actions and character make the series an engaging read,