Iris the Colorful is #14. Iris is the goddess of...nothing. She's not been named the official goddess of anything yet! But she practices with her rainbows in hopes of getting Zeus's attention so he can name her goddess of rainbows.
I like Iris quite a lot, except for a couple things. The first is her wings. She's got these cute pink wings, but they're "too delicate" to allow her to fly. Then what the fuck is their point? It's not like humans, which the immortals are obviously based on, have wings. There's literally no reason to give Iris wings she can't use. She's trying to make her rainbows solid enough that she can ride them and she could have easily had this plotline without useless wings on her back. She is often depicted with wings, but I think the authors could have figured out a way for her to have functional wings and still earn her goddess of rainbows title using the rainbow slides. The wings, by the way, should be gold, not pink. One of her epithets is "golden-winged."
The second issue I have with Iris is how much of a pushover she is when it comes to her best friend. Antheia is the goddess of wreaths. Apparently, they made a pact to not pursue the same boy ever, but Antheia always likes the same boys as Iris and declares it first, so Iris feels she has to back off. Yeah, no. That's not how you live your life. They finally discuss it and Antheia actually admits she waits to see who Iris is going to like next and then says she likes him first. Because she apparently trusts Iris to pick out good boys and she thinks she's incapable of that herself. What the fuck? Thankfully, they get this sorted and Iris is free to crush on Zephyr, who likes her back. Aphrodite hooks Antheia up with Boreas, though I think Iris would have helped with that eventually. She knew Boreas liked Antheia before Aphrodite did.
So the main plot of the book is that Iris almost hits Zeus with a rainbow, which leads to her being in his office right after the Four Winds tell him that Typhon escaped Tartarus. Zeus tells her to go get this pitcher from the Immortal Marketplace, but it turns out it was stolen goods and the proprietors of the store it was in returned it to the Goddess Styx. Yeah, that pitcher? It was stolen from Styx by Iris's sisters...the harpies. The harpy scene is both amusing and ultimately kind of useless. The whole plotline with the harpies and Iris being related to them could be removed and the book would still be good. I guess they were trying to flesh out her character more. I dunno.
Anyway, Iris ends up in the Underworld and manages to get the pitcher away from Styx and Gaia. Turns out Gaia is the one who set Typhon free. She's got a grudge against the Olympians, just like in the Rick Riordan books. (Random note: The next Rick Riordan books are about the Norse gods!)
Iris gets the pitcher back to Zeus and eventually there's a battle against Typhon. Iris saves the day by tricking the rather stupid Typhon into drinking the water from the pitcher. You can't lie after drinking it without being punished and he ends up being sucked into the pitcher after telling a lie. Zeus takes it to some secret volcano where Typhon will hopefully be trapped forever.
This one is really neat, aside from the little things I was annoyed by. It's nice to see a random character doing such a big world save. There are also some nice nods to actual myth, because Iris is married to Zephyr, and she does tote that pitcher around. I wish they'd done something with Arke, who in some myth versions was Iris's sister. She acted as the messenger for the Titans during the Titan War and Zeus took off her wings as punishment then tossed her into Tartarus. She could totally have been worked into the story.
The cover is cute, but I do have two complaints. First, Iris doesn't always have pink hair. Her hair changes to any color of the rainbow, sometimes all at once. How could the artist pass up an opportunity for rainbow hair? COME ON. Second, Antheia should be on there. She's as important as Zephyr. That rainbow should be connected to the ground and Antheia should be standing off to the side. Zephyr can still be hovering and it would work, too. I'm tired of not seeing these important characters. Homer. Ariadne. Daedalus. Now Antheia. ARGH.
Next up is Aphrodite the Fair, which is Eris and the "fairest" contest. Amusingly taking place WELL AFTER the Trojan War. Aphrodite and Ares trade off chapters, making him the second male character to get PoV chapters. Medusa's book 16 doesn't have different PoV chapters so I wonder if we'll ever get them again.
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