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join me on another dive into deep percy jackson lore
today we will be discussing the question, “what happens if demigods have kids with each other?”
(tagging my good friend @rickriordan in hopes of finally getting answers)
today we will be discussing the question, “what happens if demigods have kids with each other?”
(tagging my good friend @rickriordan in hopes of finally getting answers)
the books state multiple times that demigods have shorter lifespans and one could infer that this means they may not live to reproductive age. but let’s take our protagonists percy & annabeth. they’re arguably the strongest half-bloods out there and probably lived then average
it is also very likely that demigods would be having children with other half-bloods rather than humans (factoring in time at camp half blood, sharing life-threatening experiences that imitate the effects of being in love, not to mention just understanding each other)
but this begs the question: what the heck happens to their children? are their kids also demigods, making the parents somehow also siblings with their children? if so, is one god’s heritability stronger than another’s? or are their kids full gods of two olympian lineages?
i put my handy dandy biology degree to good use making this punnet square. godliness is shown to be incompletely dominant (offspring with only one copy of the gene are an intermediate between their two parents) with demigods being distinct from both humans & gods.
as you can see, there is a 50% chance that their child would be a demigod. we can assume that if annabeth gives her godly genome and percy his human one, their child would be a demigod through athena (and through poseidon if percy gave his godly genome)
there’s also a 25% chance of being a regular human, which just kinda sucks for that kid.
but what really troubles me is the 25% chance of being what i’ve dubbed a “super god” with godly genomes from two different olympians. the child could just be a full-blown new god. yikes
but what really troubles me is the 25% chance of being what i’ve dubbed a “super god” with godly genomes from two different olympians. the child could just be a full-blown new god. yikes
further, if a super god child was born, which olympian’s powers would they inherit? or would they be further incompletely dominant where the child has powers over something that is somehow the average of the two god’s domains? (a child able to control both of their godly parents’
domains would be showing codominance, when godliness has been shown to be passed through incomplete dominance which gives an intermediate phenotype). i can’t even imagine an intermediate between the sea & knowledge (in the case of a percabeth child) so let’s move on from this.
another fate for our “super god” child is a case where double dominance is actually deadly and the offspring would not be born alive (it could lead to an unviable zygote that fails to thrive, or a fetus spontaneously aborting depending on when godly genes come into play).
in my mind this is the most likely scenario since i just really can’t imagine two half-bloods being granted the power to create a whole new god. just doesn’t really seem like zeus would vibe with that.
if this is the case, it increases the chance of a living demigod child to 67%
if this is the case, it increases the chance of a living demigod child to 67%
and this is just assuming the most simple mendelian genetics. we haven’t even addressed potential crossover in which one parent passes on a mixed set with both godly and human genes. to take it a step further, this would imply that some children would be “more godly” than others
(ie, inheriting a crossed genome with more genes from the godly parent than the human one). so what the heck is up with that?? i know that some of these are questions we have yet to answer for human genetics, but i am asking them regardless. give us answers @rickriordan
this thread has been brought to you by my biology degree, rekindled obsession with childhood interests, and the fact that i didn’t take my second dose of meds today. i’d like to thank jeff and brian for teaching me about genetics & molecular bio
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/end
i’m driving and i had to pull over to tweet another idea
i can’t believe i entirely ignored the possibility that it could be like breeding mules. the parents are different species but similar enough to produce offspring, but the offspring is sterile due to odd chromosome numbers
i can’t believe i entirely ignored the possibility that it could be like breeding mules. the parents are different species but similar enough to produce offspring, but the offspring is sterile due to odd chromosome numbers
are demigods the mules of the greek mythological world?? and even more, are humans and gods the same species? are gods humans with certain combinations of alleles that grant them powers? or are gods another species entirely??
