We’re beginning our coverage early with Percy Jackson and the Olympians coming to Disney+ in a few months. One post essential to the series’s debut season is introducing the Gorgon Medusa.
Her only appearance in the Percy Jackson books is in The Lightning Thief. Medusa runs Auntie Em’s Garden Gnome Emporium, a roadside store that “creates” life-like statues. Percy, Annabeth and Grover run into her when they’re on their quest to find Zeus’ missing lightning bolt.
Medusa was once a priestess for Annabeth’s mother, Athena. She also had two sisters, Stheno and Euryale. Percy’s father, Poseidon, constantly tried to one-up his niece (she’s Zeus’ daughter) and was upset that the goddess turned a woman he was chasing, Koroneis, into a raven (on her request).
Poseidon then decided to get back at Athena by going after one of her priestesses. Stheno and Euryale warned Medusa against the god. She ignored them and entered a relationship with him. When Athena discovered the relationship, she cursed the girl to be forever a Gorgon, a creature that can turn people to stone by looking at them.
Euryale and Stheno were also cursed. However, they could not turn people to stone.
In the present day, Medusa turns Grover’s uncle to stone and has him on display. She also targets Percy because of her relationship with his father, with whom she had two sons: the winged stallion Pegasus and Chrysaor.
Who Has Played Medusa?
In the Lightning Thief film, Medusa was played by Uma Thurman. In the upcoming Percy Jackson and the Olympians series on Disney+, she will be portrayed by The Flash‘s Jessica Parker Kennedy. The character does appear in the Lightning Thief musical, but it is unknown who plays her.
