Nico Di Angelo

Nico Di Angelo is first seen in The Titan's Curse, as an unclaimed demigod rescued by Percy, Annabeth,
Thalia, and Grover. At the end of the novel, it is revealed that Nico is a son of Hades. He appears in The
Titan's Curse, The Battle of the Labyrinth, The Last Olympian, The Son of Neptune, The Mark of Athena, The
House of Hades, The Blood of Olympus and The Hidden Oracle. The character Nico was named after one of
Riordan's former students.​[1]
Though he appears to be ten years old, in reality, he and his elder sister Bianca were born in the 1930s. After
Zeus killed their mother Maria, daughter of an Italian diplomat, whilst trying to kill the children, Hades wiped
their memories and places them in the Lotus Hotel, a place in Las Vegas where time stands still. He is a
native of ​Venice and can speak ​Italian​. Nico is initially depicted as cheerful and childish, with olive skin and
dark hair, and enjoys playing Mythomagic (a mythology-themed card game similar to ​Magic: The Gathering​).
He takes the death of Bianco very hard, becoming moody, secretive, and irritable. He becomes angry at
Percy, who swore to protect Bianca, but later forgives him. Afterwards, he lived in the Underworld with
Hades, where he becomes pale and shaggy-haired and begins wearing dark clothing. Nico, despite being
very powerful, is extremely lonely, much like his father. He makes nearby people uncomfortable, partially
due to his unnerving weapon of choice: a sword made of iron cooled in the Styx ("Stygian iron"), capable of
absorbing monsters' essences rather than banishing them to Tartarus. Until meeting Cupid in The House of
Hades, Nico also struggles hiding his homosexuality. During The Blood of Olympus, Nico, Reyna and Hedge
transport the Athena Parthenos to Camp Half-Blood. Between The Blood of Olympus and The Hidden Oracle,
he begins a relationship with Will Solace, a child of Apollo, after admitting to Percy that he had a crush on
him.
Nico's suggestion that Percy takes on the curse of Achilles and his work to convince Hades to fight in The
Last Olympian is crucial to the Olympians' success and earn him a short bout of fame. He is privy to the fact
that there were two camps, one Greek and one Roman, before The Lost Hero, making him an important
liaison between the two groups in the latter series. He brings his half sister Hazel back from the dead and
establishes her at Camp Jupiter. At the end of The Son of Neptune, Nico travels through Tartarus to find the
monstrous side of the Doors of Death, an experience which leaves him haunted and weak. In The Blood of
Olympus, he nearly dies several times while "shadow-traveling", which involves melting into shadows and
teleporting himself to different places. His sister whom he brought back from the dead, who goes by the
name Hazel Levesque, is the daughter of Hades' Roman identity Pluto.