This post is about the 12 year old trio (well, 14 biologically and 28 chronologically in Grover's case) getting caught in Procrustes' store in TLT.
So, our heroes run into Procrustes' store after being chased by mortal teenage wannabe gangsters.
And they come to Procrustes' store where he's nice at first and then traps them in the waterbeds
He leads Annabeth to another bed and when she doesn't want to get on, he pushes her onto it and traps both Annabeth and Grover.
And then he wants to get Percy on a bed, and instead of simply grabbing him and putting him on one........he tries to convince Percy to lie down?
Why did Procrustes have to convince Percy to lie down? Why didn't he push him onto the bed? It was pretty obvious that he could, but for some reason, he stopped and tried to convince Percy.
What, you're telling me that he sat down to demonstrate for Percy, knowing that Percy could just snap his fingers and say ergo and bind him to the bed?
Is this because Percy was agreeable to him? What, did Procrustes not think that Percy might want to rescue his companions and might be lying? Because if so, Procrustes is dumb.
Percy might have rescued his friends, but his wits in this are diminished by the fact that the villain was dumbed down.
Percy wasn't smart. Rick had to dumb Procrustes down, which undermines both the antagonist and our protagonist's supposed smartness. It's frustrating to see people use this as an example-please don't.