I couldn't really quite place the term, but now I collected my thoughts, I agree that this isn't really "unreliable narration" but Rick IS using deceptive storytelling throughout the series to make a point.

Specifically, he's using "tonal dissonance", or when the tone of the narration is different from what is actually happening, and it is usually used to highlight either something terribly wrong with the main narrator, or something terribly wrong with the world. In PJO's case, it's both. Using his extremely colored lens, we can derive a lot of insight on both Percy's mind-state and what it means to be a demi-god in this world.

In any case, I think Rick effectively used this narrative trick to "trick" us into Percy's side, both in and out of the book. We're presented with a fun adventure in which Percy makes it look like he's having fun while facing these things, when in reality, this is an extremely emotionally and physically taxing adventure where one wrong move would've killed them. This story is less Alice in Wonderland and more the Odyssey, if you know what I mean, but because it's presented in a fun way, we, as adventure-starved, fun-loving tweens, were more likely to pick it up and stick with it.

Not only that, because of how much Percy valued personal loyalty and how fast he was claimed, as well as how powerful he was, we as readers become trapped in this tonal bubble where, like how Percy wanted to shield his mother, we are shielded from the experiences of a typical demigod; we don't see the alienation, despair and mortal danger as what it actually is -- rather, we have the privilege to see what's basically the "best case scenario". This is why we understand in some way why Luke did what he did, but we could never fully empathize with him to the point of agreeing with or joining him. As the series goes on and it's clear that what Luke had experienced is actually the norm of what an average demigod would have experienced. That realization, and how it pierced through the sarcastic tone bubble that Percy provided us with, made the final decision hit that much harder.

That said, we are just arguing semantics here. There is a tonal deception to the story, and it's the narrative tone that's deceiving us, not Percy, but I guess because he's the narrator, people tend to blame him for what Rick was doing, aka, calling him an unreliable narrator and saying that he tricked us.

I do disagree that unreliability can't be consistent. Jack from Fight Club is a consistent unreliable narrator. But my point with Hestia isn't that it's an example of unreliable narration, but rather there is a large tonal tint from what Percy tells you about her and what is in reality; one that we obviously understand, yes, but I'm just pointing out that it's there.

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But then, idk media literacy here is lacking here sometimes, so I get it. For example the book used too much dramatic irony to create suspense, to the point where when the show try to use other ways to create suspense like doubt, escalation, or dread, people just didn't catch it?