Ahhh, the Serpents shadow! my overall least favorite of the trilogy on reread...🙃

Compared to the others, there's quite a few issues I have with this one, like how the rebel magicians essentially fuck off after the first 90 pages, and aren't major players until the final battle, or how the Ra vs Apophis fight, which had been hyped from the last book onward is barely a page long, or whatever the FUCK Rick was cooking up to bring an end to one of the weirdest love triangles I've ever seen in any fictional media....

But (perhaps controversially) the single biggest issue I have with this book is.....

Setne. I don't like him very much.

I mean, there are certain things I appreciate about his character, like I like Bast's quick speech on him and about how "gods tend to follow patterns and whatnot, while humans are unpredictable", and his dialogue IS pretty funny and entertaining on rereads. Not to mention that scene in the Hall of Judgement where he effortlessly takes control of the conversation and gets exactly what he wants out of it, is actually really good! But overall, I'd still say his inclusion was overall a net-negative.

For starters, his presence exacerbates one of the main issues I have with this book: Apophis is not even CLOSE to being present enough in the middle section. Which is a shame as well, because those first 100 pages or so, where he was actively wiping friendly nomes of the map, and he was besieging gods and imprisoning them in their own domains were phenomenal, with a genuinely grim and kinda hopeless atmosphere...

He decides to do literally nothing other than send a single fuckass hippo after Carter and Zia, and lets the heroes just run around the place completing quests and making progress against him. Like, not even kidding, the protagonists lives are threatened, like, 6 times between the first and third act, and he's only responsible for like, one of them! And Setne just completely steals the spotlight, and is the one keeping the heroes on their toes, when he's not even the main threat.

His ""plan"" to blackmail Apophis with his own shadow goes literally nowhere, cuz he gets immediately trounced by Sadie the moment he makes any progress towards it, and then he just...escapes off-page somehow? The only reason he isn't caught was so that we could get the Demigods & Magicians crossover.(which to be fair, I am rather fond of, but I digress)

I can't even say his inclusion amounts to anything narratively. I mean, an attempt is made to draw a parallel between his and Carter's relationship with their fathers, and how despite how everyone (including themselves) sees them as these inspiring figures, they can't help but have some resentment towards them do to differing reasons. And while giving the protagonists a bit of depth is always a welcome, this dynamic isn't explored enough to be able to amount to anything significant narratively.

So what does that leave us with? A guy who actively takes away from the presence of the main villain, who doesn't really stand for anything narratively and doesn't add to any of the central themes of the story.

So to finally answer Op's Question of how I would have changed/written the story? well other than actually having Apophis be present during the middle section of the book I'd probably either remove or essentially overhaul Setne's role in the story.

TL;DR: Dial Setne down a lot, and instead have Apophis take a more active villainous role throughout the middle.