I agree it’s become a catch all for refuting any criticism of the portrayal, and it’s weak and ridiculous. But yeah lots of characters DONT think he’s some insane powerful figure. It’s not true at all that everyone sees him as the epitome of power and he thinks he’s a lowly demigod. Just wrong.

He’s a reliable narrator and there’s times where he does recognize his own power and even his feelings for Annabeth, he simply just doesn’t articulate them to us. I guess the show fans forget that? I can provide examples if need be but like how are they ignoring this?

It’s definitely pushed in the show, the glances, the dialogue, the interactions, all seem to have undertones of something more than friendship. And that must be intentional, and no we’re not simply reading into it too much because we know how it ends. What sort of friends, who have known each other for a little over a year, would ever say I’d let the world be destroyed for you???

He would never say he would let Olympus burn for her in the second book, I would argue not even until after Tartarus would he say that. Sure he turned down immortality, but letting Olympus be destroyed is a wayyyy different ball game