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one of the seven basic plots that charts the life of a human being from the limited awareness of childhood to the discerning perception of adulthood.
    The Rags to Riches story is also designed to show us the importance of learning through experience. It shows us the early days of life when no one in the story sees clearly; how this permits us to be easily ruled by others; how cruelty and abuse rule through ignorance; how trying to see clearly becomes a threat to this domination and in what way, by passing through various grueling tests in which a near death occurs. Throughout all this, new powers of maturity are gained, self-mastery acquired, and a “happy ending” is defined as one in which everyone has begun to see more clearly than ever before. And as Booker points out, when people can see properly, they can move ahead and gain confidence and prosperity.
    By contrast, this plot also shows how the great and fatal flaw of the dark figures in the story is always a kind of persistent or peculiar blindness, a distortion of vision, brought on by self-centeredness—that very trait that defines infancy and early childhood. The title itself tells us that the preoccupation in The Lightning Thief is with vision: Someone has stolen light—the very thing needed to see clearly! And the culprit? A god, of course. A god of war. A god of domination and darkness.

    In this sense, we understand that the dark figures of the story are those who never grow up, who never see clearly and wholly, who remain blind and self-centered.

The Five Stages of Growth
    The Rags to Riches plot generally progresses through five stages intended not only to chart the human journey but also the journey of that most rebellious of human traits: consciousness.

Stage 1: Initial wretchedness at home and the “Call”
    Here we meet the young neglected hero and see the world he inhabits, a world of scorn and abuse (think of the Dursleys in Harry Potter). The importance of this stage is not just to show how things began but to draw attention to the difference between the hero/heroine and the darker figures around him or her—in Percy’s case his stepfather, his math teacher Mrs. Dodds, the nastiest girl in school who torments him and Grover, and the school system itself. Note that in mythological terms, the lowly hero/heroine is also the “diamond in the rough,” that which is overlooked and treated with contempt for appearing to be plain and inferior.
    Yet what is significant here is that while the dark figures in the story rarely change at all, the hero also does not change as much as characters in other story types . . . and that’s because the Rags to Riches hero already possesses the traits that will one day make him or her exceptional . These traits are simply buried inside him, more or less invisible to the people around the hero, and to the hero as well.
    The other crucial aspect of this stage is that we see the downside of not seeing clearly, of being in a state of limited awareness: Percy buys into society’s labels (believing himself to be a loser and trouble-maker); he is exploited by his scumbag stepfather (he feels he has no power); he thinks there is something wrong with him, that he’s bad

    (everything keeps going wrong); and he doesn’t know what is going on or who people really are (he does not have the special knowledge or maturity he needs to “see” the bigger picture).

Stage 2: Out into the world, initial success
    This is a kind of “dream stage” when almost everything goes right at last, in contrast to the next stage, though it also gives the hero time to start developing some of the skills he’ll need later on. In Star Wars, Luke learns how to use the Force from Obi-Wan Kenobi. In The Lightning Thief , Percy Jackson arrives at Camp Half-Blood and begins his training. Like all “orphans” in Rags to Riches stories, he is also trying to find out who he is and