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Rick Riordan, 2005, Auntie Em characterized as Medusa in The Lightning Thief: Percy Jackson, The Olympians, Book 1 (New York, Hyperion Books), young adult novel, Chapter 11 'We Visit the Garden Gnome Emporium', pp. 168-87.

Mythologically, Perseus wears the special cap that allows him invisibility and talaria (the famous winged sandals). Athena, who helps most heroes in classical myth, advises Perseus that by using a shield's reflective surface, he can avoid the gorgon's petrifying gaze. Riordan's hero, Percy, is assisted by the clever Annabeth (Athena's daughter) who advises he use the reflective surface of a "garden gazing globe" to avoid Auntie Em's gaze.

Narrative Gain: Riordan updates the classical narrative. Percy is unlikely to find the convex reflective surface of a shield anywhere at hand; but a roadside garden statuary shop is likely to have just such an implement as Annabeth finds for him. Riordan's narrative obscures the functional details of familiar narratives throughout the Percy Jackson series. Here, too, his reader is given clues — Auntie Em's name [read Auntie M for Medusa], the petrified cement statuary all over the shop, etc. etc. — so as to keep the juvenile reader connected to the mystery unfolding.

Note that in the image at left, a still from Chris Columbus' cinematic adaptation of the Riordan book, Uma Thurman plays Auntie Em and uses an iPhone to convey the image of her assailant. Importantly, the heroic assailant looks directly at the victim in this moment and she is deprived of direct gaze upon him. Chris Columbus adapted the Riordan novel in the film Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010), screenplay by Craig Titley. [photo from IMDB courtesy of Fox Film Corp] Things play out a little differently in the cinematic adaptation. One key difference is the film's showing the fateful moment of the decapitation from the spectator's POV. Medusa stands stone-still gazing at the reflection of Percy approaching in the moment before her own decapitation. The script really climaxed in Medusa's statement "Son of Poseidon, I used to date your Daddy." [YouTube link: https://youtu.be/K-Y4q2m9OFE] Percy's ingenious use of the shiny back of an iPhone is more than just gratuitous product placement. Ownership of the gratuitous product placement — one-upping Riordan — belongs perhaps to Columbus, perhaps to Titley. But it's certainly part of the cinematic adaptation and not Riordan's doing.

Analysis of Riordan's adaptation should deal with the text that Riordan wrote. That adaptation of the Medusa/Perseus myth is distinct from Columbus' cinematic adaptation of Riordan's text. Without passing judgment on the relative merits of either — each is very clever —adaptation of Perseus/Medusa, the present post strives merely to document my belief that analysis should distinguish between Riordan's gazing-ball and Columbus' iPhone as adaptations of the shield Perseus traditionally uses to survive.