The Mark of the Haven

Author’s note: I am comparing and contrasting the series of Fablehaven and Mark of Athena. I want you to look at the descriptive language I used to compare these books.

The world is being torn apart as evil as the upper hand. In both Fablehaven, by Brandon Mull, and Mark of Athena, by Rick Riordan, evil is on the verge of defeating the heroes and taking control of the world. In Fablehaven the demons are about to open the Zzyzx, which is a demon prison, and let all the demons in it, loose to tear up the world. In Mark of Athena the heroes are going right into a horde of monsters which is almost suicidal and seems like a hopeless attempt to overcome Gaea, the villain. The similarities in these novels are hard to see since they have such different plots but the small things are what make them alike.

Evil is about to prevail in both of these novels. Heroes are about to fall, but neither of the books’ heroes lose hope. That is what makes up these books: the hope that they are filled with. The heroes know their missions are suicidal, but they do it anyways like in the Mark of Athena they had said “But unless you had a team fighting simultaneously on the Tartarus side, a team powerful enough to defeat a legion of monsters in their home territory”(539). What that had said was that the seven demi-gods had to face a whole legion of monsters in their home territory. In both, demons are taking over and the heroes stop them by going on missions. In Fablehaven they go on missions to get certain items to stop evil. In the Mark of Athena they all go on missions to get information which is also to stop evil. The heroes in both books are determined to prevail in the end.

Evil is not only about to win, but the entities cause hardships for the good. In Fablehaven many people die for their cause, but it does not go in vain. In the Mark of Athena the heroes lie to each other and sometimes don’t trust each other, because the villain is turning them against each other. Many people get hurt in both books but in both  their sorrow doesn’t go to waste. They get hurt, but they finish the job they came to do. That is what makes them heroes.

While these novels are similar, they also contrast in many ways. The Mark of Athena has the root of Greek mythology because it is about those stories only modernized. Fablehaven is more made up and not taken from ancient stories. Gods are a plentiful in the Mark of Athena  as it was the culture of those time periods, but in Fablehaven their culture isn’t important since gods don’t rule over their life in the story. Fablehaven has relics in it which have special powers while in the Mark of Athena the demi-gods ,which are half human, half god people, are the ones with the special powers.  The stories are very different in that sense.

These two novels might have the theme of fighting evil which makes them seem the same but the subtle differences are what make the stories contrast. The books also have the same heart in it because the heroes in both care about the world while evil does not. Determination is aplenty inside the forces of good, that is what makes these books the same.