Grover Percy Jackson: Grover Underwood, the Satyr Best Friend

Grover Underwood is a satyr and Percy Jackson's friend, and he is one of the three friends who anchor both Percy Jackson films. Brandon T. Jackson plays him and is billed second in the cast of both The Lightning Thief (2010), directed by Chris Columbus, and Sea of Monsters (2013), directed by Thor Freudenthal. The credits also list a Young Grover. The character comes from Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson novels, which the films adapt.

Is Grover a faun or a satyr? The films call him a satyr, and Percy learns it at Camp Half-Blood, in the same scene where he finds out that Mr. Brunner is the centaur Chiron.

Grover's role is easy to state. In The Lightning Thief he and Mr. Brunner help Percy fight off a Fury at a museum, and then Grover flees with Percy toward Camp Half-Blood. If you are introducing a younger viewer to the series, Grover is the friend who makes the odd new world feel less lonely. Both films carry a PG rating in the US.

The Disney+ series Percy Jackson and the Olympians is a separate television adaptation, so the actor details here apply to the two films only.

Grover's most important relationship is his friendship with Percy, and the films show it through what he does more than what he says. Percy is a teenager with dyslexia and ADHD, and Grover is one of the two people who help him fight off the Fury before they flee together. Percy then sets out on his first quest with Grover and Annabeth. For more on the hero, see the percy jackson character page.

Annabeth Chase joins the pair at camp, and the three of them make the core team in both films. They work as an ensemble rather than as a hero with sidekicks.

Mr. Brunner, who is revealed as Chiron, is the adult who stands with Grover and Percy at the museum, and the Chiron Percy Jackson page covers that side of camp. Luke Castellan first appears as an older camper who supplies the group in The Lightning Thief. In Sea of Monsters his allies kidnap Grover, which turns a former ally into a direct threat to him. Sea of Monsters also adds Clarisse Percy Jackson and Tyson Percy Jackson to the circle around him.

In my opinion, Grover's best moment is the museum fight in The Lightning Thief, when he and Mr. Brunner help Percy beat back the Fury. It shows that Grover is on Percy's side from the start, and it makes the later flight from the Minotaur feel earned rather than sudden.

A second favorite is the long road trip stretch, where Grover, Percy and Annabeth go from Medusa to the Hydra to the Lotus Casino. It could be argued that the Lotus Casino sequence is the film's liveliest set piece, and Grover is one of the trio at the center of it.

In Sea of Monsters the standout is the cab ride in Washington, D.C., where the Graeae throw the group out, because it is the moment the sequel stops being a camp story and becomes a chase. Grover's kidnapping right after gives the quest real stakes. In the first film Grover mostly stays beside Percy, while the sequel pulls him into the center of the plot, and in my view that is the more interesting use of the character.