Have you ever felt like someone’s puppet? Have you ever felt like they were controlling every move you make? In the Poe story “The Pit and the Pendulum” a person get sentenced to a prison where he encounters many difficulties while there. The modern story The House of Hades, by Rick Riordan, a group of half bloods cross paths with a goddess who can change reality; some of the group falls into her trap and become part of her game. Both of these stories show the central idea that being under someone’s control is difficult but can be overcome; this is seen in their plots, settings, and conflicts. The first way the central idea is shown is through the plots of the stories. In “The Pit and the Pendulum” a criminal is taken and held in a prison. When he…show more content… He stumbles and passes out, when he wakes there is food waiting for him and he eats it, knocking himself out again. When he wakes again he finishes the perimeter and tries to walk across the room only to fall again and save himself from falling into a pit. A rock ends up getting thrown down the pit; “For many seconds I hearkened to its reverberations as it dashed against the sides of the chasm in its descent; at length, there was a sullen plunge into water, succeeded by loud echoes,” (Poe 9). The story goes on to have the man get strapped to a board as a giant pendulum with a blade on the end swings back and forth over his body. To get out of this he uses meat to trick rats into chewing away at the straps holding him. At the end of the story, a French general rescues the criminal. Rick Riordan’s The House of Hades tells the tale of heroic demigods trying to save their friends from Tartarus. Along their way, two demigods get cut off from the rest and meet a goddess who can bend reality. When they cross her path, she starts to build a maze around them; she controls every move the kids make. There are walls in