Loose Canon: Aphrodite 

*laughs in Zeus*

Laughs in Alicibiades

As a History buff I can tell you this is exactly how the Peloponnesian War started. 😂

Sparta wasn't really a paradise for women. I mean if you were a citizen it was probably fine, but if you were a helot (like most people were) it was horrifically oppressive.

@@porsche911sbs atill better then Athens which is funnny to me because the spartans [refered 'god' is ares and Athens' God is "Athena" A woman

@@aaravos4371 For citizens, Sparta was better for women. For anyone else, Athens was probably better. Sparta was a horrible place to live if you were a helot.

@@porsche911sbs Yeah thats true

It was actually mourning lingerie: Xena had just killed her husband with his own hammer.

Bitch of Rome Entertainment Xenia’s mom did that.

@@CobaltContrast Bed Bath and Banishment carries some

Hello, fellow demigod.

love that series

Laura Evans hello fellow demigod! How’s camp half-blood?

Laura Evans Even Cupid is depicted as a dangerous entity, not a baby with chubby cheeks and diaper!

Sayak Choudhury, why wouldn't he be? Eros is the god of Desire. He wrecks more stuff than his mom. A lot more...

I know how you feel, I loved Aphrodite's depiction in PJO and HOO and it's a shame she (and pretty much everything in PJO) was butchered to hell.

I completely agree; Aphrodite is a really interesting goddess and PJO and HOO,.and the daughter you are talking about has one of my favorite stories, sad as it may be. I just wish the rights-holders would realize they are sitting on a goldmine and make the movies that should have been made in the first place.

The Percy Jackson movies don't exist. We don't walk about them.

Silena! Also, Piper in the Heroes of Olympus is so underrated!

Hopefully the Author's NEW Series doesn't get any movies.

"Socrates badgered passersby with both his smell and..." would've been too long

*Plato wrote what Socrates supposedly said There, that's better.

Socrates never actually wrote anything so all of his 'statements' were actually written by Plato or Xenophon in their 'dialogues' in which Socrates is a character. A common theory is that the parts where Socrates is asking questions and engaging in more back-and-forth are more authentically Socratic while the more emphatic 'here's how things are' parts are more Plato using Socrates as a mouthpiece for his own ideas.

Yep. Thought there was something wrong with what they were saying.

Sorry to add so after the fact, but Athena and Poseidon (the god who raped Medusa in most versions) were ancient, bitter rivals most of the time so that also factored into her treatment of Medusa.

And only Ovid actually has it be rape-it's consensual in other versions.

There’s a version of the story that Athena made her a gorgon so no man could hurt her again.

Trey Shipman That be a neat idea for a story.

+255ad *Ding!*

"NOT THAT STUPID SONG AGAIN! "

"The Loooove Goddess!"Did Lindsey see the old TV ads for The Loooove Boat"?

Really? I guess I can see that. I mean, it's no less cringe than when you dual wield blade-chuck's as icepicks to climb up a giant and then split it in half like it was made out of butter. It's so over the top I can't stop chuckling.

@@YayapLives Cringe isn't always "bad," cringe can be funny. Also you'd be surprised how many people take God of War very seriously.

I find it absolutely hilarious. The maidens are a whole fucking mood.

Yup. When my brothers and I first encountered it we were very conservative teenagers playing a borrowed copy of the game on a PS2 borrowed from the same person and...yeah, we were shocked to put it mildly :P

@@NIHIL_EGO The maidens where openly horny on main, which I respect.

In the manga she's definitely modeled more after the goddess than in the anime. The show toned down quite a bit of her pervasive sensuality, much as it did for all of the characters. Takeuchi-san very heavily drew influence for each of the characters from their Greek/Roman planetary counterparts and it's especially obvious in the manga.

Saw 68 likes had to buff it up to 69!

love and appreciate this a lot

I think it's because in media Athena is more well known and pretty much always portrayed as the wise motherly but strong warrior woman. The idea that she punished medusa for being raped kinda runs contrary to how Athena is usually depicted. Aphrodite, while popular isn't as well known and her attributes aren't as set in stone when it comes to her representation in pop culture. There are staples to be sure but with that tiny amount of obscurity comes an opportunity to take license with the myths.

+Stefan Filipovits From what I remember there was an earlier Greek version of the myth where Athena transformed Medusa not as a punishment, but so that she could defend herself against men. That version fits her character a lot better, I think.

+nutubesux I would not necessarily say it was earlier, but it was from the stories of the women, which do tend to make more sense with the characters of the goddesses, but were almost never recorded, which is why so many of the characters do things that don't seem to make sense.

I read only little about greek mythology, but as far as I know, there are very few interesting stories revolving around aphrodite. mostly because people back then had no idea what attraction is and what a godess of love is supposed to do. the more memorable women are always the ones that were so stunningly beautiful that they could influence the natural order of things-and aphrodite wasn't the only female with that characteristic. with our modern understanding of attraction, sex, love etc. we finally get to pin down what aphrodite was supposed to be. since her name is after all an important one and she's not one of the many girls Zeus had during his time, it's probably fine to cast her as the person that had interesting stories.

Athena turned Medusa into a monster because she was doing Poseidon in one of Athena's temples.

Tom Hadas both Aphrodite and apollo I get but I was really surprised by Hermes when I read the books

i think she’s talking about media in terms of television, movies, and video games, not books and novel. i don’t remember aphrodite coming up for a significant role in the shit movies so i doubt it would be significant for this discussion.

@@DaFireElf she's talked about books before sooooo

@@DaFireElf watch her wicked witch of the west video

She sort of fell apart once Heroes of Olympus started. Actually quite a few of the gods did but her transformation was the worst of it. There seemed to be some idea that Riordan had that once a god was the parent of a POV character they couldn't be absolutely vile people anymore. You see Ares/Mars with softer edges in Book 2, Hephestus as actively on the Half-Blood side instead of just generally neutral but Aphrodite got the worst of it. I can kind of see why but it doesn't make it better. In the first five books she was a physical embodiment of beauty and sexual desire. She looked like whatever the viewer was attracted to and her personality was derived from that idea. Once Piper was introduced though all the male characters see Piper's mom as sexy (including Piper's love interest) was something that they didn't want to touch with a seven foot pole so Aphrodite just kind of turned into "generally attractive but down to earth mom". Also as for Charm Speak, in the first five books only the children of Zeus, Poseidon, Hades and Demeter had active superpowers. Cause they were the only eldest gods that had children. All the lower teir god kids had powerful inclinations, Ares were strong fighters, Athena strategists and creatives, Hephstefus constructed things etc etc but no actual powers. Once Heroes of Olypmus happened Riordan decided that all the POVs needed major superpowers so suddenly all the minor gods had kids with "rare abilities that only manifested once in a generation". Leo the firestarter, Piper with Charmspeak, Frank with his animal abilities etc etc. It's kind of why I think Heroes of Olympus ruined the series. They made a bunch of additions to the lore to make the main characters more palatable and the end result was lore that was kind of generic and lame.

I was so excited Lindsay included her in this. I loved Aphrodite's character in Xena an unreasonable amount. The actress really did a superb job with what could have easily been a dud of a character. She was so charismatic and just generally likeable. Also, the fact that she got an actual arc with character growth really added to her position as my favorite representation of the goddess. While Sam Raimi is weird as hell and makes some very bizarre decisions, his characterization is top-notch. I loved how well he fleshed out all of the gods in both Hercules and Xena.

Alexandra Tydings always brought an adorable fun to the character. I liken it to how Chris Evans' Captain America has that genuine earnestness that is required for Captain America, her Goddess of Love was actually lovable.

Definitely.

I don't remember liking it too much honestly, but maybe I was too young to get the more clever commentary...Also, I was more interested in seeing adult Hercules doing heroic stuff.

Sperium3000 I actually watched it before seeing the film seeing as I had like 2 episodes on VHS. No joke,I still quote those episodes to this day because I found them so hilarious.

They made a lot of great nods to actual Greek Mythology too! One of my personal favorites would be the "Orpheus: Never Look Back" concert XD

It really is. Even the comic relief character wasn't that bad in context

me too! i thought she was soo hilarious!

Not that crazy , in elementary I remember not knowing how to approach the concept that someone can have different body parts but still be like me

It's not so crazy when you remember one myth states that all humans were basically male, until Pandora was created to deliberately cause humanity to fall (which was due to Prometheus tricking Zeus into selecting bones over meat as a sacrifice to the gods.)

It's strange that they didn't remember that they literally came out of a woman's vagina. It would've caused the complete chaos and collapse of their social structure to learn that all babies start out as females in the womb but some get male features because of the Y chromosome, hence why males still have nipples despite not having any use for them.

Funnily enough its a plot point in Larry Niven's Nearspace books. The Kzinti, this race of big, warlike feline aliens (Who, yes, were the inspiration for the Kilrathi from Wing Commander), are obsessed with what they called "The Heroic Ideal" where males should be big, strong warriors and females are submissive breeders, to the point that they used genetic engineering to reduce the intelligence of their females, so they are practically animals. As a result, when the Kzinti encounter human female military personnel and more to the point, get their asses handed to them by them, the only way they can reconcile this fact psychologically, is to consider human women to be a completely separate, but related alien species from human males.

@@weldonwin That's some pretty impressive mental gymnastic. I'm happy that people like that don't exists in reality ! Yes that was sarcasm (￣▽￣)"

fairycatLJT "She thinks Percy and Annabeth are cute together, but that doesn't mean she won't mess with them." gg aphrodite is your typical shipper

Aphrodite in those books is one of my least favorite depictions of her that I can think of off the top of my head.

@@TheOwlQueen May I ask why? Is it because she's just annoying and she fucks with everyone or....?

Sky Dome as someone who recently got into sims....you aren’t wrong

Sky Dome Ah, thanks! I play Sims 4 and 3! Mostly 4 because of expansion packs and Lilith Vatore, lol. What about you?

percy jackson was to harry potter what dc is to marvel

Even if I prefer Percy Jackson, even the BOOKS tried to use Harry Potter's success. I am actually reading Apollo's Trials and, errrrrr ... Actually it's the less good, because Apollo is so irritating, ho my god I hate him ... How do you want to love a character that say: "Errr, the black plauge isn't my fault, I was in holidays",. Percy Jackson and Heroes of Olympus had funny moments with what we call in my country dark humour, but, now, this is too much, really too much. Without speaking of the Twelve Years old kid that he must follows ... Seriously, where are Annabeth, Grover, Leo, Jason etc.... (Yes, I read only 100 pages, but I can't go forward)

@@AragornGhost15 Have you finished the series so far? The whole series is about how he's becoming less vain and understands what his children go through. Also the fact he's canonically bisexual is so satisfying, especially because in the myths he's done it with men MANY times.

@@helmetlesssolairedotpng4220PJO to Harry Potter is more like The Maze Runner is to The Hunger Games. Near identical plot points and tropes

Oddly enough Persephone shows up in the first Percy Jackson movie too. She's played by the always awesome Rosario Dawson.

+Stefan Filipovits And as much as I love her, when I saw her on a talk show talking about the movie I thought we might be in for some trouble. Considering Persephone isn't even in the Underworld at the time the book takes place.

Rosario Dawson played Calypso.

+Guitar Hero no she didn't, not in Percy Jackson anyway. The wiki and IMDb say Persephone which is in keeping with the myth. The new moneypenny played calypso in the POTC movies.

@@baguettegott3409 Oh yeah, it was one of the mainstay insults used by kids of the 90s here in America. Girls naturally reversed the lines and threw it right back.

+Henry T I am both proud and ashamed to admit that I am very familiar with this episode.

+Chez Lindsay I still think Chernabog and Maleficent made the cuter couple

+Henry T That show>>>>>>>>>>>>.the movie Maleficent

+Chez Lindsay Don't be ashamed, House of Mouse was a cool series... I think... it's been awhile.

+Chez Lindsay Aw...c'mon!!! Don't be ashamed. I actually loved House of Mouse. That show was awesome!!!

nobody's perfect. he's dead anyway, we can keep his good stuff and ignore his sexism. it's seriously not our problem anymore

Cornelia Hanimann Did he have any good stuff though? I’m not really into philosophy, but it kinda seems like he just came up with some science that was wrong and hated women and deaf people.

Keep some of his scientific models. Ignore his thoughts on gender, society and effective drama. Studying his poetics during my bachelors made me want to headbutt my desk.

@@Greyshadow63 That's a bit of an irresponsible thing to say considering you haven't even read his works. It only takes to read Plato to realize that before Aristotle scientific works were essentially mythology with bits of personal observations here and there. There's a reason Aristotle is considered to be "the father of psychology" by some. He was the first influential philosopher to move away from all that and focus on life from a pragmatic point of view using proper scientific methods. Now, his methods obviously aren't foolproof and just like most people who established certain branches of science he was wrong about most things, however he and his works- flawed as they are- served as the foundation for later philosophers and scientists to step on and make their own observations. That's why Aristotle's works are considered valuable even today and are still being taught. And don't get me wrong, I do not share nor justify his views on women and the like. It's just that what you said seems dismissive to his contribution to science as we know it.

Aristotle is basically the guy who's wrong on almost everything.

THANK YOU, I hate it so much when people act like the non-consensual version is the original form of the myth

@@gaiaoswald1954 I hate it when people act like the myth involved medusa getting turned into a gorgon instead of being born one, as if the existence of the sisters doesen't make it highly suspicious

( ._.)

+tonekilla raff It's offensive to people who like good storytelling. The scene does nothing to further the plot and is straight out of cheesy porn.

From what I've heard, the rest of God of War III's writing is on par in terms of quality. Am I right?

There's interesting writing and ideas in it, but yeah as a whole it's uh disappointing because the presentation and framing...that scene is pretty egregious though in its stopping the plot dead and utter ridiculousness.

EverythingFan02 Meanwhile, at Sony headquarters . . . "Hey, our target demographic is 18-30 year old males, so why not include a scene where Kratos goes out of his way to bang Aphrodite! Also, Aphrodite should have two Lesbian playmates and have her tits hanging out" "That sounds a bit out of place and really pandering in a game where a man of questionable sanity goes around enacting vengeance on the Gods themselves" "I know. We'll be rich!"

Yeah, I have nothing wrong with pornography (quite the contrary) BUT, even never playing god of war, I saw the scene as nothing more than cheap fanservice, fanservicey characters can be done well and interesting, but in a serious narrative it just...comes out of nowhere, its like Story, Story, Story, BREASTS! LESBIAN BREASTS ZOMG AJDFHAJHG, and now back to Story, Story, Story

these are all movies and television shows. though i agree. she's awesome in that.

Well, mostly Heroes of Olympus. Percy Jackson ... oof, not so much. You don't get to be a 'good' god unless your kid is a POV character, it seems. ... And not even then, if you're Zeus. Which is fair, in his case.

The portrayal of Aphrodite herself isn't very flattering in the PJO books, but Silena is still a hero.

@@thomashall6733 She's done books before (her wicked witch of the west video contains the book versions of the wizard of oz and wicked as well as the movie/musicals)

Krista Barrie in Mark of Athena Annabeth is actually really disgusted by Aphrodite, and even Piper seems annoyed. I think after the first 2 HOO Rick realized how “good” he made the gods who have main demigod kids, so he kinda went back on it. Leo doesn’t really like Hephaestus and Frank kind of hates Ares.

She probably thought this parody game one was funny.....because honestly, it was.

tonekilla raff That scene in the game. Come on, tell me the sex scene and the reaction of the females watching Aphrodite and whatever his name is get down and dirty. Shit was hilarious.

tonekilla raff and I'm finding you're uptight bitterness towards me being a pathetic 15yr old pseudo intellect view to be hilarious. Like I give two shits about what you think of me. Two reasons: First, you're uptight and uptight people are annoying and need to get laid; also, you sound like a loser. Second, you're wrong about me being a 15 yr old whatever the pseudo means (depending on what it means you could be right but I really don't care to look into it). Third, your opinion of me won't change how I think, feel, or view anything so if you can't find the humor in the video game, being that it's just a video game, then you have your own issues that you have to deal with. Like I said, Nostalgia Chick saw that in the game and most likely laughed at how they viewed Aphrodite and what role they gave her. Being, unlike you, she has a sense of humor.

tonekilla raff and done, welcome to the blocked list. You're an idiot.

Perhaps. But that scene is stupid as hell.

purplecookiellamas I second this.

purplecookiellamas i agree... but, it's sort of hard to parse what that "everything" would be, as there is no precedence for a gender reversal of that scenario, that being said, one way to do it would be to have the creators be "mainstream women" creating the ultimate "women's fantasy", as a bi man, i have a hard time imagining how that would translate, but thats my take on how the basic principle would work.

@@tibbarnogard8404 I'm not exactly qualified to speak to a "mainstream women's fantasy" but I feel like it'd probably be two guys cooking her a fancy meal while another guy brings her a basket of puppies.

J Kay perhaps...

This might seem like a weird example, but I'm reminded of Shantae: Half-Genie Hero, specifically Risky Mode. Typically after clearing a level, Risky returns to her ship and takes a bath while some of her minions stand nearby ready to obey her orders, or something like that.

+quiroz923 Agreed! I vote Bay Harbor!

I love when that happens

+InoMercy I've tried God of War, and it feels like the kind that a lot of people wouldn't like, but a few would just love it. I do not like the gameplay. I haven't tried to Smite, but I've wanted to.

In the “original story,” Medusa and her sisters were daughters of a pair of minor sea gods, and were always monsters. Ovid appears to have created the transformation bit all on his own-he had been exiled, he was angry at authority, and his versions of various myths have a consistent throughline that authority (mostly in the form of the gods) is cruel, petty, untrustworthy, and vicious, even more so than other contemporary versions of those myths.

That myth of Medusa being human originally is literally Roman fanfiction tho…

John Rhys Davies as Zeus sounds pretty badass. But again, so does Liam Neeson.

Wait... What? You shall re-read the Iliad. Helen is not calling her out to fall in love with Paris. Aphrodite made a deal with Paris saying that Paris will have to give the Golden Apple to Aphrodite (thus telling her she is the prettiest) and in exchange, Aphrodite will make Helen fall in love with him.

+Amelia Blank Yeah I saw that boob jiggle too. That animator must have really had fun.

Or Egypt.

Or at least Sparta. Athens was a hellhole. I'm Greek and an Athenian BTW...

Athens: Born a woman, you get treated as a slave Sparta: Born a woman, you are made into a man so that men respect you So yeah, Egypt and Persia would look really tempting.

Tareltonlives Spartans didn't turn women into men. They just made them tougher. A woman was respected _because_ she was a woman. She could give birth, unlike men. She could raise a child, unlike men (belief of the ancient world but it just shows you they respected women for being women). She could keep a household together while a man was away. Spartan men treated women as an essential part of society. Spartan women were tough because Spartan society was tough. With that said, they were forbidden from going to wars and still lacked certain rights but so did Persian and Egyptian women.

Essential as in they were in charge of all the slaves. So they were still inferior to men, but their superiority over slaves was far more pronounced than in other states.

+Caz In a different game, perhaps Bayonetta or DMC the audaciousness of it all could have worked as a comedy moment. (especially the dualshock vibrating, christ my sides) but the game seems to want you to take the story and Kratos seriously... Somehow.

+Caz to be fair, i believe the God Of War sex scenes are meant to be ironical. They always appear way out of context and Kratos always hadles them like this one here ("No time, ahh what ever") and elements that are known to be very well done in the GOW Games are done really poorly in this scenes (like QTEs and the dialogue). I think the creators of the games are well aware of the fact, that their games are stereotypical manly games, so they integrate a scene out of a bad porn flick once in a while.... either this, or they really think that stuff makes any sense xD

+Ian Goldberg I do find it funny that Bayonetta, female video game sex symbol and all that, actually doesn't have any sex scenes. She's just here to have a good time with her friends and stop anyone who threatens that.

+Caz Everyone's fucked her (including her dad and uncles.) Kratos just wanted to be popular.

+Caz Actually it's funny you say that because when he was first cursed he was literally wearing same outfit he wears throughout the rest of the franchise. So think about those people that get tans in their underwear, and when they take off their underwear that part of their body is paler than the rest of there body. Whose to say the same isn't the same for Kratos? Therefore his dick and ass ain't actually covered with his wife and daughter's ashes. Also he avenged his family at the end of GOW1 the rest of the franchise was him raging at Zeus for not getting rid of his nightmares.

She did

she did, and Medusa did have sex with Poseidon in a temple but it was that of Athena, not Aphrodite

There are versions, but yeah, Athena is the most associated with Medusa

Ok good, I thought I was going crazy.

@@thedaemonicnerd805 Well it was not intentional, Medusa was raped by Poseidon. Although other stories make her and her gorgon sisters Stheno & Euryale the children of Echidna and Typhon, the mother and father of all monsters.

That moment a youtuber you love comments on another youtuber you love

*screams internally* you have made my day

+The Bible Reloaded I'd be most interested in a look at all the Titanic adaptations, myself being a huge geek on the subject.

Hey it's Gugo and Cake.

+Valdagast True, but Ishtar's ultimately a stronger figure

Tareltonlives what about havenly aphrodite?

Actually it's Athena who did this and not even Artemis.

The man pops up everywhere in the dark voids unfilled by other B-list actors.

+Mario Acosta-Warren Tentacolino >:3

+Mario Acosta-Warren And two or three that are actually about it.

tim Bandits telling of titanic event has always been my favorite tim has a knack for story telling. >.>

The animated films

Mario Acosta-Warren the Simpsons movie which was referencing the James Cameron movie via good Charlotte

+jseeker1867 I know you put air quotes on it, but putting Pearl Harbor and popular in the same sentence is just... blegh.

Overly Sarcastic Productions has a video going in on her actual mythology and how she relates to Ishtar