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Aphrodite is the Olympian Goddess of Love. Although often spiteful and selfish, and very immature at times (as shown by her feuds with Discord and her son, Cupid), the influence of her half-brother Hercules and her friendships with mortals such as Iolaus, Xena and Gabrielle leads her character in some surprising directions.

Relations[]

Aphrodite treats Hercules as her protective older brother, affectionately referring to him as "Big Bro" (a physical description, given that she was millennia older than him) and was probably the closest to him of all the Olympians; certainly, even though Hercules later came to hate the Gods, he did not hate her. She frequently took his advice and assisted him on his adventures. Although she was manipulating him during their initial encounter, Aphrodite eventually became friends with Iolaus, Hercules's most frequent ally. Xena and Gabrielle often found themselves entangled in Aphrodite's hare-brained schemes, though their relationship with her improved to the point where the Goddess was even willing to stand up to Athena on their behalf.

She was also quite close to her brother Ares, largely due to the connection they shared. Aphrodite literally goes insane when Ares loses his Godhood as War and Love must co-exist in cosmic balance. In spite of her affection for Ares, Aphrodite has no time for his flunkies, in particular, Discord, with whom she shares an almost adolescent rivalry.

Aphrodite's relationship with her son Cupid is generally strained for a variety of reasons, namely her overprotectiveness and the fact that she is his boss as well as his mother.

Like many Olympians, Aphrodite occasionally has trysts with mortals. Two children produced from such couplings are Deon and Aeneas

History[]

Before her tryst with Hephaestus, she is portrayed as being a bit promiscuous: she steals a boyfriend away from Hera and because of that Hera places a curse on her son Cupid. Cupid falls in love with a girl named Psyche, who is said to be more beautiful than Aphrodite, which makes her extremely jealous. Out of jealousy, Aphrodite tries to shoot a love arrow at Psyche. When Cupid tries to stop her, Hercules is accidentally hit and falls in love with Psyche. Thanks to Hera's curse, Cupid literally turns into a green-eyed monster with jealousy at the thought of losing Psyche. The curse is eventually lifted when the truth comes after he confesses his love for Psyche and she marries him. Aphrodite gives Psyche Ambrosia to make her a goddess to make amends since she is the one who started the mess but soon realizes she is now a mother-in-law, which does not make her very happy. She becomes a grandmother later on when Psyche and Cupid have a son named Bliss.

On Hercules, Aphrodite is usually the comic relief or the viewers' window into the politics of Mount Olympus. Though she is originally introduced as a scheming Goddess, devious and almost as uncaring as Ares, she quickly evolves into a more benevolent fun-loving character, though still prone to mood swings. She is also the only member of his Olympian family, apart from Zeus, whom Hercules seems to have any sort of close relationship with (in one episode he refers to her as his favorite little sister, and is somewhat close to her son Cupid who refers to him as "Uncle Herc"), despite the trouble she seems to cause him.

Aphrodite determines to break up a royal family marriage that will end a war, only because the newly allied kingdoms plan to destroy her temples. As her son Cupid explains to Gabrielle, "When the Goddess of Love decides to do something petty and spiteful, she can be a tad difficult to reason with." She later develops a friendship with Gabrielle and tries to save her during the massacre of the Olympian Gods.

Aphrodite becomes one of the survivors of the Twilight of the Olympian Gods, organized by Xena when the gods, under Athena's flag, join together to kill Eve. Aphrodite remains unconvinced that Eve will willingly destroy the gods, to the point where she sneaks Xena and Gabrielle into Olympus itself. After the Twilight of the Gods, Aphrodite becomes mentally unbalanced due to Ares losing his powers; Love must be balanced by War. Her powers are stolen by Caligula, whom Xena tricks into killing himself. This makes matters worse, since love is now gone from the world altogether. Xena restores the powers of both Aphrodite and Ares using golden apples she stole from the Norse Gods, thereby restoring balance to the universe.

Powers and Abilities[]

As an Olympian Goddess, Aphrodite has the range of Powers and Abilities of Olympic Gods. Unlike most of the other gods, Aphrodite does not use her powers with violence or force. As a goddess of love and beauty, she will focus more on emotions, aesthetics, and decadence when using her divine abilities. Her powers also have a passive affect on the world around her. As long as she keeps her station on Olympus, people will retain the ability to love. Her divinity needs to be balanced with a god of war also on Olympus. Without this, she will become unhinged and her divinity may be siphoned off.

  • Conjuration: The ability to summon forth or create items, clothing, furniture, people, and so on is one of Aphrodite's more favored abilities. She uses this to suit her whims so that she may have whatever pleases her at any given moment.
  • Immortality: Like other Gods, Aphrodite can not die, be killed, or age. She is also invulnerable to harm.
  • Imperception: Gods will often watch mortals while invisible to subtly influence their lives. Aphrodite seems to use this ability more than most as she tends to be one of the more conniving Gods. While invisible, the Gods are also intangible and silent to mortal ears. Xena and Hercules are both able to sense past this ability, however.
  • Magic: Unique to other Gods, Aphrodite has the ability to cast spells. This differs from divine powers as she will cause complicated circumstances to take place, usually through the medium of certain words. While used superficially, this ability is very powerful. In The Quill is Mightier, Aphrodite enchanted Gabrielle's scroll that will cause anything written upon it to occur until absolute truth is written instead. She enchanted this with the words "Lies will make the world go round, 'Til truer words are written down." Aphrodite also moved Xena's spirit into the body of a little girl's to wake her from a coma (Little Problems), and caused Joxer to switch between himself and the persona of a hero every time he heard a bell ring (For Him the Bell Tolls). Aphrodite also brews potions such as ones to induce obsession (Fins, Femmes, and Gems) and passion (If the Shoe Fits...)
  • Omnipresence: This is the ability to be in more than one place at a time. Teleportation may stem from this ability. Gods are also able to watch places without actually being present and hear someone's summons from anywhere in the world.
  • Power Over Love: As the Goddess of love, Aphrodite's primary power is create love, desire, passion and affection and cause people to fall in love. Aphrodite can not eliminate love born by itself. She stated once that her specialty is love at first sight.
  • Reading Auras: Aphrodite can see and read the aura. She knew about Iagos' lies and manipulations by reading his aura.
  • Shapeshifting: Another common ability among gods is the power to transform into any shape that they see fit. Aphrodite will often use this for disguise.
  • Shielding: On a few occasions, Aphrodite would conjure shields to protect herself or deflect attacks.
  • Telekinesis: Aphrodite was once seen moving models of her temples back onto a map after they were thrown onto the floor.
  • Teleportation: Gods have the ability to appear anywhere they please. For Aphrodite, this appears as an orange light surrounded by golden sparks.

Background[]

  • Aphrodite is the second most frequently recurring character in the Xenaverse after Ares. She appears in ten seasons across two shows; only Ares has appeared in more seasons.
  • Alexandra Tydings has short brunette hair. She was surprised and gratified to be cast as Aphrodite in spite of her brown locks... but then they showed her the wig she would be wearing.
  • Botticelli's famous painting The Birth of Venus, Aphrodite appears rising out of the sea in a giant seashell. In "The Apple", she appears the same way – and uses the seashell to go windsurfing.
  • In the earliest myths, Aphrodite was more specifically the Goddess of Sexuality. For a family-friendly show, love generally was used.
  • In the Xenaverse, Zeus is explicitly Aphrodite's father and Hera is "implicitly" her mother. But the way that Aphrodite expresses herself about Hera, the relationship of mother and daughter, is questionable. 
  • In the myths, Zeus is the father of Aphrodite. Her mother is Dione, a Titanic Ocean Goddess, of which little is known. The more known myths refer to Aphrodite being born from genitalia, cut off Ouranos, and thrown in the sea, when Kronos castrated him.  
  • Aphrodite is inferred to have time-travelled despite the ban by Zeus, as she seems to be aware of modern-day references such as Elvira, and have access to technology such as headphones.
  • In the xenaverse, her title is the Goddess of love, but she was not called the Goddess of Beauty, like the myth.  

See Also[]



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