Pisces Aphrodite

Pisces Aphrodite is the last of the Gold Saints of the Saint Seiya series.
==Canon==
Aphrodite was introduced as a villain in the original series. He was one of the few Saints who knew the true identity of the Pope and supported him despite knowing that he was a usurper, as he trusted his power to defend the Earth. He died in a fight against Andromeda Shun. According to the source material, Aphrodite is considered the most beautiful out of all the eighty-eight Athena saints. It is also stated that he is considered the most ruthless Gold Saint. Later in the series, he temporarily comes back from the dead on Athena's side.
In the spin-off series Soul of Gold, Aphrodite is no longer portrayed as a villain, but as a hero whose insight saves the day. He also appears in other spin-off series such as Episode G and Saintia Sho, where his original philosophy and ideals are further developed.
In the Castilian Spanish dub, Aphrodite is voiced by a woman and referred to with female pronouns, despite being a male in the source material. The French dub also features a female voice actor for Aphrodite. Some fans were concerned that the 2019 Netflix spin-off would genderbend Aphrodite like they did with Shun, but he remained male in the end. However, his personality and personal philosophy are somewhat different from what is portrayed in the source material, as is the case in many other spin-off series.
==Aphrodite in Fandom==
In the canon, Aphrodite is presented as a man who takes care of his physical appearance. He does his hair, paints his nails, and wears makeup. All the comments about how beautiful he is always come from other characters, never from himself. While he never brags about his own beauty and shows no signs of narcissism or vanity in the source material, the fandom often attributes these traits to him.
The widespread misunderstanding of Aphrodite's personality in the fandom is possibly due to his physical resemblance to another character from the same series, Lizard Misty, who does display vain and narcissistic traits. It may also be why other spin-offs characterize Aphrodite as someone who values beauty above all else, unlike the source material where he claims to value strength and power.
Aphrodite's physical strength has been the subject of much controversy in the fandom. He is widely considered to be the weakest, or second weakest, of the Gold Saints due to how quickly he is defeated when he returns in the Hades Arc. Additionally, he has a reputation for always being the first to go down. In the movie Legend of Sanctuary, he appears for less than thirty seconds only to be knocked out by an attack and never seen again. Many meta essays have been written about these scenes. While a sector of the fandom does not consider them valid as proof of his real strength (since they were on an incognito mission where the objective was to deceive Hades), another sector of the fandom accepts them as proof of his power being inferior to his fellow Gold Saints, along with Cancer Deathmask who was with him and got defeated as quickly as he did.
Aphrodite has also been the target of homophobic slurs by some fans of the series, especially males, who consider it offensive to have the sign of Pisces represented by a man of androgynous appearance. In Spain, in particular, the fact that the Castilian Spanish dubbing decided to transform him into a woman made many straight male fans consider him a desirable character, only to feel cheated and disgusted when they found out years later that he is actually a man.
Aphrodite has often been compared to Pisces Albafica, the Pisces Gold Saint in the spin-off Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas. Albafica's physical appearance is almost identical to Aphrodite's, but more masculine. Some speculate that this was done to please fans who are unhappy with Aphrodite's feminine looks and lack of backstory and victories. Albafica's story is more fleshed out, and some consider him to be stronger and more noble because he is shown winning a battle and sacrificing himself for the cause. In short, Albafica is sometimes viewed as an improved version of Aphrodite. However, Aphrodite fans consider him to be a more complex and interesting character than just another hero with a tragic past who chooses to die for the greater good.
===Common Themes===
*Vain!Aphrodite: Very widespread in the fandom from the beginning and a highly exploited resource used in humor or crack fanworks.
*Aphrodite is straight: Early works tended to emphasize that Aphrodite was not gay. Even though all the male characters in the series were involved in yaoi shipping, fans do try to question Aphrodite's sexuality, due to the fact that his androgynous appearance and habit of grooming and makeup could be seen as something typical of non straight men. In many early works, other characters are prejudiced against Aphrodite, assuming that he is a gay man, when in fact Aphrodite is straight.
*Rose Aesthetics: Since Aphrodite fights with roses, and is often seen holding a rose in his hand or mouth, it is an element that is rarely not present in fanworks. This may or may not extend to knowledge of plants in general.
*Plant Communication: In Soul of Gold, Aphrodite is shown having the ability to speak to plants and many people adopted it as headcanon.
*Poison Blood: Even though this is exclusively Albafica's trait, many fans headcanon it as a Pisces Saint thing in general.
*Feminization: Due to his androgynous appearance.
*Genderbend: For the same reason, and since some countries' dubs have presented him as a woman in the past, Aphrodite appears as a woman in some fanworks, especially those NSFW.
==Example Fanworks==
=== Fanart ===
File:Mal-dr05.jpg|Aphrodite by Marco Albiero (2001)
File:Piscesaphroditebyemgchristain.jpg|Example of Pisces Aphrodite design from the Legend of Sanctuary CGI movie, by 羅雨時 (2016)
* by ruruthegem. Aphrodite and Lady Oscar are phisically similar. In this work, the artist swapped their outfits.
* by untruesaint.
* by untruesaint
* by eERIecrafts
===Fanfiction===
*The Nightingale and the Rose by Toffee. How Aphrodite became a Saint. (2000)
===Essays & Meta===
* by thezodiac11. Essay on Aphrodite and Deathmask performance in the Hades Chapter.
* by Raidne. An essay on the influences that Kurumada may have had when creating Aphrodite, according to character data.
*Have you ever wondered why Kurumada chose Greenland as the training location for Aphrodite? by Damien Tempest
== Links & Resources ==
* Pisces Aphrodite tag on AO3
* Pisces Aphrodite (阿布罗狄#) on Weibo
* Pisces Aphrodite (魚座のアフロディーテ) on Pixiv
== References ==
Category: Saint Seiya