{"id":490,"date":"2023-10-29T06:31:41","date_gmt":"2023-10-29T06:31:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/?p=490"},"modified":"2023-10-29T06:31:41","modified_gmt":"2023-10-29T06:31:41","slug":"eve-aphrodites-canonical-connection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/2023\/10\/29\/eve-aphrodites-canonical-connection\/","title":{"rendered":"Eve & Aphrodite\u2019s Canonical Connection"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Eve & Aphrodite chatting at the end of The God You Know<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I want to go back to this fascinating moment in season 6 of #Xena, at the end of \u201c The God You Know.\u201d Eve & Dite are sharing a friendly moment despite Eve being the harbinger of the end of the many gods. Of course, Aphrodite is not actually a god at this point:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Caligula had drained her of her immortality. But Eve herself was never a champion against them, just the  object of their paranoia, & the catalyst for their self-inflicted downfall at #Xena\u2019s hands. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I mentioned in an earlier blog post that Dite has a future despite the coming of the one god of Eli. I felt strongly about this, & set  this up this concept in my story, but is there any actual truth to this? Did the show\u2019s powers-that-be feel the same way? After all, the original plan for the Twilight of the Gods storyline involved killing off Dite, with only Ares surviving. It makes sense, after all: with Eve & Eli\u2019s God of Love arriving on the scene, having another love god(dess) around seems redundant. Thank goodness Rob & R.J. overruled this when they returned from managing their spinoffs to rectify this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why did they do this? As explained in You Are There, set right after Eve & Dite\u2019s scene, we\u2019re told it\u2019s necessary to have both Dite & Ares  to achieve balance in the world. So the God of Love is therefore not sufficient to balance out Ares. Why not? Because I suspect the God of Love represents a different kind of love, a more selfless & non-transactional kind of love. Dite\u2019s love is more incarnate, & in a way, she kind of balances out the selflessness that the God of Love inspires by adding a necessary amount of desire that physicality demands <\/p>\n\n\n\n

if the species is to function properly. This desire could range from pure carnal lust all the way to the energizing feeling of being in a crowd, & this can actually help supplement the spiritual love that Eli preached about. Without it, we might feel an intellectual compassion for each other, but feel irritated & even repulsed by other\u2019s\u2019 unnecessary proximity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is there anything in the show itself to indicate that this is how the writers saw it, though? I believe there is. In You Are There, we see a world without physical love, now that Dite is mortal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People quickly lose their tempers with each other, & visit brothels to pay for what they can\u2019t naturally feel. But the Elijians should be immune from this, since their god of love is doing just fine, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wrong! <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Eve & her prayer circle are fully concentrating on their meditation, but clearly can\u2019t hold onto their feelings of love. Eve quickly loses her temper with a journalist, & her followers grimly crowd around him. They haven\u2019t forgotten Eli\u2019s teachings, they just aren\u2019t feeling it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Eve & the Elijians make a peace offering <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After Dite gets her powers back, however, it\u2019s a different story. Eve\u2019s prayer circle appear as friendly guests on his tabloid show, & offer a very physical & downright carnal peace offering. They\u2019re a bit off-balance, in other words, as their commitment to Eli\u2019s spiritual love is suddenly flooded with an unexpected rush of physical desire. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m guessing they all felt a bit silly afterwards about their lack of self-control, but given how everyone else was knocked off-kilter without Dite\u2019s moderating influence, the Elijians handled themselves pretty well, I think. I suspect the future of the Elijians involves a lot of negotiating between the powers of the GOL & Dite, with varying degrees of success. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They\u2019re only human, after all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I want to go back to this fascinating moment in season 6 of #Xena, at the end of \u201c The God You Know.\u201d Eve & Dite are sharing a friendly moment despite Eve being the harbinger of the end of the many gods. Of course, Aphrodite is not actually a god at this point: Caligula […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-xena"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=490"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":492,"href":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490\/revisions\/492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/typesandpatterns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}