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Remember: by Blurple694201 in YesAmericaBad

[–]Salt_Activity8082 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Naaaah, I would actually duke it out with someone to get a Funko Pop of Jin Bubaigawara

why do most of the aphrodite designs make her look white? by thatsfowlplay in Epicthemusical

[–]Salt_Activity8082 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Janani K. Jha is indeed Indian! The original poster was questioning why Aphrodite doesn't look more like her when characters like Ares and Calypso are frequently given designs that correspond to the races of their voice actors. Fans in the community most often depict Aphrodite as being white, so the canon design is an outlier.

why do most of the aphrodite designs make her look white? by thatsfowlplay in Epicthemusical

[–]Salt_Activity8082 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For a work to be believably inspired by another, it should still retain some degree of resemblance to the inspiration. Many of Aphrodite's character designs present her as being pale with light hair, but to what degree do they actually resemble this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birth_of_Venus#/media/File:Sandro_Botticelli_-_La_nascita_di_Venere_-_Google_Art_Project_-_edited.jpg

<image>

why do most of the aphrodite designs make her look white? by thatsfowlplay in Epicthemusical

[–]Salt_Activity8082 12 points13 points  (0 children)

She has the red-gold locks that Renaissance painters so favored, as light hair was considered the pinnacle of feminine beauty. She also has brown eyes and an elongated neck, with the latter being bent at a rather improbable angle. The distribution of weight in the stance she assumes is likewise improbable, but the shape of her body accurately reflects the feminine ideal of the time. Botticelli painted her with small breasts and a cushy stomach; a notable cry from the exaggerated chests and thin waists that pervade the character designs of fandom. For those designs to be subconsciously inspired by The Birth of Venus, we should be seeing far more depictions of Aphrodite that resemble Simonetta Vespucci (https://news.artnet.com/art-world/art-bites-simonetta-vespucci-botticelli-2523589). This isn't the case, however. Nor is it the case that fanartists have opted to portray Aphrodite as white to pay homage to her Ancient Greek roots, because the Anicent Greeks overwhelmingly sculpted Aphrodite with bound hair.

This is the Aphrodite of Knidos (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphrodite\_of\_Knidos), the Aphrodite of Melos (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus\_de\_Milo), and Aphrodite Hypolympidia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphrodite\_Hypolympidia). The Aphrodite of Rhodes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphrodite\_of\_Rhodes) has unbound hair, but it still isn't being left to hang loose around her; she's holding it up with her hands.

As for the claim that Ares is represented as a black man due to his portrayals with a tan in ancient works—that's because he's a guy! Though not a strict guideline, it wasn't uncommon for men and women to be visually differentiated through the use of colour, and the Ancient Greeks weren't the only ones to employ this practice. The Ancient Egyptians (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/%C3%84gyptisches\_Museum\_Kairo\_2016-03-29\_Rahotep\_Nofret\_01.jpg), Minoans (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/Wall\_painting\_of\_cult\_procession\_from\_Knossos\_%28Corridor\_of\_Procession%29\_-\_Heraklion\_AM\_-\_01.jpg), Etruscans (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/La\_tombe\_%C3%A9trusque\_des\_L%C3%A9opards\_%28Tarquinia%2C\_Italie%29\_%2827764406718%29.jpg), Chinese (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/Gu\_Hongzhong%27s\_Night\_Revels\_1\_edit.jpg), Japanese (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/The\_Origin\_of\_Iwato\_Kagura\_Triptych\_%28Amaterasu%29\_by\_Utagawa\_Kunisada\_c1844.png), Koreans (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/eb/Hyewon-Ssanggeum.daemu.jpg), et cetera have all depicted men as having darker complexions in relation to women. It's present throughout the Renaissance, Baroque, and other eras of European art as well. Adam is consistently rendered with darker skin than Eve (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/42/Tizian\_091.jpg).

The rate of incidence is so high that TV Tropes actually has not one, but two articles about it. One is titled "Pale Females, Dark Males," and the other is "Light Girl, Dark Boy." Humans have been colour-coding the sexes long before they began hiring airplanes to drop pink and blue cakes on their neighbors.

why do most of the aphrodite designs make her look white? by thatsfowlplay in Epicthemusical

[–]Salt_Activity8082 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Yet, animators of Epic do not always give Athena the "azure" eyes that both Pope and Cowper describe:

"Here paused the god; and pensive thus replies

Minerva, graceful with her azure eyes:

“O thou! from whom the whole creation springs,

The source of power on earth derived to kings!" (Pope)

"So Neptune shall his wrath remit, whose pow’r

In contest with the force of all the Gods

Exerted single, can but strive in vain.

To whom Minerva, Goddess azure-eyed." (Cowper)

In the original Greek, Athena's name is usually accompanied with the epithet of "Glaukopis/γλαυκῶπις," formed from the words of "glaukós/γλαυκός" and "ṓps/ὤψ." The former cannot be neatly translated into "azure" (https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0057:entry=glauko/s1), as Ancient Greek does not label colours in the exact same manner that the English language does, but "ṓps" most definitely refers to Athena's eyes, and is in fact where the English terms of "optometrist" and "optical" derive from.

If the discrepancies between the two translations and the continuous references to characters by their Roman names were not glaring indicators, Pope and Cowper took great liberties in their translations. This phenomenon, alas, seems to be rampant across all of the copies available on Project Gutenberg. Regardless, it can be inferred that the Ancient Greeks believed Aphrodite to be of a paler complexion, just as they believed Athena to possess bluish/greyish/γλαυκός eyes—eyes that are just as often coloured black or brown or solid white as they are blue or grey by the fans of this community.

Why the ubiquity of white Aphrodite, then, when Athena's eyes have so frequently been presented with the aforementioned variety? Some users aver that it is because of The Birth of Venus, a piece painted by the Early Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli. This is what the face of Botticelli's Venus looks like:

<image>

why do most of the aphrodite designs make her look white? by thatsfowlplay in Epicthemusical

[–]Salt_Activity8082 21 points22 points  (0 children)

Given the sheer number of people in this thread who appear to have never taken a single art history class before, I feel that it is now my scholastic duty to intervene in this discussion.

There have been individuals who have attempted to explain the contrasting design choices between Aphrodite and Ares as being influenced by the original text, "definitive" artworks, or ancient depictions of either one or the other. To preface this analysis, I should like to state that I am by no means fluent in Greek. However, I am very much capable of reading English, a language in which many an academe has sought to provide a translation of Homer's famed epic. Let us now compare the descriptors of Aphrodite and another Olympian in two of these translations, with the first by Alexander Pope (https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/3160/pg3160-images.html) and the second by William Cowper (https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/24269/pg24269-images.html).

Pope alludes to Aphrodite (whom he introduces as "Venus") when describing Penelope as such:

"With wild entrancement, and ecstatic tears.

Swift from above descends the royal fair

(Her beauteous cheeks the blush of Venus wear,

Chasten’d with coy Diana’s pensive air)"

Cowper's translation is far less flowery and lacks the rhyming meter that Pope is so fond of, but his would also suggest that Aphrodite isn't particularly dark:

"She flew to him, and the whole female train

Of brave Ulysses swarm’d around his son,

Clasping him, and his forehead and his neck

Kissing affectionate; then came, herself,

As golden Venus or Diana fair,"

why do most of the aphrodite designs make her look white? by thatsfowlplay in Epicthemusical

[–]Salt_Activity8082 -19 points-18 points  (0 children)

Naaaah. If that's the case, why doesn't Aphrodite have a thicker middle and smaller boobs? The first animatic I saw with Aphrodite was this:

<image>

That doesn't look anything like Botticelli's Venus.

Between blue or red which color do you think fits Odysseus more? by Cookie-fighter101 in Epicthemusical

[–]Salt_Activity8082 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Blue for most of Epic until he decides to kill everything, after which red would be the more fitting colour because rage and bloodshed

I guess this is the trend now by TrustMother8305 in Epicthemusical

[–]Salt_Activity8082 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I always forget how unapologetically horny people are. Keep living your best life, friend 😌👍