#smitecomic

but the first interaction of Ath and Aph (in the comic) was on page 9. And it also brings up one of the things that happen in the past:

The Judgement of Paris. So what happened back there? Zeus decided it was time for a feast. But Eris, the goddess of discord wasn't invited [who is actually surprised, given her title?]. And because she was angry about that, she decided she should ruin the celebration a bit and she showed up with a golden apple bearing the inscription "To the Fairest", which she threw into the group of celebrating gods. And three of them jumped it: Hera, Aphrodite and Athena. Since Zeus was unable to decide who IS indeed the fairest, he instead made this poor mortal sod Paris do it. Now Hera and Athena were basically themselves when Paris inspected them to judge their beauty, however Aphrodite manipulated it with the help of additional charm thanks to the Charites (basically minor goddesses of charm) and the Horae (goddesses of the seasons). [And she also promised him the most beautiful woman, Helen of Sparta, if he picked her, while Athena promised wisdom and skill in battle and Hera promised to make him king of the known world (Asia and Europe)].

So as we know Aphrodite won that contest due to her cheating and page 11 shows her apologising for it.

See she used to be different, thought differently, but realised her mistake (with a little help from Neith as shown on page 11).

So how much did she change? Let's just start with this: We know, based on page 5 ("Nice to see you again") and page 49 that Aphrodite knows both Isis and Neith from before, likes Neith a lot and was the only one that knew about the abusive relationship that happened between Isis and Neith (excluding Nemesis).

Since nobody else has any clue about it (as we see for example with Athena's reaction),

we can safely assume that she must have stumbled over it at an earlier time that predates the comic and that there was a bit of time to talk to Neith between that point and the start of the comic. And Neith then made her realise that her ways were misdirected. But what was Aphrodite like before? Judging by page 125 [now that's a skip, isn't it] more like her InGame jokes and taunts.

Most notably her joke "But you ARE beautiful - in the dark," which we can trace to the Judgement of Paris again. She seems proud of her beauty and arrogant, not caring about others at all, even going so far as to manipulate. But her interactions during the time shortly before and after she joined Neith's team show that she changed. - She went out of her way to get Athena to join the team:

- she also apologised, which seems like a huge deal to me, given how proud she used to be - on page 22 and 103 she seems observant, paying attention to the other team members, a thing someone that is selfabsorbed would never do

- on page 26 she puts Athena in her place, protecting the team from Athena's rash judgement, showing that she herself acquired wisdom - right now even more than Athena shows to possess when it comes to dealing with people (I'll get to that later)

- page 35 shows that she cares a great deal about Neith, so much that Athena notices her being distracted. Which is followed by an open conflict between the two on page 36 and 37 (which is then intervened by Freya). This shows even more that Aphrodite is no longer selfobserved and cares about others. She changed in that aspect.

- again I mention page 49 - which again shows how much she cares about Neith and shows that she is well aware of the past between Neith and Isis. She also probably doesn't like stuff like this happening again, which may be why she tells Isis to "not scare her... again."

- page 52 shows her trying to interact with Athena as normal as possible - given that she saw a split image of her husband and son dead - which means she's trying to be strong despite the horrible stuff that happened. Again, most selfish people would act even more miserable just for attention or not try at all

- page 55 once more shows her caring about Neith, wanting to know why Hel wants to talk to her, after what she's done to Neith previously (meaning: almost killing her)

- page 118, where she realises that Hel's need to talk to Neith is greater than her own and she willingly backs away, letting her go in first

- page 152, where she steps up to defend the rest of the team (Neith, Isis, Freya, Hel) after Artemis insults them as "losers"

- and then there is page 81.

Why is page 81 not mentioned before 118? Because it's a different thing I want to talk about. So it seems that Aphrodite changed QUITE A LOT over the course of the time before and during which the comic takes place. And now to page 81. Fenrir assaults Aphrodite, almost killing her by ripping open her throat. What Aphrodite carries out of this encounter is a long, nasty looking scar, as well as the inability to speak. So what is so special about a scar? Scars are usually thought of as ruining beauty. What is Aphrodite? The goddess of most noticeably love and beauty. And she seems to have been quite selfabsorbed and arrogant in the past. On page 125 Neith says "You've changed so much [...] but it still wasn't enough time to make up for [...] the past."

My guess is that the scar is... more or less Karma getting back at Aphrodite for what she's done in the past. Consequence of her actions. Now yes, Neith takes the scar from her, but it's still important to mention. During the short time that Aphrodite was bearing it she made no attempts of hiding it or covering it up, something that the "old" Aph might have done. Okay, so now I went over how much Aphrodite changed. Still, there is Athena left. If we look at the 140+ pages that the comic reached we barely see any form of change in Athena during the first few 100 pages. Only recent developments in the story show her ever so slightly changing. Some minor changes were also visible inbetween, but they appear frail and flickering, coming and going with her mood almost. When I look at Athena I see two giant problems: Her ego and her emotions. I'll go over her emotions first: Whenever Athena acts rash or pushy it seems to be related to her own emotions. We see that happening really early in the comic, on page 9 to be exact.

She doesn't even listen to Aphrodite for a second, too absorbed in what is an ages old grudge: Aphrodite cheating the Judgement of Paris. It seems that Athena never got over it and for that reason completely refuses to listens to Aphrodite. Now what is the problem with that? Athena is supposed to be a goddess of wisdom and yet she lets her own judgement get clouded by her jealousy and anger more than once. The 'funny' thing is that Aphrodite acts much more focused, even though she is clearly guided by her emotions. So they are both acting on emotions, but in Athena's case it's frantic and out of control, which causes more damage than good. It also seems to cause her to be manipulative, which is massively undermining any effort to get a "TEAM" going. One example for that is her already suspecting the "little girl" to be Hel and instead of asking another team member, like Freya for example or trying to find out in secret, she manipulates her into a reaction by giving her a book that "(adult)Hel gave to her."

Now to her "ego" problem: Looking at things that happened in Athena's life she seems to have a problem with being "second choice:" - The Judgement of Paris - The weaving contest with Arachne, which she lost. Now we all know how her hissyfit over that ended when we look at the spider, who used to be a normal woman before she challenged Athena - Neith being the leader of the team. Now this last point seems to be a really big deal for Athena and I'll get into detail. Neith is the leader, not her. Neith is a weaver, just like Athena, more or less. Neith is a goddess of war and wisdom, just like Athena... And again she's only second choice, a reoccuring theme. The other controls the team. And Athena is jealous of how easily people, especially Aphrodite, listen to Neith. We see her asking Neith about that on page 39 and 40.

And yet she finds herself unable or unwilling to comprehend the answer she receives. Why? Partly because she doesn't know how to not control. It seems that she needs the control over everything, because she doesn't like the feeling of being helpless in a situation. And because she's still letting her judgement be manipulated by her own emotions. I wouldn't doubt that she asked out of mere jealousy without any intention to actually ever paying any mind to the answer she receives. On more than one occasion she also expresses her dislike of Neith - most prominently on page 36.

Now on the pages before and after that a fight between Athena and Aphrodite builds up. I suspect jealousy to be the reason for Athena flipping like that. Jealousy that Aphrodite cares so much about Neith, the leader/weaver/war/wisdom goddess - not Athena, not-the-leader/weaver/war/wisdom goddess. On this note I would like to bring in something related to page 150. Athena asks where she "finds Ananke" even though the reader by now knows it's Neith and Nemesis only ever called Neith "Ananke" during the time that she's in the comic now.

Zenny said in a comment that Athena doesn't believe that Neith is Ananke

Why? Probably because "someone like Neith" can't possibly be the powerful Ananke? "The force and necessity of fate." The most powerful thing there is. A primeordeal being that even gods don't fight. Now Athena probably knows that Neith's title is "Weaver of Fate" but I guess you could just as well weave fate as some sort of prophet, someone that gets the input from a more powerful force, but doesn't have any power over fate itself. Maybe she thought that of Neith. Just someone that weaves the fate according to the input she gets, not THE FATE itself. Now she doesn't like Neith - and then she is told that Neith is the most powerful being there is? Hard to believe that. So I said earlier that I see almost no change in her behaviour. Yes, on pages 78 to 80 she actually comes to Hel's aid, but there is probably more to that than "helping a teammate".

Since we later figure out that Scylla is on Loki's team - I COULD suspect, that she knows about that and was scared of her alliance becoming public knowledge because the situation escalates. She doesn't openly fight Loki, just tries to urge him to leave by talking. But since you can't really trust Loki, he doesn't give a damn about that and doesn't seem threatened either. And then page 81 happens.

Yes, Athena seems pretty shocked that Aphrodite got assaulted by Fenrir, but on the following pages, like 85 and 90 she's back to fighting again, not giving a damn about Hel, who is listening to everything she says about her, which almost leads do something quite drastic happening.

On the other hand her aggressive outburst could also be a way for her to cover up how shaken she is to see Aphrodite hurt like that. She doesn't seem like someone that can just show emotion and rather bottles it up and keep it sealed away because "emotions cloud judgement" (which is exactly what is happening to Athena the whole time, still.)

These pages also mention another aspect of how Athena sees herself, kind of like Zeus, her father, on page 145, which is nicely put into one sentence with "Why was I not informed of this?"

Like she seems to expect others to tell her everything, like she's the boss that doesn't have to deal with stuff and just waits until everyone else does that work for her. Now yes, she's a strategist, but aside of planning for fights she doesn't seem to care much about other strategies - which in my opinion - also involves the mental stability of your army/team. What use is the best plan if your team is broken beyond any hope? But that involves having to deal with emotional trouble and apparently Athena doesn't like that at all, as we see on page 10.

Why is that the case though? That's actually pretty easy to explain: Emotions cannot really be controlled and Athena doesn't like being out of control. Actually, whenever we see Athena in a tough spot, a situation that is out of her control, she goes through the roof like a cornered rat, because she can't seem to deal with her emotions overwhelming her, which in turn causes her to act irrational and make mistakes. And to cover up her own insecurity she gets loud and aggressive. Which is probably why Neith told Aphrodite to "make her (Athena) feel safe" - so she can relax and regain her balance.

So back to Athena's character development: The first real, BIG and OBVIOUS change we see, is her aggreeing to steal Zeus' shield, to actively work against her friends and family in the Greek Pantheon.

The first time she ever did something for the better of the team. The motive for that? Maybe she realised her previous thought's were wrong or maybe it's fear after Loki's suprise visit and him announcing that the Greeks will attack them soon. The uncertainty of the new team (Nemesis, Nu Wa and Co.) showing up and giving Athena lots of unanswered questions. Maybe she's also scared of her alliance being found out. And now that we mention it: The alliance with Loki, that I can't just ignore when I talk about Athena. It, of course, also goes against the team and might end up hurting a lot of people. A look at the possible future that Neith is trying to prevent is enough - as seen on pages 122 and 123.

I can only guess what made her join forces with Loki of all the gods and it's honestly nothing but a shot in the dark. Interestingly enough on page 150 she is about to tell Nemesis why she joined forces with him, but interrupts herself.

Perhaps she doesn't expect Nemesis to understand, perhaps she knows her own reasoning is flawed, perhaps it's something else entirely. Maybe she figured a trickster such as Loki, that comes up with schemes and manipulations himself is someone she can relate to on a intellectual level. More than she ever could with Neith (page 39/40), due to her jealousy and resentment towards her. What she fails to realise is that she has nobody to relate to on an emotional level, so she's off balance in that case.

Which brings me to the last thing I want to cover; the relationship between Athena and Aphrodite: Despite how rash and angry Athena acts around Aphrodite she seems to care about her or starts to care about her, since she honestly didn't seem to like her much in the beginning, based on her grudge. And Neith knows, which is why she not only asks Aphrodite to get Athena to join, but also nudges her to take care of her in the future. In the comic we see a few rare instances of them (Aph and Ath) interacting almost casually and normal. One example is page 52 and 53 and even that is just trying really hard and you can easily see how forced it is. And of course the shock Athena shows when Aphrodite almost dies at the claws of Fenrir is further proof that she seems to care. Maybe she even blames herself somewhat for it. Her alliance with Loki more or less caused this situation and she probably never planned for this to happen [honestly, who would?]. Their relationship is pretty strained, because of Athena's pushy and manipulative tendencies whenever she's out of control, which goes hand in hand with her inability to make judgement without emotional involvement, which puts her as a strong contrast to Aphrodite's complete ability to do exactly that. Athena tries to listen to her brain and - without realising - gets manipulated by herself by letting emotions slip in and cloud judgement. We see another example of Athena being a practical, grounded thinker in page 148, where she watches Neith teach Hel about the flow of energy and the universe.

Athena states that she doesn't even know most of the things talked about. The reason for that, I can only assume, might be, because she's not a spiritual person and more focused on what happens in the physical world. Things she sees, things she can touch, smell, hear. I'm not sure how Aphrodite's view on such things is, but I can tell that Aphrodite listens to her "heart"/emotions and can make very emotional decisions, that might however not be entirely smart alltogether - as opposed to Athena trying to make decisions that she thinks must be right, based on her thoughts, while her "heart" might scream at her to not do it. So what does that mean? They need to balance each other out, which is of course hard to achieve when you're constantly having fights happen around the team and you're also at war with an "entire" Greek pantheon (which is actually not that much, since you can't count Aph and Athena themselves, as well as Chronos who doesn't want to get involved in this whole mess, Thanatos and Nemesis who joined Neith's other team as well as the obviously very dead Scylla and Poseidon). And now with page 152 and a surprise visit from Artemis [they really need some wards!], we can probably expect more evolving when it comes to the relationship between Athena and Aphrodite. On that very page alone it's already quite evident that Artemis and Aphrodite don't like each other very much, which makes sense, considering that Artemis is kind of, among other things, the goddess of virginity, which is the biggest contrast to Aphrodite you will ever get.

Interestingly enough on page 153 Athena hesitates to aggree with Aphrodite on being part of this team, but that is completely understandable.

Why? Because Nemesis just told Athena that Neith and her know about the alliance with Loki. Athena doesn't yet know that Aphrodite does too. She thinks that aside of Neith, all the others of the main team are oblivious to what she did. And she's in a tough spot (which seems to make her panic and act irrational, as I mentioned before). The leader of her current team knows she's a "traitor", then Artemis shows up, offers her to return to the Greek pantheon, who she actively worked against by telling her new team where Zeus keeps his shield. Not to mention she'd have to leave Aphrodite behind. And Loki... well I can't tell if he'd work more with her, after he lost Scylla, a powerful, albeit naive ally with a tendency to act childish - but still powerful all the same. Maybe it's too much back and forth/drama involving Neith's team for Loki to even bother dealing with Athena. In her current state she's probably too emotionally unstable too.

Sadly that's all I have for now, since I'm waiting for new pages to confirm or crush my theories! (Make it happen Zenpai!) 8D