Cheer up! We're only like... 2/3rds of the way through? Or less? I vaguely recall Melissa saying that ch20 was the halfway point but I'm too lazy to look it up. At any rate, plenty of time for Aphrodite Ex Machina to swoop in and deliver us a happy ending, whether it makes sense or not.For a story (Aphrodite's Mirror) that isn't supposed to have a dark ending, it sure feels awfully dark right now.
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There were a couple of mirrored sequences earlier on, when it was comparing the before and after between Andrew and Elena. But otherwise, I'd say the title hasn't felt particularly relevant. We had Aphrodite in a dream sequence, and not much done with actual mirrors in general. Unfortunately, I don't really think there's been much seeded to have the ambiguous "maybe magic, maybe mundane" be in play.
Just like in real life, you can never be 100% certain of something for which there is no evidence. But Andrew himself seems fairly convinced that she is a figment of his imagination ("I created you"):
It could be his rationalisation of the encounter. He says he's met Aphrodite before. Not to sound too Ancient Aliens here, but what if after that encounter he's lost his memory of key events, like the apparent secret way of communication with Marina via the earring touches. So after he meets Aphrodite like this we can say goodbye to Andrews identity and Elena is not born but truly embraced.
Hmm... Well, I haven't noticed any symbolism in the story that would suggest that Nikos is an analog of Ares or Marina of Hephaestus. But more importantly, why was there all that talk about method acting if it was just divine intervention? Why wouldn't the dream just have been "Hey, I implanted my divine seed in you. Enjoy!" It would have been much simpler to just explain that he had a divinely-inspired compulsion to feminize himself if that was the case. The method acting thing way over-complicates things.
I don't remember Melissa saying anything about the story going past 40 chapters, but I might have missed her comment about that. It certainly feels like it could and I wouldn't mind if it did.
Help us, Aphrodite! You're our only hope!At any rate, plenty of time for Aphrodite Ex Machina to swoop in and deliver us a happy ending, whether it makes sense or not.
The real Aphrodite was the friends we made along the way.I don't remember Melissa saying anything about the story going past 40 chapters, but I might have missed her comment about that. It certainly feels like it could and I wouldn't mind if it did.
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She says more than 30 chapters. So somewhere between 30-39 chapters?
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If the end of chapter 19 was the 2/3rds of the way finished point, it would make sense for it to end around chapter 30.
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She says 30 chapters in a definitive way.
So, unless she has any recent contradictory statements, we might just have 7-8 chapters left.
Help us, Aphrodite! You're our only hope!
Here are a few more interesting quotes from Melissa.
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Literally or figuratively?
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This is still an unresolved mystery. It is apparently important enough for Melissa to point out.
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Melissa has made some teasing comments about this...
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Is Melissa dropping hints or just trolling?
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An interesting non-answer. Melissa didn't have to respond, often she does not, but for this she did.
Agreed on all points. It's really hard for me to wrap my head around what might be going on with Nikos. At this point I'm almost 50/50 on whether or not he's a bad guy. Though it's a little bit like when Marina showed up at dinner suddenly married to some other guy. That seemed pretty nuts at the time, and it kicked off a million different theories, but Melissa ended up having a pretty good explanation for that. Maybe there's one for Nikos we just haven't thought of yet.
In the Star Wars original trilogy the Force is a mythical aspect of life and in the prequels there's a scientific approach to the Force. They're two approaches to the same phenomenon. Our ancestors must have thought the Aurora Borealis was some sort of divine way of communication; modern science can explain the phenomenon. If someone has an urge to study faith, is it a passion for faith or is it their calling? Did Pavlov's dogs know they were being manipulated into salivate during his research, or did they not know they were being conditioned?
Well, generally when I'm theorizing, I'm assuming the story is/will be well-written. I think the existence of midichlorians is a fantastic example of terrible writing. Mysticism doesn't need a scientific explanation. If you start with mysticism and add science, it ruins the magic (as was the case in Star Wars). If you start with science and add mysticism, it basically makes the scientific explanation irrelevant and pointless. There'd be no reason to include it in the story.
I think you may be thinking of LadyBoyJay's theory that Joanna is an avatar of Aphrodite, which I actually do kinda like. But overall I'm 99% sure there's no magic or divine presence in this story. Other than the story's title, there's nothing that would really indicate it, and I'm pretty sure Melissa has specifically denied it herself at one point. Though I will admit that Melissa tends to be pretty vague when discussing this story and she sometimes has wildly different definitions of words like "realism" and "magic" than I would, so that's what leaves that 1% possibility in my mind that maybe there really is a goddess pulling the strings.
Yes. She seems to have painted herself in a corner with Nikos, but some writers have an amazing ability to find a satisfying way out of such a trap. We shall see here.
I get the general idea here and I have the same hard time with it - it seems like there is some magical thing happening but I remember Melissa denying there was. I think there are multiple ideas merging together here in some way that is still anything but clear. You have Andrew the actor doing his thing to try and help Nikola by pretending be his wife. Toska wants his partner to be a family guy (Melissa noted at some intermediate point that Tisha is important) and then you have Joanne who seems to be pushing along SOMEHOW (drugs, magic, hypnosis, mirrors) Andrew to go much further than planned. Not to mention whatever members of the family are potentially doing subversively.
I think the midichlorians are excellent actually. It shows how the Jedi drifted too far away from the mystic approach to the Force and tried to rationalise everything. They let technology consume themselves. The Jedi Council didn't even feel the need to have meetings in person any more. If you're ever rewatching the prequels, pay attention to how many people are physically in the Council the first time we see them versus the last time. They went from face to face meetings to call-in monogram meetings at the very end of Sith. If they would have met more often in person they would have noticed how Anakin was in a rough place with his fear of losing Padmé, like Palpatine was. The fear consummated him and as Yoda says: "Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering." With better guidance and face to face meetings, Anakin could (would) have been comforted and he probably wouldn't have fallen for Sidious' lies.
You're actually skipping the more interesting questions there.
Where does Elena's memory loss come from and what happened the first time Andrew met Aphrodite?
I even theorized that Joanna, Theodora, and James were all avatars of Aphrodite.
https://f95zone.to/threads/melissa-n-collection-2024-03-20-melissa-n.184091/post-12696720I'm still rooting for Aphrodite to make some reality alterations. It sounds weird to say this, but the only way to make the story realistic, is to use Aphrodite. The story is currently unrealistic - the surgeries, Andrew's disappearance (family, friends, DNA, fingerprints, etc.) Aphrodite is the perfect "deus ex machina" aka "god from the machine", as you pointed out. She can fix every plot hole. She can take the hatred from the fans away from the Samaras family. She can gives us an actual happy ending by giving Andrew the choice to make a heroic self-sacrifice to stay as Elena for the "greater good" and Aphrodite can "retcon" reality so that nobody is hurt by the disappearance of Andrew. As opposed to an ending of Andrew/Elena just having to accept not having a way out of the situation. I just don't see any creative way for Melissa to have this end happily without Aphrodite. *Note - Melissa has never actually said that it would end happily. She has only said multiple times that it would not have a dark ending. A bittersweet ending is very likely at this point.
Only Marina, I believe, and only at the hospital during the flashback. Other than that, the only indication we have that Marina knows that Elena is really Andrew is when she kept trying to use the 'earrings' code word. We didn't hear Sofia's side of the phone conversation, and Marina refers to him as "Aunt Elena" during that call.
Where are you getting that he met Aphrodite before? Because he says "I know you"? My best guess is that he's talking about the Elena character, not literally Aphrodite. We already know that he went to the salon with Angeliki after leaving the hospital, but we haven't seen that scene play out yet. My guess is that once the makeover is complete, he's going to see the complete character of Elena, in the mirror, at the salon. This could very well be what drives him off the deep end, and could be the cause of the memory loss as well.You're actually skipping the more interesting questions there.
The "too deep method acting" combined with the memory loss could come from a heavy trauma Andrew experience, which should technically be right after leaving the hospital. If we try to stay more medical/"realistic" here then it must have been so bad that his mind escaped into the Elena persona as a defensive mechanism. I'm unsure if just being full in makeup and seeing the new Elena-disguise is what caused the memory loss alone.
