Character Analysis
Mean Girl
We wouldn't be surprised if Mean Girls was based on Aphrodite's antics. She seems as plastic as it gets to us. At first glance, though, she doesn't seem too bad:
She was a tiny blonde and darn near perfect. Actually, she smile reminded me of a young version of Sarah Jessica Parker […]
The SJP look-alike's smile was warm and genuine, and she was clearly making an effort to make eye contact instead of gawk at my darkened-in Mark. (8.6-7)
Okay, so nice smile, trying not to stare at our main girl—and she offers to show Zoey to her room. Yeah, Aphrodite seems nice at first.
But then we've got a problem. First, her laughter is creepy: "The sound was totally unpleasant—almost a sneer—and it crawled up the back of my neck like it had when I'd first heard it" (8.22). How did Zoey first hear it? When she accidentally spied on Aphrodite trying to give a blowjob to a guy who appeared somewhat unwilling. Unwanted sexual advances are never cool, and last we checked truly nice people's laughs don't make anyone skin's crawl. The more we see of Aphrodite, the less we like her.
And as soon as Aphrodite gets Zoey alone, our dislike is validated. She says:
"I'm it here. Things go my way. You want to get along here, then you'd best remember that. If you don't, you'll be in for a world of s***." (8.29)
Sounds like a real winner, eh? Clearly Aphrodite's used to being top dog in her little world at the House of Night, and clearly she feels threatened by Zoey's presence as the mysterious new girl. It doesn't take long before it's clear she lives up to her namesake: She may be easy on the eyes and people may readily follow her, but she's also dangerously self-absorbed with a penchant for vengeance.
Jealous to the Max
Aphrodite used to go out with Erik, and she's still trying to get him back (leading to her attempting to give him a blowjob in a quiet corner of the school, which Zoey awkwardly witnesses). Once Aphrodite picks up on Zoey and Erik's interest in each other, though, things get bad.
At the Dark Daughters full moon ritual, Aphrodite makes her claim clear: "Her slick, mean smile said there was absolutely no doubt that she'd noticed my interest in Erik (and his interest in me)" (16.23). We expect her to play dirty after this. Zoey likens Aphrodite to a spider more than once, which leads to lots of… um… interesting images about her luring boys into her spider web.
Indeed, Aphrodite is overtly sexual a lot of the time. This is one of the reasons Zoey doesn't like her. Like when Aphrodite opens the Dark Daughters' full moon ritual, she dances in "a crude imitation of Nefret's dance" (16.64). To Zoey, it doesn't look at all artistic, but instead like a slutty "crotch-flailing display" (16.65). Think: Miley Cyrus at the VMAs times ten.
In order to handle the situation, Aphrodite corners Zoey and basically threatens her, saying, "Everyone thinks you're so damn cute and so damn innocent and they're so damn impressed by that freakish Mark of yours. Everyone but me […] No matter what bulls*** you've heard he's still mine. He'll always be mine" (22.90). Given that Erik himself has told Zoey that he's no longer interested in Aphrodite, it seems like she's a bit out of touch with reality.
Aphrodite isn't just a heap of empty threats, though, and she's ready to walk the walk as well as talk the talk—so after insisting Erik's still hers, Aphrodite has the guts to attack Zoey: "She raised her hand and, clawlike, moved to slash at my face" (22.95). Luckily Zoey deflects the attack, but man, we're thinking Aphrodite has some anger management issues.
Vixen with Vision
Turns out Aphrodite does have one thing going for her, though: She has an affinity for visions of the future—and according to Stevie Rae, "She's amazingly accurate" (19.64). We only get glimpses of Aphrodite in visionary action in Marked, but we've got a hunch her seer status comes up again in later books.
Part of why we don't get to see a whole lot of Aphrodite's visions, though, is that—as Stevie Rae and her buds suspect—"she only tells about the visions if she has one when she's around people outside her little group" (19.64). This might not seem like a huge deal, but Aphrodite's visions are no joke—she can prevent tragedies like airplane crashes—so her preference for keeping this knowledge to herself reveals what a deeply hateful and twisted person she is.
Zoey actually stumbles upon Aphrodite having a vision, which looks pretty creepy: "she moaned and muttered something I couldn't understand while her eyeballs shifted around behind her closed lids" (26.3). Weird. Zoey drags her into Nefret's office so that Aphrodite can't hide whatever it is she's seeing in the future, but this just makes things worse, and she becomes so frantic that even Zoey "almost felt sorry for her" (26.17). Emphasis on the almost.
But then, Aphrodite seems to have bad luck with supernatural stuff. During the Samhain ritual she's not careful about purifying the circle, and is practically possessed by spirits that want a taste of fresh blood. And then, of course, Nefret shows up and strips Aphrodite of leadership of the Dark Daughters, which stinks for her.
At the end of the book, Aphrodite shows up to tell Zoey that they were all being used, like puppets. She dramatically declares: "It's only beginning. It's going to get much worse" (29.43), which is pretty creepy. Zoey suspects that Aphrodite's visions have something to do with this insight, but there's nothing Zoey can do to make her spill the beans. So with that sense of foreboding, we'll just have to wait and see what Aphrodite knows about the truth in later books.