The Golden Apples Yu-Gi-Oh! Card: How Is It Related To The Golden Apple Of Discord?

The Golden Apples is one of the cards from the Yu-Gi-Oh! card game. What is so interesting about it? How can it be related to the golden apple that appears in Greek Mythology?

You can see an image of The Golden Apples card to the right. This is actually a Trap Card. The single apple shown in the art of this card can be related to the golden apple that appears in Greek Mythology.

This apple is also known as the Golden Apple of Discord or simply the Apple of Discord. This fruit actually started or was the cause of the Trojan War.

What exactly happened? How can a single piece of fruit start a war? And what's the relation of this apple to the Yu-Gi-Oh! card in question?

All this began during the wedding of the parents of the hero named Achilles. Eris, the goddess of discord, was not invited to the wedding of Peleus, the king of the Myrmidons, and Thetis, a Nereid (a sea-nymph), but she came anyway.

She brought a golden apple with her. On it was inscribed 'for the fairest'. Understandably, all the women present at the wedding wanted the apple. This caused everyone to quarrel and argue amongst themselves.

Eventually, the rightful owner of the golden apple came down to a choice between 3 goddesses- Athena (goddess of wisdom), Hera (queen of the gods and goddesses) and Aphrodite (goddess of love and beauty).

Since no decision could be made, the 3 goddesses agreed to let Paris, the son of Priam and Hecuba (king and queen of Troy), be the one to judge and choose which one of them was the fairest and most beautiful.

To help him choose, they resorted to bribing him with Hera offering him power (she said he could be the king of Europe and Asia), Athena offering him wisdom and skills in war and Aphrodite offering him Helen, the most beautiful mortal woman in the world.

Paris awarded the golden apple to Aphrodite. He did get Helen, but this started the Trojan War because Helen was already married to the king of Sparta (Menelaus). Thus, the power and capability of The Golden Apples Yu-Gi-Oh! card can be explained or likened to the power of the golden apple that started the Trojan War.

One single fruit led to a fight between goddesses, which eventually caused an all-out war that lasted for years. In the same way, one single Trap Card can allow you to gain life points and even special summon a token with attack and defense equal to the life points that you gained.

So if the battle damage you got was 3000, then the life points you'll gain will also be 3000.

In effect, you don't lose any life points, but you do gain a powerful Malus token, which you can use to defend yourself and attack your opponent.

However, The Golden Apples isn't without its limitations. There is a catch, of course, in the same way that the golden apple in Greek Mythology didn't start the Trojan War right away.

It's also like how the 3 goddesses needed Paris to decide which of them should get the golden apple. But in order to get him to decide, they had to resort to bribery. This can be likened to how the Trap Card cannot be activated even if you take battle damage as long as you still control a monster on your side of the field.

Once your field is empty and you take battle damage, you're free to activate the card, which can be likened to how Paris finally chose to give the golden apple to Aphrodite. Being able to special summon a Malus token thanks to fulfilling all the card's requirements can be likened to how Paris was able to get Helen thanks to choosing the goddess of love and beauty.

*Notes:
- Image with added text was modified by Freya Yuki based on the image by Sandro Botticelli (Public Domain) from Wikimedia Commons
- Pic shows the Judgment of Paris
- The rest of the pics are enlarged product images from Amazon.com; links shown above via Amazon's Native Shopping Ads widget