History Characters / GodOfWarSeriesFreya

* AllLovingHeroine: She doesn't hold a grudge against Kratos and Atreus for harming a magic boar that happened to be her friend, nor [[spoiler:her own son Baldur, who hates her for giving him invulnerability to protect him, with the unexpected side effect of taking his sense. In fact, she is okay with him killing her if that makes him feel better, even after the spell had been lifted. The death of her son, however, proves to be her breaking point whereupon she swears vengeance against Kratos for killing her son. Mimir does mention shortly after that he believes she's kind-hearted enough to come around to accepting them again after she’s given time to cool off, though actually coming near Freya’s old cottage will have both he and Atreus get nervous and worry that she’s likely inside plotting their death for the time being.''Ragnarök'' proves Mimir right, as while she does try to kill Kratos at the beginning of the game, she eventually forgives him, admitting that he is not completely responsible for Baldur's death.]]

''Norse Era:'' [[Characters/GodOfWarSeriesNorseGods Gods]] ([[Characters/GodOfWarSeriesOdin Odin]] | [[Characters/GodOfWarSeriesThor Thor]] | '''Freya''') | [[Characters/GodOfWarSeriesJotnar Jotnar]] | [[Characters/GodOfWarSeriesOtherCharacters Other Characters]] ([[Characters/GodOfWarSeriesTheStranger The Stranger]]) | [[Characters/GodOfWarSeriesNorseMonsters Monsters]]-]]]]]

* BlingOfWar: Her strongest and final obtainable outfit in ''Ragnarok'', the Queen's Armour, is an ornately designed suit made of gold and other high-quality materials, befitting its name.

* BlingOfWar: Her strongest and final obtainable outfit, the Queen's Armour, is an ornately designed suit made of gold and other high-quality materials, befitting its name.

!Freya / Frigg / The Witch of the Woods

!Freya / Frigg / The Witch of the Woods / [[spoiler:Vanadis]]

It is later revealed that she is a Vanir goddess Freya ([[spoiler:and Baldur's mother]]) who was cursed to stay in Midgard by Odin, and she cannot harm a single thing, not even to defend herself.

''Greek Era:'' [[Characters/GodOfWarSeriesGreekGods Gods]] | [[Characters/GodOfWarSeriesTitans Titans]] | [[Characters/GodOfWarSeriesMythologysHeroes Mythology's Heroes]] | [[Characters/GodOfWarOtherBeings Other Beings]] | [[Characters/GodOfWarSeriesNormalHumans Normal Humans]] | [[Characters/GodOfWarSeriesComicBookCharacters Characters from Comics]]\\

** In ''Ragnarök'', she talks about how Odin had at one point asked her to put the same invulnerability spell on Odin, refusing after seeing what it did to Baldur's mind. This suggests she did at some point realise that what she did was wrong, but refused to undo the spell anyway.

** In the beginning when she was trying to kill Kratos, her target was ''only'' Kratos and nobody else. She could've easily killed Atreus to get some manner of payback, yet ignored him, only defending herself against his attacks. She could’ve easily killed the wolves that were driving their sled to slow them down and making it easier for herself to kill Kratos, but went after him instead. Even when Atreus visits her on his own later on to try to recruit her, the worst she does is restrain him with her vines and make death threats, but even then she patiently hears him out and, despite declining his offer, eventually lets him go without harm.

** In the beginning when she was trying to kill Kratos, her target was ''only'' Kratos and nobody else. She could've easily killed Atreus to get some manner of payback, yet ignored him, only defending herself against his attacks. She could’ve easily killed the wolves that were driving their sled to slow them down and making it easier for herself to kill Kratos, but went after him instead.

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/6777.jpg]]

[[caption-width-right:300:[[labelnote:Click here to see her appearance in ''God of War: Ragnarök'']]https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/freyaragnarok.jpg]][[/labelnote]]

* AllLovingHeroine: She doesn't hold a grudge against Kratos and Atreus for harming a magic boar that happened to be her friend, nor [[spoiler:her own son Baldur, who hates her for giving him invulnerability to protect him, with the unexpected side effect of taking his sense. In fact, she is okay with him killing her if that makes him feel better, even after the spell had been lifted. The death of her son, however, proves to be her breaking point whereupon she swears vengeance against Kratos for killing her son. Mimir does mention shortly after that he believes she's kind-hearted enough to come around to accepting them again after she’s given time to cool off, though actually coming near Freya’s old cottage will have both he and Atreus get nervous and worry that she’s likely inside plotting their death for the time being. The reveal trailer for ''Ragnarök'' shows that Mimir's prediction was wrong, given how Freya attacks Kratos with a sword in one shot.]]

!Freya / The Witch of the Woods / [[spoiler:Vanadis]]

!Freya/The Witch of the Woods

* FriendToAllChildren: She has a soft spot for Atreus, whom he treats with something akin to motherly affection. Even after Kratos sours himself to her, [[spoiler:she ignores their grudge when Atreus falls ill. Even after she develops a lethal hatred of his father, she still is fond of him in ''Ragnarök'', though her motherly warmth is long gone]].

** In the beginning when she was trying to kill Kratos, her target was ''only'' Kratos and nobody else. She could’ve easily killed Atreus to get some manner of payback, yet ignored him, only defending herself against his attacks. She could’ve easily killed the wolves that were driving their sled to slow them down and making it easier for herself to kill Kratos, but went after him instead.

* AdaptationalHeroism: [[spoiler: Depending on whether you're of the opinion Gullveig and Freyja are the same being, she was a greedy, hedonistic, deceitful woman in the mythology who also managed to ignite a terrible war between the Aesir and Vanir. Aside from that, the Freyja of the mythology is hardly an honourable woman either. She's portrayed as rather selfish and flighty in Thrymskvitha, and her constant promiscuity meant that she habitually cheated on her husband Odr.]]

* TheArchmage: There is no one more knowledgeable and skilled with magic in all the Nine Realms than [[spoiler:Freya]]. Not even [[TopGod Odin]], as while he may be more powerful than her even he cannot replicate certain spells that she is capable of such as her [[spoiler:ensorcelling Baldur to be invulnerable. Freya's refusal to teach Odin her magic is a major reason behind their falling out]].

* TheExile: The Witch has been confined to Midgard because of the gods and when she momentarily entering Alfheim, she's forcefully brought back via a spell. [[spoiler:The reveal of her deific nature means that she's been exiled from Asgard]].

* GodWasMyCoPilot: She seems like a normal witch that helps the heroes in their quest, but it's eventually revealed to be [[spoiler:the Vanir Goddess Freya]].

* HotGoddess: Certainly easy on the eyes. Mimir even makes a point that, during the days when she was still the [[spoiler: leader of the Vanir,]] she was renown throughout the nine realms for her "fertile beauty" and it's noted that part of the reason Odin agreed to the marriage was because he was taken with her looks.

* ParentsAsPeople: [[spoiler: Her transgressions against Baldur, blind to his resentment until it was too late, were all done to ensure his safety against a needless death in spite of fate being inevitable, and it tragically became a self-fulfilling prophecy. She fully acknowledges how selfish her attempts were, but refuses to rectify them, and tries to advise Kratos to avoid her mistakes by telling Atreus the truth of his nature before it permanently harms him or their relationship]].

* RelatedInTheAdaptation: [[spoiler:This Freya is said to be a Vanir deity like in Norse myths, but is also made Baldur's mother]] when she had little interaction with him in the original myths.

* UngratefulBastard: [[spoiler:While her grief towards her dead son is understandable, she vows to make Kratos pay for Baldur's death, even though he did it specifically to save her and because Baldur was far too gone off the deep end to be talked out of it. It is noted in ''Ragnarök'' however, that Freya made the fully conscious ''choice'' to die at Baldur's hand rather than defend herself or ask for aid. Her lack of gratitude at Kratos saving her life at the cost of her son's when she knowingly chose for it to be the other way around is understandable in this context, and Kratos himself acknowledges it, even if he doesn't regret killing Baldur or saving her.]]

* VengeanceFeelsEmpty: Twice over in ''Ragnarök''. [[spoiler:Part of what facilitates her HeelFaceTurn is her finally realizing that even if she ''does'' manage to kill Kratos, it won't bring back Baldur or heal the pain his death caused her. And in the ending, despite having spent her entire life waiting for a chance to take revenge on Odin for all he's done to her, in the end she can't bring herself to fully kill him.]]

* YouCantGoHomeAgain: Her curse keeps her trapped in Midgard and is unable to return home to [[spoiler: Vanaheim and be among the rest of her people, The Vanir Gods, who all resent her for supposedly betraying them. She can't even set the record straight if a Vanir ever arrives in Midgard, since Odin prevents all gateway access to Vanaheim from being opened at all. All she has left is an enchanted window portal built into her new home in Midgard that allows her to see one square area of Vanaheim, but unable to interact with it at all.]]

* ParentalSubstitute: Tries to act like one towards Atreus when they first met, to Kratos' obvious annoying as he tends to get excited to see her. Sadly, it doesn't last [[spoiler:when Kratos kills Baldur permanently, and their relationship becomes sour in ''Ragnarök''. Luckily, they rebuild their relationship once she becomes Kratos' willing ally]].

''Norse Era:'' [[Characters/GodOfWarSeriesNorseGods Gods]] ([[Characters/GodOfWarSeriesOdin Odin]] | [[Characters/GodOfWarSeriesThor Thor]] | [[Characters/GodOfWarSeriesMagniAndModi Magni & Móði]] | '''Freya''') | [[Characters/GodOfWarSeriesJotnar Jotnar]] | [[Characters/GodOfWarSeriesOtherCharacters Other Characters]] ([[Characters/GodOfWarSeriesTheStranger The Stranger]]) | [[Characters/GodOfWarSeriesNorseMonsters Monsters]]-]]]]]

* BraggingRightsReward: In ''Ragnarök'', Freya can gain a new outfit and a powerful new runic attack once you beat [[BrutalBonusBoss Gná]]... who can't be fought before the PlayableEpilogue and is the strongest enemy in the game (so the player may already have done everything else in preparation), meaning that outside the Muspelheim arenas and maybe the hidden labour bosses, there will be few targets to use the move on.

* AffectionateNickname: As [[spoiler:Odin's wife]], she had received the "pet name" of [[spoiler:Frigg]], as Mimir tells it. [[spoiler:However, as things turned sour, Odin began to use it as a way to twist the truth. He didn't want a Vanir goddess getting credit for all the good deeds she'd done, so anything worthy she accomplished was attributed to "Frigg" while Freya became a separate character. As shown in ''Ragnarok'', Freya ''really'' [[AbhorrentNickname hates]] the nickname she got from Odin, as he used it to separate her Vanir lineage in the eyes of the Aesir.]]

* AntiVillain: [[spoiler:She is for the most part a very kind woman, always treating Atreus with kindness and Kratos with more patience than he probably deserves whenever they meet her. She also deeply loves her son. However, she has an deeply selfish blindspot in regards to her son, as she cast a spell of invulnerability upon him that has the side effect that he can't feel ''anything'', and this side effect has slowly driven him mad over the years. And no matter how much he begs her to undo the spell or tell him how to do so himself, she refuses out of a selfish fear of losing him. But despite this, she would let him kill her if he felt it would make him happy after what she did to him, and she swears vengeance on Kratos for killing her son to save her, a threat she attempts to make good on in ''Ragnarok''.]]

** And again in ''Ragnarok'', when she [[spoiler: saw her Norn-induced hallucination of herself break Baldur's neck the same way Kratos did in the previous game while exclaiming that nobody hurts her son but her.]]

* CompositeCharacter: Her name is Freya, but she incorporates several traits of [[spoiler:Frigg]], such as [[spoiler:her marriage to Odin and Baldur being her son. Mimir explains the confusion is on purpose: "Frigg" was Odin's pet name for Freya, and later he began to attribute her heroic deeds to "Frigg" as a way to conceal the fact a Vanir was behind those deeds. This is a case of ShownTheirWork -- there is real-life scholarly debate based on linguistics over if Freya and Frigg could just be the same deity distorted over time and retellings of the stories. "''Freyja''" is less a proper name than it is Old Norse for "the lady" (cf. modern German "''Frau''")--and note the similarity between Freyja's husband Odr and Frigg's husband Odin. There are also direct analogues to Frigg in other Germanic and Proto-Indo-European-descended pantheons, while Freyja only exists in Scandinavia]]. [[spoiler:During the lead up to the final boss fight with Odin in ''Ragnarok'', he still calls her "Frigg."]]

** Ragnarok expands this side of hers, her sarcastic humor being particularly used on Mimir.
* {{Deuteragonist}}: Or more accurately, Tritagonist. Freya's character is given much more in-depth exploration in ''God of War: Ragnarok '', eventually joining Kratos and Atreus in their quest after she lets go of her animosity towards them for what happened to Baldur. She then becomes a secondary AI-controlled partner for Kratos, switching places with Atreus at regular intervals for the rest of the story before permanently replacing him in the post-game after Atreus bids his father goodbye to [[PutOnABus set off on his own journey]].

* FireForgedFriends: Kratos and the Witch start off on the wrong foot, although they do become friendlier with each other [[spoiler:after she heals Atreus. Despite the violent turn their relationship takes at the end of the game and into the start of ''Ragnarok'', Freya and Kratos, over the course of an alliance of first convenience, then against their mutual enemy Odin, find common ground and both grow as people to the point that, by the game's end, they're firm friends and even partners on the road to rebuilding the Nine Realms.]]

* FriendToAllChildren: She has a soft spot for Atreus, whom he treats with something akin to motherly affection. Even after Kratos sours himself to her, [[spoiler:she ignores their grudge when Atreus falls ill. Even after she develops a lethal hatred of his father, she still is fond of him in ''Ragnarok'', though her motherly warmth is long gone]].

** [[spoiler:In ''Ragnarok'' she's shocked a few times out of her desire for revenge. First the fact that Kratos refuses to fight her puzzles her. Later when he explains that fighting her leads to two outcomes he does not desires - either his death, or him having to live with the guilt of killing her, shakes her. Earlier seeing Atreus turn into a bear to save Kratos only for Kratos to jump and stop Atreus from harming her shocks her enough to knock the fight out of her.]]

* ICallItVera: Freya's sword is called "Sparrow's Bite". [[spoiler:Her second sword that you can obtain in her ''Ragnarok'' sidequest "Freya's Missing Peace" is called Mardöll.]]

** In ''Ragnarok'', [[spoiler:it's finally averted once she speaks to the Norns, and they throw the fact that they gave her a SelfFulfillingProphecy due to her paranoia leading her to her controlling "help" of Baldur. She finally comes to accept that she had some culpability in her son's madness.]]

* NeverMyFault: Downplayed but present; [[spoiler: after Kratos kills Baldur to defend her, Freya swears vengeance upon him. While it's clear to her that she played a large hand in making Baldur as insane as he became, she refused his pleas to free him from his immortality and constantly ignored the pain he suffered through thanks to her selfishness. Instead of accepting responsibility for her hand in her own son's death, she pins all the blame on Kratos, much like how Kratos would blame everyone else for his problems in his younger years. Freya's CharacterDevelopment in ''Ragnarok'' revolves around overcoming this quality; her encounter with the Norns, who show Freya in no uncertain terms that ''she'' holds the most accountability for Baldur's death allows her to fully accept responsibility for her son's fate and try to be a better person going forward.]]

* NoNonsenseNemesis: [[spoiler:The intro to ''Ragnarok'' is using her restored Valkyrie wings to nearly kill Kratos without warning. Dialogue with Atreus shows that this isn't the first time she's ambushed them.]]

* PromotedToPlayable: [[spoiler:At least in the sense that she becomes a companion of Kratos with multiple weapons, runic specials, and a full skill tree in ''Ragnarok''.]] In fact, [[spoiler:it's she, not Atreus, who accompanies Kratos in the post game, as Atreus has set off alone to find the giants who went into hiding.]]
* RedemptionDemotion: In ''Ragnarok'' she [[spoiler: gives Kratos a tough fight as a valkyrie, but once she sets aside her grudge and joins him as an ally she's about as strong as Atreus mechanically, which isn't quite "Queen of the Valkyries" strong.]]

* TookALevelInBadass: In the 2018 game, she was a FriendToAllLivingThings who helped out Kratos and Atreus and expected nothing in return. In ''Ragnarok'', she's capable of flying as a hawk with VoluntaryShapeshifting, and even attacking someone with a sword. [[spoiler:Too bad that someone is Kratos, as her desire for vengeance is so strong that she's devoted her existence to killing him.]]
* TookALevelInJerkass: [[spoiler:In ''Ragnarok'', grief over her son and her rage towards Kratos have made Freya bitter, antagonistic, and violent. Even when Atreus, whom Freya treats as largely innocent of his father's actions, tries to talk peace, Freya refuses to compromise, showing the boy little of her previous warmth, even if she is unwilling to kill him to avenge herself upon Kratos.]]
* TookALevelInKindness: [[spoiler:By the end of ''Ragnarok'', Freya has undergone a full character arc; having started the game fueled by rage and vengeance (not unlike Kratos himself in his younger years), her conversations with Kratos during their alliance of convenience and their life-changing experience with the Norns cause her to see the error of her ways, and she becomes a much more selfless, empathetic person than she was in even the previous game.]]
* UngratefulBastard: [[spoiler:While her grief towards her dead son is understandable, she vows to make Kratos pay for Baldur's death, even though he did it specifically to save her and because Baldur was far too gone off the deep end to be talked out of it. It is noted in ''Ragnarok'' however, that Freya made the fully conscious ''choice'' to die at Baldur's hand rather than defend herself or ask for aid. Her lack of gratitude at Kratos saving her life at the cost of her son's when she knowingly chose for it to be the other way around is understandable in this context, and Kratos himself acknowledges it, even if he doesn't regret killing Baldur or saving her.]]

* VengeanceFeelsEmpty: Twice over in ''Ragnarok''. [[spoiler:Part of what facilitates her HeelFaceTurn is her finally realizing that even if she ''does'' manage to kill Kratos, it won't bring back Baldur or heal the pain his death caused her. And in the ending, despite having spent her entire life waiting for a chance to take revenge on Odin for all he's done to her, in the end she can't bring herself to fully kill him.]]