Headscratchers / God of War Ragnarök

What Happened to Old Jörmungandr?

• So I'm a bit confused about Jörmungandr's timeline. What happened to the Old Jörmungandr (The one that had already traveled into the past, that was in God Of War 2018). Let me retrace the Timeline from Jörmungandr's perspective.

1. Atreus and Angrboða create Jörmungandr in Ironwood by putting a giant soul in a soulless snake. We'll call this version "Young Jörmungandr"
2. Angrboða mentions Young Jörmungandr's growing big really fast.
3. Jörmungandr fights Thor at Ragnarok, and is banished into the past. This has to be young Jörmungandr, because in the 2018 game Mimir mentions that the Jörmungandr that appeared one day wasn't as big as Jörmungandr was by the time of the 2018 game.
4. Young Jörmungandr appears in the past. Centuries past. Young Jörmungandr gets bigger and becomes Old Jörmungandr.
5. 2018 game happens.
6. Fimbulwinter begins, no one can find Old Jörmungandr and he stops answering the horn in Tyr's temple.
7. At Sindri's proding, Atreus calls Old Jörmungandr, who points Atreus to the Ironwood, where he is created. Old Jörmungandr seemingly leaves to parts unknown.

So it seems Old Jörmungandr just leaves before Ragnarok happens, leaving his younger self (whose creation he indirectly engineered) to fight Ragnarok in his stead? Where'd he go? How do you lose a snake that big!

• He's a lot faster and more stealthy than he appears. Plus, since its a Stable Time Loop that he needs to allow to happen, it makes sense for him to stay away from events, presumably hiding somewhere until his young self is sent back in time, and presumably might be encountered by Atreus or Kratos in their own adventures going forward.
• He moved to Egypt and took up the name Apep/Apophis.
• He's still in the lake of nine. You see a segment of him poking out the ice. He is probably hibernating through Fimbulwinter and will be available once it ends.
  • Old Jörmungandr is noted to still be there in the Valhalla DLC.

Fight between Thor and SPOILER

• So what actually happened in the duel between Thor and Faye? You piece together some bits from quests scattered around the crater in Vanaheim, but the details are still maddeningly vague. One of the ghosts said Thor was drinking with a "strange creature" (IIRC, even Mimir didn't know what this could be). What was that? Why were Faye and Thor even in the same place? What's the deal with the frozen lightning? Were these details shared anywhere else?
  • The ending shows that Faye wanted Kratos and Atreus to find their own destinies. Faye saw a chance to kill Thor while he was too drunk to fight properly and took it, hoping to spare her family their respective fates. The resulting battle was so chaotic that no one could get the details straight, but Faye just couldn't beat Thor.
  • We don't actually know that much about the context. It could be that Faye had just received the Leviathan Axe and was just itching to test it out on the guy responsible for her race's genocide, or it could have taken place later. And the frozen lightning is what happens when Mjolnir and the Leviathan Axe clash; the same thing happens when Kratos and Thor fight.

The Mask

• The Mask is all Odin cares about and motivates his every crime, but we never find out where it came from, what it even does, or what its connection to the rift is.
• Is it connected with Ymir, given that the rift appeared where Ymir was killed? The fact it's scattered across the realms suggests so, since many of the realms are made out of Ymir's corpse. We know the language on it is not from the nine realms and only Atreus can translate it, but nothing beyond that. Could it be the language of the Jotnar, connecting with Odins need to reach Jotunheim?
• Is it connected with Athena? She knew higher secrets after Kratos destroyed her body, wears a kind of mask, has a green color, and is also a wisdom god like Odin, and we know she is in the 9 realms in some form.
  • In a sense, not finding out is the whole point of the mask. Odin truly believed it would offer him all the answers and allow him to control his fate and avert Ragnarok, but his search and efforts to procure it only cemented the event's occurrence. There was never any guarantee that the mask would so what he claimed it would, despite his fanatical belief in that outcome, only what he assumed based on the rift and his studies with it, as well as the 'feelings' he and Atreus got when moving closer to the rift. When Atreus follows the mask in Helhiem, it mistakenly lead him to Garm, presumably because of the wolf's inter-dimensional nature, and when he freed Garm Atreus found nothing on the other side despite what he thought was the case. This could be seen as symbolic of the outcome should Atreus have followed the mask and Odin's belief in it to the end, that using it would have been detrimental or caused a worse occurrence for Atreus in spite of what had been said about it. In a similar example to Martin Walker and Amecia De Rune, blindly following the given objectives and never stopping despite the cost was only costing Atreus and might have ultimately been All for Nothing or worse. Since Ragnarok makes the point that the god's inability to recognize their character flaws and change for the better is a big part of why fate seems inevitable, its fitting that at the end of the journey Atreus ultimately chooses to discard the mask and whatever secrets it promises, choosing to 'be better' than Odin, whose own desire to 'know' no matter what ultimately renders him Hated by All and Deader than Dead. Like The Maltese Falcon (1941), the mask was a valuable Macguffin that drove Odin and Atreus' character arcs, but what it did and what purpose it was for was ultimately not necessary to resolve said arcs, and in fact, choosing to go through with it would have undone all of Atreus' development up to that point. Perhaps a future entry will pick up on it, but for now, the story's point is that it's sometimes better to live without seeking answers if the cost of said answers hurts those you care about, a concept Odin couldn't comprehend even to his literal last breaths.
  • Mimir, at least, was of the opinion that the Mask really didn't do anything. Odin claimed he had a vision of a mask that would lead him to answers. Mimir reasons though that the more likely explanation is that Odin got drunk, made up the story about the mask in his head and then searched the nine realms until he found a genuine magical mask that was close enough to what he predicated. So either the Mask was really the key Odin needed or it was just a part of an elaborate delusion Odin was telling himself as part of his own mad obsession with knowledge. Both answers are arguably feasible.
    • TL;DR: We have no idea and probably never will. Odin thinks it would do something, Mimir thinks it wouldn't, and there's evidence going both ways. The whole point of the mask was that Odin found his destiny on the road he took to avoid it; in his quest to get answers from the mask he removed all possibility that anyone would find out anything about it by pissing off Atreus so much he decided to break it.
  • Perhaps we'll find out what the rift was when the series moves mythologies again... perhaps the mask allowed someone to look into the Du'at... or perhaps something much more eldritch... maybe Merlin knows something about it?
  • It's a stealth crossover.
  • Kratos vs Jim Carrey... I'd watch it.
• Might be treading into WMG territory a bit but from the context it definitely seems to be related to Ymir. Specifically the rift thing left behind where Ymir died seems to lead to the bit of Ymirs mind that still lives and is connected to all the Giants, along with potentially everyone else because everyone native is descended from Ymir. Odin tried to sneak a peak and almost got his mind melted by seeing every prophesy the Giants ever made or would all at once. The Mask either was of a similar magical source such that it reacted to the rift and convinced Odin it would give him answers or was actually designed by the Giants to let someone look in safely. Thing is even if Odin got what he wanted it would only have let him see the same flawed "if nobody emotionally matured or changes" prophesy he was already using to dictate his life.

Fate

• The Norns say there is no script, only predictable choices, but does that fit with the Giants predicting the future and never, ever being wrong? Is there a single example in the story of someone's choices actually changing the future? How does that fit with the time travel Jormungandr is predestined to do?
  • There is a minor alteration in Loki's full mural of the future, that of Kratos lying dead in his arms, wherein actuality, it's Odin who winds up dying as Atreus pulls his soul out to finish him off. It can be argued that the future was guaranteed to happen as the giants saw it based on two things: Knowing what events are meant to pass before they happen, and knowing that regardless, it's still possible for the people involved to pick different paths so long as they accept their personal responsibility in events and making them occur in the first place. The future as it is shown is not absolute, but knowing about it inevitably makes people react in some way that allows said prophetic declaration to define their actions, either in denial or in pursuing it. For example, Atreus knowing about Kratos' apparent demise is what makes him head to Asgard and work with Odin in the first place, despite knowing it's a risky choice, because the consequences of him not doing what he can to save his father mean he deems it the lesser of two evils. The events transpiring mostly according to the Giant's script is because by the time Atreus and Kratos find the murals in Jotunhiem, they were unaware of said prophetic declarations and thus acted events out based of their personalities, which made them predictable in advance. By the beginning of Ragnarok, knowing about his apparent destiny as 'Loki' is making Atreus act in ways that will fulfill his role in the coming fight, and would have likely eventually lead to the outcome of Kratos dying in his arms. The divergent point comes from Kratos and Freya being told that they do have free will despite prophecy, and them choosing to act on said information, but by that point, so many people are involved with events who are not willing to change their nature, especially Odin, that the outcome of Ragnarok is practically guaranteed to occur as shown. For example, Hiemdall is made aware of his 'fated' killing of Atreus, and between his own desire to do so with glee and spite towards Kratos for shattering his ego, he guarantees his own fated demise at Kratos' hands because of his refusal to change himself or accept his responsibility in causing said outcome. Kratos and Atreus choosing to overcome their Poor Communication Kills issues and working together as equals means that the mural portions that depict them both change, but because so many events have occurred in the lead-up to Ragnarok, which has so many people involved with it who won't, not much else is changed in the prophetic outcome. By the ending, Faye's mural of Atreus and Kratos was presumably also intended for them to find after events had transpired, meaning they did not act based on the knowledge of it, and by the time they find it, they're both aware they can freely choose to follow the future outcomes it depicts or not. It's still possible for Kratos to royally balls-up his foretold future as a Hope Bringer for Midgard, which is why he refers to it as 'a path' and not a Foregone Conclusion.
  • Way I see it, only the Norns and Faye understood that there is no predestination. Faye destroyed part of Atreus's shrine in Jotunhiem so that the shock of finding the original version would push Kratos and Atreus to find their own paths. Though from the looks of it, the game was the first time the Norns flat out said there is no predestination, perhaps the Norns wanted to help Faye's dreams become reality.

Thor's Personality

• What is Thor's deal, really? He seems to barely care about both Modi and Magni's deaths, letting it go because of a good fight, yet Thrud seems to matter to him. He claims the Giants, including his mother, are a blight on the world, yet he also seems disturbed from killing them all. He serves Odin loyally to the point he won't kill Kratos because its not allowed, yet it drives him to drink. Which is it? Is he the man who beats his son half to death or is he overprotective of Thrud? Is he the revelling mass murderer we're told he is, or is he a reluctant tool? It kind of seems like when Kratos fights him the first and second time they're two different people.
  • What you're describing is called "a multi-dimensional, conflicted character". Odin raised him to be an abusive, callous, mass murdering thug, but deep down he wants to be a loving father and noble warrior, but he's too broken to stand up and resist his abusive father's toxic influence. He wants to "be better", as the game's Arc Words go. As a matter of fact, he's exactly like Kratos on the cusp of his character development.
  • At a very basic level, Thor seems to like Thrud more than he did Magni and Modi. Which is understandable, since those two seemed like massive assholes and Thrud does not. Combine that with a bit of introspection from Thor related to how his abuse might have contributed to the personalities of his sons and their deaths, as well as the effects of cutting out the booze (at least temporarily), and that probably explains why his attitude toward Thrud is so much different than his attitude toward Magni and Modi.

Kratos and Atreus' sled wolves, Svanna and Speki

• How do they appear near the mystic gateways that are not near Kratos and Atreus' home exactly when Kratos travels to another mystic gateway in Midgard?
• For that matter, how do they survive on their own when Kratos and Atreus are gone for days?
  • Just because Atreus taught them to pull the sled doesn't mean they forgot how to hunt.
    • It's mentioned in-game that they were rescued as puppies, so they would have to be taught how to hunt. I assume Atreus was all too eager to teach them that.
  • They appear near the gateways for gameplay convenience, that's why a canoe is at every dock even if you just took that canoe and moved it three miles downstream before backtracking.

Who blew the horn after all?

• Kratos and Mimir heard Jormungandr being called in the last game, but it isn't explicitly said who did it so in this installment.
  • The likely candidate is Angrboda or one of her family members, as she's been seen to move in and out of Jotunheim at will. No one else in Midgard at the time could do so without Jormungandr killing them, and she spoke giant. Perhaps Mimir partially opening the gate at his prison piqued their interest. Our only other option is someone who spoke giant will travel back in time to ask something of the only other time traveler before he leaves Midgard.
  • It's either a Red Herring / Riddle for the Ages that was never to be answered, or Time Travel shenanigans. The best guess is that a Jotnar traveled back in time when Loki was dying (in God of War 4) to tell the World Serpent that Loki could be found in Ironwood, closing the Stable Time Loop.
  • Maybe it was Athena, since she appeared before Kratos twice not long afterward. She doesn't have lungs, but she can still talk and interact with physical objects.

The Stalkers

• It has been noted that there are no such creatures in Norse mythology, so where did they come from? Are they descendants of centaurs from Greece that somehow traveled all the way to the 9 realms like Kratos? Are they some creature from Celtic mythology like Mimir, the Lady of the Forge and the kelpie?
  • The developers were likely "loosening" mythologies to make the playerbase used to installments that are not 100% based on a single pantheon. It's possible that the next game is about Kratos & company arriving at Ancient Egypt, and then Atrues/Loki kickstarts the Gotta Catch Them All plot regarding giant orbs.
  • Centaur-like hybrids in Norse Mythology are Older Than They Think. Bödvar Bjarki's brother, Elgfróði, is described in the Hrolfs Saga Kraka as a man who was an "elk below the navel" and similar creatures are occasionaly found in murals and art of Iron Age Northern Europe.

"Tyr" being in two places at once *SPOILERS*

• How was Odin able to be in Asgard and Sindri's house simultaneously?
  • Presumably whenever he was having one of his "No! No more violence, I'm done with that!" moments and stormed off to that broom closet he was sleeping in, he then just teleported back to do Odin things.
  • Whenever Atreus met Odin or walked around Asgard, he could only find him talking to one of his two Ravens, with the other being noticeably absent. This is because said raven was remaining behind in Sindri's house in the closet, acting as an 'anchor' for Odin's teleportation, since the inter dimensional nature of the tree meant it's coordinates could not be fixed, but as long as one of them remained, Odin could also have a direct link to move seamlessly between the house and Asgard, as his own teleportation is shown to be extremely fast. Odin likely requested a closed room like the broom closet precisely to avoid anybody spying on him through windows or such whilst he was moving between realms, using the excuse of Tyr's 'imprisonment' to justify such cramped quarters over more spacious ones when he really wanted absolute privacy in the darkness. Entering said closet will allow the player to find Raven feathers on the floor from Odin's teleportations to and from the house. As for the rest, it really came down to a mater of luck and timing that nobody else caught on about his absences, but it's worth noting that Kratos and such are rarely actually in the house whilst journeying around the realms, so they might not have noticed Tyr's absence when they're not present at the house, and it only really became an issue of sorts for Odin when Atreus went to Asgard and he had to actively be playing two different roles to different groups at once.

Soul fragmentation

• This might be a Norse thing, but why do souls fragment into four parts upon death?
  • Your soul fragments altogether determine your destination in the afterlife, be it entering Valhalla, Helheim, or even being reincarnated. The most important part is the fylgja, which takes you to the Lake of Souls.
  • It's a Norse thing. Norse myth has it that the soul has four parts: Direction, Mind, Form, and Luck. The Fylgia, or Direction, is what allows a soul to reach its afterlife. Brok's Fylgia remained in the Lake of Souls when Sindri brought him back, so he couldn't return.

Souls barred from the afterlife

• What happens to a soul who's barred from the afterlife? Do they become ghosts, are they condemned to spend all of eternity in some kind of purgatorial void, or do they simply cease to exist?
  • Mimir heavily indicates that the latter is what became of Brok due to the unique nature of his situation.
  • How would they know with any certainty that Brok or other people like him cease to exist? Just because he doesn't show up in their conception of an afterlife doesn't mean that Brok couldn't hypothetically be taken in by another pantheon's processing center. Or that there are aspects to the afterlife that even the best minds of Norse mythology don't fully understand. Hell that rift Odin was obsessed over was a complete mystery to him, so why wouldn't there be mysteries surrounding the afterlife?
  • Interesting question. I won't be surprised to see Brok show up in the next game, having pulled some kind of sneaky dwarven magic at the last second. Maybe he put the remaining 3 quarters of his soul into something, similar to what Andvari did in the previous game and buying some time to finally find that 4th part. He may even have forced those 3/4 into the realm between realms or into his bottomless grab bag. Heck, he cut off his own head long before the first game, and he was no worse off after! A little stabbing gives him a lot more time to improvise.

Mjolnir and the Leviathan Axe

• As mentioned by Brok and Sindri, the hammer and axe are considered their best works, with the axe specifically aimed to match up to the hammer, but Mjolnir seems to have additional functions the axe doesn’t have like granting the user the ability of flight while holding the hammer or allowing them to fly to the hammer as Thor clearly demonstrated in his first fight and it’s even implied that the hammer is somewhat sentient despite Mimir’s statement to the contrary as demonstrated in the bar brawl in Asgard where it “dueled” with Ingrid. Is this lack of functions for the Leviathan Axe due to a lack of resources the dwarves had compared to when they built Mjolnir (which may also explain why it needs to be constantly upgraded during the whole duology) or is it that Faye never showed all the functions the axe could do to Kratos before she died (this is of course barring the runic attacks used in-game as they are never used in cutscenes)?
  • There appears to be a minor and entirely understandable mistake here. The Leviathan Axe was not meant to equal Mjolnir but to counter Mjolnir. As a result it's missing many of the more flashy and extravagant features in return for being able to physically stop the otherwise unstoppable weapon of Thor. The focus is and always was on crafting a weapon specifically to remove the advantage created by Mjolnir and nothing more.

"Bjorn"

• Why would Atreus's bear form have a name?
  • Bjorn means bear in Norse.
  • To not spoil the surprise as to it being Atreus but to give the boss its own name that isn't just "bear". Same thing for Freya's boss fight

Where did Thor go? *SPOILERS*

• When Odin stabs him, we see Thor's body disintegrate into energy. But when other Aseir die, like Baldur, Heimdall, Magni, Modi and Odin, their bodies remained behind. It's not like vanishing is a common thing when it comes to death in the Norse saga, as know other characters to leave behind their bodies as well, like Brok and Faye. So why did Thor just disappear like that?
  • Probably Odin's doing. Just another notch on his infinitely long and petty Never My Fault belt. "You not only forced me to kill my son but also disintegrate his body!"

The mural at the end *SPOILERS*

• Faye clearly painted over Kratos' mural at the end in order to show him a path where he could be the Hope Bringer of the 9 realms, but what was the original depiction?
  • Considering Kratos' past, probably another bloody page in the legend of the Ghost of Sparta. Kratos murders all the Norse gods, Freya et al included and runs away again, hoping to find solitude to wallow in self-pity until another group of gods roll up on him. Lather, rinse, repeat.
  • An interview with the narrative director, Matt Sophos answered this. The original mural depicted Kratos's death at the hands of Thor, just as the giants predicted, if he failed to truly change his ways. But by talking to Thor to change for the better instead of going for the kill, Kratos averted that fate.
• Who actually created the mural? Was it Faye or did she only paint over Kratos' side?

Where was the place with black smoke and bleeding earth supposed to be? *SPOILERS*

• Atreus managed to find several hints of where Odin locked Týr away in the Jötnar shrines with his newfound powers, with them talking about "black smoke and the bleeding earth". They assume it is about Svartalfheim, but Odin discovers their plan and disguises himself as Týr in the realm so they would think they were following the right directions. But the thing is, if the real Týr was never in Svartalfheim in the first place, but in an Asgardian prison that fell down in Niflheim, what was the Giants' hint talking about? Odin could not modify the shrines to change their content to suit his plans, as he needed Atreus to open Gróa's, and neither Asgard nor Niflheim seem to have black smoke or bleeding earth.
  • Maybe Atreus just misinterpreted the hints, assuming that they pointed to a mine in Svartalfheim. And Odin was spying them through one of his ravens and took advantage of that information.

Fenrir's soul

• Which part of Fenrir's soul got into Atreus' knife and then into Garm's body?
  • The mind, otherwise he wouldn't recognize Kratos and Atreus.

Greater and lesser Aesir

• According to Sindri in the previous game, Magni and Modi were considered lesser Aesir, basically Demi-gods compared to their father Thor who considered a full-on Aesir god that is also half Jotnar. Most fans at the time assumed that was because Thor sired them from another Jotnar for Magni and an unknown woman for Modi as stated in Norse mythology. Come Ragnarok, we find out that Modi’s mother was Sif who is an Aesir. Heimdall also implies not all Aesir are gods, so does that mean Sif is considered a lesser Aesir? And that even union with a full-on Aesir god will only produce lesser Aesir children?
  • Mimir calls them minor Aesir because they’re not as strong or important as other gods. Odin is the All-Father and probably the most powerful man in all the realms besides Kratos. Thor wields Mjolnir and has unrivaled strength and skill in combat. Heimdall isn’t very strong, but he has Gjallarhorn and is nearly impossible to hurt. Magni and Modi don’t have anything going for them besides being the sons of Thor and being really strong, so they’re considered minor Aesir.

"Tyr's" cowardice (MEGA SPOILERS!)

• Why did Odin go out of his way to act like a pussy?
  • Because Odin is just that petty. Not to mention it would demoralize his enemies when they see their supposed general in Ragnarok is a wimpy suicidal pacifist.
  • Furthermore, Odin needed an excuse to justify any potential errors he could do when impersonating Týr, as well as a reason to stay away for long periods of time. If he portrayed Týr as still brave and willing to fight, he would't be able to stay in the house and travel to Asgard in the broom closet while everyone was away.
  • Mimir mentions it after the reveal. Odin was mocking Tyr's desire to be a pacifist by taking it too far in an extremely petty way.
  • Undeniable pettiness aside, Odin simply could not accurately portray Tyr without compromising his agenda of delaying Ragnarok for as long as possible. Also, Odin's combat style heavily favours blasting his enemies with magic whereas Tyr is actually proficient with all kinds of weaponry; had Odin tried to imitate Tyr's battle prowess,Kratos would certainly notice that something was amiss, being a fellow God of War.

Regression of Kratos's weapons

• Why are the Leviathan axe and Blades of Chaos back in their base forms?
  • One explanation is that Fimbulwinter weakened all the magic in the realms, which included Brok and Sindri’s upgrades to Kratos’ weapons from the previous game.
  • When the dwarves ask what happened to Kratos' armor from the previous game, his response is that he "used it". While this may be nothing more than meta humor, it suggests that Norse enchantments degrade with use. This would mean that over the course of the three-year time skip, Kratos continued to use both the Axe and the Blades until they reverted all the way back to their base forms.

Atreus in Niflheim

• Why didn’t Atreus escape Niflheim while Odin and Thor were distracted?
  • At that point he wasn’t looking to escape, and Odin ordered that Atreus was not to be blamed for Heimdall’s death. He only decided to escape when Sif convinced Thor to attack Atreus against Odin’s wishes.

Are the Giants manipulating everyone even if long dead?

• Even though the Norns tell our changed duo, the Murals only show a complete accurate event but not the history unless giant magic is involved, there is WAY too much coincidence on how those events happened. Best option is that the Norns don't give a shit about anyone and lied about Fate!?
  • As the Norns explain, their fate prophecies aren't events set in stone, but highly accurate guesses that simply point out what will happen if one remains in their path. The Giants naturally have prophecies in their dreams and wrote down everything that would happen, not through luck, but because every character acted in their predicted path. By acting on a different path and talking Thor down instead of trying to kill him, Kratos avoided his death at the hands of the god of thunder.
  • The giants' visions are completely passive; they just tell what they see. It's not their fault that gods tend to be really stubborn and wouldn't recognize Character Development if a Dwarf turned it into a hammer and used it to hit them on the head.
  • I agree it may be possible, but unlikely. Besides, they gain no benefit regardless, even in a last laugh sense. Perhaps Kratos didn't completely believe the prophecies of the Jotnar and just wanted a second opinion.

Atreus’ spell that rips out souls

• Where did he learn it? As he doesn’t seem to know how souls work in the setting until asking Mimir about them and may have even thought of it as a sort of lullaby for the dying instead of the soul ripping spell it is.
  • Presumably, it was an accident caused by his strong emotions that greatly resembled the soul-ripping spell. He only learned the polished version from Angrboda later.
    • Sure didn't look like an accident to me, in fact he looked quite prepared to imprison his soul in that talisman or else he wouldn't have brought it with him.
    • Probably something he picked up while one of his off-screen expeditions, albeit without fully understanding what it was; maybe from one of those Giant's murals.

The Norns' sudden honesty

• Why did the Norns admit to destiny being bullshit when they had been sadistically manipulating people into fulfilling their prophecies for eons?
  • The Norns might be a major case of Jerkass Gods, but they do not "sadistically manipulate" people into fulfilling their prophecies. They simply reveal their visions if sought after/prompted, and amuse themselves with the result. It is shown multiple times in the story that the events of prophecy are not written in stone, they can be averted, it's just that people often fail to do so, often by their own fault.
    • It still begs the question of why they waited until the events of the game to admit predestination isn't real. Perhaps they knew it was their best chance to get rid of Odin before he did anymore damage to the realms.
    • We only know what the Norns specifically told Kratos and company when they showed up. Very few people visit the Norns because they can't handle the Brutal Honesty, and they only talk to people who come to them. The Norns told Kratos and Freya that fact because it's what they needed to hear to better themselves; Freya needed to understand that it was her own choices that doomed Baldur and Kratos was just a bystander, and Kratos needed to be both reassured that he could change his destiny and told he was doing it wrong. Maybe they didn't tell other visitors that particular tidbit because it wouldn't help them change or said visitors did hear it and either told no one or decided to reject it (For example, Odin's page speculates that he found out when he hanged himself but ignored it because it would mean he had to accept his own responsibility for his actions).
  • I think you might be mixing up the Norns with the Sisters of Fate. The latter tried to manipulate Kratos and got killed. The Norns are honest with him from the get-go. They may represent similar concepts, but they are different entities.

Heimdall in Helheim

• Why did Odin send Heimdall to Helheim with Arteus and Thrud? Odin says he was to accompany them in finding the next piece of the mask, only to go off somewhere else the first chance he gets, claiming it to be on Odin's orders. Did he have something else to do there or was he going off on his own because he didn't want to be stuck with the "kids"?
  • Also what was he doing in Vanaheim before his boss fight with Kratos? Why was he there at all to begin with?
    • He had some other "mission" in Helheim. It was irrelevant to the players, so the game just kind of hand waved it — narratively, he was in Helheim so they could have the scene at the end where he antagonizes Thrud and Atreus. He was in Vanaheim to help lead the Aesir attack that Kratos and company interrupted.
    • The mission was to retrieve the moon from Helheim. Kratos and Atreus realize this when they're traveling through Vanaheim.
    • Small clarification, it was the object that held the moon, not the moon itself. It's likely Heimdall went to Vanaheim in the first place to capture its moon (as far as I can tell the game makes no mention of other realms lacking like Svartalfheim being affected by this, so I assume each one has their own sun and moon, might be wildly misinterpreting that ofc).

Dreki of the Crater

• One questline in the Vanaheim Crater involves hunting down three non-native dragon species Odin released into the region, among them the Dreki. Despite its placement in the questline, the bestiary mentions the species is otherwise native to Vanaheim and the game seemingly follows this with 2 of the 5 Dreki fights in the game taking place in the main area of Vanaheim, so why is Dreki considered invasive in the questline?

Did none of you find some Kratos' decisions weird? SPOILERS

• He changes his mind very quickly in some situations, from the very beginning he is very against war, when he realizes he's unable to stop Atreus from looking for "answers", he starts helping him in a more active role (he proposes to go to Alfheim), so far so good. But when Odin kills Brok, suddenly he wants vengeance at all costs, forgetting all the stuff he said earlier (he even changed Freya's mind, and he was right), like he's taking steps back, then he sees Midgardians dying, and quickly changes back again to being at the side of "Justice". This norse Kratos is a more complex character than Greek Kratos, so it might be more difficult to write him, but I thought this a flaw in the game. Did his behavior make sense for anyone else?
  • The confusion is understandable but let me see if how it makes sense from Kratos perspective. This entire game pretty much everyone has been trying to drag himself and Atreus to war, whether they meant it or not. Brok and Sindri helped Atreus or set them on a path that would inevitably lead them into conflict with the Aesir, Atreus has been trying to figure out his prophesied destiny which includes war with the Aesir, Freya is vengeance obsessed which is redirected onto Odin, even Mimir seems receptive to the idea of going to war to end the threat of Odin. Kratos and Tyr have been the only voices genuinely resisting that path with Tyr having just turned out to be Odin in disguise and Kratos having been forced into conflict thanks to Heimdall being a petty little bitch who can't accept mercy. This leaves Kratos in a position where the only path to save Atreus, which is all he cares about in this moment, is going to war to destroy the enemy who will not stop until they are dead. So he falls back on old habits and deliberately tries to regress back into the General Ripper he once was focusing on his anger of Brok's death. Yet even now he can't bring himself to do it which is why his combat style doesn't change any or revert back to the old God of War. The moment he sees the Midguardians thrust into the conflict as meat shields it gives him the epiphany that there is another way out of this, the same one everyone from Freya to the Norns have been smacking him over the head with all game, focus on being better even in a terrible situation and change.
  • It's likely the OLD GHOST OF SPARTA still lurks within Kratos, and he is trying to justify his actions. He seems decisive, but even he can second-guess himself sometimes. It's obvious he'd RATHER have some nobler, unselfish, reasons to do things now. This change becomes obvious when he chooses to spare Heimdal (but it doesn't take) and tries EVEN HARDER the next time around to spare Thor (besides, Heimdal didn't have kids). Remember when he constantly made it clear it is always justified to kill something/someone that's trying to kill you? Nowadays, he'd rather take the third option, even if it's in self-defense. He's trying to be better. He's REALLY trying and making steady progress. He's not lazy or making excuses, but owning up to his own mistakes and trying to lead by example and practice what he preaches. He didn't hesitate to kill Odin, EVEN THOUGH HE HAD MANY PERSONAL reasons and grudges, but because Odin made it very clear he would never stopping hurting and killing others and abusing his power. The war finally became well and truly justified at that point. Even when the war is already raging, he'd rather try everything within reason to save lives - even volunteering himself for a suicide mission to go after Odin directly and end the war early.

What *did* cause Fimbulwinter?

• The story reveals there are no real prophecies, it's only the choices the characters make. Yet, when Baldur is killed, this sets off Fimbulwinter, which lasts for three years and when it ends, Ragnarök is set to begin. So this means no matter when Baldur was killed, Fimbulwinter would start and it would affect all 9 realms. If Ragnarök is simply the culmination of Aseir's own mistakes inevitable catching up to them, then why does Baldur's death actually cause the world itself to change? We also see when Atreus gets sick, it throws the world 'out of balance'.
  • We saw this happen before in God of War 3. Whenever an Olympian died, it caused a backlash based on their domain; the seas rose when Poseidon died, dead souls ran amok when Hades dies, and so forth until Kratos tried to kill himself to release the power of hope into the world. It's the same idea, though the effects are different. With Atreus, he's part Jotun and part Olympian, but being locked out of Jotunheim meant his territory was just the forest where he lives. But Baldur was both Aesir and Vanir, so the backlash reached farther out. Note that it took destroying an entire realm to restore balance.

The necessity of killing Níðhögg

• Was it truly necessary for Kratos and Freya to kill her? They themselves acknowledge that Níðhögg was very much an innocent pawn of Odin, presumably it was impossible for anyone including Ratatoskr who seemed to be the most familiar with Níðhögg to attempt to reason with her, it’s obvious that she was an obstacle but at the end of her boss fight it seems like they chose to kill Níðhögg when it wasn’t necessary since she seemed to be retreating from the fight and even if she wasn’t couldn’t Kratos have simply continued keeping her distracted until Freya was finished with the roots?
  • One, Nidhogg can teleport, so Kratos was probably worried she'd return from an unexpected direction. Two, they have no way to know that Nidhogg will stop fighting after they stop harming the roots; for all they know, she might never stop trying to kill those who harm the roots in any way. Maybe they should've discussed this with Ratatoskr beforehand.