Odin thinking that he needs Atreus and Kratos is all the more reason that if he had just been left to his own devices no harm would've come to them. Maybe somewhere down that line he DOES intend to harm them or others, but I'm just saying, only then can I get invested in a full-scale war against Asgard. So whether in this scenario or my suggestion, it all comes down to presenting a clear and imminent threat as opposed to a foregone reaction of revenge in response to past deeds. I'm not disputing that the chain of events leading to Ragnarok was reasonable/plausible, but that everything that happened in reaction to Odin's actions was a foregone conclusion. Odin had a choice to stop, but so did the heroes.
Just my two cents on the issue.
On another note, at the risk of derailing the thread, how does this moral scenario compare to that of Monster? (We can take this to the Monster discussion thread if needed). For those of you who haven't seen Monster, the premise is that the antagonist, Johan, goes around killing people directly or indirectly inciting murders. He's an active serial killer. But the morality of the protagonist is that no matter what, killing is wrong, so he can never bring himself to kill Johan, who never gets caught by the police, and instead continues his killing for the length of the series, with the implication that, like Odin, he'll never stop.
Edited by Recynon on Nov 27th 2022 at 10:41:55 AM
Okay, say Kratos and Atreus take Odin's deal in the beginning of the game and leave One-Eye to his own devices. What then? Odin still wants to use Atreus in order to fix the mask, so he clearly isn't going to try and stop manipulating things to try and drive Atreus into his arms; he's just going to be more subtle about it. A promise or a deal from Odin has about as much worth as a fart in the wind; as soon as he's gotten what he's wanted from Atreus, bye-bye boy.
Hitokiri in the streets, daishouri in the sheets.What then? Idk. It's up to the writers to present the clear and imminent threat. If they leave Odin alone and THEN Odin does something that FORCES their hand, then I have no complaints. Talking about what Odin might have done and other hypotheticals is pointless and doesn't negate my point. That's in the realm of, whatever story we want to tell, we'll make up a way to tell that story. If he wanted to the writer can just have Odin use a relatively benign manipulation technique. The fact that we have to speculate about what-if's speaks to the fact that the stakes/threat are too nebulous. Besides, I've already presented several ideas for how they could've gone about it without making the heroes the instigators.
Edited by Recynon on Nov 27th 2022 at 3:12:57 AM
I'm guessing we have different mindsets about this kind of thing. I see less of an issue with taking drastic action against somebody for past misdeeds over immediate actions, specifically when it's obvious that they'll keep perpetuating them. Asgard is also framed somewhat as a colonialist power over the other realms, so Ragnarok is also a war for freedom and that doesn't need the justification of imminent disaster.
There's a reason the real Ragnarok prophecy is about the rest of the Realms rising up to overthrow Asgard. Ragnarok is nothing but the result of Odin getting everyone mad at him with his petty tyranny.
And yeah, Odin will never stop trying to know everything and control everything. He even admits that he won't change at the very end even when Atreus is offering him one last chance.
Edited by M84 on Nov 27th 2022 at 9:50:38 PM
Disgusted, but not surprised![]()
I feel like I would have a different view of it if the game spent more time actually showing us the active effects of his colonial rule and what exactly it is that he's perpetuating. The one thing I see him perpetuating is being a bad father and lying, but it's not like he's going around starting more wars and genocides (if he is, then it'd be a simple matter to be prepared and immediately retaliate when it happens). You did mention the slavery thing though. Then again, maybe the game did show a lot of that stuff and I didn't see it, because I only watched the cutscenes.
Also, it's not just drastic action against somebody. It's drastic action against a country, basically. If it was Odin alone, yeah, then no problem, but starting a war means a lot of soldiers and civilians die, on both sides.
Edited by Recynon on Nov 27th 2022 at 6:27:23 AM
Even that is because Odin is putting those people between him and those who want to stop him.
And the protagonists do take that into account when they see that Odin is using innocent Midgardians as human shields. They switch from "destroy Asgard" to "kill Odin only". They even try to avoid killing other Asgardians.
The Einherjar conveniently don't stay dead, meaning they don't have any ethical qualms about fighting and killing them. And the Einherjar are the bulk of Odin's forces.
Again, the problem is that you think this was a writing mistake. The ambiguity of Ragnarok and whether it is really inevitable or what is the best way to handle it is entirely intentional on the writers' part.
Edited by M84 on Nov 27th 2022 at 10:31:19 PM
Disgusted, but not surprisedIt IS a writing mistake as far as creating active stakes and tension is concerned. And if you say that it was the writers' intention to make us question whether or not Ragnarok was inevitable or not, I came away with the idea that no, it wasn't inevitable, and the heroes, even if they weren't 100% to blame, played a large role in making it happen. So the effect of this intentional writing decision is that I came away liking the heroes less than I did after I finished the first game. That's just me. I don't expect people to agree, because I see the sentiment behind, "Odin was a dick and he had it coming".
Except the protagonists do spend most of the game trying to avoid Ragnarok. It's really Odin that is forcing the issue in the end.
Atreus' main motivation for example after a certain point isn't even about trying to win Ragnarok. It's about trying to avert a different prophecy.
Edited by M84 on Nov 27th 2022 at 10:46:40 PM
Disgusted, but not surprisedLooking back at GOW II, it's really hard to sympathize with Kratos in that game. He starts off doing the exact same thing Ares was doing in the first game — ordering his armies to conquer cities while he deals the finishing blows as a giant. He's even wearing a suit of armor that's similar to Ares'. GOW II is probably the game where Kratos is most blatantly a Villain Protagonist.
Disgusted, but not surprisedThis was posted a year ago, arguing that from the trailer the Tyr we rescue is actually Odin. Come around the actual game, it's actually correct even if some of the arguments are quite off the mark.
Talk about Right for the Wrong Reasons.
Uni catHonestly
The Whole Zeus is out to get you thing basically comes off as them realizing Kratos is the Bad guy here no matter what so they tried to Narratively mitigate it by using the side games and trying to make it where the gods were never on Kratos' side.
and then the Pandora's Box twist happens and Kratos is still the fucking bad guy.
like I'm not kidding if Kratos found himself in a Mirror Match Boss, where you have to fight a doppelganger of your Younger Self. Norse Era Kratos would probably kill his younger self more brutally then anyone.
Edited by FrozenWolf2 on Dec 5th 2022 at 8:29:43 AM
This is an outrage against Luminara!Even Zeus personally wiping out Sparta isn't really that awful. The Spartans were the ones carving a bloody swathe of conquest across Greece under Kratos.
It should be noted that Norse Era Kratos is a bonafide god (if greatly depowered compared to his GOW II prologue prime). Greek Era Kratos through most of the games is "only" a demigod mortal.
Though if Greek Era Kratos had the Blade of Olympus...yeah, Norse Era Kratos would be screwed.
Edited by M84 on Dec 5th 2022 at 11:03:39 PM
Disgusted, but not surprisedI think Zeus nuking both sides over at Rhodes was kind of a dick move though. Guess you can't really fine tune the Blade's zapping.
Replaying Go W 3, it's a little amusing how Kratos kinda almost kills Pandora by accident just by bringing the prison up to the box. She's lucky (unlucky?) to have survived that.
I mean as we see from Baldur, Heimdall, Magni and Modi being gods doesn't make one unkillable.
Plus, ya know, End of GOW 3 Kratos would have the same divine status as GOW 2018 Kratos since that's basically where the transition takes place.
I dunno, I think Go W 3 Kratos in general is full on godkiller mode. Poseidon is the warmup after all. Then Hades. Actually we kinda go through the biggest of the 12 real fast. Even if Hades isn't really included.
Edited by alekos23 on Dec 5th 2022 at 5:17:20 PM
The Olympians and Titans were legitimately shitty in their own right, even taking Pandora's Box into consideration. Mimir outright said that they had it ("it" being Kratos) coming.
It's just that Kratos was just as bad if not worse than them. And once he stopped thinking of himself as the victim and saw Greece falling apart at the end of GOW III, he was able to acknowledge that.
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The transition to godhood seems to be the moment he impaled himself with the Blade of Olympus.
Remember that the Blade contained his godly power after the prologue of GOW II. Impaling himself with it to release Hope likely returned said power to him. That'd also explain why the Blade was depowered afterwards.
Edited by M84 on Dec 5th 2022 at 11:18:55 PM
Disgusted, but not surprised

I feel like the next game has to be with Atreus, right? There's no reason for Kratos to run away from the Norse World. Though I don't know if the prophecy he saw at the end JUST referred to the Norse World praising him.