God Of War

Kratos is weaker in the Norse era. He has the immortality and strength, but he lost the magic he wielded in the Greek era. The Olympian magic died when Greece died.

That said, remember that Kratos was also not a god for most of the Greek era games. After II’s prologue he lost his godhood after feeding it to the Blade of Olympus. He does not recover it until he impaled himself at the end of III.

Edited by M84 on Jan 15th 2024 at 9:17:30 PM

People generally like the new Kratos more and is a deeper character but I also feel like there's room for the heavy metal grimdark Kratos.

Kratos in the Greek era was not grim dark. He still had some measure of humanity despite everything. He was fueled by Hope after all.

Greek era Kratos was a plenty deep character in his own right. Most leads of Tragedies are.

Edited by M84 on Jan 15th 2024 at 9:52:20 PM

I suppose it depends on how you view grimdark as I'm not sure what qualifies as grimdark by some standards.

I've heard people argue Berserk isn't grimdark and if if it's not, then what the hell is?

40k. It's literally in the opening intro.

As for the cosmology question, it's not so much contradictory so much as each mythology seems to take place in their own realm of existence, and travel between them, while possible, seems difficult to all but those possessing of magic or divine heritage.

But in the doylist sense, it's just not really relevant. All that mattered was Kratos is no longer in his own neck of the woods anymore and the effect he and his son have on the Nine Realms and each other.

Edited by Avenger09 on Jan 15th 2024 at 2:05:52 PM

Grim Dark is when something is totally lost to darkness. In 40k there is no light at the end of the tunnel. No chance for good to prevail. There is only war and the laughter of thirsting gods.

That is Grim Dark.

Berserk actually has something in common with God of War. Namely that fate is really just something people invented to avoid responsibility.

Edited by M84 on Jan 15th 2024 at 10:09:23 PM

I mean, that strikes me as something very much said by someone who hasn't read Gaunt's Ghosts, Ciapahas Cain, or any of the Space Marine novels.

None of those stories mean a damn thing in the greater scheme of 40k. Evil in general won in the galaxy a long time ago. To put it in perspective, Heaven got corrupted into Hell in its backstory.

The fact you think the Imperium are the good guys means you really don’t get 40k at all.

Edited by M84 on Jan 15th 2024 at 10:17:56 PM

Tbh Greek Moirae and Norse Norns seem to work pretty differently. I don't think it's an exact comparison between the two, even if GOW 2 Kratos does sorta kinda prove that Fate can be changed, he doesn't do any self searching, he just murders the Moirae instead. Granted the Norns could be like Surtr and Tyr where there's some serious firepower hidden beneath the calm exterior.

And also that he's the reason the Olympians were corrupt to begin with. Well, not Ares. But Ares is always a jackass.

The big twist of God of War 3 is that God of War 1 is in-continuity with it. By which I mean, after spending the entire game hunting down Pandora's Box to open it, despite Kratos having already opened it in GOW 1, the shocking reveal is that Kratos already opened it in GOW 1. It's. Uh. Kinda weird to call that a twist but that's how it's presented.

The box is now empty, the god-killing light of Hope is already inside Kratos and is the reason he's been able to kill gods on this entire journey to gain the power to kill gods, and the Olympians' behavior is a product of them being corrupted by the evils from within the box. Kratos corrupted Olympus on his quest to slay Ares, and then destroyed the mortal world on his quest to slay the corrupted Olympus.

So really it's all Ares's fault. But. It's. Also? Kinda Kratos's fault. Because he made the choice to begin with, to call out to Ares and offer to sell his soul in exchange for becoming the Most Violence Ever.

Kratos is like, "HOW DARE YOU trick me into twisting my daughter's head off her neck with my bare hands and then popping it like a kumquat!?" but, like, it's impossible to say that Kratos himself wasn't at least an equal participant in that. He wanted to do this to people; He just didn't want it to be people he likes. The betrayals and losses that set him off on violent murder-sprees are always at least partially self-inflicted.

The first GOW is very much a Black vs. Black conflict, whose consequences corrupt Olympus itself into something monstrous and ultimately destroy Greece entirely.

And. Like. The games want you to know that. They want you to understand that Kratos isn't the good guy here. That's why every game in the Greek era includes a puzzle where Kratos has to butcher an innocent person while they plead for their lives in order to progress, and does so with enthusiastic gusto. This is what the character is.

A fact that was lost on many in the fandom. But has not been lost on Norse-era Kratos.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Jan 15th 2024 at 7:39:17 AM

Not ALL the Greek Gods. Aphrodite lived! Good thing they decided to cut the scene where if you go back for more... Uh, competition... She tries to kill Kratos.

there's also the ones that survived by virtue of just not showing up, though I think Word of God said all the Olympians died with Zeus.

Yeah see, I don't think people "generally" like new Kratos more. I think people appreciate his character development.

I'm not sure

Greek Kratos never did anything like that.

Edited by FOFD on Jan 15th 2024 at 12:31:55 PM

There's a whole video on which gods are definitely canon through either early appearances or lore mentions who've survived Kratos' wrath (just watch the first half, the second half is just a list of gods that were part of the Greek Pantheon who weren't mentioned). I doubt it'll happen but it would be neat if some of the surviving gods saw the writing on the wall and straight up got out of Greece when Zeus started acting even worse than usual and joined other pantheons or did what Kratos did and are lying low somewhere.

Athena was kicking around after Zeus died, though who knows if that lasted very long (I'm counting her appearance in 4 as ambiguous as to whether it's actually her showing up to be a petty asshole or just Kratos' subconscious tormenting him)

Edited by PhiSat on Jan 15th 2024 at 11:12:35 AM

This isn't really a complaint but I wonder what happened to the mortal inhabitants of the realms after everything goes down, the Greek trilogy focused somewhat more on the mortals by comparison. I guess the dwarves and elves are fine overall, but Midgard sure got screwed over.

Of the ones I can think of, Artemis appears briefly in the first game and then never again (also according to artwork she's apparently a centaur?), Apollo has a few temples and statues and stuff but never actually appears (with the role of sun chariot driver going to Helios in this universe), and Dionysus is never so much as mentioned.

Edited by lbssb on Jan 15th 2024 at 1:59:28 PM

Demeter's basically fused with Hera here, Hestia is about as present as anywhere else and Dionysus's probably off to his India trip.

Athena was already dead when Zeus died. Kratos killed her in 2 after she jumped in front of the Blade of Olympus to protect Zeus.

Golden glowing Athena is an ambiguous plot point that hasn't yet been fully explored. She's no longer an Olympian and is instead connected to some other godly force that found her in the afterlife or some shit.

She has some nebulous patron entity that wanted the Olympians destroyed and used Kratos through Golden Athena to do it. At the end of GOW III, Kratos refusing to set off on yet another vengeance quest over this and instead recognizing himself as the real problem was framed as a point of defiant triumph against this benefactor entity. It wants Kratos out there butchering gods.

I'm like 70% sure that the benefactor is supposed to be the Christian God, and that's probably why they've been reluctant to really pursue that line of narrative. GOW II had those future murals showing that Kratos slaughtering all of the gods results in the birth of Jesus Christ. So there's something going on there.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Jan 15th 2024 at 11:47:01 AM

I thought in III Athena said she was rewarded for her sacrifice with immortality (in a ghostly form). In any case, she clearly didn't think she was going to die for good after Zeus did, she wanted him out of the way to take over herself with the power of Hope.

Referring to the Christian God is always a dangerous move and I'm not surprised they decided not to go through with that plotline.

YHVH as the next god Kratos has to kill as a God of Hope to keep hope spreading now.

Edited by Demongodofchaos2 on Jan 15th 2024 at 2:56:24 PM

If I recall Kratos himself noted in 3 that he had *already* opened the box before. Athena assumed Kratos had been powered up by the evils locked in the box while hope had remained inside. The twist being, of course, that the box was empty all along because it was hope that Kratos unknowingly took for himself while the evils had escaped and corrupted the gods.

...And Pandora's sacrifice thus was completely pointless

I will said Kratos isnt grimdark but first era story is very much grimdark as Kratos killing himself is seen as pretty much his last good act.

Pandora's sacrifice was pretty much the most on-the-nose the games get about Kratos being the source of his own tragedies. Like. After spending half the game projecting his own daughter onto Pandora and coming to care for her wellbeing, we see Kratos trying to stop Pandora from sacrificing herself.

Then Zeus makes a sharp comment at Kratos to not fuck this up. Kratos promptly loses his goddamn shit and releases Pandora, casting her into oblivion so he can free his hand up for punching Zeus in the face.

That's it. That is the entire Greek Era series in a nutshell. It's that, played on loop. He wants the people he cares about to be safe and alive, but they always come second to his bloodthirst. And they always suffer for it.

This is why some of us were worried for Atreus's wellbeing in the first Norse GOW game. Because Kratos doing something stupid, getting Atreus killed, and then reigniting Furious Rampage Kratos would have been completely within the spirit of what God of War was.