And it was partly why I went back to play the original games for the first time in preparation for Ragnarok. Context matters and I wanted to know his full story.
Ironically only 3 gods were in Kratos’ kill list: - Ares: for killing his family - Thanatos: for killing his brother - Zeus: for being responsible of the former two and making him kill his mother The rest? They got in the way
Zeus: "ok this is bad, but if we all work together we can easily bring him dow-" Apollo: "yeah no, you're on your own asshole, I know where this is going" artemis: "I got to agree with my brother, you're on your own." dionysus: "I will drink at your grave" demeter: "sorry I don't do the whole fighting thing." Eros and aphrodite: "we will take on Kratos" Zeus: "in battle right?" Eros and Aphrodite: "..." Zeus: "IN BATTLE RIGHT!!!"
It's like Kratos himself said: "I killed many who were deserving...and many who were not." Some of his victims deserved what happened to them, but others didn't. Simple as that, he was justified for those that deserved it, but not for those who weren't.
@@Ishan_Singla All of the others gods. Not only did they interfere with his vengeance, they were literally posses by evil. Made corrupted and evil.They had to die. It was man’s time not to be interfered with by gods.😊
When it comes to Hephaestus' death, I think it's important to remember that Kratos actually agreed with his actions. Despite being the monster that he is, he claims that Hephaestus did what every good father should. To me, that speaks a whole lot about his character. That even when he was so monsterous, the humanity inside was still there, still poking though. Something interesting I wish TBP spoke more about.
@@godzillazfriction To be fair, empathy and regret is also a part of being human. These emotions combine to complement rage and brutality, among others to form true humanity. It's safe to say Kratos was only consumed by his former half after the events of 1 and 2, so for him to show this much understanding to Hephaestus actions is technically more humanly of him.
@@joseph2000117 Is there? Nature for the most part can't be brutal, the environment does not have the autonomous will to premeditatedly commit violence of any sorts and in the animals that are intelligent enough and do purse violence for more than just getting food, i don't think you could really find ANY that gets anywhere near the levels of brutality humans have achieved throught history.
Kratos sees himself as evil It's why, he refuses to tell atretus about his past and why he says we will better then gods of before Even in the og games Kratos was always questioning himself like about killing pandora or about how he killed his mom Kratos is supposed to be a badguy. Him trying to end his own life over all the guilt that he feels wouldt even make sense as a scene if he was a morally good person with no blood on his hands
Having played all of these games for the first time recently, it's definitely all there in the games, plain as day. Even at Kratos' worst moments, I understood what he was thinking and feeling. It increases the dramatic tension of Dad of Boy, since you know exactly what Kratos was hiding from Atreus and even had a role in it as a player.
@@unoriginalhazard Yeah, no. John Wick was the original crossover. It wasn't a big gameplay event like the Avengers one, but it promoted the movie and gave John Wick as a skin. Back when I used to play, you would fear people with a John Wick skin because it meant they were an OG and would probably kick your a**.
Well to be fair if I had to kill my mother because she turned into a monster, have my brother killed after saving him from torture and madness, refused to take my nightmares away after aiding the gods, tricked into killing my wife and daughter, had all my brothers in arms killed in one sweep, and was forced to leave my daughter forever alone to aid the gods that caused most of these things, I would also be pissed enough to cause a godly apocalypse.
The hubris of the gods brought their own ruin. Kratos' own desire to be the greatest warrior for Ares brought his ruin. Ares created a perfect warrior that hated him. Zeus triggered the very events that guaranteed he'd be killed by his own son. And so many more times people sew the seeds of their own destruction, or bring themselves to ruin. And it continues in God of War 4 too...
I agree, but the translator scene in God 2 are BROOTAL, but to me, not even Amphitrite's death tops the burning of the Athenian soldier. That's OG brutal kratos
For me it was the end of the Theseus fight in GoW2. The guy was already bloodied and beaten, but reaches up for you as you open a door. Kratos then puts is head in said door and repeatedly smashes it as the game tells the player to mash X. I think it was how he's smashing the door as I was smashing the button that did it for me. That I think was the first time I was stunned by the violence of a video game. Where that scene stunned me though, Poseidon's wife straight up made me sick.
@@Takejiro24 Yes. Pretty much one of Kratos worst deeds. She literally had nothing to do with him and the gods but brutally murdered her in the worst way possible. But GOW 3 Kratos was the worst. A man completely blinded by his want for vengeance with no care for any of the casualties.
"kratos is a bruitish monster" implies that it's the present and in the present god of war he is no longer a monster but actually a good god a god that inspires hope back into humanity so the answer is no.
Not really I think a better quote to fit god of war is "you reap what you sow" The gods shaped and molded Kratos in warfare. Maybe he would have talked things out and vented anger in healthier ways had the greek gods had taught him when they had their chance. Instead they pushed him into a rabid dog.
The Norse series is probably the time where Kratos and the abyss are continuing their staring contest, until the abyss blinks because Kratos is no longer its pet.
My thoughts on young Kratos is, "I understand his reasons for his actions but that doesn't mean I agreed to his method of violence" aka he has great reasons to hate the greeks but doesn't excuse him from his violent actions
And what he did was very justified because the world was against him. So Kratos chosed to plunged the world into Chaos and wiped out the Greek Pantheon
In all fairness what was he supposed to do. Let the gods continue their corruption and further create more wars and bloodshed? I get that Kratos’s motives were personal but at the same time the God’s were poisoning humanity and slowly destroying the world. If Kratos got innocents killed then fine, it’s better than them living a life under the heels of beings who manipulate and abuse them. He may not be a hero but he’s a far better person than those he killed.
Another point against the "The gods were corrupted by Pandora's Box being opened, that's the reason they were bad" argument is in the comic you mentioned about Kratos finding the Ambrosia to cure his daughter. The entire reason his daughter needed the Ambrosia was because Ares gave her a skin disease due to a bet between the gods about who would obtain the ambrosia, the other gods in the bet themselves doing various things to their "chosen champions" to motivate them into going after it (Hades infected the King of a Barbarian tribe to motivate his champion, the King's Son, Alrik (Fun Fact, Alrik is the one who would lead the Barbarians against the Spartans in the battle Kratos pledged his soul to Ares. In fact, the reason for this battle was Hades told Alrik that Kratos was to blame for his father's eventual death.) Poseidon infected an entire land with a plague, Artemis had cursed the women in their champion's land to only bare stillborn kids. I could go on, but you get my point.). So yeah, the gods were already bad, the only effect the box's evils had on them was making them worse.
This comment speaks volumes. Good to see someone else with common sense and knowledge on what they're talking about, I couldn't help myself but comment multiple times, this theme is really touchy appearantly 💀
All the fear did to zeus was enhance what was already there, remember he had deimos, kratos' brother and presumably his own son, kidnapped and also cursed their mother, the only mortal affair that he had that was probably not only one of the few completely CONSENTUAL ones but also perhaps the only one he had long term, considering that the brothers aren't twins
Plus, most of the immortal characters in Greek GoW pitied or downright despised mortals. The Gods created the mythical beasts (gorgons, minotaurs, manticores, etc.) to torment and brutally kill mortals as a way to force them to pray to the Gods to save them through worship and sacrifice. Don't even get me started on afterlife punishments like when Zeus sent all the titans to Tartarus just for what one titan (Cronos) did.
@@SECONDQUEST becoming God of War when Ares was a screwjob artist at worst to him Like why would he want to be a god that can screw someone like Kratos?
@@sumthingwikked4257 He would want to wield the power of a god and try and ensure no-one can screw with him again. It didn't work, but it was a good plan. Plus, the way Athena sold the job to him, it didn't really sound like he had much of a choice.
You want believability in a work of fiction about gods, monsters, magic and a man who can fling the blades that are chained around his forearms and return them to his hands perfectly re-wrapping the chains on his arms?
He wasn't justified in murdering various helpless humans. The gods? The fates? The other heroes? The mythic beasts? Titans? All deserved it. Ship Captain? Poseidon's Princess? Deserved better.
Kratos is literally responsible for the gods becoming corrupt, he was the one who opened Pandora's box in the first place. Kratos in the older games is a genocidal cunt who is evil incarnate.
Kratos: You would excuse my actions. Tyr: not excuse, only accepting them. Your actions are much deeper than you realise. The Valhalla DLC Not only makes your video hold up but it also makes the classic games hold up.
Yeah Kratos did what he had to do at the times to survive. Sure while that pact with Ares was stupid and dangerously messed up, he really had no other way to win and he knew if he died, Alrik the Barbarian would not stop and continue violating Sparta, which Kratos could not accept.
I really hope Ragnarok has a lot more moments of Kratos sharing his past with Atreus. Even with how great those moments were there were so few of them and by the end you know that there’s still so so much Atreus doesn’t know. I don’t even think he knows he had a sister long ago.
Its not specifically to Atreus, but he tells many stories of his past to people like Mimir, who asks him of the validity of some of the myths he heard from Greece
Great video. It's such a shame that people only see kratos as a mindless brute in the first three games and completely ignore his character development and chalk it up to the first game
i think the reason people forgot about kratos's more positive side is because god of war 1 came out in 2005 and many people have forgotten about the smaller details by now.
it's still mostly that, the only time where i truly see redemption it's in the new God of War, before that it's just remorse without taking actions in the right direction
@@bruschetta7711 Technicaly he belives the gods will absolve him of his actions. So, to him it is the right the direction. Literaly the entire world had to go to hell for him to relise being angry and vengeful in making decisions is not a good thing.
Zeus, Ares, and Thanatos were really the only deities who deserved what they got. There were many others who were also corrupt, but they were only killed because they got in Kratos' way or attempted to commit their own revenge against him. Kratos in a lot of GOW 3 was just needlessly cruel and almost evil to an extent.
@@maxmcqueen1196I feel you, but I like to think thathe just lost it. It's too much, even for a fictional character, I think that it would be weird if he wasn't so animalistic in his behaviour
@@maxmcqueen1196 I would say Cronos did too, he ate his own children, and even dared to criticize Kratos for killing his family. Also what did Thanatos do except for follow Zeus’ orders?
I think the biggest problem with people understanding Kratos character comes from the tonal shift in God of War 2, the writers did a complete 180 with the story and it's clear that 3 and the prequels were trying to retroactively explain the change, the gods in the original game weren't meant to be evil and even helped Kratos, Zeus (disguised as the Grave Digger) even saves Kratos and tells him Athena isn't the only God looking out for him, yet God of War 2 tries to set up this huge battle between the Titans and the gods and tries to make Zeus evil, but at the same time shows Kratos being just as bad as Ares at the start of the game. In my opinion Kratos actions are not justifiable but they are understandable, Kratos spirals into a depression after becoming a god and focuses on war and revenge to distract himself from his memories but at the end when there is nothing left to distract him, he realizes that what he has become.
On that note, you can also notice this based on Kratos's voice between God of War 1 and 2. In the first game, Kratos barely ever screams during cutscenes or in-game dialogues. He's actually more like someone who has a bad rep and everybody hates him but he's just trying to get the job done while trying to get his peace in the end. Then in God of War 2, in almost every cutscene and in-game dialogue, he is screaming or at least using an upset tone. God of War (2018) kind of blends the two as Papa Kratos is still grumpy, but only screams when something dangerous is happening.
@@Zoki4444 “Zeuuuuuuuuusssssss” - God of War 2 2007 Yeah there’s was definitely a lot of yelling in god of War 2, honestly I think there might have been less yelling/screaming in god of war 3 and there was a fair amount in that too.
pretty sure they also threw Pandora's box into the mix to explain the shift for the mainline games. especially important as many people did not play the PSP games and such.
@@TGPDrunknHick 100%, GOW 3's story is messy but overall, it does a good job of recontextualizing the changes made in GOW2, originally GOW3 was going to have kratos kill all the greek gods in the first level and then go on to kill every pantheon until for some reason Christianity happens, it was awful so even though GOW3 isn't perfect it's much better than what we could have gotten.
This argument falls apart very quickly when you realize gods were always horrible people and needed pandora's box to become even more evil. They tortured Kratos for years, sent him to missions and still didn't give him his wishes. It is not about the writers changing, even in ascension kratos was comparatively calmer.
It pisses me off that Cory Barlog himself jumped on the "old games were shallow" bandwagon in that Polygon article It's almost like it was Sony's marketing plan all along
It's a shame too because Sony used to trest Kratos as their new mascot after Crash and would let him guest star in a bunch of games (Soul Calibur, Mortal Kombat, Shovel Knight to name a few) and GOW was the most featured game in PlayStation Allstars with 2 characters and 2 alt character skins (kinda like echo fighters ended up being).
@@DrMonty-yr1kc You can generally agree with what something someone says without agreeing with everything. Idk why this is a controversial thing to you lol
If I remember correctly, Kratos didn’t help the captain because he was human traficking and abusing the girls locked in the cabin, but this is only said in the book and I haven’t read them so who knows for sure. But I love how his human side is portrayed in gow1, and I think that the creators have slowly lost the vision of his character. Gow1 has the best depiction of his human side besides his monster self, which surprises me as it is the first in the series. And I can’t really say this is canon and intentional since I don’t see it in ascencion or chains of olympus. And yeah I know that as the games progressed he was supposed to become more and more a monster, doing things that were not justified anymore. They got it right in this point. I specially like the moment right before helios in gow3 where you kill the guy hanging out of his window, screaming that he lost everything, just because he was in the way. It was not necessary and feels just like the amphitrite moment but earlier in the game. My problem is when they tried to bring back his humanity. It felt shallow and lazy, honestly. It came out of nowhere, and I think this is the main reason everyone seems to have a wrong perception about him. It sucks to say this because I really love gow3 and only recently I’ve been thinking about the story, but gow1 did a much better job at delivering a monster with some sparkles of humanity within, which we can see in almost every scene where he was supposed to play as the villain. Nice video as always, I guess I owe to you for making me think too much about these games, so thanks for making me dislike gow3 a little bit but liking the whole series much more now 😅
GoW 3 Kratos is a monster. Him caring for Pandora isn't lazy, it was developed throughout the entirety of the game. After several meetings with Hephaestus, he begins to relate to him, it makes him remember he was a father too, not god slayer. I can agree that GoW 1 maybe showed duality of Kratos the best, probably because it was meant to be a stand-alone title. But, Kratos killing that guy next to window shows just how far gone and blinded by rage, lust got vengeance he is. To be fair, he did this guy a service. What are the odds he would survive all these cataclysms before or after Zeus' death? They are miniscule. The guy was not guilty, but he had a swift death, not suffering from disease, flood and thunderstorm. Kratos doesn't do the heinous acts out of malice, he does it out of apathy. Now, after seeing him fall so low as a person, you can appreciate him regretting his actions right in the end of GoW 3 and especially in God of War 2018. Him being more hell-bent on one extreme than the other, doesn't make his character or his development simple and primitive.
you're over analyzing this, the captain was just a regular captain, the scene was meant to show that Kratos didn't care about saving the people on the ship, he just cared about completing his mission, Kratos was not meant to be a good person, in fact it was the exact opposite, however he was tormented by his past and sought an end to his pain. I find it really annoying that so many people try to categorize Kratos into either a Virtuous Hero or a Monstrous Villain, he is a human being with flaws but also virtues, just like the heroes of the Greek Tragedies he was based on.
It's not right to compare GOW 1 with GOW 3, they are different stages in kratos life. GOW 1 is still human Kratos with a monster beneath the surface GOW 3 is full blown murderer beast with some humanity awaken by Pandora
I cannot recall if it was outright stated anywhere, it's been a while since I've played through the series, but I think you can safely infer that because of the on-going prophecy about the son causing the downfall/death of the father, Zeus favored Athena over Ares. What form that took is left to interpretation, but I imagine at best he'd have to fight twice as hard in order to gain half as much, at worse he suffered verbal, emotional, physical, etc abuse at the hands of his father and probably the rest of the pantheon as well. Which would over time lead Ares to want to kill Zeus and take over Olympus for himself. Come the prophecy of the Marked Warrior causing Olympus' downfall. So Ares can take care of them, both gaining favor with Zeus, but also keep them to himself so he can make them into his weapon to take down Olympus should he actually want to go through with that. But then Zeus commands the Marked Warrior to be detained within Thanatos' realm, throwing a big wrench into whatever plans he may have. But hey, the Marked Warrior has a sibling, he can keep an eye on them, maybe something will come of them. The sibling Marked himself in the same way? Very interesting. Imagine how different the series would be if Zeus was not a dick.
You could make the argument that as horrible as the short term consequences of his actions were, the people will ultimately be better off without the Gods lording over them.
What people? He literally destroyed the world. (It got retconned to only destroying greece but thats not what it was at the time). But yea he stabbed himself giving hope back to the people, the 10 people that survived the floods and the freaking sun disappearing from the sky
Yeah but when the short term consequences are country sinking floods, death of all nature, enternal night and dead walking the earth I don't think you'll find many people wanting to shake Kratos' hand
I would like being friends with asura, he has a good head on his shoulders and i'd welcome early tinitus if it meant getting to hang out with him sometimes
Mostly agree. Asura was cool. He was literally just trying to save his daughter, he never killed a civilian and actually befriended humans. Asura isn’t on the same level.
Kratos actually reminds me a lot of Guts from Berserk. His uncaring vengeance phases are like the Black Swordsman Ark, where Guts just mindlessly kills demons often getting innocents caught in the crossfire on his hunt for the on that betrayed him. Then later after failing to get satisfaction, he mellows out a bit and starts to care again.
Kratos being a Spartan and even a general makes it easy to see how he transitions from someone who is morally ambivalent due to circumstance to a monster seamlessly via the action of the player because its easy to imagine the value a human life would hold being diminished after being so desensitized to death and killing. This is perfect because it ironically opposes the tragic theme of the story being the death of his family by his own hands.
The only people that say the original God of War trilogy is just an alpha male fantasy are the ones that have either never played God of War or just played for the gameplay and not the story (there are SO MANY PEOPLE LIKE THIS 😡)
Honestly every God of war game excluding 3 he was a complex character who wasn't killing just to sate his bloodthirst In gow 3 the devs themselves ruined his character to lean into his brutality and made him a mindless killing machine, if he didn't kill humans begging for their life or naked kidnapped princess his character would be seen as more complex by people who didn't play the game
@@ReinAfterDark they didn't ruin his character as the guy in the video says it could be that the diseases and fear went into kratos aswell making him evil which is why he did all those things.
Video Title: Was Kratos Justified? It's Complicated! Kratos: What does this mean? Tyr: That your legacy has always been a *complicated* one. You know DAMN WELL how much GOW acknowledges its players and/or audience.
That was a good brake down. You're also right about things being different now then even a few generations ago. My great grandfather had a principle brake up a fight he was involved in with the school bully. The principle took the two of them around the school then let the fight continue and he saw my great grandfather was winning and the bully was about to learn a lesson. Very different from how it would be handled today.
Even though he isn't a modern hero I am able to sympathise with Kratos far more than most heroes in media nowadays and I believe given his mental state and the situation he found himself in that being he would've never been able to find peace in life or death as Gaia tells him that when he dies his soul would be tormented by hades for all eternity that he did what any human would which is struggle to improve his situation it's just that along the way his anger got the better of him.
He is edgy, but he is believeable. And as I would say it, he feels truly human. His humanity represented by feeling many conflicting emotions, doing horrible things and regretting it only to do other horrible atrocities again. We can actually see the results of his upbringing and his environment. In those ways he is definitely more real than many heroes which quick and recognize their faults and fix them, or those anti heroes that don't even have second thoughts.
Greek Pantheon: A bunch of morally bereft jackarses, even for the era Kratos: A victim of a pantheon's misdeeds Also Kratos: Ends a pantheon's existence before they could enslave the entirety of mortals Me: Commissions a full-sized bust in Kratos' image with a plaque at the base that reads 'More than a hero' Also Me: Is aware that the creator of Kratos' character also is the mind behind Needles Kane/Sweet Tooth
This really doesn't hold up as well as you think it does. Countless people died throughout Greece as a direct/indirect consequence of his actions in GOW3 (All of the gods' deaths, something that's also brought up in Valhalla and with Kratos stating he knew what the outcome of killing gods would be, and still didn't care). The gods enslaved mortals, Kratos genocided nearly all of them. He's no better or worse than the other gods
@MW_Asura I wouldn't say the gods enslaved the mortals, though they were in charge of aspects of life, death, and creation, and so mortals play a role in that as well.
Honestly, I love the writing around Kratos overall, from the original trilogy, to the prequel and in-between games, and GoW 2018. It’s the story of a competent military commander who let his ambition lead him further away from his humanity, and those who he put his trust in to help fix his mistakes backstab and betray him until finally he loses himself to the worst parts of his nature. Through his own actions and the actions of others against him he does become a monster. He’s in between a rock and a hard place, and somehow both he and those he’s fighting are both. It’s like a Bronze Age arms race, and both sides continue to escalate the situation, no one wants to call chicken, until finally someone throws the first punch. The God of War games feel like someone kicking over a domino, starting a cascade of bigger and more damaging events. God of War 2018 gives us a chance to separate ourselves *partially* from that cascade of events and look at them with some retrospective knowledge, and give Kratos some much needed time to come to terms with what he’s done and how he wants to proceed with his life moving forward. His line to Atreus, “We must do better,” near the end of GoW 2018 proves that despite everything he’s done he can choose to change. A lot of this feels like a story of nurture vs nature. Kratos’ upbringing and ambition to stand near the apex of his Spartan society feeds the worse parts of his nature, but as Ares found out to his ultimate detriment, Kratos’ family fed the good man he could be. Without the positive nurture to feed his nature and majority negative environment, Kratos’ bad habits and underlying mental instability only got worse. I think decoupling Kratos from Greece and giving a fresh start in Midgard may have been the right call. It allows him to build new social connections in a new, neutral environment, and allows us to see what Kratos can be outside of his all-encompassing rage when he still has someone he loves in his life. I love Kratos’ character, not because he’s a macho man or a badass killing machine, but because he’s written with a surprising amount of humanity, with all the good and bad that comes with being human. Hell, I’d bet a psychologist would have a field day figuring out Kratos’ diagnosis. I’m really excited to see where Kratos and Atreus’ stories lead. Santa Monica studios has done a pretty great job with this character 😊
Yeah I really feel like people who hate Kratos forget that he was a Spartan, which were raised to feel little to no pain or emotion in order to perfect themselves as warriors, yet Kratos actually feels a sense of remorse and self loathing despite that. There are glimpses of a good person deep within him, but at birth he was stripped of those qualities and even moreso to be the god of war
A quote in God of War PS5 says it best. "I killed many who were deserving, and many who were not." So as you can notice, Kratos had been a man on suicide quest to destroy Zeus, and everyone else that got in his way were just obstacles. He also did what he tried to teach Atreus. "Close your heart to their desperation." What I appreciate about the PS5 Kratos is that he's learned from it all. And knows he's done more than usual people would be willing to forgive. But because we've seen his journey from start to finish, we can see that alot of what he did we can't really empathize with BUT we do... *understand it* . We get it. We comprehend how a man of his likeness becomes the force of the greek ending apocalypse.
It's the background on his upbringing as a Spartan that really makes the reasoning for naming his son after Atreus of Sparta so believable and heartwarming. Of course a Spartan who would always have a smile and lift the spirits of all his fellow brothers in arms even in the worst of times and up to his sacrifice would make an impact on Kratos. like Kratos said the Spartans saw life grimly and viewed the world as such, but atreus of sparta really was a bright spot in his brutal world.
I feel like poseidons princess had the worst and most unjustified death that I actually felt bad about. She got crushed under a wheel just so we could open q gate. Rest in Piece
One thing I thought was neat in Ragnarok is that in one of the Lore entries (that's told from Kratos' perspective) he actually reminisces and expresses regret over what he did to that ship captain.
Well, I don't think he was fully justified. His motives and goals were justified to an extent, but the things he did for those goals and motives, that's where things get blurry. So yeah, I agree with you.
While I do believe Kratos is a character with depth from the start and that the trilogy was depicting a fall from grace where you weren't meant to sympathise with Kratos by the 3rd game (you could also argue that it's a critique of morals in Greek Mythology), the thing that has always bugged me was that scene you brought up in 3 in Poseidon's Chamber where Kreatos lets that woman get brutally murdered. On its own, it shows Kratos becoming as uncaring as those he seeks to kill, but there's a trophy you unlock afterwards that had rather morbid implications, and personally, frames all of this in a different light. I think it was something like "I wish I could have done that myself"? That trophy even got removed from the game later, which only makes the intent of the developers seem even more suspicious. As if the scene wasn't intentionally made to critisise Kratos, but live out a sick fantasy. It's always felt like the one scene in all of GOW which I don't know how to feel about.
@@Its_a_Phaze I mean isn't joking about it immediately afterwards kinda defeat the purpose of the scene if it was in fact meant to make you feel uneasy and start doubting Kratos? I don't see the point unless the achievement was there on purpose to bother the player even more for enjoying all the killing that came before.
@@squidwardtentacles244 Not really. Honestly it just depends how you choose to interpret it. Plenty times on media there’s a dark sense of humor after something extremely unsettling. But anyway you sort of just also explained how you can also interpret it yourself right now.
The nuance in the way he talks about literally every single perspective in all the GoW games, as far as including the 4th main game which is set in a totally different Pantheon, that legendary build up to the end joke while being neutral and respectful the whole video is just beautiful.
Kratos simply was more unhinged, angry and still very much traumatised by his own deeds in the earlier games. He rejected responsibly by always desiring vengeance and seeking a target to fight. Older Kratos from 2018 has grown in his character and is more quiet, introspective and filled with a silent sadness instead of blind rage. That doesn't mean he was not deep in his rage, but more easily described as shallow.
I never thought of Kratos rage to be aways there. At least in the games. It's mostly a result of his misfortune AND everyone around him using and manipulating him.
One thing I'm not sure on, and it could be a case of me not remembering it correctly, but isn't the problem the gods had with Kratos in 2 wasn't just him not bowing to Zeus' whims but rather that he was not listening to anyone and heavily favouring Sparta in every conflict? Like doesn't 2 have the Spartans attacking one of Athena's cities?
You are correct. And regarding Zeus, the reason he tried to kill Kratos is because he was starting to view Kratos as a threat that could challenge Olympus, so he tried to act before Kratos would ever think of doing it. Cronos tried to do the same with Zeus and all of this is suppoused to symbolise a never-ending cycle of father and sons killing eachother. That's why Kratos says "the cycle ends here" to Baldur before killing him, as he's stopping him from killing Freya and continuing the cycle.
@@leithaziz2716 funnily enough this might have been a very bad idea kratos had. it is true that greek mythology has a lot of fathers and sons killing each other, but norse mythology does not. kratos decision to kill baldur might have completely put the norse world into chaos.
Indeed, and a lot of that motivation is out of spite that gets explained a little further in Ghost of Sparta--TL;DR he and his family had basically been a victim of the Gods in some direct way since his childhood.
That's true, but it's also worth remembering that, in addition to Zeus's paranoia that Kratos was gonna usurp him like he did to Cronos, that Kratos never even _wanted_ the title of God of War in the first place. The Olympians basically strong-armed him into it after they not only denied him the one thing they promised him and stringed him along with in all those years of servitude, the removal of his nightmares/memories of his past crimes, but wouldn't even let him use death as a means to escape his nightmares and madness. By making Kratos God of War, they essentially condemned him to forever be stuck with the memories of the past horrors he committed as an immortal. And this isn't even touching upon the events of Ghost Of Sparta, where Kratos learned about how the Olympians were ALSO the ones who took Deimos from him, how Zeus cursed his mother to turn into a monster should she reveal to Kratos who his father truly is, and how Athena says the utterly RETARDED shit to a mourning and near-suicidal Kratos that with his brother and mother's deaths, he can now 'truly become a god' or whatever. Kratos wasn't heavily favoring Sparta going on a conquest through Greece up until the events of that game happened, where his already present resentment towards the gods for dicking him over time and time again came to a boiling point. Kratos's desire for revenge might have brought a shitton of destruction to Greece and had him directly and indirectly kill a lot of innocent people, but with everything he's gone through in mind and with how the Gods had an active hand in the ruining of his life, I honestly don't blame him for becoming so bitter and revenge-obsessed by the time 2 and 3 rolls around.
The way I justify it and how i think Kratos justified it in the moment is that all he wanted was to die and finally be at rest but the world would not let him die so he decided to kill the world instead. It’s pretty stupidly simple but we are talking about Kratos here.
Kratos was never a Hero, but the gods had It coming, they betrayed hin so many times of cource that combined with the PTSD and the visions that even as a God haunted hin would push hin over the Edge, but even with what he did there a lot of deept in This Character even If his actions are Evil by some extent
Good job on the video. You forgot to mention, however, one of the main reasons for the tough upbringing of the Spartans. Before the tribe of Doriis (the so called Spartans) moved to Laconia (Sparta), the area was already inhabited. The indigenous people were enslaved by the Doriis, and were forced to serve the Spartans. These slaves were called Helots. Due to the great number of Helots in Sparta, as well as their lust for freedom, the Spartans were afraid of a Helot uprising. Therefore, in order to be able to put down such a revolt, all Spartans (literally all of them) had to not only be able bodied, but also mentally prepared in order to carry out a mass slaughter against the Helots. It should be noted that the coming-of-age ritual for every Spartan involved them killing a Helot. You can see just how brutal as a society they were
You had a lot of good points- but a few wrong takes: We can absolutely blame Kratos~ the whole “victim of circumstance” is true and it makes it a compelling story… but all of humanity (even throughout history), holds people accountable for the impacts of their actions- regardless of what led them there. We as consumers absolutely can ‘blame’ Kratos for this- we are meant to blame him and acknowledge his evil, WHILE simultaneously being him. That creates great inner tension that makes the game so good. It also contrasts so well in 2018- where he’s hollow… he burned himself out and filled the chasm with shame. I think we can all relate to this on some level. We all can look back on parts of our lives when we were acting… less than good, and we can all recall the ache of “what the fuck have I done”. I also like to think of Kratos as a 1000 year old God who has had eons of time for that to really sit and settle. It shows in his behavior throughout the game- and even more in his relationship with Atreus.
I fear that I'm alone in this thinking, but I feel that kratos is somewhat justified in killing zeus, but when you say that zeus is evil for enslaving the titans or kidnapping demos. The curse on kratos mom I think that was too much, while with the titans I doubt the titans would let zeus beat his father and save his siblings, like how most people are, if you are loyal and your leader is attacked by his son, then you would oppose the attacker regardless of their reasons. And with demos, it's like with odin, fear controlled him, and if someone foretold your death wouldn't you have tried to stay alive and if you are a king, wouldn't you want to defend your rule remain, the madness of the titans drove him mad. And the servitude for 10 years, I think that it was only Athena that accepted kratos plea, while zeus never made him a promise.
in regards to Hepheastos, he admits he kills him but he doesn't hold it against him when Pandora asks "what happened to Hephaestos", kratos answers in a way "he did what any parent should do, protect their child" meaning yes, he killed him for trying to kill kratos, but he doesn't do it out of the same space as he did Hera or Hermes
Short answer: Yes. Long answer: There's obviously better ways Kratos could have gone about things, but the odds were almost always stacked against him, since he was either being used or just prodded into being the destructive monster that many knew him as.
13:12 in GOW2 there's the moment where gaia appears as Kratos' wife and give him a upgrade for rage of the titans and the way it's presented its looks like Gaia was too enhancing his rage
I think it's understandable where Kratos comes from But justifying it would be wrong Things like killing those cruel gods are justified to an extent both personally and for good reasons as well But the consequences of those actions(destruction of whole Greek world) outweigh that solution Not only that he is a spartan and a fighter Killing someone who fights you is to be considered OK But what about those who didn't harm him Like that women in posieden's chamber He could have used anything other than her but was so blindsided with anger(anger that was understandable) but those actions which were not Kratos is the type of guy whom you can have sympathy for what he has lost and you relish when he gets his revenge Even If that is very brutal and unnecessary , but we overlook it because we seem it as justified But only when we see how he treated other innocent people who hadn't done anything to him We get to know even if Kratos has suffered and you can sympathize with him He is still a monster and can be cruel Even when you hadn't done something to him and are just in his way to progress even for a temporary goal Which shows how far he went for his revenge If someone was to accomplish something in their life We can understand that But if by *"ANY MEANS NECESSARY"* is where we draw the line That's why Kratos in Gow 3 seems borderline evil(sometimes unnecessarily) even if the goal had been set long before that I know there are many things to his character and the way he has changed in the GOW 4 are left out of this I just wanted to give my opinion about this question pre GOW 4 He has more than one sides , it's just that I focused on this one
Yet another excellent video essay about the God of War series by TBP. I feel like you understand GoW better than most people on the internet. It means a lot to me that thousands of people are seeing this kind of sentiment about the pre-2018 GoW games. ♥️
I don't think the original creators wanted him to be likable, they just wanted an aggressive and violent character to fit with the brutal gameplay and was "justified" in his rampage by the narrative, so that the players could understand him. I mean, killing your family is the worst things you could do, of course you're a raging monster, a ghost of your former self. Cool thing is that by making him like that you avoid doing a ludonarrative dissonance, like Nathan Drake's kills in the uncharted series for example.
Kratos has pretty much always been a rage monster in the games... But wanton violence wasn't really his modus operandi. Does it happen sometimes? Yep. But there was pretty much always a specific target, a specific goal in mind.
Once again another master craft video in logic and explanation of our boi, you even used a wild bear analogy which is exactly what I thought of as well.
I love how in Ragnarok, Atreus asks Kratos "Father, is it moral to kill anyone who wants to kill us?" and Kratos simply replies "Yes." And that's basically the entire conversation. Within that simple notion is the context of the world they live in: unreasonable creatures are CONSTANTLY trying to kill them, and stopping to consider whether or not retaliation is justified is a luxury, not a moral obligation. It is not wrong to do what you must to survive.
After the gods denied him ceaseing the nightmares , keeping deimos a secret, the mother dieing , kratos respect towards the Olympians weakened , endless effort only to be used as a slave The character was already bitter , zues betrayal only made things worse by makeing kratos anger aim towards the destruction of Olympus
Context is the bane of modern thought and discourse. Whenever people say something stupid and can't be reasoned with, its often because they knowingly or unknowingly take away context or refuse to acknowledge that the situation could be deeper than what's on the surface.
Its not that complicated in my eyes. His need for revenge is justified but his actual revenge pretty much destroyed his realm including millions of innocents
I hate when people try and say either old Kratos was brainless button mash or that new Kratos is washed bland nonsense. They work together not against eachother.
Honestly if i was treated the way kratos was by the gods and betrayed and thrown away like that id argue anybody In kratos shoes would wipe down the entire pantheon too... considering the fact that most of the gods are literally ego fueled childrens
The bride of Poseidon has always been the reason I can't replay God of War 3. It's just so harrowing to force this innocent girl who's clearly suffered so much and for so long meet possibly the most gruesome death in the series, I can't bring myself to re-experience it. And I get that that's the point, to really make you feel like it's gone too far, but I just can't bring myself to retraumatize myself to that degree again, knowing I have no way to save her, hearing her beg to save spared.
When you think about it all of this could’ve been avoided if Kratos just kept his ambitions in check. His inflated ego is what got him beat by a much larger barbarian army. When that ego was crushed he turned to Ares and sold his soul to the devil. Sure it’s understandable but this was all his fault lol. I believe that’s why he’s so ashamed to speak on his past. Because he knows deep down it was his choices that led him to that
I've never played the earlier God of War games, but after I actually started looking into them, it's clear that the third game is meant to be rock bottom for Kratos. After all, it ends with him attempting suicide and giving the power of Hope to humanity, after it was discovered that he had it within himself all along, but had been so far gone in hopelessness and despair that literally nobody could tell. It's why dad of boy gets near Universal praise for being a great direction to take him, and faithful to the character. You don't have to ask yourself what would make him change so drastically between games. He's perfectly in line with what you would expect from a man who let himself be consumed by rage until it burned out, leaving only self hatred and guilt so great that he almost immediately attempted to end his own life.
With this lense i think it rally enhances the modern god of war games arc for Kratos. Freya and Mimir probably only heard about how terrible the greek gods where and how after wronging kratos he killed them which is why they say it's understandable what he did. But Kratos? He knows all the terrible things that led him their he remembers what he does and feels guilt and shame because he realizes he went to far
Honestly I still don't like Kratos in the Greek saga past his debut. No matter what stuff the game's include, the catalyst for his warpath against Zeus was Zeus killing him in Rhodes. Not the fact that he was never there Kratos growing up, not what he did to Kratos' mother, or what happened to Deimos. In fact since the series' creators hadn't thought of Deimos yet, the only who even brings him during II & III is Zeus. Not to mention Kratos at the end of his debut was done with his life of violence, but in II he goes right to it. And I don't think the series' creators had any clever ideas, from what I have heard they didn't put much thought into II & III. I believe it seeing acts by Zeus and the other gods almost always get more weight than those of Kratos. Kratos murdering innocent people in Rhodes gets no weight to it, while Zeus ruining the life of one child is treated like the worst thing in the world. Plus II gave a ton of weight to Kratos bringing the Titans to the present, just for them to play almost no role in III. The writing on Kratos in that game also somewhat scattered brained. One minute he is only killing people because they in his way, and then he we have the pointless cruelty with Poseidon's princess and him murdering the guy to get the Bow of Apollo, which he would have given him anyways. Is Kratos someone who just focuses his anger on people who gets in his way while not caring about the consequences or is his monster whose actions are just cruelty for its own sake?
I like that in God of War 4 (haven't played Ragnarok yet), Kratos only ever kills two gods. One for self-defense, another to save a friend he genuinely cares about even though he knows that friend will hate him forever. He does not relish in the killings and isn't motivated by hatred and vengeance. 10/10 character growth
Chains of Olympus and ghost of Sparta are extremely underrated I think. If you played the games in release order, ascension was getting to the point of the series getting stale. And luckily the gameplay was revamped the right way! Not whatever the assassin’s creed RPG mechanics Ubisoft implement. I mean trust me they’re great games but they’re not true AC games like the earlier ones. With god of war, the identity of the series is still there! At least in my eyes anyway.
I like that in the ending of GOW3 where it's revealed that the supernatural evils released from pandora's box corrupted the entire greek pantheon and Kratos had the power of hope the whole time. It made me imagine an AU where this is revealed from the very beginning as Kratos lives up to Pandora's myth about opening the box out curiosity. The golden fleece is seen inside the box but inside the fleece hides the power of hope and Pandora's soul, which got forced inside as punishment for making the same mistake Kratos did. All the weapons, powers, and relics from throughout the greek saga are all found inside the fleece, via the power of hope conjuring them and Kratos kills the entire greek pantheon in one game, albeit one really long game. Right before Kratos faces the gods of olympus, he releases the power of hope, frees pandora's soul and kills Hades in his own underworld releasing its souls. After the destruction of the greek pantheon, Pandora reveals that the supernatural evils have reached out further then expected and corrupted all other pantheons and the entire concepts of religion and mythology. Kratos is tasked on a long journey to destroy the rest of the pantheons and all of religion and mythology, so they'd all get replaced by hope and balance. Needless to say, I enjoy the concept of Kratos destroying pantheons.
I don't understand why he disregards the moral norm of today as just that. As if it's just a coincidence that violence and killing is greatly despised, at the same time that those values are held in the most peaceful time in human history. Maybe we live in the most peaceful age ever because of these kinds of moral standards and properties? Kratos literally ruined everybody else's life, even those of completely innocent mortals, by destroying the pantheon. This isn't a debate at all. Kratos felt so much pity for himself and his situation, he acted like he was the only person to ever be betrayed and abused in such a way. He felt unbelievably sorry for himself, and only himself. As if he was the only person to ever lose a wife and child due to the actions of heathens. Like somebody else here said, being justifiable and understandable are two very different things.
Being understandable doesn't automatically make you justified , I also believe a messed up upbringing doesn't make you not evil , people's actions are still people's actions
Now this does bring up the question... What character (main protagonist and not apart of this series) WOULD be justified as a mindless, gory, brute? What character could people look at and say "this guy makes old Kratos look like new Kratos"?
Lol I got you!!!! Doomguy. 😈 That beast of a man (demigod technically, I believe, thanks to new lore) is now nothing but a nearly mindless killing machine. Jk jk, he’s not mindless but I still think he fits your description best 😂 if not him, then Asura from Asura’s Wrath definitely does, although he has a reason what with his daughter situation and being betrayed as well….
@@Faintwolf well Doomguy only kills demons with a passion and Asura is trying to save his daughter and avenge his wife. But the thing is... they both care about humanity. Well Doomguy/Slayer might not so much based on his interactions in Eternal but he doesn't go out of his way to slaughter them or harm them in any way. And Asura doesn't think it's right for humanity to be subjugated to so called "gods" who are just a bunch of assh*les. I mean Kratos doesn't actively kill mortals in the games either but unlike Doom or Asura's Wrath it's an actual option. But now that I think about it maybe the character I'm thinking of would be the Protagonist from Hatred, "Not Important". Except maybe that's THE MOST extreme example I can think of.
While I've never played the prequals and can't comment on how their inclusion changes Kratos' character, motivations, and arc, what I can comment on is the point in the original series that stuck with me the most. The ending of God of War 3. It's a perfect parallel to the ending of God of War 1. Kratos has gotten his revenge, he won, but even after killing Zeus, he feels hollow inside because even as his rage clouded his judgement and demanded he kill Zeus, revenge wasn't what he wanted out of his war against Zeus. What he wanted was the peace he desperately craved, a peace he was promised after killing Ares, only to be denied and turned into a god. Now he's being denied his peace once more, but this time, it's his own fault. The world is ending, and all he can do is gaze upon the destruction he caused and wonder if it was all worth it. In a last ditch effort, he stabs himself with the Blade of Olympus, releasing hope back into the world in a hope that the world will rebuild itself, and even still, his peace is denied. He can't go to the underworld to be with his family, he's to far gone for that, and at this point, feels he doesn't deserve them. So he leaves in hope of being able to one day make up for all the atrocities he's committed
@@maxfordgaming9278 Kratos' father was not evil at all. HIS father was the evil one for abandoning him as a baby etcetera etcetera. Everyone is everything for a reason. Evil begets evil.
Around 2:00 that area on God mode was quite painful. You really even need to dodge when in rage mode. The dudes with the large maces are troublesome too.
I wouldnt say that he was a monster from the start, even before he made a deal with Ares, but he already was a blood thirsty warlord which is normal for an ancient world general of course. But even pre-Ares deal Kratos would be considered a monster if he lived today. Yes we dont know much about his actions before the deal other than that he was a spartan general and we DO know that spartans were not angels, their entire culture was built around violence and he indeed went to conquer new lands, but many people seems to forget that Ares didnt force him to make a deal. I strongly disagree with you here that he was a victim. Kratos himself called the God of War, made a deal with him and went to destroy villages with innocent people. It was his own choise. He choose between death and becoming a pawn of God of Wat who kills innocent people left and right for the glory of Ares. Again it was HIS choise. The classic modern hero would rather die than be a monster. But Kratos choose life of monster because of his ego, he WANTED to live and kill, after his revenge on Ares he didnt immidiately go and kill Zeus even though he already knew that Zeus is his father, that Zeus kidnapped Deimos. What did he do after he became a God of War? He sent his spartan army to conquer new lands. Again, it is NORMAL for an ancient spartan warlord but i youre saying that in most of these horrible scenes he was a victim and he didnt have a choise which is wrong. He had many choises. And even though the killing greek gods was justifiable, killing the innocent population of Greece is not. Im not even talking about innocents who were killed by Kratoss own hands, im talking about people that were killed by a by product of gods deaths. For example how many people died after he killed Poseidon when the world was drown? After he fell to Hades Athena said that: "mankind suffers from this war" Kratos replied: "Let them suffer, the death of Zeus is all that matters". Many new GoW fans get Kratos all wrong. He is not a hero even in 2018 game. He is indeed a monster when life drives him to the edge, he stops trying to hold his inner monster and his true nature prevails, when he has a strict goal, he doesnt care hom many people die from the consequences of his actions because he has no empathy towards people. He has empathy towards his family only which is quet normal again for an ancient warlord. And also he didnt sacrifice himself at the end of GoW 3. Cory Barlog and Stig Asmussen in a 2010 interview said that he killed himself because he wanted to die, not because he wanted to give hope to humanity. P.S. Dont get me wrong, Kratos is one of my favorite characters of all time, but thats because i like him. In some cases he is justifiable, in some .... hell no. He is not Punisher, he is not a classic "poor guy who got in bad situation and thats why he does those horrible things because he has no choise". No. He had many choises. He made bad choices by himself AND of course Gods contributed highly to his psychotic persona. In short neither Kratos not Gods are "good" people by a modern moral standarts.
There’s always a difference between being justified and being understandable
Yeah, they seemed to conflate the 2.
@@anthonynorman7545 who
I understand why you cracked your friends head open with me mallet.
Yep. He did miss that.
The difference between being sympathetic and being tragic
Kratos is one of those characters where you need to play all or most of the games in the series to really understand his character arc and motivations
Perfectly said.
We get the characer arc, but from the original trilogy and ascension is a bad writen one, specially the third game
And it was partly why I went back to play the original games for the first time in preparation for Ragnarok. Context matters and I wanted to know his full story.
He is one of the most thoroughly explored and nuanced character in games
And I'm happy to do that
Ironically only 3 gods were in Kratos’ kill list:
- Ares: for killing his family
- Thanatos: for killing his brother
- Zeus: for being responsible of the former two and making him kill his mother
The rest? They got in the way
True if they just fucked off they would have been fine
Zeus: "ok this is bad, but if we all work together we can easily bring him dow-"
Apollo: "yeah no, you're on your own asshole, I know where this is going"
artemis: "I got to agree with my brother, you're on your own."
dionysus: "I will drink at your grave"
demeter: "sorry I don't do the whole fighting thing."
Eros and aphrodite: "we will take on Kratos"
Zeus: "in battle right?"
Eros and Aphrodite: "..."
Zeus: "IN BATTLE RIGHT!!!"
Don't forget Persephone, she tried to destroy the world and Kratos' daughter with it but he didn't allow it.
@@jaccblacc8424 I never managed to finish Chains Of Olympus…
Or just happened to exist like Poseidon's slave wife...
It's like Kratos himself said: "I killed many who were deserving...and many who were not." Some of his victims deserved what happened to them, but others didn't. Simple as that, he was justified for those that deserved it, but not for those who weren't.
Really interesting changes the way you look at things from a different perspective
Hermès didn’t deserve to have his J’s stolen and Helios didn’t deserve to be a Lamp
Only there of em deserved Thanantos , zeus and ares
@@scader_shotfuck Hermes
@@Ishan_Singla All of the others gods. Not only did they interfere with his vengeance, they were literally posses by evil. Made corrupted and evil.They had to die. It was man’s time not to be interfered with by gods.😊
When it comes to Hephaestus' death, I think it's important to remember that Kratos actually agreed with his actions. Despite being the monster that he is, he claims that Hephaestus did what every good father should. To me, that speaks a whole lot about his character. That even when he was so monsterous, the humanity inside was still there, still poking though. Something interesting I wish TBP spoke more about.
@@godzillazfriction I understand what you're saying but there is certainly such a thing as inhuman brutality.
@@godzillazfriction To be fair, empathy and regret is also a part of being human. These emotions combine to complement rage and brutality, among others to form true humanity. It's safe to say Kratos was only consumed by his former half after the events of 1 and 2, so for him to show this much understanding to Hephaestus actions is technically more humanly of him.
@@joseph2000117 no, people just can't comprehend that a person can be so horrid, monsters aren't real.
@@joseph2000117 Is there? Nature for the most part can't be brutal, the environment does not have the autonomous will to premeditatedly commit violence of any sorts and in the animals that are intelligent enough and do purse violence for more than just getting food, i don't think you could really find ANY that gets anywhere near the levels of brutality humans have achieved throught history.
Kratos sees himself as evil
It's why, he refuses to tell atretus about his past and why he says we will better then gods of before
Even in the og games
Kratos was always questioning himself like about killing pandora or about how he killed his mom
Kratos is supposed to be a badguy. Him trying to end his own life over all the guilt that he feels wouldt even make sense as a scene if he was a morally good person with no blood on his hands
Having played all of these games for the first time recently, it's definitely all there in the games, plain as day. Even at Kratos' worst moments, I understood what he was thinking and feeling. It increases the dramatic tension of Dad of Boy, since you know exactly what Kratos was hiding from Atreus and even had a role in it as a player.
What is your opinion matter? You like Mega Man And Bass /s
No its just Cory barlog toning down for of war because if he didn't he wouldn't be able to get into Fort nite
@@kaibaskywalker2725 Fortnite's original crossover was with John Wick, I don't think the violence was an issue.
@@Kjf365 no it wasn’t, it was the season 4 event with Thanos.
@@unoriginalhazard Yeah, no. John Wick was the original crossover. It wasn't a big gameplay event like the Avengers one, but it promoted the movie and gave John Wick as a skin. Back when I used to play, you would fear people with a John Wick skin because it meant they were an OG and would probably kick your a**.
Well to be fair if I had to kill my mother because she turned into a monster, have my brother killed after saving him from torture and madness, refused to take my nightmares away after aiding the gods, tricked into killing my wife and daughter, had all my brothers in arms killed in one sweep, and was forced to leave my daughter forever alone to aid the gods that caused most of these things, I would also be pissed enough to cause a godly apocalypse.
Don't forget getting your home city wiped out
!
Ya know what? That is fair 😂
The hubris of the gods brought their own ruin.
Kratos' own desire to be the greatest warrior for Ares brought his ruin.
Ares created a perfect warrior that hated him.
Zeus triggered the very events that guaranteed he'd be killed by his own son.
And so many more times people sew the seeds of their own destruction, or bring themselves to ruin.
And it continues in God of War 4 too...
@@hariman7727 don’t forget 5
I swear, the princess scene is the first time since the first game that I was legitimately surprised at the gratuity of the violence.
Really? I always was taken back by the opening of God of War 2 where he becomes the same piece of shit Ares was.
I agree, but the translator scene in God 2 are BROOTAL, but to me, not even Amphitrite's death tops the burning of the Athenian soldier. That's OG brutal kratos
For me it was the end of the Theseus fight in GoW2. The guy was already bloodied and beaten, but reaches up for you as you open a door. Kratos then puts is head in said door and repeatedly smashes it as the game tells the player to mash X. I think it was how he's smashing the door as I was smashing the button that did it for me.
That I think was the first time I was stunned by the violence of a video game. Where that scene stunned me though, Poseidon's wife straight up made me sick.
@@PaDelRu Poseidon's wife was the lady he jammed into the gears, right?
@@Takejiro24 Yes. Pretty much one of Kratos worst deeds. She literally had nothing to do with him and the gods but brutally murdered her in the worst way possible. But GOW 3 Kratos was the worst. A man completely blinded by his want for vengeance with no care for any of the casualties.
"Kratos is a brutish monster with the depth of a spoon"
A brutish monster? Maybe. Someone with the depth of a spoon? Never
I'd like to argue that kratos is one of the most depth characters I ever played as in a video game 🎮
"kratos is a bruitish monster" implies that it's the present and in the present god of war he is no longer a monster but actually a good god a god that inspires hope back into humanity so the answer is no.
He’s literally one of the smartest protagonists
More like the depth of a small pool, at least compared to the Norse games
@@matthewmccoyd2578shut the fuck up what utter garbage you spew out
Kratos is basically Nietzche's "If you look into the abyss, the abyss looks back"
Though it gets to the point where the abyss gets uneasy looking
@@michaeliv284 The Abyss starts holding crucifixes whenever Kratos looks XD
Not really I think a better quote to fit god of war is "you reap what you sow"
The gods shaped and molded Kratos in warfare. Maybe he would have talked things out and vented anger in healthier ways had the greek gods had taught him when they had their chance. Instead they pushed him into a rabid dog.
The Norse series is probably the time where Kratos and the abyss are continuing their staring contest, until the abyss blinks because Kratos is no longer its pet.
@@millerrepin4452 but not all people would become like kratos so nietzsche's quote fits better
My thoughts on young Kratos is, "I understand his reasons for his actions but that doesn't mean I agreed to his method of violence" aka he has great reasons to hate the greeks but doesn't excuse him from his violent actions
And what he did was very justified because the world was against him. So Kratos chosed to plunged the world into Chaos and wiped out the Greek Pantheon
@@mavvynne444 the gods =/= the world. He had millions of innocent inhabitants who had nothing to do with it killed because of his need for vengeance.
@@shoopoop21 Are you agreeing with me or disagreeing?
In all fairness what was he supposed to do. Let the gods continue their corruption and further create more wars and bloodshed? I get that Kratos’s motives were personal but at the same time the God’s were poisoning humanity and slowly destroying the world. If Kratos got innocents killed then fine, it’s better than them living a life under the heels of beings who manipulate and abuse them. He may not be a hero but he’s a far better person than those he killed.
Let me guess a girl? So are veterans bad and their actions bad for defending you from harm? And stopping them from hurting you?
Another point against the "The gods were corrupted by Pandora's Box being opened, that's the reason they were bad" argument is in the comic you mentioned about Kratos finding the Ambrosia to cure his daughter. The entire reason his daughter needed the Ambrosia was because Ares gave her a skin disease due to a bet between the gods about who would obtain the ambrosia, the other gods in the bet themselves doing various things to their "chosen champions" to motivate them into going after it (Hades infected the King of a Barbarian tribe to motivate his champion, the King's Son, Alrik (Fun Fact, Alrik is the one who would lead the Barbarians against the Spartans in the battle Kratos pledged his soul to Ares. In fact, the reason for this battle was Hades told Alrik that Kratos was to blame for his father's eventual death.) Poseidon infected an entire land with a plague, Artemis had cursed the women in their champion's land to only bare stillborn kids. I could go on, but you get my point.). So yeah, the gods were already bad, the only effect the box's evils had on them was making them worse.
Yeah the gods were like cups of animal piss and pandora's box added cow shit on top
This comment speaks volumes. Good to see someone else with common sense and knowledge on what they're talking about, I couldn't help myself but comment multiple times, this theme is really touchy appearantly 💀
All the fear did to zeus was enhance what was already there, remember he had deimos, kratos' brother and presumably his own son, kidnapped and also cursed their mother, the only mortal affair that he had that was probably not only one of the few completely CONSENTUAL ones but also perhaps the only one he had long term, considering that the brothers aren't twins
Plus, most of the immortal characters in Greek GoW pitied or downright despised mortals. The Gods created the mythical beasts (gorgons, minotaurs, manticores, etc.) to torment and brutally kill mortals as a way to force them to pray to the Gods to save them through worship and sacrifice. Don't even get me started on afterlife punishments like when Zeus sent all the titans to Tartarus just for what one titan (Cronos) did.
I mean, even look at the legends outside of the GoW universe. The Greek gods do horrible things all the time. Especially Zeus.
It's never really been about whether he is justified, it's been about how believable it would be he would do this
@@SECONDQUEST becoming God of War when Ares was a screwjob artist at worst to him
Like why would he want to be a god that can screw someone like Kratos?
@@sumthingwikked4257 He would want to wield the power of a god and try and ensure no-one can screw with him again. It didn't work, but it was a good plan. Plus, the way Athena sold the job to him, it didn't really sound like he had much of a choice.
You want believability in a work of fiction about gods, monsters, magic and a man who can fling the blades that are chained around his forearms and return them to his hands perfectly re-wrapping the chains on his arms?
@@thepericlesof8449 believability in character and setting are completely different
@@sumthingwikked4257 Not like he had much of a choice. He was kinda just forced into that position when you think about it.
He wasn't justified in murdering various helpless humans.
The gods? The fates? The other heroes? The mythic beasts? Titans? All deserved it.
Ship Captain? Poseidon's Princess? Deserved better.
@@AnAverageGoblin ....Okay, missed that. Poseidon's Princess tho.
I read that the ship Captain locked people in a room to die to the undead so he could escape. Kratos may not have been needlessly cruel after all.
Kratos is literally responsible for the gods becoming corrupt, he was the one who opened Pandora's box in the first place. Kratos in the older games is a genocidal cunt who is evil incarnate.
@@godzillazfriction And I'm so glad that Kratos killed the boat captain for his stupidity
Ship Captain was a sex slaver.
Kratos: You would excuse my actions.
Tyr: not excuse, only accepting them. Your actions are much deeper than you realise.
The Valhalla DLC Not only makes your video hold up but it also makes the classic games hold up.
Yeah Kratos did what he had to do at the times to survive. Sure while that pact with Ares was stupid and dangerously messed up, he really had no other way to win and he knew if he died, Alrik the Barbarian would not stop and continue violating Sparta, which Kratos could not accept.
I really hope Ragnarok has a lot more moments of Kratos sharing his past with Atreus. Even with how great those moments were there were so few of them and by the end you know that there’s still so so much Atreus doesn’t know. I don’t even think he knows he had a sister long ago.
You'll be glad to know there is. There are tons of dialogue referencing past games.
@@loirigudo I hope kratos tells atreus about his older sister that welp has been dead for centuries
Its not specifically to Atreus, but he tells many stories of his past to people like Mimir, who asks him of the validity of some of the myths he heard from Greece
half sister actually
Great video. It's such a shame that people only see kratos as a mindless brute in the first three games and completely ignore his character development and chalk it up to the first game
i think the reason people forgot about kratos's more positive side is because god of war 1 came out in 2005 and many people have forgotten about the smaller details by now.
@@jimbridge64 or they just don’t play any GoW games prior to 2018. Never overestimates the knowledge of an average gaming journalist.
@@jimbridge64
It is why the collections came out.
it's still mostly that, the only time where i truly see redemption it's in the new God of War, before that it's just remorse without taking actions in the right direction
@@bruschetta7711
Technicaly he belives the gods will absolve him of his actions. So, to him it is the right the direction.
Literaly the entire world had to go to hell for him to relise being angry and vengeful in making decisions is not a good thing.
Man, he was absolutely justified in killing Zeus and that's all Kratos cared about, he didn't care about anything else.
Zeus, Ares, and Thanatos were really the only deities who deserved what they got. There were many others who were also corrupt, but they were only killed because they got in Kratos' way or attempted to commit their own revenge against him.
Kratos in a lot of GOW 3 was just needlessly cruel and almost evil to an extent.
But seeing as doing so caused the apocalypse, I don't think it was that justified
@@maxmcqueen1196 poseiden was a rapist so he deserved it
@@maxmcqueen1196I feel you, but I like to think thathe just lost it. It's too much, even for a fictional character, I think that it would be weird if he wasn't so animalistic in his behaviour
@@maxmcqueen1196 I would say Cronos did too, he ate his own children, and even dared to criticize Kratos for killing his family. Also what did Thanatos do except for follow Zeus’ orders?
I think the biggest problem with people understanding Kratos character comes from the tonal shift in God of War 2, the writers did a complete 180 with the story and it's clear that 3 and the prequels were trying to retroactively explain the change, the gods in the original game weren't meant to be evil and even helped Kratos, Zeus (disguised as the Grave Digger) even saves Kratos and tells him Athena isn't the only God looking out for him, yet God of War 2 tries to set up this huge battle between the Titans and the gods and tries to make Zeus evil, but at the same time shows Kratos being just as bad as Ares at the start of the game.
In my opinion Kratos actions are not justifiable but they are understandable, Kratos spirals into a depression after becoming a god and focuses on war and revenge to distract himself from his memories but at the end when there is nothing left to distract him, he realizes that what he has become.
On that note, you can also notice this based on Kratos's voice between God of War 1 and 2. In the first game, Kratos barely ever screams during cutscenes or in-game dialogues. He's actually more like someone who has a bad rep and everybody hates him but he's just trying to get the job done while trying to get his peace in the end. Then in God of War 2, in almost every cutscene and in-game dialogue, he is screaming or at least using an upset tone. God of War (2018) kind of blends the two as Papa Kratos is still grumpy, but only screams when something dangerous is happening.
@@Zoki4444 “Zeuuuuuuuuusssssss” - God of War 2 2007
Yeah there’s was definitely a lot of yelling in god of War 2, honestly I think there might have been less yelling/screaming in god of war 3 and there was a fair amount in that too.
pretty sure they also threw Pandora's box into the mix to explain the shift for the mainline games. especially important as many people did not play the PSP games and such.
@@TGPDrunknHick 100%, GOW 3's story is messy but overall, it does a good job of recontextualizing the changes made in GOW2, originally GOW3 was going to have kratos kill all the greek gods in the first level and then go on to kill every pantheon until for some reason Christianity happens, it was awful so even though GOW3 isn't perfect it's much better than what we could have gotten.
This argument falls apart very quickly when you realize gods were always horrible people and needed pandora's box to become even more evil. They tortured Kratos for years, sent him to missions and still didn't give him his wishes. It is not about the writers changing, even in ascension kratos was comparatively calmer.
It pisses me off that Cory Barlog himself jumped on the "old games were shallow" bandwagon in that Polygon article
It's almost like it was Sony's marketing plan all along
It's a shame too because Sony used to trest Kratos as their new mascot after Crash and would let him guest star in a bunch of games (Soul Calibur, Mortal Kombat, Shovel Knight to name a few) and GOW was the most featured game in PlayStation Allstars with 2 characters and 2 alt character skins (kinda like echo fighters ended up being).
@@godzillazfriction I couldn't believe it either but in the Polygon article he's on board with the narrative
@@pootis4986 Eh, then maybe its the fanboys who are trying to see something profound in something shallow when even the lead director says so
@@stephenjenkins7971 So everything Cory says is the absolute truth? Do you just believe people that are above you all the time? Lol
@@DrMonty-yr1kc You can generally agree with what something someone says without agreeing with everything. Idk why this is a controversial thing to you lol
If I remember correctly, Kratos didn’t help the captain because he was human traficking and abusing the girls locked in the cabin, but this is only said in the book and I haven’t read them so who knows for sure. But I love how his human side is portrayed in gow1, and I think that the creators have slowly lost the vision of his character. Gow1 has the best depiction of his human side besides his monster self, which surprises me as it is the first in the series. And I can’t really say this is canon and intentional since I don’t see it in ascencion or chains of olympus. And yeah I know that as the games progressed he was supposed to become more and more a monster, doing things that were not justified anymore. They got it right in this point. I specially like the moment right before helios in gow3 where you kill the guy hanging out of his window, screaming that he lost everything, just because he was in the way. It was not necessary and feels just like the amphitrite moment but earlier in the game. My problem is when they tried to bring back his humanity. It felt shallow and lazy, honestly. It came out of nowhere, and I think this is the main reason everyone seems to have a wrong perception about him. It sucks to say this because I really love gow3 and only recently I’ve been thinking about the story, but gow1 did a much better job at delivering a monster with some sparkles of humanity within, which we can see in almost every scene where he was supposed to play as the villain. Nice video as always, I guess I owe to you for making me think too much about these games, so thanks for making me dislike gow3 a little bit but liking the whole series much more now 😅
GoW 3 Kratos is a monster. Him caring for Pandora isn't lazy, it was developed throughout the entirety of the game. After several meetings with Hephaestus, he begins to relate to him, it makes him remember he was a father too, not god slayer. I can agree that GoW 1 maybe showed duality of Kratos the best, probably because it was meant to be a stand-alone title. But, Kratos killing that guy next to window shows just how far gone and blinded by rage, lust got vengeance he is. To be fair, he did this guy a service. What are the odds he would survive all these cataclysms before or after Zeus' death? They are miniscule. The guy was not guilty, but he had a swift death, not suffering from disease, flood and thunderstorm. Kratos doesn't do the heinous acts out of malice, he does it out of apathy. Now, after seeing him fall so low as a person, you can appreciate him regretting his actions right in the end of GoW 3 and especially in God of War 2018. Him being more hell-bent on one extreme than the other, doesn't make his character or his development simple and primitive.
I thought it was because of the Spartan pride and not taking pity on cowards because the captain was going to leave all his men on board behind.
you're over analyzing this, the captain was just a regular captain, the scene was meant to show that Kratos didn't care about saving the people on the ship, he just cared about completing his mission, Kratos was not meant to be a good person, in fact it was the exact opposite, however he was tormented by his past and sought an end to his pain.
I find it really annoying that so many people try to categorize Kratos into either a Virtuous Hero or a Monstrous Villain, he is a human being with flaws but also virtues, just like the heroes of the Greek Tragedies he was based on.
It's not right to compare GOW 1 with GOW 3, they are different stages in kratos life.
GOW 1 is still human Kratos with a monster beneath the surface
GOW 3 is full blown murderer beast with some humanity awaken by Pandora
I’m convinced people didn’t read my comment, or just didn’t bother enough to understand it. Too bad I guess.
I cannot recall if it was outright stated anywhere, it's been a while since I've played through the series, but I think you can safely infer that because of the on-going prophecy about the son causing the downfall/death of the father, Zeus favored Athena over Ares. What form that took is left to interpretation, but I imagine at best he'd have to fight twice as hard in order to gain half as much, at worse he suffered verbal, emotional, physical, etc abuse at the hands of his father and probably the rest of the pantheon as well. Which would over time lead Ares to want to kill Zeus and take over Olympus for himself. Come the prophecy of the Marked Warrior causing Olympus' downfall. So Ares can take care of them, both gaining favor with Zeus, but also keep them to himself so he can make them into his weapon to take down Olympus should he actually want to go through with that. But then Zeus commands the Marked Warrior to be detained within Thanatos' realm, throwing a big wrench into whatever plans he may have. But hey, the Marked Warrior has a sibling, he can keep an eye on them, maybe something will come of them. The sibling Marked himself in the same way? Very interesting.
Imagine how different the series would be if Zeus was not a dick.
If Zeus was not a dick then he wouldn't be Zeus. It's like one of the core tenets of Ancient Greek mythos: Zeus must be a dick and also use his.
You could make the argument that as horrible as the short term consequences of his actions were, the people will ultimately be better off without the Gods lording over them.
What people? He literally destroyed the world. (It got retconned to only destroying greece but thats not what it was at the time). But yea he stabbed himself giving hope back to the people, the 10 people that survived the floods and the freaking sun disappearing from the sky
Yeah but when the short term consequences are country sinking floods, death of all nature, enternal night and dead walking the earth I don't think you'll find many people wanting to shake Kratos' hand
Doesn’t everyone in Greece die. He destroyed their entire world.
1. I don't believe he killed every god.
2. The deaths of the gods would cause huge world devastating physical disasters in mythological Greece.
point is gods are beyound humans ...so its not about what is the best for humans but whats the best for gods.
As of replaying God of War recently this is such a needed watch
In the words of Aries:
Aries” I was trying to make you, into a great warrior”
Kratos “You’ve succeeded”
To his half brother
Kratos, Akuma, Asura, Trevor, Javik are all characters we like to see reaching their goals but wouldn't want to be friends with lmao
I would like being friends with asura, he has a good head on his shoulders and i'd welcome early tinitus if it meant getting to hang out with him sometimes
Akuma seems like that chill Teacher you can hang with while Trevor lol just don't get in his badside.
Mostly agree. Asura was cool. He was literally just trying to save his daughter, he never killed a civilian and actually befriended humans. Asura isn’t on the same level.
To be fair trevor is loyal.....crazy, psycho, but loyal
Nah Asura is a total bro, those others though...
Kratos actually reminds me a lot of Guts from Berserk. His uncaring vengeance phases are like the Black Swordsman Ark, where Guts just mindlessly kills demons often getting innocents caught in the crossfire on his hunt for the on that betrayed him. Then later after failing to get satisfaction, he mellows out a bit and starts to care again.
Kratos being a Spartan and even a general makes it easy to see how he transitions from someone who is morally ambivalent due to circumstance to a monster seamlessly via the action of the player because its easy to imagine the value a human life would hold being diminished after being so desensitized to death and killing. This is perfect because it ironically opposes the tragic theme of the story being the death of his family by his own hands.
The only people that say the original God of War trilogy is just an alpha male fantasy are the ones that have either never played God of War or just played for the gameplay and not the story (there are SO MANY PEOPLE LIKE THIS 😡)
Coincidentally almost none of them have held an actual controller in their lives
Honestly every God of war game excluding 3 he was a complex character who wasn't killing just to sate his bloodthirst
In gow 3 the devs themselves ruined his character to lean into his brutality and made him a mindless killing machine, if he didn't kill humans begging for their life or naked kidnapped princess his character would be seen as more complex by people who didn't play the game
@@ReinAfterDark they didn't ruin his character as the guy in the video says it could be that the diseases and fear went into kratos aswell making him evil which is why he did all those things.
Video Title: Was Kratos Justified? It's Complicated!
Kratos: What does this mean?
Tyr: That your legacy has always been a *complicated* one.
You know DAMN WELL how much GOW acknowledges its players and/or audience.
YES
;)@@marxist-leninist-protagonist
That was a good brake down. You're also right about things being different now then even a few generations ago. My great grandfather had a principle brake up a fight he was involved in with the school bully. The principle took the two of them around the school then let the fight continue and he saw my great grandfather was winning and the bully was about to learn a lesson. Very different from how it would be handled today.
Bro kratos destroyed the world😂
Breakdown*
what a shit principal
Even though he isn't a modern hero I am able to sympathise with Kratos far more than most heroes in media nowadays and I believe given his mental state and the situation he found himself in that being he would've never been able to find peace in life or death as Gaia tells him that when he dies his soul would be tormented by hades for all eternity that he did what any human would which is struggle to improve his situation it's just that along the way his anger got the better of him.
He is edgy, but he is believeable. And as I would say it, he feels truly human. His humanity represented by feeling many conflicting emotions, doing horrible things and regretting it only to do other horrible atrocities again. We can actually see the results of his upbringing and his environment. In those ways he is definitely more real than many heroes which quick and recognize their faults and fix them, or those anti heroes that don't even have second thoughts.
Greek Pantheon: A bunch of morally bereft jackarses, even for the era
Kratos: A victim of a pantheon's misdeeds
Also Kratos: Ends a pantheon's existence before they could enslave the entirety of mortals
Me: Commissions a full-sized bust in Kratos' image with a plaque at the base that reads 'More than a hero'
Also Me: Is aware that the creator of Kratos' character also is the mind behind Needles Kane/Sweet Tooth
Thats probably why Kratos and Sweet Tooth are considered rivals in Playstation all stars battle royal
@@jakewulgar Sweet Tooth's ending was my favorite
Well he didn’t just end the pantheon, but the people too lol
This really doesn't hold up as well as you think it does.
Countless people died throughout Greece as a direct/indirect consequence of his actions in GOW3 (All of the gods' deaths, something that's also brought up in Valhalla and with Kratos stating he knew what the outcome of killing gods would be, and still didn't care). The gods enslaved mortals, Kratos genocided nearly all of them. He's no better or worse than the other gods
@MW_Asura I wouldn't say the gods enslaved the mortals, though they were in charge of aspects of life, death, and creation, and so mortals play a role in that as well.
Honestly, I love the writing around Kratos overall, from the original trilogy, to the prequel and in-between games, and GoW 2018. It’s the story of a competent military commander who let his ambition lead him further away from his humanity, and those who he put his trust in to help fix his mistakes backstab and betray him until finally he loses himself to the worst parts of his nature. Through his own actions and the actions of others against him he does become a monster. He’s in between a rock and a hard place, and somehow both he and those he’s fighting are both. It’s like a Bronze Age arms race, and both sides continue to escalate the situation, no one wants to call chicken, until finally someone throws the first punch. The God of War games feel like someone kicking over a domino, starting a cascade of bigger and more damaging events. God of War 2018 gives us a chance to separate ourselves *partially* from that cascade of events and look at them with some retrospective knowledge, and give Kratos some much needed time to come to terms with what he’s done and how he wants to proceed with his life moving forward. His line to Atreus, “We must do better,” near the end of GoW 2018 proves that despite everything he’s done he can choose to change. A lot of this feels like a story of nurture vs nature. Kratos’ upbringing and ambition to stand near the apex of his Spartan society feeds the worse parts of his nature, but as Ares found out to his ultimate detriment, Kratos’ family fed the good man he could be. Without the positive nurture to feed his nature and majority negative environment, Kratos’ bad habits and underlying mental instability only got worse.
I think decoupling Kratos from Greece and giving a fresh start in Midgard may have been the right call. It allows him to build new social connections in a new, neutral environment, and allows us to see what Kratos can be outside of his all-encompassing rage when he still has someone he loves in his life.
I love Kratos’ character, not because he’s a macho man or a badass killing machine, but because he’s written with a surprising amount of humanity, with all the good and bad that comes with being human. Hell, I’d bet a psychologist would have a field day figuring out Kratos’ diagnosis.
I’m really excited to see where Kratos and Atreus’ stories lead. Santa Monica studios has done a pretty great job with this character 😊
Yeah I really feel like people who hate Kratos forget that he was a Spartan, which were raised to feel little to no pain or emotion in order to perfect themselves as warriors, yet Kratos actually feels a sense of remorse and self loathing despite that. There are glimpses of a good person deep within him, but at birth he was stripped of those qualities and even moreso to be the god of war
A Spartan is only as good as the family and people he must protect.
Take it all away... You don't have a Spartan. You have a monster.
@@sumthingwikked4257 "BeYoNd tHe MoNStEr whO KilLs wIthOuT cAUsE"
@@godzillazfriction alot actually. They’d prefer death or victory.
I mean, men deteriorating into monsters does scream David Jaffe the same man behind Twisted Metal.
A quote in God of War PS5 says it best. "I killed many who were deserving, and many who were not."
So as you can notice, Kratos had been a man on suicide quest to destroy Zeus, and everyone else that got in his way were just obstacles. He also did what he tried to teach Atreus. "Close your heart to their desperation."
What I appreciate about the PS5 Kratos is that he's learned from it all. And knows he's done more than usual people would be willing to forgive. But because we've seen his journey from start to finish, we can see that alot of what he did we can't really empathize with BUT we do... *understand it* . We get it. We comprehend how a man of his likeness becomes the force of the greek ending apocalypse.
PS4*
It's the background on his upbringing as a Spartan that really makes the reasoning for naming his son after Atreus of Sparta so believable and heartwarming. Of course a Spartan who would always have a smile and lift the spirits of all his fellow brothers in arms even in the worst of times and up to his sacrifice would make an impact on Kratos. like Kratos said the Spartans saw life grimly and viewed the world as such, but atreus of sparta really was a bright spot in his brutal world.
I feel like poseidons princess had the worst and most unjustified death that I actually felt bad about. She got crushed under a wheel just so we could open q gate. Rest in Piece
One thing I thought was neat in Ragnarok is that in one of the Lore entries (that's told from Kratos' perspective) he actually reminisces and expresses regret over what he did to that ship captain.
Well, I don't think he was fully justified. His motives and goals were justified to an extent, but the things he did for those goals and motives, that's where things get blurry. So yeah, I agree with you.
While I do believe Kratos is a character with depth from the start and that the trilogy was depicting a fall from grace where you weren't meant to sympathise with Kratos by the 3rd game (you could also argue that it's a critique of morals in Greek Mythology), the thing that has always bugged me was that scene you brought up in 3 in Poseidon's Chamber where Kreatos lets that woman get brutally murdered.
On its own, it shows Kratos becoming as uncaring as those he seeks to kill, but there's a trophy you unlock afterwards that had rather morbid implications, and personally, frames all of this in a different light. I think it was something like "I wish I could have done that myself"? That trophy even got removed from the game later, which only makes the intent of the developers seem even more suspicious. As if the scene wasn't intentionally made to critisise Kratos, but live out a sick fantasy. It's always felt like the one scene in all of GOW which I don't know how to feel about.
Or it could’ve just been a dark joke?
@@Its_a_Phaze I mean isn't joking about it immediately afterwards kinda defeat the purpose of the scene if it was in fact meant to make you feel uneasy and start doubting Kratos? I don't see the point unless the achievement was there on purpose to bother the player even more for enjoying all the killing that came before.
@@squidwardtentacles244 Not really. Honestly it just depends how you choose to interpret it. Plenty times on media there’s a dark sense of humor after something extremely unsettling.
But anyway you sort of just also explained how you can also interpret it yourself right now.
"I didn’t do it... But I wish I did!" is what the trophy was called.
@@Its_a_Phaze Pretty sure it's twitter's (and similar sites) fault they got removed. Can't get morbid without Tenpenny taking an interest
Excellent video. It’s a shame some deeper moments for Kratos are relegated to the spin off games
The nuance in the way he talks about literally every single perspective in all the GoW games, as far as including the 4th main game which is set in a totally different Pantheon, that legendary build up to the end joke while being neutral and respectful the whole video is just beautiful.
sorry I'm late TBP 😭
Kratos simply was more unhinged, angry and still very much traumatised by his own deeds in the earlier games. He rejected responsibly by always desiring vengeance and seeking a target to fight. Older Kratos from 2018 has grown in his character and is more quiet, introspective and filled with a silent sadness instead of blind rage. That doesn't mean he was not deep in his rage, but more easily described as shallow.
I never thought of Kratos rage to be aways there. At least in the games. It's mostly a result of his misfortune AND everyone around him using and manipulating him.
13:38 *Bear with a Shotgun* - anyone else immediately think of Carbot's Elden Ring animations?
One thing I'm not sure on, and it could be a case of me not remembering it correctly, but isn't the problem the gods had with Kratos in 2 wasn't just him not bowing to Zeus' whims but rather that he was not listening to anyone and heavily favouring Sparta in every conflict? Like doesn't 2 have the Spartans attacking one of Athena's cities?
You are correct. And regarding Zeus, the reason he tried to kill Kratos is because he was starting to view Kratos as a threat that could challenge Olympus, so he tried to act before Kratos would ever think of doing it. Cronos tried to do the same with Zeus and all of this is suppoused to symbolise a never-ending cycle of father and sons killing eachother. That's why Kratos says "the cycle ends here" to Baldur before killing him, as he's stopping him from killing Freya and continuing the cycle.
@@leithaziz2716 Also Pandora's box played a part in making all the gods paranoid and bringing out the worst of them.
@@leithaziz2716 funnily enough this might have been a very bad idea kratos had. it is true that greek mythology has a lot of fathers and sons killing each other, but norse mythology does not. kratos decision to kill baldur might have completely put the norse world into chaos.
Indeed, and a lot of that motivation is out of spite that gets explained a little further in Ghost of Sparta--TL;DR he and his family had basically been a victim of the Gods in some direct way since his childhood.
That's true, but it's also worth remembering that, in addition to Zeus's paranoia that Kratos was gonna usurp him like he did to Cronos, that Kratos never even _wanted_ the title of God of War in the first place. The Olympians basically strong-armed him into it after they not only denied him the one thing they promised him and stringed him along with in all those years of servitude, the removal of his nightmares/memories of his past crimes, but wouldn't even let him use death as a means to escape his nightmares and madness. By making Kratos God of War, they essentially condemned him to forever be stuck with the memories of the past horrors he committed as an immortal.
And this isn't even touching upon the events of Ghost Of Sparta, where Kratos learned about how the Olympians were ALSO the ones who took Deimos from him, how Zeus cursed his mother to turn into a monster should she reveal to Kratos who his father truly is, and how Athena says the utterly RETARDED shit to a mourning and near-suicidal Kratos that with his brother and mother's deaths, he can now 'truly become a god' or whatever. Kratos wasn't heavily favoring Sparta going on a conquest through Greece up until the events of that game happened, where his already present resentment towards the gods for dicking him over time and time again came to a boiling point.
Kratos's desire for revenge might have brought a shitton of destruction to Greece and had him directly and indirectly kill a lot of innocent people, but with everything he's gone through in mind and with how the Gods had an active hand in the ruining of his life, I honestly don't blame him for becoming so bitter and revenge-obsessed by the time 2 and 3 rolls around.
The way I justify it and how i think Kratos justified it in the moment is that all he wanted was to die and finally be at rest but the world would not let him die so he decided to kill the world instead. It’s pretty stupidly simple but we are talking about Kratos here.
Kratos was never a Hero, but the gods had It coming, they betrayed hin so many times of cource that combined with the PTSD and the visions that even as a God haunted hin would push hin over the Edge, but even with what he did there a lot of deept in This Character even If his actions are Evil by some extent
Good job on the video. You forgot to mention, however, one of the main reasons for the tough upbringing of the Spartans. Before the tribe of Doriis (the so called Spartans) moved to Laconia (Sparta), the area was already inhabited. The indigenous people were enslaved by the Doriis, and were forced to serve the Spartans. These slaves were called Helots. Due to the great number of Helots in Sparta, as well as their lust for freedom, the Spartans were afraid of a Helot uprising. Therefore, in order to be able to put down such a revolt, all Spartans (literally all of them) had to not only be able bodied, but also mentally prepared in order to carry out a mass slaughter against the Helots. It should be noted that the coming-of-age ritual for every Spartan involved them killing a Helot.
You can see just how brutal as a society they were
This video feels different after Valhalla
You had a lot of good points- but a few wrong takes: We can absolutely blame Kratos~ the whole “victim of circumstance” is true and it makes it a compelling story… but all of humanity (even throughout history), holds people accountable for the impacts of their actions- regardless of what led them there. We as consumers absolutely can ‘blame’ Kratos for this- we are meant to blame him and acknowledge his evil, WHILE simultaneously being him. That creates great inner tension that makes the game so good.
It also contrasts so well in 2018- where he’s hollow… he burned himself out and filled the chasm with shame. I think we can all relate to this on some level. We all can look back on parts of our lives when we were acting… less than good, and we can all recall the ache of “what the fuck have I done”. I also like to think of Kratos as a 1000 year old God who has had eons of time for that to really sit and settle. It shows in his behavior throughout the game- and even more in his relationship with Atreus.
I fear that I'm alone in this thinking, but I feel that kratos is somewhat justified in killing zeus, but when you say that zeus is evil for enslaving the titans or kidnapping demos. The curse on kratos mom I think that was too much, while with the titans I doubt the titans would let zeus beat his father and save his siblings, like how most people are, if you are loyal and your leader is attacked by his son, then you would oppose the attacker regardless of their reasons. And with demos, it's like with odin, fear controlled him, and if someone foretold your death wouldn't you have tried to stay alive and if you are a king, wouldn't you want to defend your rule remain, the madness of the titans drove him mad. And the servitude for 10 years, I think that it was only Athena that accepted kratos plea, while zeus never made him a promise.
awesome, my friends and I were just having this conversation
Shane! Long time no see
@@FriendlyNeighborhoodGeek99 Hey!! what’s up dude!!
I love how Valhalla kinda did the title of this video by Tyr saying "his legacy was always complicated" or something.
in regards to Hepheastos, he admits he kills him but he doesn't hold it against him
when Pandora asks "what happened to Hephaestos", kratos answers in a way "he did what any parent should do, protect their child"
meaning yes, he killed him for trying to kill kratos, but he doesn't do it out of the same space as he did Hera or Hermes
Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: There's obviously better ways Kratos could have gone about things, but the odds were almost always stacked against him, since he was either being used or just prodded into being the destructive monster that many knew him as.
The captain scene was funny. But don't forget, he kiiiinda neglected the people inside his ship to save his own sorry ass.
13:12 in GOW2 there's the moment where gaia appears as Kratos' wife and give him a upgrade for rage of the titans and the way it's presented its looks like Gaia was too enhancing his rage
Honestly no one has a clean slate in these games.
I think it's understandable where Kratos comes from
But justifying it would be wrong
Things like killing those cruel gods are justified to an extent both personally and for good reasons as well
But the consequences of those actions(destruction of whole Greek world) outweigh that solution
Not only that he is a spartan and a fighter
Killing someone who fights you is to be considered OK
But what about those who didn't harm him
Like that women in posieden's chamber
He could have used anything other than her but was so blindsided with anger(anger that was understandable) but those actions which were not
Kratos is the type of guy whom you can have sympathy for what he has lost and you relish when he gets his revenge
Even If that is very brutal and unnecessary , but we overlook it because we seem it as justified
But only when we see how he treated other innocent people who hadn't done anything to him
We get to know even if Kratos has suffered and you can sympathize with him
He is still a monster and can be cruel
Even when you hadn't done something to him and are just in his way to progress even for a temporary goal
Which shows how far he went for his revenge
If someone was to accomplish something in their life
We can understand that
But if by *"ANY MEANS NECESSARY"* is where we draw the line
That's why Kratos in Gow 3 seems borderline evil(sometimes unnecessarily) even if the goal had been set long before that
I know there are many things to his character and the way he has changed in the GOW 4 are left out of this
I just wanted to give my opinion about this question pre GOW 4
He has more than one sides , it's just that I focused on this one
Yet another excellent video essay about the God of War series by TBP. I feel like you understand GoW better than most people on the internet. It means a lot to me that thousands of people are seeing this kind of sentiment about the pre-2018 GoW games. ♥️
The idea that a character not being morally perfect means they can't be deep is, ironically, a pretty shallow way to judge the quality of a character
It’s cool they acknowledge and really scrutinize all the stuff he did in Valhalla
I don't think the original creators wanted him to be likable, they just wanted an aggressive and violent character to fit with the brutal gameplay and was "justified" in his rampage by the narrative, so that the players could understand him. I mean, killing your family is the worst things you could do, of course you're a raging monster, a ghost of your former self. Cool thing is that by making him like that you avoid doing a ludonarrative dissonance, like Nathan Drake's kills in the uncharted series for example.
now after GOW valhalla. Not bad, you were pretty spot on.
They expect kratos to ask for the barbarians king pronouns before fighting a pillow fight somehow
9:26 imagine walking on a street meaning your own business, then suddently a big muscle bald man falls from the sky just to hit you with a machete
Yeah, that would almost universally be seen as wrong no matter what time period or culture you're in. This is not one of Bacon's best hot takes.
Kratos has pretty much always been a rage monster in the games... But wanton violence wasn't really his modus operandi. Does it happen sometimes? Yep. But there was pretty much always a specific target, a specific goal in mind.
Once again another master craft video in logic and explanation of our boi, you even used a wild bear analogy which is exactly what I thought of as well.
I love how in Ragnarok, Atreus asks Kratos "Father, is it moral to kill anyone who wants to kill us?" and Kratos simply replies "Yes." And that's basically the entire conversation.
Within that simple notion is the context of the world they live in: unreasonable creatures are CONSTANTLY trying to kill them, and stopping to consider whether or not retaliation is justified is a luxury, not a moral obligation. It is not wrong to do what you must to survive.
And then they changed this for thor and the valkyrie for no reason
@@xeox4280 I'm not sure what you mean by this. Having justification to kill and choosing to spare aren't mutually exclusive.
After the gods denied him ceaseing the nightmares , keeping deimos a secret, the mother dieing , kratos respect towards the Olympians weakened , endless effort only to be used as a slave
The character was already bitter , zues betrayal only made things worse by makeing kratos anger aim towards the destruction of Olympus
Justified just had some unfortunate consequences he necessarily didn't want but didn't care too much when they happened either
Context is the bane of modern thought and discourse. Whenever people say something stupid and can't be reasoned with, its often because they knowingly or unknowingly take away context or refuse to acknowledge that the situation could be deeper than what's on the surface.
Its not that complicated in my eyes. His need for revenge is justified but his actual revenge pretty much destroyed his realm including millions of innocents
I hate when people try and say either old Kratos was brainless button mash or that new Kratos is washed bland nonsense. They work together not against eachother.
Honestly if i was treated the way kratos was by the gods and betrayed and thrown away like that id argue anybody In kratos shoes would wipe down the entire pantheon too... considering the fact that most of the gods are literally ego fueled childrens
The Gods spent most of Kratos’ life farting in his face and telling him how good the glory of Olympus smells, yeah, they pretty much had it coming.
The bride of Poseidon has always been the reason I can't replay God of War 3. It's just so harrowing to force this innocent girl who's clearly suffered so much and for so long meet possibly the most gruesome death in the series, I can't bring myself to re-experience it. And I get that that's the point, to really make you feel like it's gone too far, but I just can't bring myself to retraumatize myself to that degree again, knowing I have no way to save her, hearing her beg to save spared.
I love your ramblings, reminds me of me, we would talk for weeks
When you think about it all of this could’ve been avoided if Kratos just kept his ambitions in check. His inflated ego is what got him beat by a much larger barbarian army. When that ego was crushed he turned to Ares and sold his soul to the devil. Sure it’s understandable but this was all his fault lol. I believe that’s why he’s so ashamed to speak on his past. Because he knows deep down it was his choices that led him to that
I've never played the earlier God of War games, but after I actually started looking into them, it's clear that the third game is meant to be rock bottom for Kratos. After all, it ends with him attempting suicide and giving the power of Hope to humanity, after it was discovered that he had it within himself all along, but had been so far gone in hopelessness and despair that literally nobody could tell.
It's why dad of boy gets near Universal praise for being a great direction to take him, and faithful to the character. You don't have to ask yourself what would make him change so drastically between games. He's perfectly in line with what you would expect from a man who let himself be consumed by rage until it burned out, leaving only self hatred and guilt so great that he almost immediately attempted to end his own life.
With this lense i think it rally enhances the modern god of war games arc for Kratos. Freya and Mimir probably only heard about how terrible the greek gods where and how after wronging kratos he killed them which is why they say it's understandable what he did. But Kratos? He knows all the terrible things that led him their he remembers what he does and feels guilt and shame because he realizes he went to far
I always appreciate people proving that Kratos was in fact always a deep character.
He dedicated a whole video to the guy from Fortnite
Honestly I still don't like Kratos in the Greek saga past his debut. No matter what stuff the game's include, the catalyst for his warpath against Zeus was Zeus killing him in Rhodes. Not the fact that he was never there Kratos growing up, not what he did to Kratos' mother, or what happened to Deimos. In fact since the series' creators hadn't thought of Deimos yet, the only who even brings him during II & III is Zeus.
Not to mention Kratos at the end of his debut was done with his life of violence, but in II he goes right to it. And I don't think the series' creators had any clever ideas, from what I have heard they didn't put much thought into II & III. I believe it seeing acts by Zeus and the other gods almost always get more weight than those of Kratos. Kratos murdering innocent people in Rhodes gets no weight to it, while Zeus ruining the life of one child is treated like the worst thing in the world.
Plus II gave a ton of weight to Kratos bringing the Titans to the present, just for them to play almost no role in III. The writing on Kratos in that game also somewhat scattered brained. One minute he is only killing people because they in his way, and then he we have the pointless cruelty with Poseidon's princess and him murdering the guy to get the Bow of Apollo, which he would have given him anyways. Is Kratos someone who just focuses his anger on people who gets in his way while not caring about the consequences or is his monster whose actions are just cruelty for its own sake?
I like that in God of War 4 (haven't played Ragnarok yet), Kratos only ever kills two gods.
One for self-defense, another to save a friend he genuinely cares about even though he knows that friend will hate him forever.
He does not relish in the killings and isn't motivated by hatred and vengeance.
10/10 character growth
Chains of Olympus and ghost of Sparta are extremely underrated I think. If you played the games in release order, ascension was getting to the point of the series getting stale. And luckily the gameplay was revamped the right way! Not whatever the assassin’s creed RPG mechanics Ubisoft implement. I mean trust me they’re great games but they’re not true AC games like the earlier ones. With god of war, the identity of the series is still there! At least in my eyes anyway.
Poseidon's princess is one of my favorite parts of the series. Keep a save file to download whenever I want to revisit it
There is a difference between justifiable and understandable.
Yea, and kratos is at times both. His actions are for sure always understandable. But it gets a lot more hazy when discussing if he is justified
I like that in the ending of GOW3 where it's revealed that the supernatural evils released from pandora's box corrupted the entire greek pantheon and Kratos had the power of hope the whole time.
It made me imagine an AU where this is revealed from the very beginning as Kratos lives up to Pandora's myth about opening the box out curiosity. The golden fleece is seen inside the box but inside the fleece hides the power of hope and Pandora's soul, which got forced inside as punishment for making the same mistake Kratos did. All the weapons, powers, and relics from throughout the greek saga are all found inside the fleece, via the power of hope conjuring them and Kratos kills the entire greek pantheon in one game, albeit one really long game. Right before Kratos faces the gods of olympus, he releases the power of hope, frees pandora's soul and kills Hades in his own underworld releasing its souls. After the destruction of the greek pantheon, Pandora reveals that the supernatural evils have reached out further then expected and corrupted all other pantheons and the entire concepts of religion and mythology. Kratos is tasked on a long journey to destroy the rest of the pantheons and all of religion and mythology, so they'd all get replaced by hope and balance.
Needless to say, I enjoy the concept of Kratos destroying pantheons.
He killed those who was deserving and those who were not.
So just to understand. Are you saying Kratos was to polite and soft?
@@wisguen No, I was saying that he wasn't as discriminating as he is now...or as restrained.
"A series where Kratos becomes a worse monster than any that he has fought" the best description of his arc
I don't understand why he disregards the moral norm of today as just that. As if it's just a coincidence that violence and killing is greatly despised, at the same time that those values are held in the most peaceful time in human history. Maybe we live in the most peaceful age ever because of these kinds of moral standards and properties? Kratos literally ruined everybody else's life, even those of completely innocent mortals, by destroying the pantheon. This isn't a debate at all. Kratos felt so much pity for himself and his situation, he acted like he was the only person to ever be betrayed and abused in such a way. He felt unbelievably sorry for himself, and only himself. As if he was the only person to ever lose a wife and child due to the actions of heathens. Like somebody else here said, being justifiable and understandable are two very different things.
Being understandable doesn't automatically make you justified , I also believe a messed up upbringing doesn't make you not evil , people's actions are still people's actions
Now this does bring up the question...
What character (main protagonist and not apart of this series) WOULD be justified as a mindless, gory, brute?
What character could people look at and say "this guy makes old Kratos look like new Kratos"?
Lol I got you!!!! Doomguy. 😈 That beast of a man (demigod technically, I believe, thanks to new lore) is now nothing but a nearly mindless killing machine. Jk jk, he’s not mindless but I still think he fits your description best 😂 if not him, then Asura from Asura’s Wrath definitely does, although he has a reason what with his daughter situation and being betrayed as well….
@@Faintwolf well Doomguy only kills demons with a passion and Asura is trying to save his daughter and avenge his wife.
But the thing is... they both care about humanity.
Well Doomguy/Slayer might not so much based on his interactions in Eternal but he doesn't go out of his way to slaughter them or harm them in any way. And Asura doesn't think it's right for humanity to be subjugated to so called "gods" who are just a bunch of assh*les.
I mean Kratos doesn't actively kill mortals in the games either but unlike Doom or Asura's Wrath it's an actual option.
But now that I think about it maybe the character I'm thinking of would be the Protagonist from Hatred, "Not Important". Except maybe that's THE MOST extreme example I can think of.
@@GenericProtagonist118 😂😂😂 you got me there!!!! And good lord man good example but Jesus I forgot about that game 😅
While I've never played the prequals and can't comment on how their inclusion changes Kratos' character, motivations, and arc, what I can comment on is the point in the original series that stuck with me the most. The ending of God of War 3. It's a perfect parallel to the ending of God of War 1. Kratos has gotten his revenge, he won, but even after killing Zeus, he feels hollow inside because even as his rage clouded his judgement and demanded he kill Zeus, revenge wasn't what he wanted out of his war against Zeus. What he wanted was the peace he desperately craved, a peace he was promised after killing Ares, only to be denied and turned into a god. Now he's being denied his peace once more, but this time, it's his own fault. The world is ending, and all he can do is gaze upon the destruction he caused and wonder if it was all worth it. In a last ditch effort, he stabs himself with the Blade of Olympus, releasing hope back into the world in a hope that the world will rebuild itself, and even still, his peace is denied. He can't go to the underworld to be with his family, he's to far gone for that, and at this point, feels he doesn't deserve them. So he leaves in hope of being able to one day make up for all the atrocities he's committed
He's extremely, cartoonishly evil and that's the point.
Kratos is not evil at all. His father is the evil one for abandoning him as a baby also lead to kratos not having a father figure.
@@maxfordgaming9278 Kratos' father was not evil at all. HIS father was the evil one for abandoning him as a baby etcetera etcetera.
Everyone is everything for a reason. Evil begets evil.
@@Scroteydada true.
Around 2:00 that area on God mode was quite painful. You really even need to dodge when in rage mode. The dudes with the large maces are troublesome too.
I wouldnt say that he was a monster from the start, even before he made a deal with Ares, but he already was a blood thirsty warlord which is normal for an ancient world general of course. But even pre-Ares deal Kratos would be considered a monster if he lived today. Yes we dont know much about his actions before the deal other than that he was a spartan general and we DO know that spartans were not angels, their entire culture was built around violence and he indeed went to conquer new lands, but many people seems to forget that Ares didnt force him to make a deal. I strongly disagree with you here that he was a victim. Kratos himself called the God of War, made a deal with him and went to destroy villages with innocent people. It was his own choise. He choose between death and becoming a pawn of God of Wat who kills innocent people left and right for the glory of Ares. Again it was HIS choise. The classic modern hero would rather die than be a monster. But Kratos choose life of monster because of his ego, he WANTED to live and kill, after his revenge on Ares he didnt immidiately go and kill Zeus even though he already knew that Zeus is his father, that Zeus kidnapped Deimos. What did he do after he became a God of War? He sent his spartan army to conquer new lands. Again, it is NORMAL for an ancient spartan warlord but i youre saying that in most of these horrible scenes he was a victim and he didnt have a choise which is wrong. He had many choises. And even though the killing greek gods was justifiable, killing the innocent population of Greece is not. Im not even talking about innocents who were killed by Kratoss own hands, im talking about people that were killed by a by product of gods deaths. For example how many people died after he killed Poseidon when the world was drown? After he fell to Hades Athena said that: "mankind suffers from this war" Kratos replied: "Let them suffer, the death of Zeus is all that matters". Many new GoW fans get Kratos all wrong. He is not a hero even in 2018 game. He is indeed a monster when life drives him to the edge, he stops trying to hold his inner monster and his true nature prevails, when he has a strict goal, he doesnt care hom many people die from the consequences of his actions because he has no empathy towards people. He has empathy towards his family only which is quet normal again for an ancient warlord. And also he didnt sacrifice himself at the end of GoW 3. Cory Barlog and Stig Asmussen in a 2010 interview said that he killed himself because he wanted to die, not because he wanted to give hope to humanity.
P.S. Dont get me wrong, Kratos is one of my favorite characters of all time, but thats because i like him. In some cases he is justifiable, in some .... hell no. He is not Punisher, he is not a classic "poor guy who got in bad situation and thats why he does those horrible things because he has no choise". No. He had many choises. He made bad choices by himself AND of course Gods contributed highly to his psychotic persona. In short neither Kratos not Gods are "good" people by a modern moral standarts.