God of War is a great video game series, loved by many but is sometimes written off as mindless and chaotic. I believe that there is much more to it, an underlying message or theme that is being created, and still is. Despite Kratos being the revenge seeking sociopath that we see, he is a man –a father– haunted by his past. I would like to note that the Greek mythology used is slightly changed to fit Kratos into this epic.

     The game follows the life of a Spartan general named Kratos. As it is known of the Spartans, they were militant and revolved their society and culture on war and loyalty to the state (History). Kratos had a wife, named Lysandra, and daughter, named Calliope, who he cherished. The Greek gods play a large role in shaping Kratos into the person he is now. In a comic, the gods of Olympus play a game where they release a plague on the mortals and then they each choose a champion to seek out ambrosia. As Kratos’s newborn is found with the plague, he ventures forth to seek the Ambrosia or else Sparta will kill his daughter for being weak. He succeeds and saves his daughter but sacrifices many spartan soldiers and makes new enemies. These enemies come to destroy Kratos but at the last second, Kratos pledges an oath to Ares, the God of War. Kratos yells to the sky, “Ares! Destroy my enemies and my life is yours!” (GoW1). With that said, Ares destroys the opposing army, binds Kratos with these special blades called the Blades of Chaos as a symbol of his oath, and now owns Kratos. 

     As Ares’s servant, he does several tasks for him with Ares testing and fashioning him into the perfect warrior. Kratos is sent to slaughter a village of Athena devotees but, “after slaughtering its people, he discovers that Ares had placed his family there as a trick, who he had murdered unwittingly” (Thurmond). Family was the one thing that was holding Kratos back from being the perfect warrior, Ares reasoned. Kratos was forever marked by this atrocious deed, cursed to wear the ashes of his fallen family, turning him pale, and giving him the cursed title of Ghost of Sparta.

     From that moment on, Kratos decided to break the blood oath he had with Ares. This caused the Furies to be involved. In the game, the three furies are the oath keepers, ready to imprison and punish those who do not keep their promises. Kratos kills the furies and frees himself from the oath, vowing to avenge his family.

Disclaimer: This entire series is very brutal and violent but this scene expresses Kratos’s humanity, or what is left of it. The following videos are also very violent but they are scenes that are crucial to the themes of the series.

 Kratos begins to serve the other gods in order to find a way to redeem himself and forget the memories that haunt him. One day, the sun falls from the sky and the world plunges into darkness, giving Morpheus, god of dreams, control of mortals and gods alike. Kratos is sent by Athena to find out what happened to Helios and restore the sun. His quest takes him to the underworld where he finds Persephone’s palace and his daughter, Calliope, who resides in Elysium. In order for Kratos to see his daughter, he must cleanse himself from all the power and sin he had, and he does. I’ll let the video speak for itself to express the sort of sacrifice Kratos had to make. His hatred for the gods grows ever stronger over time.

     Kratos finally seeks to get revenge and kill Ares, even the other gods of Olympus want Kratos to do so. Guided by Athena and aided by several other gods, he is told to find Pandora’s box so that he may have the power to kill a god. He finds the box and successfully kills Ares, taking his spot as the God of War. Later on, as his mother dies in his arms, he learns that his brother, Deimos who was kidnapped by Ares long ago, was alive. When he finds him, Deimos only holds hatred for Kratos. They eventually work things out but at the final battle, Deimos is killed by Thanatos, the personification of death.

     In God of War 2, Kratos is betrayed by Zeus and so Kratos ventures to kill Zeus. Along the way, he kills the Sisters of Fate who control the fate of everyone and goes back to fight Zeus.

     In the third installment of the game, Kratos releases the Titans and starts a second Great Titan war on Mount Olympus. After killing several gods and mythological legends such as Hercules, he finds Pandora and believes that she is the key to Pandora’s box. He thought that opening the box would give him the power to defeat Zeus.

Sorry for the poor quality. I could not find a better quality video with these scenes. Here, he meets Pandora who discusses the power of hope with him.

 Kratos defeats Zeus, plunging the world to chaos. By the end of the game, Kratos learns that he used the power of Hope to defeat Zeus; he had that power since he defeated Ares.

 In Kratos’s “final” act, he sacrifices himself to give humanity hope. Throughout the series, Kratos has suffered under the rule of the Greek Gods. All he ever wanted was to forget and heal from the death of his family. He sought vengeance, and for that many mortals and gods, innocent or evil, suffered for his need for salvation. Although Kratos and the series comes across as a hyper-violent, hyper-masculine, and mindless video game to people who have never experienced the game, it has an in-depth story of a cursed man seeking redemption for the sins of his past. 

     The value of family, the struggle between fear and hope — man and monster– and the unending suffering of Kratos are the continuous themes that are expressed throughout the series. His family was the central part of the story but by the end, all perish. His wife and daughter, his brother, his mother, his father (Zeus), and the Greek Pantheon and many more all perish due to Kratos’s struggles. We, as the audience, were never meant to like him, but to sympathize and understand the message being conveyed.

     There is still hope for Kratos; there is still hope for redemption and to preserve his family values. There is still time for him to stop this cycle of senseless kin-slaying that he was a part of. In the latest God of War, we find a much older Kratos in a new realm, Midgard, the land of the Norse Gods. We learn that he has a son named Atreus. This game took quite a different approach to the themes; the game isn’t centered around Kratos, it is centered around him and his son. Kratos does not want his son to become a monster like he himself is. As they face several Norse mythological characters, Kratos struggles to raise Atreus and make him into a better man than Kratos was.

     There is much more that this game introduces into the series but since it is not finished, I will have to end it here. The change in scenery and the birth of Atreus drove Kratos to become a better father, to try to control his monstrous rage he naturally possesses, to be better. Violence and bloodshed will always be a part of this series but Kratos is doing his best to not raise Atreus into a monster. These themes could relate to people who are raising their first born or are learning to raise their children. As a child grows, we must not raise the child in a way where they will pick up on the parent’s bad habits. Instead, we must work on improving ourselves and in turn, improve the next generation. Fear is what often causes people to make rash decisions but we must hope that what we do and how we raise the children will be for the better. Only time will tell weather or not Kratos succeeds at raising Atreus right and redeems himself.

Works cited:

History.com Editors. “Sparta.” HISTORY. A&E Television Networks. April 15, 2019. https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-history/sparta.

Santa Monica Studios. “God of War.” Sony Interactive Entertainment, 2018. PS4.

Santa Monica Studios. “God of War I.” Sony Computer Entertainment, 2005. PS2.

Santa Monica Studios. “God of War II.” Sony Computer Entertainment, 2007. PS2.

Santa Monica Studios. “God of War III.” Sony Computer Entertainment, 2010. PS3.

Santa Monica Studios. “God of War: Ascension.” Sony Computer Entertainment, 2013. PS3.

Santa Monica Studios. “God of War: Chains of Olympus.” Sony Computer Entertainment, 2008. PSP.

Santa Monica Studios. “God of War: Ghost of Sparta.” Sony Computer Entertainment, 2010. PSP.

Thurmond, Joey. “The Mythology Of Kratos: God of War’s Story Thus Far.” Gameinformer. March 22, 2018. https://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2018/03/22/the-mythology-of-kratos-god-of-wars-story-thus-far.aspx.