God of War and Better Power

God of War celebrates its 20th anniversary today (March 22, 2025). Below, we examine how Kratos’ character arc changes over time, reflecting masculinity and change in time.

Although people remember the cruelty and grandeur of God of War, it is a bizarre game, it is easy to forget that the first God of War in 2005 did not actually start with Kratos tearing apart with hydra and a hydra soldier and burglary.

It begins with suicide attempts. Starting a new game, the first thing we hear from Kratos is that he says seriously, “The gods have abandoned me” and then walk straight from the cliff into the Aegean Sea. This is a warlord who accidentally murdered his wife and children and was then cursed by Oracle, grafting the ashes of his family onto his skin forever, ensuring that Greece has nowhere to go and that he can go to places where his crimes are unrecognizable. The only help he received was being summoned by the gods to murder Ares, and they began him from it, which was not helpful at all. The reward is the forgiveness of the gods, which does not help and will not relieve his usual nightmare of the contract. When blood did not give him peace, the gods gave him power to his position as a Greek god of war, and began such a destructive rule that the Almighty Zeus himself had to intervene to take him away. That was to discover Zeus himself was Kratos' father, and Kratos' revenge meant wasting waste to his entire territory. Which did Kratos make.

For a series that built such an early reputation on violent catharsis, it always felt that Ike Sony was holding the cake and also ate Kratos's mission, never really letting him solve any real solution for his pain. Even if he sacrificed his noble cause for God of War 3, the spilled blood would not solve the problem of this series – although it would certainly feel good for the moment. All this still leads to the desolation of Kratos' homeland, the complete massacre of the Pantheon, who himself is destined to wander with his thoughts. If I have nickel Every prestige PlayStation series ends there.

All of this is the product of the time when Kratos was born. Not as a character, but as a 2005 match, it was like a grim Nu-Metal view of Greek mythology, and Zack Snyder was only launched two years before the film was released. Kratos's anxiety is the style of the times, a man who makes horrible, cruel, vicious mistakes, and his anger at it becomes everyone's problem. Everything Kratos designed is in its place and time, and if there is any lasting lesson from that place and time to that place, it is that hatred and violence may be useful and have their place, but they are not the solution in themselves. It is just a driving force of nihilism without a happy ending. By definition, it has nothing. God of War III just showed us the end. Or, at least, we think it's the ending before 2018, and the Kratos' arc becomes one of the most beautiful pixels of all time.

Over the years, these roles’ transformations began in 2018. It began in 2010, when we understand exactly why Zeus felt Kratos needed to die, a cycle of violence that he himself started himself, creating what his child Kratos did to Zeus against Kronos, the first confession of the cycle of violence that he himself started. However, Zeus died again at the third god of war. One of the unshakable plagues of the AAA game is that its story cannot speak a language that is not a language of blood, and there is no way to reconcile Kratos with the power that leads to his existence, and no one is at the time when Kratos leaves Olympus, except to ensure that Zeus cannot cause more pain to others. This cycle can only be destroyed by taking the #1 abuser of Greece from the equation.

In real life or video games, something we have never seen before is something waiting on the other side. Revenge is easy to obtain, retribution is easy to imagine, but what we do not consider enough in art is what healing looks like. If we were to allow him to exist, what would it mean to what Kratos did?

There is no roadmap to deal with what Kratos does, the only certainty is that he has to bear the unremitting weight of it. He does carry it. Kratos in 2018 was also a product of his era. He was heavy, silent, and aware of what his power and anger could bring, trapped in the grave of scars and regrets. This is where he created manliness to embody lead. But men know that their actions have consequences, and all of this is inherently wrong, and it is so few that they rarely tell them where they will go next. This is especially true for Kratos, as a woman who can guide him to disappear at the beginning of the new match.

The only light that shines in the dark is the fact that Kratos has a son. In his son, even if he lacks real and metaphorical vocabulary, he has only one real North, and it is a re-tuning of the priorities of this narrative: “Don't regret it. It's much better.”

How does Kratos atone for his sins? Did Kratos spend centuries in silent exile? Is it enough that he lost his wife again? The difficult answer is that it may never be enough. But the asterisk is, it's good and worth trying.

So start a story that is different from any of the games, with the least rare in all novels. The killers of the gods, monsters and humans put things back into the world instead of burning them all, and a father sees his future reflected in the prism of his child's life while being hunted down by the twisted Nordic scenes of his past. Even if Kratos takes over the blade again, Kratos won't back down, which is fascinating. When faced with threats, there is still a source of cruelty. But the tone of violence is different. This is a violent act that attempts to operate without malicious intentions. It's a tough rope, a rope for 2018 God of War and Ragnarok. But, among the developer and the person in this role, the intention is clear. Even if it is inconvenient, we have to try to get better.

Kratos watched himself and his son struggle with power and privilege, which was great in itself, their journey of sympathy and compassion for each other because everything they endured was the same. But Kratos faces his real enemy when Valhalla DLC drops for the god of war Ragnarok, completely upgrading Kratos to the rare character atmosphere in the game. He himself.

Kratos faces his young self, the asshole who was slaughtered by thousands, covered in blood and anger, who would rather commit suicide than face his sadness and crime, and who came to power, he should not be given or understood. That Kratos. This may be the ultimate boss. Instead, this is a monologue. Kratos has a vocabulary to face himself.

The highly anticipated game does not consider the consequences of its existence. In a traditional sense, it is not fun, entertaining or empowering. A dynamic journey like God of War in 2005 is these three things. But no matter what the medium is, there is a crucial honesty in the stories we tell each other to grow up with us, a story that can mean one thing when you are 20, and when you are 40, there are other things. What makes the God of War different is that it is one of the few video game characters that have legally grown and changed over 20 years. Not after a reboot or redesign, but because the character has experience reconnecting everything he does. So Kratos faces himself.

“What can I say to you? I remember the feeling of ascending the throne. It means everything, and everything it does not have. God of war. God of pain. God of suffering. Destruction. None of you have tolerant, what I chose, I should be in service, I and I don't know, you have always seen more than others. You are not that.”

This monologue represents one of the greatest storytelling feats in this medium, giving oneself a direct conversation with many of us as adult games, and many of them do indeed. It is a thorough understanding of the power of escapism, its attraction, and its limitations, failures, and ultimately insufficient for any soul that wishes to develop. Especially for men, Kratos represents a place where there is no doubt about the power of violence, because these words come from a better person are miraculous. It uses one of the most violent monsters in the game to tell this without redeeming him, but simply shows the way forward, the way to exert strength and privilege. There is no such arc in the wider gaming landscape. And, this is more important than any blessing of the gods, and it will make Kratos truly immortal.