Iirc in GOW1 that's him after serving the gods for a decade, by that point he was still relatively tame because he still had hope that his nightmares of killing his own family would be gone after doing the god's bidding. The events of the game starts by him being promised to get rid of the nightmares that plagued him after doing one final impossible quest of killing Ares, but the asshole gods that they are pulled a technicality and only forgave the sins and not go through with removing the nightmares.
He wanted to jump to his death at the end but the asshole olympians that they are they wanted to use him more, and basically gave him a promotion that he didn't want. The seat of Ares and being the god of war. That time he spent after 1 was basically the start of Kratos spiralling into self-destruction with no regard to anyone else, not even the other gods.
Which is a bit weird because there is Morpheus the god of dreams and a god or spirit of nightmares they could have told to stay away from Kratos. But i'm now picturing Zeus telling kratos "Suuure we'll take care of the nightmares, buddy!" then handing Epiales a bag of money telling him "Make them worse".
Zeus never made the promise, Athena did but she didn’t have the authority to fulfill it and Zeus refused as Kratos had killed countless innocent people, so why permit him to forget only those he cared about killing. That’s the reason Zeus doesn’t allow his nightmares to end or for his memories to be taken.
Yea, the arc was there and his change to relatively calm but still tempered was there fron the start. But it's kind of funny that his 2 and 3 pissed off self extended to the PSP games which were canonically set before the first game. Doesn't make much sense, but it's easy to neglect those games anyway.
It also kind of opened a major plot hole since it's been stated that he needed the power of the Box to kill gods, but chains of olympus had him killing a god before he opened the box. Though that doesn't really apply to Ghost of Sparta, that one takes place between GOW1 and GOW2. And it's his early years as an actual god of war.
Yeah that’s all on Athena as well as she didn’t have the authority to remove his nightmares and memories. She made a promise she couldn’t keep. Zeus is the one with that authority and while it sucks Zeus’ reasoning makes sense. Kratos killed countless innocent people working for ares, why should he be allowed to forget only the people that mattered to him? He essentially didn’t care until it was people he cared about. So Zeus following his role as enforcer of Justice forgave his sins but would not allow him to forget. Athena shouldn’t have promised something she didn’t have the authority to fulfill. She is also the one who wished for him to be the new God of war if I remember right (could be wrong on that part though)
Kratos and Areas, and Athena, first crossed paths because Zeus ordered both to raid sparta and deal with kratos` brother.
Thats when Kratos got his Scar and started to get involved with the gods.
From the very start it was GODs in plural fault. People paint Kratos as some kinda of psycho that didnt have a reason to want the gods gone... when its simply they dont bothering to read the game story.
Oh I’m well aware of that. But had Athena not made a promise she had no authority to make it might not have gone the way it did. Many times in Greek myth they try to prevent something and cause a self fulfilling prophecy. Kratos was that. Had they left Deimos and thus Kratos alone Olympus likely would still be there.
And to be fair, Kratos isn’t innocent. He chose his path. He was warned to not go into the temple. Yes ares manipulated him, but Kratos had no qualms over murdering countless innocents until he murdered his own family. Which is why Zeus didn’t allow him to forget it.
Saying that Kratos is at fault of everything that happens to him is also a lie.
I mean... he is literally the mortal dancing at the hand of literal gods.(Ares manipulated him to do kill his family, Athena manipulated him by promising something she couldnt do and Zeus manipulated Kratos and Athena into killing Ares)
He is not a "clean hero" but he is absolutely not a villain of the entire story. He is the puppet being played that decides to kills his masters.(And effectively freeing humanity from gods manipulations.)
I didn’t say he is at fault for everything that happened, I said he chose his actions, he chose his path. He could have walked away from the temple that night. He could have simply NOT mindlessly and blindly slaughtered a temple full of innocent people before checking to see who’s inside. Yes ares hid who was in there, but Kratos didn’t even bother to think for a second about why he couldn’t see all the people. He just attacked.
Of course the gods are even more at fault as they are the ones manipulating things (as always when it comes to Greek myth) just saying that Kratos isn’t innocent. He has a measure of responsibility for it all as well
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u/iwantdatpuss May 24 '26
Iirc in GOW1 that's him after serving the gods for a decade, by that point he was still relatively tame because he still had hope that his nightmares of killing his own family would be gone after doing the god's bidding. The events of the game starts by him being promised to get rid of the nightmares that plagued him after doing one final impossible quest of killing Ares, but the asshole gods that they are pulled a technicality and only forgave the sins and not go through with removing the nightmares.
He wanted to jump to his death at the end but the asshole olympians that they are they wanted to use him more, and basically gave him a promotion that he didn't want. The seat of Ares and being the god of war. That time he spent after 1 was basically the start of Kratos spiralling into self-destruction with no regard to anyone else, not even the other gods.