Trigger Warning: This article discusses themes of violence and familial trauma
*This article contains spoilers for several games in the God of War series, including God of War (2018) and its sequel, God of War Ragnarök
“Can a person change?” is one of those existential and open-ended question that comes with many potential answers, often predicated on who you ask and, perhaps more importantly, when you ask them. A young person in their 20’s might think they have everything figured out and that they’re finally become the person they’ll be for the rest of their life. But then several decades later they’ll look back and chuckle at just how little their younger self actually knew, and how much more change they needed to experience.
There are many factors that can determine who we are and how we choose to engage with the world around us. Our family, our friends, where we grow up, who our teachers are, who our role models are, how our minds work, all these and more ultimately help us ground our sense of self in an ever-changing world. But once we’ve decided who we are, is it possible to modify that seemingly immovable sense of self if we later grow disillusioned with where it has led us?
The answer that game development studio Sony Santa Monica attempts to convey with its God of War series of games is equal parts cautious and hopeful. Changing what you don’t like about yourself is rarely easy, but regardless of whether you succeed or not, it’s usually better to at least try.
Of Endings and Beginnings
When we meet Kratos (roughly translated to “Strength” or “Power” in Ancient Greek), the gruff and burly protagonist of the 2022 game God of War Ragnarök, he’s already been through quite a lot. That’s because Kratos made his debut in the world of gaming nearly two decades earlier in the 2005 game simply titled God of War. That 2005 game would soon spawn a franchise, leading to two numbered sequels (2007’s God of War II and 2010’s God of War III) along with numerous spin-off games, collected editions, and other ancillary media over the coming years (this past March marked the series’ 20th anniversary).
After the last spin-off game’s release in 2013, the series lay dormant for several years until 2018 when Sony Santa Monica unveiled a “soft reboot” game which was also titled God of War. It was a soft reboot in the sense that it drastically changed the setting and gameplay elements of the earlier games, but it also continued the story of Kratos which had begun in those earlier games. That 2018 soft reboot was soon followed by its own direct sequel, 2022’s God of War Ragnarök.
While this article will largely focus on the 2018 God of War and 2022’s Ragnarök, it’s important to take a little time and explain the context of the earlier God of War games as well. This is primarily because the older games and the power fantasies they embodied tie directly into the newer games’ exploration of toxic masculinity and how hard it can be to reject the harmful influences that shape us.
The Inevitable Consequences of Toxic Hypermasculinity
The original God of War games take the existing ‘gods and monsters’ world of Ancient Greek mythology and use it as a backdrop to tell their own original story centered around an original protagonist, the aforementioned Kratos. In many ways, Kratos was designed to be the pinnacle ideal of the “hyper-masculine man.” In the 2005 God of War game, Kratos is a skilled and taciturn Spartan warrior who lives only to bring glory to his people by slaughtering any enemies who would oppose him. He’s brave, ferocious, skilled in combat, and at the start of the game he already has a wife and young daughter, so the player knows he’s virile and that women desire him.
The game opens with Kratos finding himself in a situation he never thought he’d be in: on the cusp of losing a battle. As his men are overwhelmed and butchered by a seemingly unbeatable barbarian horde, Kratos calls out to the Greek god of war, Ares, promising to become his servant if Ares will grant him the power to defeat the barbarians and save his men. Ares agrees, but the power he grants Kratos also drives the Spartan into an unceasing rage, and it’s within the haze of this rage that Kratos accidently kills his own wife and daughter during a subsequent attack on a nearby village.
The horror and remorse that Kratos feels over what he’s done quickly morphs into white-hot anger as he swears vengeance against Ares, who mistakenly assumed that the death of his family would spur Kratos to become an even more devoted warrior. In his quest for vengeance against Ares, Kratos allies himself with other Greek gods such as Athena and Zeus, who grant him weapons and magical abilities during his journey. When Kratos ultimately slays Ares at the end of the first game, he becomes the new Greek God of War, though it’s largely a pyrrhic victory for him since he’s still plagued by traumatic nightmares of his family’s death.
The two subsequent numbered games lean more heavily into the subtext that Sony Santa Monica attempted to convey in the first game: Kratos is in constant need of a new enemy to fight because he doesn’t want to face the grief and the guilt of his family’s death at his own hands. Kratos’ choice to constantly distract himself with violence is an easy one to make when Zeus (who’s revealed to be Kratos’ father) and many of the other gods betray him at the start of God of War II, giving him a plethora of new targets to focus his rage on. As academic author Steven Conway explains in his essay Poisonous Pantheons: God of War and Toxic Masculinity, this feeds into a well-known behavioral pattern where the only recourse a ‘masculine’ man seemingly has in the face of being emasculated is to respond with anger and violence:
“Following the logic of toxic masculinity, Kratos is restricted to a singular performance of grief: rage at those he holds responsible. Thus begins the most hypermasculine of narrative tropes, the vengeance narrative, wherein the protagonist seeks to dominate those who once emasculated him.”
If you read our previous blog post on The Last of Us Part II, you probably know already where Kratos is going to inevitably end up. By the end of the third game, Kratos has indeed gotten his vengeance against everyone who wronged him. He’s also slain virtually every single other god and divine being in the Greek pantheon, including several he once regarded as friends and allies. Kratos has nothing left to do but finally accept the true cost of the vengeance he sought. Spilling all that blood did nothing to ease the pain he still feels, it just means that he must now bear that pain all on his own.
Again, Conway summarizes this point rather well:
“Thus we are presented with the first of many ironies ruminated upon within the series, also customary within mythology and superhero narratives: Kratos’ rage, the source of his power, is also his greatest weakness, as he cannot control it.”
The catharsis of having finally slain all his enemies ends up being a cold comfort for Kratos since his family is still dead, and now so is anyone else who might have offered him advice or solace. The violence the player inflicts throughout the course of all three games is stylish and cinematic in its presentation, but at the end of it all, the player is left to ask themselves in Kratos’ stead: was it all worth it?
New Worlds, Old Wounds
When Sony Santa Monica first announced the 2018 God of War game after such a long period of dormancy, some fans speculated that it would feature a new protagonist interacting with a new pantheon of mythical gods and monsters. They would soon learn they were only half right. The 2018 game did indeed feature a drastic change in setting, swapping out the arid fields and valleys of Greece for the snowy forests and mountains of Scandinavia, specifically the realm of Midgard from Norse mythology. In an even more surprising move, Sonty Santa Monica confirmed that an older, more seasoned Kratos would be returning to rub elbows with Norse gods such as Baldur, Freya, Thor, and Mimir.
Another big change for Kratos in the 2018 game was that this time he wouldn’t be undertaking his journey alone. During the reveal, Sony Santa Monica established that in the years separating the old God of War trilogy and the 2018 game, Kratos met and married a woman named Faye, and together they had a son named Atreus. The game begins with Kratos and a pre-teen Atreus cremating Faye’s body after she dies of illness, and gathering her ashes so they can honor her wish of having her ashes scattered from the highest peak in the nine realms. Shortly after, they’re confronted by a stranger with seemingly god-like powers, and after Kratos successfully fights the stranger off, he realizes that he’ll likely once again be swept up in the machinations of gods and divine conflicts that he’d hoped to leave behind in Greece.
This being a God of War game, violence is still the primary means through which Kratos and Atreus overcome the obstacles they encounter. However, the Kratos that players see in the 2018 game is more cautious, more mindful, and only willing to fight when there’s no other option available. He does his best to impart the dangers of indulging too deeply in the catharsis of violence to his son as they travel together. Unfortunately, Kratos’ own brutal upbringing as a Spartan soldier means that he’s largely incapable of speaking to Atreus in anything more significant than clipped single-word responses or harshly barked commands.
In a Mashable essay she wrote shortly after the 2018 God of War game’s release, culture critic Jess Joho remarks on this conflicting dichotomy of Kratos as he is in the newer game. Of a man trying do right by his son when the same experiences that left him with wisdom he’s eager to impart have also left him largely unable to connect with others in a constructive or healthy manner:
“You might play as Kratos in the new God of War, but it's not hard to identify with the more relatable co-protagonist. Atreus demands your empathy, a constant reminder of what it is to be small, powerless, and so desperately in need of approval from the man who can seem to muster only scorn.
Yet God of War spares sympathy for that father, too -- a man who was once a child himself. A man who knows nothing *but* the perpetual cycle of patricidal betrayal and trauma.”
It isn’t long before Kratos and Atreus are caught up not only in their own personal journey of an emotionally stunted father trying to connect with his son, but also in the vicious cycles of trauma and abuse that bind many of the gods they meet. Across both the 2018 God of War and its sequel Ragnarök, there are several notable examples of these harmful cycles on display:
- The goddess Freya, desperate to keep her son Baldur safe, cast an enchantment which made him impervious to virtually all forms of harm. However, it also left him unable to experience any sort of sensation or feeling, twisting him into a cruel shell of a person who only finds satisfaction in causing pain (Baldur is revealed to be the stranger who attacks Kratos at the start of the 2018 game). When Atreus manages to finally break the enchantment with a mistletoe arrow and Kratos is forced to kill Baldur after he attempts to murder Freya, an angry and grief-stricken Freya blames Kratos and swears vengeance upon him.
- In the 2018 game, Kratos and Atreus encounter Magni and Modi, the sons of the god Thor. While Magni and Modi are portrayed as cruel and arrogant, the player later learns that they perform cruel acts mainly to impress their father, who physically abuses them. In Ragnarök, the player learns that Thor’s father Odin was both physically and emotionally abusive towards Thor, a pattern of behavior which Thor then perpetuated with his own sons.
- In Ragnarök, Freya attempts on several occasions to make good on her oath of vengeance against Kratos, but Kratos actively refuses to match her fury after the bond they formed in the 2018 game. It’s only after Kratos explains to an initially reluctant Freya how much he lost because of his vengeance-seeking ways back in Greece (and also helps her rekindle her bond with her estranged brother Freyr), that they finally manage to reconcile.
The emotional growth that Kratos slowly embraces throughout the 2018 game and Ragnarök juxtaposes drastically with the emotionally deadened Kratos of the original trilogy. Whereas the old Kratos solved most of his problems with a quick stab of his sword and callously discarded anything and anyone that wasn’t of use to him, this newer Kratos is able to reflect and think through the consequences of his actions. He empathizes with Freya’s rage at losing a loved one (because he’s felt it himself), but he also strives (in the best way that he can) to help her see the better path that nobody bothered to help him see. Rather than simply kill Freya and move on, he helps her break a cycle of abusive violence rather than perpetuate it.
Sins of the Father
As part of the above Mashable essay, Jess Joho also interviewed Cory Barlog, the director behind many of the older God of War games as well as both the 2018 God of War and Ragnarök. During the interview, Barlog reminisces about how his own father was very much the typical stern, tough father figure who was taught to never show his emotions. It was hard for Barlog to grow up in that kind of environment, but the pain he endured also inspired him to take the opposite approach with his own son:
"My dad grew up in the era of the strong silent figure. They didn't share emotions. And I'm raising my son to be OK with expressing emotions. But it's still hard. It's hard to try to change. To aspire to be something better, whether in grand or small ways. It's always going to be a long road filled with failure to get to even small victories. And that's OK too."
Kratos’ relationship with Atreus encapsulates Barlog’s thoughts on parenthood (and the many potential mistakes parents can make) within a framework of fictional storytelling. Despite the wisdom he’s gained by the time of the 2018 game, Kratos is far from a perfect father. Throughout both games he and Atreus get into spats, have disagreements, and often fail to adequately convey their perspectives to one other. The difference between Kratos and the more toxic father figure characters such as Odin and Thor, however, is that he frames his past experiences with violence and abuse as warnings rather than excuses. He imparts onto Atreus how dangerous it can be to bask in the harm of others, but he also tries his best to give Atreus space to learn in his own fashion.
Barlog also touches upon the many juxtapositions that exist within the narratives of both 2018’s God of War and Ragnarök, showing how even gods can struggle to break free of toxic cycles of abuse and violence. Freya, though she acted out of love and a desire to protect, inadvertently condemned her son Baldur to a life of numbed aimlessness that twisted him into an unfeeling monster. Thor, as powerful and strong as he was, still felt a yearning compulsion to please his cruel and abusive father Odin, and he in turn wound up embodying the same abusive traits which made him hate Odin as much as he loved him.
The contrast between how the other gods treat their children and how Kratos (often clumsily) approaches fatherhood isn’t meant to be a strict binary of ‘good parenting’ versus ‘bad parenting.’ It’s more meant to show that, while we may be the sum of our choices and our lived experiences, there’s always potential for us to learn from those experiences and to make better choices as a result. This point is summarized nicely in a brief scene in the 2018 game where Atreus laments how sons are seemingly always destined to kill their mothers or fathers, and Kratos responds thusly:
“We will be the gods we choose to be, not those who have been…. We must be better.”
Interestingly, while the 2018 game and Ragnarök were both resoundingly praised upon their release, there was still a minor yet vocal portion of the God of War fandom that wasn’t happy with Kratos’ newfound emotional maturity. They complained that Kratos had “gone soft,” and that he was no longer the rage-fueled badass warrior they’d first grown to love in the original trilogy. The irony that these complaints came from the more toxic ‘man-o-sphere’ parts of the internet wasn’t lost on Barlog when he spoke in the Mashable essay:
"People started to question, 'Did Kratos lose his edge? He's not strong anymore.' And it always mystified me, because I thought it was inherently sort of logical. Strength coexists with emotional availability and vulnerability. Life is not a Hemingway novel. We are better as people -- as a society, as a humanity -- when we are open to the concept of everyone experiencing the range of human emotions."
Past Lessons, Better Futures
One aspect of domestic violence that often surprises those with a more surface-level understanding is how early on harmful patterns of behavior can be learned. Young kids witnessing violence inflicted by their parents or guardians is one example, but even those who didn’t experience domestic violence in their own homes can still be exposed to what we call teen dating violence. If a teenager’s experiences with dating and relationships are largely made up of harmful practices and behaviors, there’s a good chance that those harmful patterns will follow them into adult life.
With 2018’s God of War and Ragnarök, Corey Barlog and the Sony Santa Monica team seek to impart a similar lesson. Learned behaviors can be incredibly hard to break away from, especially when you’re living in an unstable or unsafe environment. But there is a clear difference between “incredibly hard” and “impossible.” Kratos tries in his own way to set a good example for Atreus (who, it should be noted, is very much a teenager by the time of Ragnarök), but through his interactions with Atreus he also learns to make peace with his own past mistakes and shortcomings.
It's important to remember, however, that even the newer God of War games still put a strong emphasis on cinematic violence. Critics have argued that this makes their central premise of showing a “kinder” Kratos feel hollow and disingenuous. After all, whenever Kratos and Atreus aren’t having pensive conversations and heart-to-hearts during their downtime, they’re usually tag-teaming to viciously dispatch whatever creature or god has dared to stand in their way.
The newer God of War games may not interrogate the long-term consequences of violence as much as similar games like The Last of Us Part II, but one could argue they’re not meant to. Instead, the newer games help in highlighting the stark differences between violence as a means of survival and violence as a means of control. This makes sense when you consider that the young 20-something-year-old developers who created the original God of War games, and the many teenage boys who happily embraced that younger, “edgier” version of Kratos, have all grown up.
This archived Reddit thread, which was posted shortly after Ragnarök’s release, praises the narrative that Sony Santa Monica managed to craft across the two games, but more importantly, it expresses hope for the precedent the two games set:
“I'm just amazed that a character who was, in some ways, the ultimate power fantasy for edgy teenage boys filled with toxic masculinity, has believably reformed himself into a poster child for good parenting and healthy masculinity. I don't think I've ever been so moved by a quiet scene of a man telling his son a bedtime story. I really hope we get more stories like this in pop culture - young men need to see that it's possible to be compassionate & vulnerable while still being a "strong man," and that they will be happier for it.”
Sentiments like this align perfectly with the work that REACH does not only to help domestic violence survivors but to also challenge harmful norms and effect change from within. Change isn’t often easy or pleasant, but it’s a vital component of building better futures for those we care about. Perhaps it’s only right, then, that by the end of Ragnarök’s story, when Atreus makes the hard decision to leave his youthful pursuit of glory behind and set out on his own, that Kratos makes a similarly big change. When asked to join Freya and Mimir in helping to build a newer, kinder council of gods, Kratos adopts a new title, one which he knows his son will be just as proud of as he is:
God of Hope.
