"My vengeance ends here."
Hello everyone!
But for the most part, we've now pretty much come full circle, since we already know what happens to the protagonist afterwards!
Well, we THINK we know, in any event.
For the past few weeks we've been trailing after Kratos, the demigod son of Zeus, who is on a quest for vengeance because the Greek Gods made a tactical mistake and didn't understand what they ended up creating through their machinations and promises and debts to the guy.
I mean, you want to talk about hubris? These idiots have it in spades, and they don't realize what's happening until it's much, much too late.
So without further ado, let's look at God of War III.
Links to previous installments in the franchise which I have now covered can be found at the bottom of the page, as per usual!
But very briefly: after serving Ares, the former God of War whom he eventually ends up killing by opening Pandora's Box, Kratos then serves Olympus until Zeus kind of betrays him and strips him of his powers, launching the man, who happens to be his own son, onto a quest for vengeance that has him killing both notable denizens of the demigod and godly world alike.
In the end, he conquers time travel itself and goes back to bring the Titans, the ancient enemies of the gods, to the present so they launch an attack on Mount Olympus.
This is where God of War III begins.
The gods obviously won't let it all happen just like that, so Poseidon is the first of the brother-kings to launch himself into battle, dueling Kratos and Gaia themselves (Kratos is hanging on to Gaia while she climbs up the mountain). This does not end well for the god of the oceans because Kratos beats him to death, causing the seas to rise and flood the world (or at least, Greece).
Continuing on, they almost make it but Zeus knocks them off with a lightning bolt, and Kratos learns the Titans are no better than the gods as Gaia lets him drop to the Underworld.
How many times has he now been deposited down there by now? Too many to count.
He loses his weapons and a lot of his strength before meeting with the spirit of Athena, who's now reached a higher plane of existence and, because she sees things clearly, decides hey, now Kratos CAN kill Zeus - which she previously opposed, if you recall, and even Kratos throws that in her face. But she gives him the Blades of Exile and tells him the only way he can succeed is if he puts out the Flame of Olympus.
But since any trip to the Underworld would be moot without meeting with Hades, Kratos ends up fighting the god (who looks like NOTHING else you've ever imagined, certainly nothing like his usual depictions in media!) and killing him.
As you do.
The three judges take a wiser approach when they judge his soul and end up saying 'You know what, go back up top, you're not ready to die yet'.
Translation: we REALLY don't want to be decapitated so just go and leave us alone.
Murdering Hades has released the souls of the departed from the Underworld, but there's one in particular Kratos wants, and it's Calliope, his daughter, though he has to abandon his quest and return topwise, where he serves Gaia a dish of her own judgement when he lets her fall from the mountain instead of helping her. He then continues on his own, killing anyone who gets in his path, including but not limited to at least one other Titan and Helios, the sun god.
This action extinguishes the sun, mind you, and plunges Greece into darkness (and also provides Kratos with a portable lamp because he then carries Helios' head around for lighting purposes, which ... I'm just glad developers later decided to have his weapons glow instead).
Continuing, he's taunted by a really stupid Hermes (I mean, the dude you're currently making fun of has already murdered two of the brother-kings and taken out the sun, I wouldn't be THAT confident if I were you), who Kratos chases down, and eventually slaughters him, too, which serves him right after being a complete ass. This releases a plague into the world, because, what else is new?
Finding the Flame of Olympus, Kratos sees that Pandora's Box is held within, and the key to getting there is Pandora herself, whom he must now find, though we first get this ridiculous scene in Aphrodite's chamber (oh, but first, one with Hera and Hercules, who's voiced by the ACTUAL Hercules actor) where players can take a break from their time-crunch mission and have sex with the goddess of love while they're at it.
Do you hear that? That's me cry-laughing.
Re-energized (or something), Kratos then meets up with Hephaestus, who promises to forge him a powerful weapon if he gets him the Omphalos Stone, which Kratos does, killing Cronos in the process. He ALMOST gets killed by Hephaestus afterwards, but ends up turning the tables, and this is the only death I actually mourned because the poor blacksmith was brutally beaten by Zeus after Kratos got Pandora's Box the first time, and locked in the Underworld.
Zeus also locked away Pandora, who Kratos continues looking for, after snapping Hera's neck and killing all plant life in Greece because he has no time for her drunken rage. Listening to the advice of the architect, Daedalus, he brings the pieces of the Labyrinth together, and eventually locates Pandora.
The girl might be the only one ACTUALLY happy to see his ash-covered face, and he quickly becomes attached to her, as if she's his own daughter, while they continue on their quest of raising the Labyrinth and destroying the Chain of Balance.
Of course at this point, Zeus intervenes, and Pandora sacrifices herself to help Kratos, against his wishes, though he finds the box empty and continues on his path to kill Zeus without it, ending up inside Gaia (who swallowed them both) and killing the two of them. This only releases the stronger spirit of Zeus, however, and Kratos has to take a journey through his psyche to unlock his powers again.
Finally forgiving himself for his past sins, his powers return, along with the power of Hope, and he kills Zeus, making the apocalypse complete.
Athena then pops up, demanding he give her the power he found in the box, to which Kratos tells her the box was empty, and she deduces that the power of Hope was in him all along, hidden by his guilt, while all the evils in the world infested the gods after he released them the first time he opened the box. Showing nothing but contempt for Pandora and that she's about the same as every other god and Titan before her - claiming she wants to do better but only really wants to rule the world - Kratos decides, fuck it, and stabs himself with the Blade of Olympus.
This releases the power of Hope to humanity instead, and a disgusted and disappointed Athena leaves Kratos to die because she didn't get her way - making me like her even less than before.
But in a post-credit scene, we only see a trail of blood leading away from where Kratos fell down, but no actual Kratos, implying that the Spartan has once again thwarted death and taken himself off into the unknown, away from the destruction he's caused.
DUN DUN DUN!
Now, players, readers and viewers alike know he does in fact survive and becomes embroiled with the Norse Pantheon afterwards, but I guess that cliff-hanger was something for those who beat the game, though if you've played any of the smaller ones released during this time, there's an interesting tidbit about Persephone, who supposedly cursed Kratos to live 'until he no longer suffers or causes suffering'. Or something of the sort. The way I interpret it, he gets to die when he's finally happy again. Yikes!
But what a game!
Definitely filled with a lot more violence and gore, I keep being completely surprised and astonished at how idiotic anyone facing Kratos is. His triumphs at this point are the stuff of legends, and yet anyone he meets PERSISTS in deciding 'Hey, I'll be the one to beat him!'
Needless to say, it never happens.
The first trilogy is basically the story of forgiveness, of Kratos needing to forgive himself before anyone else can, and him eventually finding at least a modicum of that at the end, but it also tells the story of the Greek Gods and just what a group of abominations they are, demanding and expecting worship but complicating and destroying lives in return, thinking that it's going to earn them even more worshipers.
Every single hero you meet through the games explains just what a mess his life is or was, and all of them, without exception, were turned into that mess because some interference by one god or another.
It definitely makes you think, and to be honest with you I felt no remorse or guilt about the lot of them dying, either. Most notably Hermes, who is probably the most annoying of the lot, but even Athena ended up disappointing me when she revealed her true colours, and that despite her words she doesn't really care about anything or anyone, not really, as only Kratos is able to summon emotion to the surface, despite his savage nature.
Even Athena sees Pandora as just a thing, so all her speeches about helping humanity fall on deaf ears afterwards.
But that's it, everyone! We've completed our journey through the Greek quests and Kratos' misspent youth, and we know where he ends up (and that he's gearing up for ANOTHER war with ANOTHER Pantheon, while he's at it). Until we see him looking at Ragnarok and trying to survive THAT end of the world, it's time to say farewell.
And remember: there are two sides to every story, from gods and mortals alike.
xx
*images and video not mine
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