Hello everyone!
One last time.
If this were a different blog post I'd insert a Theoden King gif in here just because I could haha! But as it happens, there's no gif, just me wrapping up the post series with an unexpected addition.
God of War kind of took me by surprise and by storm, and that said I've gone through the Greek portion and now the Norse portion fairly quickly, all things considered.
I've already read and watched and reviewed pretty much all there is to the big main games of the series, and thought I was done.
Then I read the official novelization.
And nope, I was not done.
The 2018 God of War book is the choice of the night, and man ... man, is it a doozy. RANT AND SPOILERS AHEAD. You have been warned.
Links to all previous related posts can be found at the bottom of the page!
So the reason I even started reading all the God of War adaptations and watching the old playthroughs was because I really, REALLY wanted to get to this last, or latest one. I'm the kind of person who can never do them out of order, and I also thought getting some info on Kratos' backstory would do me a world of good before I had a look at him in the novel of the last game.
And that's all fine and good, I did all that, got up to speed, and then picked up Barlog's version of the story.
It was the one I was most excited about, at the end of the day, as the 2018 game is my favourite thing altogether from the franchise thus far, and because the first two novelizations also brought their A game, I was convinced I was going to love this one so much I'd want the physical copy of it.
Alas, that did not happen.
What DID happen?
We still get the story: Kratos and Atreus morn the death of Faye and want to honour her last wish to spread her ashes from the highest peak in all the realms. They are tracked by Baldur, aided by Freya and Mimir and others throughout their journey, and they trek over some very high mountains, travel to different realms (looking at you, Alfheim), talk to World Serpents, kill gods (RIP Magni and Modi), fall into Helheim because of reasons better left unsaid, and eventually make it all the way to Jotunheim after restoring the realm travel tower (and Mimir's second eye), where they can do what they originally set out to do.
But does this process give us the emotional satisfaction we're looking for?
No. No it does not.
Because the writing is so dry and completely devoid of all emotion, shortened to the point of being, well, Spartan (I get that this pun is way more apt than usual), that we lose some of the best emotional kicks the game delivers flawlessly.
And I'm not sure what happened. Because this was written by the father of the game director, which means that by DEFINITION, this should have kicked it all out of the park ... but it leaves you wanting so much more.
For example, the start of it all. In-game, you start with Faye's funeral, which is an immediate emotional punch (well alright, you start with Kratos hugging trees, but that's beside the point), whereas this is completely cut from the book, and you begin with the father-son hunting trip to see whether or not Atreus is prepared for the long journey ahead.
This immediately changes the narrative and emotions, as well as delivery.
Don't get me wrong, the story IS still there ... but it is incredibly dry and lacks most of the emotion evoked by the game. I understand that one is a visual medium and the other is a written book, but the game itself STARTED out as a written one before it was translated onto screen, so I don't know where it went so horribly wrong.
Obviously a lot of the side stuff is left out completely, which is understandable as the world in the game is pretty massive for exploration sake, but because this is all left out, when Atreus mentions that Mimir had said something about the Valkyries, as a reader you HAVE to be confused.
Because there ARE no Valkyries in the book - the entire subplot was thrown out - and the throw-away line makes absolutely zero sense for someone who's never seen the game or played it, because ... what about the Valkyries? The statement goes something like 'if what Mimir said about the Valkyries was true ...' But Mimir doesn't say anything about the Valkyries, in the book. He does in-game (and a lot!), but the book leaves it all out, and shoving that one statement in at the end only confuses the reader.
Most importantly for me, however, a lot of things just didn't make sense.
Because there ARE no Valkyries in the book - the entire subplot was thrown out - and the throw-away line makes absolutely zero sense for someone who's never seen the game or played it, because ... what about the Valkyries? The statement goes something like 'if what Mimir said about the Valkyries was true ...' But Mimir doesn't say anything about the Valkyries, in the book. He does in-game (and a lot!), but the book leaves it all out, and shoving that one statement in at the end only confuses the reader.
Most importantly for me, however, a lot of things just didn't make sense.
Kratos is pictured here as someone who screams a whole lot, which, if you watch the God of War game (2018 that is), isn't quite correct. The number of times he actually screams can probably be counted on the fingers of one hand, MAYBE two if you're lucky. Saying he screams at Magni that he'll never surrender when the impact is SO MUCH STRONGER as, in-game, he looks at the Aesir god with complete calm and quietly says no, is bizarre. It also makes Kratos seem like a lunatic half the time, whereas in-game he comes across as skilled, controlled, confident and someone to rely on.
Some characterization changes also baffle me, in the sense that at one point, Mimir is mentioned to make a snarling face or something knowing Kratos can't see him (him being a head dangling at his belt), implying that he REALLY doesn't like Kratos at all, and only comes to respect him towards the very end of the book. In-game, this NEVER seems to be the case, as Mimir is honestly grateful for Kratos rescuing him from Odin and his torture, and helps the pair along in any way he can. It also doesn't make sense character-wise, because if Mimir doesn't like Kratos, why would he offer himself up to Baldur to spare him and the kid?
Equally baffling is the choice of leaving important elements of cut scenes from the book that then translate into the dialogue not making sense. The most glaring example of this would be the pivotal moment in Alfheim where Kratos tells Atreus not to mistake his silence for lack of grief. His part of the speech IS still in the book, but it's haphazardly slapped onto an exchange and just sort of packed onto there as if the author suddenly remembered this was important, had to happen in Alfheim, and so put it there.
Some characterization changes also baffle me, in the sense that at one point, Mimir is mentioned to make a snarling face or something knowing Kratos can't see him (him being a head dangling at his belt), implying that he REALLY doesn't like Kratos at all, and only comes to respect him towards the very end of the book. In-game, this NEVER seems to be the case, as Mimir is honestly grateful for Kratos rescuing him from Odin and his torture, and helps the pair along in any way he can. It also doesn't make sense character-wise, because if Mimir doesn't like Kratos, why would he offer himself up to Baldur to spare him and the kid?
Equally baffling is the choice of leaving important elements of cut scenes from the book that then translate into the dialogue not making sense. The most glaring example of this would be the pivotal moment in Alfheim where Kratos tells Atreus not to mistake his silence for lack of grief. His part of the speech IS still in the book, but it's haphazardly slapped onto an exchange and just sort of packed onto there as if the author suddenly remembered this was important, had to happen in Alfheim, and so put it there.
The emotional tone is so wildly different that I felt like I was looking at an entirely different scene. Because there's no real lead-up, Atreus doesn't argue with Kratos before-hand, and the sentence sort of just hangs there in the air while you're left wondering why Kratos is offering this information out of thin air.
A similar thing happens in a few other important scenes, and the emotional punch of them spreading Faye's ashes in Jotunheim loses the strength it had in the game because the giants are mentioned ... briefly. As in, the book literally says 'they look out over the giant graveyard, turn around, and go home'. Uhm, excuse me, but they literally enter a DEAD world, which they learn is ATREUS' world, FAYE'S world, the giants are basically enemies number one for Odin that they kept hearing about ... and all they get is a footnote.
One thing that also stood out to me was how the author made a stylistic choice to have everyone speak the same way - which is to say, the Kratos way, without abbreviations. If you listen closely to the game (ignoring the fact Mimir obviously has a Scottish accent), every character you encounter speaks in a way that flows, very naturally, very compact, using the I've, you're, we're, etc. Of them all, only Kratos stands out because he notably uses I have, you are, we are, and so forth. This sets him apart from others in this Nordic world, highlighting his own heritage and showing us that he's an outsider, far from home. This is jarring in the book because EVERYONE SPEAKS LIKE KRATOS DOES, and it ruins his uniqueness, and makes him the same as the rest.
He is not. He is the LAST person to accuse of being the same as others.
As I watched the entire God of War gameplay on Youtube (twice, but who's counting), so I knew the story going into this novelization. I was excited in reading the book because I'd previously read the first and second, and generally liked them, and because I was so fond of the storyline of the 2018 game, I figured the book had to be good, right?
A similar thing happens in a few other important scenes, and the emotional punch of them spreading Faye's ashes in Jotunheim loses the strength it had in the game because the giants are mentioned ... briefly. As in, the book literally says 'they look out over the giant graveyard, turn around, and go home'. Uhm, excuse me, but they literally enter a DEAD world, which they learn is ATREUS' world, FAYE'S world, the giants are basically enemies number one for Odin that they kept hearing about ... and all they get is a footnote.
One thing that also stood out to me was how the author made a stylistic choice to have everyone speak the same way - which is to say, the Kratos way, without abbreviations. If you listen closely to the game (ignoring the fact Mimir obviously has a Scottish accent), every character you encounter speaks in a way that flows, very naturally, very compact, using the I've, you're, we're, etc. Of them all, only Kratos stands out because he notably uses I have, you are, we are, and so forth. This sets him apart from others in this Nordic world, highlighting his own heritage and showing us that he's an outsider, far from home. This is jarring in the book because EVERYONE SPEAKS LIKE KRATOS DOES, and it ruins his uniqueness, and makes him the same as the rest.
He is not. He is the LAST person to accuse of being the same as others.
As I watched the entire God of War gameplay on Youtube (twice, but who's counting), so I knew the story going into this novelization. I was excited in reading the book because I'd previously read the first and second, and generally liked them, and because I was so fond of the storyline of the 2018 game, I figured the book had to be good, right?
I did enjoy that we got to see into the head of Kratos and Atreus, specifically Kratos with regards to his son, his emotions about his wife Faye, more of his thought process that you could usually only infer through some motion (or non-motion) he made (or didn't make) in the game.
However, I think that this is plagued by more problems than solutions, and actually manages to ruin what's probably one of the best stories told by a game in the last ten years or so. So do yourself a favour, and play the game - or watch gameplays on Youtube.
I promise you won't be disappointed.
However, I think that this is plagued by more problems than solutions, and actually manages to ruin what's probably one of the best stories told by a game in the last ten years or so. So do yourself a favour, and play the game - or watch gameplays on Youtube.
I promise you won't be disappointed.
xx
*image not mine
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