My personal headcannon for Norse Kratos was that he wandered for however long after destroying Greece; absolutely determined to be alone and away from everyone. Something happens to where he nearly dies, and gets found by his future wife. She is the only person who asks nothing of him, despite having saved him. It all goes from there. Maybe not the most ingenius or profound of writing, but I think it works well enough.
Nah it's pretty obvious their trying to make him more appealing to the audience that love the last of us and think it's the only piece of artful story telling in video games.
Great video, one of the few people who actually gets it. Modern storytelling is absolute garbage and something I've realised years ago - modern writers are too afraid to write genuinely evil antagonists anymore, they're always redeemable or have some stupid justification for their actions. There's various reasons for this but the main one in my opinion is the current blank slatist, PC culture that we're in, that's why you get these sanitised, watered down plots and villains.
On the point about changing the context of events, I do agree. They completely changed his reasoning as to why he made certain decisions (the conversation between him and his wife, for instance). To play devil's advocate on the Helios and GOW 3 flashback, I believe the point was to give Kratos a new perspective on his actions. To show that regardless of his intentions, he was capable of doing things for the sake of others even if he didn't view it as such at the time. His evils he referred to were probably killing Helios in GOW 3 in relation to the topic of Chains of Olympus, but he could also mean all of his evils in general, which would be a retcon. I also believe the writers had the same intent about mentioning his death at the end of GOW 3-that he can do good things but needs to make sure that he has good intentions along with his actions. Granted, I wish the writers would've reworded those scenes in order to make the point clear because as it currently stands, they change the context completely to excuse Kratos, which I can't defend. I don't hate new Kratos placing his discipline, self-control, and desire to protect his son to the forefront above the monster that he was.
Even David Jaffe (the OG creator of the God of War series) recently said he feels Kratos has become too soft in the Norse games. It's not really even the same character anymore. I'm also tired of the Norse games constantly trying to make me feel guilty about all the badass shit we did in the greek games.
I don't know man, i could definitely buy him settling down and becoming a better man after slaughtering literally everyone. I mean we all do bad stuff and look back on it and regret it, at least alot of us do.
Yeah I realized this after editing. Don’t know how I forgot about it but the point remains. The context of why he was doing it was changed and it wasn’t done because he wished to sacrifice himself for humanity like Valhalla suggests. They repainted the event to make it seem like a heroic act when that wasn’t at all the case:
@@rougarabid yeah it was just a nitpick, they did try to retcon a lot of previous games, there was no need to make kratos this misunderstood hero that just happened to do couple bad things
It’s just baffling why they chose Kratos, of ALL characters to try and redeem. What gross interpretation of his character! There is no possible way you could spin his actions into something even remotely justifiable. Would have been SO much more interesting had they kept Kratos a piece of shit and just explored other aspects of his character. New god of war’s narrative unbelievably boring and played out. Ragnarok in particular is closer to a marvel movie, writing wise, than gow Edit: Oh, and let’s not forget how they did our boy TC Carson, the original voice of Kratos. Replaced him completely and never even let him know. This was the man who gave his voice to playstations most iconic character. Didn’t even being him back for flashbacks. Unforgivable. Christopher Judge is cool but TC Carson takes him to acting school. The man just had swagger. New Kratos is bland in comparison.
I never played Valhalla, but that obvious retcon is kind of appalling to be honest. You can't just say "yeah he was a monster, but he was good though!"
So, is everyone going to forget the other GOW Games? God of war: Ascension God of War: Chains of Olympus God of war 1 God of War: Ghost of Sparta God of war betrayal (Events before GOW 2) God of war 2 God of war 3 And the comics before 2018? I get why you’re all upset about this, but in my opinion, they didn’t do this to retcon, it was actually canonical for him to go from hungry dictator, to broken hearted lap dog, to vengeful God, to be regretful of what happened to Olympus and then try to do his CA throughout Norse and Valhalla…
Did you not watch the video? They took specific scenes from Kratos past and retconned them altering the events around them to justify Kratos’ previously unjustifiable actions. It’s absolutely a retcon.
@rougarabid I have played the played and beaten the old games, not the psp games, unfortunately, but no, they didn't retcon anything from the previous games they offered a different perspective I love the Greece and Norse games and the Norse games.
I’ll be honest, I didn’t play the previous games going into GOW Ragnarok and I played a bit of the 2018 one. I didn’t know anything besides Kratos is the God of War and he killed the gods that betrayed him. I just assumed he put his past life behind him for Atreus/Laufey (I knew he killed his previous family bc Ares tricked him but I didn’t know he reached out to Ares for power because he refused to lose) I pretty much accepted this new “good” Kratos and just went with the story in Ragnarok because you get to play as Kratos and that’s all I cared about. You definitely changed my POV on this whole thing and the comparison with Wolverine is a GREAT example of Hollywood not properly portraying a character as they should be. The least they could’ve done is show some type of reason as to why Kratos would even consider putting this past life behind him/becoming good between 3 and the 2018 game. Looking back, it is strange how they start off the 2018 game with everyone already knowing Kratos just isn’t “that guy” anymore from previous games. Underrated video and I’d love to see more
Ok now i wanna see a video about the punisher lol I feel like they nailed the character in daredevil season 2 but got it so wrong in his own serie especially in puniser season 2. Like how the hell does he let the photographer get away with it? At least show a scene where he goes after him once he's alone. And i totally get the wolverine effect on him. And it doesn't really work. The punisher is a character that actively hunts criminals. That's a big part of who he is and what makes him compelling. He's violent and ruthless. He does have a humanity and will help innocents when given the chance but most of the time he's a hunter chasing preys. That's what's so compelling about him. He's not evil but yet so close to it. And for kratos they retconned it knowing most people wouldn't go back to the old games. By the time gow 2018 came out people already had the mentality of old games look bad and lack depth. Hell even the creators of the games felt that way somehow.
I’d like to make more character analysis videos outside of Tekken so maybe I’ll do one on Punisher eventually. There are comic characters I’d do before him though. Hulk, Jackie Estacado, Hellboy, Denji from Chainsaw Man comes to mind. I’d have to think about it.
You should always like whatever you want. Me personally I struggle to enjoy them. They are littered with all the stuff I can’t stand in modern games and butchering Kratos as a character is just one step too far for me personally.
@@rougarabid This would be resolved if they showed what happened between GOWIII and GOW2018. Though I have to play Ragnarok to see if I come to the same conclussion. Though personally, I don't exactly see Kratos' character as "butchered". Though from day one, I never tolerated the "The Greek Games had no depth BS". Now that I will never defend.
If a character is completely different in every conceivable way as to be a completely different character so much so that they have to retcon events from previous games just to make the arc make sense, I would personally consider that butchered. Not saying there’s nothing to like about this version of Kratos but it isn’t Kratos.
Hm I feel like they are trying to whitewash Kratos a lot. Like, everything he did has some sort of excuse now. Might as well redeem Ares and Zeus as well. Ares was the black sheep of Olympus and Zeus favored Athena over him so he was bad. Zeus wasn't raised by his parents and his siblings were swallowed by their father. He also knew of the prophecy (Destruction of Olympus) so he was looking out for himself. Oh and he was later infected by Fear Going by this both of them can be redeemed and aren't really bad.
Villains usually do things for a reason but modern writers seem to think that every action is justified as long as you give a character enough trauma or a reason to do their evil. I absolutely despise this mindset. It’s how you get stuff like Kylo Ren, Scarlett Witch’s ridiculous ending in WandaVision, people arguing that Thanos was the Good guy in Infinity War. Shit is insane to me.
@@rougarabid Yep, that's my point. We should just sympathatize with Ares and Zeus now just like with Kratos and make them look good because they are justified. Same thing with Thor. He basically wiped out the Giant race and was heavily implied that he killed his own mother. Yet people say he is good and shouldn't pay for it because he is depressed alcoholic who wanted daddy's attention.
It’s due to our culture shift would be my guess. School shooters aren’t vicious attention whores, they have mental health problems. Drug dealers aren’t profiting on people’s addiction and destroying their communities they are poor and have no other options to support themselves. It’s a pretty garbage way to look at the world.
I have watched this video I agree with something you said and don't agree with other things you said I don't like how you say nose kratos is boring which I don't agree on I find nose kratos interesting but I have my opinion and you have your opinion I do understand why you do not like of them reconning kratos past and I do understand why you want to see what happened In between God of war 3 and God of war 4 but sometimes when you're writing a story you gotta do some things it change It but not everyone is gonna agree what you do to your character it's just if you want your character to have a good redemption that's fine You may not agree with the person that changes the character's past a bit but maybe if you take it into a different light to show it a different perspective then you might see why they have it liked that in the DLC Valhalla. I know you may or may not agree what I'm saying which I'm fine with it's your opinion and I'm saying my opinion. And your video is great good job.👍
Kratos: "I was a savage, violent man." This video: "He was a monster." His friends, judging who he is as they know him now: "I'm sure you had your reasons." This video: "The writers, not the characters themselves, are justifying what he did because of trauma!" Dude, they're excusing his behaviour based on visions and the fact that they don't know who he was back in the day, just who he is now.
They literally speak on why Kratos did the things he did. Altering his reasons for doing them as well as the events themselves to justify Kratos’ actions. Kratos’ actions didn’t need to be justified. They were unjustifiable from the start.
My personal headcannon for Norse Kratos was that he wandered for however long after destroying Greece; absolutely determined to be alone and away from everyone. Something happens to where he nearly dies, and gets found by his future wife. She is the only person who asks nothing of him, despite having saved him. It all goes from there.
Maybe not the most ingenius or profound of writing, but I think it works well enough.
So, I’m not the only one that was confused by the sudden change in character in GoW(2018) onwards?
No. We exist and must come together as one people.
It was sudden he has been years years
Nah it's pretty obvious their trying to make him more appealing to the audience that love the last of us and think it's the only piece of artful story telling in video games.
@@DannyLee-zv9gl
Are you having a stroke?
Great video, one of the few people who actually gets it. Modern storytelling is absolute garbage and something I've realised years ago - modern writers are too afraid to write genuinely evil antagonists anymore, they're always redeemable or have some stupid justification for their actions.
There's various reasons for this but the main one in my opinion is the current blank slatist, PC culture that we're in, that's why you get these sanitised, watered down plots and villains.
On the point about changing the context of events, I do agree. They completely changed his reasoning as to why he made certain decisions (the conversation between him and his wife, for instance). To play devil's advocate on the Helios and GOW 3 flashback, I believe the point was to give Kratos a new perspective on his actions. To show that regardless of his intentions, he was capable of doing things for the sake of others even if he didn't view it as such at the time. His evils he referred to were probably killing Helios in GOW 3 in relation to the topic of Chains of Olympus, but he could also mean all of his evils in general, which would be a retcon. I also believe the writers had the same intent about mentioning his death at the end of GOW 3-that he can do good things but needs to make sure that he has good intentions along with his actions. Granted, I wish the writers would've reworded those scenes in order to make the point clear because as it currently stands, they change the context completely to excuse Kratos, which I can't defend. I don't hate new Kratos placing his discipline, self-control, and desire to protect his son to the forefront above the monster that he was.
Even David Jaffe (the OG creator of the God of War series) recently said he feels Kratos has become too soft in the Norse games. It's not really even the same character anymore. I'm also tired of the Norse games constantly trying to make me feel guilty about all the badass shit we did in the greek games.
"Soft".
L take
I don't know man, i could definitely buy him settling down and becoming a better man after slaughtering literally everyone. I mean we all do bad stuff and look back on it and regret it, at least alot of us do.
You ignored all the story retcons that were made in order to make that choice for him possible that I mention in the video.
@@rougarabid Some recons yeah for sure, but I don't necessarily say that a bad thing, especially since it's basically a reboot.
Kratos restored the sun in chains of Olympus, Helios references yhis in gow3
Yeah I realized this after editing. Don’t know how I forgot about it but the point remains. The context of why he was doing it was changed and it wasn’t done because he wished to sacrifice himself for humanity like Valhalla suggests. They repainted the event to make it seem like a heroic act when that wasn’t at all the case:
@@rougarabid yeah it was just a nitpick, they did try to retcon a lot of previous games, there was no need to make kratos this misunderstood hero that just happened to do couple bad things
@@rougarabidthat’s the whole point. Giving a new perspective not excusing them.
@rougarabid it give them a new perspective
It’s just baffling why they chose Kratos, of ALL characters to try and redeem. What gross interpretation of his character! There is no possible way you could spin his actions into something even remotely justifiable.
Would have been SO much more interesting had they kept Kratos a piece of shit and just explored other aspects of his character. New god of war’s narrative unbelievably boring and played out. Ragnarok in particular is closer to a marvel movie, writing wise, than gow
Edit: Oh, and let’s not forget how they did our boy TC Carson, the original voice of Kratos. Replaced him completely and never even let him know. This was the man who gave his voice to playstations most iconic character. Didn’t even being him back for flashbacks. Unforgivable. Christopher Judge is cool but TC Carson takes him to acting school. The man just had swagger. New Kratos is bland in comparison.
I never played Valhalla, but that obvious retcon is kind of appalling to be honest. You can't just say "yeah he was a monster, but he was good though!"
So, is everyone going to forget the other GOW Games? God of war: Ascension
God of War: Chains of Olympus
God of war 1
God of War: Ghost of Sparta
God of war betrayal (Events before GOW 2)
God of war 2
God of war 3
And the comics before 2018?
I get why you’re all upset about this, but in my opinion, they didn’t do this to retcon, it was actually canonical for him to go from hungry dictator, to broken hearted lap dog, to vengeful God, to be regretful of what happened to Olympus and then try to do his CA throughout Norse and Valhalla…
Did you not watch the video? They took specific scenes from Kratos past and retconned them altering the events around them to justify Kratos’ previously unjustifiable actions. It’s absolutely a retcon.
@rougarabid I have played the played and beaten the old games, not the psp games, unfortunately, but no, they didn't retcon anything from the previous games they offered a different perspective I love the Greece and Norse games and the Norse games.
Don’t care, I still love the rebooted Kratos. Still great vid tho 👍
Let's not forget Poseidon's Princess in GoW 3 that Kratos uses to solve a puzzle.
Great video I’m glad u understand kratos u cleared the air with this one
Amazing vid bro, I still remember when you said that fire line lol
I’ll be honest, I didn’t play the previous games going into GOW Ragnarok and I played a bit of the 2018 one. I didn’t know anything besides Kratos is the God of War and he killed the gods that betrayed him. I just assumed he put his past life behind him for Atreus/Laufey (I knew he killed his previous family bc Ares tricked him but I didn’t know he reached out to Ares for power because he refused to lose) I pretty much accepted this new “good” Kratos and just went with the story in Ragnarok because you get to play as Kratos and that’s all I cared about. You definitely changed my POV on this whole thing and the comparison with Wolverine is a GREAT example of Hollywood not properly portraying a character as they should be. The least they could’ve done is show some type of reason as to why Kratos would even consider putting this past life behind him/becoming good between 3 and the 2018 game. Looking back, it is strange how they start off the 2018 game with everyone already knowing Kratos just isn’t “that guy” anymore from previous games. Underrated video and I’d love to see more
Ok now i wanna see a video about the punisher lol
I feel like they nailed the character in daredevil season 2 but got it so wrong in his own serie especially in puniser season 2.
Like how the hell does he let the photographer get away with it? At least show a scene where he goes after him once he's alone.
And i totally get the wolverine effect on him. And it doesn't really work.
The punisher is a character that actively hunts criminals. That's a big part of who he is and what makes him compelling. He's violent and ruthless.
He does have a humanity and will help innocents when given the chance but most of the time he's a hunter chasing preys. That's what's so compelling about him. He's not evil but yet so close to it.
And for kratos they retconned it knowing most people wouldn't go back to the old games.
By the time gow 2018 came out people already had the mentality of old games look bad and lack depth.
Hell even the creators of the games felt that way somehow.
I’d like to make more character analysis videos outside of Tekken so maybe I’ll do one on Punisher eventually. There are comic characters I’d do before him though. Hulk, Jackie Estacado, Hellboy, Denji from Chainsaw Man comes to mind. I’d have to think about it.
Character analysis of Kratos sounds dope
Now I'm not sure if I should like the Norse games now. granted, unlike several others, I was aware of Kratos' actions in the Greek Saga.
You should always like whatever you want. Me personally I struggle to enjoy them. They are littered with all the stuff I can’t stand in modern games and butchering Kratos as a character is just one step too far for me personally.
@@rougarabid This would be resolved if they showed what happened between GOWIII and GOW2018. Though I have to play Ragnarok to see if I come to the same conclussion. Though personally, I don't exactly see Kratos' character as "butchered". Though from day one, I never tolerated the "The Greek Games had no depth BS". Now that I will never defend.
If a character is completely different in every conceivable way as to be a completely different character so much so that they have to retcon events from previous games just to make the arc make sense, I would personally consider that butchered. Not saying there’s nothing to like about this version of Kratos but it isn’t Kratos.
Hm I feel like they are trying to whitewash Kratos a lot. Like, everything he did has some sort of excuse now.
Might as well redeem Ares and Zeus as well. Ares was the black sheep of Olympus and Zeus favored Athena over him so he was bad.
Zeus wasn't raised by his parents and his siblings were swallowed by their father. He also knew of the prophecy (Destruction of Olympus) so he was looking out for himself. Oh and he was later infected by Fear
Going by this both of them can be redeemed and aren't really bad.
Villains usually do things for a reason but modern writers seem to think that every action is justified as long as you give a character enough trauma or a reason to do their evil. I absolutely despise this mindset. It’s how you get stuff like Kylo Ren, Scarlett Witch’s ridiculous ending in WandaVision, people arguing that Thanos was the Good guy in Infinity War. Shit is insane to me.
@@rougarabid Yep, that's my point. We should just sympathatize with Ares and Zeus now just like with Kratos and make them look good because they are justified.
Same thing with Thor. He basically wiped out the Giant race and was heavily implied that he killed his own mother. Yet people say he is good and shouldn't pay for it because he is depressed alcoholic who wanted daddy's attention.
It’s due to our culture shift would be my guess. School shooters aren’t vicious attention whores, they have mental health problems. Drug dealers aren’t profiting on people’s addiction and destroying their communities they are poor and have no other options to support themselves. It’s a pretty garbage way to look at the world.
I have watched this video I agree with something you said and don't agree with other things you said I don't like how you say nose kratos is boring which I don't agree on I find nose kratos interesting but I have my opinion and you have your opinion I do understand why you do not like of them reconning kratos past and I do understand why you want to see what happened In between God of war 3 and God of war 4 but sometimes when you're writing a story you gotta do some things it change It but not everyone is gonna agree what you do to your character it's just if you want your character to have a good redemption that's fine You may not agree with the person that changes the character's past a bit but maybe if you take it into a different light to show it a different perspective then you might see why they have it liked that in the DLC Valhalla. I know you may or may not agree what I'm saying which I'm fine with it's your opinion and I'm saying my opinion.
And your video is great good job.👍
Kratos: "I was a savage, violent man."
This video: "He was a monster."
His friends, judging who he is as they know him now: "I'm sure you had your reasons."
This video: "The writers, not the characters themselves, are justifying what he did because of trauma!"
Dude, they're excusing his behaviour based on visions and the fact that they don't know who he was back in the day, just who he is now.
They literally speak on why Kratos did the things he did. Altering his reasons for doing them as well as the events themselves to justify Kratos’ actions. Kratos’ actions didn’t need to be justified. They were unjustifiable from the start.