I have a dad, and unless you have dead parents or are a dad, maybe you have one too. God of War is a game about fatherhood and dad-core and because of that is basically impossible to write about without referencing other popular works about dads or the limited number of dad-core videogames. I have a dad, too, which you know because you’ve made it past that opening statement. My dad introduced me to Conan the Cimmerian when I was still a moppet, in a way setting me up for the only way I could love this videogame.
God of War is also a game where you can climb a troll and plant a stupid huge axe right between its teeth and pull it down to the ground by the head. Previous God of War games would have you tap buttons rhythmically while you watched Kratos do it. In God of War (2018) you get a momentary break from the action. Watching Kratos rip something in half is treated as a momentary respite. A small payoff for the trial of combat. Congratulations, you did it.
God of War (2018) though, isn’t just a game about fatherhood. God of War is one of the few videogames about mourning, and what we pass on when we die. Maybe the only other one is Metal Gear Solid 2.
God of War concerns the journey of one Ghost of Sparta, Kratos esq. and his son Atreus. This journey takes them through a rendition of Norse mythology and its nine fantastical realms. Here the nine realms are turned artfully into videogame locales like Fire World and the cover of a Yes album. Kratos and that good boy Atreus aren’t just going on a quest to save the world or eradicate the pantheon of Norse gods like Kratos has been known to do.
The very first time we see Kratos is right as the game begins. He rests his hand on a tall birch tree that stretches above frame and into the sky. On this tree there is a single gold handprint. As we press start, he closes his eyes and rises to his feet, axe in hand. As Kratos, your wife has passed beyond her final living moments and you mean to prepare her body for cremation. For Atreus, his mother is gone and he’s left with a father he barely knows.
Videogames are rarely about families related by blood, even if some of them contain characters that are related. Ellie in the last of us is a surrogate for the protagonists own family, Elizabeth in Bioshock is uh, kind of creepily treated as a prospective love-interest/care object for the protagonist until a late game twist makes it even worse.
Kratos and Atreus are father and son, not by circumstance, or well, maybe by the only circumstance that really matters. As players we know scarcely little about the two in the opening moments of the game, and even less about Faye, Kratos’ wife.. If I could say it now it’s that maybe God of War is even more about Faye than the chosen father and son duo. While we may never see her, the whole dynamic between Kratus and Atreus is about what she meant to the two of them.
When someone dies what were left with is an image of who we wanted them to be and what they taught us. We take that image and reflect it through ourselves, putting it back out into the world. For Kratos she was a reason to live, an equal in battle and something that served to cool and temper him. Kratos treats Faye like the mythological version of the better half: a partner that performs the labor of guiding the man. As the mother to Atreus she taught him her skill in navigating the woods, giving him the gifts of compassion and empathy.
We learn that after Atreus’ birth, Kratos preferred to spend his time away hunting. Several times through the game Atreus refers to time spent with his father as how his mother left him with Kratos. for Atreus, his dad has suddenly been forced on him where he knew the mother. The same role still falls to Kratos himself, who knew his wife and has now been made to get to know his son.
not the boy
Kratos and Atreus speak to each other often throughout the journey. Atreus often remarks some naive quip about how he understands the world. Kratos responds: sternly and pragmatically. He refers to Atreus seldom by name and mostly with a stern dictation of “Boy.” Kratos as the stern father and Atreus as the curious naive son prevents God of War from falling into becoming a somber journey through the woods. Kratos only can see the world through the lens of pragmatism and survival. Atreus desperately wants to be involved in the world and its affairs: the son and father find their attitudes rubbing off on each other as they learn more about each other.
In learning more about each other as the game progresses, we also learn more about Faye.
God of War is presented as a single cut from the beginning of the game to the end: the camera may swivel around or float up but is always focused on Kratos. There are no cuts or flashback scenes like the ones that dominated the early games in the franchise. That’s what makes God of War so interesting as a game about mourning. We can only learn about Faye through how she affected people that go on living after she passed.
Faye’s role in the game is as large as the ones Kratos and Atreus have, even though we never really see or hear her. I bet you know someone who’s passed on that even now you find yourself forgetting what they looked like or what they sounded like. We don’t always have to see the dead for them to be present.
