The only part I disagree with is GoW 1. Yes, Kratos sold himself to Ares willingly, but he figured his family was safe from the pact. Kratos did everything Ares asked and conquered and pillaged in his name. Ares knew he was tricking Kratos because he didn't order him to directly kill his family, he just ordered him to attack some village and conveniently forgot to mention his wife and children were there too. Classic Greek God shenanigans. Still, the situation was entirely Kratos' fault.
Call it a technicality if you must, but that's still fair game within the terms of their agreement. Kratos assumed his family was safe? I feel that's on him. He wanted to be a slave if only he could be saved from the big bad barbarian - that was his only condition. Why would he think that he could dictate any terms after the fact? If nothing else, his sheer stupidity in not understanding what slavery is ought to be acknowledged.
But fine, he was desperate.
But I want to emphasis how much better it would have been if him lying about Ares was treated as an actual narrative point instead of blithely accepted at face value - Remember how the only time you see Kratos wife and child is a disoriented flashback where they tell him he's an insane fuck and are just begging him to stop murdering people? One of the reasons I never bought into Kratos as a character is that I literally could not believe that this fucking psychopath could possibly have a meaningful, respectful relationship in his life. He's a blood crazed psycho fuck, any wife he had would be abused the moment she did anything that triggered his rage. And even in his memories, that's actually the only way we see her, terrified and fearful for herself and her child. But again, Kratos verbally says he loved his wife, and somehow everyone just buys it.
GoW2 is what kills me, how is Zeus betraying you? You're the fucking aggressor, stop murdering people you insane fuck and they'd leave you alone. Then GoW 3 has to take this concept and do some hard pull backtracking to make Zeus seem evil because he got corrupted by Pandora's Box and feared Kratos, his son, would kill him. Yet, it still doesn't change the fact that Kratos was the aggressor who the Gods simply wanted to stop waging war on everyone. What kills me is that GoW 2 was done by Balrog, so the whole nonsense is his fault.
GoW3 does that thing sequels do where they explain a previous issue, but then make it worse.
The Gods of GoW1 are actually fairly decent dieties. Ares is implied to be mistreated by Zeus because Athena is his favorite, and that may or may not be true, who knows. But the reason that the gods can't just go down and stop Ares himself is because there's some cosmic rule that prevents gods from directly fighting each other. It's why Ares ais attacking Athens, not Athena herself. Hence the need for Kratos as a middle man. And they're pretty much 100% concerned with the lives of mortals here. Their framework is that of a rescue team, giving Kratos the tools he needs to get past the trials he has to to get what he needs to kill Ares. Even the fact that Athena "tricked" Kratos is imo overplayed. It's not like they don't take away his nightmares out of spite but that's because it's one thing they can't do and then they gave him Godhood as consolation. So basically, they were in a desperate situation where they told Kratos what he needed to hear to save as many lives as possible, and when they couldn't deliver, they gave him literally the best gift they could. And again, I do not believe for a second that a character like Kratos wouldn't rather revel in power for a second over getting his wife and kid back from Hades.
Anywho, GoW2 comes around and Zeus is just suddenly an asshole and attacks Kratos and that whole plot happens.
Then GoW3 comes out and it's not just Zeus that's an asshole now, everyone is. Most notably, Aphrodite, who was as compassionate as you'd expect the Goddess of Love to be and very concerned about Athens burning, was just turned into a hedonist who didn't care about Olympus burning outside her door lol. Except wait! They have an explanation for this sudden change for the gods. Kratos released FEAR from Pandora's box, which changed all the gods into an asshole! So, Kratos isn't so much getting revenge for a betrayal, he's taking his rage out on people who were effectively drugged into unnatural feelings of paranoia and hostility.
Under this framing, Zeus didn't really, truly betray Kratos, he was just on a really bad, unending acid trip, which he initiated after he told Kratos to unleash Pandora's box, which is where he sealed the evils of the world, and apparently just forgot about at the time he ordered Kratos to open it to kill Ares. This story, man, lol. You think that right before Kratos opened it in the finale of GoW, Zeus was like "Wait....oh shit, no,
that's where I put the evils of the world, fuuuuuuuuuu......"