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Polygon: God of War’s director on toxic masculinity and why Kratos had to change
- Thread starter Alo0oy
- Start date
It is more how it is framed than what happens... but yeah I would have done more extremaly
These are terrible sounding takes for as smooth and natural as the transition was done in-game.
Like:
Deliberately flawed characters don't need to "turn good", stuff like Kratos's journey as being a piece of shit who killed all his deities and the world are perfectly fine to play through in the context of a game.
The game itself handled the transition well, and they handled it by not necessarily "redeeming" him and allowing him to still largely hold the same perspective with small, believable nudges of change.
Haven't fully finished the game yet, but I don't want to see Kratos as some righteous hero in future games.
Like:
It's framed that Kratos can't be held as a terrible person in the narrative game because of the moral and social responsibilities of the developer, and that there's this sort of responsibility to "fix" him into a more politically correct character.
Deliberately flawed characters don't need to "turn good", stuff like Kratos's journey as being a piece of shit who killed all his deities and the world are perfectly fine to play through in the context of a game.
The game itself handled the transition well, and they handled it by not necessarily "redeeming" him and allowing him to still largely hold the same perspective with small, believable nudges of change.
Haven't fully finished the game yet, but I don't want to see Kratos as some righteous hero in future games.
i don't really think you can use the concept of "toxic masculinty" and apply it to the world that Kratos lives in, context matters
a world in which mythological beasts and tyrannical gods are roaming the lands out for blood, i just feel like tying our real life concepts to a world that operates with completely different rules is really not helpful
Kratos teaches his kid to kill, because he is teaching him to survive in a harsh world
a world in which mythological beasts and tyrannical gods are roaming the lands out for blood, i just feel like tying our real life concepts to a world that operates with completely different rules is really not helpful
Kratos teaches his kid to kill, because he is teaching him to survive in a harsh world
You are indeed, even endangered magical pigs.
It would have been far more interesting if Kratos had a daughter IMO (edit: obviously I mean as his companion in the game). As it stands the game is entirely clichéd. A truly fantastic game nevertheless, but not because of its narrative.
Isn't that fair in a world where everything wants to kill you?
Eh, even killing or trying to kill that pig is acknowledged in that game. Narrative is amazing. And what does clichéd even mean? He chose a boy because he had a boy.
he did have a daughter
and besides how many games do we get father and son.....there are many father and daughter type games out there
Sorry, I should have said it would have been more interesting (again, IMO) if he had a daughter as his companion in the game.
Kratos does, but he makes also clear several times, especially when Atreus gets some sort of flight of fancy, that he teaches him this to protect himself in this world, not to go around killing and maiming unprovoked. At one point, when they are about to fight human enemies, he wants Atreus to stay out of it.
In some instances Kratos even chides Atreus for being unkind to certain other characters, which I would have never thought possible.
Actually yes and no. The majority of enemies are already dead, unlike previous God of War games you don't actually brutally murder people. When you do kill people its not as black and white as it used to be (trying not to be specific so I don't spoil anything).
In fact, several times, Kratos teaches Atreus not to kill a beaten enemy.
the only act of kindness in the game is helping a character save an injured animal
What a ridiculous question from Polygon. Why do we need to try to apply some weird cultural psuedo-parenting question to a game set in a hard fantasy land featuring a god that is hundreds of years old who so utterly obliterated one mythology that he had to up and move to a completely different one?
Huge kudos to Cory Barlog for having such a great answer to such a stupid question.
Huge kudos to Cory Barlog for having such a great answer to such a stupid question.
I'm pretty sure that wasn't supposed to be a good thing. And there's an entire arc about how Kratos raising his son in that way eventually lead to a "behavioral change" that was getting out of control.
That would just invite another cliche of big strong man protecting helpless little girl.
Did the gameplay not interest you? I'm not a massive fan of Kratos' persona myself, but that didn't stop me playing.
Yeah but they are mostly monsters. New kratos would probably save the ship captain in the intro of God of War 1
it's still a hyper violent game, where nearly every conflict is 'solved' through violence
Played it unil a little bit after the Norse god guy who zipped around. Circle to open door and climb stuff annoys me. It's cheap game play. That combined with the grunting main character saying boy all the time ended it for me. I don't want to play a jerk off body builder as a protagonist. Also why can the "boy"speak normally and Kratos speaks like he has brain damage.
Not true, there are several other instances. For example the second big boss fight.
Think want you want about Kratos,it is all justified. But this story seems to be more about the boy though. Kratos is just the guide. That context is laid out very early on. Kratos may be the main playable character but is not the main focus of the story.
The Narrative is very good in God of War. It tell's multiple stories very well. Not every game has to be the most original thing ever. There's classic story arcs that are classic for a reason. "Cliché" has such unfair neggative connotations, like Tropes. Cliché it's a term of definement they arn't inherently good or bad
I don't think playing 10-15 minutes of a 30-hour game gives nearly enough insight to be making blanket statements. Everything opens up, including Kratos' vocabulary.
Absolutely. But compared to previous God of War games? Its something else entirely. The final boss fight, as it happened in this game, would never have happened in any of the previous games. Even the first encounter with another "human being" wouldn't have happened the way it did in any of the previous games.
Not sure how this would change anything or make things less "cliche."
Nuh uh
It's ancient Midgard, you still have to eat to survive. It's very much a part of being an adult for them, and he makes an effort to steer Boy away from the toxic aspects.
Serious question. Why did you buy it then? It clearly an action title with violent combat.
They already did the surrogate-daughter thing in God of War 3 and it was really bad.
That's like 10 minutes in lol. And if you turned it off because of his bullshit macho persona you missed the entire point of the game and his change
yes because its a reflection of the world they live in
why do some people purposely miss the context that this is a completely different reality from us with different rules
God of War 3 was still relying on toxic masculinity though.
User Warned: Derailment - Please don’t use this thread to discuss your opinions of a game you didn’t play.
A friend brought it over and I played for a few hours. The game isn't for me based on the main character. For the developers to say it's combating male stereotypes/masculinity is pretty laughable.
Kratos didn't come off as overly macho to me at all.
Care to cite some of this persona that you encountered within the first hour or so?