God Of War: A Warrior’s Guide To Grief
“The Hands Of Death Could Not Defeat Me, The Sisters Of Fate Could Not Hold Me. And You Will Not Live To See The End Of This Day!” — Kratos
That quote, sums up Kratos perfectly. Regardless of the scale of obstacles he faced in his life, he defeated fear long before anything else. In all the fights we have in life, taming your fear is probably the hardest. It stops us from achieving our dreams and it does something far worse. It scares us from being our true selves. Over the years, I have come to believe, that we only fear the past or the future. It is the trauma from the past or the anticipation of the impending doom. We never fear the present. But that begs the question, is there such a thing as “the present”? Well, That’s for another day. For now, let us continue down this road. One can do what Kratos and many other Spartans of his time did, which is to fight and train everyday. Through his discipline and temperance, Kratos learned to control his fear. Fear and Vengeance were the big themes for the first three games and towards the end of the third, when Zeus uses Kratos’s fear to defeat him, he overcomes it, replaces it with hope and destroys Zeus. Yet, he is not free from fear. He conquers it every time he faces a different obstacle. That’s what fear is. Its not just a summit you can reach but a dangerous road you have to take everyday, to get back home. That’s who Kratos is. A warrior who has learned to overcome fear through sheer will and discipline.
“We will fight it because you are afraid of it!” — Kratos
But what happens when a man who has pushed himself so far in the pursuit of revenge, blinded by his anger and shame, becomes a father? Well, you can probably guess.
“My Vengeance Ends Now.” — Kratos; God Of War III
With the days of revenge and murder behind him, Kratos, after killing Zeus, moves to a far away land to live as a simple man. In his previous life, he realized the cost of being a God and he wanted nothing to do with it. He moves to ancient Scandinavia and marries Faye. A giant from Jötunheim. One of the nine realms from the Norse mythology. Together, they bring a child into this world. They call him Atreus. Now, very early in the game’s story, Faye dies and as her final wish, she instructs Kratos and Atreus to cremate her body, and scatter her ashes atop the highest peak in the Nine Realms. That brings us to beginning of the story and the core theme that makes up this game’s narrative.
Grief
The story of this game, takes Atreus and Kratos on a journey. A journey that becomes a ritual that helps them deal with their grief. Sure, scattering of the ashes is the actual ritual, yet, its the journey that helps them get over the loss of losing Faye.
Now, I think at this point, we’ve all heard of the five stages of Grief. A Swiss psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, developed the theory while working with terminally ill patients. She introduced her model in the 1969 book, “On Death and Dying. The Five Stages of Grief”. The game does a beautiful job of taking us through these while slowly falling in love with these characters.
“Mind your tongue, boy! Until our journey is complete, one of us must remain focused! Do not mistake my silence for lack of grief.” — Kratos
Denial
In the beginning of the game, we see Kratos and Atreus embark on a hunt immediately after cremating Faye. If you’ve played the game, you know this part feels weird. I know I did. I asked myself, “Why are these two, not talking it out and getting some kind of closure, before embarking on this big journey. Instead of dealing with their emotions, Kratos takes Atreus on a hunt. Kratos as a father figure, at least initially, does a very poor job of helping Atreus through this time of loss and grief. This is because he himself is in denial at the moment and he may not want to admit it. Now, Atreus understands that he has lost his mother, yet, I don’t think he fully realizes the gravity of his emotions. He is jumping around and trying to be his usual self. Yet, at the same time, you can see the sadness and reality slowly creeping in. Now, Kratos has already been through this before. In his previous life, due to the gods pushing their usual schemes on mortals, he accidentally kills his wife and child. This, is what becomes the seed, for Kratos’s pursuit of vengeance. Although, Kratos has faced the loss of his loved ones before, It doesn’t make it much easier. Yet, in a way it does.
Furthermore, if you really examine this stage of grief, its about denying the reality, which in-turn allows us to absorb the impact of the loss and gives us time, to understand our emotions.
Anger
As it is in real life, Denial can only last for so long. The game quickly goes through this phase while depicting anger as well. During cremation, Atreus, angrily extends his hands into the fire and grabs hold of his mother’s knife which was placed on top of her body. The knife was scalding hot and it burned his hand. Later, while hunting deer, a troll attacks both Atreus and Kratos. Bursting with anger, Atreus stabs the troll with an arrow and goes after it without thinking of the consequences.
Furthermore, after they return from the hunt, Kratos, pushes Atreus to express his emotions. He does this to show that Atreus is in denial and full of anger. This is something he is very familiar with and he tries to help.
“Anger can be a weapon, if you can control it. — Kratos”
“Your anger, you can get lost in it” — Kratos
Now, personally, I think anger is good. At least in this context. Anger means you are finally dealing with your emotions. But it is just the very first step in this process.
Bargaining
There are several examples of this in the game. Yet one of the most blatant one is where Kratos and Atreus travel to Alfhiem. Towards the end of their journey in this world, they come across a pillar of light. It seems to be the source of power for the Light elves who are the natives of this wold. Kratos and Atreus have come to this world to acquire a small piece of this light. Kratos enters this pillar to acquire it, leaving Atreus on his own to defend himself. Inside this pillar, Kratos hears Atreus’s inner most thoughts.
Atreus wishes for his mother to come back and he is angry that she left him alone with Kratos. Moreover, Kratos, at this point, is a very distant and cold father figure to him. Kratos always leaves and Atreus feels like he will never accept him. Atreus starts to bargain, “It should’ve been him. Do you hear me? Him… Not you.” He would much rather lose Kratos than his mother. So he wishes that Kratos should’ve died instead of Faye. Then we are taken to a moment before the cremation where we see another example of denial and bargaining. Atreus speaks to his mother’s body, “I know you are out there somewhere.” He says the same before Kratos enters the pillar of light. Atreus hears his mother singing inside the light.
At this stage, because we are beginning to accept reality and our emotions, we feel as if we are losing control. This idea of bargaining gives us a perceived sense of control and we pray or wish for a different outcome.
Depression
After Kratos and Atreus return from Alfhiem, Atreus pulls inward, his sadness grows and he feels isolated. He doesn’t feel like he can rely on Kratos. This brings him face to face with the reality of not having his mother around. He stops imagining of other outcomes and begins to accept reality. Yet, this is hard. Still, it is a vital step towards acceptance. From this point on, you can see that he becomes cold towards Kratos and his demeanor completely changes.
This is a natural stage of processing Grief. We retreat into ourselves while accepting that there is no other reality than what’s right in front of you. You have lost someone you care for and now its time to accept it. This takes a lot of strength and it takes time to find that inner strength. For the gamers out there, this is the final boss battle in your journey towards defeating grief.
Acceptance
We have reached the final stage. The boss has been defeated and we have arrived at the end of our journey. A journey that Atreus and Kratos took as well. The intention was to just spread the ashes from the peak of the tallest mountain in all the nine realms. But that journey, it became their ritual. It helped them both overcome grief and the pain of loss. All the people they met, the trials they went through and the stories they learned, all of it, shaped their journey and helped them with overcoming the pain of loss.
Moreover, this journey wasn’t just about overcoming grief, although it was most of it. It changed Atreus too. For the better. Kratos imparted several pearls of wisdom to Atreus throughout their travels. The core of it was to be a better God. Better than the ones that have become a great reason for suffering in Kratos’s life and now Atreus’s too. Their meddling has also led to the suffering of mortals too. The acceptance of loss and the future that is to come by choosing to live the life of a god, that’s what Atreus learned from Kratos and the journey itself.
“We are not men. We are more than that. The responsibility is far greater and you must be better than me. Understand?” — Kratos
“The power of this weapon, any weapon comes from here(heart), but only when tempered by this(mind). By the discipline, the self control of the one wields it. That is where the true strength of a warrior lies.” — Kratos
I hope you enjoyed this thematic exploration of the game as much as I did writing it. Finally, I would like to add that everyone deals with grief very differently and we all need to take our own time to find that inner strength and move on.
Now, previously, I wrote about this subject in detail and you can read it here. Its a detailed article on the meaning of grief and how I deal with it. The reason I did a write up about grief itself before tackling the theme of this game, is because it helped me identify, the different points in this story, that depicted the character’s journey through grief. This game has made itself a special place in my heart and I played it at a time, where I was dealing with grief too. Its as if this game understood what I was going through and it helped me cope with it. I really wish that everyone gets a chance to play this game.
