“VSBW! Your daughter has returned! I bring the destruction of God of War!”
Don’t take the title and intro too seriously, they’re just silly little jokes. Throughout the past few weeks, I’ve been extensively researching God of War and have come to the conclusion that the verse - in both hax and stats - is very overhyped on this site. To amend this, I have made three threads tackling different aspects of the series, the first of which (the one you’re reading) will focus on many individual abilities possessed by various characters in the verse. I may or may not make a number of followup threads for hax I missed, hence the "???" in the title. Following that will be a downgrade regarding the nature of magic and souls, and the final thread will be a re-examination of the verse’s cosmology and tiering.
Throughout this series of threads, I will be using this series of google docs (
1,
2,
3) as a source (as well as quoting it directly in some places, as the author - Dammerung - has quite a way with words), having received permission from their author to do so. While I do not agree with everything presented, they are nonetheless a very in-depth look at GoW (better than I could ever do, certainly) and I will be quoting them throughout. I ask that nobody bother the author over this, as they have taken great pains to be as respectful as possible despite their contrary views regarding how this site indexes GoW - Please redirect any and all vitriol to me, as I’m already the most hated woman on VSBW.
Greek Godhood
Resistance to Divine Magic
Gods are assumed to resist the basic properties of their own magic. There are a couple of supposed examples of individual gods resisting their own magic, but there is no evidence of this being a broad trait of godhood in general. It’s just assumed that they can resist their magic innately, with no source to back it up. Okay then.
But what about Zeus, Poseidon, and the like? They appear to resist their own abilities, right? Uh, not quite.
Both scans of Zeus “resisting” his own lightning showcase him being damaged and staggered by it, which doesn’t really read as him “resisting” it in any capacity. Same goes for Hades; His attacks, when reflected back at him,
knock him back and cause him to roar in pain. In Poseiden’s case, the only reason given for his “resistance” is him
shooting lightning bolts out of his hands. This isn’t a resistance, unless we want to give every spellcaster in the history of forever a resistance to their own magic for the same exact reason.
Kratos “adapting” to Atlas’ magic is also bad. He doesn’t adapt to it; It is his own power that he is learning to control. Any character given a new power, without understanding what it is or what it does, would find it difficult to wield at first, but they can of course learn to do so through focus and practice (which Kratos does so). This does not mean such characters innately resist other people using similar magic on them; If I learn how to use a fireball spell, blow myself up the first time I use it, and then learn how to control it better, that doesn’t mean I’m suddenly immune to other people chucking fireballs at me.
All that leaves is
this scene from Ragnarok, where Thor is consumed by his own electricity after his death. The implication is supposed to be that after he loses his soul - the source of his magic - he no longer has the means to resist his own magic, thus allowing the lightning to overtake his body. This is wrong for a few reasons. First is that this is described as lightning consuming his body, when what we see is that his body dissolves into a bunch of particles. Sure, there are some sparks of electricity here and there, but it is certainly not what any reasonable person would describe as “consuming his body”. Second is that there’s… not really a reason for this to be Thor’s own lightning? There’s no clear source for it, and I find it highly unlikely that Thor’s final actions as a dying man would be to conjure up a couple of tiny sparks of electricity to literally kill himself faster and not even leave a corpse behind for his daughter to bury or mourn over. Would be kind of a dick move, if I’m being honest!
I also take issue with Thor resisting lightning in the first place, since it’s unsourced and the only other scan for it involves Thor being
visibly damaged by lightning, but that’s neither here nor there. I should also mention that this is being cross-scaled between Greek and Norse deities, despite there being no indication that the two should share physiological traits (that there is a Greek Godhood section with its own unique abilities shows that GoW supporters are aware of this).
While there may well be examples of gods resisting their own magic, it is very clearly not a universal property of them, as Zeus and Hades have shown. If such examples exist, they should be attributed solely to the individual who showcases the resistance.
Primordials
Soul Manipulation [+ Associated Abilities], Darkness Manipulation, Sleep Manipulation, Dream Manipulation, Water Manipulation, Earth Manipulation, & Death Manipulation
Actually, all of these abilities are valid… for the characters who use them. These are listed not on each individual primordial’s page, but on the primordial page itself, treating these abilities as though they’re something the primordials can do collectively. Thanatos has nothing to do with sleep or dreams, while Morpheus has nothing to do with death, so don’t go around cross-scaling their abilities like this.
Kratos
Extrasensory Perception & Information Analysis [Demigod Key]
This is not meant to remove these abilities entirely, just removing bad justifications for them (and slightly downgrading them by extension). There’s quite a lot of feats going for these, so let’s break down the pertinent scans going for them.
The tip of the staff is literally glowing blue.
There is no indication that this apparition would need some kind of enhanced senses or ESP in order to perceive. This feat moreso reads as “Kratos can see the color red”, which I would certainly hope he is capable of.
The passage in question states that Zeus had taught Kratos to be wary of strange weapons, and Kratos does not innately know what the spear is capable of (although he is aware that it is dangerous). He is simply referring back to past experiences in order to draw a conclusion here, and is not something attributable to some kind of information analysis. Speaking of past experiences…
This is a dishonest reading of what is actually presented. I’ll defer to Dammerung on this one, though, since his breakdown is pretty detailed.
This is a perplexing statement, as Kratos does no such thing in the cited novel. The cited passage “Old magic... We met a witch in the woods, she is knowing of the old ways," is presented in a dishonest manner. Mimir, in the sentence immediately preceding that one, says “The trick is, we need to find someone who can re-animate my head, using the old magic.” Kratos didn’t discern Freya’s ability to resurrect, Mimir brought it up and Kratos made an inference with the information he had available. This conversation occurs in Chapter 29, not Chapter 28. (The novel actually only uses the word “resurrect” once, in Chapter 29, said by Mimir: “Brother, in case you fail to resurrect me…”)
“Freya herself due to years of inactivity, being unsure if she could do it again,” As established before, Kratos determined Freya was their best option after seeing her perform magic (in chapters 12 and 13, although the terms “old magic” and “old ways” do not appear in those chapters) and Mimir saying the old magic could be used to re-animate his head. She was, as Atreus described, a witch, and their best option. (Humorously, Kratos tells her that Mimir “claimed you could revive his head,” despite Mimir instead stating that “he is willing to chance it.”) This says more about Kratos' character, that he is willing to take chances based on previous observations and ability to listen to and respect his son’s observations, rather than his ability to instantly discern objective truths.
Immortality Negation [1, 2, 3, 4, 6, & 7] [Demigod Key]
Kratos mainly has this via killing undead legionnaires, which can shrug off fatal wounds and resurrect after death.
The first scan showcases how Kratos pins the heads of two of them to a wall, noting how this was done so other warriors could hack them apart at their leisure; Notably, this does not kill them, and also proves that anybody can kill undead legionnaires so long as they can wound them beyond what they are capable of regenerating from. Kratos is merely aware of the limits of their immortality, and knows how to exploit that. That leads me into the
other scans, where Kratos shatters a frozen legionnaire, and then tears apart another one with his bare hands - These scans showcases that Kratos can’t kill legionnaires normally, and he must very specifically tear them apart to kill them (you can see them fall apart before reforming). He is not “negating” their immortality, but rather destroying them beyond what their immortality allows them to survive (a more extreme example would be giving someone regen negation for erasing a guy who can regenerate severed limbs from existence).
The remainder of the justification is completely unsourced.
Also, type 1 immortality negation isn’t a thing. Kratos can kill old people, I guess, good for him.
Power Nullification [Demigod Key]
Kratos has this because he can supposedly nullify Castor and Pollux’s magic with
every strike. Aside from how there is very little visual indication of this (the green glow emanated by their weapons briefly vanishes in the second scan, but returns in under a second), it also just isn’t a logical interpretation. The Amulet of Uroboros is a magic item, whose effects must be activated in order to take place. It isn’t passively warping time or anything. So when Kratos “disrupts” its magic by hitting Castor and Pollux, he’s actually just interrupting them and briefly preventing them from tapping into their magic. This is, of course, something that happens in countless video games (even down to TTRPGs, with mechanics like concentration checks), and isn’t necessarily a form of power null so much as it is a weakness of magic users.
A more astute observer would notes that this justification is very similar to the one already listed in his reactive evolution justification; It seems that the page is insistent on the idea that he was being affected by the amulet, but grew to resist it, but he also nullified it, while ignoring that those are incompatible with one another. We can clearly see that Kratos doesn’t nullify its magic, so clearly reactive evolution is the better interpretation, right? Well, uh,
Reactive Evolution [Demigod Key]
So, Kratos is supposedly affected by the Amulet of Uroboros, before adapting to resist its effects. This is backed by two
WoG statements, saying he was indeed affected by the Amulet. But does Kratos ever actually fight back against it later in the fight? Well, uh… Castor and Pollux try to use it against Kratos, but Kratos
physically overpowers them and prevents them from using the Amulet before that can happen. Knocking a weapon out of someone’s hands, or punching them in the gut before they kill you, is not “adapting” to shit. As explained further below, Kratos also demonstrably does not resist the Amulet of Uroboros when it matters most, so he very clearly did not adapt to it. But what about the Sisters of Fate? I’ll be covering that down below, alongside Kratos’ general resistance to their abilities.
Resistance to Sirens’s Hax [Sound Manipulation, Mind Manipulation, Madness Manipulation, Empathic Manipulation, Fire Manipulation, Explosion Manipulation, Body Puppetry, & Death Manipulation] [Demigod Key]
Quite the mouthful, huh? Anyways, Kratos is said to be able to resist the abilities of the sirens, which have these effects. The source for this claim shows Kratos
being affected by the song, and then sprinting headlong towards the sirens because he’s being manipulated. Not a good look, but surely he adapts and overpowers the effects, right? Well…
in a manner of speaking, yes. He’s able to very briefly use the images of his deceased wife and daughter to power through the mental dominion held over him, taking the opportunity to deafen himself using the cacophony of Zeus’ thunder. Prior to this, the siren’s screech of anger broke the spell for long enough for Kratos to picture his wife in the first place, requiring no intervention from Kratos. However, he also notes how his hearing was returning, and questions if he had waited too long - Kratos himself knows this feat is not something he can replicate on a whim, so attributing it to some kind of innate resistance is just silly. For the record, the above explanation of Kratos deafening himself occurs moments before
this cropped scan, so that’s also invalid.
There is another instance of him doing this
later in the series. However, we yet again see him getting affected by the siren’s hax. The only reason he’s able to break free is because the siren finishes draining his energy, lets him go, and is caught off guard by Kratos’ inhuman strength even in a weakened state.
Life Absorption, Magic Absorption, Energy Absorption, & Power Absorption [Demigod Key]
I have no qualms with the abilities themselves, but GoW supporters frequently act as though Kratos’ mere touch is enough to cause these effects. This is not the case - In every single scan provided, it is made quite clear that he only does this on enemies that he slays.
Causality Manipulation [Demigod Key]
The Amulet of Uroborus can
rewind and
stop time. That’s it. It manipulates time. It does not directly influence past events, it just rewinds time.
Resistance to Petrification [Demigod Key]
This stems from how Kratos can supposedly break free of the gorgon’s gaze, which petrifies those affected. Backing this up is a WoG statement regarding how Kratos was completely turned to stone, and not merely coated in an outer layer of stone. The question asked is a great example of a
leading question. The wording presents a false binary: “does that mean he resists petrification or is the gorgon stare just weak so everyone can break out of it due to how it functions?” The options here for the developer,
Bruno Valezquez, are that the gorgon stare is too weak to kill anybody, or Kratos can resist petrification. Does Bruno care about how powerful the gorgon stare is perceived? That’s unclear, but the asker certainly makes their stance on the potency of the stare known in a very unnecessary manner. (Say, for example, I called them the “whiny” or “ignorant” asker. Might it change your perception of them? It should of me.) There are a number of other potential ways that could have been worded (eg, “or could anybody break out of the gorgon stare if they were strong enough?”) which would have presented the option as a more neutral choice unassociated with negative connotations such as “weak.” The more important takeaway is what Bruno says in response: “...Kratos, although mostly encased in stone at that point…” He is not turned completely into stone. He explicitly is only “mostly encased in stone,” which means that not only is he not “just covered by a layer of it outside,” he is, in fact, not even entirely covered by a layer of it outside. This is an erroneous interpretation of the developer’s comments.
Credit to
this document for the above explanation. However, it missed a vital piece of the puzzle; We actually have direct confirmation from Kratos himself that he doesn’t resist petrification. He says so
here, noting that a Gorgon’s touch would be instantly lethal to him. This isn’t a case of Kratos underestimating himself, either. This passage happens in the GoW 2 novelization, whereas the feat of him “resisting” it comes from GoW 1.
Resistance to Poison & Acid [Demigod Key]
The supposed feat is of Kratos breaking free from the chimera’s acidic poison, but we can see that this isn’t the case.
He is left dazed and damaged, and is only “freed” by the chimera’s snake head tossing him around like a ragdoll. Also, “breaking free” from poison isn’t a resistance. He is merely leaving an area suffused with poison, while he takes damage while in that area of effect. I don’t “resist fire manipulation” for walking out of a burning building.
Resistance to Age Manipulation, Precognition, Clairvoyance, Time Manipulation, & Time Stop [Demigod Key]
I’ve discussed before why I don’t believe the feats pertaining to Pollux and Castor’s abilities would give Kratos any sort of special hax, but he does, at the very least, resist their abilities, right? Well, in the scenes discussed before, Kratos is usually able to push away or interrupt the duo before they can call upon the full extent of their powers. It’s difficult to determine if Kratos is actually resisting their powers in these scenes, since they don’t really get a chance to properly use them. Still, there is one place we can see Kratos clearly exposed to their powers - A failed QTE. So, does Kratos no-sell their powers regardless and piledrive them into the ground? Is he left damaged or dazed, but still able to fight despite the power of time itself being brought to bear against him? No.
He instantly dies. This justification is so bad it almost makes me want to “resist poison manipulation” (ie; drink bleach and instantly kill myself).
Resistance to Soul Manipulation/Absorption/Deconstruction/Transmutation [+ Associated Abilities] [Demigod Key]
Kratos has this via
fighting off the Arms of Hades. All well and good, but the problem is that this isn’t really a resistance. As seen in the scan, Kratos is tearing them apart while they aren’t even so much as scratching him. The
manual backs this up by emphasizing how Kratos should keep the arms at bay with his attacks. When he is grabbed by them, they have no problem affecting him with their abilities. Him being able to break free can likely be attributed to how
their effects aren’t instantaneous, giving anyone the opportunity to break out should they have the strength to do so. In short, what Kratos is doing isn’t a resistance, and he is visually shown to not resist it. There’s also the furies torturing Kratos in “
body, mind, and soul”, but that is a very common turn of phrase that does not literally mean affecting someone’s soul.
Resistance to Power Absorption [Demigod Key]
This is the justification. Kratos doesn’t get his magic absorbed, sure, but that’s only because he pushes away the Priest of Fate attempting to do so before he actually gets a chance to absorb his powers. Obviously, if he doesn’t even get to use his power absorption in the first place, then Kratos doesn’t need to resist anything. If Kratos doesn’t break free of their grip,
his magic gets absorbed just fine.
Resistance to Ice Manipulation [Demigod Key]
Kratos is
unphased by Typhon’s breath, which can flash freeze on contact. What’s the source for Typhon’s breath flash freezing on contact? Kratos saying that it would
kill him instantly.
Resistance to Electricity Manipulation & Paralysis Inducement [God Key]
Kratos is unphased by Zeus’ lightning, which can paralyze people. What’s the source for Zeus’ lightning paralyzing people? Kratos
being paralyzed by his lightning.
Resistance to Madness Manipulation [Demigod Key]
Kratos was able to resist the torture of the Furies, which can drive people insane. What’s the source for their torture driving people insane? Kratos being
driven insane by their torture. I really don’t know how to explain that your source for a character resisting something should not be them
explicitly being affected by that thing.
Resistance to Power Nullification [Demigod Key]
This stems from two scans, the first of which involves his clone
throwing Zeus’ Fury - a lightning bolt that can negate magic - at Kratos… and missing. Of course, I shouldn’t have to say that having an attack miss you is not a resistance. The other justification is from resisting the waters of the River Lethe, which can
erase the
memory of one’s existence. There is no reason why these scans would indicate any form of power nullification.
Resistance to Memory & Mind Manipulation [Demigod Key]
At the end of the first God of War, Kratos attempts to free himself from the nightmares that plague his mind by
killing himself with the intent to
erase his
memories in the river Lethe. His profile says he resisted this (or that he should resist it, but who cares), which is made evident by the fact that he retains his memories after Athena raises him from the body of water he jumped into. Two problems with this. First, Kratos never entered the Lethe. The novel specifies that he fell into the
Aegean sea (presumably, he would’ve killed himself, and then erase his memories in the Lethe after he arrived in the Underworld). Second, the fact that Kratos “resists” something that he intended to have affect him is very strange - Not unheard of for a character to resist their chosen means of suicide, but it casts doubt on the validity of that resistance.
Resistance to Power of the Fates + Enhanced RE [Demigod & God Keys]
Again, credit to Dammerung and his research document for the breakdown listed below. The claims for each ability are listed below.
The Sisters of Fate discuss cutting off his thread of fate in the cited passage (because he is resisting their efforts to manipulate them and causing their work to fall apart in the process), but they do not actually cut his thread. “You and Atropos are responsible, meddling individually. Cut the thread now!" Clotho plucked it again, but the vibrations died out quickly. Too quickly."
The thing is, we can set up a timeline for this. Kratos wasn’t immune to the Sisters of Fate at all. He was only able to escape the Underworld due to outside interference on the part of Lahkesis, who acted impetuously and didn’t consider the consequences of her actions (Chapter Eight).
This is because Lahkesis is bored with the state of things. Kratos entertains her. She withholds the information that she meddled carelessly with his thread of fate because she’s mad at her sisters and wants to see how he’ll change things up (Chapter Nine).
Atropos discovers her meddling in Chapter 13, which is actually the precipitating incident that leads to her sending out her projection at infinite speeds to speak with Iris.
I don’t want to post too many pages from the novel, but this pattern continues. It’s not that Kratos is immune, it’s that Atropos and Lahkesis are constantly meddling with his thread of fate to screw with each other as much as with him, and only realize the mistake they’ve made when it’s too late to change things without causing massive amounts of unforeseen consequences (Chapter 28).
There is another issue with this, one that Dammerung overlooked in his document. As shown in the GoW 2 novelization, even well after every other scan shown here (this particular scene takes place in chapter 46),
Kratos inadvertently severs his own thread of fate - The implications of this are twofold. Obviously, if he severed his own thread, then the sisters never cut it in the first place (otherwise it wouldn’t still be there for Kratos to cut), contradicting the claim that he resisted the sisters’ attempts to sever it (or that it couldn’t be severed in the first place, having gone slack; Kratos cuts it just fine regardless). Beyond that, though, Kratos is crippled by this action, being brought to his knees and feeling agony akin to every muscle and nerve in his body being ripped apart. I would not call this a “resistance” to anything.
Then there’s the issue of the scans themselves.
These two present a very obvious problem - In both of them, outside forces are credited for Kratos’ victories, not Kratos himself. Lahkesis orchestrates his victory as mentioned in the first scan, and Gaia was in part responsible for Kratos’ victory over Alrik by tampering with his destiny. It is the infighting between gods and their kin that save Kratos from a doomed fate time and time again, not Kratos “adapting” to his destiny. This removal would also apply to his “enhanced” supernatural willpower in his god key.
Also, Kratos shouldn’t resist life manipulation, sleep manipulation, or empathic manipulation anyways. The sisters only use life manipulation to
forge new life, which Kratos does not necessarily need to resist. Sleep manipulation involves
waking people up (not putting them to sleep, so effectively useless for trying to stop Kratos in the first place), and empathic manipulation involves playing matchmaker and making ugly people
attractive (Kratos already F
ucks Hard, so this is unnecessary).
Martial Arts & Weapon Mastery [God Key]
Before you kill me for this one, let me explain. Kratos is a skilled warrior, nobody is denying that. This removal is solely in regards to the idea that he’s somehow mastered all forms of combat of weaponry across all of time, as
he can see all wars and conflicts across time due to that being his domain. However… that doesn’t mean he really understands what he’s seeing. He knows some basics here and there, but it’s made quite clear that the arms and armor of ages yet to come are things he struggles to grasp. Kratos can “see” people using guns in the future, but he clearly wouldn’t know how to actually effectively use a gun as an extension of that. This would also apply to Ares.
Resistance to Status Effect Inducement [God Key]
This stems from Kratos “
resisting” Helios’ light. Which he does not actually do. He is explicitly pushed back and stunned by it, and can only walk forward if he blocks out the light with his hands (if he ever lowers his hands, he is immediately pushed back and stunned again).
Resistance to Radiation [God Key]
First of all, Kratos vibing in Ares’ dimension happened in GoW 1, prior to him becoming a god, so idk why that’s in this key. That aside, just because a pocket dimension has a space-like background doesn’t inherently mean that the area of the dimension that a character is transported to lacks oxygen or is rife with cosmic radiation. It’s not really a location bound by the typical rules of how space works in relation to earth, so more context would need to be given for us to assume it’s like space in ways other than size and visual appearance.
The second justification is just straight up baffling. Kratos
witnesses the use of atomic weapons in WW2, remarking how he knows they cannot harm him. Contextually, this occurs while he is viewing acts of war across all of time; He is not physically present to experience the nuclear fallout of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it’s more like he’s watching a movie. In that same vein, him knowing he wouldn’t be affected is because he knows what he’s experiencing is a vision, and not the physical reality he occupies, just as I know a train coming towards the screen in a movie cannot hurt me (
unlike those stupid Frenchies)
Resistance to Advanced Non-Physical Interaction [Power of Hope Key]
Yes, this is as stupid as it sounds. For starters, Kratos isn’t incorporeal. You don’t even need NPI to interact with him. Fear Zeus also doesn’t have “advanced” NPI, nor is there any reason why he should. Zeus also… does interact with Kratos. He doesn’t phase through him, his attacks
physically clash against Kratos and cause Zeus to physically recoil. This would be impossible if Kratos was on a level of incorporeality that Zeus couldn’t affect (which, again, Kratos isn’t even incorporeal in the first place).
Nothing about this is right.
Weather Manipulation [Norse Key]
Kratos has this because
his presence caused a mini-Fimbulwinter upon his entrance to the Nine Realms. However, the scan only says these two events occurred at the same time. Nothing says Kratos himself caused the Fimbulwinter. This would be like saying I have passive explosion manipulation because I was born two weeks before 9/11 (verified true Fuji Fact btw).
Accelerated Development [Norse Key]
Again, credit to Dammerung for this one. Their willingness to debate semantics is impressive, and kind of scary if I’m being honest?
“due to having lost most of his strength from his God of War days and having become less muscular than before to the point where he was a shell of his former self…” I own the God of War 2018 novelization and can confirm that the phrase “shell of his former self” is not mentioned in the novel once. (And that the word “shell” is only used once, in chapter 11.) This statement cites chapter 48 of the novelization, which includes the line "Appearing much younger, beardless, and more muscular..." when Kratos sees a vision of his younger self in Helheim. The problem here is that the phrase “shell of his former self” is used to interpret the passage to hyperbolize Kratos' loss of strength,
signifying a dramatic change that leaves it nigh unrecognizable. I would say that the addition of a phrase that isn’t used in the description is improper. Simply saying “having become much less muscular than before” is more accurate. This would not be worth mentioning on its own, but, as is evidenced by the next section, is part of a dubious pattern for this section.
- “to eventually ending up regaining his old strength within mere seconds and completely turning the tide in the fight, effortlessly ragdolling and defeating Baldur.” Anybody who has played the introduction to 2018’s God of War, or watched the video cited as evidence for this claim, knows that this statement at best is a gross mischaracterization of what happens. Nothing about Kratos' first victory against Baldur is effortless, and the fight ends with Kratos literally covered in blood, limping back to his home and wondering if he and Atreus are ready to face the journey which he now knows awaits them. This section in particular is using inappropriate language to mischaracterize game events to make Kratos seem more impressive. It also makes a wild assertion, that Kratos regains his old strength within seconds, that is simply not supported by statements made in the game or in the accompanying lore, and is instantly contradicted by the very next line in this section of the VSBattles Wiki page.
- “The entire journey revolves around Kratos slowly regaining his old strength from his old days as the God of War in order to protect and better prepare his son Atreus to face the harsh Norse Worlds…” This sentence is literally the one after the sentence claiming Kratos regained “his old strength within mere seconds.” Much like the status of hope within Kratos after the events of God of War 3 (WPHR, Section 1), this contradicts claims made for Kratos and makes following the events of the games impossible. Kratos cannot both slowly regain his old powers over the course of a journey and regain his old powers within seconds of a single battle.
- “...as confirmed by numerous other statements.” The funny thing about this section is that it flat out disproves the claims made earlier in this section. Kratos is not a shell of himself. "He's still a highly competent warrior, but is constantly restraining himself…”, “...Kratos is supposed to be a little rusty in this fight…”, "You get the sense that he's older and that he's kind of shaking off the cobwebs", and “"...when Baldur shows up, that's like knocking the rust off. So he was a little rusty..." are much more nuanced and restrained than “he was a shell of his former self.” If the author of that statement was interested in using an idiom to describe Kratos' state accurately, they would have had a plethora of statements to choose from. (Saying Kratos was rusty would be the most accurate choice, given that it appears multiple times throughout those cited statements.) I am comfortable concluding that their word choice in NEI Section 3 (that’s this section btw [Fuji Editorial Moment]) was intentional, deliberate, and inaccurate. Kratos likewise regains his old strength over the course of GOW 2018 instead of during his first fight with Baldur. Eric Williams literally says as much in his interview: “as that game progresses, the rust really starts to come off... inbetween finishing Baldur off in the last game... he and Atreus have been training, so this is Kratos getting really back into it."
For a TL;DR of the points made -
- Kratos did not “effortlessly overpower” Baldur, as after the fight he is severely wounded, limping, and questioning of his ability to carry out the journey before him.
- Kratos’ improvement is done over the course of a long journey, contradicting the previous claim that he reclaimed his lost strength in a matter of seconds.
- Kratos’ improvement is treated as him just being a little rusty and getting back into the swing of things, rather than developing faster than normal. It’s like how you never forget how to ride a bike, except replace “ride” with “slaughter” and “bike” with “gods”.
Reactive Evolution & Resistance to Telepathy [Norse & Ragnarok Keys]
For the record, the
Atreus thing is valid, so resistance to telepathy stays (but is somewhat nerfed). These both stem from Kratos
adapting to and
resisting Heimdall’s attempts to read his mind. This is, devoid of context, fine. The problem is that in this fight, Kratos wields the Draupnir spear, a weapon forged
specifically to counter Heimdall's abilities by overloading his senses. You can't really take an instance of Kratos wielding his Anti-Heimdall spear (the spear forged for the purpose of f
ucking over Heimdall) and use that to prove that Kratos wreck's Heimdall's shit innately. There's also the problem of how, if Kratos can just resist/adapt Heimdall's hax by himself, then him needing the Draupnir spear at all makes 0 goddamn sense.
Resistance to Sleep Manipulation [Ragnarok Key]
Credit to Dammerung again, because I’m lazy and couldn’t think of anything new to add anyways.
"Sleep Manipulation (Scaling from his Demigod and God selves. Has no issues carrying around Slumber Stones, which can put its victim into an eternal sleep, and can comfortably wear the Steinbjorn Armor, which is forged of said stones.” The item description for the slumber stones does not say that they put their victims into an eternal sleep. The item description reads "The magic that maintained their owner's eternal slumber still courses through these fragments,” The usage of term
maintained indicates that the slumber stones perpetuated the state, but do not cause it on their own.
Zeus
Resistance Negation/Reactive Evolution
I have no idea why this is RE in the first place, but I’ll just roll with it for now. The feat comes from GoW 3, where Zeus
hurls a lightning bolt at Kratos, and he becomes unable to resist the waters of the River Styx. Okay, sure. If Kratos resists the waters of the River Styx, this would indeed be resistance negation. So why does Kratos have that resistance? Well, it’s from
this scene, where he falls… and then there’s a hard cut to him being chained to a stone wall (he is also very dry, which would not be the case if he was wading through a river mere moments ago). It also specifies that it
kills anything that drinks from the river; There is no implication that contact alone will kill you (just like how it’s unsafe to drink pool water, but nobody’s out here dying from going swimming in a pool), nor is there an implication that Kratos got really thirsty in the Underworld and decided to take a sip. There is no resistance here, so Zeus doesn’t need to negate anything for Kratos to get BTFO’d. Pretty simple.
Resistance to Siren Hax
Zeus is claimed to be able to resist the voices of the sirens. This is demonstrably false, as you can clearly see him
affected by them in the scan provided.
Hermes
Soul Manipulation [+ Associated Abilities]
Hermes can
ferry souls to the Underworld. That’s it. Being a glorified taxi driver doesn’t inherently have any hax associated with it, get rid of this.
Persephone
Mind BFR
This is from how she can supposedly banish Kratos’ mind to
another world. Looking at the
in-game context though… She tells Kratos to leave the world behind and be with his wife. I believe most people would view this as something akin to a daydream or hallucination, where Kratos “leaves behind this world” (in a metaphorical sense) and enters a better world found within his imagination. I do not think many people would assume that this involves Persephone banishing Kratos’ consciousness to an alternate reality. All the language used in regards to leaving this world behind is equally applicable when it comes to experiencing some kind of vision, hallucination, or other mental influence that makes it appear as though you are no longer a part of the world (I’ve done a not insubstantial amount of acid, so I can personally attest to this fact).
If this were truly BFR, then it would imply the existence of an alternate dimension where Kratos’ wife never died, and this is something that is never brought up again even though Persephone can apparently just send people there at will. That seems like a far more extreme conclusion to come to than “Persephone made Kratos see his dead wife to put him at ease so he’d let his guard down”.
Naturally, Kratos should also lose his resistance to mind BFR.
Telekinesis
Persephone can
summon light/energy pillars. There is no reason why this should be telekinesis.
Oceanus
Life Manipulation & Creation
This comes from how Oceanus has
3000 offspring. In other words, he has a lot of sex. I mean, I can relate, but it’s not any sort of special hax ability.
Atlas
Resistance to Electricity Manipulation & Deconstruction
“Resisted Poseiden’s lightning”-
Wrong. He does not fight it off, and there’s only a very brief moment between when Poseiden blasts him and Hades rips out his soul. He is never shown to be “resisting” it in any capacity, and is in fact visibly stunned by the attack while we see the electricity course through his body.
Deimos
Resistance to Electricity/Soul Manipulation [+ Associated Abilities]
Deimos resists the Eye of Atlantis- No he doesn’t. You can see right
here, he is knocked flat on his back and can’t even so much as approach Kratos while his ass is getting Biden Blasted. Like, why even add this when it’s so blatantly wrong? Do GoW supporters know that anybody can look at the scans they post?
Erinys
Resistance to Electricity/Soul Manipulation [+ Associated Abilities]
This stems from how she’s able to resist the effects of Poseiden’s lightning, which can destroy souls. One problem though.
She doesn’t resist it. She is explicitly being affected, damaged, pushed back, harmed, or whatever other synonym you can conjure up for “damn she’s kinda getting f
ucked up by that lightning”.
Thanatos
Resistance to Electricity/Soul Manipulation [+ Associated Abilities]
I don’t have a scan for this one since it isn’t linked on Thanatos’ page, but we’re 3-for-3 now on characters “resisting” things by getting blasted to hell and back by them. So I would really like to see a scan where Thanatos actually shrugs off the Eye of Atlantis and its associated abilities, without Kratos using it to blast him into submission.
That said, even in the worst case scenario, it’s not like Thanatos’ page would give him two resistances stemming from being visibly harmed by an attack, right?
Resistance to Void Manipulation
oh f
uck lol
TL;DR page says he resists his own void,
scan says otherwise. There is at least a second feat for this, which involves Thanatos battling Chaos. Not only is this very speculative, since we don’t know if Chaos actually used this ability on Thanatos, it’s also not something that can be “resisted”, since it stems from Chaos willing the Greek world into existence and also existing as a void, rather than weaponizing the void itself to kill people.
Sisters of Fate
Causality Manipulation & Probability Manipulation
Let me just post the justification and work my way down from there.
The easy debunk is that everything described here is just fate manipulation, and only resembles probability and causality manipulation due to these abilities sharing some surface level similarities (such as the ability to cause different events and outcomes through indirect manipulation). The more difficult debunk is taking these statements one at a time, which I will do right now.
Causing war does not require altering the past, especially not in this case, where Atropos plots out a series of events that would occur in the future. It also does not alter the odds of something happening, instead decreeing a set outcome (a “fate”, if you will), which is merely fate manipulation.
This one is interesting, because altering possibilities is the one thing written here that sounds like it could be probability hax. Unfortunately, the context shoots this possibility (heh) in the foot. Atropos brings up the topic of Kratos and how they ought to observe him. Clotho refutes this by noting that he isn’t very interesting, stating that they could instead create some new monster for gods and humans to couple with, start a war, or spread diseases to alleviate their boredom. In essence, the “so many possibilities” line merely represents the vast range of options the fates have at their disposal for keeping things interesting, just as I could say there are “so many possibilities” for what I’m having for lunch. That doesn’t mean I’m warping probability to my will, of course, and neither are the fates.
Nothing here describes probability or causality manipulation; Yes, these are potentially mechanisms through which events can be manipulated, but the problem is that the fates already possess such a mechanism in the form of fate manipulation. That is how they accomplish more or less everything they do, so it is reasonable to conclude that they manipulate outcomes by changing fate (because the Sisters of Fate typically operate by changing fate).
I would say that this is just fate manipulation again, but I don’t even need to do that. The scan itself literally says that Lahkesis was manipulating fate/destiny.
So they can counteract fates they don’t like and replace them with those of their own design. This is fine, of course, but it also isn’t probability or causality manipulation. This is also another scan where it is explicitly said that fate manipulation, and not some other force, is at play here.
This is, yet again, a description of fate manipulation being misconstrued as probability and causality manipulation. It literally says they’re tinkering with fate in the scan, I don’t know how you could possibly get anything but fate manipulation from that.
This one’s just funny. Even the justification itself acknowledges this is fatehax, yet somehow pivots to “but it totally isn’t fatehax for some reason!”.
The only thing I could find that would support either ability is a statement that one of the sisters could
change Kratos’ past. This is fine in a vacuum, but it’s been established that the sisters possess the ability to
travel into the past. Kratos himself uses this power to avert his fate; This is likely what was meant by “changing his past”. Not changing it through some magic power to warp the past, but by going there physically and doing the dirty work yourself. This would be a basic function of time travel, and in no way attributable to some sort of causality hax.
BFR
The Sisters of Fate can send souls to the
Underworld. By killing people. That’s what happens when people die, they go to the Underworld. This isn’t BFR at all, it’s just how the afterlife works.
Spear of Destiny
Transmutation & Durability Negation
The Spear of Destiny can
turn people purple and make them explode. For starters, making a thing purple isn’t transmutation; It’s not turning their flesh to crystal, it’s not shooting a beam that turns enemies into candy, it just… makes them purple. Explosions also don’t negate durability by default, they can be tanked with sufficient durability just fine. Like, a not insubstantial number of durability feats on the site are from surviving explosions.
Soul Manipulation [+ Associated Abilities]
If Kratos died to the Spear of Destiny, his soul
would be forfeit for all eternity. That is how dying works, you die and your soul goes to Hades/the Underworld.
Fate Manipulation [+ Associated Abilities]
We need to talk about the threads of fate. The Spear of Destiny
can indeed sever them, and affect people’s fates by extension - However, it is assumed that this is something it is always doing, and not merely an extension of having access to the strings in the first place. The strings of fate are only really found at the Loom of Fate, a highly specific location Kratos only goes to once in the series. The strings of fate are not metaphysical lines connected to every person, they are a mechanism through which their fates can be controlled. Obviously, controlling destiny on a whim using such strings would require having the strings in your possession (or just nearby).
So when Kratos stabs someone with the spear, they’re not getting their destiny obliterated on the spot. That can only happen if their string is cut, which Kratos can only do if he has access to the Loom of Fate (which, 99.9% of the time, he does not). While fate manipulation itself is valid, this caveat (which would make the fate manipulation non-combat applicable) ought to be mentioned, and anybody who survives being hit with the spear should have their fate manipulation resistance removed by extension.
There’s also the simple logical issue of how, if the spear can just do this innately, then the plot of GoW 2 falls apart. Kratos’ driving motivation in GoW 2 is changing his fate, and he intends to seek out the Loom of Fate in order to do so. Kratos acquires the spear well before ever finding the loom; If he could, at any time, sever his own fate, he would have done so. But he obviously didn’t do that.
Finally, some of the fates’ abilities shouldn’t even apply to the spear. Life manipulation comes from weaving new threads to create new life, but the spear can’t do that. It can only sever threads. Same goes for sleep manipulation, empathic manipulation, and age manipulation; Those are achieved via minute alterations to the threads, not just hacking them apart. The spear’s functions are totally different from how the Sisters of Fate usually do things, save for ending a person’s fate.
Blade of Olympus
Empowerment
The claim is that the Blade of Olympus grows stronger after absorbing life force. There is no indication of this. It just
glows brighter.
Non-Physical Interaction
Zeus uses the blade to
turn an entire army to embers. Why is this NPI? What non-physical element is the blade interacting with here?
Sirens
Body Puppetry
Sirens have body puppetry because of
this scan, which implies they were controlling Kratos’ physical movements. The context makes this absurd, of course; Kratos is just horny. That’s what sirens do, they
manipulate people’s emotions and fill them with lust so they can be lured closer. While Kratos is moving against his will, this is because his body is moving in response to his emotions/state of mind, as bodies are known to do. This would be like giving someone with empathic hax body puppetry by extension because they can make people cry by making them sad.
While sirens don’t have a page, this removal would apply to anybody accepted to resist their abilities, or to anybody who can conjure sirens in combat.
A Brief Note on Resistances
A common thread throughout this CRT has been characters “resisting” things that visibly harm or maim them. To most, this could not be argued as a resistance at all, but I will briefly play devil’s advocate in regards to such feats. Many of them pertain to abilities known to negate durability to an extent - such as soul manipulation or void manipulation - so it is reasonable to assume that a character without a proper resistance to them would just die on the spot. Therefore, characters who are harmed by these abilities should resist them solely because they aren’t being oneshot.
The problem with this is simple. These techniques are things Kratos can use against all manner of foes, not just the gods and demigods claimed to resist such abilities. The Eye of Atlantis, for example, can obviously still use its soul-destroying lightning against fodder enemies. The important thing about this is that, just like the gods, these enemies are not instantly oneshot and conceptually obliterated upon contact. Ergo, gods and fodder possess the same capacity to resist these hax. From this, we can come to one of three conclusions -
- These abilities do not innately oneshot people, and damage them normally despite the esoteric hax attached to them.
- Every single human, monster, and god in GoW innately resists every ability that should reasonably oneshot them.
- Enemies not getting oneshot by these abilities is an example of gameplay mechanics… which logically means gods “resisting” their effects in gameplay is also an example of gameplay mechanics.
I believe option 3 is the most reasonable; God of War is a hack-and-slash game with a large emphasis on stringing together combos on even the weakest enemies. Simply blasting them to bits with every attack would be counterintuitive to that design, and we see fodder being oneshot by such attacks in the novelizations (like
here). That said, such depictions likely have a lot less to do with hax and more with the immense difference in power between Kratos and Just Some Guy. The fallout of this option would also make it so characters gaining resistance via resisting moves in boss battles and such would not be usable, limiting resistance justifications to cutscenes, novelizations, guidebooks, and miscellaneous lore. The first option is also a likely explanation, as these hax aren’t always depicted as instant-kill moves in fiction (a la Undertale); This could be supported by any instances of fodder enemies not being oneshot by these hax outside of gameplay, but I couldn’t find any. The second option should be ignored outright, as it is a massive stretch backed by very little evidence. Still, I believe we should vote on this specific facet of the downgrade, so if everyone could specify what they think of the three options listed above independently of their opinion on the rest of the CRT.
OPTION 1:
OPTION 2:
OPTION 3:
Conclusion
Now that the actual content of the thread is out of the way, I’d like to take a moment to ask that you all refrain from comments like “here we go again”. As I’ve said before, we all know what is about to transpire, and I do not need more reminders that I am not well liked in this community. Thank you.
Also, given my past experiences with GoW supporters (not in GoW threads specifically, just with their supporters), I will be keeping a close eye on the vote tally, and have neutral third parties looking over things so I will have very accurate information regarding who votes for what. Do not put me through the agony that was the tier 1 DMC downgrade again. That was entirely avoidable.
