Zeus' Resistance Negation/Reactive Evolution, + Kratos' Resistance to Soul Manipulation via the Arms of Hades
Zeus has reactive evolution and resistance negation for supposedly negating Kratos' resistance to the waters of the river Styx. The context is
here; Kratos is struck by a bolt of lightning, falls into the Styx, and the souls within drain his health, magic, and experience. The basis for this is that Kratos resisted these effects prior to God of War 3 (to clarify, this means the resistance to the river's effects granted via the Soul of Hades are not relevant to this discussion), and his inability to do so after Zeus blasts him is attributable to some sort of innate ability to remove resistances. What's more, the fact that his lightning bolts failed to do this in previous games
The resistance negation half is easy to disprove. For starters, if this is indeed the case, Kratos wouldn't just have his powers absorbed - He'd die outright, which clearly does not happen. The Styx
kills whatever enters its waters, which Kratos can resist, so if Zeus negated that resistance... well, you can probably imagine what would happen.
So, what about the souls of Hades? Well, the problem is written into the name. The souls of Hades and the Styx are not one and the same; The souls live there, and
can pose a threat to those immersed in its waters, but they are not
always a threat. We see this to some extent in GoW3, where Kratos can traverse small sections of the Styx without getting his powers absorbed. While it's implied
he endured the Styx in Chains of Olympus, we don't actually see this event occur, and thus cannot determine if he was attacked by these wayward souls, let alone resisted their absorption. There's no other scene which we can use to safely claim that so much as dipping your toes in the water drains your power; It is something only attributable to an entity living in the river, and much like a shark in an ocean, they're not
always going to hunt down and kill any unfortunate swimmers.
Kratos has dealt with similar effects before, but he also fails to demonstrate any sort of resistance there, either. The justification for Kratos resisting this sort of absorption also cites
this comic panel, where Kratos fights off the arms of Hades, but you can probably notice a major issue - The arms aren't actually grabbing Kratos (the trigger for their absorption), but are being torn apart by him. Much like the Priest of Fate "feat", Kratos is not resisting any sort of hax here, but merely keeping a dangerous enemy at bay. The arms' effects also take time to activate, giving Kratos ample time to fight back.
When Kratos is grappled by the arms, he needs to be brought back to life by Gaia, is shown breaking free of their grip, and then straight up leaving; Again, not really a resistance in any sense of the word (especially since half of this feat is accomplished via outside help).
The arms take time to trigger their effects, further supporting the idea that he just breaks their grip before they can do lasting harm.
In conclusion, Zeus wouldn't need to negate Kratos' resistance to absorption, because it wasn't a resistance he ever had in the first place. Naturally, Kratos' resistances from battling the arms of Hades would need to be removed as well.
So what about reactive evolution? That is founded solely on the basis that Zeus gained resistance negation on a whim, which... I mean, the last few paragraphs were dedicated to explaining why he didn't actually do that, so the foundation of reactive evolution being bunk means reactive evo has to go.
So, to recap:
- Kratos has never been shown to resist the effects of the souls of Hades or the arms of Hades, meaning Zeus would not require any sort of resistance negation. This would also remove resistance to soul manipulation from Kratos' demigod key, as that is based on him resisting the souls/arms of Hades.
- If Kratos truly had his resistance negated, the waters of the Styx would have killed him.
- Because Zeus' resistance negation is bunk, his reactive evolution also ought to be removed.
