God of War (2018): Sins of the Father
I went camping a lot growing up. I was lucky enough to be born in the Pacific Northwest, a place I consider to be one of the most beautiful areas in the country. Then we moved to Missouri, and while the camping locations weren’t as pretty and were way more humid, I continued camping with the Boy Scouts throughout my childhood. Whether up North or in the Midwest, the number one rule of camping was always the same: leave your campsite cleaner than you found it. Learning this concept early is probably what instilled in me a sense of legacy at a young age.
It seems fitting that this camping motto always comes to mind when I think of 2018’s God of War. Kratos and his son Atreus’ journey takes them through the harsh forests of Midgard, leaving mostly destruction in their wake. But that’s not what makes me think about legacy and what we leave behind for the next generation- Kratos and Atreus’ strained relationship does, and it also reminds me of my relationship with my father.
When I was five years old, my dad was diagnosed with a brain tumor. We can’t prove for certain that it affected his disposition, but combined with his untreated Bipolar, it was always a possibility. He would often lash out at my sister, my mom, and I. At age nine, he once yelled at me while I was working on a construction site with him on a school break. I had made a mistake, because I was nine, and he yelled and asked why I couldn’t be as in sync with him as his friend David was. He and David worked construction together for years, developing a close relationship with one another. David also wasn’t a child. When Kratos tells Atreus early in the game “don’t be sorry, be better” I could have sworn my dad had said that to me at one point, and I immediately thought of the David story. My dad had a way of conveying what he meant in the worst possible way. At one point, he even told my sister and I that he never wanted kids, a fact my mom still disputes to this day, because she’s a saint.
Booting up God of War for the first time in 2018, I was immediately drawn to Atretus because of the way Kratos treated him. It quickly became clear that Kratos wanted little to do with his son before his wife Faye’s death, at which point Atretus became a burden to Kratos. It was impossible not to draw parallels to my own life upon seeing this. My dad would often tell my sister and I “I had kids so that I wouldn’t have to do chores.” This isn’t to say my dad was lazy, because he wasn’t. He worked construction and was incredible at it. He was precise, incredibly detailed oriented, and often worked long hours. But he could also always find a way to make my sister and I feel unloved or unwanted.
I don’t think this was ever intentional. I think he, like Kratos, was just not good at being a father. Some people are meant to be parents, they have the personality for it, and some can be cold and distant. Kratos cares for his son because he is his last connection to his wife Faye, but I think deep down he loves him and wants what is best for him. I truly believe my dad wanted the same, but just didn’t think about how his words impacted us growing up.
Throughout God of War, Kratos is worried that his past rampage across Greece will come back to haunt him and in turn, Atreus. In the previous entries in the series, before Faye and Atreus, Kratos murdered the entire Greek pantheon on his quest for revenge against the gods for the murder of his first wife and child, and eventually becomes a demigod. At the beginning of God of War (2018), Kratos has settled down, hidden from his past, and given up his violent ways. I’m not kidding when I tell you that I also see my own father within this part of Kratos’ story.
I was in college when I got a call from my sister. She had talked to my mom and finally asked some questions about my dad that he never answered. In one conversation, my sister found out two very important details which are honestly the closest things I’ve ever had to a plot twist in my real life. First, I may have an older half brother. Though my dad always denied he was his, he never knew for sure. Two, my dad used to be a drug dealer, and not just a small time one. I don’t know the extent to which he was involved, but it involved cocaine, and he moved to Alaska to escape that life. While dealing drugs and having secret children isn’t as bad as destroying an entire society’s religious system, it made me look at my dad a different way. He was hard on my sister and I because he wanted us to be better than him. He didn’t want us to drop out of high school, work odd jobs, barely even be able to hold down a job, and make what he considered the same mistakes he did. He pushed us because he wanted a life for us that he never had, all while keeping his life incredibly private.
Kratos does the same thing with Atreus, who doesn’t learn his father’s past until late in the game. Kratos wants for his son what he never had. He doesn’t want his violent past to dictate his son’s future, much like my father didn’t want his to dictate my sister and I’s. But at the same time, Kratos’ rage is in Atreus’ blood and we see it come out in the later parts, and sadly, I’m worried that mine is coming out too.
As I’ve gotten older, I see myself becoming more and more like my father. I rebelled like any teenager, never wanting to be my parents, but as much as I fight it, it’s starting to feel inevitable. I’ve never been a violent person. I’ve been in one encounter you could maybe classify as a fight and it was in self defense, but that still doesn’t mean I don’t see my father in my actions. Over the years I’ve become increasingly aware of my ability to be begrudging, hostile, and sometimes cruel to people close to me. I take them for granted because they are honestly way too damn nice to me. I push my family away, I don’t treat Jessica like she deserves (because let’s be honest she deserves the world), and every time I reflect on my actions two things come to mind: this isn’t who I want to be and this is partly who he was. My dad existed in a duality, he could be kind, loving, and respectful one minute, and harsh, cruel, angry, and violent later that day.
As a kid, it always felt crazy to me that someone would act like this. “Just be better,” I would think. But growing older, I think the only thing keeping me from becoming my father is that I also have my mom as a parent. We may not always see eye to eye on things, but like she was for my dad, she grounds me as a person. Maybe not in the same way as she did my dad, but rather because part of her is in me. I often joke that all my medical problems come from my mom’s side, including my asthma, flat feet, and bad eyesight, but the kindness and compassion I feel I have comes from her too. She balances out what I got from my dad in a way that I need.
So while I identified with Atreus at the beginning of the game, and drew connections between Kratos and my dad, I’ve slowly come to appreciate Kratos’ character as well. He’s trying to make his son’s life better, much like my dad was, but maybe not doing it in the best way. Like Atreus, I don’t want to be my father, but maybe it’s inevitable.
The other downside in seeing my dad in Kratos, and then seeing my dad in myself, is it made me question if I wanted children. Will I be a good father? Will I pass on my father’s sins to my children, and perpetuate the cycle? Can I do that to another person? I want to leave the world better than I left it, but is having kids really doing that? I want to say I can be better, because I want to believe I have that in me, but the unknown is scary.
God of War made me examine a lot about my life, my relationship with my dad, and my relationship with others. While the game may have inherent flaws, I think it speaks powerfully about the idea of legacy, destiny, and the parent-child relationship. My dad has been dead for almost eleven years. I think about him just about every day, whether it’s fond memories, or feeling his ghost within me. It’s a hard thing to bear, but it’s also motivating to try not apologize, but be better and leave the world and my relationships better than when I found them.
