Who is Kratos?[]
Kratos is one of the most evil protagonists throughout the world of gaming. However, it's not completely his fault. As a warrior in a moment of desperation he did the typical "Sell your soul" thing but rather than selling it to Hades, he sold it to the God of War Ares. In exchange, Kratos received the Blades of Chaos, which were imbedded into his skin. He easily slaughtered his enemies when Ares gave him the blades, but he also left the battlefield and killed his family, which resulted in the ashes of their bodies staining his skin a pale white (except the tattoos, but I suppose it's a lot less manly and badass to have pink body art, as funny as it would be). Kratos has nightmares about this for his entire life until the other Gods give him a proposal; go to Olympus and slay Ares and they'll forgive him for his sins. He arrives at Olympus and takes off to kill Ares(after some hot pottery action lol m i rite?) He goes to the temple on the back of a Titan to get Pandora's box with a lot of battles with Greek monsters(Medusa, Hydras, etc.) and gets help from some other Gods(Zeus, Hades, etc.) on his way to get Pandora's box, the only object capable of killing a God, with scenes of Ares killing armies of thousands in the distance. After players spend hours in the temple to get Pandora's Box, Ares does his "Oh no you didn't" speech and impales him from half the F'ing planet away. Kratos literally goes to hell and then decides, "Ares is an ass and I ain't his bitch". So he escapes hell through a huge section of climbing some pain in the ass hills and then goes off to fight Ares. Ares was a dumbass holding Pandora's Box with him for Kratos to steal and use to become the size of Ares. After fighting Ares and killing them Kratos goes to the Gods and asks them to make his nightmares go away. They slap some lawyer bull on him (no offence Pheonix Wright) and say they were taking away his sins and not his nightmares. So, then Kratos commits suicide but is then resurrected by the gods, telling him that Ares is dead, so they need someone to fill his shoes and they want Kratos to do it. Kratos accepts the position and reigns as the God of War for the rest of time.
"Ten years, Athena! I have faithfully served the gods for ten years! When will you relieve me of these nightmares?" -Kratos
(Writeup courtesy of Saiyan Pezhead)
Except "for the rest of time" was more "about a year and a half", since Sony Santa Monica needed SOMETHING to work on for the sequel, God of War 2. Kratos, as the narrator astutely points out, has turned his mourning over his family into anger at the gods, as exhibited by his CRAWLING speech to Athena within seconds of the game beginning. Kratos says this as he is on his way down from Olympus to Rhodes, to destroy stuff. Anyway, he gets down there and Athena, being a veangeful cow, shrinks him down to normal size, where he promptly destroys every single soldier in Rhodes anyway. Athena brings the colossus of Rhodes to life. Kratos kills that as well. Zeus offers him the blade of olympus. Being a stupid, gullible god, Kratos promptly drains all his godly power into the blade. After killing the colossus, there Kratos stands, triumphantly.
"Do you see now, Gods? Do you need more proof than thi-"SPLAT.
The hand of the colossus lands on Kratos in by far the funniest moment of the series. Kratos stumbles toward the blade of olympus, it now having the power of a god and therefore being the only thing to save him. Zeus, however, lands. And kills him. You go down to the underwold, then the leader of the Titans, Gaia, gives him the impetus to escape (again) and, having procured Pegasus, Kratos leaves for the isle of creation, where he can find the sisters of fate to change his destiny.
So after about 10 hours of hack n slash goodness, Kratos finds and kills the Sisters, giving him the ability to change time. He goes back to the moment Zeus "killed" him (should have gone further back, ie before Kratos killed left >_>), they have epic boss fight, gg. Kratos stabs Zeus repeatedly in the heart with the Blade of Olympus that he reclaimed, Zeus somehow doesn't die, and Athena comes along to protect Zeus. Kratos kills her by accident, because, once again, he's stupid like that. He goes back further, summons Gaia and her Titan buds to his time, and they proceed to go on an all out wrecking tour of Mount Olympus. Or so we presume, because the game ends with Kratos giving a war cry to Zeus (who is his dad, but that's such a predictable twist I figured you would have guessed), while riding on top of a Gaia who is climbing up Mount Olympus. With the rest of the titans not far behind.
The end begins...
(damn you cliffhanger endings)
"If all on Olympus will deny me my vengance, then all on Olympus will die. I have lived in the shadow of the gods for long enough!" -Kratos
(Writeup courtesy of XIII_is_cool)
Kratos's Contest History[]
Win-Loss Record: 7-7
Summer 2005 Contest - Gear Division - 3 Seed
- Gear Round 1 --- Lost to (6) Alucard, 40446 [44.48%] - 50482 [55.52%]
- Extrapolated Strength --- 48th Place [18.70%]
Though Kratos looks weak if you look at the stats, he's stuck behind the odd happenings of the Snake/Sora affair and both he and Alucard are likely much stronger than these stats show. But that's beside the point.
Kratos was a new character in Summer 2005, and though he was stuck in a situation where was guaranteed to lose he didn't perform very badly. Almost everyone underestimated how well he would do against Alucard, and he was able to turn this match from a 60-40 beating into a respectable 55-45 loss. Kratos even managed to win a few updates through the day, and it's clear that the afternoon casual voters generally favored him. Whether or not Kratos will ever return to the contest or win a match remains to be seen, but the potential is there.
Summer 2006 Contest - Destiny Division - 3 Seed
- Destiny Round 1 --- Lost to (6) Ryu, 49713 [42.89%] - 66198 [57.11%]
- Extrapolated Strength --- 28th Place [30.16%]
Kratos may still be winless in contests, but this won't last long. He has a firm grip on the casual market (check any Poll of the Day involving God of War since the Summer 2006 Contest) and God of War 2 will surely boost him even further. He's already on the verge of being a top 25 character, and his perpetual good seeding will pair him up against some scrub and give him a win or two sooner or later.
Summer 2007 Contest - Division 7 - Second Group
- Division 7 Round 1 --- 1st place, 48265 [40.13%] - Donkey Kong, 33266 [27.66%] - Marth, 24832 [20.65%] - Prince of All Cosmos, 13902 [11.56%]
- Division 7 Round 2 --- 1st place, 43362 [32.48%], L-Block, 37825 [28.33%] - Kirby, 33122 [24.81%] - Donkey Kong, 19213 [14.39%]
- Division 7 Finals --- 3rd place, 29772 [20.91%] - Solid Snake, 46201 [32.44%] - L-Block, 40774 [28.63%] - Riku, 25656 [18.02%]
People knew Kratos wouldn't stay winless for long, and they were right. He dominated his first round fourpack, as expected. However, the unexpected strength of L-Block threw a wrench into the works. He did manage to best the block in round two with his massive day vote, but that was the end of the road for him. The strength of Solid Snake and the incredible consistency of the L-Block proved to be too much for Kratos, but he proved that he will be a force to be reckoned with in the future.
Summer 2008 Contest - Division 8 - Fourth Group
- Division 8 Round 1 --- 1st place, 50814 [37.19%] - Jill Valentine, 35124 [25.70%] - Revolver Ocelot, 33099 [24.22%] - Heavy, 17608 [12.89%]
- Division 8 Round 2 --- 2nd place, 32949 [24.25%] - Sephiroth, 56444 [41.53%] - Tifa Lockheart, 27259 [20.06%] - Jill Valentine, 19246 [14.16%]
- Division 8 Finals --- 4th place, 21528 [16.09%] - Sephiroth, 51492 [38.49%] - Sonic the Hedgehog, 37722 [28.19%] - Auron, 23048 [17.23%]
With an impressive run the year before, Kratos was looking repeat the success. He soundly took first in the his first grouping and then met the juggernaut Sephiroth. Sephiroth was able to hold Tifa back enough for Kratos to snatch second place. His luck ran out in the division finals when two noble niners and Auron forced the god of war to last place.
Winter 2010 Contest - Heart Division - 2 Seed
- Heart Round 1 --- Defeated (15) Miles 'Tails' Prower, 47398 [60.98%] - 30326 [39.02%]
- Heart Round 2 --- Lost to (7) Charizard, 37392 [45.51%] - 44776 [54.49%]
- Extrapolated Strength --- 22nd Place [29.93%]
The Heart Division was an interesting one. Early on, there were four possible winners: Sora, Bowser, Charizard, and Kratos. Sora, Bowser and Kratos have all performed highly before and were the clear favorites. Charizard was thought to be strong but with no prior experience it was hard to tell. Kratos was able to blow bast Tails and then faced Charizard in the second round. Even with God of War 3 on the horizon, Kratos couldn't muster enough to get past the 'Zard.
Summer 2013 Contest - Division 9 - 6 Seed
- Division 9 Round 1 --- 1st place, 14756 [50.29%] - (22) Recette Lemongrass, 7419 [25.28%] - (13) Travis Touchdown, 7167 [24.43%]
- Division 9 Round 2 --- 3rd place, 5046 [20.25%] - (1) Mega Man, 14122 [56.67%] - (19) Jill Valentine, 5751 [23.08%]
Relative to Travis Kratos performed as expected, but Recette was an elephant in the room and while we had no information on her it was difficult to believe that she was so strong. The questions were put to rest in the next round where not only was he crushed by Mega Man by more than expected, but he lost to Jill whom he has beaten before in the past. What happens to Kratos in the future will likely depend on what Sony does with the God of War series for the Playstation 4.
Fall 2018 Contest - Division 2 - 2 Seed
- Division 2 --- Defeated (15) John Marston, 21310 [73.18% ] - 7811 [26.82%]
- Division 2 --- Lost to (7) Pikachu, 10957 [36.59%] - 18987 [63.41%]
A highly acclaimed new God of War on the PS4 allowed Kratos to get a big seed, and even the hype for Red Dead Redemption 2 didn't prevent that game's protagonist from suffering a near-tripling from Kratos. But then he got his worst defeat ever percentage-wise, as the huge boost for all things Nintendo\Smash Bros meant another defeat by Kratos against a Pokémon.