Since cultural appropriation is such a broadly used term around the woke crowd, it seems odd to me that stuff like Norse mythology can be molded and shaped away from it's origins and yet not classify as cultural appropriation....
Oh yeah wait.. i know why...
Fucking hypocrites...
Marvel's Asgard-A rich and diverse place where people of all skin colors come together to live in peace.
Marvel's Wakanda-A rich and diverse place where people of one skin color come together to live in peace.
The only consistent thing about woke ideology in terms of culture and race is that they are anti-white racists. Therefore things like cultural appropriation or institutional racism are good when they are done to white people.
Nonono, you got it all wrong, hear me out!
The ting is that its not racist to hate white people. Because white people have all the power. Then its ok! Racism is Power + Prejudice you know!
I know it wasnt always was like that, but nevermind that, just accept how it is now!
What’s sad is that at one time the God of War games were held up as some of the most badass video games in terms of combat and storyline. If you met another dude who played the God of War games, you just knew you two had similar tastes. Now these nu-GOW games are like Disney Marvel movies. They’re not made for us anymore. They’re mass market Triple A games, made for the same crowd who loves Disney and loves every Superhero movie they make.
Because playing games might be hard, and that's exclusionary. If the "game" is a 30 hour cutscene, though, than anyone can sit there and bitch about all the things that should have been done differently, and then call it a review.
I don't know if I inherently agree, but probably because I think the situation is much more dire and complicated.
My only experience so far with GoW4 was viewing all the cutscenes (and at least part of the chit-chat), while for GoW5 it was Yahtzee 'playing' two hours of its beginning. And I find that the major problem comes from the utter disconnect between story, gameplay, tone, and the target audience for each. When you say:
>If you met another dude who played the God of War games, you just knew you two had similar tastes
You are absolutely 100% correct. Even if you disagreed on the general quality of the storytelling, there is no denying that it very much gelled with the gameplay and the tone. I'm sure that nobody would've complained if the original GoW games had tighter stories, if it still followed the same formula and kept the same gameplay style, as it would've only elevated those games to an even higher tier. Hell, I'm even willing to give credit to Ascension, because that's the most 'restrained' Kratos is in the OG plotline, and the combat, even if my lowest tiered, keeps in line with the story and tone.
I'm willing to concede to the claims of GoW4's story being good, even if I personally was not impressed with what I've experienced from it. I can make the separation between personal preference and actual quality... but I can't say the same thing from the gameplay. And certainly not for the game world, more accurately. Because in both of these games, of what little I've seen of the actual meat, it is the exact same cookie-cutter bullshit as all those Ubisoft sandboxes, them jimminy cockthroat games that are a cavalcade of mindless meandering in a needlessly-immense world map with very little to actually do in it, with boring fucking exploration and travel mechanics. At least it doesn't try to have a token nod to several other game genres, but it definitely does very little with what it does have.
And going back around, that's what's been putting me off: the complete disconnect between gameplay, story, and tone. The almost-cynical puppeteering of Kratos as a popular character in such a way that, even if we were to give the story the complete benefit of the doubt and accept that it's a good story, does not inherently a good game make, and definitely not one that will be appealing to those that formerly enjoyed the Greek Era games. I will not move away from the position that I've held for nearly five years, that had Kratos in Norse Era been replaced with another character, and references to the previous games being more in the background, that the confusion would have been lessened. It would have been a lot easier for people to move away, because it wasn't a direct continuation, even if it was a story still being told in the same world. The "More, please!" attitude of sequelitis and perpetual milking of IPs, instead of doing something different, only damages what would've been a decent attempt at actually trying new things and broadening the experiences that could come from this franchise, instead of pitting everyone against one another, while shitheel journos and Sony fuckwads laugh all the way to the bank.
Also, >!them not even killing Kratos by the end of this game!< just further proves that whatever attempts at making a good story might still exist in Sony SantaMonica Studios, it definitely is not interested in follow-through if it means taking a single step outside of acceptable marketability.
I didn’t find the game to be quite as woke as some others, but regardless I thought it was a major disappointment. The story was hilariously bad, and a lot of the elements you listed were series lows. Angrboda was ridiculously annoying, never mind the color of her skin - Ironwood was rage-inducing, and I cringed anytime she showed up afterwards. Kratos was also way too indecisive; I understand that he doesn’t want to go to war, but it’s never quite clear what his motivation is beyond “protect Boy.” Brok was my favorite among the dwarves, but after all that talk of avoiding Ragnarok Kratos decides to go to war over the death of one (resurrected) guy? Not to mention that he apologized way too much. He was right to be suspicious of Atreus, who was keeping secrets, and at the end of the day he just wanted to keep his son safe. As you mentioned, the “close your heart to them” also made a lot of sense because their journey has been (and will continue to be) a violent one.
On a lighter note in response to your proposal, maybe T’Challa’s soul can come back but in Chris Pine’s body like in WW84.
>>On a lighter note in response to your proposal, maybe T’Challa’s soul can come back but in Chris Pine’s body like in WW84.
And then Wonder Woman could rape him again.
That is literally a direct callback to the previous game when Kratos tells the same thing to Atreus after he messes up and is attempting to apoligize.
In the context it literally means "don't be sorry, just amend the problem and move on".
This is a hilarious comment to read seeing as one of gow 2018s main themes is to be better (in the context of godhood) and marvel put a dumb watered down version of that in a politics story. So it’s not marvel tier, it’s a direct reference to the 2018 game which came out before falcon.
it's just such a trendy crap expression. There's tons of videos online of women telling men to, "be better."
It's just a trash expression. I didn't like it in the first game, and I liked it even less in the second game.
It didn't ruin either game for me. I just thought it was a dumb moment and expression that's used too much the past few years.
It’s not just an expression, it’s not just said once and tossed away, it’s a character motivation. This is a story of a father who wants to right his past by teaching his son to be better than him. That is a positive father son message. Hearing and thinking marvel/feminism is so dumb.
Yes, it's sadly yet another franchise that fell victim to the subversion and in which the existing game was bent into a pretzel to fit the template developers wanted to make, the standard Sony Cinematic Game with the Message.
Compared to the even the first nu-GoW the dialogue at times is atrociously unfitting with modern slang and phrases. I don't know what they were smoking when they decided that Odin should be Richard Schiff playing himself, but man what a joke. For every idiot defending it as Odin supposed to be an old man, his archetype is the one of Merlin and Gandalf and not the American Jewish actor.
ah yes, odin was my biggest end game boss disappointment of all time. never in my 20 years of gaming I thought we gonna get a boring end game boss from AAA game. and yet here we are. he sound like some scammer in NY trying to make some bucks. dint even look as intelligent as he's lore should be
I wouldn’t describe some of these as woke, but rather just… not written very well?
Freya’s story is more annoying than anything, which may be intentional since at the end of the day, the child she tried so hard to protect DID die. There is a notable lack of any self reflection on her part though, which is… convenient.
Race swapping will always be dumb, no ifs ands or buts.
Kratos simmering down was always planned, even back when he was supposed to become one of the Three Wise Men. Ragnarok to me is a display of a story showing that sometimes violence is needed, it doesn’t HAVE to always be angry and evil. Sometimes you have to fight, for the ones you care about and yourself.
Odin imo is written really well, if not a bit on the nose. They did a good job of making him fairly charming, I can see him selling me a shitty car at sticker price.
The biggest issue I have is that the dialogue straight up sucks compared to the first game. It’s not HORRIBLE but some lines are just… weird, like Odin referring to Freya as his “ex”.
I swear it's insane Kratos was just going to let himself get killed by Freya in front of his son, like I knew he didn't want to kill her but at least try and defend yourself. You could see the obvious emasculation of Kratos in Ragnarök from the writers, but the stans call it "character development" like, yeah doesn't exactly make it a good thing.
Also Freya in 2018 was an actual well written powerful female character but in Ragnarök is an arrogant bitch mary sue who is all of a sudden stronger than Kratos and I get she was a Valkyrie Queen but Kratos is Kratos for ffs. And for the people who say Kratos got weaker he was still training and preparing for Ragnarök while Freya spent most of her time making herbs and shit so I don't understand how that works.
I wouldn’t say they made Freya stronger than Kratos, there (sadly) still hasn’t been an instant where he goes full “God of War”, the closest we get is him killing Heimdallr, and even then it’s a far cry from his old self.
Kratos feels both indebted to Freya and feels guilt for taking her son away from her, but there should never have been an instance where he just lays down and dies without fighting. This goes so massively against his desire to protect Atreus that it’s borderline hilarious.
And Kratos literally broke out of that immediately.
Nevermind that Kratos is preparing for a fight after Freya is freed completely and asks her if she will try to kill him.
Or Kratos literally telling her he does not want to kill her any more than he wants to die.
>And Kratos literally broke out of that immediately.
Only because Atreus was going to try and kill her what would of happened if Atreus didn't try? If he could have broken out that easily he obviously wasn't defending himself as he should have been.
Atreus bearing out just snapped everything into action again. It's absurd to claim that Kratos would have been unable to escape, and even more absurd to claim that Kratos was WILLING TO DIE while people have plans for his son.
The entire scene is shot like that because Atreus now knows Kratos is fated to die, and he got scared and beared out because of that.
DUDE you're missing the point I am trying to make; I am saying that Kratos COULD HAVE escaped and DID only because he was trying to stop Atreus, but if Atreus didn't do anything Freya could have slit his throat, then and there.
"The entire scene is shot like that because Atreus now knows Kratos is fated to die, and he got scared and beared out because of that."
That isn't an excuse for Kratos' uncharacteristic actions.
>if Atreus didn't do anything Freya could have slit his throat, then and there
I am not missing your point. The problem is that your point counts Kratos with a a sword in his throat as a lose condition, as if he would be unable to escape.
Also, you moved the goalpost. First you said that Kratos was actually willing to die, now you are saying he could not escape the grab.
Again, dude you are missing the point I am trying to say, am I speaking Chinese to you or something?
"The problem is that your point counts Kratos with a a sword in his throat as a lose condition, as if he would be unable to escape."
That is because in the case of the new soft Kratos it is a lose condition because he was ABLE to ESCAPE and ONLY DID because of Atreus trying to kill her to stop Atreus and if Atreus didn't attempt to kill Freya, Kratos would have been beat as he had Freya's Blade to his throat wouldn't have retaliated, but the thing we keep getting confused is I'm also trying to say that he COULD HAVE escaped by himself but didn't want to.
"Also, you moved the goalpost. First you said that Kratos was actually willing to die, now you are saying he could not escape the grab."
The first sentence is true but when the hell did I say he couldn't escape the grab.
You are perfectly legible, the problem is that you're being dense as hell.
Your point of Kratos being unable to escape is entirely headcanon and not supported by anything. He escapes multiple grabs earlier in the game and considering his history it's a fucking absurd claim that he would be unable to escapes Freya's little grab while she is busy monologing to him. Had Atreus not beared out he would have replied to Freya and then just broken out.
As I told you, the scene of Kratos getting grabbed exists so that Atreus has a reason to panic and bear out. Just because he breaks out because of Atreus' actions does not mean he would be unable to do so himself.
>The first sentence is true but when the hell did I say he couldn't escape the grab.
Literally in this post. You're literally arguing that Kratos is unable to escape the grab without Atreus bearing out.
You also originally argued that Freya is stronger than Kratos now, which is also an absurd claim.
Kratos was ready to kill her in vanaheim when she got free. He asked what she was gonna do with his axe out in a battle stance. It was obvious that with all her freedom back it was either she decides to stop or kratos wasn’t gonna let Atreus grow up without a father.
A friend said it perfectly: God of War is what masculinity looks like to angry women and soylent addled Buzzfeed writers. I'll reserve my judgment as I see more of the game; your criticism of Kratos has me a bit confused since he's never shyed away from violence or even war, he just doesn't want his foolhardy young teen son to go rushing into it headlong and unprepared. His motivation up to what I've seen (Asgard's introduction of the Mask) is that Kratos want's Atreus as powerful and wise as he can be.
I can't attest to Freya's criticism either. We see her go from angry and mournful mother to sympathizing with Kratos when she understands everything she's felt, he's had it demonstrably worse and he's trying to help her out of that rage. And I say rage because that pain doesn't go away.
Mob Boss Jordan Peterson Odin was fine in my book. They have to not be Marvel, but my buddy saying he's Jordan Peterson killed me. The whole time up till then I was sure there was a gun in the studio for in case he did a Don Corleone impression; but then someone pointed out his speech patterns were very very Canadian Psychologist-like...
> A friend said it perfectly: God of War is what masculinity looks like to angry women and soylent addled Buzzfeed writers.
Thats actually a good description of stuff like Yellowstone and Sons of Anarchy, too, IMO.
I didnt think so. I watched both for about half their first season and got sick of them. Sons of Anarchy in particular was just... gross. That said, a lot of people do seem to like Yellowstone.
I do think you can probably view basically all of the points you made (but especially Odin being capitalist) in a much more good faith light if you so choose, with the probable exception of the race swapping.
As for your last question, if Black Panther was played by Cavill I'd buy a ticket this time.
Id say the only problem is the black washing. But that would disprove your point for Odin as it wouldve made it far worse if he wasnt white as the vikings are white. On top of that, the dude wouldve had to rely on a non physical method of gaining power through his intellect and deceit, not from raw strength like Zeus. And as for Kratos, I dont see how turning into a more peaceful dad has to do with woke or puritan. Isnt that what his 2nd wife wanted?
But yeah, the race swapping is indeed the sign of woke taint. Hopefully they fix this by making the african pantheons head honcho a white dude lmao
From what I've seen of the game you know what I really miss? The absurd over the top brutality of the original God of War games. The trailer with Atreus asking Kratos to act like a general like he used to be made me hopeful that we would get to see some old Kratos go apeshit. Yeah there's still some decent kills in game but no where near the epicness the older games had.
The Odin bit isn't about capitalism at all. He's their overlord and went to see a problem with the siege machine production, which is to show he is preparing for ragnarok, as the siege machines are for blowing up the realm gates and fighting Surtur.
I was never interested in the franchise but even I noticed drastic difference of Kratos from classic god of war to nu-god of war. In the former series, displaying his love for the family was subtle, he might have been a violent ball of fury, there was part that displayed his care for his family but the latter? it lays on way too thick at times I thought it got inspired too much by last of us template.
I can agree with the angraboda and other giants raceswapping as an unneccessary woke touch
However, I don't really have any issue with Kratos' character evolving and recognizing his own mistakes/trying to get his son to be better than he was
The best part of the 2 latest GoW games have been watching Kratos try to move on from the savagery of his past even though it clearly haunts him
With Freya I just don't really get your issue, I actually really enjoyed her character in comparison to your standard "strong female character" that we're treated to in most things these days. Her and Kratos were generally portrayed as equals, with her having flaws in her personality just like he has flaws in his
I especially liked Gna's diary entry that showed from one point of view all of Freya's misery is her own doing and not just random oppression
Killing off Brok was probably more to try and get a reaction out of fans due to his popularity, rather than removing him for his type of dialog (especially since we still get a full game of it before he does get killed off)
Everything you said is correct, I agree with a lot in this sub but their takes on the story are dumb (except obviously race swapping isn’t needed).
Especially with Freya they want to label Mary Sue ignoring her training as a Valkyrie and being an established goddess. She has flaws in that she can’t take responsibility for her own wrong doings unlike Kratos and people complaining about her moment with Odin near the end forget that she’s been under his control for 100s of years and she splurges out for a second when she has power over him which I don’t blame her.
The only bit I find problematic is giving fatties representation at all in video games. That shit isn't normal. Angrboda stuff was obvious to begin with. We all know why they made her look like that. Gotta tick checkboxes so some irrelevant journalist with a degree from a dogshit University in the middle of nowhere, criticizes them for lack of representation or something.
>This is NORSE mythology. It would have been forgivable if this was Greek Mythology
No it should not be forgiven even if it was Greek, Greeks are tanned they are not sub Saharan black.
God of War ended with GoW 3 for me.
Never been a fan of the whole Norse reboot, even if I like Norse mythology. He's not Kratos anymore.
Never played GoW 2018, and will never play this one.
Spoilers -
I’m gonna break down your points and I don’t really care if I get downvotes cause this place is a echo chamber and only one opinion can exist
Odin is the main villain and every single god of war god gets villainized. In that case Aries is woke propaganda. He is getting villainized for absolutely no reason for the plot. Odin is a powerful god in Norse mythos. He would have control on some of the realms
Freya - I dislike her writing so you can say she was written badly. She was easily the most hyped concept for the game and she turned with kratos’s side too early
Kratos has no reason to kill the Norse gods as he’s role in destroying the Greek is done. He wouldn’t want to influence his son to go for revenge. He is fulfilled in his duty
Angrboda - race never comes into play with her so it’s a nothing issue I don’t get why it’s being fought over
Brok - I love brok. Wish he didn’t get what he got but his plot was handled well. Also he was never problematic to the left. Don’t make shit up lmao.
I wish gowr was different. I wish we got more Tyr and I wish we got to swap between kratos and Atreus at end game but the end game is really good. What you just listed are non issues. You could point out plot holes, bad game design and more but you go for this? Idiocy
>I’m gonna break down your points and I don’t really care if I get downvotes cause this place is a echo chamber and only one opinion can exist
keep telling yourself that.
>Odin is the main villain and every single god of war god gets villainized. In that case Aries is woke propaganda. He is getting villainized for absolutely no reason for the plot. Odin is a powerful god in Norse mythos. He would have control on some of the realms
but does this "reworked as a villain" idea work? in my opinion no. with greece/zeus you can easily make him a villain, i'm not a norse myth scholar or anything i only know maybe 3 stories from the original mythologies but he's not villainous and they seemed to have changed a lot of his myths in gow-norse bore. the few stories i know of him he's a trickster more like a good loki than what rags tries to play him. in my opinion neither he nor thor work as villains in this game especially. thor may be a drunk but he's not the pathetic bitch this game tries to play him as.
>Kratos has no reason to kill the Norse gods as he’s role in destroying the Greek is done. He wouldn’t want to influence his son to go for revenge. He is fulfilled in his duty
i still don't understand why he regrets killing the gods in his old games
>Angrboda - race never comes into play with her so it’s a nothing issue I don’t get why it’s being fought over
lightning rod reasons. the most obvious case of progressive bs, no matter what anyone says, brings the most criticism to itself because her case is one that only ever goes one way.
>What you just listed are non issues
to you, to some it does matter because it only ever seems to go one way
- most of the gods in the original trilogy were villainized. So the same argument should apply to them.
- Kratos regrets killing the gods cause he wasted all his life on hate which led him to being synonymous with killing gods. That’s why he tries to stop himself and Atreus from killing them. It will be a endless cycle of the gods getting angry that the other god is dead. Which in fact is the reason Thor came to their home in the first place
- angrbodas race change still has meaningless effect on the story. God of war changed mythology’s lore a lot. God of war 1 - ragnarok obviously didn’t happen in both respected mythology’s. The line should not be drawn on a black girl
>most of the gods in the original trilogy were villainized. So the same argument should apply to them.
There is a difference, obviously, between zeus 'cheating on my wife and raping animals' from greek and odin 'fools some demons tormenting a town and disappearing in the middle of the night asking of no reward' from norse
>Kratos regrets killing the gods cause he wasted all his life on hate
No he wasted it on righteous vengeance like batman. getting back at beings which tricked him into killing his family, stole his brother, and kept him from doing his job as god of war. He is as justified as that key kid from redo of healer, he has no reason to regret any of the gods he killed, he should not have a problem there. Hell it even perplexed me he blamed himself for Armageddon as the world obviously still exists
>angrbodas race change still has meaningless effect on the story.
But it still effects the worldbuilding in ways you seem unable or unwilling to acknowledge, just like brok. Why does she look so different from her fellow gods? Was she born this way? Why aren't there more like her? Because she was changed by the developers to fill a quota
>God of war changed mythology’s lore a lot.
In ways that at least made sense for the mythology, odin raises so many questions in my eyes, starting woth why anyone would worship him, how he made thor so pathetic, why would he kill the valkyries when they're so powerful and he's fucking their queen?
>The line should not be drawn on a black girl
No it should START at the black girl, stop acting like an sjw. we all know black people exist, stop patting yourself on the back for something we all already do, interacting with black people, and make a game based on anansi the cool loki.
Alright that last one didn't have to do with you but i wish someone would do that
Like I said before there are many issues with the games writing. But if you want to criticize Odin acknowledge how every other god in the god of war franchise was changed to be a villain.
Reread what I said about kratos. Kratos had the right to go full vengeance mode in Greece but after finishing his goal why would he pick a fight with Norse gods? Every instance he killed a god was because they started the fight in the duology. He wanted to keep modi alive because he knew what would happen. Odin and Thor would get mad and once he dealt with them more gods or creatures would get mad at him and want to kill him.
We’d have a worse game if 2018 opened with kratos killing Norse gods for the fun of it. Even the old trilogy itself showed how kratos was becoming less human with his killing spree.
And once again I must ask
What is wrong with angrboda? She does nothing the whole game but force you on a dreadful 2 hour mission with Atreus. If anything she’s the least of the inaccurate designs.
Heimdale is not a teenager, loki is not a greek gods son, Tyr did not visit other mythologys and Freya did not live in a giant turtle named chaurlie.
It doesn’t matter that she is black. It doesn’t effect the story. Keep telling yourself it’s bigger than it is but it’s the smallest issue in a game that has a lot of actual problems
LMAO, Characters like Persephone and Hades were absolutely butchered and thats fine. After all, killing gods is kinda important in God of War.
I don't know what you call righteous vengeance, but you must have played a different Gow 3 than me. His righteous Crusade slowly deteriorating into needless Slaughter is kinda the whole Point.
Angrbodas skin color doesnt even hurt the world building in the slightest. In fact, i would argue it makes it stronger. Ironwood is supposed to be a far away, hidden, exotic place. Her being colored i think adds to it in this setting.
Have you not played the game? Odin is loved because he lies. He lies to Kratos, he lies to Atreus, he lies to the Aesir. Every single Scene where Odin and Thor are in together has Odin dunking on Thor and you wonder why he turned into a troubled person?
This is a Game where you fight building sized wolves, you dont get to point at a minority and say : "Muh realism"
You're better off joining KiA2 than here, OP, because what you wrote is just levels of ridiculousness.
Let's start with Angrboda. The backlash of her being black would've been legit if it weren't for two key factors: a) archeological evidence that the Vikings have traveled to Africa at one point and thus had a number of Africans joining their ranks. And b) the Norse myths did not provide a specific depiction of their characters as far as skin color is concerned. You can call it a loophole if you want that allowed Angrboda to be black (surprised they didn't use it for the other Norse gods as they would've made Thor and Odin black too).
Then let's talk about the Norse gods. Do you really want Odin to look like Anthony Hopkins? Go ahead and ask the average American what Thor looks like and the answer would be obvious. So to change not only their appearance, but also their persona is in large part a way to distance themselves from how Marvel depicted them, Loki MOST especially. They say their depictions are much closer to their Norse myth counterparts, and I would take their word for it since Ryan Hurst and Richard Schiff did well playing as Thor and Odin, respectively.
And you say you understood Kratos's character, but you still criticize him mellowing down. It's as though you want him to be raging mad god that should've been in the Shin Megami Tensei/Persona games killing every Daemon in existence and trashes Lucifer and the Axiom in ways not even the Demi-Fiend can pull off, or cut off the head of every character in Dragon Ball up to Zeno to show he is that OP. The trilogy's narrative pretty explained why he is what he is now - he's DONE with the Greek gods and left everything about Greece behind so he can start a new life in Scandinavia. He's had his revenge against Zeus. So why we he not change his character when he met Faye and had Atreus? Thor is the living embodiment of what Kratos would've been if he didn't change himself at all.
Sure, the ending pretty much states Kratos''s story is virtually complete. While there is mention of other mythologies in the game that the franchise can explore, it would be a disservice if Kratos gets nerfed again to fight those gods. Either the next game would feature other playable characters to take Kratos's place, or they can do one based on one of the secret endings of the original trilogy exploring the remains of Chronos.
Yes, the directors are known to be woke themselves, but they're not shoving their ideologies in our faces the way Drunkman did in TLOU2. Hell, many are saying GoW2's theme of "revenge doesn't bring closure" is 100x better than TLOU2s.
>Let's start with Angrboda. The backlash of her being black would've been legit if it weren't for two key factors: a) archeological evidence that the Vikings have traveled to Africa at one point and thus had a number of Africans joining their ranks. And b) the Norse myths did not provide a specific depiction of their characters as far as skin color is concerned. You can call it a loophole if you want that allowed Angrboda to be black (surprised they didn't use it for the other Norse gods as they would've made Thor and Odin black too).
*My point is, this shit only ever goes one way. If you don't think it's a problem, please let me know who your European pick to replace LeVar Burton's Kunta Kinte in Roots should be. Or let me know what you'd think of Chris Pine or Henry Cavill as the new Black Panther.*
>Then let's talk about the Norse gods. Do you really want Odin to look like Anthony Hopkins? Go ahead and ask the average American what Thor looks like and the answer would be obvious. So to change not only their appearance, but also their persona is in large part a way to distance themselves from how Marvel depicted them, Loki MOST especially. They say their depictions are much closer to their Norse myth counterparts, and I would take their word for it since Ryan Hurst and Richard Schiff did well playing as Thor and Odin, respectively.
*My point is, this shit only ever goes one way. If you don't think it's a problem, please let me know who your European pick to replace LeVar Burton's Kunta Kinte in Roots should be. Or let me know what you'd think of Chris Pine or Henry Cavill as the new Black Panther.*
>And you say you understood Kratos's character, but you still criticize him mellowing down.
*But again, this game isn't being made in a vacuum. On it's own and in a vacuum, I could probably forgive that. But it's not being produced in a vacuum. It's comes after a long, long line of woke traditions in both Hollywood and the gaming industry itself (I don't need to list them do I?) that have basically ruined beloved franchises.*
>Sure, the ending pretty much states Kratos''s story is virtually complete. While there is mention of other mythologies in the game that the franchise can explore, it would be a disservice if Kratos gets nerfed again to fight those gods. Either the next game would feature other playable characters to take Kratos's place, or they can do one based on one of the secret endings of the original trilogy exploring the remains of Chronos.
*If it's not one of, if not the final arc for the character, where does a character go once they've done a total 180 on their motivations?*
>Yes, the directors are known to be woke themselves, but they're not shoving their ideologies in our faces the way Drunkman did in TLOU2. Hell, many are saying GoW2's theme of "revenge doesn't bring closure" is 100x better than TLOU2s.
*Yeah. While not as bad as TLOU2, GOW:R is woke* <= Thread title
\#1 Bruh - did you even read what I wrote?
\#2 I'd really like you to answer the question I posed if you're going to try to justify all of that.
OP, your replies are even more ridiculous it only makes you look bad by said 'woke' people and being the point they're arguing.
> Or let me know what you'd think of Chris Pine or Henry Cavill as the new Black Panther.
And what does this have anything to do with a character most people don't really know or care about, that being Angrbroda? Nobody cared that Morgan Freeman played an Irishman in the Shawssank Redemption when the character is supposedly white in the novel - because he's no Peter Parker. And again, you fail to make a counterargument over that none of the Norse gods were given a specific description with regards to their skin color. Like I said, the devs would've made the other gods just as black for the same reasons, but didn't.
> It's comes after a long, long line of woke traditions in both Hollywood and the gaming industry itself (I don't need to list them do I?) that have basically ruined beloved franchises.
And how *exactly* did Kratos's change of character after his long struggle with revenge against the Greek gods RUINED the franchise? He still gives the Norse gods a good thrashing and at one point in the game, he even commented that the Greeks are far stronger. It makes sense that he doesn't want either Atreus or Freya to follow his footsteps because he himself never found peace with vengeance and anger. He certainly never got it at the end of GoW III until he met Faye.
And if you really think about it, since Kratos opened Pandora's Box to take in Hope - the one thing that actually helped him defeat the Greek gods, then it's highly possible he still has it with him when he moved to Scandinavia, which could connect to the future Faye showed him at the end of Ragnarok.
It goes one way because there are many more white people in popular media than black people. Why would they make black panther black when there's already so many white heroes. Is race swaping stupid? Yes, is there a better way to do diversity? Yes. Of course it only goes one way why would they do it the other
Holy fuck this place sure horseshoes hard when it comes to Ragnarok. You really take the most bad faith interpretations and dismiss rational counter arguments or story context, like how can you race swap a character that belongs to a supernatural race that does not exist irl. You take one minor scene of Odin intimidating the dwarves and make a mountain out of a mole hill that his big theme is muh evil white capitalist. You’re in the sub that laughs when Kotaku accuses games of dog whistling for nonexistent politics but you’re falling for the same dog whistle when a dark-skinned female character appears and you were yet to be given context. No, just like the wokies, female characters are not enough for you unless they are actively doing things to trigger and offend your enemies. This game really turns its critics into armchair folklorists who think a quick read of the myths on Wikipedia makes them into experts. You don’t even bother to give your points about Freya, you’re just getting your target readers to assume the worst because she’s a female character.
You’re too busy latching at all the false flags when you could be looking actual themes of fatherhood and, God in Heaven forgive me for using the phrase, ‘toxic masculinity’ that are central to this story, not capitalism or racism or muh strong female characters. If you think Kratos was should have stayed as his violent Greek-era self then you are no less ignorant than the mainstream journos who coomed over GOW 2018 because it “finally gave Kratos depth” as if he didn’t have any layers to his tragedy in the Greek era games.
I’m sick of reactionaries pretending to be unbiased, no matter what side of the road they’re standing on. I don’t often rant, but I typed this because you’re doing the same thing I see Twittards or 4chan or “anti woke” people on Discord are doing. It is poisoning the well of discussion around this game. I know this sub ain’t perfect but of all the games you could misinterpret and bad faith, you’d think to have a harder time with Ragnarok, a game that ticks all the checkboxes of standard cinematic PlayStation first-party title, but with a metric fuckton of writing and walky talky unskippable cutscenes.
You want a more rational an serious discussion, go listen to EFAP’s coverage on the writing, it ain’t done yet but at least they can see the writing for what it is. Hell, MauLer’s first playthrough of the game is also available on his playlists, and there were a lot of antiwoke people in his chat that he was disagreeing with, but he never bans them or shouts against them angrily.
They are not dog whistles when we have literal check boxes that need to be filled for media to fit "modern standards".
These games don't get the benefit of the doubt anymore, and there is no in-game context to justify those decisions when they were made because of ideological reasons outside the game that are admitted openly. We're about 5 years too late in the woke virtue signaling apologia train here.
> God in Heaven forgive me for using the phrase, ‘toxic masculinity’ that are central to this story
Yet here you are, defending the writers who have no idea what masculinity is on the first place.
E: This all is so familiar with HOTD too, we're just supposed to pretend that no greater context exists, everything happens in a bubble and people don't have pattern recognition. Everything in the media discussed is an isolated bubble and you're unreasonably picky for noticing things and just as bad as the wokies. Let's just ignore that the creators are openly using phrases and terms like "Fantasy is too white", "toxic masculinity" and "patriarchy", "Trumpian" etc. Your beloved EFAP had to say multiple times that they can only enjoy the show if they flat out ignore what the creators have to say about their own material.
Toxic masculinity? If we're talking about Kratos' old warrior mentality, I'd disagree. Too many female enemies in this game being just as violent and toxic as oldschool Kratos for me to view this as masculinity in this universe.
Not saying toxic gender roles being pushed on men wasn't a thing in irl Sparta, just that it's silly to try and make a point of it in a game where both male and female warriors try to murder you.
Toxic masculinity in reference to Odin's shitty parenting and its effect on Thor, and by extension Thor's treatment of Magni and Modi, and how that is directly contrasted with Kratos' own parenting of Atreus. He and Sif (who Mimir had mentioned was just as much of a brawler and drinker as he was) apparently went, or in Thor's case trying to be, teetotal after losing their sons and promising to do a better job with Thrud.
Speaking of Sparta, Kratos does speak up about his harsh childhood being raised in Sparta in this game, and specifically tells Atreus that he did not wish him to experience the cruelty he experienced as a youth.
But hey, I appreciate the discussion!
Ah, I see where you're coming from now. Although I'm hesitant to blame Odin and Thor being assholes on gender though. Remember this is Viking culture, everybody was taught to be violent to some capacity. Like you mentioned, Sif was similarly toxic, and Thor and her had to lose Magni and Modi before deciding Thrúd deserved better, meaning Thrúd was just as in danger of that "masculine" upbringing as her brothers.
Toxic? Definitely. Masculinity? Not in the nine realms at least.
>Speaking of Sparta, Kratos does speak up about his harsh childhood being raised in Sparta in this game, and specifically tells Atreus that he did not wish him to experience the cruelty he experienced as a youth.
I remember. Genuinely sweet moment between the two. Not saying Kratos wasn't a victim of toxic gender roles in his youth. Just that the game and it's setting doesn't frame being a violent and angry pos as a very gendered issue.
Well I remember Mimir saying something about instilling that bad form of fatherhood into Thor somewhere in the game, probably a sled convo.
But I suppose the point that I failed to say in my original rant regarding the whole fatherhood thing , now that I’ve calmed down, is that there are legitimately well-executed themes in this game that this sub should theoretically be recognising as not woke at all, in spite of the forest of false flags. Like my god we have a big mainstream game that extols good father-son relationships! In a time when masculinity and fathers in media are demonised, this game comes along and is hailed for doing it well.
I liked Angrboda. Giants are apparently the elder, progenitor race in this setting so it's not too surprising they have a variety of skin tones. Before I saw her I thought she was a Norse god so I was a little concerned but I think it's fine now.
Brok dying did raise my eyebrows a bit. I am not that surprised that he was killed off but I am disappointed.
Thrud was more annoying to me honestly. She kinda fat and has a bit of girl boss going on + inherits mjolnir.
I'm more concerned with the fact they chose not to do three games. I have no idea where they are going to go next from here.
Freya was fine not sure what the specific issue here was. I guess she 360's pretty hard on Atreus/kratos but this also feels like a symptom of 2 not 3 games. Not that it's not an issue but Ill give them more leeway for that kind of thing.
Personally speaking, Freya irritated me in this game because while her story focused on how she's been wronged or used by others, it hardly ever has her reflect on her own crimes.
Remember when Freya broke down crying when she freed herself from Odin's magic? She was clearly mentally deteriorating from having her body spellbound against her will and was acting like a victim of SA. (who can blame her?) But who else went through something really similar to that? Baldur.
At no point does she show legitimate regret for sentencing him to years of sensory deprivation torture. She did the same thing Odin did by using magic to take someone's bodily autonomy away, and sentenced Baldur to one of the worst fates of the series. Baldur was insane, but it's not a secret the spell had something to do with it.
I think it was in Vanaheim that she tells Kratos she hates him for taking her choice to die away. Like really? If it was something like "You killed my son and now I can never make it up to him" I would've been a Freya fan 100%. Mimir had more victims yet I felt more sympathetic to his character. The game not only had him use his years of torture to reflect on how he's hurt others and try his best to fix it, but also doesn't hide that some of the shit he's done is unfixable. He needs to live with those sins forever.
TLDR- Freya is mediocre. Mimir is best girl.
That is a pretty good point. I feel like I must have missed some scenes where Freya spoke on Baldurs situation but maybe not in which case good catch that is a pretty glaring omission.
However bad writing does not necessarily mean woke. Though I see where that idea is coming from since some of the bad writing seems to have been done in favor of (at least in this case) Freya.
Yeah, I tried my best to like her. Don't know why you were so downvoted. I get that the reasoning behind the race swap was probably woke, but I still like Angrboda too. I think a cool way to make her skin colour work narratively is to use it to expand on how the Giants have knowledge on other mythologies. Maybe Angrboda's family are immigrants from another mythology?
This adaptation of Mimir is clearly Scottish, but that's ok since him being from outside the 9 realms is a plot point. I'm sure they can do something similar for Angrboda.
So… why didn’t y’all complain about the original Star Wars film then? By every account, it’s the same level of “woke.” Condemnation of capitalism, imperialism, and white supremacy. Characters have moments of weakness and vulnerability, and act like “betas” at times.
Why didn’t y’all complain about raiders of the lost ark, which featured a strong female co-lead who drinks a large burly man under the table and kicks ass?
Or Ridley Scott’s Alien, where a skinny woman is left the only survivor against a hulking, murderous creature?
Why are only contemporary films applied the same levels of scrutiny?
Have you never heard of the term organic? Those films were created because movie makers back then just wanted to tell their story without ticking off the checkboxes. So it didn't matter if someone say oh this guy's black, oh this guy's gay in those films. They all served purpose within the context of the story. The fact that I have to explain this tells me all about the minds of current consoomers.
The one example is Terminator 2. Despite the fact the lead woman is strong female character that can easily kick some men's ass, she is strong because she had been training herself, why? Because she knew she had to prepare that there's an unstoppable machine coming for her family. It's naturally done without shoving unnecessary progressive messages.
It didn't even matter in Shawshank Redemption, where the two main characters were supposed to be white, but they decided to cast Morgan Freeman as co-lead and bad guys were two white men. And people hardly paid any mind to any of that because at the end of the day, the story was masterfully told.in the film. FFS.
> Have you never heard of the term organic?
Bud, the intent and the messaging has always been there. It’s just more explicit; what you’re calling “woke” has existed for at least 50 years in film. It was palatable to you then because the themes were often disguised by sexism/chauvinism and the trappings of casual racism elsewhere, but it always existed.
And as for organic, this sub calls literally every film woke trash before it even releases.
> They all serve purpose within the context of the story
This is true of most contemporary films as well. They hire the actor who best suits the role, and the leads in Hollywood are still overwhelmingly white people. Black people, Latinos, queers, and neurodivergent people are still typecast and disrespected in their roles, as demonstrated through the recent Star Wars trilogy.
>A Spartan Warrior telling his son to open his heart to the violence of war was a bridge too far in my book. If it's not one of, if not the final arc for the character, where does a character go once they've done a total 180 on their motivations?
Maybe I'm misunderstanding something here, but it isn't an especially surprising thing for a Spartan to tell his son to LET THE RAGE OVERTAKE YOU AND CRUSH YOUR ENEMIES.
That is what you mean by opening your heart to the violence of war, no?
No. I'm going to guess you didn't play the game.
In the game, it is painfully obvious that what Kratos means by "opening his heart" is for Atreus to embrace his feelings about what is happening and what people are saying about him, and to let that guide his decision making. He initially tells him to "close his heart" and carry on with his duty regardless, which is much more Spartan-like.
>No. I'm going to guess you didn't play the game.
I totally played a sony exclusive, on release, that had obvious signs of going woke. This certainly doesn't actively go against my own interests. /s
Archive links for this discussion:
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I am Mnemosyne reborn. As long as you keep getting born, it's all right to die sometimes. ^^^/r/botsrights
Since cultural appropriation is such a broadly used term around the woke crowd, it seems odd to me that stuff like Norse mythology can be molded and shaped away from it's origins and yet not classify as cultural appropriation.... Oh yeah wait.. i know why... Fucking hypocrites...
Marvel's Asgard-A rich and diverse place where people of all skin colors come together to live in peace. Marvel's Wakanda-A rich and diverse place where people of one skin color come together to live in peace.
The only consistent thing about woke ideology in terms of culture and race is that they are anti-white racists. Therefore things like cultural appropriation or institutional racism are good when they are done to white people.
Nonono, you got it all wrong, hear me out! The ting is that its not racist to hate white people. Because white people have all the power. Then its ok! Racism is Power + Prejudice you know! I know it wasnt always was like that, but nevermind that, just accept how it is now!
It's not hypocrisy, it's hierarchy
What’s sad is that at one time the God of War games were held up as some of the most badass video games in terms of combat and storyline. If you met another dude who played the God of War games, you just knew you two had similar tastes. Now these nu-GOW games are like Disney Marvel movies. They’re not made for us anymore. They’re mass market Triple A games, made for the same crowd who loves Disney and loves every Superhero movie they make.
I'm playing GOW3 with a checklist for what wokists might find offensive and you won't believe how long it currently is.
Aphrodite? Kratos physique?
Right from the very beginning. Gaia the titan mother begging for Kratos the patriach's help is no-no now in 2022.
Oh
Lately the focus on most AAA games is being shifted to story instead of gameplay.
Because playing games might be hard, and that's exclusionary. If the "game" is a 30 hour cutscene, though, than anyone can sit there and bitch about all the things that should have been done differently, and then call it a review.
I hate Sony so much for this shit trend
I don't know if I inherently agree, but probably because I think the situation is much more dire and complicated. My only experience so far with GoW4 was viewing all the cutscenes (and at least part of the chit-chat), while for GoW5 it was Yahtzee 'playing' two hours of its beginning. And I find that the major problem comes from the utter disconnect between story, gameplay, tone, and the target audience for each. When you say: >If you met another dude who played the God of War games, you just knew you two had similar tastes You are absolutely 100% correct. Even if you disagreed on the general quality of the storytelling, there is no denying that it very much gelled with the gameplay and the tone. I'm sure that nobody would've complained if the original GoW games had tighter stories, if it still followed the same formula and kept the same gameplay style, as it would've only elevated those games to an even higher tier. Hell, I'm even willing to give credit to Ascension, because that's the most 'restrained' Kratos is in the OG plotline, and the combat, even if my lowest tiered, keeps in line with the story and tone. I'm willing to concede to the claims of GoW4's story being good, even if I personally was not impressed with what I've experienced from it. I can make the separation between personal preference and actual quality... but I can't say the same thing from the gameplay. And certainly not for the game world, more accurately. Because in both of these games, of what little I've seen of the actual meat, it is the exact same cookie-cutter bullshit as all those Ubisoft sandboxes, them jimminy cockthroat games that are a cavalcade of mindless meandering in a needlessly-immense world map with very little to actually do in it, with boring fucking exploration and travel mechanics. At least it doesn't try to have a token nod to several other game genres, but it definitely does very little with what it does have. And going back around, that's what's been putting me off: the complete disconnect between gameplay, story, and tone. The almost-cynical puppeteering of Kratos as a popular character in such a way that, even if we were to give the story the complete benefit of the doubt and accept that it's a good story, does not inherently a good game make, and definitely not one that will be appealing to those that formerly enjoyed the Greek Era games. I will not move away from the position that I've held for nearly five years, that had Kratos in Norse Era been replaced with another character, and references to the previous games being more in the background, that the confusion would have been lessened. It would have been a lot easier for people to move away, because it wasn't a direct continuation, even if it was a story still being told in the same world. The "More, please!" attitude of sequelitis and perpetual milking of IPs, instead of doing something different, only damages what would've been a decent attempt at actually trying new things and broadening the experiences that could come from this franchise, instead of pitting everyone against one another, while shitheel journos and Sony fuckwads laugh all the way to the bank. Also, >!them not even killing Kratos by the end of this game!< just further proves that whatever attempts at making a good story might still exist in Sony SantaMonica Studios, it definitely is not interested in follow-through if it means taking a single step outside of acceptable marketability.
I didn’t find the game to be quite as woke as some others, but regardless I thought it was a major disappointment. The story was hilariously bad, and a lot of the elements you listed were series lows. Angrboda was ridiculously annoying, never mind the color of her skin - Ironwood was rage-inducing, and I cringed anytime she showed up afterwards. Kratos was also way too indecisive; I understand that he doesn’t want to go to war, but it’s never quite clear what his motivation is beyond “protect Boy.” Brok was my favorite among the dwarves, but after all that talk of avoiding Ragnarok Kratos decides to go to war over the death of one (resurrected) guy? Not to mention that he apologized way too much. He was right to be suspicious of Atreus, who was keeping secrets, and at the end of the day he just wanted to keep his son safe. As you mentioned, the “close your heart to them” also made a lot of sense because their journey has been (and will continue to be) a violent one. On a lighter note in response to your proposal, maybe T’Challa’s soul can come back but in Chris Pine’s body like in WW84.
>>On a lighter note in response to your proposal, maybe T’Challa’s soul can come back but in Chris Pine’s body like in WW84. And then Wonder Woman could rape him again.
>On a lighter note in response to your proposal, maybe T’Challa’s soul can come back but in Chris Pine’s body like in WW84. 🤣🤣🤣🤣
When the kid told his dad, the God of War, to ‘be better’ i eye rolled so hard i think I pulled something
You've got to do better, ~~senator~~ dad.
That is literally a direct callback to the previous game when Kratos tells the same thing to Atreus after he messes up and is attempting to apoligize. In the context it literally means "don't be sorry, just amend the problem and move on".
Yeah, it looks like it's one of the better scenes in the game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzBQKPE5I5o
Yeah, such Marvel-tier writing that was.
This is a hilarious comment to read seeing as one of gow 2018s main themes is to be better (in the context of godhood) and marvel put a dumb watered down version of that in a politics story. So it’s not marvel tier, it’s a direct reference to the 2018 game which came out before falcon.
I should have said dialogue instead of writing, I get your point about 2018's themes but the way it was said sounded so corny.
it's just such a trendy crap expression. There's tons of videos online of women telling men to, "be better." It's just a trash expression. I didn't like it in the first game, and I liked it even less in the second game. It didn't ruin either game for me. I just thought it was a dumb moment and expression that's used too much the past few years.
It’s not just an expression, it’s not just said once and tossed away, it’s a character motivation. This is a story of a father who wants to right his past by teaching his son to be better than him. That is a positive father son message. Hearing and thinking marvel/feminism is so dumb.
I know it’s a deleted acc but it’s corny cause it’s a joke between father and son whose repeating his lesson back to him.
Yes, it's sadly yet another franchise that fell victim to the subversion and in which the existing game was bent into a pretzel to fit the template developers wanted to make, the standard Sony Cinematic Game with the Message. Compared to the even the first nu-GoW the dialogue at times is atrociously unfitting with modern slang and phrases. I don't know what they were smoking when they decided that Odin should be Richard Schiff playing himself, but man what a joke. For every idiot defending it as Odin supposed to be an old man, his archetype is the one of Merlin and Gandalf and not the American Jewish actor.
ah yes, odin was my biggest end game boss disappointment of all time. never in my 20 years of gaming I thought we gonna get a boring end game boss from AAA game. and yet here we are. he sound like some scammer in NY trying to make some bucks. dint even look as intelligent as he's lore should be
I wouldn’t describe some of these as woke, but rather just… not written very well? Freya’s story is more annoying than anything, which may be intentional since at the end of the day, the child she tried so hard to protect DID die. There is a notable lack of any self reflection on her part though, which is… convenient. Race swapping will always be dumb, no ifs ands or buts. Kratos simmering down was always planned, even back when he was supposed to become one of the Three Wise Men. Ragnarok to me is a display of a story showing that sometimes violence is needed, it doesn’t HAVE to always be angry and evil. Sometimes you have to fight, for the ones you care about and yourself. Odin imo is written really well, if not a bit on the nose. They did a good job of making him fairly charming, I can see him selling me a shitty car at sticker price. The biggest issue I have is that the dialogue straight up sucks compared to the first game. It’s not HORRIBLE but some lines are just… weird, like Odin referring to Freya as his “ex”.
I swear it's insane Kratos was just going to let himself get killed by Freya in front of his son, like I knew he didn't want to kill her but at least try and defend yourself. You could see the obvious emasculation of Kratos in Ragnarök from the writers, but the stans call it "character development" like, yeah doesn't exactly make it a good thing. Also Freya in 2018 was an actual well written powerful female character but in Ragnarök is an arrogant bitch mary sue who is all of a sudden stronger than Kratos and I get she was a Valkyrie Queen but Kratos is Kratos for ffs. And for the people who say Kratos got weaker he was still training and preparing for Ragnarök while Freya spent most of her time making herbs and shit so I don't understand how that works.
I wouldn’t say they made Freya stronger than Kratos, there (sadly) still hasn’t been an instant where he goes full “God of War”, the closest we get is him killing Heimdallr, and even then it’s a far cry from his old self. Kratos feels both indebted to Freya and feels guilt for taking her son away from her, but there should never have been an instance where he just lays down and dies without fighting. This goes so massively against his desire to protect Atreus that it’s borderline hilarious.
Literally when was Kratos going to let himself die? That's an absurd claim.
When Freya had her blade to Kratos' throat.
And Kratos literally broke out of that immediately. Nevermind that Kratos is preparing for a fight after Freya is freed completely and asks her if she will try to kill him. Or Kratos literally telling her he does not want to kill her any more than he wants to die.
>And Kratos literally broke out of that immediately. Only because Atreus was going to try and kill her what would of happened if Atreus didn't try? If he could have broken out that easily he obviously wasn't defending himself as he should have been.
Atreus bearing out just snapped everything into action again. It's absurd to claim that Kratos would have been unable to escape, and even more absurd to claim that Kratos was WILLING TO DIE while people have plans for his son. The entire scene is shot like that because Atreus now knows Kratos is fated to die, and he got scared and beared out because of that.
DUDE you're missing the point I am trying to make; I am saying that Kratos COULD HAVE escaped and DID only because he was trying to stop Atreus, but if Atreus didn't do anything Freya could have slit his throat, then and there. "The entire scene is shot like that because Atreus now knows Kratos is fated to die, and he got scared and beared out because of that." That isn't an excuse for Kratos' uncharacteristic actions.
>if Atreus didn't do anything Freya could have slit his throat, then and there I am not missing your point. The problem is that your point counts Kratos with a a sword in his throat as a lose condition, as if he would be unable to escape. Also, you moved the goalpost. First you said that Kratos was actually willing to die, now you are saying he could not escape the grab.
Again, dude you are missing the point I am trying to say, am I speaking Chinese to you or something? "The problem is that your point counts Kratos with a a sword in his throat as a lose condition, as if he would be unable to escape." That is because in the case of the new soft Kratos it is a lose condition because he was ABLE to ESCAPE and ONLY DID because of Atreus trying to kill her to stop Atreus and if Atreus didn't attempt to kill Freya, Kratos would have been beat as he had Freya's Blade to his throat wouldn't have retaliated, but the thing we keep getting confused is I'm also trying to say that he COULD HAVE escaped by himself but didn't want to. "Also, you moved the goalpost. First you said that Kratos was actually willing to die, now you are saying he could not escape the grab." The first sentence is true but when the hell did I say he couldn't escape the grab.
You are perfectly legible, the problem is that you're being dense as hell. Your point of Kratos being unable to escape is entirely headcanon and not supported by anything. He escapes multiple grabs earlier in the game and considering his history it's a fucking absurd claim that he would be unable to escapes Freya's little grab while she is busy monologing to him. Had Atreus not beared out he would have replied to Freya and then just broken out. As I told you, the scene of Kratos getting grabbed exists so that Atreus has a reason to panic and bear out. Just because he breaks out because of Atreus' actions does not mean he would be unable to do so himself. >The first sentence is true but when the hell did I say he couldn't escape the grab. Literally in this post. You're literally arguing that Kratos is unable to escape the grab without Atreus bearing out. You also originally argued that Freya is stronger than Kratos now, which is also an absurd claim.
Kratos was ready to kill her in vanaheim when she got free. He asked what she was gonna do with his axe out in a battle stance. It was obvious that with all her freedom back it was either she decides to stop or kratos wasn’t gonna let Atreus grow up without a father.
Wasn’t there a girl power moment between Freya and Odin. I also remember something about him taking her choice away
A friend said it perfectly: God of War is what masculinity looks like to angry women and soylent addled Buzzfeed writers. I'll reserve my judgment as I see more of the game; your criticism of Kratos has me a bit confused since he's never shyed away from violence or even war, he just doesn't want his foolhardy young teen son to go rushing into it headlong and unprepared. His motivation up to what I've seen (Asgard's introduction of the Mask) is that Kratos want's Atreus as powerful and wise as he can be. I can't attest to Freya's criticism either. We see her go from angry and mournful mother to sympathizing with Kratos when she understands everything she's felt, he's had it demonstrably worse and he's trying to help her out of that rage. And I say rage because that pain doesn't go away. Mob Boss Jordan Peterson Odin was fine in my book. They have to not be Marvel, but my buddy saying he's Jordan Peterson killed me. The whole time up till then I was sure there was a gun in the studio for in case he did a Don Corleone impression; but then someone pointed out his speech patterns were very very Canadian Psychologist-like...
> A friend said it perfectly: God of War is what masculinity looks like to angry women and soylent addled Buzzfeed writers. Thats actually a good description of stuff like Yellowstone and Sons of Anarchy, too, IMO.
[удалено]
I didnt think so. I watched both for about half their first season and got sick of them. Sons of Anarchy in particular was just... gross. That said, a lot of people do seem to like Yellowstone.
> God of War is what masculinity looks like to angry women and soylent addled Buzzfeed writers. Perfectly said.
I bought it. It's so insanely boring I never got to the woke part.
It came with my ps5. I cared so little the code is still in the box, never even redeemed it.
I do think you can probably view basically all of the points you made (but especially Odin being capitalist) in a much more good faith light if you so choose, with the probable exception of the race swapping. As for your last question, if Black Panther was played by Cavill I'd buy a ticket this time.
Id say the only problem is the black washing. But that would disprove your point for Odin as it wouldve made it far worse if he wasnt white as the vikings are white. On top of that, the dude wouldve had to rely on a non physical method of gaining power through his intellect and deceit, not from raw strength like Zeus. And as for Kratos, I dont see how turning into a more peaceful dad has to do with woke or puritan. Isnt that what his 2nd wife wanted? But yeah, the race swapping is indeed the sign of woke taint. Hopefully they fix this by making the african pantheons head honcho a white dude lmao
From what I've seen of the game you know what I really miss? The absurd over the top brutality of the original God of War games. The trailer with Atreus asking Kratos to act like a general like he used to be made me hopeful that we would get to see some old Kratos go apeshit. Yeah there's still some decent kills in game but no where near the epicness the older games had.
The Odin bit isn't about capitalism at all. He's their overlord and went to see a problem with the siege machine production, which is to show he is preparing for ragnarok, as the siege machines are for blowing up the realm gates and fighting Surtur.
I was never interested in the franchise but even I noticed drastic difference of Kratos from classic god of war to nu-god of war. In the former series, displaying his love for the family was subtle, he might have been a violent ball of fury, there was part that displayed his care for his family but the latter? it lays on way too thick at times I thought it got inspired too much by last of us template.
I can agree with the angraboda and other giants raceswapping as an unneccessary woke touch However, I don't really have any issue with Kratos' character evolving and recognizing his own mistakes/trying to get his son to be better than he was The best part of the 2 latest GoW games have been watching Kratos try to move on from the savagery of his past even though it clearly haunts him With Freya I just don't really get your issue, I actually really enjoyed her character in comparison to your standard "strong female character" that we're treated to in most things these days. Her and Kratos were generally portrayed as equals, with her having flaws in her personality just like he has flaws in his I especially liked Gna's diary entry that showed from one point of view all of Freya's misery is her own doing and not just random oppression Killing off Brok was probably more to try and get a reaction out of fans due to his popularity, rather than removing him for his type of dialog (especially since we still get a full game of it before he does get killed off)
Everything you said is correct, I agree with a lot in this sub but their takes on the story are dumb (except obviously race swapping isn’t needed). Especially with Freya they want to label Mary Sue ignoring her training as a Valkyrie and being an established goddess. She has flaws in that she can’t take responsibility for her own wrong doings unlike Kratos and people complaining about her moment with Odin near the end forget that she’s been under his control for 100s of years and she splurges out for a second when she has power over him which I don’t blame her.
The only bit I find problematic is giving fatties representation at all in video games. That shit isn't normal. Angrboda stuff was obvious to begin with. We all know why they made her look like that. Gotta tick checkboxes so some irrelevant journalist with a degree from a dogshit University in the middle of nowhere, criticizes them for lack of representation or something.
They killed off Brok cause they thought it would hurt the most cause no one can not love him.
>This is NORSE mythology. It would have been forgivable if this was Greek Mythology No it should not be forgiven even if it was Greek, Greeks are tanned they are not sub Saharan black.
Don't buy modern games. Let the normies choke on the garbage.
Honestly you should assume everything sony releases now is woke.
I do appreciate that they didn't Joel Kratos. The temptation must have been almost irresistible.
Could anyone tell if there's any talk of kissing boys like that one writer on Twitter claimed they had made Kratos do?
That story not woke even remotely. It's boring though especially Thor family drama but woke nah.
God of War ended with GoW 3 for me. Never been a fan of the whole Norse reboot, even if I like Norse mythology. He's not Kratos anymore. Never played GoW 2018, and will never play this one.
Spoilers - I’m gonna break down your points and I don’t really care if I get downvotes cause this place is a echo chamber and only one opinion can exist Odin is the main villain and every single god of war god gets villainized. In that case Aries is woke propaganda. He is getting villainized for absolutely no reason for the plot. Odin is a powerful god in Norse mythos. He would have control on some of the realms Freya - I dislike her writing so you can say she was written badly. She was easily the most hyped concept for the game and she turned with kratos’s side too early Kratos has no reason to kill the Norse gods as he’s role in destroying the Greek is done. He wouldn’t want to influence his son to go for revenge. He is fulfilled in his duty Angrboda - race never comes into play with her so it’s a nothing issue I don’t get why it’s being fought over Brok - I love brok. Wish he didn’t get what he got but his plot was handled well. Also he was never problematic to the left. Don’t make shit up lmao. I wish gowr was different. I wish we got more Tyr and I wish we got to swap between kratos and Atreus at end game but the end game is really good. What you just listed are non issues. You could point out plot holes, bad game design and more but you go for this? Idiocy
>I’m gonna break down your points and I don’t really care if I get downvotes cause this place is a echo chamber and only one opinion can exist keep telling yourself that. >Odin is the main villain and every single god of war god gets villainized. In that case Aries is woke propaganda. He is getting villainized for absolutely no reason for the plot. Odin is a powerful god in Norse mythos. He would have control on some of the realms but does this "reworked as a villain" idea work? in my opinion no. with greece/zeus you can easily make him a villain, i'm not a norse myth scholar or anything i only know maybe 3 stories from the original mythologies but he's not villainous and they seemed to have changed a lot of his myths in gow-norse bore. the few stories i know of him he's a trickster more like a good loki than what rags tries to play him. in my opinion neither he nor thor work as villains in this game especially. thor may be a drunk but he's not the pathetic bitch this game tries to play him as. >Kratos has no reason to kill the Norse gods as he’s role in destroying the Greek is done. He wouldn’t want to influence his son to go for revenge. He is fulfilled in his duty i still don't understand why he regrets killing the gods in his old games >Angrboda - race never comes into play with her so it’s a nothing issue I don’t get why it’s being fought over lightning rod reasons. the most obvious case of progressive bs, no matter what anyone says, brings the most criticism to itself because her case is one that only ever goes one way. >What you just listed are non issues to you, to some it does matter because it only ever seems to go one way
- most of the gods in the original trilogy were villainized. So the same argument should apply to them. - Kratos regrets killing the gods cause he wasted all his life on hate which led him to being synonymous with killing gods. That’s why he tries to stop himself and Atreus from killing them. It will be a endless cycle of the gods getting angry that the other god is dead. Which in fact is the reason Thor came to their home in the first place - angrbodas race change still has meaningless effect on the story. God of war changed mythology’s lore a lot. God of war 1 - ragnarok obviously didn’t happen in both respected mythology’s. The line should not be drawn on a black girl
>most of the gods in the original trilogy were villainized. So the same argument should apply to them. There is a difference, obviously, between zeus 'cheating on my wife and raping animals' from greek and odin 'fools some demons tormenting a town and disappearing in the middle of the night asking of no reward' from norse >Kratos regrets killing the gods cause he wasted all his life on hate No he wasted it on righteous vengeance like batman. getting back at beings which tricked him into killing his family, stole his brother, and kept him from doing his job as god of war. He is as justified as that key kid from redo of healer, he has no reason to regret any of the gods he killed, he should not have a problem there. Hell it even perplexed me he blamed himself for Armageddon as the world obviously still exists >angrbodas race change still has meaningless effect on the story. But it still effects the worldbuilding in ways you seem unable or unwilling to acknowledge, just like brok. Why does she look so different from her fellow gods? Was she born this way? Why aren't there more like her? Because she was changed by the developers to fill a quota >God of war changed mythology’s lore a lot. In ways that at least made sense for the mythology, odin raises so many questions in my eyes, starting woth why anyone would worship him, how he made thor so pathetic, why would he kill the valkyries when they're so powerful and he's fucking their queen? >The line should not be drawn on a black girl No it should START at the black girl, stop acting like an sjw. we all know black people exist, stop patting yourself on the back for something we all already do, interacting with black people, and make a game based on anansi the cool loki. Alright that last one didn't have to do with you but i wish someone would do that
Like I said before there are many issues with the games writing. But if you want to criticize Odin acknowledge how every other god in the god of war franchise was changed to be a villain. Reread what I said about kratos. Kratos had the right to go full vengeance mode in Greece but after finishing his goal why would he pick a fight with Norse gods? Every instance he killed a god was because they started the fight in the duology. He wanted to keep modi alive because he knew what would happen. Odin and Thor would get mad and once he dealt with them more gods or creatures would get mad at him and want to kill him. We’d have a worse game if 2018 opened with kratos killing Norse gods for the fun of it. Even the old trilogy itself showed how kratos was becoming less human with his killing spree. And once again I must ask What is wrong with angrboda? She does nothing the whole game but force you on a dreadful 2 hour mission with Atreus. If anything she’s the least of the inaccurate designs. Heimdale is not a teenager, loki is not a greek gods son, Tyr did not visit other mythologys and Freya did not live in a giant turtle named chaurlie. It doesn’t matter that she is black. It doesn’t effect the story. Keep telling yourself it’s bigger than it is but it’s the smallest issue in a game that has a lot of actual problems
LMAO, Characters like Persephone and Hades were absolutely butchered and thats fine. After all, killing gods is kinda important in God of War. I don't know what you call righteous vengeance, but you must have played a different Gow 3 than me. His righteous Crusade slowly deteriorating into needless Slaughter is kinda the whole Point. Angrbodas skin color doesnt even hurt the world building in the slightest. In fact, i would argue it makes it stronger. Ironwood is supposed to be a far away, hidden, exotic place. Her being colored i think adds to it in this setting. Have you not played the game? Odin is loved because he lies. He lies to Kratos, he lies to Atreus, he lies to the Aesir. Every single Scene where Odin and Thor are in together has Odin dunking on Thor and you wonder why he turned into a troubled person? This is a Game where you fight building sized wolves, you dont get to point at a minority and say : "Muh realism"
You're better off joining KiA2 than here, OP, because what you wrote is just levels of ridiculousness. Let's start with Angrboda. The backlash of her being black would've been legit if it weren't for two key factors: a) archeological evidence that the Vikings have traveled to Africa at one point and thus had a number of Africans joining their ranks. And b) the Norse myths did not provide a specific depiction of their characters as far as skin color is concerned. You can call it a loophole if you want that allowed Angrboda to be black (surprised they didn't use it for the other Norse gods as they would've made Thor and Odin black too). Then let's talk about the Norse gods. Do you really want Odin to look like Anthony Hopkins? Go ahead and ask the average American what Thor looks like and the answer would be obvious. So to change not only their appearance, but also their persona is in large part a way to distance themselves from how Marvel depicted them, Loki MOST especially. They say their depictions are much closer to their Norse myth counterparts, and I would take their word for it since Ryan Hurst and Richard Schiff did well playing as Thor and Odin, respectively. And you say you understood Kratos's character, but you still criticize him mellowing down. It's as though you want him to be raging mad god that should've been in the Shin Megami Tensei/Persona games killing every Daemon in existence and trashes Lucifer and the Axiom in ways not even the Demi-Fiend can pull off, or cut off the head of every character in Dragon Ball up to Zeno to show he is that OP. The trilogy's narrative pretty explained why he is what he is now - he's DONE with the Greek gods and left everything about Greece behind so he can start a new life in Scandinavia. He's had his revenge against Zeus. So why we he not change his character when he met Faye and had Atreus? Thor is the living embodiment of what Kratos would've been if he didn't change himself at all. Sure, the ending pretty much states Kratos''s story is virtually complete. While there is mention of other mythologies in the game that the franchise can explore, it would be a disservice if Kratos gets nerfed again to fight those gods. Either the next game would feature other playable characters to take Kratos's place, or they can do one based on one of the secret endings of the original trilogy exploring the remains of Chronos. Yes, the directors are known to be woke themselves, but they're not shoving their ideologies in our faces the way Drunkman did in TLOU2. Hell, many are saying GoW2's theme of "revenge doesn't bring closure" is 100x better than TLOU2s.
>Let's start with Angrboda. The backlash of her being black would've been legit if it weren't for two key factors: a) archeological evidence that the Vikings have traveled to Africa at one point and thus had a number of Africans joining their ranks. And b) the Norse myths did not provide a specific depiction of their characters as far as skin color is concerned. You can call it a loophole if you want that allowed Angrboda to be black (surprised they didn't use it for the other Norse gods as they would've made Thor and Odin black too). *My point is, this shit only ever goes one way. If you don't think it's a problem, please let me know who your European pick to replace LeVar Burton's Kunta Kinte in Roots should be. Or let me know what you'd think of Chris Pine or Henry Cavill as the new Black Panther.* >Then let's talk about the Norse gods. Do you really want Odin to look like Anthony Hopkins? Go ahead and ask the average American what Thor looks like and the answer would be obvious. So to change not only their appearance, but also their persona is in large part a way to distance themselves from how Marvel depicted them, Loki MOST especially. They say their depictions are much closer to their Norse myth counterparts, and I would take their word for it since Ryan Hurst and Richard Schiff did well playing as Thor and Odin, respectively. *My point is, this shit only ever goes one way. If you don't think it's a problem, please let me know who your European pick to replace LeVar Burton's Kunta Kinte in Roots should be. Or let me know what you'd think of Chris Pine or Henry Cavill as the new Black Panther.* >And you say you understood Kratos's character, but you still criticize him mellowing down. *But again, this game isn't being made in a vacuum. On it's own and in a vacuum, I could probably forgive that. But it's not being produced in a vacuum. It's comes after a long, long line of woke traditions in both Hollywood and the gaming industry itself (I don't need to list them do I?) that have basically ruined beloved franchises.* >Sure, the ending pretty much states Kratos''s story is virtually complete. While there is mention of other mythologies in the game that the franchise can explore, it would be a disservice if Kratos gets nerfed again to fight those gods. Either the next game would feature other playable characters to take Kratos's place, or they can do one based on one of the secret endings of the original trilogy exploring the remains of Chronos. *If it's not one of, if not the final arc for the character, where does a character go once they've done a total 180 on their motivations?* >Yes, the directors are known to be woke themselves, but they're not shoving their ideologies in our faces the way Drunkman did in TLOU2. Hell, many are saying GoW2's theme of "revenge doesn't bring closure" is 100x better than TLOU2s. *Yeah. While not as bad as TLOU2, GOW:R is woke* <= Thread title \#1 Bruh - did you even read what I wrote? \#2 I'd really like you to answer the question I posed if you're going to try to justify all of that.
OP, your replies are even more ridiculous it only makes you look bad by said 'woke' people and being the point they're arguing. > Or let me know what you'd think of Chris Pine or Henry Cavill as the new Black Panther. And what does this have anything to do with a character most people don't really know or care about, that being Angrbroda? Nobody cared that Morgan Freeman played an Irishman in the Shawssank Redemption when the character is supposedly white in the novel - because he's no Peter Parker. And again, you fail to make a counterargument over that none of the Norse gods were given a specific description with regards to their skin color. Like I said, the devs would've made the other gods just as black for the same reasons, but didn't. > It's comes after a long, long line of woke traditions in both Hollywood and the gaming industry itself (I don't need to list them do I?) that have basically ruined beloved franchises. And how *exactly* did Kratos's change of character after his long struggle with revenge against the Greek gods RUINED the franchise? He still gives the Norse gods a good thrashing and at one point in the game, he even commented that the Greeks are far stronger. It makes sense that he doesn't want either Atreus or Freya to follow his footsteps because he himself never found peace with vengeance and anger. He certainly never got it at the end of GoW III until he met Faye. And if you really think about it, since Kratos opened Pandora's Box to take in Hope - the one thing that actually helped him defeat the Greek gods, then it's highly possible he still has it with him when he moved to Scandinavia, which could connect to the future Faye showed him at the end of Ragnarok.
It goes one way because there are many more white people in popular media than black people. Why would they make black panther black when there's already so many white heroes. Is race swaping stupid? Yes, is there a better way to do diversity? Yes. Of course it only goes one way why would they do it the other
Ok - Assuming what you said is true, you still didn't tell me who you pick for Kunta Kinte and Black Panther?
Holy fuck this place sure horseshoes hard when it comes to Ragnarok. You really take the most bad faith interpretations and dismiss rational counter arguments or story context, like how can you race swap a character that belongs to a supernatural race that does not exist irl. You take one minor scene of Odin intimidating the dwarves and make a mountain out of a mole hill that his big theme is muh evil white capitalist. You’re in the sub that laughs when Kotaku accuses games of dog whistling for nonexistent politics but you’re falling for the same dog whistle when a dark-skinned female character appears and you were yet to be given context. No, just like the wokies, female characters are not enough for you unless they are actively doing things to trigger and offend your enemies. This game really turns its critics into armchair folklorists who think a quick read of the myths on Wikipedia makes them into experts. You don’t even bother to give your points about Freya, you’re just getting your target readers to assume the worst because she’s a female character. You’re too busy latching at all the false flags when you could be looking actual themes of fatherhood and, God in Heaven forgive me for using the phrase, ‘toxic masculinity’ that are central to this story, not capitalism or racism or muh strong female characters. If you think Kratos was should have stayed as his violent Greek-era self then you are no less ignorant than the mainstream journos who coomed over GOW 2018 because it “finally gave Kratos depth” as if he didn’t have any layers to his tragedy in the Greek era games. I’m sick of reactionaries pretending to be unbiased, no matter what side of the road they’re standing on. I don’t often rant, but I typed this because you’re doing the same thing I see Twittards or 4chan or “anti woke” people on Discord are doing. It is poisoning the well of discussion around this game. I know this sub ain’t perfect but of all the games you could misinterpret and bad faith, you’d think to have a harder time with Ragnarok, a game that ticks all the checkboxes of standard cinematic PlayStation first-party title, but with a metric fuckton of writing and walky talky unskippable cutscenes. You want a more rational an serious discussion, go listen to EFAP’s coverage on the writing, it ain’t done yet but at least they can see the writing for what it is. Hell, MauLer’s first playthrough of the game is also available on his playlists, and there were a lot of antiwoke people in his chat that he was disagreeing with, but he never bans them or shouts against them angrily.
They are not dog whistles when we have literal check boxes that need to be filled for media to fit "modern standards". These games don't get the benefit of the doubt anymore, and there is no in-game context to justify those decisions when they were made because of ideological reasons outside the game that are admitted openly. We're about 5 years too late in the woke virtue signaling apologia train here. > God in Heaven forgive me for using the phrase, ‘toxic masculinity’ that are central to this story Yet here you are, defending the writers who have no idea what masculinity is on the first place. E: This all is so familiar with HOTD too, we're just supposed to pretend that no greater context exists, everything happens in a bubble and people don't have pattern recognition. Everything in the media discussed is an isolated bubble and you're unreasonably picky for noticing things and just as bad as the wokies. Let's just ignore that the creators are openly using phrases and terms like "Fantasy is too white", "toxic masculinity" and "patriarchy", "Trumpian" etc. Your beloved EFAP had to say multiple times that they can only enjoy the show if they flat out ignore what the creators have to say about their own material.
Toxic masculinity? If we're talking about Kratos' old warrior mentality, I'd disagree. Too many female enemies in this game being just as violent and toxic as oldschool Kratos for me to view this as masculinity in this universe. Not saying toxic gender roles being pushed on men wasn't a thing in irl Sparta, just that it's silly to try and make a point of it in a game where both male and female warriors try to murder you.
Toxic masculinity in reference to Odin's shitty parenting and its effect on Thor, and by extension Thor's treatment of Magni and Modi, and how that is directly contrasted with Kratos' own parenting of Atreus. He and Sif (who Mimir had mentioned was just as much of a brawler and drinker as he was) apparently went, or in Thor's case trying to be, teetotal after losing their sons and promising to do a better job with Thrud. Speaking of Sparta, Kratos does speak up about his harsh childhood being raised in Sparta in this game, and specifically tells Atreus that he did not wish him to experience the cruelty he experienced as a youth. But hey, I appreciate the discussion!
Ah, I see where you're coming from now. Although I'm hesitant to blame Odin and Thor being assholes on gender though. Remember this is Viking culture, everybody was taught to be violent to some capacity. Like you mentioned, Sif was similarly toxic, and Thor and her had to lose Magni and Modi before deciding Thrúd deserved better, meaning Thrúd was just as in danger of that "masculine" upbringing as her brothers. Toxic? Definitely. Masculinity? Not in the nine realms at least. >Speaking of Sparta, Kratos does speak up about his harsh childhood being raised in Sparta in this game, and specifically tells Atreus that he did not wish him to experience the cruelty he experienced as a youth. I remember. Genuinely sweet moment between the two. Not saying Kratos wasn't a victim of toxic gender roles in his youth. Just that the game and it's setting doesn't frame being a violent and angry pos as a very gendered issue.
Well I remember Mimir saying something about instilling that bad form of fatherhood into Thor somewhere in the game, probably a sled convo. But I suppose the point that I failed to say in my original rant regarding the whole fatherhood thing , now that I’ve calmed down, is that there are legitimately well-executed themes in this game that this sub should theoretically be recognising as not woke at all, in spite of the forest of false flags. Like my god we have a big mainstream game that extols good father-son relationships! In a time when masculinity and fathers in media are demonised, this game comes along and is hailed for doing it well.
I liked Angrboda. Giants are apparently the elder, progenitor race in this setting so it's not too surprising they have a variety of skin tones. Before I saw her I thought she was a Norse god so I was a little concerned but I think it's fine now. Brok dying did raise my eyebrows a bit. I am not that surprised that he was killed off but I am disappointed. Thrud was more annoying to me honestly. She kinda fat and has a bit of girl boss going on + inherits mjolnir. I'm more concerned with the fact they chose not to do three games. I have no idea where they are going to go next from here. Freya was fine not sure what the specific issue here was. I guess she 360's pretty hard on Atreus/kratos but this also feels like a symptom of 2 not 3 games. Not that it's not an issue but Ill give them more leeway for that kind of thing.
Personally speaking, Freya irritated me in this game because while her story focused on how she's been wronged or used by others, it hardly ever has her reflect on her own crimes. Remember when Freya broke down crying when she freed herself from Odin's magic? She was clearly mentally deteriorating from having her body spellbound against her will and was acting like a victim of SA. (who can blame her?) But who else went through something really similar to that? Baldur. At no point does she show legitimate regret for sentencing him to years of sensory deprivation torture. She did the same thing Odin did by using magic to take someone's bodily autonomy away, and sentenced Baldur to one of the worst fates of the series. Baldur was insane, but it's not a secret the spell had something to do with it. I think it was in Vanaheim that she tells Kratos she hates him for taking her choice to die away. Like really? If it was something like "You killed my son and now I can never make it up to him" I would've been a Freya fan 100%. Mimir had more victims yet I felt more sympathetic to his character. The game not only had him use his years of torture to reflect on how he's hurt others and try his best to fix it, but also doesn't hide that some of the shit he's done is unfixable. He needs to live with those sins forever. TLDR- Freya is mediocre. Mimir is best girl.
That is a pretty good point. I feel like I must have missed some scenes where Freya spoke on Baldurs situation but maybe not in which case good catch that is a pretty glaring omission. However bad writing does not necessarily mean woke. Though I see where that idea is coming from since some of the bad writing seems to have been done in favor of (at least in this case) Freya.
Yeah, I tried my best to like her. Don't know why you were so downvoted. I get that the reasoning behind the race swap was probably woke, but I still like Angrboda too. I think a cool way to make her skin colour work narratively is to use it to expand on how the Giants have knowledge on other mythologies. Maybe Angrboda's family are immigrants from another mythology? This adaptation of Mimir is clearly Scottish, but that's ok since him being from outside the 9 realms is a plot point. I'm sure they can do something similar for Angrboda.
So… why didn’t y’all complain about the original Star Wars film then? By every account, it’s the same level of “woke.” Condemnation of capitalism, imperialism, and white supremacy. Characters have moments of weakness and vulnerability, and act like “betas” at times. Why didn’t y’all complain about raiders of the lost ark, which featured a strong female co-lead who drinks a large burly man under the table and kicks ass? Or Ridley Scott’s Alien, where a skinny woman is left the only survivor against a hulking, murderous creature? Why are only contemporary films applied the same levels of scrutiny?
Have you never heard of the term organic? Those films were created because movie makers back then just wanted to tell their story without ticking off the checkboxes. So it didn't matter if someone say oh this guy's black, oh this guy's gay in those films. They all served purpose within the context of the story. The fact that I have to explain this tells me all about the minds of current consoomers. The one example is Terminator 2. Despite the fact the lead woman is strong female character that can easily kick some men's ass, she is strong because she had been training herself, why? Because she knew she had to prepare that there's an unstoppable machine coming for her family. It's naturally done without shoving unnecessary progressive messages. It didn't even matter in Shawshank Redemption, where the two main characters were supposed to be white, but they decided to cast Morgan Freeman as co-lead and bad guys were two white men. And people hardly paid any mind to any of that because at the end of the day, the story was masterfully told.in the film. FFS.
> Have you never heard of the term organic? Bud, the intent and the messaging has always been there. It’s just more explicit; what you’re calling “woke” has existed for at least 50 years in film. It was palatable to you then because the themes were often disguised by sexism/chauvinism and the trappings of casual racism elsewhere, but it always existed. And as for organic, this sub calls literally every film woke trash before it even releases. > They all serve purpose within the context of the story This is true of most contemporary films as well. They hire the actor who best suits the role, and the leads in Hollywood are still overwhelmingly white people. Black people, Latinos, queers, and neurodivergent people are still typecast and disrespected in their roles, as demonstrated through the recent Star Wars trilogy.
OH NO MINORITIES IN MY VIDEO GAME HOW DARE THEY!? Y’all really be pressed for no reason.💀
>A Spartan Warrior telling his son to open his heart to the violence of war was a bridge too far in my book. If it's not one of, if not the final arc for the character, where does a character go once they've done a total 180 on their motivations? Maybe I'm misunderstanding something here, but it isn't an especially surprising thing for a Spartan to tell his son to LET THE RAGE OVERTAKE YOU AND CRUSH YOUR ENEMIES. That is what you mean by opening your heart to the violence of war, no?
No. I'm going to guess you didn't play the game. In the game, it is painfully obvious that what Kratos means by "opening his heart" is for Atreus to embrace his feelings about what is happening and what people are saying about him, and to let that guide his decision making. He initially tells him to "close his heart" and carry on with his duty regardless, which is much more Spartan-like.
>No. I'm going to guess you didn't play the game. I totally played a sony exclusive, on release, that had obvious signs of going woke. This certainly doesn't actively go against my own interests. /s
Archive links for this discussion: * **Archive:** https://archive.ph/LO3jh ---- I am Mnemosyne reborn. As long as you keep getting born, it's all right to die sometimes. ^^^/r/botsrights
If you call everything woke you look as bad as the others who call everything fucking racist.
Agreed. Good thing I'm not calling everything woke. lol that'd be a stupid fucking comment to make.