Ares

Ares was the original Olympian God of War, the God of Murder, Violence, and Bloodshed, and the eldest son of Zeus and Hera. Known as the Prince of the Gods and the Lord of Battles, he was widely regarded as the most hated god on Mount Olympus. His scheme to seize his father's throne led him to forge the Spartan Kratos into a weapon by tricking him into murdering his own family, an act that turned Kratos into the Ghost of Sparta and set in motion the eventual fall of the Gods.

The Prince of the Gods#

Ares was the oldest child of Zeus and Hera, born during the long Great War between the Gods and the Titans. A natural warrior, he was suited to what his father required, and with Olympus victorious he attained his place as the God of War, one of the twelve ruling Gods. As the eldest son of both Zeus and Hera, he was known as the Prince of the Gods.

The birth of Athena, goddess of wisdom and warfare, sparked a rivalry that would span the age of Olympus, for their interests clashed repeatedly and Zeus favored Athena for her counsel and sense of strategy. Ares took patronage over the militaristic city of Sparta, whose people worshipped him above all save Zeus and sacrificed prisoners in his name. His resentment at his father's favoritism toward Athena, and his own lust for power, grew with the centuries until he came to covet Olympus itself.

Alliance with the Furies#

Coveting his father's throne, Ares struck an alliance with the Furies and persuaded them toward a more ruthless approach. Having learned of the prophecy of the Marked Warrior, who was destined to destroy Olympus and kill Zeus, Ares conceived a child with the Fury Alecto in the hope that the child might be the Marked One. The child, Orkos, did not meet his standards and was disowned, though the Furies saw potential in him and made him their Oath-Keeper.

Ares commissioned his brother Hephaestus to forge the Blades of Chaos in the deepest reaches of Hades, twin blades drawing on the fire of Chaos and Tartarus, able to absorb life and induce rage and blood-lust. He held them ready for the warrior who would one day carry out his will on Earth.

The making of Kratos#

When Kratos and his Spartan army faced certain defeat against the barbarian king Alrik, Kratos pledged himself to Ares in exchange for victory. Seeing the warrior he needed, Ares accepted, descending from Olympus larger than a mountain with hair of living flame and slaughtering the barbarians. A pair of Harpies bestowed the Blades of Chaos upon Kratos as a mark of his servitude, and he claimed Alrik as his first victim.

To bind Kratos completely, Ares and the Furies devised three blood tests: the blood of enemies, the blood of innocents, and the blood of loved ones. Kratos spilled the first two easily during his conquests across Greece. To complete the last, Ares led Kratos to attack a village built in worship of Athena, where, blinded by blood-lust, the Spartan cut down all within a temple, including his wife Lysandra and daughter Calliope. Ares appeared and declared the deaths necessary so that nothing would stand in Kratos's way. The village Oracle gathered the ashes of his family and bound them to his skin, marking him the Ghost of Sparta. Enraged by the deception, Kratos swore the God of War would pay with his life.

Rivalry with Athena and the road to Athens#

Athena judged that her brother had gone insane in his blood-lust and that his schemes reached toward the pillars of Olympus itself. To keep Kratos out of Ares's reach, she struck a bargain in which she took command of the armies of humanity while Ares was left only the dead warriors and monsters of the Underworld. When Ares realized the true meaning of the agreement, his rage at Athena and Zeus grew by the day, and he left Olympus to wage his wars on Earth directly, regularly sending his monsters and undead legions to harass Kratos.

His quarrels widened. When Athena arranged for Poseidon to lend Kratos a measure of his power against the Hydra, Ares and the King of the Oceans faced one another on the shores of Egypt, each as vast as a Titan. Ares backed down from the confrontation but sowed doubt in Poseidon about Athena's motives. Defying his father's edict against war among the Gods, Ares finally gathered his innumerable army of undead and monsters and marched on Athens.

The Siege of Athens#

The city lay at the mercy of the God of War, and mercy was in short supply. Ares directed elaborate and subtle tactics meant to maximize death, working on a theory that the Gods drew power from mortal worship and that by destroying Athena's followers he might cause them to abandon her and turn to him, weakening his sister and bypassing his father's edict. He deliberately targeted Zeus's own temples and worshippers, which displeased the King of the Gods. When his armies advanced through the woodlands of Artemis, the Huntress turned her beasts against them and shredded his forces, forcing Ares to swear a truce and leave her woods in peace.

Since Zeus had forbidden the Gods from battling one another, Athena could not defend her city herself, and so she set Kratos upon the quest for Pandora's Box, the only means of slaying a god, which lay within the Temple of Pandora on the back of Cronos.

Death and aftermath#

When Ares sensed that Kratos had retrieved the Box, he hurled a broken pillar across the desert, impaling and killing the Spartan. Kratos escaped the Underworld through the aid of the Grave Digger and returned to confront Ares as the God threatened to use the Box against Olympus itself. Kratos seized the Box and opened it, drawing on its power to grow to Ares's scale, and the battle for power began.

Ares trapped Kratos in a pocket realm where clones attacked an image of his family, and tore the Blades of Chaos from his arms, but Kratos spotted the Blade of the Gods that Athena had sent, took it up, and ran Ares through the chest. As Ares pleaded and reminded Kratos how he had once saved his life and tried to make him a great warrior, Kratos answered that he had succeeded, and killed him. With his death an empty place remained on Olympus, and Kratos ascended to become the new God of War. The Olympians entombed their fallen brother in transparent ice. Ares's scheme to topple Olympus ultimately came to fruition with the death of Zeus and the near-destruction of the world, though not as he had ever planned or hoped.