Athena: from Kratos' guide to his enemy

Athena was the Olympian Goddess of Wisdom, a daughter of Zeus and counted among the greatest of the Gods. Patron and protectress of the city of Athens, she served as the chief ally and guide of Kratos through much of his service to Olympus, setting him against her brother Ares and later against the Titans. Her path with the Spartan turned from alliance to tragedy and, finally, to enmity, as she came to seek the power of Hope to rule a Greece left empty by the fall of the Gods. (God of War (2005); God of War II; God of War III)

Birth and the founding of Athens#

In the Greek myth the series draws on, Athena was born from the head of Zeus, after he swallowed her mother Metis. (Theogony)

In the games she sided with her father in the Great War against the Titans. After the Gods triumphed and the evils born of the war were sealed within Pandora's Box, Athena, dreading what would follow if the Box were ever opened, conjured the power of Hope and placed it within to counter the evils. (God of War III)

In myth, Athena became patron of the city of Athens after winning it from Poseidon in a contest, offering the olive tree against his salt spring. (Library (Bibliotheca))

The games make her the protector of Athens, the city whose siege drives the first game. When Zeus, driven by the prophecy of the Marked Warrior, sent Ares and Athena to capture the marked child Deimos, Athena intervened to stop Ares from killing Deimos's brother Kratos, and before she left she looked upon the young Spartan and asked his forgiveness. (God of War (2005); God of War: Ghost of Sparta)

Setting Kratos against Ares#

Out of hatred and jealousy toward Athena, Ares besieged Athens, certain nothing could stop him while Zeus forbade the Gods from battling one another directly. Athena turned to Kratos, the Spartan who had served Olympus for ten years, tasking him with slaying Ares to save her city in exchange for absolution from his sins. She guided him to the Oracle of Athens, who revealed that only Pandora's Box held the power to kill a god, and helped him reach the Box through the Desert of Lost Souls. (God of War (2005))

After Ares fell, Athena revealed that Kratos was forgiven but that no god or mortal could ever erase his memories of the family he had slain. Believing himself abandoned, Kratos flung himself from the Suicide Bluffs, but Athena saved him, granting him the throne of Ares, the title of God of War, and the Blades of Athena to replace the Blades of Chaos. (God of War (2005); God of War II)

The breaking of an alliance#

Kratos proved a far more ruthless God of War than Ares. Shunned by the other Gods and bitter that they would not free him of his nightmares, he turned his Spartan army to the conquest of all Greece. Athena warned him that the wrath of Olympus would grow and that she could not protect him, but he turned his back on her and laid siege to Rhodes. Left with no other choice, Athena resolved to help rid Olympus of Kratos. (God of War II)

When Zeus, disguised as an eagle, drained Kratos's power at Rhodes, the Spartan mistook the eagle for Athena and vowed to make her suffer for betraying him. During his later journey to the Sisters of Fate, a golden statue of Athena warned him against listening to Gaia and the Titans and tried to turn him from his vengeance, explaining that Zeus had acted only to protect Olympus out of fear. Kratos ignored her counsel. (God of War II)

Sacrifice and ascension#

Kratos's vengeance carried him to a final confrontation with Zeus, whom he stabbed repeatedly with the Blade of Olympus until Athena intervened. When Kratos pushed her aside and struck at the fleeing Zeus, Athena threw herself in front of her father and was run through. As she died she revealed that Kratos was the son of Zeus, compelled to destroy his father just as Zeus had destroyed Cronos, and that Zeus must live so that Olympus could prevail. Sickened by the revelation, Kratos declared he had no father and left her to die in a burst of green light. (God of War II)

After Kratos fell into the River Styx during the assault on Olympus, Athena appeared to him in a ghostly state, explaining that her death had brought an ascension to a level beyond the Gods. She gave him the Blades of Exile, set him toward the Flame of Olympus and Pandora's Box, and now declared that Zeus's death was necessary if mankind was ever to be free. (God of War III)

The power of Hope#

When Kratos at last killed Zeus, Athena insisted he return to her the power he had drawn from Pandora's Box so that she might deliver her message to mankind. Kratos revealed the Box was empty, and Athena understood that when he had opened it to defeat Ares, its evils had escaped and infected the Gods, while Kratos himself had unknowingly carried away the power of Hope she had sealed within, buried beneath his anger and guilt. (God of War III)

Athena demanded the power of Hope so that she might restore the world and rule it as its new Queen. Kratos instead impaled himself with the Blade of Olympus, releasing Hope to all mankind. Horrified, Athena declared that mankind would not know what to do with such power and voiced her disappointment in him. She drew the Blade from his chest and vanished, leaving Kratos in a pool of blood. Her whereabouts went unknown for many years thereafter, and what became of her after Zeus's death remained a mystery. (God of War III)