Hel: Goddess of the Dishonored Dead

Hel was the foretold daughter of Loki and Angrboda, the figure Norse myth makes goddess of death and ruler of Helheim. In the age of Kratos she remained unborn, for those who were to be her parents were still children, yet the giants had already recorded her destiny among the children of Loki who were fated to shape the end of the Aesir. (God of War (2018); God of War Ragnarök; Prose Edda)

Is Hel in God of War?#

Not as a character: in the age of Kratos and Atreus she is still unborn, named only on the Jotnar shrines as the future daughter of Loki and Angrboda, while the title of Hel belongs to Hræsvelgr, the giant eagle who rules Helheim. (God of War (2018); God of War Ragnarök)

The foretold daughter of Loki#

Hel was named in prophecy as the daughter of Loki, the Jotunn name borne by Atreus, and of Angrboda, the last of the giants of Ironwood. By that descent she would be part Jotunn and part god, for through Loki she carried the blood of the Olympian line of Kratos as well as the giants of Jötunheim. She was foretold to stand among three siblings, the others being the great wolf Fenrir and the World Serpent Jörmungandr, each of them children destined to play a part in the doom of the Aesir. (God of War (2018); God of War Ragnarök)

In the age of the saga Hel had not yet come into being, for Loki and Angrboda were still children, and her birth was a thing of times to come. Even so, her name was already carved in the world. On the Jotnar shrine that tells the story of Jörmungandr, the old runes call the serpent a son of Loki and Angrboda and a brother of Fenrir, Hel and the Iron-Wolves, set down by the giants who had foreseen the whole of what was to be. (God of War (2018))

Goddess of death#

The games never show what Hel would become, but the Norse myths do. In Snorri's Prose Edda she is a daughter of Loki feared by the Aesir, cast down by Odin into Niflheim and given authority over the dead of the nine worlds, the queen of Helheim and a ruler whose place even the gods were bound to respect. (Prose Edda)

The title of Hel#

After the events of Ragnarok, a deeper truth of the name came to light. When Freya asked Mimir how he had persuaded Helheim's ruler to lend its dead to the war against Asgard, he answered that its keeper, the giant Hræsvelgr, wished to retire, and that he had promised to find someone to take her place as Hel. So it was learned that Hel was not only a person but a title, given to whoever ruled the land of the dishonored dead, a charge that one day the foretold daughter of Loki might come to bear. (God of War Ragnarök)