Hercules

Hercules, also called Heracles and known across Greece as the Mightiest of Men and Protector of Mankind, was a son of Zeus and the mortal woman Alcmene, and thus a half-brother of Kratos. Born a demigod of prodigious strength, he won redemption and eventually godhood by completing a series of twelve labors imposed upon him as penance for the murder of his own family. Raised to Olympus as the god of heroes and strength, he came to resent Kratos bitterly, convinced that their father had favored the Ghost of Sparta over him, and made the destruction of his brother his final ambition.

Birth and the twelve labors#

Hercules was raised by his mother Alcmene and Amphitryon alongside a half-brother named Iphicles, blessed from birth with unnatural strength. He married Megara, daughter of King Creon of Thebes. A madness inflicted upon him by the Oneiroi at the behest of Hera drove him to kill his wife and children, and on seeking guidance from the Oracle of Delphi he was sent to serve King Eurystheus and complete whatever tasks were set before him, so that the gods might forgive the slaughter.

The labors began with the slaying of the Nemean Lion, which he killed bare-handed and whose hide he afterward wore as a mark of his power. He went on to destroy the Lernaean Hydra, capture the Ceryneian Hind and the Erymanthian Boar, cleanse the Augean stables in a single day, drive off the Stymphalian birds, capture the Cretan Bull, steal the man-eating Mares of Diomedes, take the belt of Hippolyta, and seize the cattle of Geryon. When Eurystheus claimed two of these did not count, he set two more: to steal the golden apples of the Hesperides, in the course of which Hercules freed Prometheus and tricked the Titan Atlas into resuming the burden of the sky, and finally to drag Cerberus out of the Underworld, which he accomplished to the dismay of Hades. Having completed every task, Hercules was forgiven and, in time, ascended to Olympus as the god of heroes and strength.

Jealousy of Kratos#

It was during these labors, by his own account, that Hercules first measured himself against Kratos and found himself wanting in the eyes of their father. He recalled learning that Kratos had been chosen by Zeus to kill Ares while he himself was cleaning the Augean stables, and that Kratos had been crowned the new God of War while he was sent to fetch a single golden apple. Hercules came to regard nearly all of his labors as menial, holding only the slaying of the Nemean Lion to be a feat worthy of him, and grew certain that Zeus loved Kratos best and that the Spartan's fame had been spread across the world while his own was diminished.

This envy hardened into hatred. Hercules nursed the belief that he, not Kratos, deserved the title of God of War, and resolved to take it by killing his brother. He named this his unofficial thirteenth and final labor.

The Forum of Olympus#

When Kratos brought the Titans up from the past to assail Mount Olympus during the Second Great War, Hercules commanded its armies, ordering a host of Olympus Sentries to leap from the mountain and attack the Titans upon Gaia. Hera then set him against Kratos as her champion within the Forum.

There Hercules confronted his brother and railed against the favoritism he believed Zeus had shown. Kratos tried to reason with him, telling him that their father had no favorites and that the reign of the gods was ending regardless, but Hercules would not listen. He armed himself with the Nemean Cestus, a pair of great lion-headed gauntlets, and fought first with a horde of undead soldiers at his side and then alone. After a punishing exchange of blows, Kratos broke his armor and helmet, stabbed his arm, and wrested the Cesti from him one by one. Hercules fought on with his bare hands, which he considered a true challenge, and at the climax tore up the floor of the arena in an effort to cast Kratos into the depths. Kratos clawed his way back, slammed the floor down upon his brother to pin him, and beat him to death with his own Nemean Cestus, smashing in his head. Both tumbled into the sewers beneath the Forum, where Kratos left the disfigured body to rot.

Strength and nature#

Hercules was reckoned the most powerful hero and demigod in existence, second in raw might only to Kratos. He could hurl Kratos across the arena, lift him overhead with a single hand, tear sections from the arena walls and throw them, and even raise the entire floor of the Forum while gravely wounded. His near-invulnerability let him absorb tremendous punishment, and his stamina was such that he never tired in battle. A master combatant trained through a lifetime of his labors, he was especially deadly with the Cestus, with which he could crush enemies or pound the ground into a shockwave, and he was formidable in unarmed grappling, favoring a crushing embrace.

In temperament he was prideful and quick to anger, yet devoted to the gods and above all to his father, whose respect he ceaselessly sought. That obsession fed his jealousy of Kratos. Despite their enmity, the two addressed each other as brothers, and Kratos was notably reluctant to fight him, hinting at a kinship that had once existed between them.

Remembered in Valhalla#

Long afterward, while traveling through the Norse realm of Valhalla, Kratos came upon a replica of the Forum and spoke of Hercules to Mimir. When Tyr asked whether he regretted killing his half-brother, Kratos answered that he did not, reasoning that Hercules had wanted to be God of War only for his own gratification and had needed to be stopped. The Norse god of war commended his Greek counterpart for seeing the matter so clearly.