Kratos in Greek Mythology vs God of War: the Real Myth Behind the Ghost of Sparta

Kratos in Greek mythology is the god of strength, a son of the Titan Pallas and the goddess Styx and Zeus's enforcer, and his best-known scene is the one where he chains Prometheus to a mountain. He shares nothing with Kratos of God of War except the name and a link to Zeus. The game's Kratos is a Spartan son of Zeus who kills his father, while the mythical one lives beside Zeus and never leaves. (Theogony; Prometheus Bound; God of War III)

Who is Kratos in Greek mythology?#

Kratos is the Greek word for strength or power, and in myth he's that idea given a body. Hesiod's Theogony lists him among the children of Styx, daughter of Ocean, and the Titan Pallas: Zelus (rivalry or zeal), Nike (victory), Kratos and Bia (force). Pallas himself is a son of the Titans Crius and Eurybia. (Theogony)

The reason these four matter is the war against the Titans. When Zeus called the immortals to Olympus and promised honours to anyone who fought with him, Styx came first and brought her children. Zeus rewarded her by making her the great oath of the gods, and he took her children to live with him forever. Hesiod says they have no home apart from Zeus and go nowhere he doesn't lead. That's the whole of Kratos's place in the order of things: he's what Zeus's rule looks like when it uses force. (Theogony)

Of his siblings, only Nike became a major figure, as the winged goddess of victory. Bia and Zelus, like Kratos, stay as abstractions with little story. (Theogony)

Kratos and Prometheus in Prometheus Bound#

The one place the mythical Kratos speaks is the opening of Prometheus Bound, a tragedy traditionally credited to Aeschylus, though scholars have long doubted that. Kratos and Bia bring the captured Prometheus to a desolate crag in Scythia at the edge of the world, on Zeus's orders, as punishment for stealing fire for mortals. Hephaestus has to do the actual chaining. (Prometheus Bound)

The scene is built on the contrast between them. Hephaestus pities his kinsman and hates the job. Kratos bullies him through it, mocks his reluctance and tells him to drive the spike through Prometheus's chest. Bia never says a word. Kratos's last lines sneer at Prometheus's name, which means forethought, since he couldn't foresee his way out of this. Brute obedience to Zeus is the point of the character. (Prometheus Bound)

Hesiod tells the punishment without Kratos. Zeus binds Prometheus in chains and sends an eagle to eat his liver, which grows back each night, until Heracles kills the eagle and frees him from his torment. (Theogony)

What God of War took and what it changed#

The game's Kratos keeps the name and the closeness to Zeus, then turns both inside out. He starts as a mortal, a Spartan captain who pledges himself to Ares, is tricked into killing his wife Lysandra and daughter Calliope, and is cursed to wear their ashes, which turns his skin white and earns him the name Ghost of Sparta. He kills Ares and takes his place as God of War. (God of War (2005))

Instead of Zeus's servant, he's Zeus's son. Athena tells him so as she dies in God of War II, and his mother is the mortal Callisto. His brother is Deimos, taken by Ares and Athena because of a prophecy that a marked warrior would bring down Olympus, a story told in Ghost of Sparta. Where the mythical Kratos enforces Zeus's will, the game's Kratos beats Zeus to death in God of War III. (God of War II; God of War: Ghost of Sparta; God of War III)

The Prometheus story is flipped the same way. In God of War II, Prometheus hangs chained to the hand of the Titan Typhon, his liver eaten each day by an eagle. He begs for release, and Kratos shoots through the chain with the bow Typhon's Bane and lets him fall into the fire below, ending his suffering. So the god who chained Prometheus in Aeschylus becomes the man who frees him, and his rescue loosely echoes Heracles ending the torment in Hesiod. (God of War II; Prometheus Bound; Theogony)

Some details carry over loosely. The River Styx, named for the mythical Kratos's mother, is a place Kratos has to cross in the Underworld, not a parent. Heracles appears as Hercules, Kratos's half-brother through Zeus, and Kratos kills him. (God of War II; God of War III)

Atreus in Greek mythology and the House of Atreus#

Atreus is also a Greek name, and a heavy one. In myth Atreus was a king of Mycenae and the father of Agamemnon and Menelaus. He quarrelled with his brother Thyestes, killed Thyestes's sons and served them to him at a feast, and the family curse that followed ran down to Agamemnon's murder by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus, Thyestes's surviving son. Aeschylus's Agamemnon has Cassandra see the murdered children in a vision, and Aegisthus tells the story of the feast himself. (Agamemnon)

The game gives a plainer reason for the name. After Faye's ashes are scattered, Kratos tells his son that his mother wanted to call him Loki, and he talked her into Atreus instead, after a Spartan soldier who stood out among his comrades for his kindness and joy. The soldier is covered on the Eis page. Still, a boy named after the founder of Greece's most famous cursed family, whose father is trying to stop a cycle of fathers and sons destroying each other, fits the series well. (God of War (2018); Agamemnon)

The other borrowed names in God of War#

Santa Monica uses Greek and Norse names freely, keeping a few traits and rewriting the family trees. (God of War III; God of War (2018))

• Deimos: in Hesiod, Deimos (fear or dread) is a son of Ares and Aphrodite, with his brother Phobos. In the games he's Kratos's brother, son of Zeus and Callisto. (Theogony; God of War: Ghost of Sparta)
• Callisto: in Ovid she's a nymph whom Jupiter (Zeus) seduces, who is turned into a bear and set among the stars. The games keep the affair with Zeus and make her Kratos's mortal mother. (Metamorphoses; God of War: Ghost of Sparta)
• Pandora: Hesiod's Pandora is the first woman, made by Hephaestus on Zeus's orders, who opens a jar of evils and leaves only Hope inside. God of War keeps Hephaestus as her maker and Hope as what lay in Pandora's Box, but makes Pandora a girl who walks into the Flame of Olympus so the Box can be reached. Kratos opens it himself and finds it empty. (Works and Days; God of War III)
• Faye and Loki: in the Prose Edda, Laufey is Loki's mother. The Norse games make Laufey the giant name of Faye, Kratos's second wife, and Atreus turns out to be the Loki of the giants' prophecy. (Prose Edda; God of War (2018))

For the Norse side of the series in more depth, see Norse mythology, and for how the games treat the gods of different lands sharing one world, see mythology. The full story of both eras is on God of War story explained. (God of War (2018); God of War Ragnarök)