Kratos's Wives: Lysandra and Faye

Kratos has had two wives: Lysandra, his Spartan first wife, and Faye, the giant he married centuries later in Midgard. Lysandra was the mother of his daughter Calliope, and he killed them both in a rage that Ares arranged. Faye was the mother of Atreus, and her death and funeral start the story of God of War (2018). (God of War (2005); God of War (2018))

Lysandra: Kratos's first wife#

Lysandra belongs to Kratos's life as a Spartan captain. The first game's flashbacks show a commander who wanted glory more than anything, and a wife and young daughter waiting at home. When his army faced defeat against a barbarian horde, Kratos swore himself to Ares in exchange for victory, and became the god's servant. (God of War (2005))

The marriage ended in the worst way the series could think of. Ares sent Kratos to attack a village, and Kratos cut down everyone inside its temple of Athena before realising that his wife and daughter were among the dead. Ares had brought them there so that Kratos would kill them and have no family left to hold him back. (God of War (2005))

The village oracle cursed Kratos to wear the ashes of his family on his skin for ever. That is where his ash-white colour comes from, and why people know him as the Ghost of Sparta. Killing Ares in revenge is the whole aim of the first game. (God of War (2005))

How Lysandra kept coming back#

Kratos never got free of her memory, and his enemies knew it. In the final battle of the first game, Ares traps him in a vision of his home where he must defend Lysandra and Calliope from copies of himself. Ares then kills them in front of him a second time. (God of War (2005))

In God of War: Ascension, set before the first game, the Furies try to bind Kratos back to Ares with illusions. One shows Kratos home and honoured with Lysandra beside him, and in another the Fury Alecto takes Lysandra's form and offers him a life inside the illusion. He sees through both. (God of War: Ascension)

His daughter got a reunion of her own. In Chains of Olympus, Kratos finds Calliope in the Elysian Fields and gives up his powers to stay with her, then has to take them back and leave her to stop the world being destroyed. (God of War: Chains of Olympus)

At the end of God of War III, inside his own mind, Kratos finally faces the guilt of what he did to his family and forgives himself. (God of War III)

Faye: Kratos's second wife#

Faye is the wife of the Norse games, and the opening scene of God of War (2018) is her funeral. Kratos cuts down trees she marked with a golden handprint for her pyre, and he and Atreus set out to carry her ashes to the highest peak of the Nine Realms, as she asked. (God of War (2018))

She was more than she let her family know. Her husband's axe, the Leviathan Axe, had been hers, and in the last chapter Kratos and Atreus learn she was a giant of Jötunheim. Mimir realises she was Laufey the Just, a giant renowned for standing up for the weak against the Aesir. Ragnarök adds that she once fought Thor to a standstill, and Santa Monica Studio describes her as the Golden Hand of the Jötnar, the giants' most powerful protector. (God of War (2018); God of War Ragnarök; First look at God of War Laufey)

Faye knew what was coming. The giants' prophecy showed her death and her son's future, and she arranged things so that the trip to scatter her ashes would teach Kratos and Atreus who they were. She also wanted her son called Loki, the story behind why Atreus is called Loki. Ragnarök shows she defied her own people and destroyed part of the prophecy so her family could choose their own way. (God of War (2018); God of War Ragnarök)

How she died is never explained. Neither Norse game says. (God of War (2018); God of War Ragnarök)

Faye in Ragnarök: the dreams#

Faye finally appears on screen in God of War Ragnarök, in Kratos's dreams. In one, they hunt together and she argues that a problem doesn't have to reach your door before it's yours to deal with. In another, after Atreus is born, she tells Kratos to let their son hear his voice instead of grunting at him, and insists he isn't the man he used to be. (God of War Ragnarök)

In the last dream, as they mark the trees for her pyre, Kratos admits he has lost a wife before. Faye tells him that grief is what love becomes, and begs him to keep his heart open to the world. That is the lesson Kratos acts on in the war with Odin. (God of War Ragnarök)

Lysandra and Faye compared#

Kratos himself makes the comparison. In Valhalla, Kratos comes across a reminder of Lysandra and tells Mimir about her. He admits that he loved her but was a terrible husband: she believed there were ways to deal with enemies other than wiping them out, and he never listened, putting his duty to Sparta ahead of his wife and daughter long before his oath to Ares. He sees the same thing in both women. Each wanted him to be a better man and saw possibilities in him that he couldn't. (God of War Ragnarök: Valhalla)

The difference, on our reading, is that he finally listened the second time. Lysandra's advice went unheeded and ended with her death at his hands. Faye's is what turns him, by the end of Ragnarök, into a god people choose to follow. (God of War Ragnarök; God of War Ragnarök: Valhalla)

God of War Laufey: Faye's own game#

Faye is getting her own story. Santa Monica Studio revealed God of War Laufey in June 2026 as the next main game in the series, with Deborah Ann Woll returning as Faye. After her funeral she wakes in an unexpected place, the Everywhen, which the studio describes as an afterlife where gods of many mythologies meet, and fights to protect Kratos and Atreus from there. (First look at God of War Laufey)

It is due on PlayStation 5 on 16 February 2027. (God of War Laufey pre-orders)