Pandora's Box: the power to kill a god

Pandora's Box was the artifact forged by Hephaestus, at the order of Zeus, to contain the Evils born of the Great War. Hidden within the Flame of Olympus and guarded across an age, it granted the power to slay a god to whoever opened it. Kratos sought it twice in his wars against the gods, and what it unleashed shaped the doom of Mount Olympus itself. (God of War (2005); God of War III)

Forging and the Flame of Olympus#

Pandora's Box was created by Hephaestus, by order of Zeus, to contain the Evils that had been created in the wake of the Great War. When Hephaestus understood that no mere metal could hold such power, he forged the Box from something greater than the gods themselves: the Flame of Olympus. The Flame was as lethal as it was beautiful, killing all who dared touch it, and so it made the perfect safeguard for the Box. (God of War III)

The key to pacifying the Flame was a child Hephaestus made from the Flame itself, named Pandora. Knowing Zeus would take her from him, Hephaestus tricked the king of the gods into believing that the safest hiding place for the Box was the back of the Titan Cronos, thereby saving Pandora and condemning Cronos to an age of agony. The brilliant architect Pathos Verdes III was then tasked with building a temple to house the Box, ensuring none could reach it. Over time the architect descended into madness, and the puzzles of Pandora's Temple grew ever more vicious before he took his own life. (God of War (2005); God of War III)

The death of Ares#

Many would-be heroes and treasure seekers fell to the traps of the temple seeking the Box, but only Kratos claimed it, having sought it as the means to kill Ares. No sooner had he found it than Harpies stole it away, and Ares himself struck Kratos down. The fallen god then chained the Box to his own wrist and threatened to loose it upon Mount Olympus. (God of War (2005))

Kratos returned from the Underworld with the help of a mysterious Grave Digger and reclaimed the Box from Ares. At last he opened it and drew upon its power, gaining strength like that of a god, growing in size, and meeting Ares on equal ground. With that power he killed Ares with the Blade of the Gods. Yet the role of the Box was not ended, for its power would continue to rest within Kratos even after he became the new God of War. The full road to that moment, from Athens to the temple on the Titan's back, is set out in the God of War (2005) plot summary. (God of War (2005))

The corruption of the gods#

Unknown to Kratos, the opening of the Box had grave consequences for Greece. The Evils of the Great War escaped and infected the gods, inflating their worst traits to all-consuming levels. Zeus himself fell prey to Fear, which drove him to a paranoid obsession with killing Kratos out of dread that he would be overthrown, as his own father had been. The other Olympians, from Poseidon and Hades to Hermes, Helios, Hercules and Aphrodite, were corrupted in turn, and even Athena proved hungry for power by the end. (God of War III)

Zeus, in his Fear, beat Hephaestus to learn how Kratos had reached the Box, and so discovered Pandora's role as the key to the Flame of Olympus, the safest hiding place of all. He took Pandora from her father, crippled the Smith God, and left him to suffer in the Forge. This corruption set the stage for the war to come, as Zeus' fear of Kratos drove him to strike first, and Kratos in turn was driven to seek vengeance upon the king of the gods. (God of War III)

The empty Box and the power of Hope#

Pandora's Box stood at the center of Kratos' final war, for he sought it again to gain the power to kill Zeus and destroy Olympus. He found the Box set within the Flame of Olympus, and was told by Athena to seek out Pandora to calm the Fires. After much bloodshed Kratos succeeded in dispelling the Flame, sacrificing Pandora in the process, only to find the Box empty. Zeus mocked him for another failure, but the revelation only deepened his rage. (God of War III)

The truth came out at the end. Athena disclosed that long before, when Zeus gathered the Evils into the Box, she had placed within it the most powerful weapon in the world, the power of Hope, to counter the Evils should it ever be opened again. When Kratos first opened the Box to kill Ares, he had in truth drawn upon Hope rather than the Evils, but the power had lain trapped beneath his hatred, guilt, and the failures of his past. In his final confrontation, as Zeus' spirit attacked his mind and forced him to relive his every sin, Kratos withdrew into his own psyche, was guided by the spirit of Pandora, and at last absolved himself. With Hope freed, he used it to kill Zeus for good, then impaled himself on the Blade of Olympus and released Hope to Greece, completing the escape of every power once held within Pandora's Box. (God of War III)

The nature of its powers#

According to Athena and Hephaestus, the Box held all the Evils of the world, created in the wake of the Great War, and Athena warned that those Evils, left unchecked, could destroy the world of both mortals and gods. Alongside the power to slay a god, the Box granted whoever opened it abilities beyond mortal kind, including a dramatic increase in size. With both the Evils and Hope at last released, the survivors of the second Titanomachy were left to rebuild their civilization without the gods, while Hope gave them the strength to do so. (God of War (2005); God of War III)