Titans: the elder gods Zeus cast down

The Titans were the second generation of Greek deities, who ruled the cosmos before the Olympians and after the Primordials. Born on the Island of Creation to Gaia the Earth and Ouranos the Sky, they reigned through the Golden Age under their king Cronos until Zeus and his siblings overthrew them and banished them to Tartarus. Ages later, guided by Gaia, they answered the call of Kratos and marched against Olympus one final time. (God of War II; God of War III)

Birth on the Island of Creation#

Hesiod counts twelve elder Titans, the children of Gaia and Ouranos, and in God of War their roots lay on the Island of Creation, home to the Sisters of Fate. Their father ruled with growing tyranny, and the Titans came to stand for parts of the young cosmos: the Sun and Moon, divine law and order, and finally the youngest, Cronos, who would one day seize his father's throne. (Theogony; God of War II)

The Titans were tolerated by their father on the face of the Earth, unlike their elder brothers the Elder Cyclopes and the Hecatonchires, whom Ouranos banished into the primordial abyss for their hideousness. (Theogony)

The Golden Age#

Under the rule of the Titans came the Golden Age. Atlas remembered it as a time of peace and prosperity for mankind, and Hesiod tells of a golden race of mortals who lived at ease in the days of Cronos and became kindly spirits when they died rather than passing into the dark Underworld. The Titans ruled over the cosmos and its domains, the vast Oceanus reigning over the seas and the beaming Hyperion presiding over the Sun. Many younger Titans, among them Perses, Atlas, and Helios, were born and took their place in the divine order. (God of War II; Works and Days; Theogony)

But it was prophesied that Cronos, like his own father before him, would be overthrown by his children. He gifted the Sisters of Fate the Steeds of Time, yet they refused to alter his destiny, and so he devoured each child his wife Rhea bore him. Unable to bear a sixth loss, Rhea hid the infant Zeus away and gave Cronos a stone wrapped in cloth in his place. Raised in secret by Gaia, Zeus came of age, freed his swallowed siblings, and the Great War began. (God of War II; Theogony)

The Great War and the downfall#

The war for supremacy of the cosmos lasted for centuries of brutal combat that forged the mortal world itself. The Titans loyal to Cronos were led by the general Atlas, with the five elder brothers of Cronos and many of their children standing beside their king. Several Titans, however, betrayed their kin and joined the Olympians, among them Prometheus and Helios. The Olympians grew stronger as they fought, and Zeus freed the Elder Cyclopes and Hecatonchires from Tartarus to aid him. (God of War II; God of War II (novel); Theogony)

In the final battle the Titans made a last desperate assault but could not break the Olympian lines. As Hades moved to consume the soul of Cronos, Atlas saved his king by hurling rocks and was captured in his place. Zeus then channeled the Heavens, the Earth, the Seas, and the Afterlife with his own blood and lightning to forge the Blade of Olympus, and with its power he cast the Titans into the foulest pit of the Underworld, Tartarus. The Golden Age had ended. (God of War II)

Imprisonment in Tartarus#

In Tartarus the Titans were stripped of their domains and divine power so that they could never escape, and Hephaestus forged the Gauntlet of Zeus to bind them to its walls. Cronos was condemned to wander the Desert of Lost Souls with Pandora's Temple chained to his back until the wind and sand tore at his flesh. The storm Titan Typhon was sealed within a mountain, and on that same mountain the defector Prometheus was bound to have his liver devoured each day by an eagle for the crime of giving fire to mankind. Atlas was later chained by Kratos beneath the world, made to bear it upon his shoulders. Those who had sided with Zeus, such as Helios, were instead accepted into the new Olympian pantheon. (God of War: Chains of Olympus; God of War (2005); God of War II)

Alliance with Kratos#

Long after, when Kratos was being dragged to the Underworld, Gaia saved him and set him on the path to destroy Zeus. The Spartan gathered power from the imprisoned Titans: he blinded Typhon and took his bow, burned Prometheus into the Fires of Olympus to claim the Rage of the Titans, received Cronos' Rage from the wandering king, and gained the Atlas Quake and knowledge of the Great War from Atlas. Within the volcano outside Atlantis he also freed the Titaness Thera. After defeating the Sisters of Fate, Kratos severed the threads of the Titans with the Spear of Destiny and traveled back to the final minutes of the Great War. He saved the Titans from banishment and carried them into his own time, where together they climbed Mount Olympus to bring down the Olympians. (God of War II; God of War: Ghost of Sparta)

The end of the Titans#

The assault on Olympus turned to ruin for both sides. The Olympians met the Titans on the mountain: Hades dislodged Oceanus, and Poseidon leapt down to blast through Epimetheus and pull other Titans into the sea before Kratos and Gaia slew him. When Zeus blasted Kratos and Gaia from the mountain, Gaia abandoned the Spartan, revealing that he had only ever been her pawn, and the Titans became his enemies as much as the Gods. In the war that followed, Helios was crushed by Perses, Perses himself was hurled from the mountain by Kratos, and the wandering Cronos was slain in Tartarus when Kratos cut his way out of the Titan's belly. At the last, Gaia returned to interrupt the final duel between father and son, and Kratos killed her by driving the Blade of Olympus through Zeus and into her heart. With Gaia's destruction the Titans were all but ended, only Atlas certainly left alive, still holding the world upon his shoulders. (God of War III)

Nature and powers#

The Titans were as large as mountains and mostly elemental in form, ancient and primal where the Olympians appeared more human, though a few such as Rhea, Prometheus, Eos, and Helios looked more godlike in stature. All of them possessed superhuman strength, stamina, durability, immortality, and the power to heal. Many embodied and manipulated the element of their domain, Oceanus wreathed in water and Perses covered in lava, and they held awareness over the events occurring within their element, as Gaia watched over the deeds of Kratos from afar. After their defeat in the Great War they were dispossessed of these divine powers and domains so that they could never break free of their prisons. (God of War III; God of War II (novel))