an appalling, self-righteous, insecure act of apologia for a generation of emotionally distant fathers that characterises motherly love and affection as smothering, manipulative, and toxic, whilst characterising casual emotional neglect and abuse as Good, Actually.
god of war 4 is just as sexist as the earlier games in the series, it's just more crypto about it, and the vast swathes of people taken in by this completely surface-level nuance baffles me to a degree not seen since DmC: Devil May Cry was hailed as the "more mature" reboot that series needed despite the existence of a literal sniper-rifle abortion scene and the fact that every single female character in it was called "whore" ad nauseum.
the "one take" gimmick is just that: a total gimmick, adding absolutely nothing to the story and in many ways detracting from it. the staccato nature of this journey, of going up and down the same mountain and teleporting all over the place is only made more absurd by the camera framing this as an uninterrupted trek which it clearly is not.
also it plays like ass and you fight the same boss twenty times. i hope you like that animation of kratos slamming a big pillar down on an ogre because you're going to see it an awful lot.
EDIT: removed a shitty joke.
god of war 4 is just as sexist as the earlier games in the series, it's just more crypto about it, and the vast swathes of people taken in by this completely surface-level nuance baffles me to a degree not seen since DmC: Devil May Cry was hailed as the "more mature" reboot that series needed despite the existence of a literal sniper-rifle abortion scene and the fact that every single female character in it was called "whore" ad nauseum.
the "one take" gimmick is just that: a total gimmick, adding absolutely nothing to the story and in many ways detracting from it. the staccato nature of this journey, of going up and down the same mountain and teleporting all over the place is only made more absurd by the camera framing this as an uninterrupted trek which it clearly is not.
also it plays like ass and you fight the same boss twenty times. i hope you like that animation of kratos slamming a big pillar down on an ogre because you're going to see it an awful lot.
EDIT: removed a shitty joke.
19 Comments
Actually apologies, i do see one thing you point out. I think the sexist bit is completely fair, and in general character roles are so extremely gender conforming that the game never avoids being a “dad game” in energy, even if I feel and read textually that it isn’t just that.
Ok actually one last thing. Bringing in Balrog’s kid in this is mad fucking scummy. Seriously douchey, especially when your argument is that the game is apologia for the creator here. Mad implications there, more toxic than anything you say the game is implying
Haven't played the game, but I feel like bringing up the dev's kid is going too far, even if it's just a mean-spirited joke.
Appreciate the removal of the bad joke. Don't have any problems with the review otherwise ^^
reposted this comment because it was filled with typos and backloggd doesn't let you edit anything. whoops. sorry about that.
not my intention to do any "gaslighting", if you don't see something in something that's cool. i apologise if it came off like I was "gaslighting" anyone.
my take for why the game is ultimately sympathetic of Kratos' parenting is summed up in the contrast between how it frames him and freya, particularly the latter. her son, Balder is portrayed as so far gone that he simply must be put down for his own good and everyone else's. this is because Freya cast an enchantment on him as a child that robbed him of the ability to feel anything. i think the metaphor here is obvious.
while sympathising with what she sets out to do at first, the game from the jump frames her actions as misguided and wrong, and it ends with kratos killing Balder and Freya swearing vengeance upon Kratos. while kratos is afforded the space to grow and change and become a better person, freya has none. her son is dead, with her own actions explicitly being pointed to as the reason that had to happen, while Kratos and Atreus get to say goodbye to a loved one and talk about how much they've both changed.
kratos' neglectful, emotionally abusive parenting "style" is given far more sympathy. atreus' growth is positive over the course of the game, and the game definitely wants us to think that Kratos, by the end, has had a positive influence on Atreus. remember, he's the one that talks atreus down from his bizarre god complex. atreus can grow. balder can not. when such explicit parallels are made between kratos and freya, between atreus and balder, and one ends up having his neck snapped in a mercy killing and the other ends having Grown As A Person, how am I supposed to take that in any way other than Kratos' parenting is superior?
the only other female character of any import in the game is Atreus' mother, who is strongly implied to have been some kind of manipulative mastermind who sired and raised Atreus to be some kind of weapon against the norse pantheon, with there being a question mark over whether she even actually cared about Kratos or Atreus beyond this plan. which is. uh. definitely a Choice for the only other mother in the game.
on the cory barlog's kid joke, yeah, it was shitty. stand by the sentiment that I find Cory Barlog's conception of parenthood deeply concerning but there's no need to invoke anyone else there. sorry about that. let my anger for this game drive me too much there.
not my intention to do any "gaslighting", if you don't see something in something that's cool. i apologise if it came off like I was "gaslighting" anyone.
my take for why the game is ultimately sympathetic of Kratos' parenting is summed up in the contrast between how it frames him and freya, particularly the latter. her son, Balder is portrayed as so far gone that he simply must be put down for his own good and everyone else's. this is because Freya cast an enchantment on him as a child that robbed him of the ability to feel anything. i think the metaphor here is obvious.
while sympathising with what she sets out to do at first, the game from the jump frames her actions as misguided and wrong, and it ends with kratos killing Balder and Freya swearing vengeance upon Kratos. while kratos is afforded the space to grow and change and become a better person, freya has none. her son is dead, with her own actions explicitly being pointed to as the reason that had to happen, while Kratos and Atreus get to say goodbye to a loved one and talk about how much they've both changed.
kratos' neglectful, emotionally abusive parenting "style" is given far more sympathy. atreus' growth is positive over the course of the game, and the game definitely wants us to think that Kratos, by the end, has had a positive influence on Atreus. remember, he's the one that talks atreus down from his bizarre god complex. atreus can grow. balder can not. when such explicit parallels are made between kratos and freya, between atreus and balder, and one ends up having his neck snapped in a mercy killing and the other ends having Grown As A Person, how am I supposed to take that in any way other than Kratos' parenting is superior?
the only other female character of any import in the game is Atreus' mother, who is strongly implied to have been some kind of manipulative mastermind who sired and raised Atreus to be some kind of weapon against the norse pantheon, with there being a question mark over whether she even actually cared about Kratos or Atreus beyond this plan. which is. uh. definitely a Choice for the only other mother in the game.
on the cory barlog's kid joke, yeah, it was shitty. stand by the sentiment that I find Cory Barlog's conception of parenthood deeply concerning but there's no need to invoke anyone else there. sorry about that. let my anger for this game drive me too much there.
Apologies again, I used gaslighting in too strong a tense and I was saying that as an aside to a phenomenon online where it felt like everyone around me in certain spheres were pushing me that this game is x. You were and are completely fine there.
I think your framing of events here mostly aligns with what I've experienced, but I don't agree with parts. Freya isn't portrayed as misguided and wrong initially, and in fact Kratos pulls Atreus aside after the fight to explain to his face that he would've actually done the same in her shoes. Which I think is a p good point against the idea that it's just a matronly clause that pushes Freya into anything. In other words, it's more demonstrative that Freya is a dramatic parallel, where one has to grow for the other to be juxtaposed against. I don't think I disagree though, in that considering this is like the only strong woman rep in an extremely cishet game that I get now going "what the absolute fuck", but I have to conclude differently. Only on the framing though, the neck snap part with Baldur is such an extremely messy plot point and you're right, I think. So I see it less as Kratos having a 'better parenting style' and rather one finds a way to atone, and the other couldn't. And I don't think that's a poor juxtaposition and instead works for the themes of parenthood for the story, despite the messiness.
That being said I have to hammer against the idea of Atreus's mother there, like that's very much not the point of her. There's nothing that hints at her trying to create a weapon, the whole thing with keeping him for a prophecy indicates a break in storytelling and everything up to that point in the story gives NOTHING but respect to this mom for being probably the only good parent in this universe (Kratos even at the end can only apologize to her for fucking things up). Granted, this puts some onus on the sequel to develop this further because while I don't see how you came to that conclusion it legit COULD be further in the story and that's already fucked up enough to consider.
I appreciate you removing the joke and moreso that I didn't come off as some aggressive jerk pushing back haha, because I was worried about discussing this. Thank you for responding, genuinely
I think your framing of events here mostly aligns with what I've experienced, but I don't agree with parts. Freya isn't portrayed as misguided and wrong initially, and in fact Kratos pulls Atreus aside after the fight to explain to his face that he would've actually done the same in her shoes. Which I think is a p good point against the idea that it's just a matronly clause that pushes Freya into anything. In other words, it's more demonstrative that Freya is a dramatic parallel, where one has to grow for the other to be juxtaposed against. I don't think I disagree though, in that considering this is like the only strong woman rep in an extremely cishet game that I get now going "what the absolute fuck", but I have to conclude differently. Only on the framing though, the neck snap part with Baldur is such an extremely messy plot point and you're right, I think. So I see it less as Kratos having a 'better parenting style' and rather one finds a way to atone, and the other couldn't. And I don't think that's a poor juxtaposition and instead works for the themes of parenthood for the story, despite the messiness.
That being said I have to hammer against the idea of Atreus's mother there, like that's very much not the point of her. There's nothing that hints at her trying to create a weapon, the whole thing with keeping him for a prophecy indicates a break in storytelling and everything up to that point in the story gives NOTHING but respect to this mom for being probably the only good parent in this universe (Kratos even at the end can only apologize to her for fucking things up). Granted, this puts some onus on the sequel to develop this further because while I don't see how you came to that conclusion it legit COULD be further in the story and that's already fucked up enough to consider.
I appreciate you removing the joke and moreso that I didn't come off as some aggressive jerk pushing back haha, because I was worried about discussing this. Thank you for responding, genuinely
there's so much wrong with the neck snap part that that could be like some 6 minute youtube video. Like literally the lesson before that fight is a whole demonstrative point to Kratos that he doesn't have to kill and then he just goes and does that the next thing. How did that pass the editing board lol???
my memories of the game aren't strong enough to point to the exact lines that gave that impression that she may not have loved Kratos and Atreus but between Atreus' mum's distate for the gods, her telling Kratos to cut down the trees that let Balder find him, and the whole journey in general being designed to force a confrontation between the aesier and the two, not to mention Atreus' role in Ragnarok (which she has foretold) definitely indicates to me that she does have some manipulative plan for her son. however I've not played the game recently enough to say for certain so I'll trust your judgement on that read
very much in agreement w this review and appreciate your thoughts, although i get why others might be more generous with the story than me! personally just find order/chaos and nurture/discipline to be such limiting frameworks by which to archetype-ify the complex experiences of parentage (especially when gendered so explicitly lmao) and any writer who represents something as beautiful and devastating as family by having characters basically just be literal 1 to 1 ciphers for these contrived traits is very uninteresting, whether they're affording their grisly cartoon cutouts an empathetic lens or not! that paired w the obnoxious prestige gravitas and frankly fugly overall presentation was really the death knell of this game 4 me
i also have a vendetta against Barlog after watching that noclip half life documentary he constantly ruins by chiming in w/ the most insipid screenwriting class fundamentals vocabulary in this totally detached way ("the way the inciting incident is established in the first act, it's remarkable" etc.) honestly a totally artless simp idiot imho
cory barlog is on the record saying this game was inspired by his time working at lucasfilm where he got to read the scripts for the cancelled palpatine origin story show where the emperor would become evil because a "fucking heartless woman" was mean to him and "destroyed him as a person" and that was the most mind-blowing thing he had ever experienced and reading those scripts made him cry and that's all i've ever needed to know about cory barlog lmao
i'd rather he cory barlog less tbh
Twitter moment
absolutely twitter moment, this is just fucking sad
Cringe...
Based
DELETED
4 months ago
Deleted
how this got 71 likes bro this is just sad
LunaEndlessWitch
3 years ago
What exactly about Kratos’s parenting is even slightly portrayed as “good, actually”? The whole game very clearly frames both Kratos and Freya as AWFUL parents who are both desperately attempting to atone for the fuck ups they’ve done to this point. I’m against this idea that it’s at all about fatherhood specifically, but that it’s about parenthood in general. Freya is portrayed to be sympathetic and understandable on how she got to the point she is, not toxic. Kratos is demonstrably called out by the whole world by the ills he’s done, and his arc is learning to understand that. He is responsible for most of the conflicts that arise, textually and subtextually. When Kratos and Freya are pitted in parallel the understanding isn’t “well Kratos is much better” as this take is bizarrely implying, but that Kratos still lacks the emotion and emotional understanding to meet with his child halfway at all, and instead shows that Atreus is more trusting of her in that very moment than Kratos is of her. Neither two characters are subjected to having “less” extensively rocky arcs, albeit the ending is a bit messy. So I don’t get it. I feel like I need explanation here because I don’t see any of this.