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Note: This article is one of a series examining the God Of War game stories in detail:
God of War II and The Sisters Of Fate, Will Kratos Live Happily Ever After?, God Of War: What Were They Thinking?, and God of War III: Empty Gods.

Late last night I finished my replay of God of War in the God of War Collection for the PS3 and I feel I've calmed down enough from the infuriating experience of clawing Kratos up the spiked poles of Hades to be able to talk about my impressions of the story some years after originally playing through it on the PS2.

The core problem I have with it is that I don't fully understand what the gods of Olympus had in mind. Each of them hands over a magical power to Kratos during his journey, and I can't tell why they do it. Ares is terrorizing Athens, which is Athena's problem, and all she does is urge Kratos on to go after Pandora's Box. Poseidon gives him an area of effect lightning attack. Aphrodite lets him use a gorgon's head as a weapon. Zeus hands over the thunderbolt. Even Hades gives him the souls of the dead to command. Given how strong and determined Kratos was, and how effective he had been so far, what did they think he was going to do with those things?

(In case you haven't noticed, there are plot spoilers in this article.)

Did they all believe he wouldn't prevail against Ares? There's no hint that this was high entertainment for them -- the game is far too grim for them to show the gods sitting in bleachers on Olympus cheering and jeering the Ghost of Sparta as he triumphed or experienced brutal setbacks at the hands of any number of minions or, more likely, annoyingly lethal puzzles.

This is my overarching question after this playthrough: what really did they think Kratos would do once he killed Ares? I'm sure they must have known he would take his place on Olympus. Did they think he would be sated by becoming the God of War? If so, they clearly hadn't paid attention to what started Kratos down this brutal and bloody path -- they didn't notice that Kratos was absolutely beside himself with vengeance and rage over succumbing to a blinding drive for great power. More power isn't what Kratos wanted. Even worse, once Kratos understood that only death could release him from his nightmares he was stopped even from doing that by the gods when they elevated him to godhood.

That is not the way to set up a harmonious coexistence with the gods.

In other games we would have the benefit of a surprise side plot or character to jump in and explain away this odd arrangement, but the gods are where the buck stops and while yes, they are always capricious in legends and are far more human-like than not in terms of their petty squabbling and bickering, even through mortal proxies, it doesn't seem to fit that well.

In the end, however, I understand that I'm reading a bit far into what is actually a very strong plot for an all-action game on a console. The fact that it uses my favorite mythology to tell its story is why I continue to read into it when playing, but it serves its purpose of being an excellent setup for a trilogy, one I look forward to finishing soon.