When you play a God of War game, you know that some things are inevitable. When God of War Ragnarok launches (hopefully later this year), we all pretty much know for a fact it’s going to have plenty of brutality, plenty of gory violence- and it’s going to be awesome. That’s one of several things God of War has always excelled at, and there’s little doubt in anyone’s mind that Ragnarok will follow suit. By the time the game is done, Kratos will have left a trail of battered corpses behind him, and many characters will have died violent deaths. And sure, some are probably going to be surprising (or we hope they are, at least)- but at the same time, there are some characters that are pretty much guaranteed to die gleefully violent deaths one way or another. Here, we’re going to take a look at a few such characters who’re going to rest in pieces.
THOR
Let’s kick things off with the most obvious choice of the lot, the one name that probably every single one of you instantly thought of the moment we mentioned violent deaths in God of War Ragnarok. Kratos and Thor are on a very obvious collision course. Their clash was teased in God of War (2018), and Ragnarok’s trailer last year made it clear that the two giants are going to butt heads in the most epic way possible (or, well, we’re hoping it’ll be epic- we don’t actually know yet).
Based on everything that’s been said about Thor in 2018’s game, and everything that SIE Santa Monica has said about what he’s going to be like in Ragnarok, it’s clear that he has a love for brutality and merciless violence, and just exerting his power and superiority over others in general. Kratos, meanwhile, is someone who’s no stranger to things such as violence and power either- to say the very least. The fight between these two is going to be a sight to behold, clearly, and already, it’s abundantly clear that there’s going to be no love lost between these two. And when Kratos inevitably emerged victorious, Thor is most definitely going to be little more than a heap of broken bones in a bag of severely punctured flesh.
ODIN
This one’s another obvious pick, but one that definitely bears mentioning. The fight between Kratos and Odin – and there will obviously be a fight between those two – is probably going to be very different from the God of War’s face-off against Thor. While Thor is all about pure, raw, herculean strength, Odin is more about his wits, his seedy manipulations, his cunning intelligence. When Kratos takes him on, things are going to be much less in-your-face than they presumably will be against Thor, and much more cerebral instead.
But when it comes to taking Kratos on in combat, no matter what method one applies, things are bound to end the same- violently. Take his fight with Lakhesis and Atropos, two of the Sisters of Fate, in God of War 2, for instance- they tried to use haunting hallucinations and projections from his past to try and break his mind rather than relying on pure strength, but Kratos’ methods didn’t really need changing. He employed his trademark style of unabashed brutality, and it’s fair to say that things worked out pretty well for them. In all likeliness, a similar fate awaits the All-father in God of War Ragnarok.
FREYA
Freya is probably going to be a reluctant kill for Kratos. Neither he nor Atreus harbour any real ill will towards her- though obviously, the same cannot be said for her. When Kratos killed Baldur towards the end of God of War (2018), she made it perfectly clear that she would do everything in her power to ensure that Kratos died at her hands in the most painful manner possible. She’s clearly hellbent on avenging the death of her beloved son, so even though Kratos might not actually want to kill her, in order to survive, he’s probably going to have to.
And when Kratos kills someone, he doesn’t do it neatly. Again, there’s a chance that, out of respect for Freya and how she helped him and Atreus in the 2018 title, he tries to make her death quick and painless, but if Freya is as relentless and single-minded in her drive to kill Kratos as it looks like she will be, Kratos might be forced to resort to extreme measures. Meanwhile, Freya isn’t exactly on the best of terms with the Aesir either, which means there’s a good chance that someone fighting on Asgard’s behalf ends up killing her. Either way, it’s hard to imagine a scenario where she doesn’t meet a tragic end.
SURTR
This is a potential fight that has God of War written all over it. Surtr is the fire giant that, in Norse mythology, is said to be a key figure in the world-ending event known as Ragnarok, and he is supposed to be instrumental in the destruction of all the realms. Kratos and Atreus are, of course, trying to prevent Ragnarok, so there’s a very, very good chance that they’ll end up locking horns with Surtr at some point. And that would be such a typical God of War boss fight, in terms of scale, and in terms of how it could be framed as a cinematic set-piece.
And if this fight does end up being God of War Ragnarok’s response to the Cronos boss fight in God of War 3, Kratos is obviously going to go all-out in his efforts to bring Surtr down. In fact, that might probably be the only way for him to succeed. Every single time he’s taken on enemies who’re disproportionately larger than him, Kratos has been smart enough to know that he’s going to have to resort to incredibly violent measures and leave nothing to chance. Again, just look at how he dealt with Cronos.
TYR
Tyr might not necessarily die at Kratos’ hand, especially given the fact that, based on God of War Ragnarok’s trailer from September of last year, it seems like the Norse God of War will very much be on Kratos and Atreus’ side. But either way, things are pretty much guaranteed to end poorly for Tyr. There’s every chance that he will have switched allegiances as the game progresses, but even if he hasn’t, he could die in any number of other ways. For instance, Odin clearly has it in for him, and even though he’s kept him prisoner for ages, Kratos’ actions might just force him to put an end to Tyr once and for all.
Of course, in last year’s trailer, it was also very noticeable that Tyr had both his hands. In the Norse myths, Tyr’s hand gets ripped off by the wolf Fenrir, who is one of Loki’s sons (who, in the God of War universe, is Atreus). If Ragnarok sticks to that, that might suggest that Atreus and Tyr will be on opposing sides at some point in the game, which means that he will very much be in Kratos’ crosshairs. A tag-team combination of Fenrir, Atreus, and Kratos – grandson, son, and father – teaming up to brutally kill Tyr would be quite a sight to behold.
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