Hey everyone, welcome back to Mythology Explained and PART 2 of the story of Kratos.
Sometime during Kratos’ 10 years of service, Olympus sent him to defend the city of Attica,
which was being assailed by the Persian army. Kratos smashed the army, slayed the pet basilisk,
and killed the Persian king. Following these heroics, Kratos sees the sun fall out of the sky
and drop into a world of shadow. Without the sun blazing in the sky, there was nothing constraining
the god of dreams, Morpheus, whose black fog now blanketed the land and put many of the gods to
sleep. Kratos was tasked with finding Helios, for only the Sun God’s light could free the world from
Morpheus’ dark hold. Kratos found Helios’ sister, Eos, who revealed that the Titan Atlas abducted
her brother. Kratos was then counseled to seek the Primordial Fires, for only with them would
he be able to awaken the fire steeds of Helios, who, in turn, could take Kratos to the underworld.
Having transcended the mortal plane and entered the underworld, Kratos located and confronted
Persephone, who tempted Kratos into abandoning his quest to reunite with his daughter’s spirit,
but Kratos learned of Persephone’s true plan, which was for Atlas to harness Helios’ power
and destroy the Pillar of the world, which would end Olympus and the underworld with it.
Kratos deduced that an end to the underworld would spell an end for his daughter’s spirit,
so he mustered the resolve to leave his daughter and put an end to Persephone’s plan,
which was her grand revenge against Zeus for her being relegated to the underworld
and being saddled with Hades as a husband. Kratos kills Persephone and chains Atlas to
the Pillar of Creation, forcing him to hold up the weight of the world. He then flies
the Sun Chariot back into the sky, driving back Morpheus’ darkness and containing it once again.
The next glimpse we get into Kratos’ 10 years of servitude to Olympus was his quest to Kill Ares,
who, out of jealousy and hatred of Athena, waged war against Athens, going so far as to descend
to the mortal plane and personally attack it. Athena was the patron goddess of Athens,
so this attack was one of the most insulting and hostile transgressions Ares could commit.
And to make matters worse, Zeus forbade Athena from retaliating so as to forestall a sundering
of Olympus through all out war amongst the gods. Kratos is enlisted to move against
Ares on Olympus' behalf. He fights his way to the Oracle of Athens, where he learns that his only
chance to kill Ares is to find Pandora’s box, a mythical artifact of the ancient past that
can grant god-killing power to whoever opens it. Kratos traverses the Desert of Lost Souls
and then blows a huge horn to summon Cronus, who, after being defeated in the Great War,
was condemned to an eternity of crawling around a desert with a colossal temple chained to his back.
Kratos tirelessly climbs up the side of Cronos’ behemoth bulk for three days,
until he reaches the temple's entrance. The temple, which is riddled with every doom and
danger imaginable, an endless supply of vicious magical monsters, and enough mind-melting puzzles
to crack a person’s brain 10 times over, was built to safeguard Pandora’s box, so Kratos fights his
way through and becomes the first mortal to successfully navigate all of its challenges.
Kratos uses the god-like power that rushed into him when he opens the box to kill Ares, but to his
dismay, his reward did not amount to the solace he so desperately desired. The gods forgave his sins,
but his memories remained, for no man nor god could ever forget the horrors he unleashed.
Now dejected and devoid of the will to live, Kratos climbed to the bluffs overlooking the
Aegean Sea and dove in, for he now understood that only the finality of death could cure his
mind and put an end to his suffering. He plunged into the sea after plummeting through the air,
but this was not to be his end. Such great service could not go unrewarded. Kratos
wasn’t allowed to perish. He was plucked from the sea and born aloft back to solid ground
where he was made the new god of war, replacing the god he had killed with his own hands.
And that’s it for part 2! Stay tuned for part 3 coming soon which will continue the story
of Kratos. If you enjoy the content please LIKE the video and SUBSCRIBE to the channel.