The Other Forums Thread for Other Forums

[TVC15]

https://v.redd.it/0bwgfapgs0n01

[etiolate]

hi FBI

i didnt know

[Optimus]

I'm using a VPN, between this and the hentai shit it seems that all the rest of you motherfuckers are going to prison.

[TVC15]

Oh come on. There’s nothing wrong with that, as long as you’re not keeping it in your Ami folder.

[stufte]

Heh they banned that turd who brought up my job and removed my employment info from my profile.

[EightBitNate]

Heh they banned that turd who brought up my job and removed my employment info from my profile.

You’re welcome

[cosmicblizzard]

Heh they banned that turd who brought up my job and removed my employment info from my profile.

Didn't know the guy was banned, but saw they removed the verified tag from you and thought that was a punishment for not wanting the guy arrested.

[team filler]

Heh they banned that turd who brought up my job and removed my employment info from my profile.

[Transhuman]

Hope it wasn't a perm, that guy deserved a warning at best. Goddam even when the mods do the right thing they fuck up.

[thetylerrob]

You guys really couldn’t fit a (she’s bi) reference into cream’s tag?

[thisismyusername]

Heh they banned that turd who brought up my job and removed my employment info from my profile.

Let this be a lesson to not be BishChecked ever again.

[railGUN]

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/because-feminism-is-about-equality.1461552/page-4#post-253216337

Sounds like you build your views from youtube personalities and other people on the internet who have no idea what the fuck they're talking about.

I'm out of here. It's like trying to argue with 4chan, or r/redpill. Have fun NUgaf, keep congratulating each other for escaping the clutches of the fascist left, while you high five about how much you think feminism is wrong, white people are the real victims of racism, and gamergate was right all along. Keep going to Resetera in between your frequent bans, so you can come back here and call it REEEEEE-set era, and bump elbows with EvilLore who has no choice but to be friends with you, because his website would be fucking dead without you. Real good values being instilled here. Another breeding ground for ignorance that will never reclaim it's former glory.

MazeHaze
Banned

 

[clothedmacuser]

https://www.resetera.com/posts/5821728/

20 pages, because if there's anything that'll get people going, it's having the chance to defend a nazi.

Mrrr, at what best will get a warning.



Meanwhile I get banned a month for telling a guy who was ganged up on, "Forget it, it's Era Town."

[Transhuman]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/police-officer-who-killed-australian-woman-charged-with-murder-and-manslaughter.30897/

Instead of taking this a win for police accountability that may advance the cause for all Americans... it's just a bunch of racist shit.

[Propagandhim]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/police-officer-who-killed-australian-woman-charged-with-murder-and-manslaughter.30897/

Instead of taking this a win for police accountability that may advance the cause for all Americans... it's just a bunch of racist shit.

IMO, this thread exemplifies in the purest form what these people are really about.  Everything else is just pretense.  He wrongfully killed an innocent woman and they immediately go into race.

[etiolate]

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/because-feminism-is-about-equality.1461552/page-4#post-253216337

Sounds like you build your views from youtube personalities and other people on the internet who have no idea what the fuck they're talking about.

I'm out of here. It's like trying to argue with 4chan, or r/redpill. Have fun NUgaf, keep congratulating each other for escaping the clutches of the fascist left, while you high five about how much you think feminism is wrong, white people are the real victims of racism, and gamergate was right all along. Keep going to Resetera in between your frequent bans, so you can come back here and call it REEEEEE-set era, and bump elbows with EvilLore who has no choice but to be friends with you, because his website would be fucking dead without you. Real good values being instilled here. Another breeding ground for ignorance that will never reclaim it's former glory.

MazeHaze
Banned

 

the word glory should sue for defamation

[clothedmacuser]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/police-officer-who-killed-australian-woman-charged-with-murder-and-manslaughter.30897/

Instead of taking this a win for police accountability that may advance the cause for all Americans... it's just a bunch of racist shit.

That post clearly shows that it's unusual for a cop to even get a manslaughter charge let alone a murder charge. 

ERA is great at finding the stats or the racial injustice minorities face but have no fucking clue when it comes to day-to-day operations, logistics, or strategy in the justice system.  It's like having a person who researches the internal bigotry of the military commentating on military tactics and operations. 

[Great Rumbler]

Look how it was worded. Did anyone need to know that she was a life coach? This is how media manipulation works.

 

[clothedmacuser]

Look how it was worded. Did anyone need to know that she was a life coach? This is how media manipulation works.

 

A life coach!?   The most valuable, esteemed and moral of professions?  Had she been a worker at Hungry Jack's this case would have no merit but I will not abide a life coach being murdered.

[TVC15]

I wish I had a life coach. Any one here do that shit for free? We could do daily meetings over Skype. Etiolate?

[etiolate]

yo I ain't teaching any of you fuckers any more until you start paying me

[Transhuman]

I want TVC and I to have a closer relationship

[daycru]

Huh, weird that Shaheed Malik thinks it’s unfair that Mohamed Noor will be potentially held accountable for murdering a white woman. Probably just a coincidence!

[Transhuman]

TVC do you have discord? Can I be your Bernd Jürgen Armando Brandes?

[TVC15]

yo I ain't teaching any of you fuckers any more until you start paying me

How about in soiled undies? You can be the entrepreneur that makes those vending machines work in America.

TVC do you have discord? Can I be your Bernd Jürgen Armando Brandes?

I don’t understand discord.

My feelings on cannibalism... I wouldn’t kill to do it, but if I were visiting somewhere where it’s socially acceptable, like Africa, I’d definitely give it a shot. I don’t think it should be a taboo, but I’m not very interested in it myself. Sorta similar to my stances on bestiality and incest.

[jorma]

yo I ain't teaching any of you fuckers any more until you start paying me

How about in soiled undies? You can be the entrepreneur that makes those vending machines work in America.

TVC do you have discord? Can I be your Bernd Jürgen Armando Brandes?

I don’t understand discord.

My feelings on cannibalism... I wouldn’t kill to do it, but if I were visiting somewhere where it’s socially acceptable, like Africa, I’d definitely give it a shot. I don’t think it should be a taboo, but I’m not very interested in it myself. Sorta similar to my stances on bestiality and incest.

I used to be undecided, but now i know for sure that i will never let you suck on my salami.

[TVC15]

yo I ain't teaching any of you fuckers any more until you start paying me

How about in soiled undies? You can be the entrepreneur that makes those vending machines work in America.

TVC do you have discord? Can I be your Bernd Jürgen Armando Brandes?

I don’t understand discord.

My feelings on cannibalism... I wouldn’t kill to do it, but if I were visiting somewhere where it’s socially acceptable, like Africa, I’d definitely give it a shot. I don’t think it should be a taboo, but I’m not very interested in it myself. Sorta similar to my stances on bestiality and incest.

I used to be undecided, but now i know for sure that i will never let you suck on my salami.

I wouldn’t practice cannibalism or eat dogs or cats unless I was in an environment where it was socially acceptable. You’d be safe.

[Transhuman]

yo I ain't teaching any of you fuckers any more until you start paying me

How about in soiled undies? You can be the entrepreneur that makes those vending machines work in America.

TVC do you have discord? Can I be your Bernd Jürgen Armando Brandes?

I don’t understand discord.

My feelings on cannibalism... I wouldn’t kill to do it, but if I were visiting somewhere where it’s socially acceptable, like Africa, I’d definitely give it a shot. I don’t think it should be a taboo, but I’m not very interested in it myself. Sorta similar to my stances on bestiality and incest.

I used to be undecided, but now i know for sure that i will never let you suck on my salami.

I wouldn’t practice cannibalism or eat dogs or cats unless I was in an environment where it was socially acceptable. You’d be safe.

Unless he was on one of my hunting trips (not as a hunter)

[Transhuman]

Discord is like facebook messenger, irc, and skype rolled into one

[Cream]

Saying the case of that cop getting charged is a “big win for police accountability” is a useless platitude. We’ve done this dance long enough. I’m glad the guy got charged, as I said in that thread. I hate all police. The minority officers no exception. But anyone who can’t see WHY this case out of so many actually has a chance is full of shit.

[Tasty]

Discord is like facebook messenger, irc, and skype rolled into one

So it's three dead ways of communication?

Allo

[jorma]

yo I ain't teaching any of you fuckers any more until you start paying me

How about in soiled undies? You can be the entrepreneur that makes those vending machines work in America.

TVC do you have discord? Can I be your Bernd Jürgen Armando Brandes?

I don’t understand discord.

My feelings on cannibalism... I wouldn’t kill to do it, but if I were visiting somewhere where it’s socially acceptable, like Africa, I’d definitely give it a shot. I don’t think it should be a taboo, but I’m not very interested in it myself. Sorta similar to my stances on bestiality and incest.

I used to be undecided, but now i know for sure that i will never let you suck on my salami.

I wouldn’t practice cannibalism or eat dogs or cats unless I was in an environment where it was socially acceptable. You’d be safe.

I'd still be scared that you'd find my sausage an irresistible morsel feast. Better safe than sorry is what i'm saying.

[TVC15]

yo I ain't teaching any of you fuckers any more until you start paying me

How about in soiled undies? You can be the entrepreneur that makes those vending machines work in America.

TVC do you have discord? Can I be your Bernd Jürgen Armando Brandes?

I don’t understand discord.

My feelings on cannibalism... I wouldn’t kill to do it, but if I were visiting somewhere where it’s socially acceptable, like Africa, I’d definitely give it a shot. I don’t think it should be a taboo, but I’m not very interested in it myself. Sorta similar to my stances on bestiality and incest.

I used to be undecided, but now i know for sure that i will never let you suck on my salami.

I wouldn’t practice cannibalism or eat dogs or cats unless I was in an environment where it was socially acceptable. You’d be safe.

I'd still be scared that you'd find my sausage an irresistible morsel feast. Better safe than sorry is what i'm saying.

Unless it was very mild sausage, you’d still be safe. Sausage is hell on my tummy.

[clothedmacuser]

One thing I like about Era/New GAF is that Labor/Massive Duck C.M. is given no time of day.  They treat him like those guys that say black people came from outer space and are more advanced and settled America before the N/S american natives.

He is a joke they keep around.

Saying the case of that cop getting charged is a “big win for police accountability” is a useless platitude. We’ve done this dance long enough. I’m glad the guy got charged, as I said in that thread. I hate all police. The minority officers no exception. But anyone who can’t see WHY this case out of so many actually has a chance is full of shit.

She's a foreign national from a country we used to have good relations with.  Who even knows how the media in upside down world is spinning it.  It's a international incident.  There is no reason to treat this case as routine.

[jorma]

yo I ain't teaching any of you fuckers any more until you start paying me

How about in soiled undies? You can be the entrepreneur that makes those vending machines work in America.

TVC do you have discord? Can I be your Bernd Jürgen Armando Brandes?

I don’t understand discord.

My feelings on cannibalism... I wouldn’t kill to do it, but if I were visiting somewhere where it’s socially acceptable, like Africa, I’d definitely give it a shot. I don’t think it should be a taboo, but I’m not very interested in it myself. Sorta similar to my stances on bestiality and incest.

I used to be undecided, but now i know for sure that i will never let you suck on my salami.

I wouldn’t practice cannibalism or eat dogs or cats unless I was in an environment where it was socially acceptable. You’d be safe.

I'd still be scared that you'd find my sausage an irresistible morsel feast. Better safe than sorry is what i'm saying.

Unless it was very mild sausage, you’d still be safe. Sausage is hell on my tummy.

I'm Swedish. Of course it's mild. This ain't happening.

[Transhuman]

One thing I like about Era/New GAF is that Labor/Massive Duck C.M. is given no time of day.  They treat him like those guys that say black people came from outer space and are more advanced and settled America before the N/S american natives.

He is a joke they keep around.

Saying the case of that cop getting charged is a “big win for police accountability” is a useless platitude. We’ve done this dance long enough. I’m glad the guy got charged, as I said in that thread. I hate all police. The minority officers no exception. But anyone who can’t see WHY this case out of so many actually has a chance is full of shit.

She's a foreign national from a country we used to have good relations with.  Who even knows how the media in upside down world is spinning it.  It's a international incident.  There is no reason to treat this case as routine.

Was on the news for ages, and multiple Australian investigative journalism shows did reports on the killing.

[TVC15]

yo I ain't teaching any of you fuckers any more until you start paying me

How about in soiled undies? You can be the entrepreneur that makes those vending machines work in America.

TVC do you have discord? Can I be your Bernd Jürgen Armando Brandes?

I don’t understand discord.

My feelings on cannibalism... I wouldn’t kill to do it, but if I were visiting somewhere where it’s socially acceptable, like Africa, I’d definitely give it a shot. I don’t think it should be a taboo, but I’m not very interested in it myself. Sorta similar to my stances on bestiality and incest.

I used to be undecided, but now i know for sure that i will never let you suck on my salami.

I wouldn’t practice cannibalism or eat dogs or cats unless I was in an environment where it was socially acceptable. You’d be safe.

I'd still be scared that you'd find my sausage an irresistible morsel feast. Better safe than sorry is what i'm saying.

Unless it was very mild sausage, you’d still be safe. Sausage is hell on my tummy.

I'm Swedish. Of course it's mild. This ain't happening.

You’d still be safe. I don’t like my dick too white.

[Cream]

yo I ain't teaching any of you fuckers any more until you start paying me

How about in soiled undies? You can be the entrepreneur that makes those vending machines work in America.

TVC do you have discord? Can I be your Bernd Jürgen Armando Brandes?

I don’t understand discord.

My feelings on cannibalism... I wouldn’t kill to do it, but if I were visiting somewhere where it’s socially acceptable, like Africa, I’d definitely give it a shot. I don’t think it should be a taboo, but I’m not very interested in it myself. Sorta similar to my stances on bestiality and incest.

I used to be undecided, but now i know for sure that i will never let you suck on my salami.

I wouldn’t practice cannibalism or eat dogs or cats unless I was in an environment where it was socially acceptable. You’d be safe.

I'd still be scared that you'd find my sausage an irresistible morsel feast. Better safe than sorry is what i'm saying.

Unless it was very mild sausage, you’d still be safe. Sausage is hell on my tummy.

I'm Swedish. Of course it's mild. This ain't happening.

You’d still be safe. I don’t like my dick too white.

yeah me neither

[jorma]

yo I ain't teaching any of you fuckers any more until you start paying me

How about in soiled undies? You can be the entrepreneur that makes those vending machines work in America.

TVC do you have discord? Can I be your Bernd Jürgen Armando Brandes?

I don’t understand discord.

My feelings on cannibalism... I wouldn’t kill to do it, but if I were visiting somewhere where it’s socially acceptable, like Africa, I’d definitely give it a shot. I don’t think it should be a taboo, but I’m not very interested in it myself. Sorta similar to my stances on bestiality and incest.

I used to be undecided, but now i know for sure that i will never let you suck on my salami.

I wouldn’t practice cannibalism or eat dogs or cats unless I was in an environment where it was socially acceptable. You’d be safe.

I'd still be scared that you'd find my sausage an irresistible morsel feast. Better safe than sorry is what i'm saying.

Unless it was very mild sausage, you’d still be safe. Sausage is hell on my tummy.

I'm Swedish. Of course it's mild. This ain't happening.

You’d still be safe. I don’t like my dick too white.

Sure, that's why you spend 4 posts grooming me. Because you don't really want to have a go at my rolled herring. I feel totally safe now.

[TVC15]

yo I ain't teaching any of you fuckers any more until you start paying me

How about in soiled undies? You can be the entrepreneur that makes those vending machines work in America.

TVC do you have discord? Can I be your Bernd Jürgen Armando Brandes?

I don’t understand discord.

My feelings on cannibalism... I wouldn’t kill to do it, but if I were visiting somewhere where it’s socially acceptable, like Africa, I’d definitely give it a shot. I don’t think it should be a taboo, but I’m not very interested in it myself. Sorta similar to my stances on bestiality and incest.

I used to be undecided, but now i know for sure that i will never let you suck on my salami.

I wouldn’t practice cannibalism or eat dogs or cats unless I was in an environment where it was socially acceptable. You’d be safe.

I'd still be scared that you'd find my sausage an irresistible morsel feast. Better safe than sorry is what i'm saying.

Unless it was very mild sausage, you’d still be safe. Sausage is hell on my tummy.

I'm Swedish. Of course it's mild. This ain't happening.

You’d still be safe. I don’t like my dick too white.

Sure, that's why you spend 4 posts grooming me. Because you don't really want to have a go at my rolled herring. I feel totally safe now.

I don’t eat fish. You’d be safe. I hate all seafood. Except calimari.

[I'm a Puppy!]

Wait. Count bukkake is going to jail too? Who is evilore going to hang out with? All his friends keep getting arrested. So what did count do? (Not gonna wade through a bunch of cream and Dennis posts to find out)

[Raist]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/deadpool-2-outscores-original-in-test-screenings-98-out-of-100-mod-edit-read-op.30892/

Holy shit how many posts have been nuked

[Transhuman]

When Australians get killed by jumpy American cops, other Australians care.

And I can honestly say that the fact that the killer wasn't white wasn't mentioned (nor was his picture shown) in the entire 30 minute broadcast I watched, so take your accusations of racial bias and keep them.

[daemon]

I can't discern anymore between thebore and ree because you guys are crossposting, crosslinking, crossincesting and crossing dicks too.

Pls mom help me

 

Also, I like how the guy that got banned for blackmailing (should be called whitemailing in reee, how do I dare to associate black color to something bad) stufte (btw, expect that molerat-looking fucker (probably) to write to your employer because of that ban) pretty much is doing what they all enjoy as a hivemind, he just didn't get he can't openly say it on the forum when it's another member. Flew too close to the sun

[clothedmacuser]

I can't discern anymore between thebore and ree because you guys are crossposting, crosslinking, crossincesting and crossing dicks too.

Pls mom help me

I know of Crossfire (two dicks plastering a face) and friendly fire (same deal but man juice hits another man) but what is this crossing dicks trend?  Tell me mami.

[clothedmacuser]

When Australians get killed by jumpy American cops, other Australians care.

And I can honestly say that the fact that the killer wasn't white wasn't mentioned (nor was his picture shown) in the entire 30 minute broadcast I watched, so take your accusations of racial bias and keep them.

The phrase is "keep your stupid comments in your pocket."

[TVC15]

I can't discern anymore between thebore and ree because you guys are crossposting, crosslinking, crossincesting and crossing dicks too.

Does this help?
 

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

[clothedmacuser]

I can't discern anymore between thebore and ree because you guys are crossposting, crosslinking, crossincesting and crossing dicks too.

Does this help?

(Image removed from quote.)

no hate-o but can we find that man an execute him?

[Raist]

MODS PLS

[daemon]

I can't discern anymore between thebore and ree because you guys are crossposting, crosslinking, crossincesting and crossing dicks too.

Pls mom help me

I know of Crossfire (two dicks plastering a face) and friendly fire (same deal but man juice hits another man) but what is this crossing dicks trend?  Tell me mami.

Crossfur too. 

[Jerry]

[TVC15]

I can't discern anymore between thebore and ree because you guys are crossposting, crosslinking, crossincesting and crossing dicks too.

Does this help?
 

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

no hate-o but can we find that man an execute him?

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

[bork]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/before-the-new-game-comes-out-we-should-remember-kratos-is-a-piece-of-shit.30967/

I remember when I first finished the first God of War game back when it first came out. I was heavy into action games (what you now call character action games, though I don't like that term), ala Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden. They were and arguably still are my favorite genre, so with how good the reviews were for this new game, God of War, I had to try it. I didn't like it very much. Being used to the complex, punishing but rewarding combat of the aforementioned games, I wasn't into what I considered a borderline button masher, and I thought the main character looked stupid and ugly and his character being a shitbagger. Maybe that was my inner weeb at the time, but I never really agreed with the general consensus of Kratos' design being good, but that's a minor point in all the of this. The point is, I remember my exact first thought upon finishing the first game. "Well, I'm glad there's no way this is gonna get popular."

I think my chances of a future in marketing died right then and there.

I always hated Kratos, but I was a kid, and now as a grown adult thinking back to my thought process, I wonder how much of it was a base dislike of Kratos as a character (and to a lesser extent, GoW as a game/franchise) and how much of it was a sheer reaction to the heaps of praise the series has recieved. A large part of it was how upset I was that GoW, the idiotic, banal, mindless action game did better and had more recognition than the likes of DMC or NG, games I considered to be far, FAR superior, or even adventure games like the Prince of Persia trilogy (who I feel surpassed it in story), and...well, that just bugged teenage me who had nothing better to do than bitch about people liking a franchise too much. If the people I argued against were fanboys, I think describing me as an antifanboy would be accurate. If you recognize my name at all, you'll know that I tend to do big analysis posts, like this one will be, and because GoW was such a reccurrent franchise, I've written a lot about it.

And now, the new game is coming out soon. Honestly, it's release kinda snuck up on me. I don't think I've watched any trailer for the new God of War since the last E3 one. I may have started one for the first few seconds, and then I turned it off. That itself is nothing new,  because my obsession with knocking this franchise down a peg comes whenever the fanbase gets too uppity about it. I didn't have much to say on GoW: Ascension (even though I have played it) because not even the fanbase had much to say about it. It was a by the numbers entry mandated by Sony after 3 came out and basically put the franchise to bed and no one really cared, so I didn't. Same deal with the PSP games, which people like, but being on a portable console delegates them to niche entries. But people do care about this new God of War (who I can't identify by specific title because they decided to do the "Oh, lets just reset the name to the first game's name, because why not" thing. Thanks a lot, Santa Monica). I guess I'll play it, sure, if I can ever stop playing Overwatch long enough to do so, but my point is that it's an unusual experience for me to just...not care all that much about the new GoW. Partially specifically because they're trying the new stuff they're trying with Kratos as a character/with the gameplay as shown thus far, which doesn't impress me from what I've seen. But I guess the thing I feel the need to do is recontextualize my feelings on Kratos before moving on to the new Kratos, and that's why this thread exists.

So, the thing about how I feel about Kratos is that I feel people generally fall into 3 catergories with him, atleast in my interactions with people who played him. You got the people who sympathized with him getting screwed over a lot, which intrigued them as he was such an obviously bad guy, but had the whole 'you can really get where he's coming from' angle. There's the people who take offense at his heinousness and don't like him because he's a bad guy. And there's people who don't care about where he falls on the moral spectrum and like him just because he's the embodiment of rage and violence. And that's what always made me feel off-kilter with the fanbase, because I never fell into any of these 3 catergories.

Lets address the second category first. I can definitely understand someone who might just look at the horrible things this guy does and just think it's "too much". Actually, I remember a lot of people doing that in with the third game in particular, where there was a jump in fidelity and Kratos' horrid actions entered a level of graphical detail that was a bit 'too much' for some. And GoW3 is indeed the worst written story of the main trilogy, so maybe people just aren't as forgiving of his actions because they're not as entertained. But I like a LOT of amoral or even outright evil characters, so that can't be the problem. The issue I run into this interpretation is that Kratos is too shallowly written to be called proper evil. The people Kratos does shitty things to are either 'justified' by their antagonism towards him or just incidental. With the incidentals, they're typically bit players who don't have any real impact on anything, like the Ship Captain who Kratos just kills arbitrarily because lulz or like the scholar in 2 that you have to make read the words from the book and then sacrifice to summon the pheonix. This is just a kick the dog moment that is meant for shock value and nothing more. "Ooh, look at bad Kratos is, he does a dick move against someone for no reason, how edgy" The second category are the people who frame Kratos as having a justification, like Ares or Zeus or Gaia. It's often stupid or arbitrary, but I don't think the narrative frames Kratos' killing of Ares as something morally questionable in any sense, even if it's sometimes brutal, like Kratos ripping off Helios' head after he tries to kill and then insults Kratos. People who hate Kratos for his evil actions tend to refer to the incidentals more than the justified because that's the easier to point to as an example of how evil Kratos is. But because those characters tend to be bit players, they don't come off as fundamentally evil so much as just dick moves Kratos does for no meaningful reason, which is just...well, it's one dimensional. They're just there to make you feel bad, but have nothing meaningful to say. There is something to be said about Kratos' dick moves to the people who are larger characters, but that's more complex, because it's not immediately apparant how hypocritical Kratos is, how his rage against Zeus and Ares are both unjustified.

The third set of people is the one that always made me feel off on a level I can't quite explain. See, I am all about empowering fantasies. I think they're a great way to relax and enjoy oneself, and it's often what I enjoy about the action games genre. I remember playing Bayonetta and just marveling at the sheer job that pulling off a complex, stylistic, elegant combo brings. And the game is uniformly designed to enhance that feeling in everything it does. The disconnect I feel when people say Kratos is a power fantasy comes from the base idea that being Kratos would never be a fantasy for me. Maybe that's personal, but let me explain how it all breaks down for me. The gameplay of GoW can be fun, if vastly inferior to games who actually work to have a good combat system like DM or NG or Bayonetta. But there is an inherent disconnect between Kratos' design, his character, and the gameplay for me. Kratos' design has often been praised and remarked upon for perfectly conveying the rage and anger and edginess that the character feels inside, with his big muscles, his perma-grimace, his hulking posture. Sure, I guess I can agree with that, even if I don't like the actual aesthetics of the character. But then you start up the game and he fights...by twirling, spinning, and dancing around like a ballerina. He has this wierd double jump where jerking his legs midair and using presumably flatulence for propulsion. And because everything has to be a QTE, he strains his godlike strength in every action he performs, whether it's a wrasstle with a godlike being or opening a marginally larger than normal door. The fighting was a gameplay decision because his moves needed to be readable even from a long distance because of how the game has a fixed camera, and I can see they were trying to convey a sense of power by having everything he does require his epic strength, but both these things hurt the fantasy of me being a big burly dude who just wrecks shit, because the kind of action I'd expect a guy like Kratos to do is often relegated to QTEs, not gameplay where I am apparently in control of a very angry étoile. I got no idea what the deal is with his fart jumps though or how that animation remained unchanged game to game.

And then there is the group I came into most conflict with, the people who think he has justification. See, it's hard to actually untangle the logic because it's easy to get grouped with the people of catergory 2, but my problem ran deeper, into the actual psychology of Kratos as a character. Also often when people read my criticism, they think I missed the point of how this was a 'greek tragedy' when pointing out how Kratos' actions and reason for those actions were bad, but his humanity is something that we are meant to sympathize. Because, shit, who couldn't sympathize with a guy who not only lost his wife and daughter, but also was the one to do it? Wouldn't that feel horrible? And because Kratos feels horrible, doesn't that mean that we have to feel horrible with him? Isn't that the entire reason that people sympathize with characters who are immoral or amoral, like Walter White or Killmonger and the like, because the pain they feel is so human?

In the hands of a better writer, sure, that may have played out like that. Or maybe the writer was good enough, since apparently it did play out like that for so many, and I happen to be the odd man out. Nevertheless, I feel the structure of the character is sloppy for what it's trying to do and that is why I think it failed to work with me, even though I couldn't articulate the particular reasoning of why until my later years. I think, personally, the thing that can make me hate a character is either a lack of responsibility for their actions, and that's what gets me about Kratos, but the explanation for this begins with the people around Kratos.

Lets start with Ares. Now, Ares is a bad character, both morally and in terms of writing. He's given a token excuse for his actions (daddy doesn't luv me, lets burn sister's city), but is just there to be a dick to Kratos so that Kratos has someone to use as a goal to beat, and because he's a dick, you have people pointing and saying "See? Kratos has issues himself, but he just cause for his revenge against Ares. I mean, look at this guy and what he did. What a dick, right?" Well, sure, yeah, Ares is very one dimensionally a bad guy, I agree there, and his reasoning for killing Kratos' family is pretty heinous, if very stupid. A similar thing can be said of Zeus and Gaia and the rest all doing dickish things to Kratos for flimsy reasons. The thing that always bugged me is how Kratos thinks that Ares betrayed him though. That's the line he uses, and the line that the fans always give. The Gods (Ares, then Athena, then later Zeus, and Gaia, etc) all personally betrayed him.

They didn't. Not even Ares.

The thing is, Kratos characterization is to agree to enter into an allienence, then cry BETRAYAL! when things start going less than his way. When Kratos and Ares made their pact, Kratos agreed to basically be Ares' slave. The thing that always got me about Ares trick in the original game is that Ares never had to trick Kratos in the first place. All he had to do was tell him "Go kill your wife and daughter" and Kratos would be honor bound to obey. Now, that's obviously a human rights violation of epic scale, but it's not like things like human rights were conceived in the fictional realm of Kratos' Greece. And if they were, then Kratos has violated them many times over in his up to then service of Ares where he raged unmitigated, unending, and utterly arbitrary warfare against non-aggressive people just because Ares said so. That is the hypocrisy of Kratos, he only cares about the harm that happens to him, but thinks everything he does is okay, and then gets mad at anyone who takes that same mindset to hurt him. But I digress. My point being is that Ares never violated the terms of his agreement with Kratos. Ares horrible for doing what he did, but Kratos is mad at him for a completely delusional reason. Again, a similar thing happens with Zeus (who apparently Kratos thinks should allow him to disobey him even though Zeus is basically his boss if not his idol, even though attacking cities for no reason is literally the same thing that made Zeus put a hit out on Aresi n the first place) and Gaia (who Kratos feels was obligated to save him even at the cost of her own life, even though it's unlikely Kratos would do the same for her), Kratos gets mad at these characters for pulling dick moves, which he somehow perceives as personal betrayals.

But still, whether Ares betrayed Kratos or not, he lost his wife and daughter man. Wouldn't anyone feel like shit after that? Doesn't that give you reason to sympathize with him?

Well, personally, I have a hard time doing that when I think about all the wives and daughters he's murdered through the years as a day job. It's a distasteful bit of hypocrisy to ask me to be sad that a character feels bad about something he inflicts on others without even thinking about it. But fine, I'll play along. But tell me something first. Can you name Kratos' daughter? If not, it's okay. It's Calliope. She's listed in the manual of the first game. She has an appearance in one of the PSP games where she gets a bit more characterization and I think that's where she gets her name, but there's nothing about her in the actual main trilogy that drives the core of Kratos. And she is lucky compared to Kratos' wife. How about her, do you know her name? If you looked through every bit of information there is in the entirety of every God of War game out there right now, you would have no idea. Her name, Lysandra, was revealed and only used in a comic as far as I know. She has an entry in the first game's manual. It reads "Wife of Kratos: The young and beautiful wife of the Spartan Warrior. When all else feared and worshipped him, she was the only one to brave his fury." Personally, given how Kratos reacts to all other opposition, I genuinely can't imagine how her 'braving his fury' didn't end with her being QTE'd to death, but there is a more interesting point to be made here. "Loved one dies" is a common trope in all stores, but good stories tend to humanize the protagonists relationships with these people so that they can see what they loved about them. Like, in Batman Begins, Thomas Wayne is shown talking to Bruce and teaching him how he loves helping people and how he is getting his mom a string of pearls as a present because he loves her, and then he gets shot, after we learn a bit about him as a person. In contrast, I'm not as into Batman stories that emphasize how bad Bruce feels about losing parents who aren't actually characters, just archtypes of parental idealization. It's just bad storytelling to try and make an audience care about a protagonist's loved one without really going into why they were loved imo, but GoW takes it one step beyond just not getting into it.

Ly-"Wife of Kratos"-Sandra has only a few lines a few seconds of screentime in the first game (aka, the one where she is most prominently featured). Her image appears in a few other places, but they're usually delusions by the gods (Ares doing his illusion thing, Gaia appearing as her in a vision). In GoW, she appears in a flashback, and even that is distorted as if in a fever dream, but otherwise there is no reason to doubt that this was a conversation that she and Kratos actually had. It's interesting that the narrative frames her saying he's a shitty person as 'braving his fury' but again, I digress. My point here is, if you were to go by only what was, to the best of our knowledge, shown by the game of Wife Of Kratos's character, all you'd have is that line, her desperately asking when Kratos is going to stop murdering people with sheer contempt for his selfishness.

I never bought Kratos as a being whose capable of love given that he's basically a sociopath, but, again, narratives often have characters who do the "I am a sociopath to everyone except these people" type stories. I don't usually like them and think they're usually unrealistic, but even so, there is another layer of how Kratos' motives here do not work.

"And if I am able to do this...to kill a god....the visions? They will end?

Consider the wording here. Again, when the game ends, and when GoW2 begins, Kratos is enraged by the 'betrayal' of the gods for 'tricking him' by promising something they literally did not promise, but what intrigues me here is that he is specifically asking for the visions to end. He's tormented by visions and wants them to stop.

Basically, he has the Gods over a barrel and they're willing to give him a blank check to give him anything he damn well pleases. He could ask the gods to make sure his family is happy in the after life. He could ask the gods that he meet his family in the afterlife. Hell, he could ask the gods to bring his family back to life, undo the crime that brought about his torment. But he never thinks of actually fixing the mistake he made, he just wants an escape from the consequences.

Which is the core of why not buy the excuse that Kratos' motives are sympathetic. Yes, he's tormented, but not by guilt, but rather the literal nightmares nightmares he wants the gods to stop. He just wants a good nights sleep, guys, that's all, and that's why he feels the Gods betrayed him even though they actually gave Kratos more than what was agreed upon by granting him Godhood and giving him a place in Olympus. Now, why is he having nightmares if he doesn't feel guilty? Well, that's the part where I say it's bad writing. It'd actually be interesting if this was taken to a consistent conclusion. Hell, I actually like the idea of a twist being that a character like Kratos wouldn't actually care about the murder of his wife and child, and it would be genuinely harrowing to assume that you had this bedrock of humanity in the protagonist you were controlling amist all the horror and having it turn out to be an incorrect presumption.

Instead they try to give him that bedrock of humanity without doing any of the actual work required...characterizing his lost loved one, having some self reflection, taking responsibility for his actions...all the stuff that's actually needed to get where a character like Kratos is coming from. Note that while I haven't been following all the marketing for the new GoW, I do know that the Norse Wife has been featured in a trailer, and this, among other things, is what gets people excited about this new mushy Kratos who actually cares about his wife...because now his wife is going to be an actual character. Presumably, if they actually want to pull of mushy Kratos.

Anyway, the old Kratos was just this cacophany of misaimed rage where he just kept trading one antagonist for another that displeased him for whatever arbitrary reason, and those antagonists were dicks in their own right who had done a dickish thing in Kratos' direction, so Kratos' idiotic hypocrisy was always brushed off. It bugged me that few seemed to consider the psychology of Kratos' behavior and how it didn't lend itself to the 'brutal, but sympathetic at his core' thing that they tried to have going.

And it was never truly acknowledged or dealt with in a meaningful way. If you only look at the original game, you have Kratos taking up the mantle of the God of War, which doesn't solve his actual problem (the nightmares), but it lets him continue kill people as a cosmic entity, and in the bonus materials that he blames the Gods for not giving him an end to the nightmares and has plans to take his 'revenge' for this wrong they'd done him. In GoW2, even though Zeus has normal reasons to stop Kratos' shit, Kratos acts as if this is a betrayal, and Zeus is written to not be stopping Kratos because he's becoming Ares 2.0, but because of father killing son prophecy bullshit. And in the third game, it's revealed that the Gods only did the shit they did because they are all being affected by a Fear Virus as a consequence of opening Pandora's Box, so even though the writers gave Zeus a completely unnecessary motivation of personal hatred in 2, Zeus and the rest of the Gods cannot be held completely responsible for their actions because they've been effectively drugged against their will, knowledge, or consent into mania and paranoia by magic. And Kratos still kills them because vengeance. Because Kratos doesn't care about anything except the fact that he feels personally slighted, however irrational that actually is. And the belief that he's been wronged persists throughout.

And that, I think is whats always rubbed me wrong how Kratos has been percieved in the public eye, not because I can't get behind a character that's too amoral, but that Kratos is much more fucked up than just being a dude who has no problem murdering other people. He invents false narratives to justify his bullshit, and so many don't even see it, perhaps even the writers themselves, including the one of the first game.

So you might think, Okay, fine, Kratos is scum of the highest caliber in the first trilogy. But this new one has Kratos being better, right?

Well, I'm not gonna say much bad about the new game. I haven't played it and I commend that they seem to want to make a more humanized story with this character. My issue is that it's this character. If they were doing a sort of Legend of Zelda thing where this new character was basically Kratos, but not literally the exact same Kratos of the Greek Mythology games, I'd be down and looking forward to a redo of this character archtype guided by a more considerate hand. The problem with using the same Kratos that has been used in the past is that I literally cannot imagine how you'd convince me that they are the same person. Sociopaths don't just develop empathy in their old age, which is what Kratos is, but okay, it's a videogame, not a psychological documentary. But there nevertheless exists the disconnect of how Kratos was before and how Kratos is now. He has a different voice actor, a more stoic persona, a subdued way of acting (again, from the trailers I've seen), and I'm having trouble believing them to be the same character. But if they are...then it's hard for me to buy that Kratos would ever act in the empathetic, subdued way he does now.

Do you remember what his final action before he killed Zeus was? Throughout the third game, you have that ever beloved character Pandora, who is a total stand in for his daughter. She had to burn in the flame of Olympus, which meant she had to die. As she reminded him of his daughter more and more, Kratos eventually at the last minute decided "No, we'll find another way!" In the meantime, Zeus hated and was afraid of Pandora for reasons I genuinely can't remember. Pandora, for her part, wants to die in the flames. There is some kind of gravitational pull toward the flame, and Kratos catches pandora. Pandora is asking Kratos to let go, but Kratos doesn't want to because love displacement. Zeus doesn't want Pandora to go into the flame because...again, don't remember the plot. Here is what I do remember though. Zeus says something like "Don't put her in the flame, you'll fail her like you did your family". And that phrasing, by itself, enrages him so hard that he forgets about Pandora and lets her fall into the flame, which as far as he knows at the time, killed her, so he could punch Zeus a few more times.

That's what I remember. From beginning to end, if something pisses him off, however minor or irrational, he will drop everything, including things he claims to care about like his daughter figure, to go out and murder them.

And I am expected to believe this is the same person who wouldn't in all probability just kill his new child if something pissed him off enough? If the new game has a believable reason for that, I literally cannot imagine what it could be. In all likelihood, they'll just have to ignore the character inconsistency, much like how different comic writers tend to have a different writing styles, so you can have Batman acting all stoic in one book while he's more emotional in another. It's not something that damns the new story or anything, but I just literally cannot imagine how this new, chiller Kratos can believably fit with the old psycho.

[nudemacusers]

More thought about Kratos than the Sony has put into the entire game series 

[Nabbis]

Not even my college essays were this long.

[bork]

I saw that on my phone this morning and couldn't believe how long it took to scroll through the post. 

[HaughtyFrank]

Almost feels like Kratos is being Metooed.
'Hey, I know you're all excited for this new game starring Kratos, but did you know that Kratos actually did a lot of shitty things in the past? Time to call him out!'

[Nabbis]

The story being kinda stupid does align with Greek tragedies as well.

[Uncle]

Almost feels like Kratos is being Metooed.
'Hey, I know you're all excited for this new game starring Kratos, but did you know that Kratos actually did a lot of shitty things in the past? Time to call him out!'

Oh my god he's a lovely duck who drinks milkshakes

[Klelk]

https://www.resetera.com/posts/5828209/

Good, fuck this guy. Zero tolerance for nazism in any form.