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In this podcast episode, the hosts discuss the similarities and differences between the two recent God of War games, which are based on Norse mythology. They talk about the storylines of the games, the characters, and how they are portrayed. They also mention the parallels between the game and the actual Norse mythology, such as the death of the character Baldur. At the end of the episode, they reveal that the main character Atreus is actually the Norse god Loki. All right, let's get started. Here for our Scandinavian podcast, I'm Zach, I'm joined by... I'm Austin. And I'm Dylan. And today we'll be talking about two most recent God of War games, but just to quickly loosen and lighten things up before that, just how are you guys feeling today? I'm feeling great. We had a class earlier, we had to discuss it in front of the whole class, it was great. Yeah, last class of the term, too. Last class of the term, gave him some good feedback, I think this class was definitely interesting and I'm definitely excited to take more in the future, especially since we took Saga, Zach, with him last term. Today we're going to talk about the similarities and differences between God of War 2018 and God of War Ragnarok and Norse Mythology, using Norse Mythology as a kind of lens through these games and see similarities, differences, and what we like, didn't like within the games and how they portrayed their characters to kind of give their audience a game that they can understand and obviously portray Kratos, the hero, as the good guy and the God as the bad guy. Yeah, the reboots of the original franchise were all centered around Greek Mythology, but two new games came out recently and they're introducing Norse Mythology, and so we want to focus on those two games today, and so Austin, do you want to give us, start off with a short summary of kind of the first game? Yeah, so the first game, I believe if you've played Professor, we have all played as well. First game, it starts with, we see Kratos, who now has a son named Atreus, having a funeral for their now dead wife and mother, Fae, Fae who's a giant in this game, but is a God in Norse Mythology. They have a funeral for her, they burn her on a pyre, and then collect her ashes, and then her final wish is to have her ashes spread on the highest peak in all the realms. So that means Kratos and Atreus now have to go on this father-son journey where they're very distant from each other, you know, Kratos is very cold, stern in the beginning, but eventually starts to learn and love Atreus like a real son, and starts to be a real father figure, which he wasn't in the past when Fae was still alive. So then they start their journey, but before they start their journey, they're attacked by Balder, a Norse God, and Kratos and him have this big fight in the beginning, you know, it's the first big fight scene in the game, and despite Kratos' best efforts, he's unable to harm him, and really just has a hard time beating him, and almost even gets hurt by him. Then we fast forward later in the game, they meet Freya, Freya another Norse God, and she helps them along their journey, she's a little bit of an ally, but later in the story it's revealed that she's the mother of Balder, and the ex-wife of Odin. Then again, she helps them on their journey, but she's very hesitant to provide any real insight or any real help to them, because, you know, obviously Balder is her son, and Kratos has this huge rivalry with him in the game. Then we fast forward to around the middle of the game, and Kratos and Atreus reach the highest peak in Midgard in the game, where they meet Myr, who is tied to a tree, and is only, or his body is tied to a tree, and they cut off his head. Yeah, so just touching upon Myr here, in Norse mythology, he is an exceptionally wise being, who is considered a counselor for the gods, they consult him often. Looking at mythology, there is conflicting reports as to whether he's a giant or a seer god, so not totally sure fully what he is on that, but still in mythology he was killed by Vanir during the Aesir-Vanir war, Odin found his head and preserved it using various magical chants and special herbs, and he would then carry around just the head that of Vanir, carry it around and consult it time to time when he needed expertise, serious advice, or how to just continue with what's going on. In the game, Vanir's head is actually chopped off at the order of Odin, in which case the head is then subsequently planted on a tree for humiliation, as Austin just touched upon. Yeah, and we kind of see the parallel from mythology to God of War here, when Mimir, once Kratos and Atreus come upon it, they take the head off and they use it as a companion, and like Odin used Mimir in mythology for his wisdom and for his health, Kratos did the same thing. So once they rescue him and they continue their journey, they realize that even though they've reached the highest peak in Midgard, this isn't what was meant for, this isn't where they wanted to spread the ashes. They realize they have to go to Jotunheim, which is the realm of giants, and so they start off on that adventure. And once Odin realizes this, he is hellbent on stopping this from happening for reasons that we are not sure, like we don't know at this point in the game, and so he starts to send more Norse gods after Kratos and Atreus to stop them. So this time he sends Modi and Magni, who are Thor's sons, and there's this massive fight between the four of them, where eventually Kratos and Atreus manage to kill both of them, and at this point, this is the first time they've ever killed Norse gods, and it marks a huge step in their journey. Once they've killed them, they travel throughout some of the other nine realms collecting evidence and finding out how they can get to Jotunheim, and right before they find passage to Jotunheim, they run into Balder one more time. Right before they run into Balder, they meet his mother Freya, and after getting mistletoe from these dwarves within their journey, Freya very loosely hints that this mistletoe they possess could maybe hurt Balder, and they don't realize this until their final encounter with him, where he is cut by the mistletoe, and Kratos finally, you know, realizes, oh, I can hurt Balder. So him and Atreus, much to, you know, Freya's, like, Freya tried to stop them, but she gets subdued and they use the mistletoe and ultimately kill Balder with the mistletoe and gain that safe passage to Jotunheim, and it's when they finally enter Jotunheim and spread these ashes at the very peak that they realize Atreus' mother, Fae, who the ashes are spreading, she was actually a giant, and so that's why they're in Jotunheim, and we see that if Fae is a giant, that means so is Atreus. So at the end of the game, they finally, you know, are wandering along the halls of Jotunheim and they see these, you know, runes on the wall, and it's revealed here before the game ends that Atreus is actually a Norse god and his real name is Loki, and that's kind of how the game ends. Yeah, I kind of touch on that. Earlier in the game, we find out that Kratos tells Atreus that he's a god, and we kind of see Atreus go on this kind of, like, hissy fit rant where he, like, thinks he's better than everyone else, which is a trope that I kind of like in the game, because you kind of see him use his power and his position as a position to, like, humiliate other people, you know, talk down to the dwarves that they meet, and kind of, I like that trope of the god being, like, talking down to them, because it's what the Aesir gods in the games are portrayed as. They're portrayed as the bad guys, because Kratos is supposed to be the good guy. I was just going to say, going off of that, it's just kind of funny, you know, he thinks he's normal, or maybe not normal, but, you know, he doesn't know he's a god, thinks he's just kind of who he is, and then, you know, finds out he's a god, and all of a sudden, he's like, oh, I'm better than everyone, even though I had no idea, and that's something you can see in pop culture and stuff. You also see it a little bit in mythology, but I just thought that was funny, and hissy fit gave me a few laughs while going through the game. So, as I said earlier, the first character besides Kratos and Atreus that we're introduced to is Faye. Faye, in the game, is just a giant, you know, mother, still the mother of Loki, aka Atreus, but in Norse mythology, she's supposed to be a god, but in this, she's just a giant that marries Kratos and gives birth to Loki. I know you want to touch on Baldur now. Yeah, I think the biggest, like, parallel without the game is just Baldur and how he dies. So, we know from the farming class, through Baldur's death, you know, that he dies to Loki through mistletoe, but we also, just like, through just Norse mythology in general and our research there, the parallel is almost exactly the same, like, Loki in mythology indirectly kills Baldur by giving Baldur's blind brother these mistletoe arrows, which he's shot with, and then Baldur dies, and, you know, it's kind of the exact same thing that happens in the game. Baldur dies to these mistletoe arrows indirectly through Loki. And then we also, you kind of learn about this, like, curse that Baldur has on him set by his mother, Freyja, who in Norse mythology is also called Frigg, but in the game, it's kind of very loosely touched on how Freyja has given this curse to Baldur, and Baldur, like, he hates his life, he's almost suicidal because he can't feel any sort of pain, he can't, like, taste or feel pretty much anything, so he almost, he's at this point in his life where he just wants it to end, but we don't get much backstory on how he gets that curse, besides just, you know, Freyja being a protective mother, whereas in mythology, it really dives into how Freyja and Baldur, both mother and son, had this dream of Baldur's death, and both of them were, like, extremely concerned about it. They go to Odin, and Odin goes to the realm of the dead to kind of gather information about Baldur's death and just kind of, like, the future in general, because he's very worried about, you know, the coming of Ragnarok, and so Odin gets these glimpses into the future of, you know, some Ragnarok, some Baldur, and he comes back and he assures Baldur, like, yeah, you will die, and this is kind of what prompts Freyja to, you know, start this curse, where she wants to, well, she doesn't think of it as a curse, but, you know, Baldur does, and it's this, you know, spell on Baldur that basically protects him from everything that she can think of. The problem was Freyja forgot to think of mistletoe, and that's why it's, you know, considered that that's his weakness in mythology, and we clearly see that portrayed here in the game, too. Yeah, with the curse, it seems like she is trying to fulfill her motherly duties even when she's not there, you know. Parents, specifically mothers, always want to protect their kids from any and everything, so this was kind of her way of doing it to make sure that he was fully safe whenever she's not around or that. But the mistletoe, I'm correct that the mistletoe didn't kill him, it just removed the curse? Or was it, did it actually kill him? It just removed the curse. It was the only thing that could remove the curse. And then after that, he starts to feel everything, you know, he can finally feel the snow and everything. Freyja's super upset, and then him and Kratos have this huge fight, and ultimately results in Kratos beating Baldur, but Baldur still doesn't forgive his mother, even though his mother was just trying to, you know, do her motherly duty and protect him, because that's all parents want to do, they want to, they're willing to die for their kids. And Freyja was willing to do that at the end of the game, as we see, and is choking her out before Kratos steps in and stops this cycle of gods killing their parents, because as we see in the first three God of War games, Kratos finds out his father is Zeus, and he ultimately kills him, and we just see this cycle of, you know, killing your father, and then we see in the end of the first game and beginning of the second game that there's this prophecy of Loki will kill Kratos, but he wants to stop this cycle, and he knows it has to start here, and he ends up killing Baldur. Yeah, and it's actually a little more about Loki, too. He, in the first game, like, you don't really, you know, learn until, like, who he is, who, like, how he's Loki until the very end, but he's so different from, like, the Loki we see in mythology. Like, he doesn't really have, like, Loki in mythology, you know, he's the god of mischief and trickery, and you don't really see those attributes in Atreus, and not just attributes, but, like, powers. Like, Loki, you see him in mythology constantly shapeshifting into, like, different, you know, animals or beings to trick the other gods, and Atreus doesn't really have any of these powers harnessed yet. At least yet, right? At least yet, yeah. At least yet, yeah. We start to see him slowly transform into his full potential as Loki in the second game, which we can probably get into right now. Even, like, you said, like, even in Marvel, Marvel, he can transform into Odin, all these different beings, but in the game, we only see him, in the second game, we only see him transform into him. Yeah. And then, just to touch on Freya really quick, because she's a pretty big character in the last one, in Norse mythology, she's the goddess of blessings, lust, and love, and fertility, but we can kind of see this contrast between Norse mythology and what she is in the stories and what she is in the game, where she's, like, this almost witch, you know, lonely, lives in a giant turtle in the middle of the woods, you know, still cares for everything and cares for her son, but we kind of see this kind of distinction from her Norse mythology character. Zach has obviously touched on Mimir, and I believe we can get into the second game. So, second game starts, or takes place three years after the first, and the first scene is in Fimbulwinter, which is three winters long, so three years. In the beginning of the game, they're attacked by Freya, because Freya's really upset that Baldur is dead, and they killed him. At the end, their pet Fenrir, who is, like, Atreus' main, like, wolf, dies, and his soul ends up in Atreus' life because he does this kind of, like, ritual. And then after that, Thor and Odin eventually end up to their house, and it ends with Odin wanting to talk with Atreus, but he knows that he won't, he isn't able to do that while Kratos is there, so Thor is pissed that his sons were killed by Kratos, this random god from Greek mythology, and he goes after him. They have this huge battle, super, like, cool, the Leviathan Axe versus Mjolnir, and they have this moment where they both strike, and there's a huge lightning bullet, super, like, dope. I do like the aspect of the Leviathan Axe here, how you can see the parallels between that and in Marvel, Mjolnir, the hammer, how you can, you know, throw it and then recall it whenever you want, then it flies back, and that was one aspect of the game I found really cool, and I don't know if it was intentionally supposed to be, like, Mjolnir's hammer. Yeah, it's supposed to be, like, the Greek mythology equivalent of, kind of, Mjolnir. Yeah, I just... You see those two weapons, like, collide there. I just really enjoyed it, and then when they came together like that, it was... Well, it's also cool that Mjolnir is made by the Holdrub brothers, which we meet in the game, Brokk and Sindri, and then the Leviathan Axe, which was given to Fae and then given to Kratos, is also made by them, so it's kind of like the light and dark side, or whatever you want to call it. Yeah. The two equal hammers or axes. Those brothers were the ones that offered Kratos and Atreus the mistletoe, right? Yeah. They were given the arrows, and then once Freya sees them, she snaps all of them, but they keep one, and ultimately, that's what hurts Balder, and then we'll keep going. Um, yeah. Atreus, in Odin Talk, he invites him to come to Asgard, but Atreus and mainly Kratos doesn't want to let go of Atreus, because now, throughout the first game, we see them form this bond, but now he doesn't want to let go. He's very protective of him, and is a real father in this game, and really needs to learn how to let go in this game, but ultimately, they know that their fate is Ragnarok. They don't know how it's going to happen, where it's going to happen, but they know it's going to end with the end of the world, because it's prophesized, and that's what kind of Odin is trying to prevent, and they're trying to prevent. They know Ragnarok is coming because of the Thimblewinter, the three straight years of winter that precedes Ragnarok. And also, kind of like Balder's death, like in mythology, we hear that what starts Ragnarok is Balder's death, and like in the first game, that's how the first game ends, and then the second game's called Ragnarok, so clearly, that's how they're trying to transition into it. So, what starts Ragnarok is Tyr, the Norse god of war, leading the giants to Asgard to help them. So, they know that they have to find Tyr, but Tyr has been locked up by Odin, so they go to Svartalfheim, the land of the dwarves, to find Tyr, because that's where he's end up being held. They end up finding him, but he is not this god of war that they envisioned. He is this very pacifist, kind of wimp. A full 180 from what they thought he was. Full 180 of what they were expecting, because they thought he was going to lead them, but it's kind of this trope of like, oh, you got the Norse god of war and Kratos, but you also have this full 180 with Tyr, this pacifist, the Norse, yeah. And then, Atreus ends up disagreeing with Kratos, because now that they have Tyr, he wants to go start Ragnarok, but Kratos says no, they have this huge argument, this ends up in Atreus going to Asgard and accepting Odin's invite to team up with him. There, he meets Heimdall, which is a big character, he's kind of like the boulder of this game, but he wants to kill Atreus because he doesn't trust them, but Odin tells him not to because he has other plans for him. Kratos learns of Heimdall wanting to kill Atreus, and because of this, he and the Holder brothers end up making another weapon, the Dropnear Spear, which is a multiplying ring, but they make it into a spear because spear is really big in Greek mythology. They make that, which is to kill Heimdall, and Atreus eventually returns to the group that's forming, which is like Freya and their allies that they're creating to start Ragnarok, and he finally gets his last piece, and he returns to the group, but it's revealed that Odin is actually disguising himself as Tyr, so that's why he's pacifist, that's why he doesn't want to start, and he ends up killing Brokk, one of the dwarves that was helping them, and that's what really sets them off towards Ragnarok. So the full 180 then is what Odin is trying to, he's trying to stop them from doing what they're doing, that's why you see Tyr, or not Tyr, but... Yeah, Odin is more terrified of Ragnarok than anything, he, like I said earlier, he saw into the future that he saw the end of the Aesir gods, and he's trying to prevent it at any cost. I think that's kind of why in the first game, he was trying to go after Atreus and also Atreus' mother, Fae, because they were giants, and like in the prophecy of Ragnarok, the giants are one of the, they're part of the army that gets led to Asgard, and so once Odin kind of reveals himself as Tyr, and reveals that he's been collecting all this information on the allies forming, he, you know, this is enough to piss off Kratos and Atreus to say, you know what, let's start this war, the first way to start this war is to kill Heimdall. And you see this parallel in Norse mythology a lot, because this is ultimately what starts Ragnarok, is Heimdall versus Loki, and in this battle, Heimdall and Loki, you know, they end up killing each other, but it's the sounding of Heimdall's horn that, you know, starts the invasion of Asgard. So Kratos goes to kill Heimdall, and you know, with his spear, and after that's done, they now go to Asgard, and it's actually Kratos who blows into the horn, and this opens up all these portals from the nine realms where, you know, they've amassed all these allies over the past couple games, and Kratos and, you know, Atreus or Loki are the ones leading this invasion upon Asgard. They run into Thor pretty soon after, who has, you know, been fighting the World Serpent this entire time, and Kratos and Thor have this huge battle, but at the very end, Thor realizes Odin, his father, is wrong, and he wants to become their ally, and it's as this happened that Odin actually kills him, and I think that, you know, goes to what you were saying earlier, Austin, about how, like, the father and son dynamic in mythology, it always seems like the father or the son are eventually pitted against each other, and one kills the other. So we see that happen in this game, and Odin at this point, he's one of, like, the only Aesir gods remaining from the Pantheon that's evil, and so clearly Kratos has to fight, uh, face Odin at this point, and this is the final battle in the game. Kratos ultimately defeats Odin, and then releases Surtr upon Asgard, which, you know, ends up being the destruction of Asgard, and Kratos, Thraeus, all the allies, they head home, and the game kind of ends with them going their separate ways, yeah. I think the main difference we see in Ragnarok and, um, Norse mythology is kind of this idea of the realms can survive. So in the game, we learn that Ragnarok happens, and Asgard can survive, and just Asgard and all the other realms will be lost, or all the other realms can team up on Asgard, which is what they do, and if they destroy Asgard, then the realm, the other eight can live without Asgard. So I think that's kind of a cool thing we see that's kind of different. It's kind of like your typical, uh, how do you weigh the lives of more valuable, kind of, versus the many. Yeah, and then, also, like, we see Odin portrayed as, like, this super, supposed to be wise and very, like, tempered god, you know, like, very relaxed, but in the game, he always is really searching for new knowledge and trying to have that one up, and really, he's really obsessed with, like, preventing Ragnarok and making sure that he stays safe, but he doesn't really care because he ends up killing Thor, and he even brings people from Midgard, from Fimbulwinter, to protect them, and ends up in them being killed because of the invading armies on Asgard. Before getting to that, just a little side note that I find funny. So I ended up watching the Marvel movies before playing this, so never anyone says Odin, I see Anthony Hopkins' face, so seeing him as this crazy, not mass murder, but crazy violent guy is, it's just funny to me. It's so different than every other, kind of, depiction you see of the gods. Yeah, it is really different, but I think, like, with Odin, but I think they did a really good job with Thor, because, you know, like in mythology, Thor, he's, like, this very, like, ill-tempered and, like, prone to violence god, and he's also just, like, really not that bright, and we see that a lot in this game, too. He's constantly just trying to fight, you know, Kratos or Loki, and he's just really one of the dumbest, you know, Aesir gods in the game. And another parallel I found with him during, like, the Siege of Ragnarok, or the Siege of Asgard, was that he had this fight with the World Serpent, and that's, like, constantly, you know, that story. That's a constant throughout. It's all throughout Norse mythology, and, like, you know, we talk about it in class a little bit with the Thor's fishing trip story, but, like, that's one of the biggest fights we see near the end of the game, and I think that's, like, they did a really good job capturing, like, Thor's essence from mythology in the game. Yeah, because what we see is, we see Thor as this, like, dumb, stupid just warrior, and it's kind of different from where we see him in, like, Marvel in, like, a modern setting, but then also it's kind of, it's very similar to what we see in Norse mythology. You know, we see Thor's fishing trip where he's tricked by Odin, and then we see even Loki's quarrel, and, you know, in Loki's quarrel, Thor keeps repeating the same line over and over, and Loki's just roasting him over and over, but we kind of just see him overall being represented as this kind of, like, dumb fighting machine who is very unintelligent and just wants to kill. A big brute, almost. Yeah. You know, not many thoughts behind those eyes, but he wants to inflict violence. Speaking about Loki, we kind of touched on Loki before. In the game, Loki is Atreus. In Norse mythology, Loki is this very different character. You know, he's not as young as he is in this game. He's very, he's the god of trickery. You know, Atreus doesn't really have those aspects in the game, and Loki can really transform into everything and anything, and Atreus in the game really only transforms into Bjorn the Bear and a wolf. And speaking of the wolf, we can talk about Loki's children, because Loki's children is a big difference in this game. I know, if you want to start on Fenrir, Dylan. Well, yeah, like in Greek mythology, or sorry, Norse mythology, like, you hear a lot about the monsters that are Loki's children, and one of them is Fenrir, this, like, massive wolf that's also, you know, a huge part of Ragnarok. And we, you see Fenrir in this game, but you don't really get any backstory. First, as to, you know, you get, there's this small wolf that is Atreus' pet, and it ends up dying at the beginning of the game, and he keeps his soul that we mentioned earlier, like the soul of Fenrir. And we think that's all you see of him, but then later on in the game, you come across Fenrir again, but he's this massive wolf now that Gratos and him have to fight. And we learn that, you know, unlike Norse mythology, where Fenrir is kind of like, Loki's actually, like, biological son, Loki kind of fathered Fenrir in God of War in this, like, different way. He has this different, you know, connection to him, where he had the soul of his, you know, pet Fenrir from the beginning of the game, and releases it into this, you know, new massive wolf that then becomes his son. And, you know, I think, Austin, you can kind of go into how they do this with the World Serpent, too. They portray it very similarly. Yeah, so in the first game, we see the World Serpent. He's this super, like, old, big snake in the first game. And it kind of creates this time parallel, because in the second game, Loki, Atreus, ends up having, like, this dream, and he goes to Ironwood, which is a realm within Jotunheim, the land of the giants. And he meets his then, or wife in Norse mythology, Angraboda, who is tasked with keeping the souls of the giants, who have placed their souls into these little marble things, to be then released later when it's all peaceful, which is kind of after Ragnarok. So he meets Angraboda, and they fight Angraboda's grandmother. They go through that whole scene, and they see this, like, dead snake, because Angraboda's mother, or grandmother, takes the souls of, like, these animals. And they see this dead snake, and Atreus ends up taking the soul of a giant and putting it into the snake. As he normally would. As you would, because why not? And he puts it in, he puts it into the snake, and the snake ends up kind of recognizing him and thanking him, and then slithers off. And then, in Ragnarok, we see the snake again, who is now the World Serpent, or Jormungandr, and he ends up, he's huge. Like, he, in the, when we first see him, he's, like, maybe, like, ten feet long. In the, in Ragnarok, in the battle, we see him, this huge World Serpent size, and he ends up fighting Thor, which is prophesized at Ragnarok, in Norse mythology. And Thor ends up hitting him so hard with Mjolnir that he sends him back in time to the first game, so it kind of creates this time parallel, which is kind of cool to see. It's funny how this, you know, World Serpent, you know, how big and important he is, really just started as, like, a taxidermied snake. Yeah. Like, that's just, it just kind of, not blows my mind, but it's just, like, it confuses me a little. Another thing about Norse mythology, and the kind of different, or, like, similarities and differences within this game, is the rivalry slash battles. You know, Loki died as the Heimdall. You know, Thor and Jormungandr are supposed to kill each other at Ragnarok in Norse mythology, but in the game, Thor ends up dying by Odin. And Fenrir is supposed to kill Odin, and that doesn't happen within the game, and Fenrir ends up staying alive, and Odin ends up dying at the hands of Sindri at the end of the game, because he takes his soul, or Atreus puts his soul into a marble, but Sindri, the remaining holder brother, ends up breaking it and destroying it. And then we see Freyr's death, which is kind of the same. He dies at Ragnarok, but he dies as a result of Ragnarok, which is the combination of Surtr and Sinmara, which we see in the game, and they end up combining, but Sinmara in the game, or in Norse mythology, they're supposed to combine and both die to create Ragnarok, this giant beast or whatever. But in the game, we see Sinmara actually stay alive, and Surtr actually sacrifices himself because he actually is in love with Sinmara, which is kind of a difference we see, and he becomes Ragnarok, he destroys Asgard, and Asgard is destroyed, and all the other realms survive, and we kind of see that at the end of the game. Yeah, I think Ragnarok in general, though, is that, like, it's very similar, it just has a small difference, as you mentioned. Like, you see every main event that happens in Norse mythology revolving, Ragnarok happens in these games, and you see the death of Baldur in the first game, and you see how that sparks Fimbulwinter, and you have Fimbulwinter leading into Ragnarok, you have the death of Heimdall, you have the invasion of Asgard, and Thor against the World Serpent, and all these similarities. So overall, I think these two games spanning the stretch of Ragnarok and the precursor events from that, they did a really good job depicting that within the game, from Norse mythology. I mean, the games only cover, like, three years? Because Ragnarok's three years after the first one, right? Yeah, it's covered, like, four or five years. There's only a handful of years. Yeah, a lot happens in a very quick amount of time, if you think about it. You know, just kind of a little tangent here. It's funny how a lot of things, you know, come about here due to parent and child disagreements. Yeah. It's like there's a whole bunch of, for lack of a better word, there's a lot of daddy issues. Yeah. I think that also another thing we see within Norse mythology and in the games are these different, like, tropes and themes. You know, we see the son killing the father, and the father killing the son, you know, family issues, daddy issues. And then we also see this, like, rivalry aspect, you know, Loki kills Baldr, or the death of Baldr, Jormungandr, Thor, Odin and Loki, or Odin and Fenrir. We see these different, like, rivalries play out within the game that we also see within mythologies and other mythologies as well. Yeah, I think the only new, like, father and son trope that was kind of introduced here is, like, obviously, you know, Atreus and Kratos. Like, in mythology, you know, clearly Kratos doesn't exist in Norse mythology, and Loki, who is Atreus, has this different father. But one of the biggest themes that they're trying to get across in, you know, both God of War 2018 and God of War Ragnarok is, like, the father and son bond and how it, like, the progression of it between the two games. And it's a, you know, it's a massive theme in the game, but clearly, like, it's very different from mythology since Kratos just doesn't exist and Loki has a different father, although he does have the same mother. Well, the thing that's super cool is how they handled the World Tree and Yggdrasil. You know, we meet Ratatoskr and Nidhogg in the second game, and we just see, like, these four stags, and we see more of Norse mythology in the second game. I know, Zach, you want to talk about Yggdrasil, the World Tree? Yeah. Well, just the second game, we can venture into the nine realms, right? The first game, we're only... You're restricted to the last. And then also, you see Sindri's house, Sindri and Brokk's house, which is, like, in this, like, within Yggdrasil, yeah. Yeah. So just talking a little bit about Yggdrasil, I was able to find that there was a generally accepted meaning in Old Norse that Yggdrasil can be translated to Odin's horse, which can also mean gallows, and this is due to the Yggdrasil, the Y-G-G-R part of it, is one of Odin's many names. And if we look to the poetic Edda poem, I'm going to butcher the hell out of this, Havamal definitely said that wrong, but describes how Odin sacrifices himself by hanging himself from a tree, and that tree then becomes Odin's tree, thus then Odin's gallows, tying it all back to then Yggdrasil. I think we... I think that covers most of the games and the similarities and differences. Dylan, if you want to start us off with what you thought of the game and, like, its portrayal and, like, the similarities and differences. Yeah, I think overall, they... I don't think there is a better form of media that depicts Norse mythology right now. Like, we see it depicted kind of in, like, the Marvel Universe with, like, Thor and Loki and Odin, and, like, that, like, we kind of touched on that earlier, but it's not nearly as accurate. If we're being honest, it's a pretty bad representation. Yeah, it was not... Yeah, it's more meant just to be, like, for Marvel and their superheroes and stuff like that. And they're like, okay, cool, we're going to base it off of this, but do things our own way. Exactly, yeah. But, like, the games, you can tell, like, the developers of the games, they really took their time researching this and, like, they did a really good job transforming everything from Norse mythology and really, like, doing a great job depicting it within the games. I think, like, even though we just did, like, kind of, you know, these rough summaries and connected as much as we could in this time frame. There was so much more we could talk about within the two God of War games, but we really just wanted to cover, like, the, you know, the main points of, like, Ragnarok and, you know, the main characters of the game. You could do, like, a full episode based on each hour segment of the game per day. Yeah, we left out... Especially the second game. We left out so many details from the second game because it's literally... It's just filled with side quests and all these different things that happen. It has to happen. Like, we see, like, Skull and Hati and, like, we didn't even talk about Vanaheim and, like, the Vanir and all. They also went more into depth on Loki or Atreus when he first was shapeshifting into the bear. Yeah, we didn't even talk about any of that and, like, how he is... He now has these secret powers and, like, even Angroboto, we barely talked about that. Yeah, we see those shapeshifting powers more develop in the second game once he kind of learns who he is and settles down from his hissy fit. But, basically, at the end of the game, we kind of just see... Or throughout this God of War Norse mythology franchise, we see this father-son duo. Like, it's this father-son story about Kratos connecting finally with Atreus and then finally learning how to let go and let Atreus be his own person. And now, at the end of the game, we see Atreus leave with Angroboto to go set all the giants free and we don't know what's next, but that's kind of what we see at the end of Ragnarok within Norse mythology. You know, it kind of creates this new world where, you know, Baldur's technically still alive, but we see this new, like, heaven-type aspect, which we see in other mythologies and religions and... The father-son duo are, you know, could be parent-child. No, it's not related to Norse mythology fully, but I saw a lot of similarities between that and... What's that game with Pedro Pascal? The Last of Us? The Last of Us. I saw a lot of similarities between those two characters in here, which... You can see that really in a lot of places, but that's just another example where there was a good... That kind of relationship. Yeah. I think one more example, actually. I just thought about it. When Austin was talking about Angroboto and, you know, Loki going off and kind of, like, repopulating the giants, I think you can make a pretty good parallel there to Ragnarok in Norse mythology, because after, like, you know, Earth, you know, rises from the ocean and the whole, like, you know, world starts over again, the tale in Norse mythology is like these two humans, you know, appear and they start repopulating the Earth, and I think that's... You can make that parallel with Angroboto and Loki and how they're kind of repopulating, you know, their world, which is Jotunheim to the giants. Overall, I think the game did a great job. You know, it does cater towards its audience in making the Aesir gods the bad guys to fight and, you know, it still continues that God of War theme of killing gods and Kratos killing gods, but this time, instead of revenge, it's for the protection of his son and to the protection of his realm as well, and then, ultimately, they all go off in peace. We don't know what's next, but I'm definitely excited to see what they're going to do next. I hope it's Egypt. That'll be cool. Egyptian mythology. I do like how they went to more the protecting your child or realm, because that's something that we can all, you know, relate to or something, you know, or even bringing in Fenrir, you know, you want to save your dog or, you know, save the soul if you can. There's just a lot in it that while it differs a little from Norse mythology, it is a lot... it's relatable, so you can kind of put yourself in it, and then, which opens your mind and expands you more to Norse mythology. Yeah. I think that's all I have to say. Dylan? Yeah, I mean, like I said earlier, there's a lot more stuff I guess we could go more into detail with, but I think we covered, like, the main points and characters of the game, and it would just take so much more time to, you know, go into every single aspect, but overall, I think we all thought the games did a great job of depicting it, and thank you guys for listening. Yeah. Thank you very much.
