How Did I Realize My Father Was Zeus After Playing God of War?
Warning: Spoilers
I lost my father when I was just a kid, at nine. It is indeed a heartbreaking loss for every kid in all the realms and there is no fun in it to discuss this now. So, I will be telling another story, trying to be engaging.
Growing up without a father is hard but growing up without a father figure at the same time is something else. Especially if your surroundings believe in the afterlife and tell you that your father watches you and will always be with you for the rest of your life and he is in a better place than us. Now, you started getting it right? Alright but I am just starting.
Kids do have a very different perspective in all aspects when it comes to understanding what we are doing here, alive, walking towards our inevitable death. Okay, it’s actually kind of a running after thirty, the halfway. My childhood memories are quite faint and I do not remember exactly what I was doing or was going through then, but my dreams, nightmares and my emotions from my childhood are as clear as today. They always have been and will be, I think. I remember that I was afraid of losing my parents, even before my father passed away and I remember my biggest dream was being an archaeologist, chasing the past, the history. I was very fond of ancient Egypt. And I do remember how I was shocked and scared and sad and angry after losing my father. That storm of emotions is really dangerous for a child who sees the world as a playground, and one might say, like a god, wants everything he likes, does everything he thinks and deep inside, strongly fears losing that.
They told me, he just changed his realm, and I will be able to talk with him whenever I want, wherever I want, he will be always listening. I remember many times I was thinking “Cool, now he is exactly, like, a, god.” I know that Egyptian mythology was always part of my passion for archaeology but I was never interested in it since I was more focused on the science and history aspects so my only knowledge was about the part of the Egyptian gods involves when an Egyptian dies and how did they performed the burials and pictured that process. In comparison with how Greek mythology is depicted in conventional media, Egyptian gods were like parents in my understanding, always serious, focused on their responsibilities but Greek gods were more like teenagers and kids, having fun. Having fun by ruining lives maybe but my point is, I was never able to identify myself with Egyptian gods but I was enjoying the “The Hercules” as a kid and wanting to be like him meanwhile my parents were like the Egyptian gods, always working with a huge amount of responsibilities. So, I’m thinking maybe I was fond of Egypt history because I was very fond of my parents. Maybe this was my own way to compensate for our lost time with my parents while I was alone. So, understand, I would never think of them as Greek gods. Until…
In 2018, when God of War came out, I couldn’t find a chance to play it until 2 years later. Thanks to the catastrophe that locked us in for days and days, I was spared time enough to play games, one of my first hobbies and the biggest. I did play the franchise in my college days and loved it so wanted to say hello to my old friend.
It was amazing. As an adult who is getting closer and closer to being a dad soon probably, I was able to empathize with Kratos. Like many of us did. Nothing special in that, except the game achieving this with a mastermind narrative. And in one sequence, Zeus was appearing and as soon as I saw him, among the ghosts of the past, something sparked in my mind, it’s just clicked. I was living with Zeus all this time, a man somehow left me, somehow made my biggest nightmare come true, somehow raised me, even when he wasn’t around, a man whose ghost and memories was always with me, a man sometimes I was finding myself talking with him, trying to be better than him, refusing the fact that he died, trying to put anger, sadness and my fury behind me for my future, my son.
For a kid, who lost his father, his father becomes someone different, someone, that kid trusts his power with no doubts, someone who makes him feel secure and strong. I grew up with Zeus. I don’t have the power of chopping a whole tree in one swing of an axe, but I will be shouting at him once he chooses to be born, “Boy!”.
