Poll: Male Gamers: Do you consider Kratos aspirational?

[Flunk]

Kratos is a one-dimensional douche-bag. His physique is impossible too. He's basically the male equivalent to Lara Croft... from the first Tomb Raider.

Even the new Tomb Raider actually personifies the character a bit better, even if it's totally schizophrenic about whether Lara is a trained killer who can take out hordes of men bent on killing her or a scared young scientist caught in a terrifying situation.

There are a lot of examples of terrible male characters in games, I think you don't hear as much about it because there are also quite a few great male characters. When it comes to female characters they tend to be either terrible or non-existant. Of course there are a very few exceptions.

 

[Boogie Knight]

My self image fantasy was James Bond, I was a small boy and got the damn fool idea that as an adult I'd be driving fast cars and exchanging witty dialogue with faster women.

Kratos is the kind of guy where the more I get to know him, the more I despise him. His utter lack of self awareness makes him impossible to root for. At least in the first couple games, he was squaring off with greater evils and there was implications he might be paving the way for a new kind of god... but no, I hate his guts.

 

[Jerakynn]

Bearing in mind that there are a lot of things I find undesirable about Kratos as a character, I am not going to deny that there are some qualities about him that I find to be aspirational, unlike most people in this thread who have focused almost exclusively on his actions.

Kratos is selfish and stupid and homicidal yes, but he is also determined, ambitious and dare I say, unshakably optimistic. He never gives up, he is undaunted by his downright monumental quest to slay the gods of his world, and in a world where the gods themselves are expressly against his interests, he perseveres. Willpower to that extent is in and of itself worthy of praise.

As respectful as I am of his willpower, I am also envious of his strength, mainly his ability to express his will through sheer power, that is the ultimate freedom.

I'm not going to defend his actions but I'm also not going to pretend that his actions render him void of admirable qualities.

 

[Chaos Isaac]

Asides for his amazing lack of wounds, injuries and marks of battle from being wrecked so often and killed, there's not much to the guy. Atleast, not past the first game.

He just spirals into idiocy and dumb, blind rage. There is little to aspire to, I can go get drunk and accomplish the same thing, just without the musculature.

 

[loa]

I think you're mistaking power fantasy with role model.

 

[EvilRoy]

Snip

I don't think I need 'research' to tell the difference between fantasy and what I'd actually want to be. Or to guess that people probably don't mean that Kratos is supposed to be something people would *actually* want to be.

N=1, ultimately.

Not in the least bit. Only if you ignore the fact that I just pointed out one has the word fantasy right in there and the other is talking about reality and try to pretend that fact doesn't apply regardless of the fact that it's only me that pointed it out.

You don't need a fucking sample size to be reasonable in trying to parse what a phrase means, seriously.

A person can aspire to a fantasy or fantasize about an aspiration. They aren't mutually exclusive.

There's a strong enough difference between the two that a leap like that is utterly inane and rather implausible. Fact of the matter is they are *not* one and the same, that is not what the word 'fantasy' refers to.

Actually, fantasy and aspiration have a very odd relationship. Fantasies can belong to the set of all aspirations, and aspirations can belong to the set of all fantasies. That's why you need a sample size.

Can belong != is. If people say fantasy that is not interchangeable with aspiration. It does not denote that it is both, it only denotes one.

Snip

I don't think I need 'research' to tell the difference between fantasy and what I'd actually want to be. Or to guess that people probably don't mean that Kratos is supposed to be something people would *actually* want to be.

N=1, ultimately.

Not in the least bit. Only if you ignore the fact that I just pointed out one has the word fantasy right in there and the other is talking about reality and try to pretend that fact doesn't apply regardless of the fact that it's only me that pointed it out.

You don't need a fucking sample size to be reasonable in trying to parse what a phrase means, seriously.

A person can aspire to a fantasy or fantasize about an aspiration. They aren't mutually exclusive.

As such any data gathered as to Kratos as a figure of aspiration cannot correctly infer anything about his role as a fantasy.

More or less. Even if the initial question had been phrased featuring Kratos as a figure of fantasy the data would still be somewhat questionable based on what I mentioned above. It's important to know if your respondents are basing their answer on Kratos as a fantasy they aspire to or an aspiration they fantasize about. Preferably we would find out the answer to both and compare them to see if there is any difference.

There is more than 'fantasy they aspire to' and 'aspiration they fantasize about'. Aspiration is a word the OP has added to what people actually say.

Eugh. Look, I only initially engaged you to find out if there was any research or information backing your opinion.

There wasn't, that's fine.

I don't find arguing word use especially engaging, and that's all you really seem to have here. As I've already told you in previous posts: I'm not interested in the discussion. It's tedious and me half assing responses to posts I'm not really reading is insulting to us both. I'm just going to call it done. Have a good one.

 

[OtherSideofSky]

FUCK NO.

He's a complete asshole; easily the worst person in his own series and quite possibly the worst person of any character I've ever played as in a video game. I needed two friends sitting next to me cracking jokes at the giant-chinned maniac's expense just to make it through the first two God of War games, and after that I stopped buying them because I was so fed up with his bullshit, even just as a character.

He's not even good looking. I might sometimes wish I had muscles like Bruce Lee (who had definition in places I didn't even think that was possible), but Kratos looks like a roided up moron with a face incapable of anything but scowling. I mean, if I'm going to fantasize about looking different, I'm going to fantasize about looking sexy, not like a cartoonish joke.

Seriously, if game devs are trying to make power fantasies for me like people keep insisting, they're doing an absolutely miserable job of it.

 

[timeformime]

Aspirational? Since I'm not a psychopath, in terms of general behavior, no, he is the opposite of aspirational. He has muscles, which are nice, but I wouldn't want the ashes of my dead family tattooed on my body for eternity. That roided out muscular look wouldn't be worth the morbid ashy skin, or the permanent frowny face wrinkles, so no, overall I don't find his appearance aspirational.

I guess we can all aspire to be as decisive as he is, and as purpose-driven or persistent, though without his murderous moral void. It's best not to back-stab anyone we need to, innocent civilian or god, to get revenge. Especially when said revenge doesn't change anything or make him feel any better (as if we needed proof that it wouldn't).

Actually, come to think of it, I would've gotten a kick out of Kratos just leaning back with a hot cup of tea at the end of GOW 3 over Zeus' dead body - set to some easy listening jazz.

 

[Lictor Face]

The entire plot for God Of War can be summarized as.

Kratos is a morose twat who killed lots of guys, so Ares made him as his champion because 'lol why not'

lots of shit occurred and Kratos became the next God of war after smacking Ares.

Kratos then had rly rly massive daddy issues and baawed. He then went on to kill (directly or indirectly) every single blasted thing in the game.

The End.

Hold your applause and Oscars

 

[timeformime]

I have to agree - 90% shows some ridiculous bias against Kratos.

I can only conclude from that whopping percentage everyone thought, KRATOS BAD, and didn't think about the question very carefully. Even if no one wants to pursue a goal as he does, which is totally cool, surely the fact that he gets out and keeps himself in shape is one trait to aspire to. And on the fairly atheist-friendly internet, I'm sure many of us already share his disregard for the concept of divinity.

 

[Ieyke]

Physically, at his least ridiculously exaggerated, yes. Dude's in crazy awesome shape.

Skillswise, yes. Dude is a combat MONSTER.

Motivationally, yes. I COMPLETELY understand his relentless rage against Ares for tricking him into killing his wife and daughter.
I too would kill Ares in the gods damned face for that, if I could.

Actions......not so much. Broseph gets waaaaaaaaay out of hand and goes waaaaaaay too far.
He's justified in killing Ares, to be sure, and then....eh....arguably he's justified in killing Zeus too, but beyond that he went waaaaaaay off the rails.
Technically though, Kratos wasn't "wrong" to kill the gods per se. They were almost all corrupted with evil by Pandora's Box after Kratos opened it in God Of War 1 (Except Athena, and maybe Hephaestus and Aphrodite)....but he didn't know that.

Killing Athena would be UTTERLY unforgivable...except that it was accidental on his part...and kind of her fault...

A better solution would've been to figure out WHY all the gods had suddenly become complete insufferable douchebags and try and fix them, but I don't think Kratos really had the familiarity with the gods yet to identify that they had all suddenly changed.

Eh...
I'm more of a "find a way to fix the problem" than a "destroy the problem utterly" kind of guy.

He really cared about Sparta and his people...

Kratos is a lot more complicated than he seems.
The gods were complete dicks to him on a legendary scale.
He wasn't really so much a "villain" as a hero on a very VERY dark path.
I don't even see him as an anti-hero. Anti-heroes kind of begrudgingly do the right thing.
Kratos did terrible things for sort of the right reasons.

If a good character doing the right thing is a hero.
a bad character doing the right thing is an anti-hero.
a bad character doing the wrong things is a villain.
then Kratos is a good(ish) character doing the wrong things....which makes him an...Anti-Villain?

*shrug*

 

[SecondPrize]

The first game came out when I was just entirely off linear games so I didn't play it very long, but isn't he just a maniac after the first one? I mean, he's the archetypal tragic hero from Greek mythology in the first one so that's admirable, but after that his entire character becomes "I'm angry and psychotic," right? I don't see how one can look up to that.

 

[Phantom Kat]

Kratos' physique is repulsive. I don't know where people got this hard on for the "body builder" physique and assume that's in any way how people are supposed to look.

I'd rather look like I did cardio once in a while, rather than nothing but strength training, steroids, and masturbating at my reflection.

 

[Hedge]

now im not condoning what he does for the most part but i admire the will power and strength necessary to kill gods because they fuckd up your life

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

Not really. He's pretty much designed so that the only thing keeping him going is unstoppable rage. No having guilt after losing a friend, Kratos gets angry instead. He also doesn't have friends. No feeling remorse when facing a god, Kratos gets angry instead. No getting discouraged when the path in front of him gets bad, Kratos gets angry.

It's funny, a tiny bit adorable. Not something every man looks up to, but it's definitely something a lot of people find extremely entertaining when all they want is a game and a story about an angry god-slayer who isn't slowed down by any sort of character flaw besides being too jarheaded, then solving his character flaws by being more macho and enraged.

Kratos is always a bad example for this. He's the main character in a series about ancient Greek mythology. He's supposed to look like a Greek statue. All cut physique with plenty of muscle.

In terms of Greek culture, a small penis is seen as desirable and godly.

Just saying that little fact because it was relevant.

 

[Rowan93]

Kratos' physique is repulsive. I don't know where people got this hard on for the "body builder" physique and assume that's in any way how people are supposed to look.

I'd rather look like I did cardio once in a while, rather than nothing but strength training, steroids, and masturbating at my reflection.

Bodybuilders don't just do strength training, they need a low body fat percentage to get their muscles to show through properly so unless they're "bulking" they do lots of cardio.

 

[Flames66]

No. Kratos is a thoroughly despicable character. He is an over muscled, obnoxious, depressing prick. I use Kratos as an example of the worst qualities a character can posses.

 

[PromethianSpark]

Even if the initial question had been phrased featuring Kratos as a figure of fantasy the data would still be somewhat questionable based on what I mentioned above. It's important to know if your respondents are basing their answer on Kratos as a fantasy they aspire to or an aspiration they fantasize about. Preferably we would find out the answer to both and compare them to see if there is any difference.

Quantitative data cant really tell us anything about this issue any way. Only through qualitative data could we get any sense of what Kratos means to people.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

I wouldn't mind having those muscles. In terms of character though... no. I found myself being surprised and entertained by his actions and choices, not sympathising with them.

Max Payne is my gaming role-model. That's why I've taken to drinking copious amounts of whisky and being sarcastic at every opportunity.

 

[blackrave]

Totally no
I'm more Adam Jensen type
Also I personally prefer sci-fi over fantasy in general

Would it not be better to ask how many women find his depiction sexualized or objectified? This seems like red herring research.

Why women?
When we talk about female characters, perspective of women has more weight.
But we are currently talking about male character, so reverse situation should be true.
Are you implying that only women can tell if someone/something is objectified?