But therein lies the true meaning of Kratos.
Gregory Nagy (Harvard Classics professor) wrote in Best of the Acheans that we mustn't misapply our own cultural ideas and standards of what a hero is to understand the Greek heroes. The traditional greek hero is a mortal tasked with a challenging ordeal and that ultimately the archetype demands them to die, either in pursuit of it or upon completion.
That is the template of the classical greek hero, a mortal ensconced in great power yet still unable to achieve what no mortal can, immortality. Their virtues and their vices only help to remind us that they are one of us, and much like us will some day perish.
It is in this context that we see Kratos as the pinnacle of greek hero worship that he rightfully should be. Not only does he have the flaws that comprise the chains of our mortality, but those flaws are manifest in literal chains on his arms! The symbolism there is magnificent.
Not only is he a mortal who challenges the gods, he's a mortal who wins! But alas, even in victory there is no peace for his wounded soul. The ghosts of his mortal family still haunt him and we learn through his eyes that immortality is a bitter drink when served for one.
The climax of his story even comes back to the great truism of the most iconic of Greek heroes, that he himself must die in pursuit of his task, and that while we all believed him to be immortal that is a mantle none of us, even the legendary Kratos, can truly bare.
Knowing all this how can anyone argue that Kratos is not just worthy of his Greek literature contemporaries, but in fact their superior?
So how can we honestly begrudge Sony seven iterations to tell the full scope and magnitude of this masterwork of classical fiction reborn? Surely doing such an epic saga justice is more important than churning out more tales of a midget being cuckolded by a lizard man time and time again. No, I'd say that this comparison only serves to further prove how tawdry and base Nintendo's "mascot" is when placed alongside a true literary icon the likes of Kratos.
