In the chilling, percussive verses of the Prose Edda, Ragnarök is presented not as a mere battle, but as a mathematical inevitability. It is the “Twilight of the Gods,” a fixed ontological point where the cosmos is dismantled and the Aesir meet ends etched into the fabric of reality long before their first breaths. For centuries, this narrative of inescapable doom has defined our understanding of the North.
However, Santa Monica Studio’s God of War saga introduces a narrative sledgehammer into this ancient machinery: Kratos. By injecting a Greek deity—an ontological outlier—into the Norse cycle, the series doesn’t just retell these myths; it interrogates their fatalistic marrow. In God of War Ragnarök, the “Ghost of Sparta” acts as a grand disruptor, shattering the “settled” destiny of the Nine Realms to prioritize personal agency over the dictates of the Norns.
Here are the five most provocative ways the game deconstructs and defies the ancient lore of the North.
1. A Very Different Death for the All-Father
The most radical departure from the Prose Edda concerns the demise of Odin. In the original corpus, Odin’s death is a visceral, primal affair: he is swallowed whole by the Great Wolf, Fenrir, during the height of the carnage. He is then immediately avenged by his son, Vidar, the “Silent God,” who tears the wolf’s jaws asunder. It is a death of mythic gore and destined retribution.
The game rejects this heroic linearity. Instead of the “Destined Son” Vidar appearing to claim his prize, the “kill” is transferred to a grieving bystander: the dwarf Sindri. After Kratos, Atreus, and Freya defeat Odin, Atreus uses Giant magic to whisper the All-Father’s soul into a small stone.
“Atreus capturing his soul in a marble.. Sindri ultimately kills Odin by crushing that soul-marble.”
By having Sindri—a character broken by the loss of his brother Brok—be the one to execute the All-Father, the game replaces the “Prophesied Avenger” with a “Broken Friend.” This shift emphasizes the game’s core theme: that the weight of personal grief and individual choice is more powerful than any ancient script.
Myth: The Wolf’s Gullet – Odin is consumed by Fenrir and avenged by the destined Vidar.
Game: The Soul-Marble – Odin is outmaneuvered by a family and executed by a grieving blacksmith.
2. Thor’s Tragedy is Domestic, Not Monstrous
In the source texts, Thor is the quintessential “Monster Slayer,” the protector of Midgard whose end is a masterclass in mutual annihilation.
The Mythic Ending: Thor faces his eternal rival, the World Serpent Jörmungandr. He successfully slays the beast with Mjölnir, but the victory is pyrrhic; drenched in the serpent’s lethal eitr, he staggers back exactly nine steps before collapsing into the dirt.
Ragnarök subverts the archetype of the “Honorable Warrior” to present a “Tragic Destroyer” broken by a cycle of paternal abuse. In the game’s climax, Thor’s death does not come from a monster’s venom, but from his own father’s spear. When Thor finally chooses to put down his hammer—refusing to be Odin’s weapon any longer—the All-Father murders him in a fit of narcissistic rage. This transformation turns a cosmic battle into a domestic tragedy, highlighting the game’s obsession with breaking the generational cycles that trap both gods and men.
Myth: The Nine Steps of Poison – A heroic, mutual death between the God of Thunder and his greatest foe.
Game: The Filicide of the Aesir – A tragic murder where Thor dies for the crime of seeking peace.
3. The Temporal Twist of the World Serpent
The game’s handling of Jörmungandr is a triumph of narrative synthesis. In the myths, the serpent is simply one of Loki’s monstrous offspring, destined to kill Thor. The game honors this lineage while introducing a high-concept temporal loop. Atreus (revealed as Loki) creates the serpent by transferring a Giant’s soul into a soulless snake, but the game must explain how this “young” serpent grew into the realm-circling titan we met in the 2018 game.
During the final siege of Asgard, the game provides a stunning visual payoff: Thor strikes the serpent with such staggering force that he literally splinters the World Tree (Yggdrasil). This impact sends Jörmungandr back in time to an era long before his own birth. This loop allows the developers to satisfy the “mutual demise” imagery of the lore while granting the characters a level of agency over time itself, turning a prophecy into a localized casualty of war.
Myth: The Monstrous Offspring – A creature born of Loki who exists solely to end Thor.
Game: The Splintered Timeloop – A soul-infused creation sent back through time by a strike that fractured reality.
4. Ragnarök is Localized, Not Universal
The scale of the apocalypse is perhaps the most profound structural pivot. In the Prose Edda, the fire giant Surtr sets the entire cosmos ablaze, leading to the total submersion of all nine realms. It is a universal “reset button.”
Total Annihilation (Myth): The world is erased; only after the flood do a few gods and two humans emerge to start anew.
Localized Rebirth (Game): The destruction is surgically focused on Asgard.
While Surtr does manifest to destroy the realm of the Aesir, the other eight realms are spared. This choice serves the game’s message of “peace over total war.” By limiting the cataclysm, the narrative allows for a “rebirth through reconciliation.” The survivors—from the displaced Midgardians to the reformed Freya—must build a future through diplomacy and reconstruction rather than waiting for a post-apocalyptic miracle.
5. The “Wild Card” Who Broke Fate
At its philosophical core, the game is a defiance of the Norns. In Norse mythology, the gods are essentially actors in a play they have already read; they march toward death with a grim, stoic resignation. Kratos, however, is a “glitch” in their fatalistic math.
Because Kratos is a deity from a different pantheon, he is fundamentally unaccounted for in the Norse “calculations” of destiny. He is a variable the Norns could not solve for. While the Jötunheim murals predicted Kratos would die in Atreus’s arms, his growth—his refusal to be the “God of War” any longer—allows him to step off the path of propaganda.
“Kratos and Atreus explicitly work to defy the prophecies found on the Jötunheim murals.. and succeed in choosing their own path.”
The game posits that fate is not a fixed track, but a series of habits. By changing his nature, Kratos changes his future, proving that even a “settled” destiny can be rewritten by the strength of will.
Myth: The Settled Script – Every god accepts their role in the pre-written end.
Game: The Outsider’s Glitch – An external god breaks the logic of the world through the power of choice.
Conclusion: What remains when the gods fall?
This systemic defiance of lore isn’t limited to the “Big Two” of the Aesir; it permeates the entire cast. We see it in Heimdall’s premature death at Kratos’s hands (avoiding the mythic mutual kill with Loki) and in the survival of Týr, who in myth should have fallen to the hound Garmr.
God of War Ragnarök is a masterclass in using ancient archetypes to tell a modern story about agency. It suggests that while the past may be written in stone, the future is a horizon we build ourselves. If we knew our end was written in the stars, would we have the strength to put down the pen, or the courage to break the tablet entirely? Kratos and Atreus chose the latter, leaving us with a world where the gods have fallen, but the people finally have the power to choose.
