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WARNING: This blog post contains spoilers about the God of War series.
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I have opened Pandora's box. Twice. I have used its terrible powers to, first, slay the god of war and take his throne and, second, to destroy Zeus, the king of the gods. Of course, I personally did not do this (isn't it interesting how when someone describes events in a video game, they always use the first person? Maybe that's why they can be so addicting.), but my surrogate for this adventure, Kratos of Sparta, definitely did.
The God of War series is a collection of video games about the adventures of Kratos (greek for authority/power), a Spartan general who swears fealty to Ares, the god of war, in return for super-human ass-kicking abilities. While conducting face-breaking research in the field of ass-kickery, Kratos is tricked by Ares into sending his army to destroy the town where his wife and daughter were currently staying. Ares's plan was to make Kratos a perfect warrior by removing all ties to human life, but this only makes Kratos swear undying vengeance against his current employer.
And so began an incredibly windy tale of murder and destruction as Kratos searched for Pandora's box (which can give him the power to kill a god because of REASONS), gets killed by Ares, climbs back up from the depths of Hades, takes the box back from Ares, opens it, becomes awesome, and kills the god of war.
But, as stories are fond of reminding us, vengeance doesn't bring anyone back to life or solve anger management issues (why couldn't he just go get his family and bring them back up from Hades with him? I'll tell you why: REASONS). Anyway, because Kratos killed Ares, he becomes the new god of war and uses his new power to conquer and wreak havoc on all of Greece. The other gods decide that Kratos is becoming too powerful and causing too much trouble, so they betray him. Kratos then goes back down to Hades, releases the Titans, and assaults Mt. Olympus.
Throughout the assault, Kratos manages to kill all of the gods and titans, who turn on him because they fear his anger management issues, except Zeus, to kill whom he must reopen Pandora's box and claim the power that is now within it (why is it there? RAISINS!). After killing Zeus, Kratos is left without a purpose, so, gazing out onto a world that he has destroyed (the death of each god caused his/her domain to go nuts. ie Poseidon's death --> the seas flooded the land with tidal waves; Apollo's death --> plague everywhere), he open releases hope onto the last shreds of humanity and commits suicide.
This story results in video games that are beautifully put together and almost unbelievable violent (there are achievements based on buckets of blood, if that tells you anything). The role of Pandora's box in the story is mainly a source of power, which is interesting because all of this power is used to cause strife and destruction. However, in the final chapter where Kratos is trying open the box a second time, reasons require him to fetch Pandora herself, who is the creation of Hephaestus, god of the forge and maker or the box. Pandora is a child much resembling Kratos's murdered daughter, and, after he has kidnapped her, there is a feeling that he might not destroy Pandora and not take vengeance on Zeus, a victory that will clearly do very little to solve any actual problem. This does not happen though; Kratos does kill Pandora to open the box and kill Zeus, but after Zeus is dead, Kratos has a vision of Pandora forgiving him of all that he has done in hopes that he will finally stop this violence. Kratos releases Pandora's spirit, hope, into the world but also, being unable to forgive himself, jumps off Mt. Olympus to his death.
If there was one thing I would change about society today, it would be the way we view sex/nudity and violence. Today, strangely, sex in media is viewed as worse that violence, proven by movie rating organizations requiring extreme gut-splattering, blood-gushing, limb chopping, torture porn violence to give a movie an R rating, but meriting a single boob as equally worthy of censorship. Parents across the nation are buying their 12-year-olds the new Call of Duty (which is doody, by the way), but put a single sex scene in Grand Theft Auto and watch as parents bitch and complain about having to prevent little Timmy from playing his favorite mass murder simulator because of pervert developers. I am a big fan of violent media in all forms, but I think it would be a lot healthier for everyone if we viewed violence in media as a portrayal of the terrible act that it is and sex/nudity in the media as a portrayal of something far more natural.
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| Hello. May I please remove your eyeball so you cannot see me when I try to kill you? [source] |
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