11 Kratos Greek Mythology God of War and Power Facts

11 Kratos Greek Mythology God of War and Power Facts

(Last Updated On: April 16, 2021)

Kratos is a famous, or notorious character in Greek Mythology In facts, in Greek mythology, Kratos (or Cratos) is the divine personification of power. He is the son of Pallas and Styx. Kratos and his siblings Nike (“Victory”), Bia (“Force”), and Zelus (“Zeal”) are all basically personifications of a trait. Kratos is first talked about alongside his siblings in Hesiod’s Theogony.

Kratos in Greek Mythology

According to Hesiod, Kratos and his siblings dwell with Zeus as a result of their mother Styx got here to him first to request a place in his regime, so he honored her and her youngsters with exalted positions.

Kratos and his sister Bia are finest recognized for his or her look within the opening scene of Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound. Acting as brokers of Zeus, they lead the captive Titan Prometheus on stage.

Kratos compels the mild-mannered blacksmith god Hephaestus to chain Prometheus to a rock as punishment for his theft of fireside.

1. Kratos in Greek Mythology Means “Power”

Kratos could also be a fictional character in a video game, however, he’s additionally primarily based on literary works from Ancient Greek mythology. Cratus is the kid of Pallas and Styx.

Pallus and Styx are a conflict god and underworld goddess, respectively, and the name “Kratos” can also be related to phrases akin to “strength” and “might.”

Although Kratos is impressed by his Ancient Greek counterpart, there are distinct variations between the 2. Cratus is an enforcer of the heavenly throne, and Kratos despises the opposite gods and has an unquenchable thirst for energy.

2. His Father is Zeus

From the first time we met Zeus, we knew that Kratos and Zeus had quite a lot of baggage. Zeus had little control over his son—and we’re not speaking about Hercules.

In an early God of War recreation, Zeus tricked Kratos into placing all his energy into the Blade of Olympus.

This did not cease Kratos from stealing the Blade of Olympus and stabbing Zeus. Kratos would have defeated Zeus at this moment if Athena did not sacrifice her life.

Zeus appeared remorseless over the loss of life of his daughter, leaving her for a chance to flee. The story of God of War has at all times concerned Zeus in a method or one other.

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3. Kratos in Greek Mythology is a brute

Kratos in Greek Mythology is characterized as brutal and cruel, repeatedly mocking each Hephaestus and Prometheus and advocating for the usage of pointless violence. He defends Zeus’ oppressive rule and predicts that Prometheus won’t ever escape his bonds.

In Aeschylus’ Libation Bearers, Electra calls upon Kratos, Dike (“Justice”), and Zeus to assist her brother Orestes in avenging the homicide of their father Agamemnon.

Kratos and Bia seem in a late fifth-century BC red-figure Attic skyphos of the punishment of Ixion, presumably primarily based on a scene from a lost tragedy by Euripides. They additionally seem in the late eighteenth and nineteenth-century Romantic depictions and diversifications of the binding of Prometheus.

4. Kratos in Greek Mythology is Tyrannical

In the opening scene of the tragedy Prometheus Bound, which is historically attributed to Aeschylus, Kratos and his sister Bia are taking Prometheus to a distant location within the Scythian wilderness, the place he shall be chained to a rocky outcropping.

The order to do that was given by Zeus himself and Kratos and Bia are portrayed because of the embodiment of Zeus’ new regime. The presence of Kratos and Bia however absence of Nike and Zelos signifies the play’s tyrannical portrayal of Zeus since Kratos and Bia characterize the more tyrannical points of authority.

5. Rule of concern

Kratos coerces the mild-mannered blacksmith god Hephaestus into chaining Prometheus to the rocky crag, regardless of Hephaestus’ objections to this.

Hephaestus laments over Prometheus’ future struggling, main Kratos to ridicule him. Kratos equates the rule of legislation with rule by concern and condemns pity as a pointless waste of time.

6. Support from Hephaestus

Kratos in Greek Mythology regards justice (δίκη; dikê) as a system of cosmic hierarchy through which the monarch, Zeus, decides who receives which privileges and who doesn’t.

Anyone who breaches this social divide is a transgressor who has to be punished. Kratos states that, beneath the rule of a monarch akin to Zeus, nobody however Zeus himself is actually free. Hephaestus agrees with this evaluation.

7. Cruel to Prometheus

Kratos in Greek Mythology repeatedly orders Hephaestus to make use of more violence than necessary to inflict as a lot ache as possible towards Prometheus. First, he orders Hephaestus to nail Prometheus’ palms to the rock. Then he orders him to drive a metal wedge by way of his chest. Finally, he orders him to tie Prometheus’ legs to immobilize him.

Once Prometheus has been sure, Hephaestus, Bia, and Kratos exit offstage, with Kratos being the final one to go away. Just before his exeunt, Kratos mocks Prometheus, saying that he won’t ever escape from his shackles and that he doesn’t deserve his name.

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8. Bad wanting

Hephaestus criticizes Kratos in Greek Mythology, telling him that his speech is as ugly as his bodily look. Kratos responds by telling him, “Be soft. Do not throw in my face my ‘willfulness’ and ‘roughness of temper’.”

9. Support in revenge

In Aeschylus’ Libation Bearers, Electra invokes Kratos, Dike, and Zeus to help her and her brother Orestes’ quest to avenge the homicide of their father Agamemnon by their mom Clytemnestra.

Plato’s dialogue Protagoras, written within the fourth century BC, consists of an account of the legend of Prometheus through which Prometheus stole hearth from the temple of Athena and Hephaestus quite than the citadel of Zeus as a result of the “guards of Zeus” (Διὸς φυλακαί; Dios phylakai) have been too scary.

10. A red-figure skyphos

Depictions of Kratos in Greek Mythology and Bia in historic Greek artwork are extraordinarily uncommon. The solely recognized surviving depiction of Kratos and Bia in historic Greek pottery is on a fragmentary red-figure skyphos by the Meidias Painter, or a member of his circle, that’s dated to the tip of the fifth century BC and depicts the punishment of Ixion.

11. God of War video game

A personality named Kratos from Greek Mythology seems within the God of War online game franchise, through which he’s portrayed as what classical scholar Sylwia Chmielewski calls “a deeply tragic, Herculean anti-hero who, after murdering his family, has to wash away the miasma to regain his peace of mind.”

The online game character Kratos was given his name at a late stage within the growth of the unique 2005 recreation after the character had already been fleshed out.

Unaware of the particular mythological god named Kratos showing in Prometheus Bound, the creators coincidentally selected Kratos, the identical Greek phrase which means “Strength”, of which the mythological determine Kratos is the personification.

Stig Asmussen, the director of 2010’s God of War III, known as the naming coincidence a “happy mistake”, noting that the Kratos within the recreation and the one in Prometheus Bound are each “pawns”.

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