Spoilers: sorry for the wall of text but I disagree on the narrative and would like to explain.
I’m a huge fan of mythology and I was kinda disappointed at first when Baldur was spoiled in a Youtube notification on my phone. Baldur was the golden child of the gods, everything loved him. How is the stranger Baldur? Thats kinda dumb, I thought. But as the story played out it started to make sense. In Norse the death of Baldur would start ragnarok, that’s why the protection spells (oaths) were used. In the story Loki finds the one weakness and manipulates Baldurs brother into killing him. They added depth to Baldur by taking away his senses as a price for invulnerability and I liked it. Kratos basically accelerated the process of ragnarok by being involved and killing him. Baldur was looking for his wife the whole time, they didn’t know about Kratos. In the “I thought your kind was so enlightened” speech he wasn’t talking about the Greeks, he was talking about the artisan giants. The revelations in this game were masterful storytelling and I enjoyed it. His wife manipulated him into getting involved from the grave.
I saw Freya snatch the mistletoe arrows and throw them in the fire and I knew she was the mother of Baldur. There is a debate in Norse translation in whether or not Frigg, the queen of gods (Baldurs mother) and Freya are the same person. It was a nice touch. I wasn’t a fan of Atreus being Loki at first, I wanted to fight him. I thought “how is the world serpent (loki’s child) around if Loki is a kid? But the more I learned and thought about it, the more I liked it. Mimir (my favorite character) talks about Thor hitting him so hard that it knocked him back in time. And the mural at the end shows the snake coming out of Loki’s mouth. That’s the birth of the world serpent. It’s not the son of Loki from a giantess, it’s a manifestation of anger, guilt, whatever killed Kratos. Maybe the world serpent is the soul of kratos, there are so many ways it could go.
The signs of him being Loki were there all along and I didn’t see it. I thought maybe Loki might be impersonating Atreus when we split up and he was a little asshole, but not a younger version. “Can I change into a wolf” was his first question after learning his lineage. Maybe Fenrir the wolf (that kills Odin in ragnarok) isn’t Loki’s son either, maybe it is Loki. I liked it a lot and their own twists were entertaining. I say masterpiece in story telling. I was worried about the combat at first but it’s stellar. Crushed my expectations.
Last edited by massimus - on 29 April 2018
