| “ | Hope is what makes us strong. It is why we are here. It is what we fight with when all else is lost. | ” |
―Pandora | ||
Hope is a blessed power and the greatest weapon in the world according to Athena, powerful enough to kill even the mighty Zeus.
Hope freed to mankind by Kratos in God of War III.
It was originally possessed by Athena before she placed it into Pandora's Box to counteract the evils created by the war, until she instructed Kratos to open it a thousand years later in order to kill Ares. However, she failed to anticipate that the freed evils would infect the Gods of Olympus as Zeus was possessed by Fear. Upon finding forgiveness within himself, Kratos awoke the power and used it to kill Zeus.
With the gods destroyed, Athena attempted to trick Kratos into giving the power back to her, but he instead chose to forsake her by attempting suicide and released hope to all those who survived the calamities he caused, denying Athena the power to rule Greece as its sole and allpowerful deity.
Greek Mythology
In the Legend of Pandora, Pandora simply could not resist the temptation of what was inside Pandora's Box. Curiously opening the box, she released all of the world's evils; pride, wrath, lies, anger, hate, despair, arrogance, envy, vanity, lust, fear, misery, greed, etc.
At the bottom however, underneath all the evils that poison/influence/corrupt the hearts, minds and souls of the humans, there was hope. It did not abandon humans and, as such, stayed with them. Hope was also personified by the goddess Elpis.
In the God of War Series
Long ago, when Zeus sealed the evils of the Titanomachy within Pandora's Box, Athena feared that the box would one day be opened and release the dark forces that it held. As a safeguard, she placed Hope - a power great enough to kill a God - inside the Box with the myriad evils.
In God of War, it was believed that Kratos had absorbed the evils of Pandora's Box in order to defeat Ares. However, Kratos had actually consumed the power of Hope to gain the strength to defeat his former master. From the time of the end of God of War to the end of God of War III, Hope was trapped behind layers of guilt. Apart from unknowingly using it to slay the God of War, Kratos was not able to use Hope's power again until he had forgiven himself for his perceived sins.
After his fall from Mount Olympus during the beginning of the Second Titanomachy, Kratos encountered Athena's ascended form in the Underworld. She advised him to seek out Pandora's Box once more, in order to use the power of Hope that she believed it still contained against Zeus. During his quest, Kratos met the living key to the Box's protection, Pandora, who strongly believed that Hope was the core force that let the living keep on living. However, when Kratos managed to open the Box, it was empty.
Eventually, with the help of Pandora, Kratos managed to forgive himself while wandering throughout the fear and chaos of his soul and, on an apparent memory of the second time he opened the Box, reawakened the long-dormant power of Hope. With the power of Hope, Kratos was able to defeat the spirit of Zeus and finally fulfilled the revenge that he had long sought.
Kratos releasing the power of Hope to the world.
Athena then appears and demanded that Kratos return to her the power of Hope. Kratos then stated that the Box was empty. She didn't believe him at first but Athena then realized that the power of Hope that she initially hid inside the Box actually was absorbed by Kratos during his final battle with Ares while all the evils infected the Olympians, which corrupted them. Kratos refused to give Athena the power of Hope, while in his desire to escape from the world and possibly meet his family again in the underworld he instead impaled himself with the Blade of Olympus, and thereby released the power as a by product to humanity. [1] Athena, after she said that Mortals will not know what to do with such power, she pulled out the Blade of Olympus from Kratos' torso and walked away. Kratos lain on the ground and dying and felt ready to let the Underworld take him.
But as the post-credits scene revealed, Kratos was no longer on the ground. In Kratos' stead, a trail of blood led back to the sea. It is revealed that he is cursed to forever walk the earth for his terrible sins, thus unable to die. Finding no reason to stay in Greece, he moves to Nordic lands. During this time with the power of Hope now given to humanity, the people of Greece have learned to move on and rebuild without the need of the Olympian Gods, as seen on the Amphora Vase within Tyr's Vault.
In Valhalla, Tyr helps Kratos reflect on his past and how he gave Hope to Mankind through his sacrifice, Tyr also states that there is still some of the hope left within Kratos and believes he used it to bring peace to the Nine Realms following Ragnarok. With this, the Spartan further comes to terms with his choices and reciting Pandora's words about Hope. He then retakes the throne of the God of War but not for the same destructive reasons it was put upon him in the past.
Trivia
- It is possible that Hope finally redeemed the wandering souls and those that escape the Underworld following Hades' death.
- Hope presumably gave them a new life. When all the disasters caused by the Chaos ended, with the power of Hope they rebuilt Greece without the aids from the gods.
- The Color that represented Hope was seemingly very light blue.
- Hope, as well as being a key feature in God of War III, was also an important power in Bit of War.
- The devs imply that Kratos releasing Hope in 3 was more out of a by product than his true intentions. However later games help him reconsider it was the right call to make and pass it onto the Greek World so they can recover instead of Athena. Tyr brings up that the people are rebuilding when he visited the lands after Kratos left.
- A popular theory for how Kratos survived his suicide attempt in God of War III to return in God of War (2018) is that his hope revived him. However, both the theory and the explanation for his survival remain up for interpretation.