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"Mature Content Warning!" |
| “ | Zeus! Do you see now what your son can do?! You cast your favor on Athena, but her city lies in ruins before me! And now, even Pandora's Box is mine! Would you have me use it against Olympus itself? | „ |
| ~ Ares threatening to destroy Athens to spite Athena. |
| “ | I have taught you many ways to kill a mortal, Kratos. Flesh that burns, bones that break. But to break a man's spirit, is to truly destroy him. | „ |
| ~ Ares cruelly mocking Kratos before forcing him to relieve the deaths of his family. |
| “ | Ares: That night... I was trying to make you a great warrior! Kratos: You succeeded. |
„ |
| ~ Ares's last words. |
Ares is the titular overarching antagonist of the God of War franchise, serving as the secondary antagonist of the Greek Era.
Despite serving Zeus, he grew dissatisfied after seeing Zeus supposedly favoring Athena more than him, deciding to find the Marked Warrior (who was actually Kratos) and use him to destroy Olympus. He did this by manipulating Kratos into killing his wife and daughter, thus earning his enmity.
He was voiced by Steve Blum, who also voiced Vilgax and Zs'Skayr in the Ben 10 franchise, the Green Goblin in The Spectacular Spider-Man, Red Skull in The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Starscream in Transformers Prime, the Loki Master in Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One, Darkseid in Justice League: War, Sauron in the Middle-earth: Shadow video games, and Jindiao in Kung Fu Panda: The Paws of Destiny.
What Makes Him Pure Evil?[]
- Although the canonocity of the novels with the games is somewhat debatable, Ares stands out as he committed all the above crimes in order to corrupt Kratos into destroying Olympus.
- In the novelizations, he insulted his sister Athena with some very foul, vulgar names out of sheer, extreme hateful jealousy and avoidance of being near her.
- He started conflicts in the Greek Realm solely to satiate his bloodlust and sadism. He also instigated monsters to attack humans just to generate conflict.
- Despite being angry with Zeus for favoring Athena over him, it was only because of his warmongering attitude and went far past it after trying to destroy Athens.
- Grew dissatisfied with his servitude as well as Zeus's support of Athena, soon wanting to usurp Zeus's throne for himself and destroy Mount Olympus, not caring about the devastating damage this would have caused to the world.
- He corrupted the Furies, who were once well-meaning, by supporting him in his conquest.
- Despite having a son, Orkos, with Alecto, the Queen of the Furies, it wasn't out of love for Alecto but merely for the purpose of finding the Marked Warrior, the one who prophesied to destroy Olympus.
- However, when Orkos failed to live up to his father's expectations, Ares disowned him. He also likely wanted to kill him, only to be stopped by the Furies sparing him.
- After giving up on Orkos, Ares, along with Athena, journeyed to Sparta in the search of the Marked Warrior under the orders of Zeus, ostensibly to stop the cycle but secretly wanting to corrupt the warrior.
- Upon finding Deimos and Kratos, Ares kidnapped Deimos and severely injured his older brother, Kratos (who was trying to save his brother), giving him his scar.
- Afterwards, Ares went out of his way to try to kill Kratos (who, at this point, was completely out of his way) and would've succeeded if Athena hadn't stopped him. He told her evil brother that they had found what they wanted.
- While both Ares and Athena participated in Deimos's kidnapping, Athena actually felt some remorse for this, as shown when she looks solemnly at Kratos, asking for forgiveness, while his younger brother is dragged away. Ares, on the other hand, felt no remorse whatsoever.
- After kidnapping Deimos, he took him to the Death Domain and gave the boy to the realm's ruler, Thanatos, the God of Death, who then proceeded to torture him for most of his life. This would scar Deimos for a very long time, as he began hating Kratos for not coming to save him.
- He saved the Warrior of Kirra and the rest of his village solely because he was interested in seeing his desire for vengeance, and he seemingly allowed the warrior to be put in eternal suffering by the Furies after breaking his oath by killing his uncle as revenge for his father's death.
- For a large part of Kratos' life, Ares had watched over him in order to mold him into his perfect warrior, proving that even prior to swearing to serve him, Ares was going to use Kratos for his own goals.
- In order to win against the other gods in their challenge on which of their chosen champions would obtain the ambrosia and thus have said champion's god be made a temple in their honor, Ares infected Kratos' daughter Calliope with a disease that weakened her body, leading to her almost getting killed due to spartan law forbidding any possible weakness in its population.
- When Kratos and his army were about to be overwhelmed by the Barbarian King and his forces, Ares accepted Kratos's plea of servitude and destroyed the Barbarian King and his forces. While it may seem to be Ares's loyalty towards the Spartans, it is actually for pragmatic reasons, as Ares accepts Kratos's plea of servitude because he sees the Marked Warrior in him.
- When Orkos and the Oracle Aletheia tried to warn the Gods of Olympus about Ares' goals, he had the Furies stop them, which resulted in not only them capturing Orkos and Aletheia while also keeping them imprisoned, but also in the Furies ripping Aletheia's eyes and hiding them so no one would discover Ares' plans.
- Ordered Kratos to massacre Athena's worshippers, resulting in Kratos massacring entire villages, which massively aided in his corruption.
- Transported Lysandra and Calliope to one of Athena's temples and ordered Kratos to kill everyone in there, thus being responsible for Kratos inadvertently killing his wife and daughter, forever marking him as the Ghost of Sparta and being the cause of his nightmares.
- He leads an attack on Athens that gets hundreds of people killed and tortured just to spite Zeus and Athena, during which he also kills Kratos after finding out he took Pandora's Box from her temple, which would have been permanent if Kratos didn't luckily defy death.
- When Kratos was winning against him in their fight, he sucked him into a portal and forced him to relieve the deaths of his family in order to completely break him, which he almost succeeded in.
- Showed no remorse for causing the deaths of Kratos's family, telling him he was simply trying to make him into a great warrior, to which Kratos simply replied, "You succeeded," before giving Ares a well-deserved end by impaling the former God of War with his sword.
- Unlike his family members, who became affected by Pandora's Box and fell into villainy (most notably Zeus and Athena), Ares committed his crimes out of his own free will.
- Despite dying, Ares's actions would lead to Kratos attempting suicide out of grief at the end of the first game as the Gods refused to remove his nightmares as punishment for his crimes committed on his orders, with him eventually destroying Olympus himself and killing Zeus, along with the other gods, after becoming vengeful towards Zeus for killing everyone in Sparta and attempting to kill him, meaning Ares indirectly got what he wanted in the end.
- Ares's manipulation is shown to be so horrific that even Freya is left horrified when Kratos tells her what Ares did.
Trivia[]
- Ares, alongside Zeus, the Raven Keeper and the Sisters of Fate, is one of the six God of War villains to be Pure Evil.
- This version of Ares is, alongside Wrath of the Titans version, one of the two versions of Ares to be Pure Evil.
- In the end, Ares managed to win even in death, as his plans eventually caused Kratos to kill the gods, including Athena and Zeus, which resulted in Olympus being destroyed.
- To cement his status as Pure Evil, Norse Era Kratos, remorseful for his actions during the Greek Era, cites Ares as a "cruel god" and is the only deity (other than Hercules) he does not regret killing.
External Links[]
- Ares on the Villains Wiki
- Ares on the God of War Wiki
- Ares on the Ultimate Evil Wiki
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 Pure Evils
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Zeus | Ares | Sisters of Fate | Raven Keeper | ||