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This Pure Evil was Headlined on March 2025. | ||
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"Mature Content Warning!" |
| “ | Don't listen to her, Kratos. For once in your pathetic life, don't fail! Don't fail her like you failed your family! | „ |
| ~ Zeus taunting Kratos over killing his family. |
| “ | I grow weary of you, my son. I created you, and I will be your END!! | „ |
| ~ Zeus's most famous quote as he drains Kratos's life in the final battle. |
Zeus, formerly known in his past life as Ourea, is the main antagonist of the God of War franchise, serving as the main antagonist of the Greek Era and one of the two overarching antagonists (alongside Ares) of the Norse Era.
He is the tyrannical and power-hungry king of Olympus that will do anything to remain in a position of power even if it means killing or torturing innocents or even his own family members, chief among them being one of his sons Kratos, the franchise's main protagonist.
He was voiced by Paul Eiding in the first game, who also voiced Gul'dan in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne and Professor Hojo in The Final Fantasy VII Compilation series, and Corey Burton for the reminder of the Greek Era, who also voiced Judge Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Brainiac in the DC Animated Universe, Brainiac 1.0 in Legion of Super Heroes, V.V. Argost in The Secret Saturdays, Megatron in Transformers: Animated, Silver Cyclone in Batman: The Brave and the Bold, the Galalunan Commander in Sym-Bionic Titan, and Hugo Strange in Batman: Arkham City.
What Makes Him Pure Evil?[]
In General[]
- Unlike most versions of Zeus created by mankind for fiction, myths or legends, this version of Zeus is outright evil and subverted all of his redeeming qualities, which makes his tragedy of being an attempted victim by Cronos unsympathetic.
- Even at the moment of being born, he was already evil from the very beginning, and was implied to be the reincarnation of Ourea, the Primordial God of the Mountains.
- While it is true that Cronos attempted to eat Zeus to avoid the prophecy of being overthrown by him and was forced to live without his real mother while his siblings were eaten by Cronos until he eventually freed them, this tragedy is later invalidated due to his heinous actions in the future and he isn’t even motivated by it in the current day, only motivated by his lust for power and hatred for mortal life.
- According to Atlas, bringing down Cronos and the other Titans' reign would bring with them the end of the "Golden Age of Mankind", and this only implied that Cronos was somewhat right to prevent the prophecy from happening, since the results of it being fulfilled also has dire consequences for Mankind, too.
- Even when Zeus still had some morals in him, his actions still proved to be very questionable.
- This is shown when he refuses to kill one of his sons Deimos after Hera tells him to do so to prevent Olympus from being doomed by a 'Marked Warrior', he instead orders Ares and Athena to capture Deimos and bring him to Thanatos so he could be imprisoned without Kratos ever finding him. This leads to Deimos getting tortured by Thanatos for the majority of his life.
- He does not care much for his family at all, as shown when Kratos kills all of them during the events of God of War III, Zeus does not mourn their deaths at all, only showing annoyance at the natural disasters their deaths had caused.
- He is extremely unfaithful to his sister/wife Hera, constantly cheating on her and having affairs (many of which were non-consensual) with other women which caused Kratos, Hercules, Deimos, Perseus and many more sons to be born and grow up with a distant father.
- It has been heavily implied in III, that the reason Hera is in such a drunk pathetic state is because of how bitter she became over Zeus's lack of loyal love for her.
- His terrible parenting and his favoritism towards Athena caused Ares to become evil, and while it doesn't excuse any of his actions, it nearly caused Athens to be destroyed until Kratos' intervention.
- It has also been implied that he hated Hera as well, and only married her to legitimize his rule over Olympus.
- Although he did bury Callisto after her death, it doesn’t show any indication he actually cared for her, but rather (begrudgingly) respecting the natural order of destiny itself, something which he planned to overthrow and enslave one day.
- Despite showing Kratos pity after he was born, he is far past it as he was not hesitant to kill him to secure his own throne.
- After Pandora’s Box was opened, all the evil and darkness that was inside of it was released and corrupted the gods, including Zeus. In spite of this, this doesn’t give him moral agency issues as he committed many other heinous crimes before he was corrupted. Even Týr stated that the gods already possessed negative emotions like fear, deceit, ego, hate, etc. and the box just amplified what was already there. Therefore, Zeus was already a power-hungry, paranoid, perverted, and egotistical god, and the box just made him worse.
- While Kratos does regret having killed him in the Norse Era, this doesn't make him sympathetic at all and is more so meant to showcase Kratos' growth from the murderer he once was.
Background[]
- He starts a war on all the Titans rather than just getting back at Cronos for eating his siblings. In the process, he betrays all the Titans after everything they did for him including Gaia, even after she raised him since birth and saved his life.
- Atlas also informs Kratos that Zeus might have just started a war against the Titans due to his greedy desire to hold power over mortals.
- His betrayal against Gaia may have also led her to betray Kratos later on, as she was increasingly desperate to get revenge on Zeus for what he did to her.
- After the war between Gods and Titans ended, he banished every one of the Titans to the Pits of Tartarus to be imprisoned for eternity and forced Cronos to carry a mountain on his back forever with chains that were cut into his skin.
- What's worse is that according to the God of War II novelization, he banished his own mother Rhea to Tartarus simply for disagreeing with his treatment of the Titans. Not only is this an example of Zeus pettiness and ungratefulness as Rhea was the one who saved him from Cronos to begin with, but also further proves that Zeus did not love his mother at all and his war against the Titans was only out of a selfish desire to rule over humanity and his unreasonably utter hatred for the Titans.
- He ruled over Greece for centuries as a tyrant, frequently torturing and punishing anyone whom he even slightly suspected had betrayed him.
- He helped Hades in the kidnapping of Persephone so she would end up being forcefully married to Hades, which started her path to nihilism and made her start a plan to end the Greek World as revenge.
- While Hades did cared for her over time, Zeus only helped with the kidnapping just to gain Hades’ trust.
- It's implied that he also killed Persephone's mother Demeter to make sure she won’t become suspicious of his involvement in Persephone’s abduction, which may have actually been the true root factor of Persephone's nihilism since she may have discovered her mother's demise later on. Not only that, but it's also implied that he raped Persephone, despite giving her to Hades as his wife.
- He orders Athena and Ares to raze Callisto's village and capture Deimos, intending for Thanatos to torture him for eternity, just because he suspected that Deimos might be the Marked Warrior. And while that was happening, he also imprisoned Callisto in the very center of Atlantis to prevent her from telling Kratos about the real reason why Deimos was abducted.
- Upon imprisoning her within Atlantis, he cursed Callisto to turn into a monster if she ever revealed that he was Kratos or Deimos's father to them, which ultimately led to Kratos having to mercy kill her when she did exactly that.
- He sent Prometheus (who was an ally to him) to eternal torment just for using the Fires of Olympus to help mortals as this was done outside his orders.
- While it may be up to interpretation on what truly happened to her, it’s still implied that Zeus may have killed Hestia, just for being a most obscured goddess in Ancient Greece.
God of War[]
- While he started as well-intentioned by wanting to kill Ares and imprison Deimos despite his cruel treatment to both of them, he eventually became selfish and only wanted to kill Kratos as he was "The Marked Warrior" instead of Deimos or Ares because he knew he would eventually kill him due to Cycle of Patricide, rather than because he would eventually destroy Olympus, only caring that he remains in his position of power as the king.
- After finding out Hephaestus lied to him about Pandora's Box being put on Cronos's back as the best place to hide it, Zeus tortured him by beating him to near death until he confessed that he lied about it due to wanting to protect Pandora.
- He then forced Hephaestus to make a new box that was inside the Flame of Olympus and took Pandora, who was Hephaestus's "reason for living", away to make sure the box would never be opened again. He then banished Hephaestus and Cronos to the Pits of Tartarus to be tortured for eternity.
- It is heavily implied not removing Kratos' nightmares was his idea, despite Kratos saving the Greek Realm from Ares, possibly out of ungrateful sadism.
God of War II[]
- He tricked Kratos into fusing his god powers into the 'Blade of Olympus' so he can defeat the Colossus of Rhodes. He took the Blade of Olympus and demanded that Kratos either serve him or die. When Kratos refuses, Zeus temporarily kills him.
- While he did state that he is worried about his warmongering attitude, he immediately revealed he is going against him because he did not want to get killed like Ares.
- He also told him that "the cycle ends here", proving that his killing of Kratos was only to secure his own throne for all eternity than for any supposed well-meaning reasons.
- Wiped out all of Sparta just because its citizens worshipped Kratos, forcing him to put himself in danger multiple times throughout the second game so he could go back in time and stop Zeus from destroying Sparta.
- When Kratos is about to kill Zeus, Athena sacrifices herself to save him and while Kratos is shocked at this, Zeus could not care less about it and ran off while he was distracted. Despite feeling concerned for her fate in the third game when he called out Kratos for killing her in a blind rage, he later got over it, only caring about stopping Kratos from killing him.
- Not only does this make Zeus indirectly responsible for the death of one of the main protagonists of the series, but this also leads to her becoming a villain since she at some point got corrupted by the evil Greed, assisting Kratos in his murder of all the gods and wanting to rule over mankind as their sole goddess.
God of War III[]
- He manipulates Hercules into feeling envious and vengeful against Kratos due to Zeus apparently "favoring him" which would eventually lead to the two fighting in God of War III, ending with Kratos murdering him. After Hercules is murdered, Zeus doesn’t mourn his death either.
- When Pandora attempts to jump into the Flame of Olympus so Kratos would have the power to kill Zeus, he tells Kratos not to let her sacrifice herself and "don't fail her like you failed your family", mocking Kratos for killing his own family, causing him to attack Zeus in a blind rage.
- When Kratos opened Pandora's Box only to find out it was empty after the flame had been removed, Zeus taunted Kratos over the fact that his efforts had ended with "another stunning failure". While this could show that Zeus possibly also cares for Pandora, it is entirely pragmatic as he does not want Kratos to gain power inside the box.
- He made one final attempt to kill Kratos once and for all.
- While some people believe Zeus let Kratos kill him out of remorse due to the fear finally leaving his body, it is far more likely that Zeus was simply too weak to fight back by that point as Kratos had already beaten him in their fight with the power of Hope, so it is highly unlikely he felt remorse for his actions.
- Despite his brutal yet well-deserved death, he is indirectly responsible for Kratos to stab himself with the Blade of Olympus by bringing Hope to this world, and him going to the Norse era.
- Despite the apparition of Zeus in Helheim being much more cordial to Kratos during their final battle, it only manifested due to Kratos's guilt towards killing his own father, not out of any kindness on Zeus' part.
Trivia[]
- His counterpart in Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale, while having the same mindset and violent behavior, does not count as Pure Evil due to the game being non-canon to the God of War series.
- He and Sweet Tooth are the only Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale villains to be Pure Evil.
- He is the only version of Zeus to be Pure Evil.
- Zeus along with Ares, and Sisters of Fate are the five Pure Evils in the God of War Greek era.
- He has been headlined on this wiki the same date another Greek based character, Pit from the Kid Icarus franchise was headlined on the Pure Good Wiki.
- This is the only version of Zeus, whom, in terms of personality wise, appearances, biography, etc., is the most faithful description of his Greek Mythology counterpart.
External Links[]
- Zeus on the Villains Wiki
- Zeus on the God of War Wiki
- Zeus on the VS Battles Wiki
- Zeus on the Ultimate Evil Wiki
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 Pure Evils
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Zeus | Ares | Sisters of Fate | Raven Keeper | ||