GREEK ERA

  A Spartan captain leading men to their grave, a loving father and husband, and most of all - a fearsome warrior whose name is known to all. Kratos was a brutal warmonger, bringing glory of Sparta as he rallied his troops forward. In a battle the Spartan army could not possibly hope to win - the one with the Barbarians - Kratos had nearly lost his life to the Barbarian King, but called out to the God of War, Ares, for victory in exchange for his life and his soul. Binding him to the cruel and unjust God.

  Ares was not kind, for he sought to shape Kratos into a perfect warrior; which involved manipulating him with visions into killing his own wife and daughter and leaving nothing but destruction in his wake. Haunted by nightmares of his own slaughter, he begged Athena to release him of that torment, and she proposed to kill Ares, so his sins would be forgiven. Kratos accepts the task, and after a journey to Pandora’s Temple, murders Ares with the power of Pandora’s Box.
  But he was not free of his nightmares. Realising that the Gods of Olympus had betrayed him, Kratos attempts to commit suicide, before being stopped by Athena and forced into position of the new God of War - a title he never asked for.

  As the new God of War, Kratos continued to lead the Spartan army ahead, laying even more destruction and bloodshed in his wake, his soldiers razing hell and spreading the glory of Sparta. Yet he was not allowed to continue this slaughter, as finally Zeus steps in, manipulating Kratos into channeling all of his godhood into the Blade of Olympus - the blade that once ended the war between the Titans and the Gods - and killing him with it.
  Yet Kratos does not die, as he climbs out of the pits of Hades with Gaia’s help and a lot of anger. Even though Zeus had destroyed all of Sparta, Kratos remained - the sole Ghost of Sparta - and sought revenge against the King of the Gods. Which, eventually, not without even more betrayals, he achieves.

  Kratos of Greek era is often viewed as a rather one-note character. Rageful, impatient, arrogant - while all of this is true, there is a lot that people miss about his character. Primary point being that Kratos is not just violent. He is a man who suffers from nothing but constant nightmares. A man who is exceptionally deep in his own trauma and issues. Openly suicidal, broken, but expresses it in the only way that is socially acceptable for a man - with anger. Greek era Kratos is not just a tale about a funny guy slicing some gods up (even though, like, it kind of is and I’m reading too hard into it). It’s a tale about a man who you can traditionally regard as someone with “toxic masculinity” - but the kind that those wannabe alpha males WISH they were and forget the entire point.

  Kratos’s character was always about masculinity, because God of War - the actual God, be it Ares or Mars - is about masculinity, not violence. The same rings true for Kratos: he is not just about violence. Kratos is a deeply depressed, traumatized man with severe trust issues, yet blind with his desire for revenge. He is shown to attempt suicide multiple times in the series (the 2005 game literally begins with that) as well as use casual sexual encounters with multiple women at the same time to try and forget about his torment, though of course that doesn’t work, that doesn’t help.

  To put his character in this era in a few words, I will just quote Kratos himself, from later era: “You are cruel, and arrogant, and selfish. But... you are more than that. You have always been more than what others saw. You are more than that.”