From heartbreaking to chillingly horny, the God of War game series has invigorated nearly two decades of gaming with expert storytelling. In video games’ brief history, two decades is practically old enough to form its own mythology, so I’ve decided to help cultivate one by pitting all the women against each other in a merciless battle to achieve top rank.
Yeah, I know. It’s fucked up. I first wanted to join all of God of War’s leading ladies under one slideshow to bring attention to the series’ unsung heroes.
But I’ve noticed throughout video game history, that when people want to talk about women in games, they often opt to categorise them based on beauty or perceived “MILF” levels. Casual misogyny is only natural when you’re living under patriarchy, or among newly enlightened girlbosses who’ve decided to take up the mantle, and so I must, too. It’s the call of the format. I’ll still bring some of God of War’s many competent, compelling women together, but I am going to rank them like it’s a cursed beauty pageant. You see, I have no other choice.
Let us begin this grim, shallow exercise.
Gaia
Who she is: Gaia is the progenitor of all things, the true mother of Earth and the Olympian gods’ parents, the Titans. She brought her boundless presence to the first God of War in 2005 as narrator, then as a main character and villain in God of War II and III. Because of her limitless ability as an uncontainable, primordial entity, her God of War capabilities are spooky — she’s immortal, omniscient, and her body can regenerate lost limbs. She’s also like 304.80 m tall.
Ranking: I’m too scared to rank Gaia, she might kill me in her colossal tree-lined hands or step on me. I’m only 5’4 feet tall. She should go near the top.
Freya
Who she is: Fans of 2018’s God of War and anyone currently playing God of War Ragnarök will recognise Freya, the Norse goddess of love, war, wisdom and Odin’s ex-wife. In Ragnarök, Freya is tired and mad and would really like to kill Kratos, who killed Baldur, her deranged son and proto-Chet Hanks.
Ranking: I wanted to avoid giving spoilers, but it’s difficult to rank Freya based on the little information I provided in her bio. It wouldn’t be fair. She’d likely fall somewhere near the top, though.
Hera
Who she is: As I live and breathe, here is a tradwife to outperform all other tradwives. Hera is the goddess of marriage and of women, but is primarily concerned with being Zeus’ old lady, despite his epidemic cheating and many bastard babies — Kratos not least among them. In God of War III, Hera washes her bitterness away with too much alcohol and by heckling her husband’s angry son, who eventually reaches his limit and collapses her thin neck in his hand. Rude.
Ranking: I don’t think it’s right to rank Hera. She took her anger out on all the wrong people, in all the wrong places, and in the end, it killed her. It’s too tragic. I’d put her somewhere near the top.
Laufey
Who she is: Lazy story writers throughout time might have us believing that every great game needs at least one kindly dead wife who runs around in the snow and wears a flattering and yet still matronly outfit. We never catch a live glimpse of Laufey, Kratos’ second wife and Loki’s mother, but her flashback scenes in Ragnarök indicate a thoughtful, formidable, and cunning woman, orchestrating a plan for Kratos and Atreus’ lives without them ever seeing it.
Ranking: I can’t rank a dead wife. She’s dead. But if I did, I imagine she would be at the top of the list.
Sigrún
Who she is: The gold-masked Valkyrie Queen Sigrún may have lost her mind, but that doesn’t stop her from creating a long and annoying boss battle in the God of War reboot. After Kratos and Atreus defeat her formidable corporeal form, Sigrún’s soul is set free, and she returns in Ragnarök as a faithful and loving handmaiden.
Ranking: Sigrún shouldn’t be ranked, she’s already been through so much. But she’d make it near the top, at the very least.
Thrúd
Who she is: Thor’s daughter Thrúd is an honest, family-oriented, Valkyrie hopeful. She’s also immortal and superhumanly strong, just like any other gal navigating her early 20s or God of War Ragnarök.
Ranking: Again, I can’t really rank Thrúd based on her spoiler-free description. I’m sure she’d be near the top if I could.
Angrboða
Who she is: Ragnarök character Angrboða is a Jötunn, imbued with graceful strength and the ability to see the future. She also serves as Atreus’ teenage crush, and seeing as how they’d both likely be around 15 years old, this makes the comments on the God of War wiki about how “she is actually quite attractive” all the more upsetting.
Ranking: I’m not ranking a teenager. I am not a God of War wiki commenter. Teen girls deserve way more respect than adults ever care to give them, though, so if I were placing her somewhere in this list, I assume it would be around the top.
Persephone
Who she is: Unsmiling queen of the underworld Persephone taunts Kratos and schemes to destroy humanity throughout God of War: Chains of Olympus, all while channeling proto-Julia Fox in a slinky black dress. Being a genocidal hot girl isn’t the most ideal coping mechanism, but Persephone was forced into a life she didn’t want in the underworld with Hades, a man she didn’t know or care for, at a young age. It’s a hot, genocidal tragedy.
Ranking: I can’t rank Persephone in good faith — it would be too callous, too unfair. Somewhere near the top, for sure.
Athena
Who she is: Greek goddess of wisdom and war Athena appears to her brother Kratos throughout the series in different ways. Sometimes she’s a helping hand, sometimes a representation of convoluted family politics, and eventually a flickering specter after Kratos kills her without shame.
Ranking: She was the product of the gods’ twisted power dynamic. I’d hope if someone like me, who looked like me, and was me, constructed an abhorrently subjective and useless listicle where I’d be ranked, they’d leave some grace around my family trauma, so I feel like I need to show Athena kindness. Still, I can imagine that she would be close to the top.
Topless Women
Who they are: The Topless Women section in the God of War wiki makes me laugh and then cough up blood. It’s true that pre-2018 Kratos was a dog, but damn. “Over the course of the God of War Series, excluding God of War: Betrayal and God of War (2018),” the wiki description says, “Kratos comes across multiple naked or topless women in various locations. By approaching these women, he can engage in off-screen sex by performing a minigame.”
Ranking: Number one, by default. God of War’s topless women have probably spent too long relegated to flippant wiki entries and tongue-in-cheek side plots — but they’re so central to establishing early Kratos’ casual cruelty, why shouldn’t they take the spotlight for once?
Which God of War woman takes your number one spot? Let me know in the comments, either before or after you read The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir. The choice is yours.
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