Oh no another half-assed Kratos comic, you know what that means! Yep, I had an insane work week and my only respite was the new God of War.

Anyway, I’m of the opinion that Kratos is a bit of an anomaly in the world of Macho Action Dudes, in that he is just a bottomless sieve of emotions. Like, usually action dudes have their moment of unrestrained rage at the end of the story o prove What A Badass Dude they can be, that Super Saiyan “You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry” moment where they let it all out. Kratos, on the other hand is like… perpetually exhaustingly angry. And when he runs out of angry, he’s sad. He’s just this constant torrent of unrestrained heart-on-his-sleeve emotional whiplash. He’s never the cocky, aloof, too-cool-for-school emotionally distant robot you expect to play in a macho action dude game, he just kind of exists in this cycle of getting all angried out and trying to kill himself until someone on the suicide watch crew can find him a new thing to be angry about. He’s the only game hero I can think of who’s like “Oh man, I checked everything off my to-do list and now I’m out of things to be mad at, I am so drained I think I’m going to kill myself now”

I don’t doubt that others like him exist, they’re just pretty rare in a world of Duke Nukems and Commander Shepards and Solid Snakes and Jack Caymans and Grayson Hunts and Macus Fenixes and Dantes and Chris Redfields and all those other action dudes who are capable of speaking with indoor voices.

We discussed this on Tumblr with fun screen shots and everything.

Oh! And if you’re in the Massachusetts area, next weekend I’ll be at ConBust over at Smith college in Northampton!