Just imagine how much All You Can Eat Korean BBQ they’d go through in a sitting
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!
*ow* looks like a pressure cooker – just prior to exploding O_O
You would not believe how loud one of those things is when that happens.
Have heard a couple pressure-cooker explosions and saw the mess after one. Well-fitting for Kratos, anyway ^_^
Had it happen to me when attempting to make chili the first time. I have since learned where I went wrong.
what kind of chili??
3 meat. Beef (for flavor), pork (for texture), and lamb (for both). Is good when the cooker doesn’t explode.
and just how did you make the cooker explode??
cos i have never heard of that happening before?
This thread is disturbingly prophetic.
Filed under: Boston Marathon 2013
COELASQUID EDIT: Not cool to post walking Dead Spoilers the day after the episode airs dude. I changed the font colour to white so people can ignore it easier if they don’t want to see it.
SPOILER ALERT!
i guess he’s mad that Merle died on the walking dead last night as well.
…that doesn’t count as a spoiler alert.
Just a heads up, if it’s a spoiler for something that isn’t the topic immediately at hand, people usually appreciate a specification of what it’s a spoiler for.
Way to be a tool dude.
SPOILER ALERT! Jesus dies at the end of the movie. The germans loose world war two, and foreshadowed deaths happen fairly consistently when more than half the cast is wearing red shirts.
D: im sorrrrryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
Some good advice once told to me, you can make almost any mistake so long as you only make it once. Especialy since that way, when someone else who nagged you for that mistake makes the same one a month or two later, YOU can be the one giving THEM a hard time! XD
As an American living in S. Korea right now … I would love to go to an all you can eat BBQ with the Commander. Probably one of three of my favorite places to eat here in Korealand. I saw the panel and was immediately happy. <3 For 16,000W (roughly 13-15 USD) … all you can eat meat is amazing.
I very much appreciate the Commander on my pillow case, btw. Best Connecticon ever for me. <3
US$15 is worth it. Here in Indonesia, we have Hanamasa & it’s around IDR150,000 (yeah, US$15) for All-You-Can-Eat. ^_^
I miss buffet-style grilling sooooo much. T-T
The closest thing around here on the Eastern seaboard is like $25, and IT JUST ISN’T THE SAME. (Mainly because the servers keep coming around to cook your meat for you.)
There’s a all-you-can-eat Brazilian barbeque place downtown from where I live. It’s like $50 a person ’cause it’s upscale, but it’s awesome. You get a little bobble thing that’s green on one side and red on the other to put on your table, and as long as you keep the green side up, waiters will keep coming around every couple minutes with different things on skewers.
Some all-you-can-eat restaurants here in Brazil uses the “booble system” – keeps the servers from harassing when you take a break from all the eating. In pizzerias there’s also the yellow sign for when you want a dessert pizza.
Note, some of the pizza flavors can be offensive for hardcore pizza lovers, like strogonoff, hamburger with fries and *yuck* sushi X-P
I would contend that pizza is perhaps the world first truly unifying food, regardless of it’s Sicilian roots, and there can be no illegitimate toppings, only personal preferences. Kind of like how the rocket that went to the moon may have been American, but the accomplishment belongs to the whole species. When the aliens land, and ask us for an “Earthian food” to represent our planet in their restaurants back home, the answer will be pizza.
That said, people who eat it with knife and fork are barbarians who don’t understand pizza.
A friend of mine who owns a pizza parlor serves corned beef and cabbage pizza for St. Patrick’s Day. It’s got a mustard sauce (instead of tomato) and it’s pretty good with, of course, a pint of Guinness.
Yeah, Fogo de Chao or something, right? It isn’t the same :/
I like going up to a bar of marinated meats, picking out what I want, bringing them to the grill built into the table and cooking and eating them, wrapping them with garlic and doenjang and peppers and scallions inside some red lettu- ok. Now I’m really hungry. :/
GODAMMIT, I didn’t want to find out that he died, at least not this way TT_TT
IM SORRRYYYYYY
So he’s died too? He could make cool ragebros with Asura.
Kratos might be on to something. What sounds like better stress relief, drinking yourself into comas in some bar in Ukraine, or roidraging gods in the face?
Neither’s really better. Despite what you may have heard, trying to externalise some deep-seated anger onto a nearby target and then beat it into a bloody pulp doesn’t help in the long run. It might actually make things worse because it makes you think about it more.
With some anti-depressants he might as well be inducted into the Angry Marines chapter
They gave him serious consideration but upon learning that he eventually -can- run out of angry they sent back his application form with a giant flaccid penis drawn on it.
At first glance, I thought they were just eating piles and piles of bacon.
I’ve had squid and pork bellies Korean here locally. They may actually be making bacon there.
Drat, now I’m hungry for bulgogi.
Weird thing is that I pretty much always feel like Kratos, but somehow seem to end up on the Commander’s side of the table, listening to other people’s crap.
So my advice for Kratos is to just try and repress everything, put on your game face and deal…
… then every couple of months when it all gets too much, you get really, really, drunk and have sing along to some Dusty Springfield.
Or, you bite the bullet and go get some CBT.
Unfortunately there are few workable solutions, but coping mechanisms are endless.
If CBT helps, look into IFS (Internal Family Systems). Find a counselor near you that specializes in it. Or maybe read a bit online to start.
Suppressing such things is the first step to moderate insanity, I can tell you this first hand.
There are much, MUCH better options.
Insanity, you say.
What’s insane about a six foot tall, tubby and hirsute man belting out Dusty Springfield tunes?
I mean, it’s not like I always wear the ballgown.
“I’m not as craaaazy as I used to be/Some of my devils done left me free/to find quiet space/ I’m not as out of place…”
I love this guy. ^^
I know that feel bro.
AWWW YISSS MUTHA FUCKIN KOREAN BARBECUE
Doesn’t Solid Snake go the suicide path towards the end? He at least thinks about it.
Solid Snake is the quintessential “I tried to get out, but they keep bringing me back!”
Yes, but it was because he would have become a walking WMD if he didn’t die first.
Good point. He did have the Russian roulette revolver of Foxdie pointed at his head all this time, and at most other peoples too.
Never played the God of War games- always wanted to, never got the PlayStation. That said, the two Prototype games drive me crazy because the main character is just so darned unbelievable. These guys are either Barely Held In Check or Unleashing Living Hell levels of pissed off, 24/7. It’s ridiculous, boring, and completely unbelievable.
Especially in Prototype 1, where Mercer is pissed off because…? I mean, Prototype 2, the dude’s wife and daughter were needlessly murdered horribly, I get that. But Mercer is just angry for the sake of being angry. Nobody can be that angry all the time. He sits there being pissed off while eating a sandwich. When he goes and takes a whiz? Angry. after he’s killed his enemies? Still angry. It makes no sense. He has to have SOME other emotion SOMETIME. And in Prototype 2, the protagonist is the same way!
The creators apparently realized that he at least needed a reason for it, so they killed off his family. But is he ever sad or mournful? Nope. Just angry. And again, angry when he’s having a hot dog, angry when he’s riding the subway, whatever- dude is always angry.
This has nothing to do with badass characters, violent video games, whatever. It’s just lazy writing and bad editing. Badass guys aren’t *powered* by rage (with admittedly the sort-of exception of Hulk) but rather are badass in and of themselves, and sometimes lose their tempers. Badass guys don’t need to prove that they are badass, they simply are- and having them be always angry just makes them seem like they are constantly insisting on the fact that they are badass- no, really, honestly I am- rather than just being it.
To be fair, in Prototype the heightened rage might be a side effect of the virus, considering that Mercer underwent vast physical mutation, I wouldn’t be surprised if rage was just suddenly default. I don’t think they exactly had a list of side effects.
I’m trying to ponder this because for some reason Kratos is excessively angry, but it doesn’t feel out of place.
I guess it’s because he’s consistently angry at everything, and people acknowledge that he’s a pretty angry dude. He also channels his anger at targets which are contextually appropriate, like gods and annoying people with red souls in them. He’s a relatively normal rageman who’s suddenly at the hub of the cosmos and shits all up in his grill all the time.
Alex Mercer has points where he’s totally chill to some people, but is still a major dick. It makes no sense because initially they say he’s a normal science dude with a girlfriend(?) so obviously he has to have been a sociable person at some point. But no personality is established beforehand and none of his previous relationships fit with his current personality.Have you tried walking around normally with him? He’s just constantly slapping civilians around for no reason. He ended up being really boring for me to play as because of how the only reaction he has to anything is to shoot black shit at them.
I think Kratos makes the angry-all-the-time thing work, because he’s not angry all the time so much as angry for the eight hour duration of the time you’re playing with him. Before that he’s mopey, and after he’s burnt out and suicidally depressed, which is a pretty believable reaction to a solid day of screaming rage and being pushed in the dirt by these phenomenal cosmic beings. And we have to consider Kratos’ general… lack of agency, I guess you could say. He’s like a little animal being tormented by all these magical beings the size of skyscrapers. He’s a big strong shouty dude, but compared to the scale of world he lives in he’s like a parakeet with clipped wings trying to climb a bookshelf. If there’s one thing God of War games are great at, it’s making this beefmuscle bullmoose of a man seem like a diminutive little sea monkey in the grand scheme of things.
I think ‘beefmuscle bullmoose’ is my new favorite terminology of the day.
“Hee hee, this commenter should write with Squid”
*sees name*
Apparently I just love your writing.
(Prototype spoilers for people who care about not seeing them)
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The thing about Alex Mercer is that he is so screwed up during the game because of a combination of identity merging from eating people and the fact that he isn’t Alex Mercer, but a virus construct with no memories that looks like him. I can understand his distress and emotions, since he has been literally forced to fight for his life from the moment he woke up constantly until the present time.
In any case, the real Alex Mercer wasn’t a “normal science dude with a girlfriend,” he was a sociopath. He is described as having no friends and trusting no one, and not caring about the consequences of his work. When he learned that he was going to be fired, he released a freaking zombie plague out of spite. Definitely not a normal person. Definitely a dick. The player character Alex actually expresses disgust at “his” prior actions, if I remember correctly. You know you’re bad when a zombie virus given human form can’t stand you :p
This was what I found so interesting about that game. Wish I was better at the fighting stuff, never did make it all the way to the end.
(with admittedly the sort-of exception of Hulk) And Mr. Furious! From Mystery Men.
way to steal some of what makes Kratos so badass the gods tricked him into killing his family it’s reveange that drives him to kill the gods that found it funny to have him kill his family alot of pepole forget this fact it only menchend in an intro to one of his games
Uh…what? I can’t even tell what you’re saying, buddy. Punctuation is your friend. Anyways, Kratos really is just like a screaming teapot of rage and anger, it’s pretty interesting to see a more in depth analysis of the whole “always pissed off” thing.
Dude, dial it back a little. No need to snipe at a person’s writing ability. Makes you seem small and petty.
Er, no, it makes them look like someone who tried to understand what the other person was saying and failed because they said it so badly. If you want someone to understand your point, make it clearly. Otherwise, they get to tell you that you suck at making a point.
Wow, did NOT expect such great responses. Let me take these bit by bit.
1. Mercer dick vs. killing rage. Yea, there are times when he is almost calm- and then he lets slip and you see that it’s just a calm exterior over a raging soul. And yes, it’s as goofy and as melodramatic as that sounds.
2. As I said, never played GoW. I didn’t realize that GoW took place continuously over the course of a fairly short period of time (8-10 hours, say). This does make things considerably more believable. In Prototype, the day/night cycle and the fact that apparently enough time passes for you to destroy an infected building, the building be re-constructed, then re-infected all over again means that the course of the game appears to be over the course of weeks. In fact, I seem to recall that most of the original game is told as a flashback and notes stating how many days after first infection it is, so he’s been rageful for day after day. It’s just damned silly.
3. You say that people acknoweldge Kratos’ anger. Again, with Mercer, that isn’t the case. Nobody ever tells him “Yo, dude, calm down. Breathe deeply. Go take a walk.” Nope, people are just like “What’s that? You’re so enraged that you are literally picking up random people in the streets and tearing them to pieces? Well, that’s understandable.”
4. Personality. Again, he has none. Just rage. He isn’t even one dimensional. He’s an emotion.
5. Side-effects. Well, he isn’t infected by the virus- he is the virus. The virus infected and consumed its first host. Being the first set of memories consumed, the virus is “imprinted” with Mercer as a personality. For another example of something like this, see Alan Moore’s first issue of Swamp Thing. Now, that said, the back story we get of Mercer himself paints him as a bit of a whiny asshole. He doesn’t like his job, so rather than quit, he decides to spread the Blacklight virus through the entirety of NYC. Because, y’know, he didn’t like the severance package they offered him.
5. Mr. Furious. Haven’t seen Mystery Men in the better part of a decade. Forgot all about that until you mentioned it. I stand corrected.
6. Zac, if I understand you correctly (and the gods know, I may not), you are saying that Kratos is pissed off because the gods tricked him into killing his own family, which you would only know because it was in the intro to the game which people skipped over. Could be. Again, never played any of the games. Not…quite sure how this steals him being badass, but okay.
Dear wordpress: Trying to publish a comment 24 hours later doesn’t strike me in particular as “trying to post comments too quickly,” but then, we may have different definitions.
It’s amazing how much mileage there is in a Kratos in spite and because of him being so one-note.
That Sudoku game really did a number on Kratos.
If he gets nearly half as angry as I get on them, it’s no wonder he goes out to kick gods.
they tricked him into killing his family you wood be pissed too
Man, Kratos really needs to get his emotions under control. If he had taken a couple of minutes to stop and think at the end of God of War 2, he probably would have realized that he had the newfound power to travel back in time and stop himself from murdering his own family like an idiot.
Sushi makes every feeling better!
I love your Kratos comics. Never stop.
Also: How does Kratos feel about baby sloths? Maybe the guy needs a pet?
I’m sure he’d be angry that eventually they stop being babies.
What the hell are they eating, it looks like raw bacon but it could be anything
Probably steak. It is Korean barbeque, after all – they’re putting it to cook themselves.
I love Kratos – I remember when he Leonidas argued about Ikea candles “You know I hate blueberry candles!”
I wanted to point out how the Commander is showing a good example of how to react to a borderline personality: stay as neutral as possible.
That doesn’t make them angry at you for being noncommittal?
New idea, you can’t win either way, so just prepare for a punch in the face.
Borderlines are a mess, and yeah, you can’t win. Preparing for a punch in the face is always a good idea.
That said, if you feel a confrontation can be avoided, do stay neutral in your statements. But to learn more about borderline personality disorder, visit your local library.
The ‘aloof badass’ archetype needs to be discussed and deconstructed more. I already linked it in tumblr response, but there’s a great article on Chez Apocalypse discussing the trope in context of new Lara Croft. Having en emotional action hero seems like a major step forward, but it apparently only under condition of said hero being a woman or showing only ‘macho’ emotions, like anger.
We definitely could use more characters (of both genders) in mainstream media that have genuine human reactions to the shit they go through.
I’d love to see the result of handing A big bundle of inconsolable masculine emotion like Kratos to Rhianna Pratchett (who wrote the new Tomb Raider) with carte blanche on what to do with him.
Every time I play on of the God of War games, but the end, I just want to give Kratos a hug. He needs so many hugs.
*by the end
Where do Commander Badass and Canada Man fit on the macho robot spectrum? I picture CB having grown out of the “too cool” shtick and CM being aware of his feelings, if not particularly deep.
I imagine Commander being a pretty goofy dudebro in his youth. Probably why he’s so patient with Jared, gotta let kids be silly.
I can’t see the word ‘dudebro’ without thinking of social justice blogger’s definition of it… and it’s soooo out-of-character to imagine Commander as this strawman fedora-wearing-dudebro XD
Hah, tumblr has screwed my vocabulary.
I mean it in the well meaning jock who knows where the party’s at way. Dudes who are bros. Learns lessons like “don’t play beer pong on a sandy beach” and “don’t eat that thing on the floor” the hard way, but appreciates the journey.
Any chance of a “Jared meets the young commander” strip?
That would be the best thing ever.
I’d like to know where the fedora malarkey comes from. Not a single MRA I’ve spoken to or read articles from mentions them. Or has adopted the fedora as a symbol, or whatever.
It is baffling to me.
Frankly, I’m really not sure. I’ve seen some fedora pride facebook posts headshakingly reblogged on some SJ blogs, but most activity concerning the hat seems to be questions just like yours.
But most MRA’s don’t seem to identify with derogatory meaning of ‘dudebro’ either, they rather see themselves as misunderstood intellectuals, so there you are, I guess…
I mean ‘the you have it’, sorry. That’s what I get for writing just after waking up.
I’ve noticed the SJs on Tumblr seem to have a habit of creating definitions of various words/phrases and getting indignant if you insist on using them in the way understood by normal society.
Yeah, sometimes they can get a bit too far and call out people on thing that shouldn’t be called out on (misunderstanding their inner-circle vocabulary).
But generally I agree with definition of ‘privilege’ provided by SJ movement and keep track of blogs that are reasonably moderated.
I think the only possible contender in the same category as Kratos for being either super angry or mopey has got to be Barrett from FFVII. However Kratos still has him beat by a long shot. Barrett has an adopted daughter to keep some of it at bay
Giving ME an unlimited amount of all you can eat food is going to lead to a new world hunger for just about everybody. I can`t even imagine the sheer amount of food Kratos himself can eat, add the Commander and that restaurant is going broke
Stalling is fine so long as there’s some kind of connection to the jokes at the end or something. :D
Ahh. This is why Commander is the TRUE ‘bad ass’. (Hulk aside) New writers seem so into the idea that rage = power and destruction = strength.
Figure Commander’s kinda’ old-school, control = power and preservation = strength. (though he knows he can pull out the entrail-origami if needs be)
Correct me if I’m wrong.
Scientifically speaking, rage sends adrenaline and all sorts of super-man juice straight through the bloodstream that, temporarily, makes the rager immune to fatigue and pain and immediately pushes the body into the maximum level of strength and endurance it can achieve. It’s an essential part of the fight-or-flight response and is a natural defense mechanism against enemies, used by every living animal between grizzly bears and field mice.
So, yeah, the writers are on to something and know it.
That is fair and objective, but ‘raging’ has a time and place, it shouldn’t work as a ‘first, last and always’ solution. It might save your skin once in a while, but short-fuse rage makes a fighter sloppy (particularly in martial arts).
As for the writers being onto something – same could be said for teen vampire fiction authors…
Flogging a decapitated horse and all that…
but ‘raging’ has a time and place
Some of the greatest stories in human history revolve around this happening at the wrong time. We all know what you’re saying is true, but, human condition and all that.
Bruce Lee, in his prime, once got his ass kicked in a bar fight by a guy who was too drunk to realize he was fighting Bruce freaking Lee. Lee kept hitting him in all the right places and in all the right ways and the guy kept coming because fuck you Bruce Lee, I’m drunk xD. My combatives instructor used that story to teach us that all your experience and knowledge and muscle memory can be topped by one idiot who knows a few things about the art of whup-ass and is too mad to know when to quit. The old “where’s there’s a will, there’s a way” mindset can work wonders for normal people.
And I think we can all agree that teen vampire fiction sucks no matter how it is presented.
Yes, Bruce Lee was sober.
Generally a person who knows what they’re doing can seriously fuck up a brawler, I would give that one to the pain-numbing properties of alcohol and Bruce Lee’s refusal to flat-out murder a dude in a fight more than the guy’s knowledge of “whup-ass”. Like that guy who yanked out a tazer and kept coming at the cops because he was full of PCP or something, not a lot of skill, just a lot of drugs.
While Kratos is a emotional wreck at least he could take his time out of his depressing world to punch ninjas in MK9 and be around a god who knows what it feels like to be a total joke also fujin. Raiden: hey thank you for murdering every one you some how killed Shao khan, we are in your dept. You have a home here if you ever want to comeback.
Kratos: Somegod, being kind, Too me?! *on that day kratos heart grew 1 nanometers*
I love the Kratos strips, so if it’s easier for you just keep doing them.
in which Kratos accurately sums up my life/is the fangirl/fanboy part of Tumblr.
Words cannot express how much I want all you can eat Korean BBQ right now.
… Now I’m craving galbi, samgyupsal, and cow tongue. Oh well. I’ll have to make do with the schadenfreude that someone, somewhere out there, just lost their appetite over that last one.
And stuffed intestines!
If you saw what a good “feijoada” (typical Brazilian food) has inside, probably you would never eat it – it’s namely black beans cooked with pork meats and salted parts (ear, tail, tongue, foot, throat), sided with white rice, orange slices and “couve” (a cabbage relative, probably the collard green)
And I love cow tongue, foot and tail too. ^_^
Lost my appetite? No, you just made me want to cut into the corned beef I just cooked. It should be done setting by now :D
Has that awesome black&white Commander art always been there at the bottom of the page? I looked and it’s not on the Extras page. Is there a larger version of it somewhere?
Add being a shrink Kratos Won’t kill to the Commander’s list of badassery.
I sometimes forget that people ever play male-Shep.
Eventually, that rage gotta end. But thinking of Kratos dishing a Kamehameha, is oddly funny.
(I forgot, sorry!) Sooo… you are telling me that Kratos is Vegeta, without the pointy hair.
You know, Coelasquid, as long as we’re on the “feels things” and “doesn’t fit the macho stereotype” you should look into Issac Clarke, the protagonist from the Dead Space series. I know he isn’t what you’d classically do a comic about, but there’s something inherently badass about a dude who straight walks up to mutated human corpses to dismember them with his booted feet before they can horribly eviscerate him. And he does it over and over and over. With tools, for the first part of his Necromorph-battling career. Just a thought!
So he’s exactly like every other mute protagonist.
Like I said, just a thought! :D
Espescially in that once they get a voice, all you want them to do is shut the hell up again.
This just made me think of how much of a dick Gordon Freeman is. He spends all his time jumping, even when people are talking to him, breaking things, ruining peoples lunches, spying on people and he doesn’t even have the courtesy to answer anyone back.
Wasn’t there a guest comic a while back where these two were rejected by the agency on account of being nerds?
Yeah there was. It was a shame. No one else can make a crowbar sing like GF. Or squelch or splat or kill aliens.
Maybe everyone just assumes he’s an autistic savant. He does inexplicable and/or rude things, won’t talk, but is so good at physics that no one will fire him. And everyone lets him off with a light scolding because they think he doesn’t know better. Whether Gordan really is one or not is left up to the player.
I would like to contest the theory that Commander Shepard is just another senseless badass protagonist. the only way s/he comes across like that is if you skip all the dialogue in all three games. there are some incredibly touching moments where Shepard comes across as very much just a human being.
I agree, especially if you take the Paragon options. I just don’t have the heart to do otherwise.
Shep in ME3 is the ultimate bro. I can’t finish the game because seeing him in that N7 hoodie, and listening to his dialogue reminds me of every meathead i met in my 10 years at happy valley.
I keep expecting him to start conversations by jutting his chin forward and saying “sup”.
Especially when he talks to vega. its such bullshit man pain.
“dont you think i wanna be on earth MAN. I do MAN. I’m like dying inside bro, but like, we need to like… get these kegs to phi delt.”
Speaking of kratos (sorry to break topic), there was a review where adam sesslar got particularly salty about a trophy and the beating of a female. I am curious, what is your whole opinion of this matter Coelasquid?
And while were at it, what about that tropes vs women show? Not that I would think less of someone based on an opinion, but givin the source material of this comic, it really leaves me curious on what your thoughts are.
Considering all the women he “beats” in the game are phenomenal cosmic beings who are actively engaged in using their God-powers to fight him, and what I’m imagining is the scene in question is on par with just about any other God of War boss fight, I’m of the opinion it would be more sexist of him to go easy on her because guys fighting women make people uncomfortable.
Huh, I just watched the review, I didn’t notice that trophy when I finished that fight. I’d agree that it’s a pretty tasteless title for it, but I’m more of the opinion whoever named it was a dick than “it soured the whole experience”, considering the attitude expressed by it has nothing to do with the actual game.
Kratos does seem to have a soft spot for the more human like females in the game. Up until they try to kill him, or he has to choose between not setting them up to die and moving a head with his goal of god killing. The god killing will always win.
The only time I can recall him ‘needlessly’ killing a normal, un-god like piece of temple eye candy is in the second game with the Poseidon Priestess- who was terrified of him. I’m not sure why it was necessary for her to die that way, but it was the only direct female eye candy death he took a part in.
I do think the name of the trophy is tasteless. I think (and I’ve just watched the review- haven’t gotten to that boss fight yet) if the trophy had a different name or if there was none at all there wouldn’t be a problem as I was taking the review to be objecting more to the trophy name than the actual act of stomping on a fury.
Actually a lot of “trophies” and their names are kind of dumb and seem more geared to the in-joke bro-fist mentality which leaves me feeling left out. But I don’t play for achievements- I play to kill things without going to jail for it.
3- god of war 3 was when the girl was killed. I lost my ability to count for a moment.
I will say that killinh that woman in three kind of left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Me and my buddy were just like… wow… And the room stayed silent for a minute.
Would like to think that was the point of that part. So when Smith God went all “stay the HELL away from my daughter!” and tired to kill Kratos we would be kind of “yeah, can’t blame him for trying”. Hell, even Kratos didn’t want to be near Pandora because he knew what he could and would do if given a chance.
And then there were all these emotional feels and he was getting angry because he doesn’t have TIME to deal with them on top of a teen-daughter like girl who is trying to kill herself for the cause and then Zeus shows up. I bet that was the one and only time Kratos was “happy” Zeus showed up.
If im not mistaken, I believe the trophy was for a completely different reason, not for beating a woman. I think it was someone who saved you as opposed to turning on you? I havent played it but thats what I know without delving a bit to much into the story.
Probably for saving Orkos from the furies or standing by him or something. It’s still pretty tacky to call a woman who exists in a completely non-sexual context a “ho”, especially right after you’ve just graphically bludgeoned her into submission. The scene doesn’t bother me content-wise because the women Kratos is fighting is his antagonistic superior, not a sex object. The phrase “bros before hos” means “stand by your buddy instead of that chick you’re banging/would like to bang” and yes, I believe even in context it’s pretty shitty to call a powerful female character that’s supposed to be Kratos’ near-equal at this stage in the game a slang term for “whore” based on no reason other than “she is a woman”.
Yes. Kind of also saying the only reason why Kratos even won was because she was female, weak and an easy target, not because he’s a bad ass god killer.
fair enough
I thought that guy’s only emotion was ‘anger’. Or possibly ‘rage’.
There are other emotions. But, because he doesn’t quite know how to handle them- or can’t handle them at the time he just defaults to rage.
First it was because he was tormented with the visions of him killing his family over and over and over on top of being bound to the very gods who used the vague promise of forgiveness- on the assumption that forgiveness would make the visions stop.
That ‘forgiveness’ for his past crimes did not make the visions stop so he is stuck with really vivid PTSD and no way to heal from it or deal with it outside of killing everything in his path. The gods fucked themselves over by not letting the man heal, but then we wouldn’t have a GoW franchise.
I would just like to take a minute to appreciate the detail of skin lump where Kratos’ head meets the table. Or maybe they’re just angry eyebrows. They make me happy for some reason anyway.
Actually, now that I browse backward through the archive, I only found one moment where Coelasquid drew Kratos being happy: http://thepunchlineismachismo.com/archives/comic/03222010
I guess his default mode in this comic really is ‘angry’.
Hey Coela, will you ever put LOTR charecters in this Comic?
Are any of the LOTR characters TOTALLY MACHO DUDES? Preferrably ones that can be explored in a new light by Coelasquid?
Kratos need to talk to a therapist. That would likely not end well for the therapist…
Commander IS his therapist by the looks of it…or at least, one who is able to press X and not die.
Didn’t think of that. The Commander is likely the only person that could play therapist to Kratos, even if it is in an informal fashion. Then again it seems like counseling might be part of his job.
Coelasquid! I ate at those kinda restaurants all the time when I was stationed in japan. I can’t remember what they are called so I can find one here though. What are they?!
Korean BBQ, it mentions it in the title.
In Japan they called them “Ghengis Khan”, or as we know them here “Mongolian BBQ”. It cracked me up.
Mongolian BBQ is a different thing, at least in North America. Korean BBQ they bring you a plate of raw meat that you cook yourself on a gas burner in the middle of the table, Mongolian BBQ you get a bowl and pile it as high as you can with meat and veggies, then you hand it to the cooks, they add noodles and seasoning, and stir fry it on a giant round hot plate thing with big wooden sticks.
Over here in New Zealand, the Mongolian BBQs I’ve been to have you pick out EVERYTHING. The meat, veggies, noodles and seasoning. Then they cook it on… well, it’s basically a round counter that’s just a huge hot plate, but they don’t use wooden sticks. Knives and spatulas…
When I red this ” Control Anger by Using Your Less-Dominant Hand” (http://www.cracked.com/article_20166_5-brain-hacks-that-give-you-mind-blowing-powers_p2.html) I tought of Kratos inmediately xD
Betcha he’s that rare person who’s naturally ambidextrous.
Kratos is a bit of an odd ball. Nearly everything that happens to him is his fault, but then there’s the fact the Fates plotted it that way. And then you remember he killed the Fates to change his, but only to get revenge rather than to make his life better. There’s no doubt his a rage filled monster of a man, but then they keep reminding the player he had a wife and daughter he was tricked into killing and felt remorse for doing so. There is pity to be had for Kratos, just it’s hard to feel it when he’s buried under the mountains of bodies and rivers of blood from those he’s killed.
Huh, I was at a Korean barbecue for the first time in years just a few days ago…
Sounds like Kratos could use some other form of venting…
“Dear Livejournal,
I totally kicked Ares off of my friends list today…”
Hmmmm…not one Serious Sam who did go beyond Serious mention. :/
Well…you could always include Captain Martin Walker. He was a Macho Action Dude amirite?
Except Capt. Walker was a deconstruction of army dude protagonists in army games. Having him here would be redundant.
I wonder if Kratos was actually angry/depressed during his encounters with women he met on beds?
I seriously doubt someone like Aphrodite would give Kratos something to rage at.
“Damn it why won’t you get off!!”
Don’t think he has that problem with women. Hence all the happy consenting whores that line up when they aren’t piling on top of him. All things considered, he treats the women he has sex with rather decent.
Makes me wonder how he’d get along with Asura. I can’t remember if you’ve already used him in a comic before, actually…
I have read this comic probably ten times now since it posted. I keep coming back to it.
It will never not be funny.
Dangit, now I’m hungry.
Maybe Max Payne could be placed in that category, too…?
I wonder… what would happen if Commander Badass met Fate/Zero’s Alexander the Great… Broskander is boisterous enough to fit right in there and he’d probably try to make Velvet befriend Jared…
There has GOT to be some sort of medication he can take to even him out. A constant state of emotional roller coaster bad times will just burn the life out of anyone.
Holy crap you’re gonna be in northampton?!?! gotta get dat autograph!
Only guy that could give Kratos a tun for his money in the anger department is Asura of Asura’s Wrath (fittingly enough.) But Asura got his happy ending while Kratos just left the world a mess so… I’s give Kratos a hug if I didn’t fear been torn in two for touching him.
So…..
Yeah, I don’t know why, but whenever I read the Commander’s lines, I imagine Phil Harris’ voice, but a bit gruffer.
Weird.
Asura from Asura’s Warath might count.
But then again Asura did have his daughter to keep him grounded.
(Well until the DLC but thats another story)
I find it hard to sympathise with Kratos at times. The dude is responsible for a lot of his misfortunes.
Consider ‘Ghost of Sparta’, where he finds his mother and, thanks to a curse or something, she turns into a monster and attacks him. Of course, the only option he can see is to beat seven kinds of hell out of the monster, which then turns back to his mortally-wounded mother.
He grieves for a moment, then is pretty much immediately angry again. And that’s his pattern. Something happens, he rages out and destroys everything, he’s sad for a moment, and then he swears angry vengeance on everything!
As much as we can assume he’s pretty damn clever for solving all the puzzles in the games, you’d think he’d stop for a moment’s self reflection now and then. Maybe look for another answer, even if only when the fight involves something or someone he cares about or wants to save.
But then, he wouldn’t be Kratos….
See, I would consider that a rather poor example. What else are you supposed to do to a monster attacking you, even if it is really your mother? And is it really unreasonable to get mad at someone who makes you do that to her?
Ya know. . . I have yet to play God of War 3, but after playing 1 and 2. . . I don’t like Kratos. I don’t like him at all. The only thing keeping me from not despising him is the fact that almost every other character is just as bad as he is or worse. He kills literally everyone he meets. It’s almost like a bad running gag. 2’s worst moment for me was probably the dark silhouette’d fight where you “accidentally” kill your loyal mortal Spartan dude who worships your ass. They make a pretty piss poor attempt at making Kratos appear apologetic about the whole thing too, they have a moment where the guy is all “you’re the last spartan blah blah blah” and Kratos get’s all “ZEUUUUUUUUUS!” … and then….he’s using his worshipers corpse as a dead-weight for the kraken puzzle/boss fight.
Yay I made it to the end of the archive.
I just finished Mass Effect 3 and this is exactly how I feel.
Now I imagine Kratos posting about his “feels” on tumblr.
Just a random idea, but it’s a shame there wasn’t a strip with Kratos trying to get really angry in his Kawaii form. His face would probably snap. :P
Not sure if you been told, but this was posted on the God of War Facebook page (I think a fanpage though). Wasn’t sure if you were interested in knowing.
In more prudent news, I laughed really hard.
In less prudent news, Korean BBQ is fantastic.
I don’t know about the Commander Shepard one. He seemed pretty emotionally drained in Mass Effect 3.
They’d be slaughtering whole ranches of cow to feed that BBQ.
The only other such character I can think of is Asura from Asura’s Wrath and he’s more of a deconstruction of rage-fueled heroes while at the same time being a more positive portrayal.
Well, people tend to eat much when they’re in depression -voice of wisdom- so possibilities are endless… Let’s call the entire meat stock of the restaurant. Maybe two more.
I wanna know where they are that they get ACTUAL Korean barbecue. We don’t have any restaurants around South Georgia that have the real thing, sadly……..
I swear I thought they were eating people parts.
Every time I watch someone playing god of war I try and imitate Kratos’ permanent frown. So close to getting it
Hell, you’d get a kick out of Guts from Berserk.
Story of my life. I honestly can feel for Kratos on this one, especially with how things have been going for me in my own family life. Yulch. -_-;