During the E3 expo of 2012 there was the usual miasma of
sequels and prequels and rehashes of old games and the occasional new game. Not
unusual for E3 there was a moment of faint controversy when the latest in the
God of War series of games unveiled a new enemy that had the design of a large muscular
creature that had the head of an elephant ( See this youtube clip for when the
fella appears at 5:51 http://youtu.be/j1QOCbAoRts
)
Now for those not versed in the games or world religions,
the reason why this has caused some mild controversy is because that in the
games you play as a historical murderer with incredible anger management issues
and a take on atheism that can be certainly called “Pro-active” with him
actively trying to kill the pantheon of Greek gods in Olympus.
This
new enemy though has raised some theological issues in the fact that Kratos is
now killing an elephant headed bad guy, not un-reminiscent of Ganesh of the
Hindu religion. Gamers in defence of the series believe that the characters are
not similar enough to carry any worry and are simply a new enemy with an
interesting look. But the God of War series has always had a loose
interpretation of the looks of the Olympian deities so why should this be
different for Hindu characters?
If you’re wondering why one pantheon of multi-deity religions
is fine for murdering in a game and those in Hinduism isn’t then, you’re a
fucking moron. Hinduism is very much alive and thriving, where as the temples
of Greek gods have been reduced to places where fat tourists bimble about
looking at before buying something in the gift shop to try and prop up Greece’s
failing economy.
Enough back-story to this article, here’s my personal take
on this. God of War 3 ended with the destruction of the Greek Gods, but I don’t
think the story ends there, I think it is just the beginning!
Kratos is the video game equivalent of militant atheism,
actively tracking down and killing all the gods, including the wishy washy
pagan ones, the Buddhist deities (this is would be a training level really, as
they’d just accept their fate and let it happen) to killing a vague fuzzy image
of Mohammed and Allah, all the way up to a one on one fight with Jesus wielding
a massive cross as a hammer.
The end battle is with a mysterious figure that is simply
described as “that odd feeling of being watch” until atheism rules the world
and Kratos kills himself to avoid being worshipped and yells “Really, this is
actually pointless!” before chopping his own head off.
David Jaffe has called it, Militant atheism has it’s battle
cry and it’s call from the dark void of the abyss! Rise up atheist soldiers!
Die for nothing! You might as well, it’s going to happen anyway!
