Of Godliness and Whiteness
Earlier this week I posited that Kratos could be black. I also called out the decision makers who keep shoving the voice of a black man into an increasingly white presenting character, and many on the internet were INCENSED at the notion, and many people’s first reaction was that I clearly had no clue about the story which seemed to be their biggest issue.
This is Kratos, protagonist of God of War.
Some facts about him: He is a new character created by modern day game developers in the United States of America. The lead creator on the first game is a white american. There have been a few games since the first, only 3 main story line. I played through all of the 1st and 3rd of those mainline games.
To avoid confusion: The story of God of War is not Ancient, or Greek in origin, nor is it Greek mythology, because it is modern day writing. It can, and does, whatever it wants with the source material, which is fine (obviously.)
In God of War, the newly created character Kratos is a demigod (ie, born of human & God) raised in Sparta. He is a Spartan general. During a battle with “barbarians” (a term used to refer to anyone who didn’t speak Greek and follow classical Greek customs) he is killed, and sells his soul to the OG God of War, Ares, to come back and win the battle.
In the mythos of God of War, Kratos is known as the Ghost of Sparta, a nickname given to him, no doubt, because the developers wanted him to have “ghostly white” skin coloring (did the Greeks believe in ghosts?) and they thought the “Ghost of Sparta” was a cool nickname. The story we are given for the literal white color of his skin (not to be confused with whiteness as “race” or “ethnicity”) is the result of the ash of his dead family (who Kratos was forced to kill because of the earlier agreement with Ares) was fused with Kratos’s skin as a reminder of the shame he cannot escape.
Because this is the writing/character design of a group of developers, it is only set in stone if you want to let it be so. It is not infallible, and as all media, it is not impervious to critique.
Kratos could honestly be any race or ethnicity underneath those ashes, if the creators wanted it to be so, because after all, this is a fictional character based loosely around the idea of Ancient Greek mythology. In fact many liberties have been taken in the mythos of God of War, like the existence of multiple Minotaurs to be fought and killed, (because in “canon” Greek Mythology, only one existed, and was killed by another hero.) Or the death of Hercules, who died by Kratos’ hands in GoW, and not by an accidental poisoning in some elaborate scheme to trick Hercules.
God of War is able to play loosely with these ideas because it is a re-imagining of ANCIENT Greek Mythology, and not even pretending to be actual Greek Mythology, because that would be stupid.
Get it? Good.
Now separating the whiteness of Kratos’ ashen skin from whiteness as a racial construct (as well as any assumed race that people might have of a fictional person inserted into a racially dubious time of ANCIENT Greece (where Bull people and snake people lived, and women were raped by Swan shaped gods, and of course all of this is happening during a time of sea faring individuals VERY close to Africa, birthplace of humanity)) we might start to wonder what his racial mix is. At least, I have.
I wondered because of his casting. This was Kratos’ 1st Voice actor, TC Carson.
TC Carson is black. He is an actor, best known for his role on Living Single.
I love Living Single.
Friends, the show, was ripped off of Living Single.
Everyone on Friends is white, except in the last few seasons where they invent a black woman who gets tossed around for sex like a hacky sack. A blacky sack.
Friends is an inferior show, not just because it steals from Living Single, and not because everyone on it is white. It just lacks any sort of humanity that Living Single had. If you describe friends, or Living Single, without mentioning the names of the characters, however, they sound like the exact same show. My point about this will be made very soon.
TC Carson, as Kratos’s voice actor, gave the heart and soul of the personality to Kratos (at least in between the times where Kratos is flailing about with his chains like he’s going for gold.)
But, what does God of War’s world think of Kratos? What is his ethnicity in the world of bull people, and snake people, and also Egyptians (wait where are the Egyptians, and Turks, etc. his tale?) I wondered mostly because, well, the games industry is severely lacking in black roles.
I had seen this picture of Kratos floating around… people use this to say Kratos could be black.
He’s certainly brown, but so is Hulk Hogan. As I said before, skin color & race are not the same. I read in an interview that Kratos was supposed to be modeled after Ed Norton as a Neo Nazi in American History X. I also read another interview that said that Kratos could even be played by Ed Norton in a movie. Which is all so confusing, if TC Carson plays Kratos, why would Ed Norton play him in a movie? So, let’s dive into what the world (of God of War, and the writers/world builders) really thinks of him.
Here is Kratos’s mom, Callisto. She barely exists in the franchise.
She looks like a pretty standard white woman to me, and not because of ash. She doesn’t even have the “tan” that Kratos somehow exhibits at one point or another.
Perhaps his dad Zeus, who is not a human being, and can be a bird, or whatever he wants to be, who was born from the Titans who were mountains and tree people, and is a principle God of an Ancient Civilization so close to Africa (and remember, is a NEW INTERPRETATION) might be more African leaning in appearance (as Ancient peoples on Earth were from Africa, after all.)
The one and only Zeus…
Zeus, like*most of* the Gods in God of War’s imagining of Greek mythology, is clearly white. Despite being able to be ANYTHING for a large number of reasons.
This is Kratos, again, in case you forgot.
By the character design of God of War’s creators, Kratos’s “race” is very much coded as overtly meant to be White. Regardless of the Ash in his skin. Because skin color and race are not equal.
This has probably less to do with the supposed (and argued) whiteness of the ANCIENT (and not recent) Greeks, but more the default nature of white artists to make white characters. Game developers are predominately white men, after all.
I mean, he could be a black guy under there, like Ashy Larry.
Ashy Larry, like Kratos, is played by a black man. His outward appearance is also “White” like Kratos, because he is also stricken with ashen skin that is a reflection of his shame.
But, Ashy Larry is written as a black man, and all he needs to do is use some lotion. Use the lotion, Larry!
Larry could easily be written as “white”. This is Dave Chappelle, playing a white man.
Speaking of writing your own fiction:
This is Rachel Delozalalalal
She is allegedly a real person. A real white person, despite apparently getting a perma tan, curling out her hair, running her local chapter of the NAACP, and claiming that she is in fact “not white”.
Don’t believe me? Here are her parents in an interview talking about how white she is. She’s not even multi-racial.
Here’s Vin Diesel, from his short film “Multi facial”
In the movie Vin is basically playing himself as a multiracial guy — too black to be cast as Italian, and too Italian to be cast as black. So he gets cast as Latinx. (I too have often been confused as being Puerto Rican, Dominican, or “light skinned Hispanic”, as a cop who was racially profiling called me when stopping me for an armed robbery.)
Kratos too looks fairly ambiguous, and I honestly didn’t really think about it much, but when you look at his family, and the Jim Henson’s muppets style faux British accents given to everyone other than Kratos… well. His parents could be black AF Zeus and Mediterranean lady. But nah… for… the reasons I said before. Oversight, not thinking about it, etc.
I wasn’t really thinking about it much, especially because I thought God of War was over. But, here is the new Kratos. Noooow with beard-tech™
Kratos has been supposedly reinvented. With his whole family of Gods dead, thus causing Ragnarok, it only makes sense for him to… move on to Norse mythology? (How is anyone still alive?)
Although I feel like his new design just really wants to battle this guy.
You need more face tattoos Kratos!
Along with new Kratos, he has a kid! Dad Kratos! Kradados! KraDos!
This is Kratos’ son in God of War 4.
This kid is a sweet little white boy; just look at him! Kratos’s kid, the son of a white demigod. (And Aloy? I can’t be the only one who thinks they bear resemblance)
Separate from the ash that stains Kratos, this kid did not murder his family, and get stricken with the ash of their dead bodies. Yet in this screen, he is the same color as Kratos.
Kratos is now off to fight Norse gods! Which is fine I guess. But when I heard TC Carson wasn’t returning, I kinda felt happy for him, freed of being a black voice trapped in a violent, toxic, abusive, villainous, war monger.
And yet, in this move to Norse mythology, Kratos has been cast as another black actor, Christopher Judge.
Christopher Judge is awesome. I loved him on Stargate. I’m sure he’ll do well in the role. But in the games industry, there are so few roles that the only way for black people to have a space is to take these roles, which I’m sure is fun to shout a bunch in, but it’s real weird that they doubled down on the casting, without budging on the 3D modeling of the face of the character to let Christopher Judge’s features come through.
3D artists made the beastly Hulk look like Marc Ruffalo, so it CAN be done.
We have other characters who look just like Kratos. We have few who look like TC Carson and Christopher Judge. And even though I think Kratos is an abhorrent character, the developers seem intent on trying to make him less of a piece of shit. It’d be nice, if they threw those mocap balls on Judge’s face, and used his face to inform Kratos’s facial make up. But also, make this kid a little biracial Norse/black demigod boy. That would be cool, but that’s not what anyone is doing.
If we want to talk about skin color vs. talking about race, this clip from The Spook who Sat By the Door, is an excellent way to break it all down.
Bonus round — The Sliding Whiteness of Ancient Gods in Pop Culture
Here is Kevin Sorbo, who was Hercules on TV for a long, long time. I loved this show.
He is white, but also his skin is that nice shade of brownish orange that Hulk Hogan rocks. He also called people during the Ferguson protests “animals”. (he has since apologized)
Here is Hercules (son of Zeus, brother to Kratos) in God of War.
He is white, because his parents are white. Because that’s what the creators of God of War wanted him to be.
He is voiced by Kevin Sorbo, seen above in his yellow shirt and blonde hair.
Here is Hercules from Disney.
Oh boy is he white (or Orange?)
Yet in the same world of Hercules the cartoon movie, these are the Muses.
They are black as hell, y’all.
This is also confusing. They are used for their blackness to tell a story, but there are ZERO black characters in the film proper. There’s the blueish grey man Hades, but… nah.
Here is the Rock, the latest movie star playing Hercules.
He is black and Samoan. This was huge! Maybe I missed it, but I never saw people getting up in arms about his casting in this role. And why should they? As a descendant of African Diaspora and Pacific Islands, he is basically 2/3rds of the world’s population. As a hero for humanity, who better than the most electrifying man in sports entertainment?
Extra Bonus
Here is Idris Elba, in the Marvel Comics interpretation of Norse mythology turned into a movie, Thor.
He is playing Heimdall. He is also BLACK AF. And racists on the internet were MAD AF.
But he ain’t mad, because why should he be? He’s Idris Elba, critically acclaimed actor. Star of such TV shows as the Wire, and Luther.
People were mad that, in a space traversing comic book turned into movie interpretation of ancient mythology, that a God who can look like basically anything, was black, which would conveniently align him with what the oldest known “race” on this Earth (Humans originated in Africa, after all) would look like.
And on one final note of bullshit: Here’s an AR 15 in Thor.
Yes, I know this is an homage to the comics, but also I really want to know how mad were the people, the ones who want to argue about historical accuracy, or the powers of gods, or argue about “skin color dipped in ash vs. actual racial identity”, when an Earth gun, with a seemingly endless magazine of human made (machine made?) bullets, showed up in a movie with an invincible wolf (Fenrir) and was somehow helpful in battle in Space Asgard against an undead army? LIKE SERIOUSLY.
Conclusion
I still stand behind this idea. I’m sick of lead character designs being white by default, or when a design happens to be black, how the casting is often a white person in the role. I’m also tired of a lack of imagination, and how people will stan for a character design from 10 years ago, or 50 years ago, acting like nothing can change.
Here’s Nick Fury, from the past.
Here’s Nick of the present, and hopefully, the future.
I’ll leave y’all with Kratos’ real son. My man Tobias.
Fin.
