Antihero

Antiheroes are kind of a concept that come and go in story writing through the ages, though with increasing frequency as we grow closer to the current day. If you don't know, an antihero is pretty self explanatory - they're a main character who is anything but a hero. They're not exactly a villain persay - they are still the main character, and we as readers may even be cheering for them to defeat some other evil. But they are rude, thoughtless, careless people, who are far more interested in themselves and their own betterment than anyone else around them. The only reason they would step out of their way to help someone is if they believed that they had something to gain by doing so.

I'm not a particular fan of antiheroes, though I can certainly understand their appeal - all too frequently, heroes in stories are unattainably perfect, and how unrealistically righteous they are can drag you out of the story. I'm a cynical, frequently hateful person, so I can understand that it's far easier to connect to an antihero than a hero if you are in my shoes. Personally, I don't want to connect so much as I want to experience, so having a character close to my own shoes actually takes away the enjoyment for me, but I know that I am a rare case in this instance, and am more than willing to recognize the importance of antiheroes.

That being said, I think there is a difference between an antihero and a complete and utter asshole. Many of the books I read in high school and college starred antiheroes, and while I didn't like any of them, I found some to be far more irritating than others. None of them were as offensive to me, however, as the game God of War was.

God of War was a game that I never particularly had any interest in to begin with. It wasn't really a gameplay style I was into, and everything I had ever heard about it made it seem like something I wouldn't enjoy. But it was a massively popular and highly praised game, and as I grew older and decide I wanted to expand my gaming repertoire, God of War seemed like one of the games I should try and play. I found the game fairly boring, the combat uninteresting, and many of the sections didn't feel like they controlled very well or were overly difficult. Overall, though, that would have made it a mediocre experience, but I downright hated God of War, which was entirely because of the main character.

Kratos is a character who wishes to fight the gods of Olympus because he is bored and because one of them tricked him into killing his wife and child. The latter reason would be a perfectly acceptable reason - except it's only lightly touched on, and only explains one god. But Kratos kills every single one of the greek gods, purely because he's an asshole. He violently tears them apart, even when they are trying to help him, and uses innocent bystanders as ways to jam gears and destroy obstacles. He's angry, spiteful, violent, and doesn't have a single redeemable feature about him. In any other game, he would be the villain. And his attitude and behavior took any enjoyment I might have gotten from that game away.

Like anything, there needs to be some kind of balance. Wanting to take revenge for his family was good - it just wasn't utilized. To have some reason to be angry and hateful, or to at least have a line you won't cross. That is all that I would ask.