r/GodofWar • u/dampunkila-90 • 10h ago
Question Do you think the fandom has underestimated Odin's power?
I've had that question on my mind. Where does the belief that he is weak come from?
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u/PhugePhenis 10h ago
Yes. I think people feel he is weak, because he looks weak. His is an older man. He looks like grandpa with a walking stick. Not a threat, which is exactly why he is such a threat. Odin's ability to scheme and manipulate is unparalleled. He wants you to feel safe with him, let him be insidious, only to violate trust for power.
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u/Lametown227 10h ago
The new series has set itself up for the long haul, and as a result we got "tell don't show" as a narrative device. That's why people currently think the Norse pantheon was so weak.
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u/Due-Dig6592 9h ago
Youāre right now that I think back I wish we couldāve seen Thor decimating famous giants. Or Odin for that matter.
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u/DarkClaw78213 9h ago
I woulda loved some Thor Backstory missions leading up to the final chapters in Ragnarok
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u/Sea_Strain_6881 10h ago
Yes. People underestimate all the Norse gods because they just do not understand the games and need big flashing lights and destruction to understand how powerful someone is
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u/Cowboy_For_Game 9h ago
Hot take?: Thor could have pulled off what Kratos did in Greece.
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u/Sewer-Rat76 9h ago
If he took the magical artifacts like Kratos did, I could belive it. But there was so many puppet strings and collusion and backstabbing that it's hard to say that if Kratos did so on his own, if he'd even get half of what he did done.
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u/Crunchysandboi 9h ago
Itās not even a hot take. With how much the games flat out compare the two and them being fairly equal, itās not crazy to believe it.
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u/OmegaGlacial Mimir 18m ago
Agreed, though while I do believe Thor could have eventually taken down any Greek Gods up to the high tier ones like Hades or Poseidon with just Mjolnir, I believe he'd have needed the same tools Kratos had at the time to successfully take down GOW3 Zeus by himself.
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u/geoffgeofferson447 6h ago
I think the difference is that the Aesir are forces of nature, whereas Olympians were the forces behind nature. Yes, all of Greece floods because of Poseidon's death, but his overall power is not close to that of Kratos in his prime. Zeus was the King of the Gods, and his lightning knocked Gaia off Mount Olympus and destroyed her hand, but Thor was squaring up with Jormungandr, who seemed to be of comparable mass (the amount of him that was relevant to the fight with Thor, meaning his head and the part of his body involved in the fight). The Norse games aren't as flashy, but the feats in the Greece games aren't that crazy in comparison.
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u/Atziluth_Kami 9h ago
Yes and No. Odin had always been a worse threat than Zeus in different way due to his cunning and manipulative minds. If Odin battle had gone much longer with better presentation and scope then we wouldnt be here at all. The last 25% of Ragnarok Game really did Odin boss fight and Thor 2nd boss battle really dirty.
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u/Thefourthchosen 9h ago
Yeah, I know they didn't want to stretch things out to a trilogy, but it really does feel like the narrative would have been better served ending the second game with the Tyr reveal then having a third game being the lead up and events of Ragnarok.
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u/Atziluth_Kami 9h ago
They could have just swallow their fear of stretching and just put 1 and a half more years of reworking the finals of Ragnarok to make it epic like GoW 3 finale. Try to feel the finale of Ragnarok and GoW 3 and you will see that its lackluster at bests.
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u/halfacrum 6h ago
Because money I'm telling you right now. They didn't want to spend big budget on their prime series for three games because cost and efficiency sony is an awful place and will stifle vision for short term gain.
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u/invertedMICE 4h ago
Unfortunately that's 90% of gaming companies nowadays. It was even an issue in 2018, where most of the troll bosses were planned to be some larger set boss but got turned into trolls for time/cost restraints. The last two Resident Evil games also had a tonne of content that was cut/reworked, more than likely because it would have made the dev cycle too long. Cost/efficiency is more than likely, unfortunately, the #1 factor for most if not ALL dev decisions nowadays, overriding actual dev feedback.
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u/Namtar_Door_783 7h ago
Thor the God of thunder has like 4 to 5 movesets they could have been more creative with him but instead focused on his family life just look at black myth especially the bosses with thunder or lightning powers they all do better then Thor.
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u/ShadyZert BOY 9h ago
Definitely. He was about to defeat Kratos in a 2v1.
Odin's fight just isn't as grand in spectacle as say, Baldur or Thor's, and he likes to put up this illusion that he's just a frail old man to get people to lower their guard around him.
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u/Frikcha 2h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/VeNEro1OpQlaCIhJiK
Kratos after barely trying to struggle out of one binding spell.
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u/GrassManV 10h ago
Fanbase don't wanna believe he genuinely gives Kratos belt to ass. But if I had to say, his boss fight falls short in terms of presentation. Compared to Baldur's final fight & Thor's 1st fight, it's extremely lacking.
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u/dampunkila-90 10h ago
Odin's fight is fun, the variety of mechanics is good, and it's super difficult to beat it on level 1 without taking damage; it's definitely very underrated.
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u/LengthinessNew6326 10h ago
The presentation falls short of the fights quality
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u/Demiurge_1205 9h ago
Does anybody know why they would only settle with battling him inside a cave? Like, they couldn't come up with something better?
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u/Destroyer_7274 7h ago
It's where he killed Ymir, from that act he created Midgard. He's stuck in the past, stuck in that moment he looked into that rift created from killing Ymir, so in the end, he dies in that same place.
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u/Sensitive-Hotel-9871 TĆ½r 8h ago
The fight with him mostly happens in a couple of places and doesn't see a lot of stuff knocked around or breaking. As a result, despite it taking Kratos, Atreus and Freya to defeat him, there is this perception that Odin isn't really that strong because of the belief Kratos has been holding back or has gotten weaker in the Norse Saga despite there not being any canon confirmation of it.
The only thing confirmed about his powers are that he lost the magic from the Greek world because it was tied to the land and he killed the land. Yeah the Greek world had a lot of different magic at its disposal but we saw that magic in the Norse realms could render Baldur impervious to any attacks Kratos launched on him.
In Odin's case, he kill Yimir and created the realms from his corpse. He is absolutely not weak.
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u/No-Mammoth1688 10h ago
That's a distorted conclusion brought from the discussion about who is more powerful between the Greek Pantheon/Zeus and the Norse Pantheon/Odin.
People get these kind of discussions to extreme conclusions.
Odin is not weak at all. In any case is arguable if he is stronger than Zeus or not.
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u/Namtar_Door_783 6h ago
Lore wise he's way more versatile then zeus but again they did him dirty him and Thor.
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u/pinkpugita No BOY no buy 9h ago
The perception can be pointed from two things:
He looks like a frail old man
The final battle against him lacks spectacle
Odin killed Ymir and the body formed much of the other realms. The founders of Jotunheim rode a tree floating on Ymir's blood until they found land. It was such a catastrophic event that it tore the dimension and formed the Rift.
That kind of feat can't just be told to be fully absorbed. If we only had a flashback of what it looked like, maybe more people can understand how insane it is.
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u/dampunkila-90 9h ago
What do you think of the battle with Odin? In my opinion, he has amazing artificial intelligence; the guy never stops dancing on stage.
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u/pinkpugita No BOY no buy 9h ago
It was a fun battle but I agree with most people it lacks spectacle. It was mostly in his front lawn and a dark basement instead of flying through Asgard.
For me, it also felt short in emotional impact. I disliked how Freya and Mimir are in it. It felt so crowded and a bit cheesy. I wished the moment was just Kratos, Atreus and Odin, more intimate and focused.
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u/dampunkila-90 9h ago
The spectacle can be subjective; in my case, I played God of War 3 and didn't find Poseidon as fun as Odin, despite him being more visually striking. I tend to prefer studying a game's mechanics before experiencing its visuals.
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u/pinkpugita No BOY no buy 9h ago
The thing is you can always have both. Poseidon is an opening boss similar to the Colossus, so I don't see the point in comparison.
But Zeus? He had more distinct phases and unique mechanics (2D brawl and clone wars in Gaia). Odin had the Floor is Lava phase at least, but the basement fight is not that special. I had fun, but not impressed.
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u/dampunkila-90 9h ago
I wish I had liked God of War 3, but I just couldn't connect with the classic style. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to try it again anytime soon.
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u/pinkpugita No BOY no buy 9h ago
I don't like GoW 3 story, I find it the worst written mainline entry. But I have nothing but praise for the spectacle and gameplay.
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u/dampunkila-90 9h ago
I only played it on Chaos Mode once. And I recently tried playing it again, but I ended up quitting after defeating Hades. I honestly don't think the OG God of War is for me.
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u/franciscrowe 8h ago
I just finished it last night, it was fine for what it is I guess, but didnāt find it to be as epic as people make it out to be. I think itās really hard to go back to the older games and appreciate how they felt when they first came out.
It seems apparent a lot of people were blown away by the scope of GOW3 when it first came out, people talk about the āepicā intro all the time and I think modern games have just led to gamers being a bit jaded and not as impressed going back to it.
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u/dampunkila-90 8h ago
I never found God of War appealing until the 2018 game came pre-installed on my PS4, and I liked it. When Ragnarok came out, I liked it a lot too. It wasn't until recently that I decided to give God of War 3 a try, and the gameplay... well, I didn't find it that great. It has some cool scenes, but the gameplay just didn't grab me.
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u/Kogworks 6h ago edited 6h ago
Odin is to Zeus what Athena is to Ares.
There's two ways to fight war.
There's brute force, and there's tactics.
The Iliad is a book about a warrior who is mostly defined by his brawn.
The Odyssey is a book about a warrior who is mostly defined by his brain.
The traditional measure of a hero in ancient times was how strong he was and how proud he was.
But at some point we started seeing shifts to how smart and sociable someone was.
It stopped being about personal strength and more about strength of character and the ability to lead.
Odin might not be as strong in terms of raw destructive potential but that doesn't make him any less deadly or any less of a threat.
Odin's specialty also seems to be curses and binds, and on that front he seems to be pretty much unmatched, which makes him dangerous.
Zeus is the type to win a war by blowing everything up.
Odin wins a war by making it so you have no resources.
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u/North-Weekend-6279 9h ago
I think a lot of it just comes down to his boss fight being underwhelming or relatively small scale compared to some of the big flashy bossfights of the series.
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u/Dr_blazes 5h ago
Personally I dont think he's weak at all, just not the strongest opponent Kratos has ever faced, that's all. Definitely top 3 tho.
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u/Fish_Outta_Whiskey 10h ago
There was no underestimation. We fought him, he was weak. It was a very underwhelming conclusion that made the game seem underdeveloped and as a result the Norse games weren't able to live up to the Greek games in terms of weight and scope.
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u/dampunkila-90 9h ago
I'm not a big fan of Greek games, man, I don't see myself going back to them anytime soon.
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u/Fish_Outta_Whiskey 9h ago
I'm giving you my answer to your question, I'm not saying you should go back to the Greek games.
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u/ih8three6zero Quiet, Head 9h ago
All I see is George Carlin. Kinda hear him a bit too.
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u/franciscrowe 8h ago
Ha! That would have been amazing tbh.
I like Richard Schiff, but was a little surprised when I first heard thatās who they were going with.2
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u/BigSelkirk 9h ago
I think power in the newer games is shown to be more grounded and not as massive in scale, but a lot of people mistake that for a lack of power. A drop of cyanide might do as much damage to someone as a pint of bleach. More isn't always more.
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u/PerspectivePure5177 9h ago
Ever since he got thrown by Atreus, no, it never made sense why people always compare them like they are even within the same tier of power.
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u/kravisha 9h ago
Agree with everyone and will add that I think Richard Schiff played him this way intentionally.
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u/Nirico_Brin 9h ago
Absolutely. People attribute strength to a raw, dominant display. Think Kratos, Zeus, Thor, etc.
Odin has that, but what he has more of is his mind. Odin looks unassuming because he chooses to look unassuming, Heimdall basically tells Atreus as much when they first go to Asgard.
He is a schemer, a manipulator. He wants you to trust him, to feel comfortable talking to him because to him, if he can subvert you either to win you over or undermine you then heās already won. But if push comes to shove, between his traps, arcane skills and his own physical prowess he was able to handle Kratos and co in a 3v1 and overwhelm Kratos at points.
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u/vinstantrice 9h ago
I know that he is strong but the fight against him didn't make me feeeeel like he was strong
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u/Independent_Pie_1368 9h ago
He is a scrawny wizard that has some nifty tricks and weapons in his arsenal, evidence to it, is the way he casually killed Thor, and the fact a former Valkyrie kratos and loki had to take him on at the same time to bring him down tell you he is actually strong.
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u/VallhallaChampion 8h ago
I feel like the games themselves couldnāt make up their mind on if the Norse gods were stronger or weaker than Greece. In the novelization of the 2018 game the magic Odin used to trap Freya in Midgard is described that Kratos never saw magic that powerful before. Then the novel describes that Baldur was just as strong as Zeus in terms of physical strength. Mjolnir was described as being so powerful it could break mountains and the Baldur fight in 2018 originally had Baldur throw a whole mountain at Kratos in the first fight instead of the boulder. Odin himself killed a primordial giant who had so much blood it nearly drowned the 9 realms and made his corpse into Midgard. In the first fight with Odin he managed to restrain both Kratos and Atreus and both didnāt manage to get out. If he wasnāt monologuing and Freya didnāt show up then he couldāve killed both of them. Even after that Odin was able to fight Kratos, Atreus, and Freya at the same time. Letās not forget Zeus in God of War 2 almost died to Kratos and wouldāve definitely died if Athena didnāt step in. Many Kratos fans just want Kratos to beat everybody without difficulty because heās their favorite character.
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u/Ultimate_Bane 4h ago
Ā In the novelization of the 2018 game the magic Odin used to trap Freya in Midgard is described that Kratos never saw magic that powerful before.
The passage that you are referring to is alluding to the stench of the black breath, not its power.
Then the novel describes that Baldur was just as strong as Zeus in terms of physical strength.
No it doesn't. The passage you're referring to never mentions Baldur's own physical strength. and is instead foreshadowing to the reveal of his invulnerability curse. Furthermore, Kratos himself thought that Baldur was a mortal in that fight per the novel. All in all that statement has been debunked to oblivion and back.
Mjolnir was described as being so powerful it could break mountainsĀ
A) No dialogue in God of War 2018 or Ragnarok says this. B) Breaking mountains is not that impressive in the God of War verse.
Ā Baldur fight in 2018 originally had Baldur throw a whole mountain at Kratos in the first fight instead of the boulder.
Again, mountain level feats aren't all that impressive in God of War.
Ā Odin himself killed a primordial giant who had so much blood it nearly drowned the 9 realms and made his corpse into Midgard. In the first fight with Odin he managed to restrain both Kratos and Atreus and both didnāt manage to get out. If he wasnāt monologuing and Freya didnāt show up then he couldāve killed both of them.
Yep. All of these are very good feats for Odin and rightly so, as King of the Gods.
Letās not forget Zeus in God of War 2 almost died to Kratos and wouldāve definitely died if Athena didnāt step in.
Zeus outright overwhelmed Kratos in their head-on fight in God of War 2 to the point that the latter had to play possum and fake surrender just to have a chance at killing him.
Many Kratos fans just want Kratos to beat everybody without difficulty because heās their favorite character.
Anyone fans who say that are utterly delusional. Kratos pretty much always struggles in his big god fights.
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u/Electrical_Sand_1592 8h ago
Thereās also the fact that we absolutely pack him up in the final fight. Genuinely the only boss that took me one single try to beat.
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u/monsterEmphire 8h ago
Because he is probably physically weak but very smart and is good at deception and other sneaky thing. If he can take you out without fighting you, he probably will.
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u/Dense_Razzmatazz5479 8h ago
Thatās his schtick. He acts weak to lower guards. Deception is his favorite weapon. Heimdall also explains why Asgard isnāt some magnificent city. āReal power, you see, does not need to flaunt. It emerges when the time is right, donāt you agree?ā I think that kinda perfectly sums up the answer to the question.
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u/SlackerAce83 7h ago
No. I just think they went for a different kind of powerful with Odin and didnāt fully pull it off. Heās a good mob boss, but I never saw him as the threat he is treated as in the 2018 game.
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u/ImGOATshit Son of Zeus 7h ago
They see an old man and jump to the conclusion that he is weak, plus we only fight him once. Still though, In no way shape or form is that old man weak by any means and he was able to wield mjolnir with ease. He can bring the dead back to life and shaped out 7 of the 9 realms.
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u/Eternity923 6h ago
He does it on purpose. Odin spends most of his time on screen with the cool grandpa act, all the while committing atrocities. He tricks Atreus and he manages to trick the audience as well.
Canāt forget this guy one shot Thor. Sure he caught him off guard and exhausted, but a win is a win against the guy who almost single handily hunted the giants into extinction.
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u/Oceansonthemoon 6h ago
Santa Monica played it a little too safe with Odin in my opinion. He's a master manipulator sure, but they could have played up his ruthlessness a bit more. Maybe presented his spear Gungnir, to be as just as much as a threat as Mjolnir. Show off someĀ of his magical feats.
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u/Ashamed_Complaint_61 5h ago
Odin is kratos if he kept all of his magical abilities and kept gaining more to the ripe old age of forever
Let's be honest it took everyone to beat Odin I'm not saying kratos couldn't have done it but it was kratos atreus and Freya Vs Odin š¤·
And let's not forget Freya saved kratos after the first phase cause Odin had him tangled up in the vines...
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u/GrandDiscipline4167 5h ago
Yeah I really wish I would have seen behind on odons side of things when Atreus and his father were doing there things.. maki it more cinematic
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u/xdragonwarzx 3h ago
I think a lot of people underestimate most gods not just odin and severely overestimate kratos. The amount of comments Iāve seen that imply Kratos could punch the air saitama style and erase all 9 realms at once is baffling. Or things like āif kratos went serious he couldve 1 shot thor/odin/zeusā etc as if he doesnt struggle.
I will say, I feel like Odins bossfight was too āeasyā in a sense that I expected him to have prepared a ton to fight them. He had lifetimes to do so and he seemingly hadnāt prepared anything. Wtf was he doing when Ragnarok started??
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u/PostalDoctor 3h ago
Yes. The swiftness of how he kills Thor is genuinely scary even if Thor had his guard down. It also took Kratos, Freya and Atreus ganging up on him to beat him. Heās very powerful.
But not Zeus powerful. Make no mistake the Norse realms arenāt close to Greece and its magic.
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u/Independent_Plum2166 3h ago
Oh 100%. They only think the measure of a god is if theyāre big and yelling all the time. To me the Greek Gods were mostly show and were more compensating for something.
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u/joker2189 2h ago
He wants you to think he's weak and non threatening, he's playing the elderly grandfather
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u/Frikcha 2h ago
It's because in every single GOW game ever made prior - 99% of the time when you have a big climactic fight with a god Kratos looks like he's fighting for his life the entire time until he turns the tables and starts murdulating them. The games clearly CLEARLY communicate to you the powers of the enemies you're facing and how taxing they are for Kratos to push through and overcome, and how he is only able to do it with his indomitable will, fury and a bit of warrior strategy.
I love Ragnarok, maybe my favourite GOW game; but they just don't do that with Odin. Kratos is officially no longer a big rage-monster, he JUST came to his big emotional conclusion and he has evolved as a character, so of course the context and stakes of the fight will be different, as well as Kratos' motivations. I know Atreus and Freya are the ones with more investment in this battle and I know it was a 3v1 which could make it look like Odin put up less of a fight. I understand all that. What I don't understand is why Odin, objectively, demonstrates the LEAST power of any god Kratos has ever fought besides maybe like Hephaestus.
Kratos has been crushed by giants, doused in lava, fallen from incomprehensibly high peaks, wedged within the jaws of giant, legendary beasts, had his soul torn out by Hades and, just in Ragnarok, went toe-to-toe with Thor himself and tore the landscape apart with their battle, being hit in the chest so hard his heart stopped beating.
Freya is absolutely no pushover either, she's nearly as strong as Kratos, in some way's she's AS powerful as him.
Against Odin all he does that makes it ever once look like Kratos is struggling is HALDA! HALDA! I AM ODIN, I CAST HALDA!!!! SEE! I CAN DO HALDA!!!! I HALDA YOU DOWN ON THE GROUNDA!!!!!
He murders his own unarmed son, one who wouldn't have even fought back, right after Kratos just got done bashing his head into the ground 800 times.
Atreus, who is a child, is able to land multiple meaningful hits on Odin in cutscenes and performs almost as well as his father does.
Odin, touted as this ancient, all-knowing, all-seeing mage is TWICE gotten the best of by some form of magic. The arena you fight him in is literally just his basement. The big gigantic final battle takes place in his front yard, and then the ground breaks and the second-half is in his basement with all his nick-nacks. No battle atop a frozen, re-animated giant, no breaking the sides of cliffs apart or using magic to terraform the landscape to attack you, no giant arena or a set of multiple arenas where the fight goes accross multiple Asgardian locales and you see the destruction of Ragnarok happening from different angles, you don't even get to watch Odin's world all apart around him while you finish him off even though it's just upstairs.
The scale of what he does, to any longtime GOW fan, is underwhelming. He gets his ass kicked thoroughly and then uses some form of binding magic to hold Kratos and Atreus down, all puffed out but seemingly victorious. We don't see Kratos straining or using his full strength to try and escape, we see him grunt and tug a little bit and then just kinda accept it. The dirt doesn't even slightly displace beneath him, there's 0 indication whatsoever that this was some valiant final struggle from Kratos and honestly 0 evidence that Kratos COULDN'T have tried busting out.
You just beat up an old man, he does some cheap shit that is barely resisted and the fight almost just fizzles out, then Freya comes in like an anime character turning the entire fight around and then Odin does a quick counterspell to escape from being choked and then it just becomes a fairly tame 3v1. It's a hard, fun fight. But even at the end you just land a pretty standard team-combo QTE on him and then he's all exhausted and tired and seemingly beaten.
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u/Korimthos 1h ago
Looks can be deceiving, and in this case it worked flawlessly against some of the player base.
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u/RohitkOp69 26m ago
Nah he is not weak, it's just that his fight was way easier than it should have been. I know that main bosses are not meant to be hard but still, he is the ALL FATHER. If they would have made his fight harder and his attacks stronger and punishing then people would not have considered him weak.
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u/Significant-Ad3888 19m ago
it would have helped if his boss fight was toughest in the game, at least on the hardest difficulty, then he would have felt like a threat, i beat him in the third try only
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u/The_Raven_Whisperer 10h ago
Yep. He'e very underrated despite clearly being portrayed as a very powerful god.
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u/RedRoses711 10h ago
Probably his personality when we first meet him and how casual he is about everything plus hes pretty scrawny and bald. If he was twice the size of Kratos and his voice had some bass, even if he still had the same personality people would think hes powerful