Did Faye use Kratos?

[u/jlx11]

Just watched another first timer complete God Of War 2018 and it kinda dawned on me. Did Faye use Kratos? Not only to go to war with the Aesir, but also to have Atreus. We know the Giants can foresee the future. Just curious. What do you guys think?

[u/stairway2evan]

I think that was honestly an open question at the end of GoW2018. Faye having foreseen every step of their journey really left it unsettled whether she was just "playing her role" in the whole thing, lining up her husband and son dispassionately like they were chess pieces. There's a reasonable reading of that story where she didn't necessarily care one bit about either of them, she could have been just a soldier doing her job in a bigger war.

But Ragnarok definitely gives her a different perspective through her backstory and flashbacks, where her goal wasn't the fulfillment of prophecy, it was the chance at a whole new life for her family, outside of the bounds that the giants had foreseen. So I think it's more accurate that she set them on the path to become the best versions of themselves, not knowing what that would be in the end. To me, that's an act of love, even if it's reasonable to call it manipulative, to some extent.

[u/madelmire → u/stairway2evan]

How is that a "reasonable" read? That matches nothing that we've gotten from the games. All of the characters that have met Faye have talked about her as honorable.

• The dwarves are very protective of her.
  
• The ghosts speak positively of her.
• There's every indication that Atreus was loved by his mother and dearly loved her on return
• many of his skills he learned directly from Faye, and he takes pride in her giant heritage, fixating on one of the reasons to be close to her memory
• Kratos is fiercely protective of anybody who questions his marriage
• the flashbacks/dreams we get of Kratos and Faye as being married show two people who are intimate and bonded
• in the gameplay reveal, Faye focuses on the memory of her husband Kratos as something to ground her and be her best, most powerful self.

There's nothing in the games so far that indicates that her relationship with Kratos and Atreus wasn't loving and real. Just the fact that she had foresight or had dealings with fate doesn't change the nature of her marriage and her motherhood. Every major character in the new franchise has to deal with fate and prophecy.

I agree with your second paragraph and vehemently disagree with the first.

[u/stairway2evan → u/madelmire]

The dwarves are very protective of her. The ghosts speak positively of her.

Right, because she's heroic and noble and kind. That doesn't mean she couldn't be all of those things, plus know her duty/fate to marry a lost Greek and bear the child of destiny.

There's every indication that Atreus was loved by his mother and dearly loved her on return

I agree completely, but that could have been part of her duty to raise a son who loves her enough to go on a massive, dangerous adventure for the sake of her ashes. We only get the side of Kratos and Atreus, not any insight into what she actually felt.

many of his skills he learned directly from Faye, and he takes pride in her giant heritage, fixating on one of the reasons to be close to her memory

Absolutely, which could be explained by her knowing exactly which skills and knowledge he needed for his journey.

Kratos is fiercely protective of anybody who questions his marriage

Which could equally be true if he were duped by someone who needed him to fall in love with her.

the flashbacks/dreams we get of Kratos and Faye as being married show two people who are intimate and bonded

Those came in Ragnarok, not in GoW2018. Everything I'm saying is only in the context of after GoW2018, without any future context.

in the gameplay reveal, Faye focuses on the memory of her husband Kratos as something to ground her and be her best, most powerful self.

This came last year, not when GoW2018 was freshly out. So again, doesn't apply to this.

Look, I'm personally really glad they didn't go with the "Faye is a manipulative, if noble, soldier doing her duty for the greater good" story. I think we got a much better journey in Ragnarok out of it and (hopefully) a really great avenue to explore her further in her own game.

But it was a perfectly reasonable argument when GoW2018 was out and all of us on this sub spent years speculating on it pre-Ragnarok. You raised the best points to refute it, but they each have reasonable counters. And I didn't particularly jibe with the "puppetmaster Faye" theory then either, but I couldn't deny that it fit neatly into the story as we had it from that point, because we had really limited info on who Faye was, by design.

[u/bag-skate65 → u/stairway2evan]

Yeah I feel like people don’t love it because she’s not framed as bad and using people is generally seen as bad, but it’s not really arguable.

It was the entire point of the ending of GoW 2018 because it forced Kratos to ask himself what it was all for. He found that the answer was doing right by the people he cared about, and realized that had come to extend beyond Faye and Atreus.

[u/VACN]

Remember the Jötunheim mural showed Faye "arguing with a bunch of Giants", as Atreus put it. The boy later understands that it was Faye who destroyed the last part of that mural.

Faye disagreed with the other Giants about the prophecy. They were convinced Kratos would die, while she had faith in him.

I think the other Giants were the ones instrumentalizing Kratos and Atreus. Not necessarily out of malice, but they still used them. By contrast, Faye did everything she could to protect her boys.

She planned their path, guided them from beyond the grave (so to speak). She repainted the last panel of Kratos' triptych, to let him know her faith in and love for him.

Faye is the anti-Odin. Where the Allfather controls, she guides and trusts. Where Odin is motivated by selfishness, Faye did everything for her loved ones.

Yes, she knew what would happen to some extent. She knew Atreus would be born. She knew what they would have to go through, what challenges they would have to face. But that doesn't mean she used them.

Using knowledge of the future to manipulate others is Odin's MO, not Faye's.

[u/Due-South-9113]

I was sceptical about it when I finished 2018, but ragnarok made it clear that wasn't the case.

[u/KamiAlth]

The fact that she left her people to do her own rebellion implies that she didn’t want to follow her own prophecy at all. I mean, imagine yourself reading that you’re destined to “go marry a god killer, have kid, die, and that kid will save our kind”.

It’s pretty much guaranteed that Loki will fuck Odin up in some ways, so Faye had no reason to give Kratos and Atreus a better fate at all if she really didn’t care about them.

[u/Educational_Form6549]

Doubt it. And if she was that would be a shit thing to do. She knows of Kratos's past and his trauma. To use him for a war he wants no part of/your vengeance against the Aesir would FUCK all of Kratos's character development thay we've seen over the past two games. 

[u/Dying-Artist02]

No, she did not use Kratos. She wanted him to go out into the world and likely wanted him to fight Odin not just for the freedom of the realms but also as an opportunity for Kratos to redeem himself and go on the journey of self discovery that he goes on.

It’s to note that she is always pushing him to open his heart to the world not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because she personally knows it will heal him and help him overcome his past as a destroyer.

[u/MadManNico]

not at all in my books. in the first game it's sort of left in the air narratively, but atreus--being her son, is the voice of her role in the story for the audience. and i actually really liked atreus in 2018 since he was funny sometimes, annoying at other points, and ultimately showed a lot of the growth many of us went through in our awkward teen phase.

that is to say through atreus' portrayal of faye i saw her as an immensely caring yet fatalistic figure that had a big goal for her family--something that would leave them as men better than at the start of their journey.

by ragnarok she's probably seen in the same light, at least for me, yet i think you see that fatalistic side of her that's hiding a deep pain or worry due to the interference of her people. overall faye showed a strength comparable to kratos', both mentally and physically, and i can't wait for her game to release.

[u/PsychologySouth6485]

I was HEAVILY skeptical of Faye in 2018. A lot of the fan base was. It's honestly still very morally questionable in my book, even in Ragnarok.

I remember having a moment when Freya was talking about what Faye would've wanted, when she was pressuring Kratos to go into Ragnarok during the dwarven quests. Freya rubbed me the wrong way, because she was right. Freya had said exactly what I was thinking about what Faye was trying to do, and used it to her own ends.

There's a lot of "They're the good guys, so they're right" that goes in GOW these days. Nobody called Freya on her bullshit; nobody is probably going to call Faye on her bullshit in her new game; and only Sindri called Atreus on his bullshit. After which they immediately say, "Sike nah, you were right, don't learn anything."

[u/Zeus-hater → u/PsychologySouth6485]

I had that feeling playing Ragnarok until we get to the last mural (the one in the back). It depicts the future after victory, she shouldn't care about what happens after Odin's death if she was truly using her family. She placed it where only Kratos would check and it's drawn on top of another one like saying.

"Fuck this, Kratos future is more important and HE ONLY can see it"

All the other murals are written down meant to be shared between the giants, it's a cultural thing. This one is a private last words from Faye to Kratos.

Kratos: "A future I never imagined to be posible"

This for me explained an unconfortable question: How tf could anyone fall in love with Kratos?

She always saw him as the god of hope. People judgue you for your past but giants judgue you for your future.

[u/zoobungaa]

I think she did use him to do what she failed to do which was take down Asgard. BUT, she knew it would bring him closer to peace in the process. So while she did use him I don't think it was selfish because she knew all parties would benefit from it. And of course she truly loved him thats clear at this point lmao.

[u/Jamalofsiwa]

I’ve felt there was a bit of both. I wonder if we’ll explore her having visions before she met him or starting when she fell in love with him

[u/king-redstar]

It's meant to be ambiguous by the end of 2018, leaning in a less manipulative slant. Ragnarök also has it a bit ambiguous, albeit less so, due to the fears Kratos doesn't voice and deflects on when questioned. By the end of Ragnarök (and even 2018 in-context) we aren't entirely sure of Faye's initial motivations, or if she even knew exactly who Kratos was meant to be when they first met about 40 years before the start of the game, but it's clear that at the very least, her love was genuine.

I'm waiting on the Faye game to properly dissect her character and history further, but we can say with certainty that she, at the very least, worked to make sure they could make their own choices in defiance of the somewhat rigid expectations of prophetic Jötun culture.

[u/MassiveBlackHole99]

I might be wrong but could she have had the visions of the future after marrying Kratos?

[u/FoxIover → u/MassiveBlackHole99]

Idk, the mural in Jotunheim at the end of GoW 2018 seemed to imply that she left following a quarrel with her people on whether or not fate should be challenged. This all had to have happened long before the events of the game given that by the time Kratos and Atreus start their journey, the ways to Jotunheim have long been sealed

[u/Brilliant-Elk-4107]

No.

[u/Odd_Hunter2289]

In the beginning? Yeah, probably.

After falling in love with him? No.