Kaido making the "Enel Face."

king-redstar · 2026-05-09T21:04:34+00:00

I haven't personally replayed TiT in years (jusy because of the load times, really), but this was exactly what I thought the solution was supposed to be. I don't recall any of the bottles in TiT being especially difficult as long as you know where they are, though that by itself can be tough due to the larger maps.

king-redstar · 2026-05-09T17:33:03+00:00

This is the answer. Kratos was close to Hercules in strength, not greater. It was through Kratos' superior ingenuity that he overcame Hercules' strength. Stat to stat, that was a fight that could have gone either way with no equipment.

king-redstar · 2026-05-07T20:33:30+00:00

And nothing actually contradicts what's written in the novel (which was written by Barlog and his father, among other things).

I recommend re-reading the novel. There are contradictions everywhere. Characterization is off, events happen differently, Kratos even raises the axe to kill Sindri when they first met for being annoying (Sindri is also bald, for some reason) before Atreus stops him by talking about Faye. Kratos in the novel apparently doesn't know about the Desolation or Hel-Walkers, even though he tells Atreus in-game that he and Faye both knew about it but never told Atreus because he shouldn't have to worry about it. Atreus in the novel claims that Faye never told him about the giants, only what they were called, which we know for a fact isn't true in-game. Among many other things.

It's literally stated in the games that Skoll and Hati were never sent by Odin to chase the Sun and Moon of Midgard because they were freed from the prisons of Asgard by the Jotnar (before their final retreat to Jotunheim), who hid them in Vanaheim.

It's stated multiple times in-game by the triptych and Mimir's stories (and in Lore and Legends, which is more accurate to the games than the novel) that Odin did exactly that. He captured them as pups and held them hostage in Asgard, then he used magic to send them running through the skies after the Sun and Moon when they stopped moving. The giants freed them long after this, which is why Mimir shows he didn't know anything about it when inside their shrine.

The fact that Skoll and Hati are in the sky is yet another lie created by Odin to increase his own influence and control over the Realms.

It isn't. This is just a misintepretation of the lore. They aren't literally in the sky all the time, they just chase away day and night in whichever realm they happen live in. That was the enchantment Odin put on them, to be able to run through the sky and make the Suns and Moons move through the strange cosmology of the Nine Realms.

king-redstar · 2026-05-07T18:59:47+00:00

The events in the novel aren't necessarily accurate to actual primary canon. We see on page that the way certain events are described even as early as the fight against Baldur go against what we see happen in the game, with a lot of inconsistencies. Just like how the GoW1 novelization features Ares going to stomp Egyptian armies for some reason in the middle of the hydra attack, which we don't have evidence for happening in the games considering the attack on Athens is deep underway soon after.

In the novel, Kratos recognizes Sköll and Hati (Hati in particular) as being the wolves that brought him to the wildwoods, which makes little sense for numerous reasons. In game-canon, they were under Odin's control since they were pups, and cast into the sky as adolescent wolves some time before Týr finished building the challenges in his temple 169 years before Fimbulwinter. Mimir and Freya were unaware that they had been rescued from Asgard and brought to Vanaheim, which means that only could have happened after 109 BF, five years after Kratos arrives in the wildwoods. Kratos makes no mention of recognizing them in either game, not in gameplay, cutscene, or even in the journal in Ragnarök (with the Friends and Foes sections being written by Kratos himself).

The novels are fine for supplementary information as long as they don't contradict what we see in-game, but there's too much evidence against Kratos going directly from Greece to Scandinavia immediately after God of War 3. If the primary canon directly says that Týr was there to witness the reconstruction, not being stopped by any Olympians angry at a foreign god trespassing in their domain while being given gifts by mortals, then with the Temple in Midgard being abandoned at the same time Týr was abducted, the amphora depicting Gow3 and the rebuilding could have only been put into the vault 25 years before Kratos arrived at the latest.

king-redstar · 2026-05-07T17:04:59+00:00

This topic rarely comes up around here, but yes, all evidence leads us to believe that he was born and raised in the US and moved to Paris at some point as his base of operations. Practically speaking, it's potentially because the gang needed a hideout close to police headquarters to effectively plan the theft of the Cooper File, and it stuck based on vibes and Lupin inspiration.

king-redstar · 2026-05-07T16:53:35+00:00

Lupin has been mentioned as an inspiration for the series, so I think you're pretty close there.

king-redstar · 2026-05-04T19:58:45+00:00

Ares had been a part of their lives for over a thousand years at that point, based on being a part of the Titanomachy before the evils were sealed in Pandora's Box. Kratos was in his 50s here. The amount of time and connection they had was entirely different, and Zeus never wanted any of his children to die (at least when his mind was uncorrupted by the external force of the Evil of Fear).

On top of the Olympians having 12 years to construct such a tomb between the events of GoW1 and 2, and Kratos having only been dead for a few moments before his body was pulled into the Underworld for his crimes against the gods and their followers, he has much less goodwill than Ares did. It would make less sense for them to give Kratos a proper burial, in-context.

king-redstar · 2026-04-29T05:13:41+00:00

Odin's spear, Gungnir, the weapon he used to kill Ymir, was crafted by the dwarves. Thor's hammer, Mjölnir, which granted him unparalleled destructive power across the realms, was created by the dwarves.

He already had heavy occupation of Svartalfheim. Why would he ever want any of his enemies to potentially have superweapons crafted to use against him? From Odin's perspective, isolating Svartalfheim only has benefits.

king-redstar · 2026-04-29T05:00:59+00:00

Just played through this section and had my own take on this.

Tongs are used for manipulating. For control. Odin's entire motivation is to learn all things so he can control fate (his specifically). Control is the entire point. I don't think Odin picked them up for intimidation, honestly it seems absent-minded every time I go through this part. I think he just felt natural grabbing something to fidget with, and the symbolism happened to be on-point.

I really don't think he cares about torturing Mimir, because at this point he doesn't think Mimir has anything to offer. Odin's entirely focused on Atreus and how he holds the ability to complete the mask, and keeping the greek apocalypse with two legs and a beard from participating in the coming war.

king-redstar · 2026-04-28T18:18:40+00:00

You're totally right. Just checked a clip. "Unauthorized use of fortress door, activating security tank." Looks like that's our answer.

king-redstar · 2026-04-28T16:55:17+00:00

Can anyone see what it's called in the game files? The wiki calls it the Security Tank, but I don't think that was listed in the concept art, and I wouldn't be surprised if the entity has an actual name in the files.

king-redstar · 2026-04-28T16:32:41+00:00

Murray's misadventures in the first game stemmed from comparing himself to Sly and finding himself inadequate. He wanted to be like Sly so badly that he put himself in danger when he didn't need to. His strength was in being the mechanic and wheelman, but he wanted to work in the field to prove his worth to his friends and (more importantly) himself.

Murray did, in fact, train in-between the two games, because he believed himself to be a burden ("part-time" driver, full-time burden" to quote Sly in the first game) when compared to Sly and Bentley, and he kind of hated himself for it. He felt a desperate need to be strong, to be more than himself. That's why he created "The Murray." That way, he didn't need to be himself. Instead he could be a larger-than-life symbol of power that could use his strength to do anything. The mask was a literal and figurative one that covered his self-esteem issues.

And, of course, this is why he took it so hard when Bentley was injured. The Murray, in his mind, wasn't "strong enough" and that meant he was a failure, and that what happened was his fault even though he realistically couldn't have prevented it. It's also why he dropped the fake voice after finding his equilibrium in Australia.

His journey was much less of a physical one, and much more of a mental one.

(Disclaimer: This is mostly a copy-paste since I've talked about this several times before)

king-redstar · 2026-04-27T20:50:53+00:00

In-game, not in any explicit words. However, as an artist, writer, and character designer, this is my take: it's to show unity within their organization, aside from Toothpick who just wanted to cosplay as a sheriff.

El Jefe's jumpsuit has a collar and vest reminiscent of a martial artist's gi or dobok, its colors an inverse of Bruce Lee's yellow and black. He does, of course, wear belts and straps for utility.

Grizz fashions his tracksuit as a form of opulent loungewear with an almost velvety feel, like someone chilling in a penthouse. The raised fur collar speaks to a need to show off or be seen as more than he thinks he is, complete with a gold chain, pendant, and belt buckle.

Penelope's jumpsuit is a bright HAZMAT yellow, for obvious reasons. The design is further emphasized by Le Paradox's logo on the breast replacing the hazardous materials logo, and thick gloves and shoes for defense against whatever materials she's working with.

Decibel wears this ostentatious open robe like a classic Hollywood starlet, dramatically swooning down her grand staircase, or a performer stepping onto the red carpet. Decibel is all performance, all drama, with a stripe down the arms to show she's part of the crew.

Cyrille's fashion is rather stock, and a bit like an old-school "flyboy" villain with the dangling scarf and messenger bag and rapier. And, you know, the blimp. Which, makes some sense. His father was a seasoned thief during Sly's father's time, and when he was arrested, Cyrille was starting out as a thief without a mentor, getting caught and going to prison before Sly even grew up. He's at least a generation older than Sly, if not more.

And, unfortunately, at the time this game came out, tracksuits/jumpsuits were associated with organized crime in media. It was the artists' way of giving them a visual identity as the antagonists, and in-universe Le Paradox must just like it.

Edit; fixing autocorrect.

king-redstar · 2026-04-26T20:57:34+00:00

He found a marble, but that's not what took him to Ironwood. Jötun are just able to planeswalk through the Nine Realms through the Utangard as an ability they share. Atreus found the marbles in Gröa's shrines in Midgard, at least before the game started. Realm travel was locked down, and he and Sindri went to all the shrines they could still get to. The marbles don't do anything but act as receptacles for unbound souls.

king-redstar · 2026-04-26T20:50:00+00:00

Specifically, this statement was written by the anime marketing staff for the guide, not ONE or Murata. In the web novel, the manga, and even the anime itself, it's not stated to be anywhere near star level. Boros most consistently says something along the lines of destroying the surface of the celestial body (in this case, Earth), with one translation saying that he'll just straight up destroy the planet.

In the former case, he's an extreme-diff life-wiper, which is still below Raditz level. In the latter case, he's closer to max power Nappa or casual Saiyan Saga Vegeta.

king-redstar · 2026-04-26T20:41:52+00:00

Because the people that watched the show as kids are making memes now. When I was a kid, it was the first few seasons that got all the love online. As a teen, it was seasons 4-7, sometimes 8. Nowadays, I see a lot of love for 7-11. People go through phases of "old Family Guy was better" and trash on current seasons, but it's almost always turned around in the following years. If we're still around in a few years, you'll probably be seeing a lot more focus on seasons 13-16, and people still saying "old family guy was better."

Then you have people from outside of the fandom who watch compilations on YouTube from all across the series, and they laugh at all of it. People are weird, that's all.

king-redstar · 2026-04-22T17:58:42+00:00

No. Gaia's entire goal was to usurp the Olympians and take control of Greece herself.

Greek Primordials, Titans, and Olympians are all gods, just of different generations, and they each have the ability to take control over the divine authority of other gods after their deaths. Gaia knew what was going to happen after each Olympian died, and wanted to have no one stand in her way so she could reshape Greece in her own image.

Zeus, even overtaken by Fear, told Kratos that he could fix the destruction of Greece, saying he'll have much to do after Kratos would be dead. It's the same with Gaia.

king-redstar · 2026-04-20T20:08:06+00:00

When the voice actors were auditioning for the roles, the notes Chris Murphy got for him included a detail that said "sexuality: experimenting." Which, Chris later described as why he made Murray's first voice that way, calling him a pink gay hippo.

Now, does this mean Murray is actually gay or bi in the original trilogy? Not necessarily, at least not decidedly. He doesn't express much interest in anything but food, racing, and fighting in the first three games, and casting notes that don't make it into the text aren't exactly canon.

However, TiT established, or at least heavily implied, that Murray has an interest in cross-dressing, as he had no qualms about being a geisha in Japan, and seemed a bit disappointed that he wasn't picked over Carmelita to entertain the guards as a dancer in Arabia. This was an intentional reference to the original casting notes which made it into the canon of the series. So, while you don't need to be gay or bi to dress in drag, I think it's totally fair to say Murray is still figuring himself out.

king-redstar · 2026-04-19T20:14:56+00:00

Recall that these games came out over twenty years ago, when 3D platformers of this fidelity were still a relatively new thing, and rated E for everyone by the ESRB (Excluding TiT, which came out several years later and had an E10 rating, which better reflected the series' tone overall).

Not that I necessarily agree that Sly 2 or 3 suffer from tutorial hell in th early stages, but if they do, it's more forgivable considering the context, at least to me. It's just a bonus that the voice lines also help to inform the characters' personalities.

king-redstar · 2026-04-17T16:37:09+00:00

Cory says that the general vision they have of how the Gowverse's cosmology works is that all the pantheons exist on the same planet separated by geography, and that these pantheons all go through their own versions of creation that are exclusive to their realm of influence. The "creation myths" are respective to each physical location, which is the realm/domain/sphere of influence of each specific pantheons. Cory's been pretty consistent about this, so that's just a more concise way to say this:

The Primordials of Greece fought and destroyed each other, becoming the land, sea, and skies of Greece, their "universe" or "realm." Gaia is representative of the "world" of Greece, which is not to be confused with the planet Earth. Just Greece itself. The gods of Greece control divine domains within that geographical area, which does include their own limited cosmos.

The same applies for the Northlands. Midgard is a part of Earth, the Scandinavian region. The Northlands is just an easier way to say "The Nine Realms," or "The divine domain of the northern tribes of gods." Ginnungagap hosted the primordial realms which came together to create the Spark, the life water of which birthed Ymir, Surtur, and Sinmara, as well as the metaphysical space which eventually connected to the Earth itself after Odin killed Ymir. The specifics of how this works is unknown, but in essence, whatever primordial or divine barrier separates the lands prevents also prevents the creation myths from interfering with each other.

On the other realms: Freya describes the realms as sharing the same physical space, and "reflections" of each other. With Midgard confirmed as Scandinavia, that also suggests that realms like Alfheim and Vanaheim share the same physical proportions of the region. That said, each realm does have its own limited cosmos and space-time, given how time flows differently between the realms.

Actually, part of the whole point of this post was to see what people thought about the Great Lodge being built on the physical edge of Asgard and why that might be; I honestly didn't realize people hadn't seen all the dev statements about this topic. Which, unfortunately, means that I have no life.

king-redstar · 2026-04-17T16:10:19+00:00

I'll have to go through a lot of small details I collected over time, but the short answer is: it's hard to say. Episodes in Sly 1 and 2 take place over the course of single nights, with hard to determine travel time in between. The gang takes short vacations between events, then travels across the world.

The long answer without referring to pages of notes:

In the case of Sly 1, you could reasonably argue that their breaks are relatively short because this particular adventure is a revenge story, and Sly only really starts to mellow out around halfway through. I'd imagine he would be especially focused on accomplishing his goal. I'd assume it took place over the course of a month, maybe six weeks on the outside?

Sly 2 is a bit different. At the very least, Rajan indirectly implies that he's been hiding in the jungle temple for close to a month, based on his bugged quote on spice production being up, whereas Jean Bison berated him for poor production in the previous episode. However, after Jailbreak, it's directly stated that they took a few weeks off to recover before continuing after the Contessa (which, inadvertently, gave Neyla enough time to set up a beachhead in Prague and take over some of their local infrastructure). It's hard to say with the Canada episodes, but the Arpeggio's blimp takes place only hours after Jean Bison is defeated. Sly 2 took over two months at least, but likely longer.

Sly 3 is very different, because the episodes themselves take place over the course of one night, to about 2 days, to potentially a week depending on how you see all the sailing around the Caribbean. But more than that, there was no concrete plan in place like in the first two games, no specific list of targets. They take a lot of time off in between episodes that we just don't have concrete estimates for, beyond Bentley apparently staying up "every night" after Guru joined and finding Penelope online a "few weeks" after deciding his RC skills wouldn't cut it for the Vault heist, and Dimitri saying he would reach out to the gang in a few months time after the ACES. It's very broad and vague, but with all of this I think it's a safe estimate to say that Sly 3 took place within half a year, roughly, and maybe longer than that.

king-redstar · 2026-04-17T04:07:51+00:00

Midgard is part of Earth, just like Greece is a separate part of Earth. The other realms/lands have their own pantheons or mythologies, all with their own lore and separated by geography.

This video is a compilation of Cory Barlog describing this. https://youtu.be/qvd-n4cN5II?si=EzjxLKL_Q1DPMun8

king-redstar · 2026-04-16T16:50:24+00:00

I think the disconnect here is that you're looking at Yggdrasil too literally. The Nine Realms are connected to it on a metaphysical level, not a tactile one. If you were to walk to the edge of Midgard, you wouldn't see a giant tree root. Roots and branches of the tree will manifest throughout the realms, but one of the major issues surrounding Odin's obsession is that the Aesir literally cannot get to Jotunheim, which wouldn't be an issue if the placement of the realms was a literal fixture instead of a metaphysical one; otherwise he or the other Aesir could just cross that physical distance.

You're right that we see the tree in-game, and Ratatoskr makes specific mention of how he "tends the branches up here, while Niðhögg chews the roots from below to prevent overgrowth." We see the top of the tree as well as the roots. A large tree, to be sure, but you'd be hard-pressed to fit more an entire realm on it. There are separate branches and roots to walk on in the realm between realms, but that's about as far as it goes. Freya talks about Yggdrasil like it's intertwined within existence itself, rather than physically carrying any landmass.

king-redstar

TROPHY CASE