Fire and Ice: How God of War Thematizes its Doubled Combat

But in the aftermath of that feeling, I realized something else—that the euphoria I'd felt in the wake of that fight came alongside the dropping of the game's initial facade. Kratos is not redeemable. He is a monster, and those blades represent that. Only a monster can wield them as he does. Only a monster can descend into Helheim and fight his way back out. Only a monster can harness that fiery maelstrom to survive those hordes of ice.