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God of War (2018) - Matt Sophos explaining the Angrboda controversy

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Matt Sophos @mattsophos · 33m Whew. Mute button got a workout this weekend-granted, of my own doing. You probably know what this is about. And if you don't, bless you. So I'm just going to address things here and hope (futilely) it will be the last time I have to do so. Saddle up.. 1/11 SOAP GIF O 13 27 53 O 234 Matt Sophos @mattsophos · 33m Angrboda in our game is a young black woman. The vast, vast majority of players are thrilled and think she looks incredible-and boy, does she. O6 But a tiny, vocal sliver of the internet was offended at this notion. I'm going to address a few of the main topics of outrage. 2/11 27 4 ♡ 84 Matt Sophos @mattsophos · 33m "You caved to outside pressure." I can count on 2 fingers the # of notes we've gotten for story changes to 2018 + GoW Ragnarok combined. This was not one of them. I'm grateful for the trust given to us to tell the best story possible without interference. So yeah, nonsense. 3/11 17 2 ♡ 66 Matt Sophos @mattsophos · 33m "You made it political." As a writer, your job is to tell stories that are compelling & relatable. You bring pieces of yourself to stories and your opinions shine through. So writing is *always* political-it's just usually only called that if the politics aren't agreed with. 4/11 ♡ 74 Matt Sophos @mattsophos · 33m "It's not accurate to Norse mythology/doesn't respect the culture." Hoo boy. The big one. Let me start with this: God of War is our interpretation of mythology, not history-Norse or Greek. We tell a personal story with the backdrop of gods, Giants, etc. through our lens. 5/11 ♡ 75 Matt Sophos @mattsophos · 33m And that lens is *not* 100% by-the-Eddas. For instance, here's a quick review of some mythological main characters from GoW (2018)... ***SPOILERS AHEAD from the last game*** 6/11 1 ♡ 60 Matt Sophos @mattsophos · 33m Brok: A legendary Dwarven blacksmith we made blue and talks like a foul- mouthed Texas prospector. Sindri: Another legendary Dwarven blacksmith who we made gray-ish, germophobic, and knows about bacteria ("tiny beasties"). 7/11 O 1 O 61 Matt Sophos @mattsophos · 33m Mimir: Rooted in Norse mythology, in GoW he's Scottish. "Mimir" is the name he took when coming to Midgard, and we tied him to a character from English folklore (and specifically, from one of Shakespeare's plays). 8/11 O 1 60 Matt Sophos @mattsophos · 33m Baldur: The god of light and purity in the myths, we twisted the basics of his invulnerability to (almost) all things, and made him unable to feel anything as a result of it. Loki: We made him a half-Giant, quarter human, quarter Greek-demigod. Need I say more? 9/11 O 60 Matt Sophos @mattsophos · 33m Loki's dad: We leaned into the translation of "Farbauti"–the "cruel striker"-to tie him to Kratos... a gruff, Greek demigod with quite the gods- killing history. He also happens to have been voiced consecutively by two incredible black actors. But I digress... 10/11 27 2 ♡ 63 1. Matt Sophos @mattsophos I guess what I'm saying is this... We've consistently taken mythological characters and given them our own spin. So if the color of Angrboda's skin is where you draw the line at how respectful we've been, it's probably worth some self-examination. Thanks for listening. 11/11 PIU EGA OETERGENT SOAP GIF

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Top Comments

MCC1701

Sep 13, 2021 at 06:45PM EDT

I'll be honest, assuming there is no pretense in being historically or mythologically accurate I don't mind. I'm not too into the lore(I only played the most recent title, and haven't finished it), but if this character is not supposed to be related or descended from characters with drastically different features or has has control over their appearance I don't see a problem. If they give her a backstory or explanation for her appearance, all the better even. I think I read some rumor about her being part Egyptian, so if that's the route they go then I have no qualms.

That said I heard some people saying the actual mythological character is supposed to be a redhead. If true that actually does annoy me a bit, as there seems to be practice going around replacing traditionally red-headed white characters with black ones for no reason.

+20

Rynjin

Sep 13, 2021 at 11:54PM EDT

TBH "We changed it because we thought it'd be cool" is something I buy from the GoW team. They've never really been ones to bow to societal pressure, and given how great most of the franchise is (4/the reboot was a masterpiece, and I liked 1 and 2 a lot; wasn't a fan of 3 mostly for the imagery) I don't really care what they do as long as it's entertaining. It doesn't annoy me as much as, say, the weird kind of performative racebending on display in turning Johnny Storm (…but not the rest of his family for some reason) black in Fant4stic.

The redhead erasure is annoying but it's just so fuckin' overdone at this point I almost believe it's some kind of industry in-joke.

+11

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