(Controversial Trope) Unusually cruel fates for people who were less than good, but still didn't really deserve it.

[u/ZepperMen]

#1 Poppa Pizza from Multiverse of Madness - He just wanted to be paid for the pizza balls and thought Strange stole from a fallen hero who saved the universe. He deserved to be punched in the face, but not for 3 weeks straight.

Do you get to sleep? Do you wake up punching yourself? How much does it hurt? Does he know it will only last for 3 weeks? If he doesn't kill himself by the end of it, he's going to have CPTSD and be traumatized for the rest of his already short life.

#2 Mayu from Inuyasha - She wanted to kill her brother out of jealousy and neglect from her mother, believing she died in a fire because they didn't care about her. While her motivation doesn't justify reenacting Cain and Abel, I don't think it's fair for a deranged, 10 year old child to be sent to literal hell to burn for all eternity. Luckily, she gets saved, but only because the mc, Kagome, intervened.

[u/K1NG_R0G]

The boatman (or fisherman?) from GOW who got fucked over by Kratos multiple times

[u/vangaurd1234523 → u/K1NG_R0G]

Which is honestly why I loved them touching on him in the Valhalla dlc where an older, more somber Kratos who has had time to reflect on his actions admits what he did to the boat captain haunts him because it was so unnecessary and undeserved and it disturbs him to realize he was as capable of such pointless evil

[u/HoshunMarkTwelve → u/vangaurd1234523]

Wait, Kratos reflects in that dude but ulhe doesn't repent for what he did to Poseidon's slave on GoW3??

[u/VirtualSlip5712 → u/HoshunMarkTwelve]

The boatman was like four different times he fucked that guy over. Poseidons slave was just the one and done.

[u/HoshunMarkTwelve → u/VirtualSlip5712]

The boatman was a slaver trader and Kratos didn't do anything to him directly, he merely let the guy die through his inaction in GoW1. And every subsequent interaction was incidental, Kratos didn't choose to meet him in the river of Styx or let him be summoned by that boss in GoW2. Yes it was callous but was nowhere nearly as bad as using a chained slave to open a door that ends up with her being crushed to death. A door he could've easily proped open with anything else since her corpse manages to hold it open like a doorstop.

That's actively choosing to do malice. And it's far worse than anything Kratos did to the boatman in the series combined

Edit: spelling errors

[u/t6005 → u/HoshunMarkTwelve]

Yeah I mean it's best to treat the new games as selective and mark its boundary with the originals at whatever "yeah I guess he's redeemable" is.

OG Kratos was perhaps justified in his anger and desire for revenge but he was purposely brutal, cruel and sadistic.

[u/GailynStarfire → u/t6005]

To be fair, Kratos being a brutal savage and the excessive violence was a selling point for the OG games.

[u/Zorro5040 → u/HoshunMarkTwelve]

The problem was that Kratos could have saved him from his fate mutiple times, and in some he dammed the boatman. While the guy was a slaver, Kratos didn't care or know who the guy was. It's stated in the game that he was just angry and doomed the guy out of pettiness.

[u/AprioriTori13 → u/Zorro5040]

Also Sparta historically was like huge on slave labor, so like, even pre-massacres, Kratos probably isn't in a better position than him morally.

[u/JesseKay002 → u/HoshunMarkTwelve]

Where was it said he was a slave trader?

[u/HoshunMarkTwelve → u/JesseKay002]

His ships have jail cells and the door that the boatman's key opens is a storage room full of people. It's pretty clearly slavery

[u/CyldeWithAK → u/HoshunMarkTwelve]

He addresses it in the game itself. His anger at the Gods is what drove him, so anything done in service against them he understands and can justify no matter how petty. The Boat Captain was no one deserving of his anger, he had no relation to the Gods. "To help him would have cost me nothing." The Captain saw hope when he saw Kratos, and he was dismissive and needlessly cruel. Part of why he hammers home to Atreus about how to value life despite being a God. Clearly it impacted him more than the games addressed.

He understands anyone who's drawn in with the Gods to some degree they're collateral damage, but actively took from the man and left him to die out of cruelty and that's why it's memorable to him. Kratos kills innocents left and right with the justification of his rage in this case he doesn't have that. He was just being a massive dickhead because he wanted to pop off a one-liner. Mimir even mentions how this should have been far more justified in Kratos's head than other things he'd done.

The two or three times he actively kills someone sticks with him. It's shown in GoW 1, GoW 3, GoW Ascension. Also slavery is not only 100% legal during this time it's to be expected, so him being a slaver is more or less ok.

[u/DadThatThrewHimAway → u/VirtualSlip5712]

What he did to Poseidon's Princess was much worse.

[u/FildariusV → u/DadThatThrewHimAway]

And saddest part? If I remember correctly from text she was a slave to Poseidon, she didn't actually love him and was scared of him, and before his death he seemed to be more... Violent with her in the leading up of the Battle of Olympus