Poll: Male Gamers: Do you consider Kratos aspirational?

[Saulkar]

Sorta. I have the basic proportions and would more or less resemble him if I lost a few kilograms of fat but ultimately the exercises I do tend to blur the line between bodybuilding and powerlifting so in the end I could easily look like him in a few months of intense dieting as I already have the muscle but with the direction I am going I tend to square out rather than V taper.

 

[Ryan Minns]

I've never cared much about him. I think the games are good games but I dislike them and Kratos himself is a little dull. Have met a lot of men and women who'd love to jump his bones though

 

[Do4600]

Let's just say I bought God of War on sale, and hated him so much that I stopped playing after the second level. He is the furthest thing from an aspirational character, I can find more things I like in Hitler.

 

[KissingSunlight]

I find it annoying that feminists insist that characters like Kratos are male power fantasies. Also, insisting in no way women find physically fit and nearly naked men attractive. Sure, Kratos is a fun character to play in a videogame. In no way, any rational man would find him aspirational or wants to be him. As some men have already posted, they wouldn't mind looking like him. Just like a lot of women wouldn't mind being as sexually attractive as the female videogame characters that they complain about being sexist.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

No. I like him, in a chummy "I played all your games" kind of way, but good god I wouldn't want to be him.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

The only time I felt like Kratos even had a character to begin with was in the first game. That sort of went away really fast with the sequels.

 

[Stryc9]

If you're asking would I want to be Kratos then the answer is no. If my remembrance of the story is correct from only playing the first two games, he's tricked into murdering his own family in an effort to appease Ares so that he can do war better for a bit. Overall not the kind of person I'd want to be.

Do I still like playing the games in spite of this? Hell yes I do. They have great combat and some pretty interesting puzzles to solve and they're just plain mindless fun.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I like Kratos for what he is; An unstoppable bruiser. He's the perfect fit for the setting he inhabits, where everything is violent and the common folk get caught between the gears of the Gods' power struggle.

It's great watching him in motion, sweeping his chains around and turning powerful, mythical beasts into whimpering piles.

That's as far as it goes though. In the end he's an extremely juvenile character, or should I say, he became one after God of War 1, and there's nothing about him that I find aspirational. Not even his physique -- I don't think I'd even want to go outside looking like that.

 

[Mavrantzas]

I dislike Kratos so much, that I didn't play the games at all after a brief testing time.

 

[Phrozenflame500]

Physique? Maybe, being more fit is not a bad thing.

Everything else? Fuck no, Kratos is a jackass and a boring jackass at that.

 

[Moloch Sacrifice]

Obviously no guy is going to say Krato is an "ideal" for them, because no one wants to admit that they fantasize about getting away with murder and a laundry list of other deplorable things.

PS: Not sure any "data" you get from Escapist forums is going to be statistically relevant, though.

You both have valid points, and obviously no survey method of data collection is going to be 100% truthful, as people will want to show themselves in a better light. However, it seems reasonable that in the anonymity of a web forum, with a completely anonymous poll, that people would be the most truthful they can be.
As for validity of the sample, I would say the Escapist is a fairly decent pool of samples. There doesn't seem to be a particular concentration of any one demographic (as far as I can tell), and given this survey is addressed exclusively to gamers it seems like an ideal place to post this.

 

[Depulcator]

I'll take that enduring goatee any day. Or having the mental mindset to just keep going.

 

[Moloch Sacrifice]

Also I deny the presupposition that you generalize that female characters are manipulated solely for male characters. Lara Croft's bust size was actually a result of the limitation of computer technology. Yet if you actually talk to the creator the core of Lara Croft is actually quite empowering to both men and women which is why Lara became such a popular video game character. Also it is annoying how people are not able to discern the marketing side of the way video game characters are portrayed compared to their actual character in the game itself.

The generalisation you are referring to does not reflect my own views; I was only providing an existing argument to which the data from this poll would be relevant.

Who said they are manipulated to reflect ideals or aspirational? I think you're putting your own take on when people say it's a power fantasy, which is hardly the same as an ideal or aspirational.

This poll is not about proving what Kratos is, rather it is about eliminating what Kratos is not. By starting with the most general perception (Kratos represents an ideal that male gamers aspire to) we can gradually reveal what he represents as a character, and use this knowledge to refute fallacious statements. For example, in my opening post I brought forward an argument that characters like Kratos represent ideals that male gamers aspire to. However, so far the poll seems to indicate that this is not the case. We now have raw data that we can use to refute this claim, allowing for more truthful arguments and not simply relying on common perception.

 

[wulf3n]

You have data to refute WHAT claim?

I'm going to go with "The design of [insert female game character] is not comparable to [insert male game character] as both are designed to appeal to men".

Kind of like this [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/7290-Objectification-And-Men]

Hell if I know exactly what "Design" and "Appeal" refer to in this context though.

 

[Lieju]

I don't think that him being something to men to aspire to is a common argument in the sexism debate.

It's that he is a power-fantasy, and his character-design fits that and his story.
He isn't exactly designed specifically to appeal to female gamers, which is the point.

Would it not be better to ask how many women find his depiction sexualized or objectified? This seems like red herring research.

Or how many women find him sexy.

I'm not sure how useful looking at some one male-character is for this debate.
It might be more useful asking male gamers which male characters they find aspirational/most sympathetic/appealing/someone they can identify with.

And then looking into what kind of qualities those characters share, especially how important they are for the story and what kind of agency they have.