| “ | The war between the Titans and the Olympians forged the landscape of the mortal world. It was a war that we knew the Titans must win. If we lost, it would be an end to the golden age of the Titan rule. Peace and prosperity for mankind would be no more. | ” |
–Atlas. | ||
The Titanomachy or the Great War (referred as Ancient War in Chains of Olympus) as it is referred to in the God of War series, is the fabled war between the two generations of Greek gods: the Titans led by Cronos and the Olympians led by Zeus for control over Greece and all mortals.
Greek Mythology[]
In Greek mythology, the Titanomachy was a ten-year series of battles fought between the Titans and the Olympians. The Titans fought from Mount Othrys (or Mount Etna), and the Olympians fought from what would come to be known as Mount Olympus. The war started when Zeus released his brothers and sisters from the belly of Cronos and began a rebellion against the Titans.
The War had raged for ten years, tearing apart the continents and ripping the earth and sky with every battle. The war was endless and both the Olympians and Titans became tired, realizing that this war was going nowhere. Gaia saw this and told Zeus of his forgotten uncles: The Hecatonchires and Elder Cyclopes. Gaia told Zeus to release them from Tartarus and they will help the younger gods. As instructed, Zeus released the titanic creatures and they helped him; with the Cyclops forging weapons for the brothers (Zeus' thunderbolt, Poseidon's trident and Hades' helmet) while the Hechatonchires used their unnatural strength to assist the Olympians against the Titans, ultimately ending in victory for the Olympian Gods.
Most of the Titans were sent to Tartarus, a place deeper than the Underworld, where they would endure great suffering for eternity. One of the Titans, Atlas, was condemned to bearing the weight of the sky (now too damaged to support itself) on his shoulders due to him being the one who led the Titans during the war.
In the God of War series[]
Cronos' Fate[]
The Steeds of Time, gifted to the Sisters of Fate
The Sisters of Fate had deemed that the mighty King of the Titans, Cronos, would one day be overthrown by his children, just as he himself raised his hand against his sire Ouranos and deposed him. In an attempt to stop this prophecy from coming true, Cronos tried to persuade the Sisters into his favor by granting them the Steeds of Time. They refused to change his fate but still took the steeds anyway. His next attempt to stop this prophecy from coming true was by swallowing his children one by one. His wife, Rhea, could not bear the loss of another child, and when Zeus was born she summoned an eagle to take him to Gaia to be raised, hiding from the watchful eyes of Cronos. As a replacement, Rhea wrapped a stone in cloth and gave it to Cronos, who foolishly believed it was the child.
Zeus' Return[]
Young Zeus during the war
Zeus was secretly raised by Gaia who nurtured his desire to free his brothers and sisters from their father. Zeus’ intentions, however, were not just bent on freeing his siblings, but also defeating the Titans and taking the throne of his father. When the time came, Zeus freed his siblings who were now full grown and had declared war on the Titans. The Titans as a whole saw Zeus’ desire for revenge and to rule over all mortals as intolerable, seeing that peace and prosperity for mankind would forever be lost if the Olympian Gods were to have their way.
The Titans who joined the Titanomachy were Gaia who was Primordial Goddess of the Earth, Cronos, Oceanus, Hyperion, Iapetus, Atlas, Prometheus, Epimetheus and Perses, along many other unnamed Titans, loyal to Cronos. The Olympian Gods who joined the war were originally Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Hera, Demeter and Hestia, but as the war raged on for centuries, new gods born of Zeus and his lovers joined the fight such as the fast and swift Hermes and the twin-archer gods Artemis and Apollo. At the end of the Great War, the Smith God Hephaestus, son of Zeus and Hera forged Pandoras Box to house the Evils born from the war. Themis, Iris and Mnemosyne, as well as Queen Rhea were some of the female Titans that defected and joined the Olympians. Zeus rescued the Elder Cyclopes and the Hecatonchires from Tartarus to aid the younger Gods in the war.
When the war began, two younger Titans, Prometheus and Helios, betrayed their kin and sided with Zeus and the Olympians. The mighty Atlas took lead as he charged the Titans into war. However, because of the technology the younger gods were given by the Elder Cyclops, as well as their own growing power, the tides of battle turned, allowing them to gain the upper-hand; Zeus was granted Thunderbolts, Poseidon was given his Trident, and Hades received his soul-stealing Claws. The Titans had their own powerful weapons like Atlas Hammer and Hyperion's Spear, but it couldn't match up against the Cyclopes and Hephaestus work. However, the ensuing war lasted centuries, with the Olympians growing their power and slowly gaining ground against the reigning Titans. The Sisters of Fate managed and oversaw the great struggles and battles between the old Titans and the young Gods, eventually decreeing its end in favour of Zeus and the Gods as they have always intended and foretold to the world. The war was so destructive that the mortal world was forged from it. Mountains were hurled like rocks and Greece was engulfed in flames.
Zeus would much later claim to his daughter Athena that the Gods were able to destroy the Titans and their rule because they constantly fought among themselves over never-forgotten feuds and were divided until it was too late, implying that in the early stages the young Gods could have been defeated by the united might of the Titans.
Fate of the Titans[]
The mighty Atlas, forced to uphold the world on his shoulders
As the war continued, Atlas was eventually captured through the combined efforts of Hades and Poseidon, while their brother Zeus had created a powerful weapon called the Blade of Olympus from the Heavens and the Earth, using its power to banish most of the Titans into Tartarus for eternity, Most of the known Titans who were banished into Tartarus the Deep Abyss of the Underworld were Hyperion, Iapetus, Atlas, Epimetheus and Perses. One of the Hecatonchires, Gyges, has ended up in Tartarus as well, though the reason is unclear. Even the neutral female Titans ended up in Tartarus some time after the war's conclusion, most notably Rhea and Themis. Although some of the Titans were spared from this fate, they were given equally brutal punishments by Zeus:
- Cronos was cursed to aimlessly wander the Desert of Lost Souls with Pandora's Temple chained to his back, until the swirling sands ripped the very flesh off of his bones. After Kratos conquered the Temple over a thousand years after its construction, the former King of the Universe was banished into the Pits of Tartarus.
- Prometheus had been stripped of his immortality, chained to a rock, and forced to endure having his liver eaten everyday by a large eagle after he gave fire to the mortals.
- Thera was enchained and left within a volcano in the vicinity of the ancient city of Atlantis, which Poseidon claimed for himself.
- Aegaeon the Hecatonchires broke his blood oath to Zeus and thus was later turned into a living prison for all oath breakers by The Furies.
- Atlas eventually was given the commission of keeping the balance between the earth and the Underworld stable.
- Gaia was stripped of her physical form, leaving only spirit inhabiting her true self, the Earth. Unlike her children, the Earth Mother was spared or was impossible to fully contain and isolate from the world, within Tartarus.
- Oceanus seems to have not been cast into Tartarus, as he was roaming free in the oceans during God of War II. He was diminished greatly and stripped of his divine rulership and retreated into himself, the deepest, most remote waters.
However, the war was not without cost. Evils were born in the aftermath of the war which, left unchecked, would destroy all life. Zeus contained all of these evils within Pandora's Box, so that they could never menace anyone ever again. However, his daughter Athena feared that the box might one day be opened and sealed the power of Hope with all the evils to counteract them.
The brothers Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades split the world apart. Zeus gained dominion over the Heavens and became the King of the Gods, Poseidon became the Ruler of the Seas, and Hades became the Ruler of the Underworld who would forever keep a watchful eye on the imprisoned enemies of the Gods, who were all stripped of their divine powers and domains over the cosmos. The neutral Titans and Primordials, as well as the ancient Furies, the Guardians of Oaths and Honour accepted the new order and their roles within it.
Gaia, ever-present within the Earth schemed and plotted to return the Titans to power and revenge themselves upon the Gods. For this purpose she conceived the powerful Storm-Titan Typhon with her dark counterpart Tartarus and called on the mighty earth-born Gigantes, her second and last offspring from Ouranos blood, back when the Tyrant was slain by young Cronos, but the war failed and all of them were killed by Zeus, while Typhon was defeated after his Giant brothers and placed within a great mountain. The Gods of Olympus would reign for thousands of years and be worshipped by the mortals and the defeated Titans and Gaia seemed to have resigned themselves to their fate. But the truth was that Gaia watched closely the affairs of the world and waited, for she knew that one day a warrior would rise and defy the gods. This warrior would be known as Kratos, the Ghost of Sparta, who would succeed in ending their reign and their lives in the process.
Kratos' Vengeance[]
Kratos, the Ghost of Sparta.
Kratos changed the events in history by learning of the Blade of Olympus and challenging Zeus for power. He was guided by Gaia who told him of the history between the Gods and the Titans. The Sisters of Fate were destroyed at the hands of Kratos, who altered time and history by using the Threads of Fate and going back in time to when the Great War began.
There he met with Gaia, who claimed she had been expecting him. With the power of time, Kratos saved most of the Titans from being banished and brought them into his time to attack the Olympians in their weak state. Meanwhile, Zeus called upon the gods to assemble, declaring that together, they would defeat the threat of Kratos by putting aside their petty grievances. It was far too late, as the Titans had already begun climbing the mountain side of Olympus, with Kratos in tow, wielding the Blade of Olympus. And thus, the Second Great War had begun.
Although the Gods apparently came victorious in their fight against the Titans, Kratos continued hunting the Olympians, killing them one by one before reaching Zeus. After killing his father, the Greek world had become an apocalyptic setting, with flooding, diseases, storms, and the missing sun. As such, it's assumed that the war ended with the deaths of all Greek Gods, except for Kratos and Athena.
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