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| “ | I will rain down every agony, every violation imaginable, upon you... I will parade your cold body from every corner of every realm, and feed your soul to the vilest filth in Hel, that is my promise! | „ |
| ~ Freya to Kratos. |
| “ | Not. Quite. Yet. Think you're the only one who can craft a binding spell? I've spent many long winters thinking about what I would say to you as I watched you take your last breath. But now, I realize there's only one thing I need you to know. You have no hold on me ANYMORE. | „ |
| ~ Freya to Odin, finally moving past her need for revenge. |
Freya is a major character in the Norse Era of the God of War franchise. She is the Norse Goddess of Love, War, Beauty, Fertility, Childbirth and Magic who is the ex-wife of Odin and the estranged mother of Baldur. While not truly evil, she had committed a morally dubious act by casting an invulnerability spell on her son Baldur so he cannot die, but at the cost of his ability to feel anything out of twisted love for him.
She aids Kratos and Atreus in their quest to reach Jötunheim, teaching them about the Nine Realms and helping Atreus with his illness, and even helping Kratos come to terms with his murderous past. She also develops a maternal bond with the Atreus and becomes one of the only living beings Kratos genuinely cares for, but her alliance with them is broken when Kratos kills Baldur to protect her from his retribution, only for Freya (still loving Baldur despite his attempt to murder her) to swear vengeance upon him. She also despises Mimir, Kratos and Atreus' companion, for indirectly causing her imprisonment in Midgard.
She was portrayed by Danielle Bisutti, who also playes Barb Pierce in Curse of Chucky, the Woman in White in Insidious: Chapter 2 and April Harris in Beauty and the Beast.
Biography[]
Background[]
Freya is the daughter of Njord, the Vanir God of the seas, and an unnamed mother, and is also the sister to Freyr. Being the leader of the Vanirs during their war against the Aesir, after years of fight, Mimir, Odin's advisor gave a solution for the fight between the two factions, Freya and Odin would marry each other, she agreed to marry Odin to stop the bloodshed, and bring peace between the two sides though she never forgave Mimir for doing that. In addition by this time, she had become the leader of the Valkyries, a group sworn to protect the realms, and lead the dead to Valhalla. With Odin, she showed him her magic, and he began to experiment; using it for unjust purposes.
She would have a child named Baldur, whom she cherished more than anything as her marriage to Odin became more strained due to her husband's greedy lust for knowledge. Learning of a prophecy that would kill her son, she decided to cast a spell of invulnerability onto Baldur, making him feel no pain from injuries. The spell worked too well, as he wasn't able to taste or feel anything, and demanded to have it spell taken away. Despite his plea, she stated that it couldn't be removed and told him that he would thank her in the long run, but he attempted to kill her before leaving in resentment. Baldur would continue to find a way to break the spell, as Freya lied to him on how to break it through mistletoe.
Eventually, Freya would break off her marriage to Odin due to his cruelty, and Norse Gods becoming violent, notably Thor killing giants mercilessly. Angered that the marriage was broken, he cursed the goddess to never be able to leave Midgard or harming any living creature. In addition, he took away her wings, leaving the Valkyries to deal with Odin and later become corrupted. This event was not taken well by others, who saw that Freya had a warrior spirit, as she was left in isolation.
Before breaking off her marriage to Odin, Freya was told by the guised as a mortal jötunn Hrimthur the secret weakness in Asgard walls that he put, in preparation for the downfall of the Aesir in Ragnarök.
Despite being alone, Freya would befriend Chaurli, a giant turtle where she would reside near the Lake of the Nine. In addition, she also befriended a boar that was actually an amnesiac God who was stuck in that form.
God of War (2018)[]
Under the command of Kratos, Atreus shoots a boar god named Hildisvíni, landing a successful hit. Atreus chases after the boar only to get lost and meet a horrified Freya, not knowing that the boar was her friend. Kratos arrives in time and helps Freya heal Hildisvíni, resulting in success. Afterwards, Freya gives Kratos and Atreus a marking that will hide them from anyone who might make the father and son's journey difficult. Freya gives Kratos and Atreus a safe way out through the cave directly below her woods, and the two leave.
Freya reappears when Kratos and Atreus encounter Black Breath, a corrupted form of magic not even Freya can dispel, requiring the Light of Alfheim to break through. The trio make their way to Týr's Temple to travel to Alfheim along with reawakening the realm travel room after being dormant for so long. The trio make their way to Alfheim where Freya is suddenly sucked away from Alfheim and back into Midgard, and isn't seen again for a while, Atreus worried that she may be dead.
Kratos and Atreus return to Freya, with Atreus happy to find out that Freya is not dead, requesting that she revives the head of Mimir. Freya, noticing Atreus's mistletoe arrows, demands that he hands them over to her despite being a gift from Sindri. Freya proceeds to burn the arrows, telling him that if Atreus finds anymore mistletoe arrows, he must destroy them. Freya allows Atreus to take her arrows in his place, having no need for them anymore. Under Kratos and Atreus's request, Freya revives Mimir using the old magic, proceeding to spit in his face for inadvertently getting her trapped in Midgard. Mimir also reveals that the "Witch of the Woods" was the goddess Freya, resulting an enraged Kratos to ask Freya why she didn't think it was important to tell him she was a goddess, leaving the house with Atreus.
At some point in the game, Atreus falls into a coma after using the Spartan Rage due to being too young to withstand and control the Rage. A terrified Kratos returns to Freya's house to cure Atreus from the illness, who proceeds to turn her back on Kratos. However, the moment Kratos mentions Atreus being ill, she immediately lets him in, needing the heart of the Bridge Keeper in Helheim to cure Atreus. Kratos returns to Freya with the heart, where she is thankfully able to cure Atreus from his coma.
After the second fight with Baldur, Kratos and Atreus witness an illusion of Baldur being cursed with not being able to feel anything in Helheim, where despite Baldur's pleas, Freya refuses to lift the curse, claiming that she is not able to remove the curse at all, eventually vanishing. Freya reappears once again, in which she searches for her son, Baldur after several years of not seeing him. After recently finding out about Freya selfishly keeping Baldur's curse, reluctantly speak or stand near her. Baldur suddenly appears from out of the water, surprised to see his mother after over a century. Freya, still aware of how angry Baldur is, tries to work something out with him but he refuses and approaches Freya. Kratos steps in, warning Baldur that he will not have any peace from getting revenge on his mother based on past experiences. Baldur ignores Kratos's advice and continues to approach Freya, seeming ready to attack Freya. Kratos pushing Baldur and the two begin to fight for the third time. At some point in the fight, Freya ensnares Kratos in vines to prevent him from attacking Baldur, the latter throwing a boulder at Freya. Atreus steps in and guards his father, not wanting him to get hurt despite Baldur's warning.
Baldur punches Atreus in the chest and inadvertently punches the tip of the mistletoe. An ecstatic Baldur happy that he is finally able to feel after over a century of devoid of any feeling. Freya, however, is horrified by this event and reanimates the frost giant, Thamur, to stop the fight between Kratos, Atreus, and Baldur. The fight finally comes to an end when Atreus calls the World Serpent tell kill the reanimated giant. Freya convinces Baldur to have forgiveness for her so that they can build a new and better relationship, which Baldur turns down. Freya even allows Baldur to choke her to death, which he proceeds to do. Kratos intervenes and snaps Baldur's neck, killing him for good. Enraged, Freya swears vengeance on Kratos for the death of her son, calling him an animal and will never change his cruelty and rage. This inspires Kratos to share his story of how he killed his father to Atreus. After hearing Kratos' story, Freya holding the corpse of her son, leaves in silence and is never seen again.
Apparently, while Kratos and Atreus were in Jötunheim spreading the ashes of Faye, Freya visited Brok, Sindri, and Mimir, asking them where she can find her warrior spirit.
God of War Ragnarök[]
Freya returns in the sequel, still seeking vengeance against Kratos. She discovered Atreus wearing the Mistletoe as a necklace. She eventually regained her Valkyrie wings and attempted to kill Kratos but until she changed her mind and decided to team up with the Ghost of Sparta. She travels to Vanaheim to remove the curse that Odin placed on her which was guarded by Nidhogg. She learned of Kratos' tragic past of how he lost his brother, Deimos as well accidentally killed his wife, Lysandra and his daughter, Calliope where Kratos was treated badly in Sparta in his childhood life. She removed a branch of her curse from Vanaheim to help Kratos to kill Nidhogg. She eventually destroyed the curse. She choose to forgive Kratos for killing her son, Baldur and took out her hatred towards her ex-husband Odin instead. She reunited with her brother, Freyr. She and Kratos later went to Midgard to find the Norns (the Norse counterparts of the Sisters of Fate) who told Freya that Baldur will inevitably die at a needless death. Freya becomes irritated by the taunts from the Norns, but realises that she had fulfilled the prophecy of Baldur's death by trying to avoid it, as it was her invulnerability spell that drove him insane, and his obsession on revenge forced Kratos to kill him to save her.
When Ragnarök begins, she joins forces with her brother and people in the battle. During Kratos and Atreus' fight against Odin, the All-Father traps them in a binding spell, but they are saved by Freya, who uses her own binding spell to strangle Odin; however, Odin manages to escape by destroying the ground. Kratos, Atreus, and Freya cooperate to battle Odin, who is eventually defeated; despite Atreus' pleas, Odin declares he will never stop his efforts to find answers about reality, implying his methods will remain cruel and destructive. Atreus traps Odin's soul in a stone, and hands it to Kratos, who then offers it to Freya, honouring his promise that life and death decisions regarding her will be in her hands. Despite her lingering hatred, Freya rejects the chance to finally destroy Odin, the man who had caused her life's sufferings, since she had found peace in reuniting with her brother and people, finding empathy and friendship with Kratos, and realising she held Atreus with the fondness of another son, thus concluding she didn't need vengeance to feel fulfillment. Though, Odin was still swiftly killed by Sindri, who was overflowing with rage due to the former murdering his brother, Brok.
After Atreus departed to explore the world of his people, the Giants, Freya remained an occasional companion to Kratos and Mimir. Freya was also organising the revived Valkyrie order as to establish some order, aid, and repair to the realms to mend the damage caused during Ragnarök.
Personality[]
Initially, Freya is very friendly and hospitable towards Atreus and even towards Kratos, despite the latter's open distrust of virtually everyone and hatred for godly beings. It is implied that Freya sees herself in Kratos and that this is why she decided to help him, although she also teases "or maybe I just like you".
It is unknown which of these answers is true, but she is shown to care for Atreus, both as a friend and as a mother-figure of sorts. She occasionally scolds Kratos for keeping his past a secret from Atreus, and for distrusting divine beings despite being one himself. However, she understands his distrust due to the past actions of divine beings like the Aesir. She possibly reminded Kratos of Athena, which was why he was reluctant to trust her at first and not open with her as well.
However, like other villainous or morally dubious deities in the series, Freya has a darker side which made her worse than she appeared to be. Behind her maternal side is a selfish, vindictive being as well as representing the worst of manipulative and narcissistic parent. When hearing of her son's fated death, she placed a curse on him that would make him immune to death and pain, yet cut him off from all his other physical sensations, all to feel secure in knowing Baldur wouldn't die. Even after Baldur begged her to lift the curse and seeing the agony her son was in, she refused, even claiming that there was no way to lift the curse. This selfish mindset of willing to put her son's life over his happiness caused him to endure over a century of agony. While she mostly hid these worst side of hers hidden from her allies Kratos and Atreus, the father and son notice this when she shown panic upon the sight of a number of mistletoe Atreus carry and later, seeing an illusion of Baldur's sad history with Freya at Helheim in which Mimir had trouble in recalling the full story about it.
This is because Freya placed a discrete spell on Mimir when she resurrected him, preventing him from speaking about Baldur's weakness and of her connection to him. Even when admitting to Kratos that she let her needs and fears come before her son, she still refused to change herself or lift the spell, and when Baldur was finally able to feel again, while he was euphoric in regaining his senses, Freya was horrified that the spell was broken, not caring that her son was happy to feel again. In the end, Freya's greatest desire was to keep her son alive, never feeling even a sliver of remorse for her actions or apologizing to her son despite seeing how much Baldur suffered and unable to truly see her own errors, not even with Baldur's attempt to kill her.
Kratos eventually resorted to kill Baldur in order to save Freya, earning Freya's hatred in the process. She swears vengeance against Kratos for killing Baldur, even though her son was hellbent on killing her and would have forced Kratos to kill him anyway right afterwards. She was perfectly willing to sacrifice herself if it meant Baldur would live, something that Kratos himself understands.
She scolds Kratos, calling him an animal and saying he will never change, inspiring Kratos to tell his terrible and murderous past to Atreus. After picking up her son's body, she looks back at the two, hinting that despite her hatred for Kratos, she respected him for admitting his past, and at least hopes that his child will not meet the same fate as his own.
With the intent of reclaiming her Valkyrie powers, it is clear that Freya has not given up her drive for vengeance and won't likely let it go. In fact, she relentlessly attacked Kratos to get her revenge once she weakened Odin's bewitchment on her that she regained a fraction of her Valkyrie powers and (later) wings. As vengeful as she had become, Freya fortunately doesn't stoop as low as evil deities Kratos vanquished since she retained some affection towards Atreus (the worst thing she does to the young man during their secret meeting being confiscating his Mistletoe necklace) and eventual inner conflict in her later attempt on Kratos' life which became apparent when Ghost of Sparta calms Atreus down when the latter resorted to turn into a nearly out-of-control bear as their fight escalated further, latter which reminded her of her own behavior as a parent from watching how Kratos cares for his son. She eventually buried her hatchet with Kratos after the latter assisting her in fully undoing Odin's binding magic that restrained her powers, being reminded of the All-Father's mistreatment on both her and her people as well as learning more about Kratos' own past quest of vengeance. At this point, Freya acknowledged that resentment she had toward Kratos won't likely go away, but nonetheless stated that Odin being the one who deserved her hatred. Her change to better even best displayed upon having Atreus presented her the soul stone containing Odin's soul; rather than destroying it as expected, Freya refrained herself from doing so because she had since understood vengeance won't bring her the peace she sought, leading vengeful Sindri does her a favor instead.
Freya hates Mimir under the falsely belief that he brokering her marriage with Odin just to end the war between the Aesir and Vanir but instead made the war even worse. It can be inferred that this hatred lessened somewhat after aforementioned conclusion regarding Odin.
Quotes[]
| “ | You're welcome. | „ |
| ~ Freya to Kratos. |
| “ | I've made mistakes, I know, but you're free now. You have what you want. Try to find forgiveness, and we can build something new- | „ |
| ~ Freya to Baldur. |
| “ | He robbed me of EVERYTHING! Everything... | „ |
| ~ Freya to Atreus on Kratos killing Baldur. |
| “ | Freya: You are just an animal, passing on your cruelty and rage. You will never change. Kratos: Then you don't know me. |
„ |
| ~ Freya and Kratos. |
| “ | There's still a part of me that is so... angry. And it'll always be... It'll always be angry. But no. You are not the one who needs to die. I do see that. | „ |
| ~ Freya forgiving Kratos for killing Baldur. |
| “ | You can thank Mimir for that. | „ |
| ~ Freya blaming Mimir for Odin's invasion in Vanaheim. |
| “ | Atreus: Wow... the Valkyries look different. Freya: Welcome back. Hildisvini informed me of your success. We've been planning accordingly. Mimir: Well, what would Ragnarök be without Ragnarök? Kratos: Who else agreed to join us? I see the Valkyries. Freya: Better than that — they are reborn. Corporeal and uncorrupted, thanks to no small amount of Vanir magic. They're Shield Maidens now. Atreus: Nice! Kratos: And your brother? Freya: He came through! The Elves called a truce to unite against Asgard. That gives us advantage by air and with Hel's army for a Vanguard — Atreus: What about Sindri? Will the Dwarves fight? Freya: We haven't heard from him. But there's time yet. And I think we have what we need to clear a path for the Ragnarök beast. Mimir: Well, when you say it like that, why worry at all? |
„ |
| ~ Kratos, Atreus, Mimir, and Freya discuss their success in rallying everyone in Nine Realms minus Dwarves due to Sindri's absence and Surtr's transformation into Ragnarök beast. |
Gallery[]
_-_Freya.png "God-of-War (2018) - Freya.png (621 KB)")
Trivia[]
- Freya's tattoos darken as the story progresses, probably because of her usage of Vanir magic, or a reference to her character becoming darker by the end of the story as well as eventual status as anti-heroine in the sequel.
- She and Mimir are the only two to directly address Kratos by his name, but unlike Mimir (who has vast knowledge), it's unknown how she knew his name. She either knew that it was him from the start, or she realized that he was the "Ghost of Sparta".
- Despite declaring vengeance towards Kratos for killing her son, she is cursed by Odin which prevents of from killing anything or anyone. This is possibly the reason why Freya seeks to have her Valkyrie powers restored when discovering her wings which Odin hid. Though she finally achieved what she wanted thanks to magical disturbances resulted from Fimbulwinter which weakened the hold of Odin's curses on her and later, Sigrún and Kratos' assistance in breaking them once and for all, she no longer interested in vengeance after knowing the former Ghost of Sparta's own share of tragic past in addition of him considering her to be a friend despite everything.
- Freya somehow knows Kratos's name despite never mentioning it to her.
External Links[]
- Freya on the God of War Wiki
- Freya on the Heroes Wiki
