"'You made it political.' As a writer, your job is to tell stories that are compelling and relatable," God of War: Ragnarok's narrative director Matt Sophos stated. "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."
God of War: Ragnarok's first trailer sparked some online discourse around fat-shaming and racism - it was a packed weekend. A host of very vocal gamers were riled up enough to grab pitchforks (or rather, keyboards) before frantically leaving comments about their outrage toward the fact that Angrboda is black and Thor is fat. As Matt Sophos said, "Whew. Mute button got a workout this weekend."
"Angrboda in our game is a young black woman," Sophos added. "The vast, vast majority of players are thrilled and think she looks incredible - and boy does she. But a tiny, vocal sliver of the internet was offended at this notion.
This thinly veiled racism was pushed through under the guise of inaccuracy to the source material, but Sophos addressed this complaint. He stated that God of War is a series that has always taken liberties with its depiction of mythological characters. For instance, Brok "talks like a foul-mouthed Texas prospector," Mimir is Scottish and "tied to a character from English folklore - specifically, from one of Shakespeare's plays," while Loki is "quarter Greek-demigod."
"'It's not accurate to Norse mythology and 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've constantly taken mythological characters and given them our own spin, so if the colour of Angrboda's skin is where you draw the line at how respectful we've been, it's probably worth some self-examination."