God of War feels oddly relevant to my job.

I’ve been playing the heck out of 2018’s God of War, in anticipation of buying its freshly-released sequel, God of War: Ragnarök. To explain how a video game pertains to my work, I have to start from the beginning.

The story of the God of War series follows Kratos, a bloodthirsty Spartan general in service to the Olympian gods whose life is changed forever in the worst way. On the order of Ares, Greek god of war, Kratos leads his army in the destruction of a town under the protection of Athena, Greek goddess of wisdom. In the heat of battle, Kratos kills his wife and daughter, who were tricked into coming to a temple in the town by Ares. This act of violence curses Kratos: the ashes of his dead family graft themselves onto his skin, and he is plagued by nightmares of the horrible things he has done. When Ares gets on the bad side of Athena, she promises Kratos a clean slate if he kills Ares. Against all odds, Kratos succeeds, but Athena refuses to put an end to the nightmares. Kratos tries to commit suicide, only to be stopped and crowned the new God of War.

By the time of God of War II, the other gods have grown tired of Kratos’ loose cannon attitude and contempt for the other gods. After one too many acts of defiance, Zeus, king of the gods, strips Kratos of his godly powers and kills him. In the Underworld, Kratos is rescued by Gaia, queen of the Titans, the predecessors of the gods. She helps Kratos to get to the Sisters of Fate, who are capable of sending people through time and therefore undo Kratos’ death. Kratos uses the Sisters’ power to travel back to the moment of his death and steal the Blade of Olympus, Zeus’ ace in the hole, and travel back to the present. He travels to Mount Olympus to kill Zeus, but instead kills Athena when she stands in the way of the Blade. Before she dies, Athena reveals a secret: Zeus is Kratos’ father. By allying with the Titans to seek revenge on the gods, Kratos repeats a cycle that the Olympians and the Titans perpetrated: killing family in the interest of taking or retaining power.

God of War III follows Kratos in his god-killing rampage. In his thirst for revenge, Kratos is uncaring of the devastating consequences of killing a god, for killing a god affects their domain. Killing Poseidon, god of the seas, washes away hundreds of thousands of Greeks in a flood. The death of Helios the sun god plunges Greece into eternal darkness. When Hades is killed, the gates of the Underworld open, and the dead swarm back into Greece. By the time Kratos kills Zeus, he feels no satisfaction, no sense of having avenged his family. He can only walk to the edge of Mount Olympus and look on in horror at the wasteland Greek has become because of his actions. With no other options, Kratos stabs himself with the Blade of Olympus, releasing what godly power he has left in a last-ditch effort to undo the damage.

Which brings us to 2018’s God of War, and my point.

This installment shifts the focus from the Greek gods to the Norse gods. After surviving his attempted suicide, Kratos traveled from Greece to Midgard and began a new life, marrying a Norse woman and having a son, Atreus. As the game opens, Kratos’ second wife Faye has died and Kratos and Atreus go to fulfill her last wish: scattering her ashes from the highest peak in the Nine Realms. On the journey, Kratos, who has never revealed his past to Atreus, slowly reveals the events of the previous games to him. This comes to a head, when Kratos is forced to kill a god who’s gone mad. When the mother of the dead god threatens to reveal to Atreus the atrocities Kratos committed in his younger years, Kratos tells Atreus the truth he’s been holding back:

Kratos: Boy, listen close. I am from a land called Sparta. I made a deal with a god that cost me my soul. I killed many who were deserving…and many who were not. I killed my father.

Atreus: …Is this what it is to be a god? Is this how it always ends? Sons killing their fathers? Their mothers?

Kratos: No. We will be the gods we choose to be, not those who have been. Who I was is not who you will be. We must be better.

There’s a lot of bad behavior in my classrooms. I can’t name one exact reason for that–peer pressure, the effects of a dysfunctional school, untreated learning disorders–but in at least one case, I know it’s a case of the apple not falling far from the tree.

I have a student in my 8th grade classroom, “Mario.” By every metric, Mario is a handful: constantly talking, constantly disrespectful, running in and out of the classroom, and trying to instigate conflict whether he’s in class or not. One day before Thanksgiving break, I had the misfortune of meeting Mario’s mother during dismissal. Mario was horseplaying with some of his friends and ended up falling off the sidewalk and faceplanting in the road. And how did Mommie Dearest react to her son getting hurt? Telling him he deserved it. Cue boiling blood on my part.

At the same time, my coworkers have been open about the traumas they’re still working through. I’m not about to air their dark secrets out to the Internet, but suffice it to say, a lot of said traumas originate from the failures of their parents.

We started a quote board at work, and I wrote that Kratos quote on the board, my only contribution so far: “We will be the gods we choose to be, not those who have been. Who I was is not who you will be. We must be better.” I wrote that quote for every party involved: myself, my students, and my coworkers. As a reminder.

Our pasts don’t set our futures in stone. The people who raised us aren’t the people we have to become.

We can be better.