Megaera (God of War: Ascension)

Megaera is one of the Furies who pursue Kratos for breaking his bond with Ares. She is the tertiary antagonist in God of War: Ascension.
== Biography ==
=== Early Life ===
Megaera is one of the three Furies, or Erinyes, in Greek mythology. Megaera was the cause of jealousy and punished people who committed crimes, especially marital infidelity. Like her sisters, she was born from the blood of Ouranos when Cronos castrated him.
=== God of War: Ascension ===
Megaera and the rest of the Furies pursue Kratos for breaking his bond with Ares. Upon encountering Orkos in Delphi, Kratos is informed that the Furies were once fair in their judgement and punishment, but became ruthless because of Ares, the God of War whom convinced the Furies to help him conspire against Olympus. Alecto, the Fury Queen, and Ares conceived a child who they hoped would aid them in their mission to bring down Olympus. However, the child, Orkos, was considered weak by Ares and was thus disowned. To please his mothers, Orkos became the oath-keeper. He turned against his mothers once they blinded his friend, Oracle Aletheia, and unjustly punished Kratos.
During Kratos's journey to Delos (shown in the second flashback of the game), he traverses the Statue of Apollo and eventually comes across an illusion of Sparta put together by the Furies Megaera and Tisiphone. As Kratos fights illusional Spartans, Megaera also attacks and is able to stand against Kratos quite well, causing powerful shockwaves with her attacks. After a long brutal fight between the two, Megaera is slammed through the wall and her mask gets damaged she immediately counters by choking Kratos, who saves himself by tearing off Megaera's arm. The illusion then ceases as the injured Megaera and infuriated Tisiphone (and her pet Daimon) attack Kratos head on. During the battle, Megaera is harpooned with the Blades of Chaos and tossed off the Statue of Apollo. Kratos then 'kills' Tisiphone, but it turns out the one he killed was just another illusion. Kratos is then subdued by the third Fury, Alecto.
Alecto, Tisiphone and Megaera unite but they are stopped by the appearance of Orkos, who saves Kratos by teleporting them to a separate part of the statue away from the Furies.
Later on in the game, after Kratos has reassembled the Statue of Apollo and entered the Lantern, which contains the Eyes of Truth, he encounters the three Furies once more. The sisters also have a subdued Orkos with them. Megaera and Tisiphone hold Orkos in place as Alecto captures Kratos and takes him to be tortured within the prison of Aegeon the Hecatonchires.
In present time (the beginning of the game, the camera is shown from Kratos perspective giving a dramatic effect), a one-armed and angered Megaera wakes a bound and wounded Kratos from his sleep by landing fiercely in front of him. The Fury then slashes at him with her claws whilst a huge metal collar holds him in place. After giving Kratos a thorough and brutal beating, Megaera reveals her face by sliding her cracked mask up and hits kratos one last time with her hand dazing him, this time she breaks the bond around his neck allowing Kratos to stand up she brings out her spider-like appendages and attacks saying "I'm quite skilled in teaching Respect!!". The Fury jabs at him with her spider-like appendages and the Spartan has to dodge them via promtless mini-game. Upon completing the first dodge, one of his arms is set free thus allowing him to attack. The two fight for a short amount of time, with Megaera taunting him stating "Your rage means nothing!" until Kratos' second arm is freed. He promptly slashes at Megaera's abdomen and then charges into her, knocking them both off the ledge that the former was once bound on.
An injured Megaera flees from Kratos, taunting him as she runs on her huge legs. She summons parasites from her chest and they latch on to caged humans in order to transform them into insect-like monsters that are similar to the satyr grunts. The chase continues until they both come to a huge arm of the Hecatonchire. Desperate, Megaera releases another swarm of parasites that burrow into the giant's skin. The arm splits in half to reveal a beastly monster inside. The Fury then leaves the scene as the mutated hand attacks Kratos.
Megaera continues to taunt Kratos as he continues to pursue her throughout the Prison of the Damned. Eventually, she tackles him when he is confronting her sister Tisiphone proclaiming "He is mine!" her actions cause both of them to crash into a wall and fall in front of the head of Aegaeon which her parasites infect the head of Aegaeon himself, forcing Kratos into an epic battle against the head of the Hecatonchires. He then attacks Megaera once more, who is residing on Aegeon's eye. After a brief struggle, Kratos stabs Megaera in the chest and tosses her off the Hecatonchires. Kratos then dives down after Megaera and, just as the pair smash against a lower platform, he drives his blades into Megaera's chest, killing her instantly.
Kratos then recovers The Amulet of Uroborus.
== Personality ==
Like most Immortal beings, Megaera looks upon mortals with contempt, as shown during the chase with Kratos during which she makes belittling comments against him and calls him a "worthless mortal". She is shown to be very arrogant and authoritarian, but also quite cowardly, as she runs from Kratos and does not directly fight him although this is likely because of her injury and was trying to keep her distance until she can heal.
She is by far the most brutal of the Furies, as she's described in game as someone that only knows "physical pain" which is proven true as she would torture most if not all of the prisoners, including Kratos, for a long time, although the latter case is special due to having a thirst for revenge for having her arm ripped off during a fight. This desire would grow so strong that she has to be restrained by Alecto from attacking Kratos.
== Powers and Abilities ==
* Immortality - Megaera is older than the Earth itself.
* Wall-Crawling - Megaera can cling to walls like a spider.
* Superhuman Strength - Megaera can easily lift a full grown man with her arms or spider legs without any effort and can easily break chains. She is also the strongest of the Furies since she can hold for a longer period of time in hand-to-hand combat with Kratos. With the strength of one arm she's able to not only beat Kratos easily but break the chain holding him with little effort.
* Superhuman Durability - Megaera is the Fury that resists more pain since she had been brutally beaten by Kratos, has been attacked several times by the Blades of Chaos, had her arm cut off, had her stomach sliced open and had been stabbed several times (2 times in the chest) and has survived.
* Superhuman Stamina - Despite sustaining several injuries during her major battles with Kratos, she was able to keep ahead of him each time without showing any signs of weariness.
* Healing Factor - Megaera received lots of attacks by Kratos and has healed most of them, with an exception of the most severe damages like her arm being cut off or her stomach sliced wide open.
* Summoning Parasites - She has a diseased looking rash on her chest that parasites crawl out from. The said parasites can crawl under the skin of the living and dead alike, forcing them to fight for the Furies.
** Infestation - Where her parasites crawl into their intended targets they can change and grow from the organic mass and thus become stronger.
* Spider Agility - Megaera is the fastest of all the Furies thanks to her spider legs.
* Illusions - Much like her sisters, Tisiphone and Alecto, Megaera is capable of creating illusions. An example is when she created illusions of Spartan soldiers in her battle with Kratos.
== Appearance ==
Before her severed arm, Megaera has two arms with muscular dark claw hands and has a golden Fury helmet that she can slide up at will to conceal or reveal her face. She has 4 spider-like appendages that can retract from her back at will. She has a golden fury chest plate that perfectly fits the midsection of her body and outlines her stomach area, protecting her chest and stomach. She has golden knee guards above her sharp feet that come up to her knee-bone. Before fighting Kratos her face was normal with pure skin and completion having no scars or bruises, after the fight with Kratos she sustains notable injuries with her face now having scars and an eye injury, and her right arm is gone. Later after torturing Kratos, Kratos cuts her chest, breaking through her armor and cutting her abdomen.
== Trivia ==
* Megaera was the first Fury to be revealed and the first to be killed.
* Megaera was known as "the Jealous One", as shown by the fact that she seems to be angered by Alecto's interruption while she was torturing Kratos.
** She was titled the Fury of the Flesh, as she was the one who physically tortured her victims, in contradiction to her sisters who tortured the mind and soul of their victims. 
* When Kratos fought Ares at the end of God of War, Ares had big spider legs grow from his back, which looked very similar to those attached to Megaera's back as seen in the Furies trailer and single player teaser. The difference between them is that Ares' ones were fiery and blade-like, befitting of a war god, while those of Megaera are much larger and more insectoid. This may imply that Ares had some kind of connection with the Furies but more likely the design is inspired by Ares' appearance.
* It should be noted that Megaera wears a gold helmet with a red plume in the Furies trailer but, in the single player teaser, the helmet has a blue plume. In the single player demo, it remains a blue plume, being more likely a design change.
** There's also a possibility that the helmet was different in the Furies trailer, as the trailer is based before Kratos was captured (it is most likely that the trailer shows past events, as Megaera still has two arms).
** After Kratos exited the Harbor of Kirra, the game takes the player back to the Prison of the Damned, and before Megaera vanishes, her plume is red.
* One of Megaera's comments to Kratos was that Ares wished to have Kratos returned to him, for which she felt that it would have made him a fool.
* It should be noted that Megaera is missing an arm at the beginning of the game when she tortures Kratos. It has been revealed that Kratos was the one who ripped off her arm and therefore created a personal rivalry with him, hating him more than Alecto or Tisiphone. This would be why she told Kratos her sisters were kinder to him than she is, and also the reason why she was the only Fury to torture him at the beginning of the game: revenge. It is also possible that she wanted to kill Kratos after he cut off her arm, instead of simply taking him to the prison, and that it was this "special time" that Alecto interrupted to take him to Aegaeon.
** It's ironic to notice that it was her thirst for personal revenge that set Kratos free from his bounds and from Aegaeon and later resulted in her demise.
* It is currently unclear as to what Megaera's "special time" with Kratos is. It could most likely be some kind of sado-sexual torture or their first encounter (battle) in the game, which was probably the one Alecto interrupted.
* Megaera's power to secrete parasites is pulled from the Surinam Toad.
* Megaera is also seen as the "Troublemaker Fury" since she had destroyed most of the Prison of the Damned and killed Aegeon only to kill Kratos in the process.
* Megaera insults Kratos' fighting ability by telling him, "You fight like an Athenian!"
* Out of all of the Fury's Megaera's the most frequently seen and fought.
** Out of all of the Fury's, Megaera and Kratos battles were the longest being at least 6 minutes longer than the other Furies'. There battles are also the most brutal, with each of them slamming into another or fighting barehanded, Megaera torturing Kratos, Kratos cutting her arm and ripping it, to even falling from great lengths that could've killed the average person.
Category:2010s
Category:Video Game Villainess
Category:Sibling
Category:Torturer
Category:Full Face Mask
Category:Bondage Used By Villainess
Category:Humanoid Monster
Category:Fate: Deceased
Category:Demise: Stabbed
Category:Excessively Violent
Category:Coward
Category:Plate Armor
Category:Jealous
Category:Disfigured
Category:Immortal
Category:Man Kills Villainess
Category:Muscular
Category:Bare-Handed
Category:Villainous Reveal
Category:Computer-Generated Villainess