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The architect who built this temple was a zealot. He lived only to serve the gods but went mad trying. The rumor is that he's still alive, still inside... still trying to appease the gods who abandoned him years ago...

Body Burner

Pathos Verdes III was the self-proclaimed loyal subject and architect of the Olympian Gods assigned to the building of Pandora's Temple and eventually went insane in his quest to please them.

Biography[]

The Assignment of the Gods[]

Pathos Verdes III was a zealot with a wife and two sons. One day the Gods appeared before him and commanded him to build a temple to house Pandora's Box, the most powerful weapon a mortal can wield. Pathos, loyal to the gods, accepted the task and began his plans.

Construction of the Temple[]

Pathos Verdes III began the work building the temple. With the help of some Harpies, their riders, and the Gods, they subdued Cronos, who was cursed to wander the desert until he died. He then started to build the temple on the back of Cronos. His traps and designs were straightforward at first, but would soon become more and more difficult as he lost his mind.

Downfall into Insanity[]

While he was building the temple, his youngest son died, and soon after that, his oldest son died. After their deaths, he grew insane and started to lose faith in the Gods. While he was still building it, heroes began visiting the temple and many died. These first unsuccessful heroes would be cursed and as he grew more insane he began to make the traps more elaborate and harder.

Eventually, he used the bodies of his dead sons in the traps. This caused a serious problem with his wife and in an argument he stabbed her in the chest with a knife, killing her. Unable to continue working on the temple with his family gone, he killed himself, cursing the Gods.

The Temple of Pandora[]

The temple proves more difficult to traverse as Kratos proceeds, this may represent the increasing insanity Verdes experienced as he built it. He killed himself but it appears that he was planning to end the temple there as there are what appears to be unfinished sections in it. Also, it gives an insight into Kratos' hatred of the Gods.

Trivia[]

  • Pathos Verdes III is many ways, similar to Kratos: both chose to serve a god (Kratos served Ares and Pathos Verdes III served Zeus and his brothers), both killed their families in a fit of rage while under control of the Gods, both have cursed the Gods, and both committed suicide in order to escape the madness (though only Pathos succeeded).
  • Interestingly, in his suicide note, Pathos Verdes III writes that he remembered in the end, that the Gods came to him and trusted him to build Pandora's Temple, thus suggesting he may have regained a measure of faith in the Gods, though it could simply have been another expression of his madness.
  • Pandora's Temple was referenced multiple times as having been built "thousands" of years prior to the beginning of the franchise. However, the God of War series must take place during the 3rd century BCE, since Archimedes (who died in 212 BCE) is referenced as having passed away many years prior to Ascension, the first game in the series. This would consequently mean Pathos Verdes III lived around or prior to 1300 BCE, which ends up being relatively consistent with the dates most scholars attribute to the Trojan War and otherevents in early Greek mythology stories (1184-1200 BCE)
    • However, the fact that God of War II (which takes place over 30 years after Ascension) features the Colossus of Rhodes, whose real life counterpart was destroyed in 226 BCE, may suggest that the God of War chronology is different than the real life version of events, though it'd still suggest the series takes place around the late 3rd century BCE, since the Colossus itself was built in 292 BCE.
    • At one point, it is slightly implied Pandora's Temple was built or at least completed 2,500 years before the game proper. This would put Pathos Verdes's life around 2600-2700 BCE. Considering the fact that writing had yet to spread out of Ancient Egypt and Sumer at the time, as well as the fact that Greece had yet to become a civilization, it's extremely unlikely that the Temple was actually built around this date - even the Giza Pyramids, which were built around the same time, required extensive manpower and took nearly 100 years to complete.
    • It is implied that Pathos Verdes III killed himself and his wife about the same time that Kratos reached Pandora's Temple. This is reforced by the fact that the Body Burner after meeting Kratos for the first time guessed that the architet would still be alive within the temple. Another argument is that when Kratos find the corpse of the architect and his wife, they were in decomposition proccess, rather than being skeletons. If so, Pathos Verdes III and his family would have lived for over 2.500 years, since the time the temple started to be built until the day that the Spartan would finally find Pandora's Box.
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