When God of War first launched on the PlayStation 2 in 2005, it garnered amazing critical and commercial success. It also, undoubtedly, gave birth to one of the most iconic and well-known PlayStation heroes (or mascots if you will) in the form of the god-slaying Kratos. The bloodthirsty character has been decapitating, disemboweling, and inflicting harm to several mythological beasts on every platform in the PlayStation family for many years. But have you ever wondered how Kratos actually came about? The man who created him, the venerable David Jaffe, tells us where the inspiration behind the mighty PlayStation hero came from.

David Jaffe, who’s currently working on the latest installment in the Twisted Metal series for the PS3, revealed the inspiration behind Kratos in a recent interview:

“It took a long time to figure out what Kratos would look like, and ultimately we took inspiration form Edward Norton in American History X, when he played a Nazi. There’s this scene in which the cops arrest him and you just see how buffed and built he’s gotten. I showed that to the artist and I said, ‘Okay, that sense of power and aggression that you just see in his face, can we somehow take that, the essence of what he’s exuding, and somehow turn that into a character that fits into this Greek mythology world?”

So, there it is. Kratos was born via Edward Norton. Now, if you’d kindly excuse me, I’ll go watch American History X now.