The reason it feels shoehorned is that the motivations don't really make sense and aren't really explained. Had it been done better I would agree with you though.
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Which Metal Gear plot point/twist is the most ludicrous?
- Thread starter Dalek
- Start date
The reason it feels shoehorned is that the motivations don't really make sense and aren't really explained. Had it been done better I would agree with you though.
It's been a while since I played through the games, so I decided to read up a bit online, just to catch up on some of the details. One thing that I read was that part of the reason that Big Boss left The Patriots was that he found out about Les Enfants Terrible. This implies that he found out about it sometime shortly before Peace Walker, but I can't remember Big Boss ever mentioning the project in any of "his" games. Is any of this mentioned in Portable Ops, or is it just kind of pushed to the side lines?
I agree. I think a lot of that hinges of The Phantom Pain, if that decides to show any of the progression the characters have towards MGS1.
Älg;175018434 said:
Portable Ops would take place before Big Boss joins The Patriots, so he wouldn't say anything there. I believe he left because he found out about the plans to clone him, but no, I don't think he mentions it in Peace Walker. But, then again, who would he mention it to? MSF was sort of his 'leaving the past behind' move.
KittenMaster
Member
The thing that gets me is...
Okay, maybe at some point Paramedic became Dr. Clark because they're both scientists. With this and Sigint's reveal of who he is... My question is why would they become the Patriots. It just doesn't seem like something that would actually benefit them, Zero would probably hook them up with connections and the stuff to do what they want either way without them knowing what's going on.
I feel like it was mostly a way to get Paramedic and Sigint mentioned in MGS4 at all where there wasn't really any way to.
Alright, thanks. But where does that come from then? If Big Boss never mentions Les Enfants Terrible, how do we know that it was part of the reason he left The Patriots?
For what it's worth they actually revealed that Signit was Donald Anderson and joined DARPA post MGS3 so that wasn't a retcon.
Paramedic becoming Doctor Clark doesn't make sense as her ambitions were to help people through medicine not the type of stuff she did with Grey Fox. They could process her character that way but as it stands it doesn't make sense.
I agree with you about the motivations for them to become the Patriots though, it just doesn't add up with the info we are given.
Ah, that makes sense. There's so much shit going on in that game that it's hard to keep track of all the details.
MiamiWesker
Member
I agree it was all added later but if the goal of MGS3 was to show who the patriots are it failed. We end MGS2 with a huge question, who are the patriots. The next game goes back in time, the main assumption being that the explaination is in the past. But it wasn't, there were only hints of it in MGS3. Then mgs4 hits and it all gets explained in a way that felt a chapter was missing.
Now the crazy story Kojima came up with actually makes sense across all the games, it's the inital motivation as to why would Zero and the others do this that is missing.
Some people seem to think too hard and care too much about the plot in MGS. After MGS 2 I came to terms with it being batshit crazy and accepted the fact that the story was just a very strange anime.
That being said though the only things I'd change are Nanomachines, Old Snake and Nanomachines.
That being said though the only things I'd change are Nanomachines, Old Snake and Nanomachines.
MiamiWesker
Member
Yes. Peace Walker should have taken place during the so called Cold War between boss and zero but instead its hardly even mentioned. Big boss' story is a total mess that doesn't line up right now.
The phone call at the end of it does.
Sure, but it's still a plot twist and still ludicrous.
Unless I'm remembering things way off Zero planted Paz and Millier boss and had Paz try to steal the Metal Gear so it's definitely not something they ignored, but it was more of a thing in the background.
Snatch1414
Banned
I haven't played MGS4 but is there a reason Big Boss is thought of as a villain? From what I know, which is basically sans MGS4 & MGS5, it seems like he was a great soldier (i.e., good guy) who broke off from the Patriots because they were too power hungry, and made his own private military company. At worst he seems like a gray character. What he did in the original Metal Gear game was basically an elaborate strategy against the Patriots for example, right?
MiamiWesker
Member
Well threatening the world with nukes is never a good thing. He wanted total anarchy, the world run by soliders.
Sheriff_Battlesnake
Banned
Ocelot takes Liquids arm intentionally to let Liquid possess him so he can trigger the rampant AI algorithm of the Patriots to shadow puppet Snake into handling the job, as only Solid Snake could officially end them.
Snatch1414
Banned
Oh, that never really came across for me (I'm piecing this all together from what I've played and watching/reading the rest). Did he actually threaten the world with a Metal Gear? I thought it was simply to try and keep up with the Jones' (the Patriots) so they could stand a chance at toppling them.
The game plan for MGS2 said something along the lines of the Patriots being a shady organization pit together in the early stages of the founding of the country and this is reflected in the explanation we were given in MGS2.
We knew what thier purpose was and that they had all died long before MGS2, we really didn't need any further explanation.
But yeah overall the way they ended up changing it would have worked better if they expanded on it further in something between 3 and 4, preferably something that came out before 4 did) but to this point it hasn't happened.
akidnamededdy
Banned
I'm fine with the craziness. The problem for me (and others it seems) is that big chunks of important info are just missing.
I mean, Zero becoming the head of a huge new organization (Cipher)...we just stumble into Peace Walker accepting that as fact. How did he pull something like that off? I guess with the chunk of the Legacy he got his hands on, ok, but money alone will only get you so far when you're looking to start a shadow government that secretly rules the world...
Also, Les Enfants Terribles was the tipping point for Big Boss. It happened between Portable Ops and Peace Walker, but there's no mention of it at all. There are just allusions to some bad blood between Big Boss and Zero, which you'd have no idea about the reason why if you didn't see a timeline somewhere.
Hopefully Phantom Pain at least explains how Big Boss goes from outright war with Cipher to being the leader of Foxhound. I doubt it though.
Coffee Dog
Banned
The problem with the Patriots is that kojima kept changing what he wanted to do with them.
In MGS2, the game tells you their identities don't matter. They all died over 100 years ago. Fuck you.
In MGS3, we're given background information on the origins of the Patriots through the establishment of the philosphers. This shows that there are always shadowy organizations pulling the strings, and it's easy to see where an AI version of that could come into place.
In MGS4, Kojima flat out contradicts the messaging of the prior two games by naming the Patriots and putting faces to them, and they're people who previously were basically joke characters for the most part. On top of this there's no buildup or even sensible logic that would lead to that conclusion. It's just kojima connecting unrelated fanservice dots and trying to spin a story out of it, like most of MGS4.
In MGS2, the game tells you their identities don't matter. They all died over 100 years ago. Fuck you.
In MGS3, we're given background information on the origins of the Patriots through the establishment of the philosphers. This shows that there are always shadowy organizations pulling the strings, and it's easy to see where an AI version of that could come into place.
In MGS4, Kojima flat out contradicts the messaging of the prior two games by naming the Patriots and putting faces to them, and they're people who previously were basically joke characters for the most part. On top of this there's no buildup or even sensible logic that would lead to that conclusion. It's just kojima connecting unrelated fanservice dots and trying to spin a story out of it, like most of MGS4.
The Silver
Member
Big Boss wanted to create a world of perpetual war. He had a whole system where he would take in war orphans, train them up to kill other people to create more war orphans, take them in and on and on it goes in an endless cycle.
Coffee Dog
Banned
As of Peace Walker he decides that his only function is that of a weapon, and the only world appropriate for him and others like him is a world where they are able to live in battle. Also by the end of Peace Walker, he obtains a nuclear superweapon to deter anyone who could stop him.
He tries to create a world of endless war. He's a madman.
All the stuff with the Patriots and such was added to the story later. In the original game there was a rogue nation called Outer Heaven that Solid Snake is sent into infiltrate as they are building an ultimate weapon named Metal Gear. In doing so he finds out that his commanding officer is actually the one in charge, he destroys the weapon and the country gets bombed out.
The second game has him set up another rogue nation named Zanzibar land. This is where they really start to establish that it's a nation run by it's military and several of Boss' allies in the second game were against him in the previous game (Grey Fox being the most notable). Despite this he still came off largely as the villian especially as he was hording nukes when the rest of the world had been disarming and also had kidnapped a scientist who was getting to the point where he could produce oil synthetically.
MGS3 basically retconed him into being a hero but set him up in a scenario which would disillusion him and bring him in line with his MG1/2 persona.
Peacewalker left him in charge of a large PMC which was hinted to become Outer Heaven at the end of the game. Phantom Pain will be telling a story of revenge which will likely lead directly into MG1/2 Big Boss characterization.
Until Kojima gets finding after leaving Konami and starts a new one.
Maybe his next series will be even crazier.
m_shortpants
Member
Just watch this. The craziness of MGS2 cannot be topped
Critical Close-up: Metal Gear Solid 2: https://youtu.be/T-2YuPGYabw
Critical Close-up: Metal Gear Solid 2: https://youtu.be/T-2YuPGYabw
LookAtMeGo
Member
The Boss AI
MiamiWesker
Member
Great post. Clearly he decided to change who the patriots were but he still managed to do it well. Outside Clarke everything kind of fits. Like ocelot killing Anderson cause he knew he was really a patriot.
That isn't really a retcon though, is it.
Where was it? Got any link maybe?
Yeah it's more of a thing in the background but it's bizarre how this was such an important event in the series, the whole game deals with the Boss and events of Operation Snake Eater and Zero's involvement in the '70s is at best barely touched upon until true ending.
It's in the mission briefing files in GZ.
Oh snap, thank you, I didn't dig into post-game briefing files, only youtubed the true ending. Well that's quite interesting, I might sift through them before TPP comes out. I still think it's weird BB didn't refer to them at all.
Älg;175031340 said:
It's pretty much a semantics argument. They are filling in background for a character so he'd be viewed in an entirely different light retroactively, so I'd call it a retcon as he was pretty much a straight up generic villain in the first 2 games.
Yeah you would think it would be something they'd focus on, especially with it being deeply rooted in the main storyline but they just kind of kept in in the background and only mentioned it at the end.
It seemed like their identities were actually the identities of the Philosophers. The only problem is Otacon says they died "about a hundred years ago", when the last 12 Philosophers died 80 years prior to MGS2. That could be a lost in translation thing if in the Japanese version Otacon instead says something like they died 'about a century ago', though.
Right. And the funds from the Philosophers allow the setting up of the Patriots.
That's the thing. It shows those joke characters as the ones who set the ball in motion. But the actual Patriots you deal with from MGS1 onwards is Artificial Intelligence that Zero has no control over. So it remains to be seen what form the Patriots take in The Phantom Pain, as it could make a lot more sense for the characters that comprise it.
Wait, doesn't this imply that Big Boss was unaware of Les Enfants Terrible when he left The Patriots? Judging from this he could be oblivious to the project even by the time The Phantom Pain takes place, for all we know.
Zabant
Member
The whole
liquid possession/hypnotisation thing sticks out because Kojima himself admitted he kind of forced it in there. After MGS he said he was surprised at how much people liked the liquid character, and if he had known as much he wouldn't not have killed him
MGS2/4 pretty much hamhandidly injected liquid into their stories due to his popularity with the fans, it was originally Ocelot who was supposed to take up the role of main bad dude. for the Solid Saga
MGS2/4 pretty much hamhandidly injected liquid into their stories due to his popularity with the fans, it was originally Ocelot who was supposed to take up the role of main bad dude. for the Solid Saga
PooBone
Member
And who surfs on jets with a samurai sword.
The Silver
Member
I don't really have a problem with the concept of the MGS3 cast turning into the Patriots, they had decades to change and turn into wackos.
It's really just that there's no foreshadowing of this in MGS3, you never got any sense that they cared all that much about the Boss to the extremes MGS4 described. There was never any hint of an inner darkness in them like we got with Big Boss or EVA, like Paramedic was played straight as a sweet girl who loves movies and then BAM she's one of the ultimate villains behind everything.
PW really didn't help since it skipped over BB's falling out with the Patriots and MGS5 so far doesn't seem like it's gonna be delving into the other members besides Zero.(I hope this isn't the case) How the Patriots ended up like they did is the real missing link in the series, there's just a big disconnect between MGS3 and what we got fed in 4.
It's really just that there's no foreshadowing of this in MGS3, you never got any sense that they cared all that much about the Boss to the extremes MGS4 described. There was never any hint of an inner darkness in them like we got with Big Boss or EVA, like Paramedic was played straight as a sweet girl who loves movies and then BAM she's one of the ultimate villains behind everything.
PW really didn't help since it skipped over BB's falling out with the Patriots and MGS5 so far doesn't seem like it's gonna be delving into the other members besides Zero.(I hope this isn't the case) How the Patriots ended up like they did is the real missing link in the series, there's just a big disconnect between MGS3 and what we got fed in 4.
Älg;175040313 said:
He left the Patriots because he found out about plans to clone him.
Kaz seems to be wondering how Big Boss will react to them having gone through with their plans.
The question of when this phone call takes place is also contentious. The only place I can fit it in is after Ground Zeroes. But when asked by Game Informer about it Kojima asserted that The Phantom Pain will make it all make sense, so we'll have to see.
Ordinaryundone
Member
Hell, Zero was the same way. All we know about Zero in MGS3 is that he's an eccentric British guy who loves James Bond. Nothing about him really plays into him being even kind of evil, or even really giving a shit about The Boss at all. Ditto SIGINT or Para-Medic, the only two people who actually seem torn up about the whole thing are Snake and EVA. I guess you could say they went along with Big Boss because they respected him like Ocelot but the game makes it pretty clear that Zero apparently had Snake-level devotion to The Boss himself. It's just weird.
Ordinaryundone
Member
Actually, given the way he talks to Mei Ling it's actually likely Snake CAN see his codec calls, Ghost in the Shell style. It would explain why Meryl takes off her balaclava to talk to Snake, or why "Deepthroat" felt the need to obscure his face as well. That would also explain how your contacts act like they are able to see what's going on with Snake. By this logic it makes sense why Liquid would wear a disguise to impersonate Miller, though one wonders why they didn't have Decoy Octopus do that. I guess he was too busy being dead post-DARPA Chief but Miller shows up before.
MGS plot is more about ideas and character concepts than a consistent narrative.
Each MGSmovie game makes complete sense in the moment, at least to me. And I've played every game all the way through except Metal Gear 2, and I guess I didn't do every little thing in Ground Zeroes.
I think that has to do with Kojima's style. Each of his games is centered around a particular theme or series of themes. He manipulates the narrative thread to focus on this theme or deliver the message he wants. The reoccurring characters are concepts that have semi fluid roles depending on the narrative:
Otocon/Huey is the brilliant, inept scientist.
Big Boss/Solid Snake/Old Snake is the protagonist surrogate. His condition and dialog is mostly focused on delivering the game's message.
Ocelot as the ultimate double agent, whose goals and alliances are never to be trusted.
Looking at MGS as a concept work and not a solid, interwoven plot has allowed me to enjoy it a lot more. Then again I'm not one for huge, overarching narratives.
Each MGS
I think that has to do with Kojima's style. Each of his games is centered around a particular theme or series of themes. He manipulates the narrative thread to focus on this theme or deliver the message he wants. The reoccurring characters are concepts that have semi fluid roles depending on the narrative:
Otocon/Huey is the brilliant, inept scientist.
Big Boss/Solid Snake/Old Snake is the protagonist surrogate. His condition and dialog is mostly focused on delivering the game's message.
Ocelot as the ultimate double agent, whose goals and alliances are never to be trusted.
Looking at MGS as a concept work and not a solid, interwoven plot has allowed me to enjoy it a lot more. Then again I'm not one for huge, overarching narratives.
All the time in MGS3 Sigint will say stuff like "Snake, what's that camo you're wearing?" or ParaMedic will talk about injuries you just sustained. Or you'll walk into a room and Zero calls you and says that's the so and so room. But then during another call Snake says "You can't see me."
So uh, it's just whatever's convenient.
Screaming Meat
Unconfirmed Member
He's not that eccentric. Except for the Bond conversation, he's played pretty seriously. He's a straight down the line, no nonsense British officer. Zero also seems genuinely hurt by The Boss "double-crossing [them] like that", he practically spits that line. We also know he has history with The Boss from the time they both served in the SAS, which I hope is elaborated on in TPP tapes. He talks about with reverence, just as everyone else does.
While I think there is definitely a disparity between MGS3:Zero and what little we've heard about (and from) TPP:Zero, I certainly don't think it's narratively insurmountable by any stretch. I expect some of the TPP tapes to cover the transition.
Broken Joystick
At least you can talk. Who are you?
Do you ever wonder how much shit would never have happened in the MGS universe if Grey Fox never cut off Ocelot's arm?
Ordinaryundone
Member
I think MGS3 tried to deliberately avoided it in favor of avoiding anachronism but obviously couldn't go all the way. Thats why they have static pictures in Codec instead of animated ones, and why Snake has a physical radio rather than nanomachines. I suppose it's....plausible that the crew can somehow see Snake's vital signs and inventory without being aware of the greater scenario, but it's definitely not the same case as the Solid Snake games.
Bronetta
Ask me about the moon landing or the temperature at which jet fuel burns. You may be surprised at what you learn.
It's me, Snake! It was my all along, Snake! You all bought it! You all bought it hook, line, and sinker. Even my immediate family bought it!