The way it's presented in MG2, it absolutely shows him as a villain. There's no real grey area regarding his morality in that game beyond "he's a father to his men".
And the Venom twist does absolutely nothing to enhance the narrative of MGS4. If anything, it makes it even worse when you have Big Boss not bothering to mention that "Oh yeah, that guy you fucked up back in 1995 wasn't me, it was my medic lol".
And that last line was a response to your own condescension.
Considering what kind of character big boss is in PW, I feel the gray area of his attitude on the importance of soldiers always having a place in the world is warranted.
I don't feel that omission takes away from the link to 4. Kojima writing is always full of symbolism and metaphor. The retcon fits into that just fine because the lines all still match up to the logic of the game and gain additional character because of it. If someone played V and then 4 they would come away from 4 thinking it was more meaningful than people who said "WTF this 40 minute graveyard scene didn't need to be in it" the times have changed this game, in that sense.
Yeah but I don't really care about that last line. Whatever character judgements you have to remark are irrelevant to me. If you keep them to yourself that's great, if you express them, I have no responsibility to these statements.
Where's the bias? All excuses in this thread have been completely debunked because they don't have any legs to stand on. Don't pretend you have any of that "depth" you mention in your reasoning.
I'm not dismissing it. If you'd read my posts you'd know I've taken in and considered everything, made comparisons, tied to other titles, etc. I didn't just go "it's bad because reasons." I explained why it is bad. That's the opposite of dismissing something.
Venom Snake has no perspective in this game. He's more of a stationary force than a character. His perspective is determined by everything in front of him, just like the player's is. It just so happens that the player's perspective is damaged by this because it's poorly thought out and even more poorly put together.
Gray Fox never shifted allegiances. He was always with Big Boss, who collaborated with Venom Snake in order to throw NATO off Outer Heaven. He did this by asking Gray Fox to be fake-captured so that he could use that as an excuse to send in his rookie clone to die, killing two birds with one stone.
Would you rather I said "atrocious pile of stagnant diarrhea" instead? I don't feel the need to be razzle-dazzle with what I'm discussing, which is a bad story with countless problems that can be observed objectively.
When did DNA matter? Big Boss was still an active force in the world anyway so Venom was unnecessary. There was no reason Big Boss couldn't take on XOF by himself like Venom Snake does. It makes zero splash, otherwise Venom Snake's antics would be known in later stories. If he didn't exist at all literally not a single thing would change because nothing is affected by his absence.
Cipher as an organization is The Patriots. They're the same.
Not at all what the S3 Plan was about, and you just proved my point about "Solid Snake Simulation" being all some people remember from MGS2. The "Selection for Societal Sanity" was to manipulate information as a means to influence global events. It was all about control, absolutely nothing about reshaping people. The Solid Snake Simulation was a complete lie and there was never any desire to make memetic clones.
I feel you have an extreme bias from what I've seen of your posts since I beat the game and joined in the thread. It's just what I'm getting from your posts. "Don't pretend you have any of that depth" yeah great let's just be jerks to eachother instead of analyzing replies for discussion. productive.
I've only read as many posts as I've seen since I beat the game, unfortunately the idea of going through all 300 pages is not realistic. I can only respond to what is currently being discussed.
"poorly thought out" is a phrase of bias. it is not an explanation of an idea. It's strictly value judgement. "It's creating this narrative expectation because
its bad." offers nothing to the other person than your own emotion. It is not information to reflect on, only preference. I can't make a valuable response to your emotion, because it's not something I can take and analyze objectively. It is purely personal. that's what I was getting at when I said you need to go beyond buzzwords. It's impossible to make a worthwhile reply to that without getting into pissing contests.
Shifting allegiances okay so, Grey Fox infiltrates outer heaven and sends out the radio call about Metal Gear. This prompts Big Boss to send Solid Snake in to rescue Gray Fox and destroy Metal Gear. those are his missions. If Big Boss was in total control over Gray Fox's captive status, what purpose is there in asking Solid Snake to rescue Gray Fox? Why would Gray Fox reveal Metal Gear to fox hound if he was a double agent for big boss, who would be behind the whole thing in the first place? This is why this game was always a narrative problem in the canon. It made no sense and felt contrived. The venom angle now allows for Gray Fox sending out the radio frequency about Metal Gear to make sense, as this could be something Big Boss wasn't aware of, something Venom started on his own after assuming command of Big Boss's Outer Heaven. The idea that Venom detained Gray Fox also explains why Big Boss would ask Solid Snake to rescue Gray Fox in the first place. The plot at the time was simple and had no depth, V gives it depth. It gives reason to why characters had motivation at all, rather than just giving them actions to perform.
It's not about razzle dazzle, it's about meaning. Saying it's bad means nothing to someone who thinks it's good. They cancel eachother out like opposite magnets. You need to actually talk objectively to make any progress in the discussion, otherwise it just doesn't move, dude. We can't just repeat ourselves forever and expect it to be worth our time.
Venom being a cover for XOF attempting to assassinate Big Boss would work in the idea that, if Big Boss's cover is intact, he can dispose of Venom's body after his death is confirmed but before the enemy can recover the body. This would be the backup plan. Big Boss and Cipher could cover up Venom's death if it happened in a situation they were in control over.
Uhm dude, Cipher is not the Patriots. Did you miss that tape? The Patriots is a program Sigint created to replace Cipher based on the AI research Strangelove performed in Peace Walker. That's like saying Solid Snake is Big Boss is Liquid, when they're all different people with different actions, personalities, and motivations. The Patriots is Cipher's Successor.
Shaping people was still an aspect of it. Solid Snake recreation was a test case, a byproduct of the end goal. It was STILL a factor in the program. The further explanation of the program doesn't fully eliminate the earlier goals. It was not a complete lie, it was a proof of the theory. The information control system is intended to craft society into an ideal state. Similar to how they attempted to turn Raiden into Snake. The two concepts are the same at their root.
Big Boss isn't a villain now? What the fuck kinda revisionism bullshit is this, the guy was a warmonger with a nation built on mercenaries and children he fostered into soldiers in MG1/2. The guy even admitted that he turned into an evil jackass and was wrong at the end of MGS4.
This whole "Big Boss is just a misunderstood hero and not evil at all, also he didn't even do those bad things" shit is so stupid and unnecessary. Ultimately doing his character a disservice, ruining his arc and pandering to the lowest types of fans that would whine because their hero turned out to be evil.
No offence, but you must have low standards when it comes to storytelling, pacing and story structure if you think what we got in MGSV was great.
But retconning and explaining a minor thing like why BB supposedly died in MG1 but still came back in MG2 needs a whole game to explain it was just a wannabe clone? lol
What? The guy explicitly says he groomed children that were victims of war only to have them fight new conflicts that would create more parentsless children he could turn into soldiers. How is that not evil, "saving them from fighting and dying for nothing" is the worst excuse I've heard, most of them probably weren't child soldiers when he took them in. The guy also says that war is the only thing that keeps him going and that's what he wanted for Solid Snake too.
Again, it comes down to how you feel about his actions in Peace Walker. He was promoting war in that game, but most people still view him as heroic. In Metal Gear 2 he is doing very similar things to what Mother Base was about in both PW and V. (And I feel you're boiling down his graveyard speech a little. He was regretting his interpretation of The Boss's will. It was a gray area because he saw his cause as just and needed in the world.)
Like...if you want to complain about misunderstood hero or whatever, just go back to peace walker. That's where this all comes from. His arc in the series as a whole is not ruined by this. MG1 had logical problems with it, and was the most "evil" big boss ever got. Everything else he does in the series from MG2 and PW and so on could be argued as misguided or delusional, but not evil. It doesn't ruin his arc, it sets the record straight.
Ok thanks for the insult. If it was an objective statement I could respond to it, but all I can do to respond to being shit on without just doing the web-fight is to just get out of the way. (Again, don't really care about insults. Won't respond to them, at most I'll call out how they offer nothing of value to the discussion at hand. I don't place my worth in the judgement of others, I'm only seeking discussion.)
But yeah, I thought the explanation was satisfying and closed some of my long-standing problems with the earlier games. I thought the Truth tapes fixed the biggest narrative black hole in MGS4 and makes the whole series better for it. Zero is a character now. He has a middle to his story. I'm absolutely thrilled this was finally explored. I now have a reason to care about big boss murdering his friend in a graveyard.
