Game Theory: Are Big Boss and Venom Snake actually David Bowie and Midge Ure?!
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Game Theory: Are Big Boss and Venom Snake actually David Bowie and Midge Ure?!
Right outside of her room on the wall is the last photo.
Go into the first door to Paz's quarters and look to your right. The last photo is on the wall.
EDIT: Beaten
Venom doesn't come from nowhere, he emerges from an established group as one of BB's best soldiers. It's not quite the same as long lost brother, because it's building on an existing element, rather than introducing an entirely foreign one.
(I kind of want to look through the list of possible codenames for soldiers just to see if Venom ends up being one of the ones that was in PW that they maybe pulled out of convenience)
Venom Snake is Ziggy Stardust, actually.
'The Man who Sold the World' aspect is executed well, for what it is. That song's about David Bowie and his alter-ego of Ziggy Stardust, and that has parallels with Big Boss and Venom Snake's relationship.
I feel like the only person it was ever demonstrated really fell in love with the legend of BB was Ocelot when Naked Snake handed him his ass back in the Virtuous Mission. Everyone else you're just told falls in love with the legend.
Well, Quiet, kinda.
I don't agree with this at all really. They drop a few lines after the event in the casette, and the fact that he is where he is obviously makes him part of MSF beforehand, but since all non-named MSF members are essentially faceless goons and non-characters he still basically comes out of nowhere. It doesn't feel to me like there's a meaningful relationship at all in the same way that I couldn't tell you which of the soldiers around MB I punch in the face when I run up to them.
(Except the ladies because there's not many of them, and also one always hangs out by the shower for some reason).
It doesn't matter if "they all are" because the one who actually does JUST SO HAPPENS to be the best man in the organization and bff's with Big Boss. That's called contrivance. It's especially insulting when it's literally just thrown in sparing no expense. The entire twist hinges on contrivance and what can only be described as magic, because it flies in the face of what's been established in the series.
Haunted
Member
parasites
They created Diamond Dogs before Big Boss woke up?
Why the hell Ocelot gave him that is beyond me.
Also lucky is the fact that the medic has a similar voice to Big Boss. Everything fell into place.
Come to think of it why didn't they just play the original Bowie version of The Man Who Sold The World during the credits
Play the cover version during the opening hospital sequence as a way to imply that you're just the cover up while the original version is the real deal in the ending
Play the cover version during the opening hospital sequence as a way to imply that you're just the cover up while the original version is the real deal in the ending
I see your point - although in this post you say 'all that says is about the concept, not the execution' then you only go on to discuss the concept. What was wrong with the execution?
Imo the concept justified itself in a far more intelligent way than the Raiden one. I never once jived with the 'Raiden is me' idea - i always felt that only really worked as a 'Raiden is Fake Snake' idea. It only worked in the plot/world's context, not as a significant player-as-character execution. The MGSV player-as-character, though? Totally worked for me. I thought it was great. I cannot empathise with statements like 'it just isnt very good'. I thought it was.
The plot justification is definitely thinner, but i thought it was worth it to provide this exploration of player-as-character, which i cant think of many other games that have done nearly as well. I supoose the plot justification is that he's a protracted 'bodyguard' for Snake. The ultimate bodyguard - one who believes he is the target, and convines the world as much. Ocelot actually says that, using the word 'bodyguard', in the Doublethink tape.
Nailed it! They could have had the "you ARE the boss" message while still letting the player be the real Big Boss, not shit all over continuity for the sake of explaining something nobody really cares about and not having the shitty ending we got. Just have the real big boss (like the player) falling for his own legend, buying his own hype and that leading him down some questionable paths and making bad choices. You get to have your player is big boss cake and eat it without pissing off everyone and wrecking the ending/story.
And his actual face model in GZ is literally a young Big Boss.
There's an 11th picture on the wall outside of her room. grab it, then leave MB and come back and give it to her. You should conclude that questline then.
Okay so I think the "needs to be naked to breathe" might have been an outside statement. I don't think that's ever stated in the game, just that she breathes and eats and drinks through her skin. Honestly I think the implication (given how she seems to get an ecstatic response from the rain) is that for her, exposing her skin to sun and water is just an amazing sensation. If the direction were to get beyond pointing the camera where it shouldn't, the content of stuff like the rain scene would be kind of beautiful. She's in love with being alive and what she experiences is beyond our capability.
She's indulging her senses with her "new body" because it feels good to her in the moment. She wears a jacket in the scene where they try to drown her and doesn't suffocate. Code Talker and The End still make sense because it could be argued that they've long since "gotten over" the addiction to the physical sensation their parasites give them when feeding on sun and water. (like getting used to something, it loses it's luster with repetition and time) It's a direction they could have easily taken the character if they were just a little more self aware about how they were representing her in scene direction.
(Real) Big Boss: "Diamond Dogs? How did you know I love Bowie, Ocelot?"
Ocelot: "Ohh. It's actually your phantom's new motherbase unit name. We called it Diamond Dogs because we thought that would be something you would do."
R. Big Boss: "Why would I name my unit after a, now what, 14 year old album?"
Ocelot: "Uhm, doesn't matter. Either way, all the equipment and clothing we have are branded for some reason and uhm... we're pretty low on GMP and premium leather jackets are fairly expensive nowadays so. Just cover the emblem when you hit the nearest gas station with some duct tape or something."
Shower With Your Fake Dad Simulator 2015?
razzmahtazz
Member
That scene was retconned accdng to the wiki:
What makes them excuses? They are a logical extensions of what would happen given we have Point A = TPP and Point C = MG1 onward?
I think you mean exactly the same. It's not a big deal either way, as everyone close already knows, it's been 9 years and it's a generic growly voice, who even knows if his perception of the story is reliable considering the whole Paz storyline.
The bigger issue is changing my Asian Ahab into a white guy.
I thought it still did give you the message 'you are Big Boss'. That was the point. The player is, and has been in the past, both. Both BB and themselves. That's the nature of videogames.
Also i'm a huge fan of the lore in all of the games and love all of them - and i dont feel like MGSV shat on anything. I loved it.
Biggu Bossu: Why would I wear the insignia of my phantom when I'm trying to distance myself from him so the whole world doesn't come after me?
Ocelot: Check your iDroid for details.
I'd like to see the Japanese scripts before I lend that any credence. The English scripts invent a coma for Big Boss that never happened and The Twin Snakes retained it.
Could you explain to me what the exploration of player-as-character really is? To me the gist of it was the tape from Big Boss to Venom at the end, which I remember mainly as "You're not a fake, you're real, we're both real, we created this legend together, we're both Big Boss", or as I interpreted it, player! controlling Snake in all games allowed this game series to exist, be a reality, allowed the legend to grow. Is that your understanding?
EmCeeGramr
Member
I'd buy the "player is Big Boss" twist more if Kojima didn't have an entire game devoted to saying "You're not a video game character just because you played one, knock it off."
BotchPoppaPump
Member
It's a contrivance to have the best soldier as the support guy on the chopper in GZ? Wouldn't BB want to have the best MB soldier with him on his own personal missions?
As EmCeeGramr pointed out you're Big Boss until the credits inform you that you were actually a distinctly different character, 'Phantom Big Boss', who died during the events of MG1.
They were never both Big Boss. There was the real Big Boss and his sub-boss Big Boss, you, the player.
They are separate people in the canon, and that steps over the metaphorical aspect in the mirror scene of 'there is no distinguishing between me and you, the player'. That's what I mean by a good concept mangled in execution.
Brilliant, thanks.
Not sure i agree with your reading of Quiet's nakedness though. It's definitely the most tenuous thing in the entire game.
razzmahtazz
Member
Entirely different game, made in a different time and place for the director?
The best MB soldier wouldn't be a medic. The only reason he is was because Miller said there'd be no backup on the mission, so having another soldier on standby was a no-go. Again, contrivance as a means to force the twist into the story at any cost.
Not quite. It's contrivance based on convenience. It's cynical to extend that to "magic". It makes sense, it's just unlikely.
A lot of the soldiers were BFF's with big boss. There were probably several other soldiers that were similar to the medic, and he's just the one that ended up on that operating table. I don't see how that's an insult. Extreme convenience is still possible and everyone experiences it at times in their lives. I think you're going too far there. If his voice didn't match, the plot could have still worked, too. It was a helicopter crash, and they could have said his vocal chords got damaged, for instance. You're coming at it backwards, rather than looking at the internal logic of the characters. That's too cynical. Apply those characters to similar scenarios, and the end results end up being similar anyways, with one or two small changes. You don't even need much suspension of disbelief to see the plan working with any soldier. (You could argue Meryl being on Shadow Moses with Campbell's former unit is contrived as well. This is the realm of personal views on narrative.)
Charlouie Jonesman
Banned
Even easier done than said.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymNwHzSkBR0
I'm curious about Liquid's exact wording in the original script as well, so go ahead and analyze this stuff.
Why not?
EmCeeGramr
Member
I mean, yeah, at one time and place Kojima had creativity and boldness, and at another he throws out "anyway, the player is Big Boss, just like this guy who happened to be Big Boss's friend who was magically transformed into Big Boss... but we'll just keep referring to as the phantom not-real Boss, because seriously."
This might be too much of a stickler on my part, but I can't get behind the use of the word "nowhere". He came from somewhere. By it being a pre-established group, it is a somewhere. Nowhere would be if he came from a group that was invented after the narrative started. Fortune, for instance, came out of nowhere in MGS2, while Olga came from somewhere. Olga's introduction was linked to a group that was referenced in teh previous game, while Fortune was introduced in an entirely new element. That's the key difference here. Medic is based on a concept we are familiar with, and comes from a group we have known already. the individual is new, but rooted in what we already had.
It makes no sense. The medic is already a doppleganger of Big Boss if we take his GZ facial model at face value. He already had his voice at a lower pitch. Somehow the coma made his voice the exact pitch needed to be exactly Big Boss' voice. The medic could very well have been a 60 year old blonde Asian man but still manages to be the same age Big Boss was in GZ with an absolutely immaculately duplicated facial structure, wrinkles, ear size, nose size and shape, width of lips, size of lips, shape of eyes, hair, facial hair... That's magic, not plastic surgery. Same with your ridiculous "vocal chord damage" excuse. That would also be magic.
Meryl was sent to the island by the government to ensure Campbell's cooperation. That's not contrived because there is cause-and-effect that led to it happening. It wasn't random chance or happenstance.
Not how any military unit would work, for one thing. But we can always say that Venom Snake is a Mary Sue character who has a slight superhuman edge in field medicine but is still a demi-god equal to the greatest soldier in history. The point is the same, no matter how you attempt to rationalize it, the whole plot point is buggered from the inside-out. It's objectively bad writing and there is no way around it.
It's like saying a character came from "the army" or "Rhodesia" and saying that means they didn't come from nowhere, man. It's so broad it's essentially meaningless. I get that it's because any pre-established backstory would conflict with the metanarrative "you're the player!" stuff, but that just betrays the underlying tension where they can't decide if Venom is an actual character or a player surrogate or not.
You do realize that she doesn't regain her powers in that cutscene until they take off her pants to rape her right? That's not even close to being inferred; her needing to be naked is explicit. It's not until she loses some clothing that she's at full capacity. She can't breathe normally either because as the medical analysis stated, her lungs are scorched.
My view on her character is that nakedness wasn't the problem, the camera was. Nudity doesn't have to be sexual. (They don't allow sex on nude beaches, obviously.) If they'd played Quiet's scenes with the sense of respect that she gets from the other characters, the rain scene could have been one of the most interesting parts of the game, but they kind of donked it.
No, the Medic came out of nowhere.
He's the best soldier at MSF who is also a medic. He's a character we were never introduced to prior to his (sort-of) appearance in Ground Zeroes.
Now, it is reasonable that such a person could enter the canon, but he did come out of nowhere. When you have him come out of nowhere to explain something that specifically requires him it feels like a contrivance.
EDIT:
You know, I'm not even sure where something becomes a contrivance, but super-soldier amnesiac medic feels like one.
He's the best soldier at MSF who is also a medic. He's a character we were never introduced to prior to his (sort-of) appearance in Ground Zeroes.
Now, it is reasonable that such a person could enter the canon, but he did come out of nowhere. When you have him come out of nowhere to explain something that specifically requires him it feels like a contrivance.
EDIT:
You know, I'm not even sure where something becomes a contrivance, but super-soldier amnesiac medic feels like one.
razzmahtazz
Member
Your example does not display a lack of creativity and boldness.
Actually they explain this away by saying that they transfer Meryl there as leverage to get Campbell to oversee the mission and in turn convince Solid.
Edit: Beaten.
She regains her powers after being dunked, when she drinks in the water through her face. That's what it seemed like to me. I played the mission at night, so she had no sunlight to feed on for me. It had to be the water. (Her skin doesn't burn, so it wasn't salt water, and she leaves her head in the water for a bit before snapping to)
That's what I mean. A contrivance can be pulled from any narrative element that has more than one convenient elements. Meryl being a fan of fox hound, snake being pulled out of retirement to deal with the uprising, snake's brother being head of the unit, it's all convenient, and could be called contrived. I'm just illustrating a point, here.
I'm sorry if I sound like a broken record but I can't get behind the use of the term nowhere here. He came from an established concept. He started from 1, not 0. It's just too hyperbolic for me to accept. The fact that it's reasonable at all is still significant.
She gets her powers back because the dude drowns her and she draws mana from water or whatever.
/edit it bothers me they didn't drop a line or explanation about how the fuck she got captured in the first place. She beasts every time she's on the field with me, did she get wiped in a sandstorm or something?
It's not what you mean. Contrivance has two meanings, one specifically for when applied to fiction:
You are misusing the first definition.
BotchPoppaPump
Member
MSF soldiers would need to be trained to act as their own medics out on solo infiltrations. He could have functioned in multiple roles throughout his time under BB. And the fact that he was described as the best suggests he would have had an high aptitude in many areas. S ranks across the board etc.
You can play the mission during day time. She fumbles and stumbles the entire time being tortured because she's suffocating under wearing too much clothing. She can naturally still breathe through the exposed skin on her face but that's not enough.
Yes, her body needs water. But the biggest thing that was holding her back was the fact that she didn't have the ability to breathe. It was a combination of both things that didn't kick back until the pants came off.
She was written to have an attempted rape scene in her story.
I think that's the extent of it.
the key term is artificial, which is what my core argument was. Many of what could be said is artificial about Venom could be applied to many other characters in the series, such as Meryl.
Oldest Snake
Member
Nor do they explain why the Russians put her in those clothes. Surely she was far more vulnerable in her skivvies than a full jumpsuit? Did they know about her powers? If so why dunk her in the water when they're trying to keep her weak?
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