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ImpAtom posted:No, but the honest truth is that it's kind of meaningful here. I think a problem with your argument is you're presupposing anyone who works in the military is evil. It is clear from what we see in the game that Venom won't commit war crimes, he won't shoot kids even if he's being paid to do it for example. At the end of the day he and his group are a bunch of soldiers for hire. It's certainly arguable that it is slightly more immoral that they're fighting for pay rather than ideology, but I'd argue that most people in most world militaries these days are probably more interested in the stable paycheck than fighting for freedom or whatever line the people on top are trying to sell them. Its arguable that the diamond dogs are actually preferable than some of these countries having militaries because they are better at it (making the war shorter as a result) and they aren't going to go full on iraqi revolutionary guard on the population just because they're told to.
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Sep 13, 2015 06:51
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Keep in mind that nuclear deterrents also bad for business when you run a nation of mercenaries who depend on conflict to thrive. Venom is arguably less hosed up than the real Big Boss by the time things are said and done, but I wouldn't assume his motives are purely altruistic there. Also that you're talking about a cutscene that may or may not actually be a part of the game. Hell, there's probably a bizarro version of that cutscene since it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense as a definitive cutscene in a game where you can build as many nukes as you want. Trying to frame moral arguments based on how each player plays the character is inherently going to be a clusterfuck. There's also the issue of the final shot of the game being Venom in full-on demon mode (pretty sure the horn is fully grown, at least) smashing a mirror in Outer Heaven, where he is protecting a nuclear-equipped Metal Gear. Canonically, for all that matters, both Venom and the real BB end up with nukes shortly after the game ends.
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Sep 13, 2015 06:51
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Literacy is good and important.
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Sep 13, 2015 06:54
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ImpAtom posted:No, but the honest truth is that it's kind of meaningful here. Well in my case I think he's plenty evil. Monster through and through, it's just that he's pretty much the only person in TPP who isn't creating instant doomday scenarios in his sleep. The worst thing is that he's a military die-hard fetishist who's too loving stupid to understand what the boss is saying and whoops! he created PMC's as a result. Everyone is poo poo but the guy that occasionally disarms mines and airlifts kids and NGO social workers out of war zones is slightly less poo poo and the game trying to provide comparisons to Volgan the creepy rapist and skullface weaponizing vocal cords and actual literal words is lovely writing through and through. The best comparison to make is Zero and BB, which is only kind of touched on in a cassette info-dump near the end.
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Sep 13, 2015 06:58
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The only plot I take seriously is that Big Boss and Ocelot make out a bunch of times.
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Sep 13, 2015 07:00
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Caros posted:I think a problem with your argument is you're presupposing anyone who works in the military is evil. Nope. I do think PMCs are legitimately awful things though which is different from thinking the military is. Metal Gear however is pretty firmly on the side of "PMCs are pretty lovely" though. lovely Wizard posted:Well considering the 'evil' guy disarmed the world's supply of nukes so the future could have a chance without worrying about everyone's poo poo getting blow'd up, your "nuh huh Big Boss is the bad guy" argument went from weak to european extreme weak. Hell, not only did we not get a 'Big Boss goes from just a PMC owner to full on supervillain", Venom Snake is a god drat saint disarming the world not so he can have the only nukes, but for some world peace bullshit. Yeah, I'm not accepting "this random contextless cutscene someone dug out of the game files which directly contradicts every other game in the series" as canon, sorry. Neither should you because you don't even have the minimal context of Episode 51 for it. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 07:15 on Sep 13, 2015 |
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Sep 13, 2015 07:13
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Jesus, I just read the retcon page at the Metal Gear Wiki. It's funny that MG2 is directly responsible for large chunks of the story, but at the same time so much of it has been retconned. For instance, this was Miller's original portrait: 
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Sep 13, 2015 07:17
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Cnidaria posted:The only plot I take seriously is that Big Boss and Ocelot make out a bunch of times. When the script leaked the hidden scene's subtitles were "John?" "Yes, Adam?" "Aren't you forgetting something?" ~Scene~ so people were like, uh, the only thing that naturally fits there is a kiss.
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Sep 13, 2015 07:17
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Modest Mao posted:When the script leaked the hidden scene's subtitles were Be gentle...
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Sep 13, 2015 07:22
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it's also a matter of presentation in the game plot. you can read venom snake as being a hypocrite and a scumbag war profiteer, but it runs into the same issue as the whole silly "marche in final fantasy tactics advance is a bad guy" or other interpretations of characters in media like shylock being the victim in Merchant of Venice; you can bring up good points but it's pretty clear which side is meant to be right. In venom snakes case the only thing that really tries to call him out ingame and challenge his heroic portrayal is huey of all people, and that winds up not really being seen as "true" when huey ends up being a sociopath and a liar and exits the stage with everyone chiding him.
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Sep 13, 2015 07:24
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ImpAtom posted:Yeah, I'm not accepting "this random contextless cutscene someone dug out of the game files which directly contradicts every other game in the series" as canon, sorry. Neither should you because you don't even have the minimal context of Episode 51 for it. I'm like 90% sure in the original MSX games, nuclear weapons were disposed of for the most part (although the Cold War continued), which is why Outer Heaven and Zanzibar Land were such crises because they were effectively the only nuclear powers. Ordinarily, I would say ignore everything but the biggest story beats of the original games but MGSV went through such effort to maintain the connections to first two games (what with Big Boss' phantom, Miller being in FOXHOUND, Madnar joining Diamong Dogs, etc) and now with this cutscene, I don't think you can say it contradicts every other game in the series. By MGS1 nukes were back of course, but there may well have been a period of (near-total) nuclear disarmament in the Metal Gear canon.
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Sep 13, 2015 07:25
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In It For The Tank posted:I'm like 90% sure in the original MSX games, nuclear weapons were disposed of for the most part (although the Cold War continued), which is why Outer Heaven and Zanzibar Land were such crises because they were effectively the only one with nukes. Ordinarily, I would say ignore everything but the biggest story beats of the original games, but MGSV went through such effort to maintain the connections to first two games (what with Big Boss' phantom, Miller being in FOXHOUND, Madnar joining Diamong Dogs, etc) and now with this cutscene, I don't think you can say it contradicts every other game in the series. By MGS1 nukes were back of course, but there may well have been a period of (near-total) nuclear disarmament in the Metal Gear canon. In the original MG2 game they used Metal Gear to steal nuclear weapons from across the world.
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Sep 13, 2015 07:26
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Nuclear weapons taken from disposal sites, according to the intro of MG2.
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Sep 13, 2015 07:29
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Tiler Kiwi posted:it's also a matter of presentation in the game plot. you can read venom snake as being a hypocrite and a scumbag war profiteer, but it runs into the same issue as the whole silly "marche in final fantasy tactics advance is a bad guy" or other interpretations of characters in media like shylock being the victim in Merchant of Venice; you can bring up good points but it's pretty clear which side is meant to be right. To be fair, the game kind of makes it clear that there isn't anyone else to call him out because he's surrounded by nothing but people that are just like him. At the end of the day they are still a group of fanatics living on a seastead in the middle of the Indian Ocean, hiding from the entire world. Part of why Big Boss is never successful in his plans to create a nation of soldiers is because to everyone in the world except for his giant army soldiers, that idea is insane.
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Sep 13, 2015 07:30
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In It For The Tank posted:Nuclear weapons taken from disposal sites, according to the intro of MG2. The original MG2 stated that all countries were disarming, MGS retconned it so that they were disposing of weapons but keeping a nuclear stockpile (which is what got raided,) Regardless, none of that meshes with "heroic Big boss somehow steals and destroys all the world's nuclear weapons !"
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Sep 13, 2015 07:34
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I'm just jumping into this thread to say that I really liked Skull Face and thought he was a sweet villain and dumb in all the right ways and I thought that the one scene where you and him are driving in that Jeep and he's just spouting nonsense at you and then out of nowhere "Sins of the Father" plays while Snake and Skull Face are just sitting there awkwardly in the back of the Jeep was incredible and I jumped out of my chair. Metal Gear had produced some mind-numbingly awkward poo poo in the past but that scene just blew everything else out of the water. The story in this game is really weird and probably pretty bad but I loved it so much. The part right before that scene where you meet Skull Face while he's just about to get away in his chopper and he gets right up in your face and says "I'll show you my demon" was pretty good too. Also this part: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31dsolM10ng
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Sep 13, 2015 07:34
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MAAAAAJOR, I'M BURNING UUUUUUUUUP
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Sep 13, 2015 07:35
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Grizzled Patriarch posted:To be fair, the game kind of makes it clear that there isn't anyone else to call him out because he's surrounded by nothing but people that are just like him. Now now, let's not forget about Dr. Huey Emmerich. Traitorous, self-serving shithead that he was, he does bring up valid points against Diamond Dogs, even if it is mixed in with nonsense like "Snake you're killing your own men? You monster!".
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Sep 13, 2015 07:39
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Raxivace posted:Now now, let's not forget about Dr. Huey Emmerich. Traitorous, self-serving shithead that he was, he does bring up valid points against Diamond Dogs, even if it is mixed in with nonsense like "Snake you're killing your own men? You monster!". To be fair Huey saying anything is good evidence that the contrary is true!
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Sep 13, 2015 07:41
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Grizzled Patriarch posted:To be fair, the game kind of makes it clear that there isn't anyone else to call him out because he's surrounded by nothing but people that are just like him. At the end of the day they are still a group of fanatics living on a seastead in the middle of the Indian Ocean, hiding from the entire world. Part of why Big Boss is never successful in his plans to create a nation of soldiers is because to everyone in the world except for his giant army soldiers, that idea is insane. I don't know if I'd say the game makes it clear; the fact everyone sits around praising him all the time, combined with tapes taking about how great everyone else thinks he is, kinds of gives the impression that it's meant to be taken seriously. Nobody opposed to him really has any issue with him on a personal level; skully treats him like an equal, and zero even talks him up. It's also just got to do with the cinematography, which is more subjective. Venom and Big Boss both get heroic montages and swelling music in everything they do, with venom getting more crazy things like in episode 43 that emphasise positives like his grief over killing his own men. gently caress man he even gets scenes where he has touching bonding scenes with his dog or silent mute girlfriend (who wanted to kill him until she was so wowed over him that she is now head of his fan club); those don't mean anything in terms of being actually good/bad, but you get a sense of who you're meant to root for with things like that. It's like the deal with Other M or DMC where people complained about terrible people being treated as great by the writers, except venom is a lot more of a morally debatable and generally likable figure in this case.
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Sep 13, 2015 07:46
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Tiler Kiwi posted:I don't know if I'd say the game makes it clear; the fact everyone sits around praising him all the time, combined with tapes taking about how great everyone else thinks he is, kinds of gives the impression that it's meant to be taken seriously. Nobody opposed to him really has any issue with him on a personal level; skully treats him like an equal, and zero even talks him up. I just mean in the sense that nobody he interacts with are civilians - Huey is the closest thing and he's a complete sociopath. Everyone else in the game is some kind of career soldier with no family / life outside of fighting, which makes it really easy to forget that there is an entire world outside of their tiny platform in the sea, and all you see of it are the battlefields.
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Sep 13, 2015 07:50
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Tiler Kiwi posted:I don't know if I'd say the game makes it clear; the fact everyone sits around praising him all the time, combined with tapes taking about how great everyone else thinks he is, kinds of gives the impression that it's meant to be taken seriously. Nobody opposed to him really has any issue with him on a personal level; skully treats him like an equal, and zero even talks him up. It is possible to have a character have a triumphant or humanizing moment or even to be considered great, powerful or strong and for them still to be bad people. A lot of better-written stuff than Metal Gear takes advantage of that fact. Seeing villains succeed, even if they succeed in cool or dramatic ways, doesn't mean the writers want you to root for them. People will inevitably do so but that's unavoidable. Anti-heroes or morally ambiguous protagonists fall into the same category. Just because someone gets a 'good' moments doesn't mean you're supposed to root for them. I don't think you're supposed to want Venom to lose but neither are you supposed to think he's completely all there. He runs a for-profit PMC and even if you take the *absolutely non-lethal* path, he still tortures people, hires soldiers who have committed war atrocities, commits acts of theft, and all sorts of other things. And this isn't a case of ludo-narrative dissonance because they're all tied and even recognized by the plot. You can assume Venom Snake wasn't ramming trucks into people for fun but he drat well was doing a lot of other awful stuff. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 07:58 on Sep 13, 2015 |
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Sep 13, 2015 07:52
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There is also the fact that Venom Snake is perfectly willing to take in human traffickers. He also has no problems with using torture to get the information he needs. Those aren't the qualities of someone heroic. Ground Zeroes pretty much established how torture is seen as pretty horrific.
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Sep 13, 2015 07:54
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Grizzled Patriarch posted:I just mean in the sense that nobody he interacts with are civilians - Huey is the closest thing and he's a complete sociopath. Everyone else in the game is some kind of career soldier with no family / life outside of fighting, which makes it really easy to forget that there is an entire world outside of their tiny platform in the sea, and all you see of it are the battlefields. I agree and I wish there was a better to get a kind of "outside opinion" on it. Also on the subject of episode 43 and the talk of choice, one thing that gets brought up is how many people fail that mission at the start when they pop one of their infected staff at the start. You have to ignore what your team tells you until it's totally and ridiculously clear that if you don't kill your staff then the ravens will spread a crazy killer zombie parasite to everyone before you start shooting dudes. I failed due to shooting a sick guy too early and everyone in the game over screen called me crazy and bad; isn't that, in a way, the game itself going "whoa whoa whoa venom boss would NEVER do that, that is a bad thing", and basically saying he's more moral than I am? Same with things like ever doing a shoot to wound on a child soldier trying to kill you. You have opportunities to be rather cruel to enemy soldiers, but the unusual thing in this game compared to other shooters is the number of options given to avoid ever even having to kill someone. Even if you don't take that option, the ability to even make a choice out of a matter most games take for granted wind up making a statement about the main character (at least, imo).
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Sep 13, 2015 08:05
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Tiler Kiwi posted:I failed due to shooting a sick guy too early and everyone in the game over screen called me crazy and bad; isn't that, in a way, the game itself going "whoa whoa whoa venom boss would NEVER do that, that is a bad thing", and basically saying he's more moral than I am? The reason behind that is the argument that Venom Boss wouldn't kill his own men without cause, not that Venom Boss wouldn't kill someone. It's the same effect as if you throw a dude over the railing back at Mother Base. It isn't that it is "Venom wouldn't do a bad thing." it is "Venom wouldn't do this specific bad thing." As proven shortly thereafter he can and will kill his own men. The trigger is when you get the widget that gives you 100% proof of infection. It is ridiculous how long it takes the characters to figure out the deal, mind.
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Sep 13, 2015 08:08
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ImpAtom posted:It is possible to have a character have a triumphant or humanizing moment or even to be considered great, powerful or strong and for them still to be bad people. A lot of better-written stuff than Metal Gear takes advantage of that fact. Seeing villains succeed, even if they succeed in cool or dramatic ways, doesn't mean the writers want you to root for them. People will inevitably do so but that's unavoidable. Anti-heroes or morally ambiguous protagonists fall into the same category. Just because someone gets a 'good' moments doesn't mean you're supposed to root for them. Yeah, hence why I said it means nothing regarding the good/bad reality, just their portrayal. And when you have media that shows the hero petting dogs to heroic music versus a villain that shoots kids in the head in his bloody creepy disease warehouse, then yeah that stuff maybe is meant to be ironic and really morally grey but probably not. Like I said, I am not trying to say these portrayals make them actually good or bad, just that the work itself is trying to get you to think one way or another. I honestly got the impression that hideo became a fanboy of his own character and the constant praise was overbearing. Maybe that was intended, but this is also a game that references books by literally naming characters Ishmael and Ahab, having a character become a body double to the tune of The Man Who Sold The World, having the child leader of boys carrying a conch in the middle of Africa and whom later kills a kid named Ralph via crushing, and by having actual Big Boss is Watching You posters because hey 1984 time now, etc. so please excuse me if I don't think subtlety is in his wheelhouse. Tiler Kiwi fucked around with this message at 08:24 on Sep 13, 2015 |
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Sep 13, 2015 08:19
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Not being able to kill children is probably more because Konami didn't want their game banned in half of Europe, rather than any intrinsic moral statement that the game is making.
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Sep 13, 2015 08:25
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Grizzled Patriarch posted:Not being able to kill children is probably more because Konami didn't want their game banned in half of Europe, rather than any intrinsic moral statement that the game is making. Then why have them in there at all?
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Sep 13, 2015 08:28
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Peace Walker has like hours of audio of people comparing Snake to Che Guevara, one of the most controversial figures in recent history. I think Kojima totally gets that people are going to have contradictory views of his characters, though I personally think he's critical of them while also understanding why them and their ideologies may be appealing, at least in the Big Boss games. Peace Walker has MSF successfully acquiring a nuke and building a Metal Gear, after every previous MGS game was strongly anti-nuke and anti-giant robots of death. Phantom Pain has the "heroes" torture others after every previous MGS game had torture used against the protagonists. I don't think this was done without consideration of the larger themes of the franchise.
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Sep 13, 2015 08:29
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Tiler Kiwi posted:Then why have them in there at all? I mean there is still a point to be made with them w/r/t to the "chain of retaliation" Skull Face mentions and how wars are creating another generation of orphans who will themselves inevitably become soldiers etc. etc. A lot of Skull Face's motivation comes from his childhood being ripped away, so it's kind of meant to mirror that a little bit (this is also why Venom adopting them all still isn't a black and white "good guy" moment - Skull Face's entire personality is formed basically the same way theirs are going to be - child soldiers ripped from their homeland and forced to speak another tongue.) He's saving them from the battlefield, but in the process there is going to be some degree of cultural erasure / re-education (which then dovetails into Code Talkers tapes about the Indian re-education schools). Kojima is not particularly subtle, but he isn't shallow, either. A lot of the things that crop up in his games heavily interlock and interact on multiple levels. It's likely a deliberate nod to MG2's Big Boss being completely willing to use child soldiers in combat, and how that's a line that Venom isn't willing to cross - at least not completely. And of course in strictly gameplay terms it mixes things up when you reach the new zone and suddenly you are facing enemies that you can't kill and can't Fulton.
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Sep 13, 2015 08:39
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i write a sentence and you produce paragraphs. such a lust for analysis...? whoooo? WHOOOOOOOOOOOOO
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Sep 13, 2015 08:42
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(good stuff though, i got nothin')
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Sep 13, 2015 08:43
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In It For The Tank posted:Nuclear weapons taken from disposal sites, according to the intro of MG2.  It'd certainly give that hidden cutscene a darker hidden meaning, if that's how Big Boss got his hands on nukes.
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Sep 13, 2015 08:43
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Grizzled Patriarch posted:I just mean in the sense that nobody he interacts with are civilians Actually a surprising amount of prisoners in the game are from not-profit organizations that we kidnapped from trying to help parasite victims or to study poo poo. By mission 40 I was like, "God drat, Amnesty international needs to get their poo poo in order." Regardless they all love boss so that muddles up the narrative even more.
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Sep 13, 2015 08:47
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Red Mundus posted:Actually a surprising amount of prisoners in the game are from not-profit organizations that we kidnapped from trying to help parasite victims or to study poo poo. By mission 40 I was like, "God drat, Amnesty international needs to get their poo poo in order." Regardless they all love boss so that muddles up the narrative even more. Yeah, they just kind of exist to give you intel. Would be interesting to run into some Peace Corp volunteer that just refuses to cooperate or something.
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Sep 13, 2015 08:50
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Tiler Kiwi posted:I honestly got the impression that hideo became a fanboy of his own character and the constant praise was overbearing. I don't really agree with that, not in the least because you're not playing as Big Boss in this game and it is specifically set up so that Big Boss is off doing terrible things while another character is trying to 'uphold his legend.' I think Kojima likes Big Boss a lot but I don't think he's lost sight of him being a bad person at the end of the day. (That said he did rehabilitate him from Superevil McHitler by MGS3.) ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 09:08 on Sep 13, 2015 |
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Sep 13, 2015 08:58
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The after credits dialogue just goes to show how Kojima tied himself in knots to fit everything together. It's just bizarre to hear Ocelot and Kaz agree to become enemies sometime in the future and support different clones, not out of any apparent internal motivation, but because it's going to happen.
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Sep 13, 2015 09:45
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That hidden cutscene is interesting. Couple of people have ideas on how its unlocked, one suggests its on peace day 9/21 while the crazier mgs fan thinks it will only unlock when everyone who plays online disarms thier nukes, which would be a really poetic thing for kojina to end the series on and tie the anti nuke message together. I cant see it being that though because of people like me who will cling on to their nukes just to gently caress you over, because we're dicks like that. Makes me wonder if there is anything else, super long shot but what if something unlocks on peace day l, like that chapter 3: peace thing... this could be the whole thing he was on about when he said he wanted to do things story related you could only do with video games.
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Sep 13, 2015 09:58
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Merdifex posted:The after credits dialogue just goes to show how Kojima tied himself in knots to fit everything together. It's just bizarre to hear Ocelot and Kaz agree to become enemies sometime in the future and support different clones, not out of any apparent internal motivation, but because it's going to happen. Well Kaz is pissed at BB for stealing his dream from him and using Diamond Dogs as a decoy for Big Boss's real Outer Heaven. Also probably more than a little upset BB has gone off to do his own thing and not attempt to rebuild MSF or get revenge upon Skull Face for destroying mother base and a fuckton of their soldiers. Kaz is all about that revenge after all.
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Sep 13, 2015 10:06
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ShineDog posted:This isn't rare in MGS. The terrible babble that is Kojimas dialogue can frequently be interpreted in multiple contradictory ways, sometimes deliberate hypocracy, sometimes just... lovely writing or translation. Sometimes hard to tell which. you basically never read anything by authors who don't write licensed sf or fantasy books, im guessing
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Sep 13, 2015 10:53
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