Ending Discussion (Huge Spoilers)

[OnePieceDude]

I'm torn. In all honesty though, we did not get the game we were promised.

"No greater good...no just cause.."

We were promised a game where Big Boss, the heroic leader, would loose his way and fall of the path of good. And while I do enjoy the story in this game, it has more flaws than any MGS game thus far. Why the fuck hire Kiefer Sutherland to say about 60 sentences max? Even so, he can't save the bore we got known as "Venom Snake". Yes, I get that he's supposed to mirror the player, but he's also suppose to mirror Big Boss. So..why not give him a personality? He always just awkwardly gazes during a cut-scene until actually saying something at the last second. And hell, of the characters are like this. Ocelot is weird, before and after the events of the game. So why is he the straight-laced cowboy? We're never told. Miller is now always angry and just wants revenge. Until he gets shammed by everyone that "Revenge isn't everything." Code Talker, Eli, and Skull Face are all severely underused. And by God what a perfectly good waste of Colonel Volgin. It isn't even the same voice actor, and then they just flat-out re-kill him as soon as he shows up. Which, makes Quiet the best character in the game. And fuck, she doesn't even speak until the end. All of this mind you adds up to about, 15 hours of story, spread thin across an 120+ hour game. So everytime you start getting into it, you get pulled out of the action way too soon. This game may have the most replay value of most Metal Gears, but the worlds are extremely boring. It's just miles and miles of land with the occasional outpost or base sprinkled here and there. And that's not to say I didn't have fun, because I had a blast. The game play is so finely tuned it's awesome, but it suffers when the AI is absolutely slow to react to everything. Seriously, sometime this game makes Snake Eater on easy look like European Extreme. But, all leading up to the fake-out that Venom wasn't Boss? This nails the final nail in the coffin for me;

BIG BOSS DOES NOT EXPERIENCE ANY OF THIS.

No guilt for loosing Chico and Paz, or any of his men. No revenge for making Skull Face suffer. No bond or love for Quiet. 

Big Boss is out somewhere doing soldier shit, while Venom takes the fall due to BB's exploit of his loyalty. 

So, while the game is good, we did not see "Men become Demons."
We saw "A copy be a pretty decent guy and stop The Patriots for a little bit."

 

6.5/10.

[HaSoOoN-MHD]

Big Boss was not demonized. He's a twisted man in Metal Gear 2 fulfilling a twisted dream. Being misguided doesn't give you magical karma points. He's a psychopath in MGS V.

[RHGSniperFox]

Big Boss was not demonized. He's a twisted man in Metal Gear 2 fulfilling a twisted dream. Being misguided doesn't give you magical karma points. He's a psychopath in MGS V.

Is he? What exactly did he do that was psychopathic? Nothing that happened in MGSV was bad enough to call the man a psychopath. If anyone was - it was Miller, that's the one who was doing everything for revenge. Sanctioning torture to get answers, and becoming paranoid of his own men after getting his retaliation on Skull Face.

Let us also not forget that Miller is the one who brought Cipher's lackeys into Mother Base in the first place, in order to gain the money they needed to build MSF. This is the same man that wants to call Big Boss "a monster" later on down the line.

Also, in no way was I implying Big Boss was good. I said he wasn't actually a villain. I clearly stated that no one in the Metal gear series is clean. Even Solid Snake has done terrible things.

His ultimate dream was to build a nation free from the control of The Patriots. That's what he did - or tried to do. Outer Heaven wasn't just about soldiers, it was about their families and children as well. Refugees of war, having a place to live, and a purpose. A means of fighting back.

 

 

"I'm not like you, Snake... My situation is more... complicated. Big Boss might have been just another CO to you, but he saved my life - twice. This was way before I joined the unit. The first time, I was half-white living in Vietnam... It was after the war, and half-whites were being sent into forced labor camps. He saved me from that living hell. Just like he saved all the children here..."

 

"The second time was in Mozambique. I was being tortured as a RENAMO soldier, and he saved me again. They'd cut off my ears and my nose... [...] No, you've got it wrong. I hate war. Just like all the kids here. But... I need it. War is all we know. We can't make it in the normal world. We need the battlefield to survive. Big Boss gives us a place to fight. Conflict is on our blood. We can't deny it. I was born on the battlefield... And I'll die on the battlefield. All I can do is fight, Snake... all I can do is fight. Making people happy... making a woman happy... is something I could never do." - Gray Fox, Metal Gear 2

 

And even after hearing that story from his long-time friend, Solid Snake still went on to kill, or attempt to kill, Big Boss, and destroy Zanzibarland/Outer Heaven. "I'm no hero, never was."

He knew what he did. He knows that he was no better than Big Boss himself. Just like the CIA used Big Boss to kill The Boss, Cipher/The Patriots used Solid Snake to kill Big Boss. They used Raiden to kill Solidus.

Was the Boss a villain? No. Yet she was considered one of the worst war criminals to ever live after the events of Snake Eater, because that's the way the CIA spun it. The history books don't talk about the things she did that were good. No one other than Big Boss and the select few people who were involved actually knew what went down. Why would it be so hard to believe that Big Boss wasn't really as bad as MG2 made him seem?

You're seeing the events of MG2 through the eyes of a man who, up until MGS4, was a tool of the very organization that was trying to kill Big Boss. You honestly think they're going to fill his head with information of how they screwed him over? Why they really wanted him dead? You think Solid Snake would have gone through with the mission if he knew what he was really doing?

The way this all plays out, MGS3 is the "Darth Vader" turn. The fall from grace. Peace Walker is the decent into madness - he's clearly having trouble coping with what he did, refusing to believe that he straight up murdered his mentor - but it's also the true turn into "Big Boss", he renounces the name of Snake and asks to be known as Big Boss in the first ending. MGSV is simply showing how Outer Heaven finally came to be.

Now, whether or not Venom Snake was either a psychopath by the end of MGSV, or he was just doing what he was asked to do, is unclear - but Big Boss [Who is NOT Venom Snake, the same way Zero is not Cipher] was clearly not psychotic by the end of things. All he ever wanted to do, was stop Zero's Patriots. he didn't like the direction Zero was taking them, and went on to form something to try and combat it. The Patriots then became bigger than Zero, becoming Cipher - and Big Boss was a threat to them that needed to be ended.

Think about it. Every character you meet, other than Liquid, that knew Big Boss, talked about him with respect. Genuine respect. Nothing they ever say about him makes him sound like some kind of psychotic, tyrannical asshole. Everywhere you look, Big Boss saved these people from terrible lives and gave them a purpose. Even Zero, who is now his enemy, still respects Big Boss, despite them being at odds with each other.

Big Boss was never a villain, the same way Solid Snake wasn't a hero. You can't look at MG2 as a separate entity. It's another chapter in one big story, and in order to fully grasp the scope of the characters, you have to take in everything that transpires in the story before it.

IE: If a news story reports about a kid stealing food from a store - that looks bad. But if there's more to the story, such as the kid is homeless and was just trying to get food for the night so his family can eat, it doesn't change the fact that he stole, but you at least understand why he stole, and can judge the situation appropriately.

 

Big Boss being misguided in his endeavors doesn't change the fact that he did some fucked up things - and that's not what I was saying, at all. It means his endeavors had far different meaning than what we were led to believe originally.

Edited October 15, 2015 by Venom Fox

[HaSoOoN-MHD]

Miller wasn't a psychopath. Miller was angry and full of rage but Big Boss was so nonchalance and lacking empathy its borderline psychopathic. Not to forget how manipulative he is towards Venom Snake, which is what makes me say he's a psychopath and even hypocrite.

Erasing a man's identity in pursuit of your own twisted dream is horrifying.

 

Big Boss is a master manipulator. Sure he's saved GF for example but instead of trying to rehabilitate him he simply sent him to the battlefield to fulfill his own ideal of perpetual war.

 

 the public LOVES Big Boss. The Patriots made him a celebrity, they declassified and embellished his files in MGS4 to further his popularity. Big Boss was never seen as a villain by the public, he was seen as a villain to the people on the inside, to people who witnessed it like Solid Snake.

 

Why wouldn't we believe MG2 exactly? this isn't second hand information. We're not just told Big Boss is a bastard, we see it with our very own eyes. We see him, with his own tongue talk about using child soldiers, starting wars to farm them like crops. We see all that talk of never ending war, and in the later MGS games other characters talk about Big Boss will and what it really means, its fucked up.

 

That's totally not how any of this goes down. No one actually knows Big Boss is running the show in Outer Heaven till the very end when Solid busts it. Big Boss being a villain is against the interests of The Patriots, he was running FOXHOUND in the US up till OH happened.

 

Outer Heaven isn't a place made with the intention of existing outside of Patriots control, its meant as a fulfillment of Big Boss ideology, and his ideology is perpetual, never ending war and agony so soldiers always have a place and purpose. If Big Boss had his way you'd need to be a guerrilla fighter just to survive.

 

OH coming under fire from The Patriots isn't even intentional per se. Its just one can't exist while the other does. OH is an ideology of chaos and The Patriots is an ideology of Orwellian order.

 

Big Boss is a manipulative, psychotic hypocrite with an incredibly twisted ideology and purpose. Good intentions quickly spiraled out of control into who we know as Big Boss.

[Ptirle]

You guys should know that big boss never went mad nor he was evil. He just wanted the world the boss envisioned, much like zero, which is not evil either, but way to hell is pawed with good intensions. All on all they are actors and everyone in mgs saga had their rolls to play, especialy big boss and ocelot.

Considering cut mission 51 - was it really better ending than the real one. No. Thing with Eli and psycho is meh and we all very well know what happens to them in mgs1, so screw that.

Dont you think its better that Kojima/Big Boss himself has awarded you the tittle of Big Boss and thanked you (for being a fan) all this years?

I havent experienced anything like that from some video game.

So you are the Big Boss, you the player, if u dont like that u dont get to play with the real Big Boss then self-hypnotize yourself, just like Ocelot did and pretend that you play with real BB.

The real plot hole here is venom snake the commander of foxhound or BB?

I say its the real big boss, but with changed identity, probably yours from the game but in mg1 we see him as BB and he introduces himself like BB to solid snake.

[ocstat]

I'm not surprised this ending is proving to be as divisive as MGS2. It is a lot to take in and the different structure of MGSV compared to the rest of the series makes it harder to digest the information.

 

We have seen the decent of Big Boss, and he was never as evil as we are meant to think. He isn't squeaky clean, but the ending of MGS4 puts all of his actions after MGS3 into perspective. We've already had the answers for the story of Big Boss.

 

Now we enter Venom Snake, who is the player. Like many other role playing games, the silent protagonist is a method for you to interject yourself into the character. We think we are playing as someone and that shapes your choices in the gameplay. You're given a whole variety of toys to play with and you might choose to go full lethal or total stealth. Are you acting out in the way you think the real Big Boss would? Thus the context of the final scene in the mirror. One of the many times we are shown Demon Snake. At this point, the gameplay truly depends on your PF grade and your FOB infiltration. It didn't fully click for me until the end, but we have all these Bosses maintaining their FOB, you are deducted more points for killing soldiers in those events than out in the field because they are all Diamond Dogs.

 

The shattered mirror is to reflect not the narrative between Venom and Big Boss, but for the player. Your actions shape the appearance of your character, are you a demon or a hero? Do you continue down one path or try to redeem yourself more in line with what the real Big Boss would do? Narratively, the way Medic would view his leader as he looked up to him in the past. But from this point on you know it wasn't just some character who was enlisted in MSF, it is you. This is your Metal Gear story. The true substance of this plot isn't the sequence of events but your time with the game. You learn "The Truth" only after you've earned it, and the mission doesn't even unlock unless you meet specific requirements.

 

I'm still wrapping my head around it and haven't listened to all "The Truth" tapes yet, but I think it's fantastic. Every time I fire up the game now I feel like it's a whole different experience seeing Snake in the ACC. The next time I walked around Mother Base after Mission 46 I spent over an hour there, knowing, "This is what I built, this is mine".

 

I'm not going to say this game has my favorite story in the franchise, but it may well be my favorite Metal Gear game.

[Tommy_Games_SVK]

I see a lot of people complaining about the fact that we didn't see Big Boss turn into a villain. But wait a second! When you think about it, we actually saw it. We saw it a long time ago. Big Boss didn't turn into a villain in 1984-1995 period, but in 1995-1999 period. In the ending of MGSV we learn that Big Boss went into hiding to build Outer Heaven in secret, while Venom Snake acted as his decoy with Diamond Dogs. However, Big Boss wasn't creating Outer Heaven to be "the biggest villain who wanted to destroy the world with his weapon of mass destruction". He simply built another MSF/Diamond Dogs, this time it was simply bigger. He built a nation for soldiers. He was still a "good guy" in 1995. He didn't buld Metal Gear TX-55 so he could attack other countries, he built it only as a detterance, just like ZEKE. After finishing Outer Heaven Big Boss sent Venom to take command of it, so that the US doesn't find out that it is actually Big Boss who built it and so he can continue his work as leader of FOXHOUND. After the US/The Patriots found out about Outer Heaven and Metal Gear, they wanted Big Boss to stop it (because they thought he's on their side), so Big Boss sent Gray Fox, his ally, to stop Outer Heaven, even though his true orders was to simply "get captured". He did this so he could buy some time for Venom to finish Metal Gear. After Fox got captured, The Patriots ordered Big Boss to sent another soldier into Outer Heaven, so Big Boss sent Solid Snake. Again, his role was to simply get captured, but Snake proved too strong and actually destroyed Metal Gear. Big Boss ordered Venom to stop Snake, but Venom failed and died. After that, Snake escaped Outer Heaven and NATO bombed it. THIS is the reason why Big Boss became a villain: the NATO bombing. The Patriots destroyed his Outer Heaven, the nation he was building for 10 years. They killed his strongest soldier, his phantom, Venom. The destruction of Outer Heaven in 1995 is what make Big Boss the villain we see him in Zanzibar Land. 

 

Venom punching the mirror in the very end of MGSV is not Venom being angry of Big Boss' betrayal. It's a metaphore. Venom literally broke the fourth wall and then walked into the darkness. At this point, Venom is not "just a random medic who got memories of Big Boss". He is the player. WE are Venom Snake, WE are Big Boss.

[fbdbh]

I didn't love the ending, but only because it was delivered in a bad / shallow / rushed way.

 

I think Venom Snake is a very interesting character, despite what people think of him. He's really the embodiment of the "phantom pain", his silence, his confusion resonates with me very well throughout the entire game. I figured out early the twist, but it made so much sense to me, even if it was a bit contrived.

 

This is a bit like the Boss AI. Is it her? It's not her, right? But she's there, duplicated, hollow, a phantom of herself... and on the other hand, we have Venom, with that enormous sacrifice and burden. This concept is very frightening, and suddenly I understand Venom's very reserved character, his silence, his non-heroic arc, when only in times of very bad situations, there's his true personality ("You are all diamonds.")

 

He makes the ultimate sacrifice when confronting Solid Snake. 

 

Also, I very much criticise anyone who's craving for Big Boss' downfall story arc, we don't need a shitty Anakin plot to make it work. For me, Big Boss is the ultimate dick in this game as he rides the motorcycle away from everything that he cared for in the previous games. So I kind of have that downfall arc, while it's also very understandable, why he does that. We've seen some shit with him.

 

Anyway, I think this ending gave me more thought than any of the previous games, also while I first I thought Skull Face was the least interesting character in the entire series, some of the tapes helped me understand his motivations (as it turns out, he's also Hungarian like me, and our history is very much tied to a war-torn country whose regions were taken away and languages changed and people were forced to adapt to them... our ultimate home is our mother language).

[Ringtonwhaledog]

I had mixed feelings about the ending....Part of me felt the twist was really clever but the rest of me felt cheated that I had not been playing as "Big Boss".

 

Overall though I really enjoyed playing MGS TPP - next gen graphics/the missions/the story of revenge/the bonding between Quiet & Snake with some classic cut scenes (e.g. the "rain" scene and the 'Exit' one where she breaks her vow of silence to save Snake) / the way it blended some of the features of previous games and so on. By the same token though there were negatives and at times the creativity in the game was lacking and repetitive but nothing is perfect. I played for c 230 hrs so far and although I have all the trophies continue to play my favourite missions and FOB Infiltration.

 

It is not the best MGS - that accolade in my opinion resides with MGS3 Snake Eater, followed by MGS4 Guns of the Patriots