Punished Snake is my favorite snake. His inability to let go is what makes him his own big boss. He's a medic at heart. Trained to help in the battle field. Wanting to heal and bring peace makes so much sense.
I think this shows the most on Venom interactions with Paz. The way he cares for her is pretty much his old medic self crawling out the Big Boss persona a little, even if he doesn't realize. Venom's side as medic regrets not noticing the second bomb inside Paz and not saving her, that's why his subconscious creates all that scenario that she's alive, as a way to deal with the guilt. At least, it is how I suppose.
The fact, that Big Boss forced V into the same situation his mother figure THE Boss lost her life, truly shows, that he become the very thing he swore to destroy
Big Boss didnt do anything, he gets a lot of undeserved hate. It was Zero that threw the plan together due to desperation, Big Boss just capitalized on it, even sent V the tape calling him a friend.
@@KWH-PortCityShota what kind of "friend" orders a friend to sacrifice their entire existence and sense of self just to survive? What the fuck is this?
@@KWH-PortCityShota he wasn't against it one bit. he was 100 percent fine with using an entire hospital AND Venom as meat shields to build his psycho military nation behind the scenes.
@@mercury2157 If you listen to the tapes, he openly expresses his hatred towards the idea of making a body double as he values V's free will but Ocelot was the one who manages to convince him to do it by saying something along the lines of "He was willing to sacrifice himself to save you before, I'm sure he'd be perfectly fine with doing it again."
@@WoobertAIO 1. Big Boss didnt set this up, dude was in a coma for 9 years while 3 of the richest men in the world were planning his future. 1 was looking to kill him. He's a key well respected figure head looking to unite the world (or at least soldiers), if anything happened to him it wouldnt be good, hence Les enfant terribles 2. They were battling for power with the patriot system/A.I who had forces outside X.O.F that mostly wanted Big Boss (along with everyone else who was a threat) under subjugation, some issues like preserving a personal identity are probably the least of your concerns. Venom wanted to help build a new system so they all could be free, but this becomes a issue later 3. It wasnt a easy decision for Zero or Ocelot (Probably harder for Ocelot since Zero mostly cared for Snake). Consider how hot of a situation this was dealing with the U.N. issue & mix up with X.O.F/Skull Face, there wasnt a lot of time to craft "the perfect contingency plan; Bottom line? Its complicated, with A LOT of gray, we should get off the high horse & have a little bit of sympathy for all parties, including Venom, but Big Boss is very misunderstood.
It’s also clear that the some of the members of Diamond Dogs know that V isn’t big boss. Sometimes when soldiers salute you they’ll say “ I don’t care who you are boss, I’ll serve you no matter what”
It's all the more reason to admire Solid and Solidus in comparison, really. They refused to accept their roles as pawns in a much wider agenda. Despite their past deeds (especially in Solidus' case), they fought back against the forces that sought to manipulate, execute, or otherwise exploit them and fought until the end for a better world that they themselves likely wouldn't get to see. Venom learned the truth, but he still aided in Big Boss's plans, agendas, and uprisings and helped him cheat a death that they both knew he deserved.
@@thegamingprozone1941 In the tapes, it's shown that the real Big Boss was hesitant to go through with the Venom Snake idea but was coerced into it by Ocelot who said that Venom was already willing to sacrifice his life to save his boss and that in the end, he would be proud to carry on his legacy.
@Lukas Ruston and Big Boss still ate it up and basically gives Venom good boy points in the Truth tape. The only thing I can give him is that people are wrong when they say Big Boss had Venom killed by Snake, considering he kept trying to call off the mission once they realized Snake was much stronger than they'd first assumed.
Don't forget to mention that the version of "Man Who Sold the World" is the cover by Midge Ure, and not the Bowie original. Which gives hits the body double twist even more impact.
fun fact, a fun detail is that the pacing of both is just different enough that you cannot synch up the songs. the midge ure rendition is a half second too slow, and it carries over and fucks up any attempt at synching
Losing Quiet was one of the most impactful moments for me in MGSV because she is so overpowered that I ended up using her 95% of the time. She saved my ass so many times I couldn't begin to count, I genuinely relied on her to watch my back. Helicopters were no big deal with Quiet and a decent supply of frag grenades. So when I lost her there was a palpable sense of loss in not having that humming over the radio or the feeling of coordinating sniper shots. MGSV is truly something special
It takes 80 bond to unlock her trank rifle with a silencer. Before that happanes, she allmost allways murders the people who refuse to get arrested peacefully or are activating your reflex mode. That constamtly happens even with people you've already tranked or even are currently choking unconsious. It's just infuriating. And if you're using the unsilenced trank rifle from bond 20, she can even put the whole outpost on allert with stupid unordered shots like that. Her scouting abilityy takes time and is overall inferior to Ddog or even a pill of nocturnum. Her ability to call free suply drops is only realy usefull in free roam, because you are not allowed to equip the infinity bandana togather with the riden suit, but by that time, she has allredy left. If right after recruiting her you are using her on any mission other than metalic archea, simply to get her to bond 80 for that silenced trank rifle, you are straight up making your life more difficult. The back up, back down mission already gives you the best rocket launcher in the game to deal with it's choper, everywhere else it's waaaaaay easier to just throw your own flare granade, find an AA gun emplacement or just use the Dwalker's rocket launcher.
Oh and how could I forget:) Super sniper, she is so accurate, she can even shoot bullets between moving rotor blades... in a cutscene - in gameplay an enemy wearing a simple helmet might cost you an S rank, her religion forbids her form aiming that lasser sight a bit lower.
@Hati Hróðvitnisson , I am sorry, that a silly hidden emblem gimmic has actualy forced me into recompleting the game from the start, all for the sake of arguably the most useless buddy in the game, who also likes to sabotage your perfect stealth/no traces attempts. Not cool, Kojima.
My first clue that something was up with “V” was the fact the even though he is blind in his right eye. He still had it. Boss’s eye was destroyed when Ocelot shot it out in Mgs3.
I thought I was being gaslit about his eye by Kojima but then the part with the Mammal Pod came and i was certain that the leaks about him being the medic were true.
@@raditzhoneyham I don't understand what are you trying to accomplish here he clearly stated that eye got destroyed and how you just repeated it trying to act smart....
I love the fact that you can replay quiets boss fight to reunlock her it really ties in well with how he cant let go of things and how she's probably just another phantom/illusion and not actually real just like paz was
It should be noted that this was added in later on in an update after players complained about not being able to keep Quiet around after her last mission
I like this idea but also hate it cause a it makes sense V has a fucking piece of shrapnel and showing back up to the place you met your battlefield gf and fighting there multiple times with snipers or fighting there in general could trigger a flashback. BUT i hate it cause we already had paz and it's kind of cheapend by that and sorta a cop out Also just me tho ydy
@@giovannicervantes2053 any head canon works tbh but it feels like a quality of life improvement because it would suck to lose quiet after investing sm GMP on her skins and guns
@@madara992 yeah, whether it's implied to be a hallucination by Venom or really just one of those "this is purely gameplay and doesn't reflect canon" things, allowing the players to keep Quiet as a buddy post-ending is cool
V is one of my favorite video game main characters ever. A double who could never be his own person again, yet coming to care for quiet in a way the real big boss never could, a person in a similar hell to him. I hope his end brought him some peace… Thanks for that boss…
Big Boss's whole tape speech to V is also Kojima talking to you, the player. He's thanking you, saying metal gear could never have happened without you, and from now on big boss's story is yours.
It gets me in the feels that Venom Snake was one of your original guys from Peace Walker who was chosen and survived all the way up to Metal Gear. He served Big Boss until his end
@Christopher Klein exactly, you get it. And to me it's not Canon. My Canon is that venom sent went his own way after his own identity was revealed. And big boss didn't take kindly to that so he put solid snake against venom to kill him.
@Christopher Klein my interpretation is that Snake is literally right outside his door, hence all the rapid gunfire going on outside. He was likely re-listening to the truth tape AND N313 and contemplating where it all went wrong, and turning to face his death once he realized that Snake was stronger than he and Big Boss anticipated. That, and because playing along with the Big Boss legend had led to a death that he knew deep down the real Big Boss deserved, but he would be taking in his place, just like on that helicopter in 1975.
@@mercury2157 this is my interpretation of the hallway scene in mgsv "Venom snake walks towards solid snake, his dead men around him. Gunshots can be heard everywhere, there's bullets on the floor, blood splattered on the walls. And he's forced to relive the memories of that day during the outbreak. He feels like a shell, a demon, nothing left now but one last fight before it all blows up to hell. No more place for outer heaven. "
Venom subconsciously acts like how he used to see Big Boss when he was a medic, how every soldier saw him: as a stoic tragic hero, as the Legendary Mercenary, not a warmonger addicted to conflict.
@@Scatmanseth they could’ve found another way to go about the story though. Like not have ismail talk. Idk what they could’ve done in ground zeroes but I think they could’ve figured something out.
@@Jordan-xx2jd easy, during the first mission it’s the same as normal, we see Big Boss as Ishmael because of the hypnotherapy used on V, when he finally remembers and we replay it, we see Big Boss’ true face and hear his true voice, why did we hear Kiefer Sutherland during GZ? Because it’s V’s memory of what happened so he hears his voice
That depends on what ending you are looking at that's not the tru ending that's just one of the mission's quiet dies there is no reunion with her the tru ending his him finding out who he really is and big boss telling him on the tape recorder
I doubt reunion is cannon, its just a gameplay consideration bc quiet is a good buddy and they dont want to punish you for conpleting mission 45 (although that mission is punishment enough lol)
Venom is an awesome character , despite never asking for the role that was given to him. he ultimately accepted it and played his part. Just like The boss did. He is basically The boss incarnate. And his importance to the Series should not be undermined because although he was the body double , he was most definitely a big deal. Since everything that he did during those 11 years ultimately started this series. And it's sad that he won't be remembered in the World of metal gear in a way he's just like The boss. Heroes forgotten in history
It's great because it contextualizes the way people talk about Big Boss in later games. In Christian mythology, there's a concept called "Bilocation," which was a miracle some saints were said to be capable of, which is basically the idea that someone can appear in two different places at the same time. Well think about it. Big Boss could LITERALLY be in two different places at the same time because he was two people. When you hear people in the other games talking about the guy like he was the second coming of Christ, it suddenly all makes sense. You could hear "Oh yeah Big Boss blew up a weapons depot in Guatemala yesterday," and then five seconds later hear "Oh yeah Big Boss blew up a refinery in North Korea yesterday," and both of those things did happen. Twin Snakes, if you will.
Venom Snake was an absolute unit. It took Solid Snake using rocket launchers to finally take him down. Meanwhile, the real Big Boss was taken down by a makeshift flamethrower. Poor guy was there to both prove and disprove there can be only one Snake and one Big Boss...
@Solid Spider it actually gets confusing from here. It's obvious Kojima didn't come up with Venom at the time MGS4 was made, so I think Big Boss actually was meant to be blown to smithereens in MG1 at first and inexplicably rebuilt in MG2. Solidus's body/biomort was missing skin (obviously to replace Big Boss's charred visage), but it was missing limbs, too.
@@mercury2157 Actually I think it was said in metal gear 2 big boss used a body and double. Because Solid killed him with a can of hairspray and a lighter. That’s why he had all his limps.
@@solidspider6509 Phantom Pain's timeline clarified Venom was in MG1, while Big Boss was running Zanzibarland in MG2. The missing limbs might have just been an oversight from Kojima.
At the end of Paz's hallucination section and you get the last tape from her made me feel sad for Venom. I always assume that before Venom became who he is in MGSV, the two must have been close to one another, and being unable to save Paz was one of Venom's biggest regret to the point he started hallucinating that Paz survive. If he had saved Paz, a lot of things would have changed for him, and avoided the fate that awaits him. Another thing to note is how Venom is more compassionate. Like with Huey, if it was the real Big Boss, Huey would have been executed. Quiet would have been killed too. Venom on the other hand chooses to spare Huey (granted that it's more of a slow and painful judgment that leads to the death of his own doing) Venom trusts Quiet even going so far as to almost jump in a pool of acid to save her. These differences between Venom and the real Big Boss are what make them be their own character instead of Venom just simply being another self-insert. At the end of it all though, it didn't matter cause eventually, somewhere down the line, Venom finally succumbed to the demon.
And it gets to you to with the theme of "another day in another war without end" around the endgame and you realize that shit he went through hell twice and was broken by the endless fighting and became the monster BB wanted
I think it's implied that Venom is in the pictures with Paz, we see some MSF soldiers with the entire crew, but there is one or two that are in more pictures than just Peace Day.
Its not that Venom was close to Paz, its that the entirety of MSF saw her as a poor little girl who hates war, as an "Angel of peace", an idealized icon. Venom is in denial over her being a Cipher agent, which is why the Paz hallucination is, conveniently, the Paz that MSF loved, the innocent Angel of Peace. In the end its all Venom's way to cope, not just with that "loss of innocence", but also with the guilt for not finding the second bomb. The entirety of Paz's hallucination, the fake memory of him removing the second bomb from her and the explosion being caused by an RPG, is just wish fullfillment, what Venom wishes would have happened. The final tape is just Venom coming to terms with the truth: Peace Day never came, Paz was a Cipher agent and she died from the bomb planted in her. But also that that shouldnt be a reason to not thrive for peace, to try to make something close to that idealized fantasy they lived in MSF.
I feel like there's one thing that wasn't focused on enough in this video that I saw in comments on other videos on MGSV. Venom is, first and foremost, a combat medic. His entire life, up until the helicopter explosion, was defined by the *NEED* to not let go and save everyone he could. No matter how much the entire world seemingly tries to break him down in every way, he never lets it stop him from trying to save people close to him, even at his own detriment.
34:00 It's also interesting to see how during the helicopter scene, Paz' arms are crossed in an effort to keep others (V) away and shield them. Whereas in the last illusion her arms open wide up, almost as if to welcome Venom to her and the truth.
I think people are really misinterpreting the ending. The medic was a devout soldier to Big Boss's army, and was clearly glad to be apart of the legend too and play that role. He was a 24/7 soldier, like all the others who fought for big boss, so he wasnt losing any kind of personal life when they brainwashed him. He just became what he always wanted, a soldier at the level of big boss. As for big boss himself, he didnt start this program. Zero started the program to protect big boss, and big boss decided to stay and protect Venom instead of just let him be killed and have xof think he was dead. After waking up to see his best soldier was now living his life, he let him take over as he himself goes off to start building what they both were pursuing this whole time ever since the events of Peacewalker. And then theres the fact that people are forgetting that the Patriots literally control the world at this point, so the supposed evil that Big Boss was doing during MG1 and MG2 were propaganda in order to set him up as a villain, leading to them sending Solid Snake to stop his uprising against the total control of the patriots. Solid Snake was essentially a puppet all the way until the Plant chapter of mgs2, where he fiinally was operating out of their control. And if you noticed, solid snake become a "terrorist" too after mgs1, when he went around destroying metal gears. Once you stopped abiding by their system, youre labeled a villain. Thats not to say Big Boss wasnt flawed, but he by no means was evil. He just wanted an independent soldier state, and had to rely on nukes to guarantee that the nations of the world would leave them be, hence why every soldier and even enemies he encountered praised him.
Also even without the brainwashing i don't think there would have been much of the medic left when he woke up, dude had like a hand span sized chunk of shrapnel in his brain
It's taken me a few years to come to terms with the ending of Phantom Pain. I pre-ordered the game (I'll never forget, Sept 1st, 2015), requested off of work, and smashed my way through the game in a few days. As my friend and I were watching the ending (after unlocking the "truth" mission), we just looked at each other like "uhhhhhh, what?" and I spent hours upon hours on reddit, watching YT dissections, etc just trying to make sense of it. I was a part of the r/NeverBeGameOver subreddit since the first day it was created. Why were we, the loyal followers of the story, bamboozled? That honestly was the real "phantom pain" The badass character of Big Boss turned out to be a coward, hiding behind the cover of Venom Snake. I felt betrayed, playing the entire game as some random irrelevant dude who was tricked into thinking he is someone he's not. Where was the fan service? Why was Big Boss's voice different? Where was the part where Big Boss recruits Gray Fox? What about Solidus training child soldiers in Liberia and eventually finding Raiden? Why was everyone in the game acting so weird? Where was the special final scene where you face off against Solid Snake who would be voiced by David Hayter? What part was Kojima referring to where he said he might have to "leave the games industry" because of it? It honestly really fucked me up for a while. I participated in the online nuclear disarmament in an effort to unlock chapter 3. I had to have the answers. However, I have come to realize the masterpiece that MGSV:TPP actually is. I replayed it last year and really soaked in all the details. S-ranked every mission, etc. What a phenomenal game. A lot of people think that the game was unfinished, which is why I hoped for so long that eventually we would get more. But I truly think that we played the game exactly as Kojima intended (outside of the Kingdom of the Flies mission). When I first beat the game, I remember telling people that the game sucked and that I didn't recommend playing it. The more time I had to reflect on the game, the more I appreciated it and understood its message. Awesome video, awesome game, awesome character.
I've always viewed Big Boss as a coward ever since the way he "fought" Snake at the end of Metal Gear 2. Gray Fox had the honor to challenge Snake to a fistfight, while Big Boss decided to play cat and mouse with him while armed with an assault rifle.
@@mercury2157 I see what you mean. Obviously though, by playing as him in MGS3 and MGSPW, we got to know him more intimately and we saw that he was much more than just the way he was portrayed in MG2. We always knew he'd turn into a villain in some fashion. But having a lot of it happen "behind the scenes" felt like a huge slap to the face back when the game came out.
@@namespeepo4514 Basically, it just wasn't the game I wanted at the time. It's very different than other MGS games which, thanks to the power of retrospective, I actually really like.
I truly feel sorry for Venom. He was a medic, he saved lives, and just because he wanted to protect lives, he was ultimately sent down a path of inevitable pain and misery. I never really thought it like that, but that makes Big Boss really a villain.
Venom is indeed tragic but people act like big boss did the right thing of using venom as a shield and leaving him to do dirty work whilst he builds outer heaven behind the scenes I think people should accept that big boss became a morally questionable and out of touch person.
@@cantsuggestareasonablename9101The idea that Big Boss is not so bad, its because Venom, or before becominf Venom, Medic, would say yes to be double and help Big Boss
The story is there, but it scatter through the tape, guard conversation, or interrogation, it's not directly tell you about it. Have you ever interrogate one of your hit mark in the mission? Most of them is Big Boss's fans, and they fell honored if you kill them.
It's very far from a bad game. And people looooove to say "Oh don't play MGSV, it's not a finished game!", well... If you made someone play that game and never told them it was unfinished, they would never know.
nah its still pretty bad. The story being scattered around on various tapes, along with the incredibly lifeless cutscenes (except for a few) doens't make for a great experience. Its obvious that we were given an unfinished product that kojima took too long to finish. Just because youtubers make hour long vidoes overanalyzing shit and saying its good doesn't mean they're right.
@@KABLAMMATS that's because you heard what happened right hideo Kojima never got to fully finish the game because Konami fired him and took his rights to metal gear away that's why it was only half finish but I still loved it good game best metal gear solid games ever made by him and his last
There’s so much to MGSV that just goes plain ignored by the wider audience. I’m so glad you’re still making vids on the series Meti. Seriously a GOATED analysis RUclipsr
Venom is my favourite of all the Snakes. He is a man who hasn't found any peace ever since Ground Zeroes and yet, he carries on. He perseveres and does as his duty demands.
It's really amazing how it took only one game for Kojima to make Venom Snake everyone's favourite snake in the series. It's nuts really if you think about it. It's like he did the whole replacement of solid snake thing over again, except it actually worked this time (I mean I love Raiden but I know a lot of people don't). Everyone's favourite was either Solid or Naked, and now it's neither of them.
@@duffman18 Ehhh, many people either like naked or solid snake. When the game came out people did not like venom but as the game aged people began slowly liking venom however most people like venom snake as last when compared to all the other playable snakes (i know raiden is technically a snake but it doesnt count). For me i hate having favourites but i think venom snake would be my favourite out of all the snakes not because hes badass but hes actually very relatable for me and i strongly connect to tragic characters like venom snake.
@@duffman18 "everyone" is an overstatement, venom has this much popularity because there are many people who have only plaved mgsV or have played the whole series but started with V, causing them to like venom the most. venom snake has the least in-game personality out of all the snakes. he barely talks unlike solid snake, and doesn't joke unlike naked snake in mgs3. he barely even hasa characfter of his own
Bro, you somehow managed to explain to me why i love Venom snake so much. Been a fan since MGS1. When MGS3 came out i didn't know which of the "snakes" was my favorite. When MGS V came out it slowly and gradually shifted to Venom. Now i know why. He's _me._ I'm *_him._* He has trouble letting go, he tries desperately to hold on to the past, everything he creates disappears and dissolves. It's like looking in a mirror, goddamn. Holy shit, i don't think I've ever related to a character this much. The fact Kojima wanted Venom to represent the players just makes this even better. Or worse. Damn.
@@danielhighland8866Not necessarily all big boss combat memories are displayed and put into venoms brain and big boss does not give venom his dna or genes etc however despite that venom does still show incredible skill without any superior genes that big boss presumably has.
Venom Snake actually quickly grew to become one of my favorite video game characters of all time alongside Kazuya Mishima and Vergil, the more and more I learned about him. Dude went through the most in my opinion out of anyone in the Metal Gear Series (except maybe the Boss) and went down in history as a villain even after all he did.
The tragedy of Venom Snake is a criminally overlooked arc in the chaos that is the Metal Gear series. A combat medic gives his life over and over to save others, and rises from Hell to Outer Heaven in order to give the unwilling soldiers of the world a place to choose their own destinies, only to be misunderstood as a threat and destroyed by a deranged peacekeeping AI misleading another copy of the same man.
The horn isn’t just a morality system. It’s a delusion system. The more heroic you think/act as big boss, the harder the horn presses against his brain.
The story of V and MGSV as a whole is honestly my favorite one of the series. This video is definitely one of my favourite videos that you have made about Metal Gear and I can't wait for the next one.
that's what happened to some soldiers in Vietnam after they only did an order from their officer. Some veterans even did warcrimes because they would get shunned, and mistreated if they didn't follow the orders. Heck you would be called a commie simp, and would probably spend your life in poverty if you didn't follow the orders.
Nah the Patriots are evil. They control the world BB wanted freedom for all who desired it. The nukes and metal gears were to prevent The Patriots from attacking so they sent Solid to take down Outer heaven and make Solid a terrorist once he started destroying metal gears. Venom is still a medic, a savior of life he fought to protect the dream of peace and freedom of those who didnt wish to be under the Patriots control. Naked is a villain for forcing venom into mgs1 to save himself. Venom needed to be killed with several rocket launchers while Naked was beaten by a homemade flamethrower and died of old age. Venom was basically a metal gear himself.
It's such a loving send-off to have the player of such a long-running series to have a direct connection to the long-term lore regarding the "legend of Big Boss." I just wish he could've finished the game, but what we got is good... after you have to forensically piece together what Kojima was going for in liue of a proper ending beyond the reveal of who Venom Snake is. I was fairly sure it was going to be Gray Fox before he had his inhumane experimentation done to him by Para-Medic, but what Kojima went for is more unique and unexpected. So you gotta wonder if he lifted the idea from Halo: Reach, that did much the same thing for the Halo universe. MGS5 did come out just few years after Reach, after all.
It literally wasn't finished lmao. Kingdom of the Flies should have been in it and Kojima is probably only saying the game was finished because he's salty about it too
It only took a Month for me to see since last year, Playing Legacy collection to Mgs V. What a amazing story, very sad but, Beautiful. I was expected to be scared and to see the story very, very Ugly but, it was the opposite. Funny part I never played Metal Gear series until last year, I was Blown away.
The love of Quit and V is very well done. Their love is free. It's not romantic or sexual, it's friendship, it's trust, it's respect, it's the love that was born on the battlefield, like the Boss and Naked. MGSV is the best game of all time.
The part that makes Venom to the Demon ( killing his soldiers in the outbreak) literally punished me, i had completed every mission on S rank and did every sidemission and just out of curiosity I wnated to test something with that mission and replayed it, while i was in that mission my FOB got invaded and i responded to the call. After the FOb was over and the game tried to put me back in my mission the game got stuck on a infinite loading screen. Nothing could fix it and my save was lost, so i started over and even replicated my Symbol but changed it to be Red and added the word punished.
I'm still waiting for the inevitable videos on Raiden and Senator Armstrong. I'm not even memeing here. Between MGS2 and MGR, Raiden is one of my favorite protagonists in any game, and Senator Armstrong is a fantastic antagonist, and a character with a surprising amount of depth, given his limited screen time
I've been practically pining for a Solid Snake video, so I'm assuming that once Meti covers every relevant Metal Gear hero and villain, he'll get to Raiden and Armstrong, with the grand finale to his Metal Gear character analysis will be The Perfection Solid Snake.
@@8-bitsarda747 oh that's definitely how it's gonna be. If anything, it'll be Raiden or the real Big Boss as the penultimate analysis before the grand Solid Snake finale.
Loved MGSV so much that when a guy I worked with was hearing me talk about the game and wanted to play it, but he was broke...So I bought him a copy and homie damn near lost his girlfriend cause he fell deep into the game lol
I'm quite certain the entire Paz storyline is to highlight the trauma that the combat medic who becomes V. Imagine you're trying to save a young woman who, by all accounts, brought joy to the PMC's on motherbase, and you not only watch her die due to your failure, but her death causes your "rebirth" as Venom Snake. Venom truly is a tragic character of all time.
If you look the tapes the person who created Venom was Zero and Ocelot. Big Boss just rolled with it because he didn't had many options. But still that is no excuse.
What's interesting to note is that in the old Photograph, and in her appearences in Venom's delusional episodes, Paz keeps her more anime-esque proportions from Peace Walker, like the larger eyes, a trait that isn't shared with any of the other characters in the game, or even with Paz herself at the end of Ground Zeroes.
32:50 Amnesia can be caused by severe psychological trauma. In fact, it is the most common cause of amnesia. I lost the memory of 2 years of my life because of this.
Fun fact about the Blue Morpho butterfly, which is mentioned in the PW tapes: the colour of its wings is not due to pigment, it's due to the structure of scales on their wings reflecting blue light, the wings are actually brown and the vibrant blue is an illusion. This illusion plays into the fact that Paz's peace, and Paz herself in both games is unattainable and never there to begin with (with V doing this in a more literal sense)
I think the best example of Huey would be Guillermo Marconi, he "invented" the radio in the 1880's stealing Tesla's works about wide variety of things from electro magnetism, induction, his wireless devices essays, even the idea behind the radio, Marconi just put together everything without mentioning Tesla, Tesla demanded him just wanting the credit for the invention, Tesla had to fight Marconi the rest of his life for the recognition, few time after Tesla died, the court gave all the credentials and patents to his rightfull owner, Tesla... What a waste of time
The layers of the David Bowie song about a Doppelganger for the intro are just so genius. It's not JUST that it's a song about a doppelganger, it's that the song is a cover. Not the original artist. The hospital mission has to be one of my favorite events in all of gaming.
Whenever i hear you talk about Metal gear I feel like I've just been effected by Jail house lock, King crimson, Paper moon king, and D4C all at the same time...and I looooo--La Li Lu Le Lo---ve it
@TheAnimationStation / Aurora Sorry do you not get the reference? If so don't fret, I don't exactly know why its in the games either. I just heard Meti say it in another metal gear video.😅
So glad you did this video, Venom deserves a video for himself and it's amazing you managed to put so much work for it. Nice editing too as always ! Cheers from Brazil lad, take care !
Do you think another reason vsnake is called 'punished' could be a meta hint to his punishment (and ultimate death) at the hands of naked snake, basically making him a puppet to spread the legacy of snake? Just something extra to throw out there I guess
Chips LPs are so fucking legendary, every single Vapor Snake segment is non-stop out loud laughter and when the final final episode spirals into absolute chaos.... it's so beautiful. Long live Mission J Frog.
No matter how many time pases, i will always enjoy a new video reinvindicating MGSV story. V truly was one of the many tragic characters in the saga, just another soldiers in a war without end. Also, i love that Pomu cameo ❤️
I always thought that for the one "clone" of Big Boss to successfully become, not just him, but the idealized version of him that everyone considers Big Boss to be, to be the memetic clone rather than the genetic ones, was the franchise going full circle, hammering down that "given the right situation and the right story anyone can be shaped into Snake". S3 Plan: The Videogame.
What gets me about Kiefer Sutherlands vocal performance is how genuinely sad he sounds. He always sounds so tired and sad, like the weight of his mission is constantly bearing down on him.
I almost didn't watch this video because recently I put like 200 hours into V. I wanted to listen to all the tapes, s rank everything, and really try to understand the story being told entirely on my own. I felt like I did a good job and that was my final goodbye to a game I loved. One thing I couldn't understand though is why the medic's trauma would manifest as Paz. Like I understand venom had implanted memories and how the medic probably knew paz, but trauma isn't something that can be implanted in my opinion. When you laid out how it's the medic desperately wishing for a timeline where he found the second bomb, the feels hit me like a truck. Great video, thanks for the extra depression 🫡
The trauma wasn't implanted, it's a manifestation of what remains from his own persona (the medic). The medic feels guilt about the fact he didn't detect a second bomb in Paz she was blown to pieces on the chopper. If you listen carefully to the truth tapes it becomes clear that Venom Snakes transformation into a memetic clone had not been fully completed, they had to wake him up early as XOF found out where they were. So there were traces of his old self left behind which is why he seems kind of off and dissociative the whole game, like he doesn't quite understand who he is - its also why characters like Huey and Kaz, who knew Big Boss most intimately in PW, have to a double take when they see Venom because they sense somethings off about him. Whereas Ocelot, the only other guy in the story who knew the real Big Boss has no such reservations when he meets Venom in the opening - because he's in on the plan.
John lost himself. He became the very thing he despised, betraying the ideals of The Boss and replacing them with his own. In fighting monsters, he himself had become a monster. He used Venom, the Medic, as the United States had used him. And just like his former masters and then his old friend Zero, he fell into the trap of raising his own ideology above his morality as an individual. In this way, he’d lost sight of what The Boss stood for. “Big Boss” became his personal Cipher, his own ever-growing monster, and he fed his best and most loyal soldier to it in exactly the way that the United States had fed The Boss into the jaws of “peace” and “the greater good.” Even as they respected her and lauded all her accomplishments her masters sliced her throat open with her own son, congratulating themselves on a job well done and admiring The Boss for her loyalty and sacrifice. And exactly like them Big Boss has sliced the throat of the Medic, of Venom Snake, and laid him upon the altar of his new world order for the greater good of all soldiers everywhere. All the while lauding himself as a hero and Venom as a martyr, not recognizing that it was his own abuse of Venom’s loyalty that led to this tragedy and the loss of his individuality. It was at this moment that Big Boss became a monster. He had adopted everything that he had hated and fought for so long. His dehumanizing “meme” every ounce as gruesome as Cipher and the legacy of Zero, founded on precisely the same principles with only modest and superficial differences. A world without borders; a world unified through “Big Boss”. His transformation, his fall from grace, was now complete. All that was left was a villain that was in opposition to everything that The Boss had once stood for and believed in.
And that's why he's Big Boss. He's a tragic antagonist. PEACE WALKER and GROUND ZEROES were meant to be watershed moments to transition Naked Snake the hero into Big Boss the scheming villain. In order to fight monsters in the form of Skullface, XOF, and Cipher (The Patriots), he indeed became a monster himself. One fine with manipulating his own cloned sons. Because after those watershed events, he knew that he had been fighting as a field combat commander instead of as a general directing forces. In order to take down Cipher, he had to upgrade from a knight into a king. And it is hard being a king when you are a good man. Big Boss knew this and decided to take action. And that's his legacy.
Wow...I think you completely changed my mind on Venom Snake and MGSV. I didn't like the game that much after I finished it for the first time, however with time and this video in particular I have gained a newfound appreciation of it. Great work, thank you for making this.
7:15 that's incredible, I never noticed that. I play inverted, so I always have to manually change controls when starting games, and I'm only now realizing I never had to with this game
I also like to think that Kiefer voicing both Big Boss and Venom is a good idea as Venom is to believe he is the real Big Boss. So everytime he hears Big Boss speak, Venom instead hears himself.
What a great essay! The inability of Venom to let go is something I didn't really think about before watching your vid, but it makes so much sense, and Quiet's song gained a whole new meaning for me now: "Birds in the sky Carry these words for me Life tasted sweet: It let me live; let me breathe Love, hurt so bad But still, Saved my soul Flowers of a brighter past: They bloomed so free beneath the sun Memories, I want to give them to you So you can see what we left there When all hope bleeds out What remains is doubt Should've left it all for you, For tomorrow As your time draws near Will you live in fear? Could've left it all for you But we let go" Also, I believe that the option of getting Quiet back as a buddy was added to the game sometime after its release in response to the players' dissatisfaction after completing her story mission, but just as you said in the video I think it's still a cool detail that supports the narrative of not being able to let go. It seems that the longer this game is out, the more appreciation people gain for it, truly a fine wine of gaming
Something that makes Venom an even more tragic figure in my opinion, is the fact the he seemingly doesn't actually remember who he was. He knows he was someone before, he knows what was his job but he doesn't remember anything other than his final moments, for all we know the only memories he has of his past life is the moment he failed to find the second bomb and failed BB.
Venom being a better clone than the actual clones is kinda mirrored in strangeloves tape of memetic cloning that raising children will always be more important than making them and venom was raised by big boss more than his genetic children ever were
The theme echoes in Solidus's story, as well. A huge facet of Solidus's story is that he wanted to leave behind proof of his existence, but couldn't do so through his genes. This led to him leaving behind almost all of his defining traits through Raiden, be it his ruthlessness and love for violence, or his desire to burn down the establishments that seek to control humanity against its will.
Metal Gear solid V is such a Meta game. It’s title called “the phantom pain” a syndrome where individuals feel a sensation on an otherwise missing appendage. Just like the player, we feel like we are playing as Big Boss / Naked Snake when in reality we are not. Or even much deeper than that, Konami hypes this up as a Kojima Game when in reality he was fired half way through the development. The influence of his creativity and direction lingers in the game even when he had departed. A phantom pain.
Since playing V I have often speculated that Punished Snake could have survived the events of Metal Gear. He could have survived even past the end of the series in 2014. Or at least, it might feel nice to believe this.
venom is such a tragic figure, i love him so much. people always ask when did big boss go "bad", when did he turn into a villain. what people missed is that is literally the ending of mgs3, when big boss doesn't shake the president's hand. but that wasn't enough for people, so kojima did peace walker, where big boss is already really villanous, especially if you consider that he has not 1 but 2 child soldiers in his private army (he didn't know paz was pretending to be a minor later). even that wasn't enought for people, so kojima went "here, big boss did to his most loyal guy what the united states government did to the boss" and that's why venom is the best character in the series
The ending of mgs3 is not sufficient on its own. It showed why he turned on America but there is still a huge disparity between the Big Boss of mgs3 and the Big Boss of MG2 who wanted to spread war endlessly and farm war orphans to propagate and endless cycle of conflicts so that soldiers would always be valued and needed. PW definitely resolves that disparity and the using of V by Big Boss the same way The Boss used by the US is the bow on top to really bring the Big Boss story full circle with mgs3s ending. He set out to make sure no soldier would be used and discarded like The Boss was, only for Big Boss to do the same thing to his best, most loyal soldier
The optic nerve thing comes from the way you perceive light it’s an actual condition a lot of people have and it makes lights look like sharp pillars, they turn this into a gameplay mechanic which makes his physical aliment into something that works in tandem with the phantom main element of the bionic arm.
I’ve been thinking about MGSV and Venom a lot lately in terms of its building on the themes of MGS2 (memetic programming, player relationship with mc, etc) and this really helped me see more about both that idea as well as the other themes in MGSV. It’s really made me appreciate the game a lot more. Great video!
What’s sad to me is venom snake is so under layered in the metal gear universe when he deserves just as if not more credibility than solid snake and big boss. Venom snake took on a lot for being essentially a normal soldier. Only he never got credit for it, and no one remembers him. He was killed by someone claiming to be his clone but wasn’t, and he died wearing someone else’s face. Venom snake not only lived up to big bosses legacy but enhanced it entirely
Damn, this video is beautiful, Venom´s story is so gorgeous and brutal tat it brings me to tears. I too think he is one of my favorite character of the series.
My friends and I all loved Metal Gear, playing every game and giving each other nicknames from the characters we all loved in our own way, Venom was mine so I feel biased to him, but he is legit my favorite MG character. So beautifully tragic of a man, yet more of a true successor to The Boss than Big Boss himself.
This video was great: complete, emotional, perfectly edited. Waoh! Thank you Boss, it's always important to keep MGS in the minds of future generations.
Thank you for making this. Thank you for exploring how profoundly good and impactful this story was not only as a standalone narrative, but as such a wonderful device for the entire franchise.
I just wanna theorise- replaying quiets mission over and over to unlock her seems obsessive, she could potentially be a figment of Venom’s memory like the whole Paz situation on mother base.
"I won't scatter your sorrow to the heartless sea" is gotta be one of, if not *the* saddest, heartbreaking and touching monologues I ever heard in my life, and every time it cuts just as deep as the first time 😿
By the time the parasite mission rolled around, I had decked out my base and focused on recruiting a and s ranked soldiers....... Boy was it painful to kill them
I’ve never played a mgs game aside from watching someone play snake eater on ps2 but that’s all I needed to get hooked. Maybe one day Kojima will grace us with a stealth shooter again, oh boy would that be a day.
Omg thanks for including me! I love the crocodile hat!!!!
I am Pomu, and you are too. Carry that with you wherever you go.
@@multicoloredwiz Timestamp? I was running this in the background lol
Pomu eater
@@multicoloredwiz were all pomu at the end
You shouldn't be here
Punished Snake is my favorite snake. His inability to let go is what makes him his own big boss. He's a medic at heart. Trained to help in the battle field. Wanting to heal and bring peace makes so much sense.
Well said
You can absolutely see Venom's own personality come through in a bunch of situations. He may no longer know who he is, but he is still himself.
@F6LabsVideo that's such a succinct way of explaining his character wow
I think this shows the most on Venom interactions with Paz. The way he cares for her is pretty much his old medic self crawling out the Big Boss persona a little, even if he doesn't realize. Venom's side as medic regrets not noticing the second bomb inside Paz and not saving her, that's why his subconscious creates all that scenario that she's alive, as a way to deal with the guilt.
At least, it is how I suppose.
Trash. He was brainwashed. Not even a Snake. Just a dude. The NPC we had to PC.
The fact, that Big Boss forced V into the same situation his mother figure THE Boss lost her life, truly shows, that he become the very thing he swore to destroy
Big Boss didnt do anything, he gets a lot of undeserved hate. It was Zero that threw the plan together due to desperation, Big Boss just capitalized on it, even sent V the tape calling him a friend.
@@KWH-PortCityShota what kind of "friend" orders a friend to sacrifice their entire existence and sense of self just to survive?
What the fuck is this?
@@KWH-PortCityShota he wasn't against it one bit. he was 100 percent fine with using an entire hospital AND Venom as meat shields to build his psycho military nation behind the scenes.
@@mercury2157 If you listen to the tapes, he openly expresses his hatred towards the idea of making a body double as he values V's free will but Ocelot was the one who manages to convince him to do it by saying something along the lines of "He was willing to sacrifice himself to save you before, I'm sure he'd be perfectly fine with doing it again."
@@WoobertAIO 1. Big Boss didnt set this up, dude was in a coma for 9 years while 3 of the richest men in the world were planning his future. 1 was looking to kill him. He's a key well respected figure head looking to unite the world (or at least soldiers), if anything happened to him it wouldnt be good, hence Les enfant terribles 2. They were battling for power with the patriot system/A.I who had forces outside X.O.F that mostly wanted Big Boss (along with everyone else who was a threat) under subjugation, some issues like preserving a personal identity are probably the least of your concerns. Venom wanted to help build a new system so they all could be free, but this becomes a issue later 3. It wasnt a easy decision for Zero or Ocelot (Probably harder for Ocelot since Zero mostly cared for Snake). Consider how hot of a situation this was dealing with the U.N. issue & mix up with X.O.F/Skull Face, there wasnt a lot of time to craft "the perfect contingency plan; Bottom line? Its complicated, with A LOT of gray, we should get off the high horse & have a little bit of sympathy for all parties, including Venom, but Big Boss is very misunderstood.
It’s also clear that the some of the members of Diamond Dogs know that V isn’t big boss. Sometimes when soldiers salute you they’ll say “ I don’t care who you are boss, I’ll serve you no matter what”
I feel this is more about the honor system rather than his identity
@@gdxnsk nope, honor has nothing to do with it. They start to say that line only after the player has discovered the truth.
I'm pretty sure that's just Venom dreaming them saying that, trying to find peace and self-acceptance.
@@theoriginalchefboyardee1740 pyrocynical would love this game, literally an all in le head simulator
Wow so even though he's the body double, they still care about him because that's their Big Boss
Venom died for Big Boss, just like Venom's soldiers died for him. He is the most loyal of all characters in the mgs series, even more than The Boss.
Venom has to be the most compassionate ,loyal ,respectful and patient snake out of all snakes
V deserved so much more than to be sacrificed for an dying old legend. A willing lamb and a true Diamond Dog
It's all the more reason to admire Solid and Solidus in comparison, really. They refused to accept their roles as pawns in a much wider agenda. Despite their past deeds (especially in Solidus' case), they fought back against the forces that sought to manipulate, execute, or otherwise exploit them and fought until the end for a better world that they themselves likely wouldn't get to see. Venom learned the truth, but he still aided in Big Boss's plans, agendas, and uprisings and helped him cheat a death that they both knew he deserved.
Vemom is the real big boss the real one is a coward
@@mercury2157 Solid took the mantle, the legend of the codename snake, and brought it true till the very end
@@thegamingprozone1941 In the tapes, it's shown that the real Big Boss was hesitant to go through with the Venom Snake idea but was coerced into it by Ocelot who said that Venom was already willing to sacrifice his life to save his boss and that in the end, he would be proud to carry on his legacy.
@Lukas Ruston and Big Boss still ate it up and basically gives Venom good boy points in the Truth tape. The only thing I can give him is that people are wrong when they say Big Boss had Venom killed by Snake, considering he kept trying to call off the mission once they realized Snake was much stronger than they'd first assumed.
Don't forget to mention that the version of "Man Who Sold the World" is the cover by Midge Ure, and not the Bowie original. Which gives hits the body double twist even more impact.
I always loved that detail. It even brought midge ure more recognition!
Ha! Nice. Ive never thought of it that way.
the superior version
fun fact, a fun detail is that the pacing of both is just different enough that you cannot synch up the songs. the midge ure rendition is a half second too slow, and it carries over and fucks up any attempt at synching
He actually did a video about that years ago, I’ll post the link for y’all
Losing Quiet was one of the most impactful moments for me in MGSV because she is so overpowered that I ended up using her 95% of the time. She saved my ass so many times I couldn't begin to count, I genuinely relied on her to watch my back. Helicopters were no big deal with Quiet and a decent supply of frag grenades. So when I lost her there was a palpable sense of loss in not having that humming over the radio or the feeling of coordinating sniper shots. MGSV is truly something special
It takes 80 bond to unlock her trank rifle with a silencer.
Before that happanes, she allmost allways murders the people who refuse to get arrested peacefully or are activating your reflex mode. That constamtly happens even with people you've already tranked or even are currently choking unconsious. It's just infuriating. And if you're using the unsilenced trank rifle from bond 20, she can even put the whole outpost on allert with stupid unordered shots like that.
Her scouting abilityy takes time and is overall inferior to Ddog or even a pill of nocturnum.
Her ability to call free suply drops is only realy usefull in free roam, because you are not allowed to equip the infinity bandana togather with the riden suit, but by that time, she has allredy left.
If right after recruiting her you are using her on any mission other than metalic archea, simply to get her to bond 80 for that silenced trank rifle, you are straight up making your life more difficult.
The back up, back down mission already gives you the best rocket launcher in the game to deal with it's choper, everywhere else it's waaaaaay easier to just throw your own flare granade, find an AA gun emplacement or just use the Dwalker's rocket launcher.
Oh and how could I forget:) Super sniper, she is so accurate, she can even shoot bullets between moving rotor blades... in a cutscene - in gameplay an enemy wearing a simple helmet might cost you an S rank, her religion forbids her form aiming that lasser sight a bit lower.
@@fruktoid6950 I'm sorry she hasn't called you back.
@Hati Hróðvitnisson , I am sorry, that a silly hidden emblem gimmic has actualy forced me into recompleting the game from the start, all for the sake of arguably the most useless buddy in the game, who also likes to sabotage your perfect stealth/no traces attempts.
Not cool, Kojima.
@@fruktoid6950 Skill issue
My first clue that something was up with “V” was the fact the even though he is blind in his right eye. He still had it. Boss’s eye was destroyed when Ocelot shot it out in Mgs3.
I thought I was being gaslit about his eye by Kojima but then the part with the Mammal Pod came and i was certain that the leaks about him being the medic were true.
Ocelot didn't shoot Boss in the eye, it was the fire from the gunpowder that took out Naked's eye. Basically no bullet made contact with Boss' eye.
@@citizenvulpes4562 dude he like blows half his eyeball out of his skull
@@raditzhoneyham yeah the gas discharge would be enough to obliterate an eyeball, and we see that Big Boss's eye was gone
@@raditzhoneyham I don't understand what are you trying to accomplish here he clearly stated that eye got destroyed and how you just repeated it trying to act smart....
I love the fact that you can replay quiets boss fight to reunlock her it really ties in well with how he cant let go of things and how she's probably just another phantom/illusion and not actually real just like paz was
It should be noted that this was added in later on in an update after players complained about not being able to keep Quiet around after her last mission
@@The_Weasel_ makes sense, imagine buying all her upgrades right before her disappearance
I like this idea but also hate it cause a it makes sense V has a fucking piece of shrapnel and showing back up to the place you met your battlefield gf and fighting there multiple times with snipers or fighting there in general could trigger a flashback. BUT i hate it cause we already had paz and it's kind of cheapend by that and sorta a cop out
Also just me tho ydy
@@giovannicervantes2053 any head canon works tbh but it feels like a quality of life improvement because it would suck to lose quiet after investing sm GMP on her skins and guns
@@madara992 yeah, whether it's implied to be a hallucination by Venom or really just one of those "this is purely gameplay and doesn't reflect canon" things, allowing the players to keep Quiet as a buddy post-ending is cool
V is one of my favorite video game main characters ever. A double who could never be his own person again, yet coming to care for quiet in a way the real big boss never could, a person in a similar hell to him. I hope his end brought him some peace…
Thanks for that boss…
Well if it isn't saucy Jack. Well said.
The real big boss would've killed quiet
Where’s yo pfp from?
omg v(irgin) from dmc5??
@@biz117 i think he means Vigil
Big Boss's whole tape speech to V is also Kojima talking to you, the player. He's thanking you, saying metal gear could never have happened without you, and from now on big boss's story is yours.
It gets me in the feels that Venom Snake was one of your original guys from Peace Walker who was chosen and survived all the way up to Metal Gear. He served Big Boss until his end
My guess is he's the drill sergeant at the beginning of the game
@@giovannicervantes2053that's my headcannon lmao
Last day in outer heaven is cannon to me. That ending for venom was beautiful
@Christopher Klein venom doesn't seem like that type of person to get mad (or at least extremely pissed)
@Christopher Klein exactly, you get it. And to me it's not Canon. My Canon is that venom sent went his own way after his own identity was revealed. And big boss didn't take kindly to that so he put solid snake against venom to kill him.
@Christopher Klein venom snake became the true big boss. A better big boss. One wanting to end conflict.
@Christopher Klein my interpretation is that Snake is literally right outside his door, hence all the rapid gunfire going on outside. He was likely re-listening to the truth tape AND N313 and contemplating where it all went wrong, and turning to face his death once he realized that Snake was stronger than he and Big Boss anticipated. That, and because playing along with the Big Boss legend had led to a death that he knew deep down the real Big Boss deserved, but he would be taking in his place, just like on that helicopter in 1975.
@@mercury2157 this is my interpretation of the hallway scene in mgsv
"Venom snake walks towards solid snake, his dead men around him. Gunshots can be heard everywhere, there's bullets on the floor, blood splattered on the walls. And he's forced to relive the memories of that day during the outbreak. He feels like a shell, a demon, nothing left now but one last fight before it all blows up to hell. No more place for outer heaven. "
Finally, always love people giving love to Venom
I believe that Venom is his own interpretation of big boss which is why he acts a bit different to big boss
He was a medic, so he still had some leftover benevolence from his previous persona
They cut his "training" short because of the hospital attack.
So he was only 90% (or so) Big Boss and still 10% his old self (in more subtle ways)
@@misterhoobomasterperhaps thats the love of music and ability to parse the hell he went through but later on
Venom subconsciously acts like how he used to see Big Boss when he was a medic, how every soldier saw him: as a stoic tragic hero, as the Legendary Mercenary, not a warmonger addicted to conflict.
"I won't scatter your sorrow to the heartless sea" this scene is one of the very few in any form of media that has legitimately made me cry.
for being a brain damaged dude, V could pull together a damn good speech
hey stop you're gonna make me cry I could barely hold it in there
I really wish the big reveal in this game would’ve had David Hayter voicing the real big boss.
I think they might have planned to do that but using Hayter would have spoiled the twist immediately.
@@Scatmanseth they could’ve found another way to go about the story though. Like not have ismail talk. Idk what they could’ve done in ground zeroes but I think they could’ve figured something out.
@@Jordan-xx2jd easy, during the first mission it’s the same as normal, we see Big Boss as Ishmael because of the hypnotherapy used on V, when he finally remembers and we replay it, we see Big Boss’ true face and hear his true voice, why did we hear Kiefer Sutherland during GZ? Because it’s V’s memory of what happened so he hears his voice
@@elderrusty541 brilliant
Can't see Hayter voicing BB in MGSV anyway. Wouldn't really work imo.
For me the reunion part with Quiet is just like one of the Hallucinations of V to satisfy and help his mind.
That depends on what ending you are looking at that's not the tru ending that's just one of the mission's quiet dies there is no reunion with her the tru ending his him finding out who he really is and big boss telling him on the tape recorder
I doubt reunion is cannon, its just a gameplay consideration bc quiet is a good buddy and they dont want to punish you for conpleting mission 45 (although that mission is punishment enough lol)
Venom is an awesome character , despite never asking for the role that was given to him. he ultimately accepted it and played his part. Just like The boss did. He is basically The boss incarnate. And his importance to the Series should not be undermined because although he was the body double , he was most definitely a big deal. Since everything that he did during those 11 years ultimately started this series. And it's sad that he won't be remembered in the World of metal gear in a way he's just like The boss. Heroes forgotten in history
And, as he's forgotten in the history of mgs, he's an underdog in the fanbase as well, he truly played his part
He is more like the Skullface of Big boss. A guy erased from history just to clean the mess of their bosses
Ricky Bobby: Dumb
Kojima: It's not Dumb.
Ricky Bobby: It's Dumb.
It's great because it contextualizes the way people talk about Big Boss in later games. In Christian mythology, there's a concept called "Bilocation," which was a miracle some saints were said to be capable of, which is basically the idea that someone can appear in two different places at the same time.
Well think about it. Big Boss could LITERALLY be in two different places at the same time because he was two people. When you hear people in the other games talking about the guy like he was the second coming of Christ, it suddenly all makes sense. You could hear "Oh yeah Big Boss blew up a weapons depot in Guatemala yesterday," and then five seconds later hear "Oh yeah Big Boss blew up a refinery in North Korea yesterday," and both of those things did happen.
Twin Snakes, if you will.
Venom Snake was an absolute unit. It took Solid Snake using rocket launchers to finally take him down. Meanwhile, the real Big Boss was taken down by a makeshift flamethrower.
Poor guy was there to both prove and disprove there can be only one Snake and one Big Boss...
Wait was he Big Boss defeated by flame because of MGS4 he has no burns on him.
@@AmericanDanteThat’s because they used Liquid’s and Solidus skin to repair him
@Solid Spider it actually gets confusing from here. It's obvious Kojima didn't come up with Venom at the time MGS4 was made, so I think Big Boss actually was meant to be blown to smithereens in MG1 at first and inexplicably rebuilt in MG2. Solidus's body/biomort was missing skin (obviously to replace Big Boss's charred visage), but it was missing limbs, too.
@@mercury2157 Actually I think it was said in metal gear 2 big boss used a body and double. Because Solid killed him with a can of hairspray and a lighter. That’s why he had all his limps.
@@solidspider6509 Phantom Pain's timeline clarified Venom was in MG1, while Big Boss was running Zanzibarland in MG2. The missing limbs might have just been an oversight from Kojima.
At the end of Paz's hallucination section and you get the last tape from her made me feel sad for Venom. I always assume that before Venom became who he is in MGSV, the two must have been close to one another, and being unable to save Paz was one of Venom's biggest regret to the point he started hallucinating that Paz survive. If he had saved Paz, a lot of things would have changed for him, and avoided the fate that awaits him.
Another thing to note is how Venom is more compassionate. Like with Huey, if it was the real Big Boss, Huey would have been executed. Quiet would have been killed too. Venom on the other hand chooses to spare Huey (granted that it's more of a slow and painful judgment that leads to the death of his own doing) Venom trusts Quiet even going so far as to almost jump in a pool of acid to save her.
These differences between Venom and the real Big Boss are what make them be their own character instead of Venom just simply being another self-insert. At the end of it all though, it didn't matter cause eventually, somewhere down the line, Venom finally succumbed to the demon.
And it gets to you to with the theme of "another day in another war without end" around the endgame and you realize that shit he went through hell twice and was broken by the endless fighting and became the monster BB wanted
I think it's implied that Venom is in the pictures with Paz, we see some MSF soldiers with the entire crew, but there is one or two that are in more pictures than just Peace Day.
Its not that Venom was close to Paz, its that the entirety of MSF saw her as a poor little girl who hates war, as an "Angel of peace", an idealized icon.
Venom is in denial over her being a Cipher agent, which is why the Paz hallucination is, conveniently, the Paz that MSF loved, the innocent Angel of Peace. In the end its all Venom's way to cope, not just with that "loss of innocence", but also with the guilt for not finding the second bomb.
The entirety of Paz's hallucination, the fake memory of him removing the second bomb from her and the explosion being caused by an RPG, is just wish fullfillment, what Venom wishes would have happened.
The final tape is just Venom coming to terms with the truth: Peace Day never came, Paz was a Cipher agent and she died from the bomb planted in her.
But also that that shouldnt be a reason to not thrive for peace, to try to make something close to that idealized fantasy they lived in MSF.
I feel like there's one thing that wasn't focused on enough in this video that I saw in comments on other videos on MGSV. Venom is, first and foremost, a combat medic. His entire life, up until the helicopter explosion, was defined by the *NEED* to not let go and save everyone he could. No matter how much the entire world seemingly tries to break him down in every way, he never lets it stop him from trying to save people close to him, even at his own detriment.
That's an excellent and nuanced point.
The scene post mission 43 with soldier's ashes is one of most powerful scenes in this game and never fails to make me shiver.
3:30 fun little extra to the demon appearance, the strap that always hangs behind snake (and uses to strap himself to the chopper) acts as a tail
Big Boss' name is John.
You can get a silver cyber arm.
You're a phantom called V.
Let the legend come back to life, we have a city to burn.
34:00 It's also interesting to see how during the helicopter scene, Paz' arms are crossed in an effort to keep others (V) away and shield them. Whereas in the last illusion her arms open wide up, almost as if to welcome Venom to her and the truth.
I think people are really misinterpreting the ending. The medic was a devout soldier to Big Boss's army, and was clearly glad to be apart of the legend too and play that role. He was a 24/7 soldier, like all the others who fought for big boss, so he wasnt losing any kind of personal life when they brainwashed him. He just became what he always wanted, a soldier at the level of big boss. As for big boss himself, he didnt start this program. Zero started the program to protect big boss, and big boss decided to stay and protect Venom instead of just let him be killed and have xof think he was dead. After waking up to see his best soldier was now living his life, he let him take over as he himself goes off to start building what they both were pursuing this whole time ever since the events of Peacewalker. And then theres the fact that people are forgetting that the Patriots literally control the world at this point, so the supposed evil that Big Boss was doing during MG1 and MG2 were propaganda in order to set him up as a villain, leading to them sending Solid Snake to stop his uprising against the total control of the patriots. Solid Snake was essentially a puppet all the way until the Plant chapter of mgs2, where he fiinally was operating out of their control. And if you noticed, solid snake become a "terrorist" too after mgs1, when he went around destroying metal gears. Once you stopped abiding by their system, youre labeled a villain. Thats not to say Big Boss wasnt flawed, but he by no means was evil. He just wanted an independent soldier state, and had to rely on nukes to guarantee that the nations of the world would leave them be, hence why every soldier and even enemies he encountered praised him.
Thank you! You get it.
Well said
Yeah I thought it was weird he didn't mention Zeros involvement in Cypress since that's a detail I read on the wiki just earlier this week
Also even without the brainwashing i don't think there would have been much of the medic left when he woke up, dude had like a hand span sized chunk of shrapnel in his brain
Bro, That was definitely what I see all the way! Why do people always create such negativity on this Amazing story and Characters?
It's taken me a few years to come to terms with the ending of Phantom Pain. I pre-ordered the game (I'll never forget, Sept 1st, 2015), requested off of work, and smashed my way through the game in a few days. As my friend and I were watching the ending (after unlocking the "truth" mission), we just looked at each other like "uhhhhhh, what?" and I spent hours upon hours on reddit, watching YT dissections, etc just trying to make sense of it. I was a part of the r/NeverBeGameOver subreddit since the first day it was created. Why were we, the loyal followers of the story, bamboozled? That honestly was the real "phantom pain"
The badass character of Big Boss turned out to be a coward, hiding behind the cover of Venom Snake. I felt betrayed, playing the entire game as some random irrelevant dude who was tricked into thinking he is someone he's not. Where was the fan service? Why was Big Boss's voice different? Where was the part where Big Boss recruits Gray Fox? What about Solidus training child soldiers in Liberia and eventually finding Raiden? Why was everyone in the game acting so weird? Where was the special final scene where you face off against Solid Snake who would be voiced by David Hayter? What part was Kojima referring to where he said he might have to "leave the games industry" because of it? It honestly really fucked me up for a while.
I participated in the online nuclear disarmament in an effort to unlock chapter 3. I had to have the answers. However, I have come to realize the masterpiece that MGSV:TPP actually is. I replayed it last year and really soaked in all the details. S-ranked every mission, etc. What a phenomenal game. A lot of people think that the game was unfinished, which is why I hoped for so long that eventually we would get more. But I truly think that we played the game exactly as Kojima intended (outside of the Kingdom of the Flies mission). When I first beat the game, I remember telling people that the game sucked and that I didn't recommend playing it. The more time I had to reflect on the game, the more I appreciated it and understood its message. Awesome video, awesome game, awesome character.
I've always viewed Big Boss as a coward ever since the way he "fought" Snake at the end of Metal Gear 2. Gray Fox had the honor to challenge Snake to a fistfight, while Big Boss decided to play cat and mouse with him while armed with an assault rifle.
@@mercury2157 I see what you mean. Obviously though, by playing as him in MGS3 and MGSPW, we got to know him more intimately and we saw that he was much more than just the way he was portrayed in MG2. We always knew he'd turn into a villain in some fashion. But having a lot of it happen "behind the scenes" felt like a huge slap to the face back when the game came out.
This can be seen as either you coming in terms with reality, or you absolutely lost it.
@@namespeepo4514 Basically, it just wasn't the game I wanted at the time. It's very different than other MGS games which, thanks to the power of retrospective, I actually really like.
“That’s all I have to feel, that pain, all I had to remind myself that I exist here……” - Skull Face
I truly feel sorry for Venom. He was a medic, he saved lives, and just because he wanted to protect lives, he was ultimately sent down a path of inevitable pain and misery. I never really thought it like that, but that makes Big Boss really a villain.
Venom is indeed tragic but people act like big boss did the right thing of using venom as a shield and leaving him to do dirty work whilst he builds outer heaven behind the scenes I think people should accept that big boss became a morally questionable and out of touch person.
The idea that Big Boss is not so bad, its because Venom, or before becominf Venom, Medic, would say yes to be double and help Big Boss
@@cantsuggestareasonablename9101The idea that Big Boss is not so bad, its because Venom, or before becominf Venom, Medic, would say yes to be double and help Big Boss
It's always nice to see people look back at MGSV and see that it really wasn't as bad as everyone thought
The story is there, but it scatter through the tape, guard conversation, or interrogation, it's not directly tell you about it. Have you ever interrogate one of your hit mark in the mission? Most of them is Big Boss's fans, and they fell honored if you kill them.
It's very far from a bad game. And people looooove to say "Oh don't play MGSV, it's not a finished game!", well... If you made someone play that game and never told them it was unfinished, they would never know.
nah its still pretty bad. The story being scattered around on various tapes, along with the incredibly lifeless cutscenes (except for a few) doens't make for a great experience. Its obvious that we were given an unfinished product that kojima took too long to finish.
Just because youtubers make hour long vidoes overanalyzing shit and saying its good doesn't mean they're right.
@@KABLAMMATS that's because you heard what happened right hideo Kojima never got to fully finish the game because Konami fired him and took his rights to metal gear away that's why it was only half finish but I still loved it good game best metal gear solid games ever made by him and his last
@@GentlyUsedFrog I love that game I played that game like 5 times in a row really enjoyed it to me it's good and finish
"Due to the lack of staff, D Horse has been assigned as the new head of the medical unit"
I'm practically estatic that you did this video. And by that, you can tell that I'm a MGS fan.
There’s so much to MGSV that just goes plain ignored by the wider audience. I’m so glad you’re still making vids on the series Meti. Seriously a GOATED analysis RUclipsr
Yes! Definitely the best RUclipsr, He made a lot of great points.
Venom is my favourite of all the Snakes. He is a man who hasn't found any peace ever since Ground Zeroes and yet, he carries on. He perseveres and does as his duty demands.
It's really amazing how it took only one game for Kojima to make Venom Snake everyone's favourite snake in the series. It's nuts really if you think about it. It's like he did the whole replacement of solid snake thing over again, except it actually worked this time (I mean I love Raiden but I know a lot of people don't). Everyone's favourite was either Solid or Naked, and now it's neither of them.
@@duffman18 Ehhh, many people either like naked or solid snake. When the game came out people did not like venom but as the game aged people began slowly liking venom however most people like venom snake as last when compared to all the other playable snakes (i know raiden is technically a snake but it doesnt count). For me i hate having favourites but i think venom snake would be my favourite out of all the snakes not because hes badass but hes actually very relatable for me and i strongly connect to tragic characters like venom snake.
@@duffman18 "everyone" is an overstatement, venom has this much popularity because there are many people who have only plaved mgsV or have played the whole series but started with V, causing them to like venom the most. venom snake has the least in-game personality out of all the snakes. he barely talks unlike solid snake, and doesn't joke unlike naked snake in mgs3. he barely even hasa characfter of his own
Bro, you somehow managed to explain to me why i love Venom snake so much.
Been a fan since MGS1. When MGS3 came out i didn't know which of the "snakes" was my favorite. When MGS V came out it slowly and gradually shifted to Venom.
Now i know why.
He's _me._ I'm *_him._*
He has trouble letting go, he tries desperately to hold on to the past, everything he creates disappears and dissolves.
It's like looking in a mirror, goddamn.
Holy shit, i don't think I've ever related to a character this much.
The fact Kojima wanted Venom to represent the players just makes this even better. Or worse.
Damn.
We need kojima to make mgsv 2
@@haroldnecmann7040 the phantom pain extended edition/the lost dossiers
It’s insane how he also has the memories and experiences of big boss so he’s more than a body double he’s kind of like his other self
His memories are incomplete so he doesn't have all the mannerisms of the original but your pretty much right
He's Big Boss's Phantom..
@@tenkyu778 yeah your right
Yes because his DNA is in his clone
@@danielhighland8866Not necessarily all big boss combat memories are displayed and put into venoms brain and big boss does not give venom his dna or genes etc however despite that venom does still show incredible skill without any superior genes that big boss presumably has.
Venom Snake actually quickly grew to become one of my favorite video game characters of all time alongside Kazuya Mishima and Vergil, the more and more I learned about him. Dude went through the most in my opinion out of anyone in the Metal Gear Series (except maybe the Boss) and went down in history as a villain even after all he did.
When I got to the vocal cord parasite mission on the base I genuinely started tearing up and crying when I saw them saluting
The tragedy of Venom Snake is a criminally overlooked arc in the chaos that is the Metal Gear series. A combat medic gives his life over and over to save others, and rises from Hell to Outer Heaven in order to give the unwilling soldiers of the world a place to choose their own destinies, only to be misunderstood as a threat and destroyed by a deranged peacekeeping AI misleading another copy of the same man.
The horn isn’t just a morality system. It’s a delusion system. The more heroic you think/act as big boss, the harder the horn presses against his brain.
The story of V and MGSV as a whole is honestly my favorite one of the series. This video is definitely one of my favourite videos that you have made about Metal Gear and I can't wait for the next one.
I genuinely think this might be your best video yet, i love it. Thanks meti.
I'm glad you like it
@@MetiNotTheBadGuy We LOVE it
Imagine being a random soldier and then go down as bad guy
that's what happened to some soldiers in Vietnam after they only did an order from their officer. Some veterans even did warcrimes because they would get shunned, and mistreated if they didn't follow the orders. Heck you would be called a commie simp, and would probably spend your life in poverty if you didn't follow the orders.
You're talking about Skull Face, right?
@@doclouis4236 no? Skullface wasn't even a random soldier he was Naked Snakes support unit
Nah the Patriots are evil. They control the world BB wanted freedom for all who desired it. The nukes and metal gears were to prevent The Patriots from attacking so they sent Solid to take down Outer heaven and make Solid a terrorist once he started destroying metal gears. Venom is still a medic, a savior of life he fought to protect the dream of peace and freedom of those who didnt wish to be under the Patriots control. Naked is a villain for forcing venom into mgs1 to save himself. Venom needed to be killed with several rocket launchers while Naked was beaten by a homemade flamethrower and died of old age. Venom was basically a metal gear himself.
It's such a loving send-off to have the player of such a long-running series to have a direct connection to the long-term lore regarding the "legend of Big Boss."
I just wish he could've finished the game, but what we got is good... after you have to forensically piece together what Kojima was going for in liue of a proper ending beyond the reveal of who Venom Snake is. I was fairly sure it was going to be Gray Fox before he had his inhumane experimentation done to him by Para-Medic, but what Kojima went for is more unique and unexpected.
So you gotta wonder if he lifted the idea from Halo: Reach, that did much the same thing for the Halo universe. MGS5 did come out just few years after Reach, after all.
He did finish the game. The only thing we lost out on was a DLC they cut early in development.
It literally wasn't finished lmao. Kingdom of the Flies should have been in it and Kojima is probably only saying the game was finished because he's salty about it too
we literally took 6 years to understand the vision of hideo kojima
It only took a Month for me to see since last year, Playing Legacy collection to Mgs V. What a amazing story, very sad but, Beautiful. I was expected to be scared and to see the story very, very Ugly but, it was the opposite. Funny part I never played Metal Gear series until last year, I was Blown away.
The love of Quit and V is very well done. Their love is free. It's not romantic or sexual, it's friendship, it's trust, it's respect, it's the love that was born on the battlefield, like the Boss and Naked.
MGSV is the best game of all time.
I'll give you nonsexual, but it's definitely romantic.
Like Solid Snake said, love CAN bloom on the battlefield
its a russian tunt
Nah, it’s definitely love of the romantic and intimate kind - not platonic by any means.
Damn, that’s what I thought of Quiet and V of their true love.
The part that makes Venom to the Demon ( killing his soldiers in the outbreak) literally punished me, i had completed every mission on S rank and did every sidemission and just out of curiosity I wnated to test something with that mission and replayed it, while i was in that mission my FOB got invaded and i responded to the call. After the FOb was over and the game tried to put me back in my mission the game got stuck on a infinite loading screen. Nothing could fix it and my save was lost, so i started over and even replicated my Symbol but changed it to be Red and added the word punished.
I'm still waiting for the inevitable videos on Raiden and Senator Armstrong.
I'm not even memeing here. Between MGS2 and MGR, Raiden is one of my favorite protagonists in any game, and Senator Armstrong is a fantastic antagonist, and a character with a surprising amount of depth, given his limited screen time
I've been practically pining for a Solid Snake video, so I'm assuming that once Meti covers every relevant Metal Gear hero and villain, he'll get to Raiden and Armstrong, with the grand finale to his Metal Gear character analysis will be The Perfection Solid Snake.
@@mercury2157 that sounds incredibly likely. Almost as likely as Raiden being the video right before Snake
@@8-bitsarda747 oh that's definitely how it's gonna be. If anything, it'll be Raiden or the real Big Boss as the penultimate analysis before the grand Solid Snake finale.
Loved MGSV so much that when a guy I worked with was hearing me talk about the game and wanted to play it, but he was broke...So I bought him a copy and homie damn near lost his girlfriend cause he fell deep into the game lol
The way V speaks at the burial at sea, always, ALWAYS, makes me shed a tear, reminds me of my own friends I've lost over the years.
I'm quite certain the entire Paz storyline is to highlight the trauma that the combat medic who becomes V. Imagine you're trying to save a young woman who, by all accounts, brought joy to the PMC's on motherbase, and you not only watch her die due to your failure, but her death causes your "rebirth" as Venom Snake.
Venom truly is a tragic character of all time.
Big Boss can criticise Zero all he wants for creating clones of him, when in the end he did the exact same
If you look the tapes the person who created Venom was Zero and Ocelot. Big Boss just rolled with it because he didn't had many options. But still that is no excuse.
What's interesting to note is that in the old Photograph, and in her appearences in Venom's delusional episodes, Paz keeps her more anime-esque proportions from Peace Walker, like the larger eyes, a trait that isn't shared with any of the other characters in the game, or even with Paz herself at the end of Ground Zeroes.
He remembers her as a child
MGS V brought the story full circle. Favorite game in the series
27:30 “Let’s let the boss Decide. We Live and die by your order Boss! Boss! Peace walker ☮️ humming 😞🫡. The words I’ll never forget
My favourite bit of foreshadowing is that The Man Who Sold The World, the song you hear right at the start of the game, is a COVER VERSION
Your magnum opus. I love the lore of these games so much. V is a amazing character that redefines the meaning of these game.
32:50 Amnesia can be caused by severe psychological trauma. In fact, it is the most common cause of amnesia. I lost the memory of 2 years of my life because of this.
I've always identified with Venom Snake. Having no real identity of his own is something he and I share to a degree.
Which is why Solid is a superior man. Regardless of where he or you came from, he'd still encourage you to go out there any make your own identity.
How?
Fun fact about the Blue Morpho butterfly, which is mentioned in the PW tapes: the colour of its wings is not due to pigment, it's due to the structure of scales on their wings reflecting blue light, the wings are actually brown and the vibrant blue is an illusion. This illusion plays into the fact that Paz's peace, and Paz herself in both games is unattainable and never there to begin with (with V doing this in a more literal sense)
I think the best example of Huey would be Guillermo Marconi, he "invented" the radio in the 1880's stealing Tesla's works about wide variety of things from electro magnetism, induction, his wireless devices essays, even the idea behind the radio, Marconi just put together everything without mentioning Tesla, Tesla demanded him just wanting the credit for the invention, Tesla had to fight Marconi the rest of his life for the recognition, few time after Tesla died, the court gave all the credentials and patents to his rightfull owner, Tesla... What a waste of time
just finished watching the video and after years i finally felt like actually saying "goodbye boss"
The layers of the David Bowie song about a Doppelganger for the intro are just so genius. It's not JUST that it's a song about a doppelganger, it's that the song is a cover. Not the original artist. The hospital mission has to be one of my favorite events in all of gaming.
Thank you for still making Metal Gear based videos
Whenever i hear you talk about Metal gear
I feel like I've just been effected by Jail house lock, King crimson, Paper moon king, and D4C all at the same time...and I looooo--La Li Lu Le Lo---ve it
You some kind of La Li Lu Le?
@TheAnimationStation / Aurora
Sorry do you not get the reference? If so don't fret, I don't exactly know why its in the games either. I just heard Meti say it in another metal gear video.😅
But why
@@kaitoguy Idk Metal gear lore is just VERY confusing to me.
Lali-ho?
So glad you did this video, Venom deserves a video for himself and it's amazing you managed to put so much work for it. Nice editing too as always !
Cheers from Brazil lad, take care !
You hope hatred might someday replace the pain, but it never goes away. It makes a man hideous, inside and out.
MGSV is PTS in so many ways.
Do you think another reason vsnake is called 'punished' could be a meta hint to his punishment (and ultimate death) at the hands of naked snake, basically making him a puppet to spread the legacy of snake? Just something extra to throw out there I guess
I fully believe that his "Punished" name is because he was nearby, he got used to replace the real Big Boss yeah.
I meant more like "tied to fate" or something but yeah
Chips LPs are so fucking legendary, every single Vapor Snake segment is non-stop out loud laughter and when the final final episode spirals into absolute chaos.... it's so beautiful. Long live Mission J Frog.
No matter how many time pases, i will always enjoy a new video reinvindicating MGSV story.
V truly was one of the many tragic characters in the saga, just another soldiers in a war without end.
Also, i love that Pomu cameo ❤️
Time stamp for the cameo?
@@natethegreat7967 21:50
I always thought that for the one "clone" of Big Boss to successfully become, not just him, but the idealized version of him that everyone considers Big Boss to be, to be the memetic clone rather than the genetic ones, was the franchise going full circle, hammering down that "given the right situation and the right story anyone can be shaped into Snake".
S3 Plan: The Videogame.
What gets me about Kiefer Sutherlands vocal performance is how genuinely sad he sounds. He always sounds so tired and sad, like the weight of his mission is constantly bearing down on him.
I almost didn't watch this video because recently I put like 200 hours into V. I wanted to listen to all the tapes, s rank everything, and really try to understand the story being told entirely on my own. I felt like I did a good job and that was my final goodbye to a game I loved. One thing I couldn't understand though is why the medic's trauma would manifest as Paz. Like I understand venom had implanted memories and how the medic probably knew paz, but trauma isn't something that can be implanted in my opinion. When you laid out how it's the medic desperately wishing for a timeline where he found the second bomb, the feels hit me like a truck. Great video, thanks for the extra depression 🫡
The trauma wasn't implanted, it's a manifestation of what remains from his own persona (the medic). The medic feels guilt about the fact he didn't detect a second bomb in Paz she was blown to pieces on the chopper. If you listen carefully to the truth tapes it becomes clear that Venom Snakes transformation into a memetic clone had not been fully completed, they had to wake him up early as XOF found out where they were. So there were traces of his old self left behind which is why he seems kind of off and dissociative the whole game, like he doesn't quite understand who he is - its also why characters like Huey and Kaz, who knew Big Boss most intimately in PW, have to a double take when they see Venom because they sense somethings off about him. Whereas Ocelot, the only other guy in the story who knew the real Big Boss has no such reservations when he meets Venom in the opening - because he's in on the plan.
There is something called ancestral healing. The idea is that trauma is pasted down genetically and can be overcome down the family line.
The original mother base soldiers loved Paz. She was at every event and party they had, Medic couldn’t save her.
John lost himself. He became the very thing he despised, betraying the ideals of The Boss and replacing them with his own. In fighting monsters, he himself had become a monster. He used Venom, the Medic, as the United States had used him. And just like his former masters and then his old friend Zero, he fell into the trap of raising his own ideology above his morality as an individual. In this way, he’d lost sight of what The Boss stood for. “Big Boss” became his personal Cipher, his own ever-growing monster, and he fed his best and most loyal soldier to it in exactly the way that the United States had fed The Boss into the jaws of “peace” and “the greater good.” Even as they respected her and lauded all her accomplishments her masters sliced her throat open with her own son, congratulating themselves on a job well done and admiring The Boss for her loyalty and sacrifice. And exactly like them Big Boss has sliced the throat of the Medic, of Venom Snake, and laid him upon the altar of his new world order for the greater good of all soldiers everywhere. All the while lauding himself as a hero and Venom as a martyr, not recognizing that it was his own abuse of Venom’s loyalty that led to this tragedy and the loss of his individuality.
It was at this moment that Big Boss became a monster. He had adopted everything that he had hated and fought for so long. His dehumanizing “meme” every ounce as gruesome as Cipher and the legacy of Zero, founded on precisely the same principles with only modest and superficial differences. A world without borders; a world unified through “Big Boss”. His transformation, his fall from grace, was now complete. All that was left was a villain that was in opposition to everything that The Boss had once stood for and believed in.
And that's why he's Big Boss.
He's a tragic antagonist.
PEACE WALKER and GROUND ZEROES were meant to be watershed moments to transition Naked Snake the hero into Big Boss the scheming villain.
In order to fight monsters in the form of Skullface, XOF, and Cipher (The Patriots), he indeed became a monster himself. One fine with manipulating his own cloned sons. Because after those watershed events, he knew that he had been fighting as a field combat commander instead of as a general directing forces. In order to take down Cipher, he had to upgrade from a knight into a king. And it is hard being a king when you are a good man. Big Boss knew this and decided to take action. And that's his legacy.
Wow...I think you completely changed my mind on Venom Snake and MGSV. I didn't like the game that much after I finished it for the first time, however with time and this video in particular I have gained a newfound appreciation of it. Great work, thank you for making this.
7:15 that's incredible, I never noticed that. I play inverted, so I always have to manually change controls when starting games, and I'm only now realizing I never had to with this game
I also like to think that Kiefer voicing both Big Boss and Venom is a good idea as Venom is to believe he is the real Big Boss. So everytime he hears Big Boss speak, Venom instead hears himself.
What a great essay! The inability of Venom to let go is something I didn't really think about before watching your vid, but it makes so much sense, and Quiet's song gained a whole new meaning for me now:
"Birds in the sky
Carry these words for me
Life tasted sweet:
It let me live; let me breathe
Love, hurt so bad
But still, Saved my soul
Flowers of a brighter past:
They bloomed so free beneath the sun
Memories, I want to give them to you
So you can see what we left there
When all hope bleeds out
What remains is doubt
Should've left it all for you, For tomorrow
As your time draws near
Will you live in fear?
Could've left it all for you
But we let go"
Also, I believe that the option of getting Quiet back as a buddy was added to the game sometime after its release in response to the players' dissatisfaction after completing her story mission, but just as you said in the video I think it's still a cool detail that supports the narrative of not being able to let go.
It seems that the longer this game is out, the more appreciation people gain for it, truly a fine wine of gaming
Something that makes Venom an even more tragic figure in my opinion, is the fact the he seemingly doesn't actually remember who he was.
He knows he was someone before, he knows what was his job but he doesn't remember anything other than his final moments, for all we know the only memories he has of his past life is the moment he failed to find the second bomb and failed BB.
Man, people finally appreciate V, im so happy
It's about time.
Venom being a better clone than the actual clones is kinda mirrored in strangeloves tape of memetic cloning that raising children will always be more important than making them and venom was raised by big boss more than his genetic children ever were
The theme echoes in Solidus's story, as well. A huge facet of Solidus's story is that he wanted to leave behind proof of his existence, but couldn't do so through his genes. This led to him leaving behind almost all of his defining traits through Raiden, be it his ruthlessness and love for violence, or his desire to burn down the establishments that seek to control humanity against its will.
Metal Gear solid V is such a Meta game. It’s title called “the phantom pain” a syndrome where individuals feel a sensation on an otherwise missing appendage. Just like the player, we feel like we are playing as Big Boss / Naked Snake when in reality we are not. Or even much deeper than that, Konami hypes this up as a Kojima Game when in reality he was fired half way through the development. The influence of his creativity and direction lingers in the game even when he had departed. A phantom pain.
Since playing V I have often speculated that Punished Snake could have survived the events of Metal Gear. He could have survived even past the end of the series in 2014. Or at least, it might feel nice to believe this.
Could well be. I actually hope so
as a lifetime ride or die defender of MGSV and lover of MGS, this is by far the best take on MGSV and Venom i've seen on youtube, thank you
venom is such a tragic figure, i love him so much. people always ask when did big boss go "bad", when did he turn into a villain. what people missed is that is literally the ending of mgs3, when big boss doesn't shake the president's hand. but that wasn't enough for people, so kojima did peace walker, where big boss is already really villanous, especially if you consider that he has not 1 but 2 child soldiers in his private army (he didn't know paz was pretending to be a minor later). even that wasn't enought for people, so kojima went "here, big boss did to his most loyal guy what the united states government did to the boss" and that's why venom is the best character in the series
The ending of mgs3 is not sufficient on its own. It showed why he turned on America but there is still a huge disparity between the Big Boss of mgs3 and the Big Boss of MG2 who wanted to spread war endlessly and farm war orphans to propagate and endless cycle of conflicts so that soldiers would always be valued and needed. PW definitely resolves that disparity and the using of V by Big Boss the same way The Boss used by the US is the bow on top to really bring the Big Boss story full circle with mgs3s ending. He set out to make sure no soldier would be used and discarded like The Boss was, only for Big Boss to do the same thing to his best, most loyal soldier
The optic nerve thing comes from the way you perceive light it’s an actual condition a lot of people have and it makes lights look like sharp pillars, they turn this into a gameplay mechanic which makes his physical aliment into something that works in tandem with the phantom main element of the bionic arm.
I’ve been thinking about MGSV and Venom a lot lately in terms of its building on the themes of MGS2 (memetic programming, player relationship with mc, etc) and this really helped me see more about both that idea as well as the other themes in MGSV. It’s really made me appreciate the game a lot more. Great video!
What’s sad to me is venom snake is so under layered in the metal gear universe when he deserves just as if not more credibility than solid snake and big boss. Venom snake took on a lot for being essentially a normal soldier. Only he never got credit for it, and no one remembers him. He was killed by someone claiming to be his clone but wasn’t, and he died wearing someone else’s face. Venom snake not only lived up to big bosses legacy but enhanced it entirely
Damn, this video is beautiful, Venom´s story is so gorgeous and brutal tat it brings me to tears. I too think he is one of my favorite character of the series.
I’m glad people are still making mgsv videos
My friends and I all loved Metal Gear, playing every game and giving each other nicknames from the characters we all loved in our own way, Venom was mine so I feel biased to him, but he is legit my favorite MG character. So beautifully tragic of a man, yet more of a true successor to The Boss than Big Boss himself.
I like to think that when venom was dying in mother base he turned on his i droid and played one last song as he saw quiet come to sit with him
This video was great: complete, emotional, perfectly edited. Waoh!
Thank you Boss, it's always important to keep MGS in the minds of future generations.
Thank you for making this. Thank you for exploring how profoundly good and impactful this story was not only as a standalone narrative, but as such a wonderful device for the entire franchise.
I just wanna theorise- replaying quiets mission over and over to unlock her seems obsessive, she could potentially be a figment of Venom’s memory like the whole Paz situation on mother base.
"I won't scatter your sorrow to the heartless sea" is gotta be one of, if not *the* saddest, heartbreaking and touching monologues I ever heard in my life, and every time it cuts just as deep as the first time 😿
By the time the parasite mission rolled around, I had decked out my base and focused on recruiting a and s ranked soldiers....... Boy was it painful to kill them
I’ve never played a mgs game aside from watching someone play snake eater on ps2 but that’s all I needed to get hooked. Maybe one day Kojima will grace us with a stealth shooter again, oh boy would that be a day.