THE WHALE: Why MGSV is "Moby Dick"
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- Опубликовано: 26 мар 2023
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Though Hideo Kojima's METAL GEAR SOLID V has been out since 2015, many of its secrets remain hiding in plain sight. In this video, Jorin explains yet another unexpected yet vital 'missing link' concealed behind the drapery in THE PHANTOM PAIN: the importance of Herman Melville's 1851 opus, 'Moby Dick (or, the Whale)', specifically within the context of the War on Terror.
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Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is a third-person action-adventure game developed by Kojima Productions and published by Konami for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC on September 1, 2015.
The tenth and final main installment of the Metal Gear series, Phantom Pain follows legendary mercenary Big Boss (now known by his codename "Venom Snake") as he awakens in 1984 from a nine-year coma following the destruction of his private military company "Militaires Sans Frontières". With help from his old business partner Kazuhira Miller and rival-turned-ally Revolver Ocelot, Snake must rebuild his mercenary army (now called "Diamond Dogs") while plotting revenge against the shadowy organization "Cipher," as well as its XOF paramilitary unit led by the enigmatic Skull Face.
Similar to its standalone prologue Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, Phantom Pain focuses on executing mission objectives in open world environments set in both Soviet-occupied Afghanistan and the Angola-Zaire border region of central Africa, complete with dynamic weather and day-night systems. Stealth is a major component of gameplay, but often optional thanks to Snake's arsenal of combat gear. Players can also upgrade Diamond Dogs' new "Mother Base" in a fashion similar to Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, allowing them to develop new weapons and items. In addition to its single-player campaign, the game includes two player-vs-player multiplayer modes, as well as optional microtransactions and other paid downloadable content.
The Phantom Pain is notable as the final game in the series with involvement from series creator Hideo Kojima and his Kojima Productions team. Several months before the game's release, Konami began a major restructuring of its games division, ultimately leading to Kojima Productions being treated more as a contractor rather than an internal studio. Unlike prior Metal Gear titles from the same team, Kojima Productions' logo and branding is absent from promotional materials and packaging for the final game. After leaving Konami, Kojima would go on to establish a new independent studio with the same name in 2015.
The Phantom Pain was bundled together with Ground Zeroes and all DLC as Metal Gear Solid V: The Definitive Experience in late 2016 for Xbox One and PlayStation 4. Phantom Pain's gameplay and graphics engine were later reused for the 2018 survival-focused spin-off title Metal Gear Survive.
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How is it that I watched a dozen of these videos and MGSV keeps being described with so many different subtexts nearly 8 years later and they all line perfectly. Its like Kojima took 9 different thematic routes and patched all of them together in a single work
It's a real Frankenburger of a narrative.
After ingesting all these video essays and playing through the game twice by myself, I have a firm stance that MGS V is primarily made as an anti-war story. Flashy, with tits in shower scenes, quick action, giant robots, surreal scenes and with illuminati level of mystery. It appeals to a modern ADHD brain to suck you in and in slow, almost subconscious fashion plant a seed that "The soldier on a battlefield, despite titles of hero and big boss, is just a puppet to vengeful people driven by hate and history of conflict."
You were told so many times you are the big boss, you are the leader, that you come to believe it yourself. But you are just a war machine. While the real Big Boss for whose legacy you are working, is somewhere in the background, preparing another copy of you, a puppet.
Moby Dick is a perfect story for this, where Ishmael is sucked into Ahabs vengeful crusade, just to start believing it's righteousness himself and pay the price. Perfect to sell to americans and make the story understandable.
Japanese contexts present in the game, even though less pronounced, are there to do the same thing.
You might have noticed the "opposites" trope in the narration (down, then up thing etc.), pointed out in one of the other video essays. I came to think about the Big Boss (The real Naked Snake) and Skull Face stories as one of these opposites tropes. When Skull Face declares "Today is the day weapons learned to walk upright" with Sahelanthropus in camera, I can't stop thinking that this is the same Naked Snake thinks about Venom Snake.
Kojima almost comes across as a great poet
Yes. Its like kojima is far beyond driven to guide us through our emotions. God mode❤
You have this backwards. These texts, MGSV included, overlap because they aptly describe the same world, the same peoples & problems. They tread the same ground as each because they tread the same ground as us.
...including, probably most of all, Death Stranding.
The last eight minutes are so charged with insights and food for thought, they warrant multiple viewings to be fully grasped. Bravo, boss.
This channel and your work are the pinnacle of analysis for this series. Its the most academic approach to games as Lit.
Yup.
your the only MGS content on RUclips that isn't something I've heard a million times before or a timeline or specific character profiles, excellent work, didn't even break a sweat did ya?
Python?
Still here, still suffering.
Queequeg is also the name of another chopper DD has, Pequod is the one you normally use, but queequeg is used to get to OKB0 randomly. I was surprised to hear that they put a second name from the book as a chopper but they did
What would it take for you to attend MGS con in LA this year?
Incredible video,
Nothing compares to your series of video essays
Considering futurasound had a falling out with some MGS personalities, highly doubtful. A shame MGS community is a bit cliquish
@@Ragucci25 oh, news to me
I must say, aside from the games themselves, your videos are hands down the absolute best MGS content out there. Goosebumps every time.
*laughs in rule 34*
Moby Dick was maybe the proto-Modernist or straight up first modernists novel. It's so fanastating how very ahead of his time Melville's prose and structure was.
Structurally his book was ahead of it's time but his prose wasn't (except for the adverbs). So many great 19 c. writers
lets remember moby dick came out almost a decade before 20k leagues by verne@@smegmatic308
fanastating?
Or how intrinsic our naïve nature really is
Just booted up MGS5 for another playthrough after watching your story analysis videos then this pops up haha, great timing!
There's always something to go back to with MGS5
I just beat mgsv a couple days ago after thinking the metal gear series was an overrated stealth game for years. Since I played mgrr after it was a meme I started playing all the games. I love them. I finished with mgsv which is a great stealth action game. Im now stuck with the fact that I’ll never be able to play another new metal gear game in that great engine with an amazing story. Your videos are really good and keep up the good work.
Your quality of MGS video essays are S Rank level. Keep it up Boss!
Are you ever going to finish your “What really happens in MGS2” series. It was what brought me to your channel and man I really loved that series. Thanks for the great videos anyways!
^^^
replaying mgsv rn, incredible game. discovered your channel while craving content for the game and now i have binged 50+ its incredible how much there is to say about mgsv and the metal gear series
I honestly enjoy the reaching. Even if i don't really believe that Kojima is a secret mastermind who planned all of this, it's still fun to analyse this stuff
Thanks, I have been wondering about the Moby Dick stuff but I am too smoothbrained to figure this sort of thing out on my own
Amazing video as always Jorin, It always thrills me to see people like you keeping this legendary franchise alive and remembered
never cease to inspire a new way to interpret and appreciate my favorite series of art
“it’s a heady one this time”…..my brother in christ when is it not lol
I love how obsessed you are with this game. It is a sort of (phantom)PTSD.
It's interesting to me how many times I hear people mention that there seem to be a variety of thematic templates that MGSV has seamlessly combined or integrated, as if Kojima intentionally weaved these integrations. I think you only need to integrate a couple before you start getting some kind of "resonance" with other thematic templates without even trying. I'm obviously not a creative on the level of Kojima, but what I can say is that there do seem to be a limited number of symbolically resonant thematic structures, some even say there's only one (the Hero's Journey). I'd say that the writers of MGS (of whom Kojima is not the only one) seem to be very self-aware, and use this self-awareness appropriately to search out similarly themed stories to the one they are crafting, and then integrate the symbology of those stories to reinforce and inform their own story. I think the writers of this game in particular knew they wanted a revenge story and sought to integrate the thematic structures of already well-established revenge stories (Moby Dick) into theirs. I'm not saying they copied Moby Dick, they obviously didn't, rather they dissected Moby Dick and used it's general chronology and themes and integrated that into their early drafts of MGSV, and then refined further. They probably did this with not just Moby Dick, but any other literary or even cinematic story that told an analogous story to the one they were shaping.
I've recently finished MGSV for the second time, the first being when it came out in 2015, and then stumbled upon your videos after wrapping up that second playthrough. It's great to see your attention to detail and to see you develop many of the symbolic devices used in the story. Despite the game having a somewhat mixed reception among fans, I quite enjoy it, though I am disappointed by some of the ret-conning done by the writers with regards to MGS3. I enjoyed the mystery of the Cobra Unit's powers and their connection to strong emotion felt during battle. It felt like a better segue into the still very real psychic powers of Psycho Mantis. Instead, the ostensibly supernatural abilities of the Cobra Unit seemed to be hand-waived away as parasitical in nature. Some of this supernatural phenomenon was preserved in the form of Psycho Mantis and Colonel Volgin, and I suppose with the Sorrow. Still, I enjoyed the intersection of the supernatural with technology that MGS3 implied. It gave these precursor war figures, the predecessors to Big Boss, this air of mysticism and mythology that felt appropriate the further back into the past we ventured in the story. As the soldiers say on Mother Base "There's no such thing as magic or the supernatural, only cutting edge technology" which seems apropos to the way the writers approached the "problem" they created for themselves in MGS3.
All this being said, MGSV may be my second favorite in the series, though it's close between MGSV and MGS2. MGS2 is becoming increasingly topical in the advent of AI content generation (I'm sorry, I'm tired of it too, so I apologize for invoking it here) and the implications it has for the digital space. Sometimes I wonder how much longer the internet is even going to manage to be interesting. Imagine the TF2 Bot problem extended to the entire internet, including youtube, just algorithms and prompt bots reading graphs to generate content that triggers more algorithms and prompts in a never ending cycle. GW takes its first steps. Captchas and 2FA will only work for so long.
Anyway, all this to say, you've earned a sub from me. A lot of Vid-essay content is getting stale and repetitive, but yours are fresh. I'd be interested in this type of deep dive of symbolic and semiotic structures in games, and what the relationship of certain figures and story mechanisms mean with regards to those symbols. "What statements are being made by the creators." Are there any other game series that you haven't previously covered that interest you?
Hey. FuturaSound.
Are you going to the MGSCON in LA in July? You’re one of the most dedicated MGS fans and content creators and I don’t see you listed on the convention’s website as a panel member.
Your content, insight, and appreciation for the series is miles above others. I think you’d be a fantastic addition.
Thank you for this video. MGSV was the reason I read Moby Dick. Fascinating game and a work of art. A great shame how it was portrayed due to a few unfortunate kojima choices and how so much of the game didn't make it to the final cut
hehe Tim Rogers was my reason. 'instead of reading my 12,000 word review of Final Fantasy XIII, maybe go read a book!'
Thanks for making these videos. They’re so well done and puts Metal Gear back in my heart.
5:13 I don’t blame you for leaving the “Mocha Dick” drop to text on screen… just can’t help but disappointed there wasn’t voiceover lol
Excellent video, as always. Just as an aside, I think it's really apt how much fultoning soldiers resembles harpooning whales. Though I guess Venom isn't familiar with the doctrine of fast and loose fish.
I watch these videos and wonder how I miss so many details of the game, then I remember that it took me a dozen videos to realize your name is Jorin not Jordan, so I guess I’m just not very observant lol
I love MGSV so much, pisses me off how many mouth breathing fanboys like to shit on it for being "Unfinished" like who the hell cares lmao, still has some of the most replayable and engaging gameplay I've ever experienced and was a story so entrancing it fully pulled me into the MGS series and has had me play every game besides 4 and the NES titles.
4 is a lot of fun. Crazy as it is. It's so over the top! But, as someone who grew up in the 80's-90's action films era, it's a great homage. Even the cringe was appreciated. I just laughed along with the absurdity. I'm halfway through V. I agree with the gameplay. It's easy to lose hrs doing side missions alone!
It was my first too, for any "bad" there may be, mgsv has a unique dream-quality that was equal parts terrifying and entrancing. It immediately sucked me in. Im so glad others unconditionally love this game!
I Love Your Videos So Much , Thanks Alot For Still Making MGS Content , Good Luck FuturaSoundProduction ♡ .
I think Max Derrat or someone did a really great analysis on the parallels between MD and MGSV, really great vid, should give it a look. Pretty sure it was him, at least. >
Entire world: Kojima has used video games as a medium to tell one of the most compelling and prevalent tales encompassing multiple parallel lines of allegory into a package that can also be enjoyed as an adrenaline fueled thrill ride even if you don't understand the larger concepts being addressed. He is a genius, and this game is a timeless masterpiece. A true work of art.
Konami: Yeah bro, that's cool and all but mobile games make more money. So you're fired.
Bro majored in Metal Gearology
I'm a simple man. I see a futurasound video upload, I hit play and like.
Great content 👍. Thank you for making these
I've never read Moby Dick so when you said the ship was called Pequod, I let out an audible. "God damn it!" Lmao
You and Max Derrat make me feel like a scholar for playing MGS or Silent Hill! 😂
They're really excellent aren't they? You might enjoy Jacob Geller's vids too I suspect
"I'm still here, happily supporting" - JAA_007 a lost mercenary that found again his home 🏡
Great work as always
Makes my day better when I see you posted a video
Finally, an essay about the connection between these two. Been trying to find one since the game released. Thanks for that.
Lol, there is a much older one by Michael Saba.
How hard did you try.
Now, I'm starting to understand why there is a flaming whale during the Man on Fire horse chase.
"If man will strike, strike through the mask!" Ahab thinking about punching skull face in his stupid little Zorro mask
Thank you so much for doing this Boss!
Every upload hits 🤌
do you have a reading list of works you've cited in your previous videos? would love to check it out!
Metal Gear Solid 6: The Phantom PHD
man this may your best written essay yet.
makes me day. Thank dude
I fall asleep to your essays.
I pause as I drift off and pick up the next night.
What does the one eye covered symbol mean in all of their imagery? Just wondering ^_^
Nothing.
thank you so much for the top tier content
The most underrated channel. Look at these videos!
OK OK. Two videos in two weeks??
Profound. Very impressive!
i expected somewhat of a repeat of what michael seba has already said, but i am pleasantly surprised.
Human existence. It really is about chasing phantoms. An attempt to fill the void that can never be filled.
I love these in depth video essays about my favor grama franchise, hell ya man
Always fun to see interpretations along these lines. When I was doing English my sophomore year of college I had to compare Titus Andronicus to 9/11.
"There is only one God of the Earth and one captain of the Pequod. Now on Deck Ye!!..... Ahab know Ahab." Even the description of the gold piece. I just listened to Moby Dick, it was wordy at times but damn was it an enjoyable tale. And oh, those metaphors and similes that drove the tale home. Also the irony of the ending.
What happens if you let kaz miller die in the first episode do you fail the mission and a time paradox happens?
Futurasound posts i listen
Will you be doing a what happens in mgs4?
Humans are 70% water
Kojimas 70% films
Jorin is 70% MGS
Nah ,kojima is 90% movies and you will decide what the rest of 10% is
Best MGS VIDEOS ON RUclips. BOSS LEVEL.
20:48 The Prisoner Of War "POW" displayed here may also cause some "conflicts" of massive magnitude with the "good listener's" "internal timeline" "for a S-Special reason."
I love this channel so much I just wish I could see this level of production and analysis put into other great video games as well instead of just one franchise.
Only the uppermost masts out of water; while fixed by infatuation, or fidelity, or fate, to their once lofty perches.
Lets Gooooo!
I love your videos of MGS, no matter what it is...
Of course MGSV is Moby Dick. That's what the 'M' stands for.
Moby Gear Solid.
We’re just gonna pretend like Michael Saba didn’t make this exact video a year ago?
Pretty f- up if you ask muah.
the more i think about MGSV, the more I realize that the Master Miller from MGS1 cant be the same person as Kazuhira Miller from MGSV. Even ignoring the MGS1 art depicting him with all of his limbs, MGSV just changes too much of the context, and too much about the character to make the situation believable at all. what is a guy missing half his limbs doing living in a remote location in alaska? what effect would that environment have on the parasites providing him with vision? How would he be caught unawares by liquid given his advanced perception?
Could that character who dies in MGS also be a double of some sort? If so where is Kaz?
Spoiler alert and keeping it simple
The real Kaz was assassinated during the shadow Moses incident and liquid took on his persona to trick solid snake for a large portion of the game
@@FloydOnun he’s saying that miller in mgs1 can’t be the kaz of mgs5
@@jackp492 because mgs5 miller is dead
Right, doesn't he technically train him in cqc? or am I missremembering? Cause that's gotta be hard with one arm and being half blind.
@@FloydOnun he’s fully blind. He sees with the parasites
Fuck yes i live for these videos
Still pumping out "cahntent". Respect
i just thought in ground zeroes why are we being told what big boss should already know in the beginning intro... he should know paz is an agent, he should know that hes building motherbase with kaz.. big boss in ground zeroes is already venom snake hence the voice... we are being made to be big boss the wholeground zeroes and phantom pain.. we are trapped in the belly of the whale..
I honestly think large portions of this story works better as an analog for the extremism exhibited by groups like the Taliban/ISIS. The attack on the twin towers was their attempt to strike at "god"(america) to make it know the suffering they endured even if it was a futile and relatively insignificant act in comparison to what they suffered. Skull face's monologue at the end is a 1 to 1 portrayal of the path to extremism. All it really is in the end for most people is an attempt to keep the will of those who were lost alive through your fury.
In the end all that the attack on the towers accomplished was bringing "gods" fury upon them once again, continuing and amplifying the viscous cycle of revenge. In the end their attempt to strike down god(america) only resulted to an even greater magnitude of suffering for themselves. In the end "moby dick" (america), while worse for wear, swam away leaving the unimaginable destruction of those who tried to strike it down in its wake.
inversely I also believe that your interpretation of america's reaction also holds water. I guess both of these interpretations being able to exist simultaneously really speaks to the how universal the themes of moby dick really are.
Extremism, lol.
When someone attacks you and you retaliate, you are not considered extremist.
What America did first was much worse that what happened to them.
Yet one side is still the heroic victim and the other extremist terrorists.
How is a country that is a super power that uses its military force to force its will on the world and continuously commits war crimes without punishment not the very definition of pure extremism.
Strap in boys this is about to get interesting.
Nice.
I asked chatGPT who skull face was.. it answered that it is major zero in a mask that mimics a skull.. could this be true??
This are the greatest 35:47 minutes of our lives
Both the book and game have flying fire whales, and psychic children....Done.
🔥🔥🐳🐋
yeah I saw that video about tpp where the first past was about moby dick too
Thank god one channel I follow isn't doing a RE4 remake LP, which I have no desire to watch for multiple reasons. Bless you
Hold up. We got a new video
how did melville conflate the likes of fedallah with the japanese kamikaze pilots? Do you mean bush?
Interessante
I hate metaphors. That's why my favorite book is Moby Dick. No froo-froo symbolism, just a good, simple tale about a man who hates an animal.
👍👍
Another amazing ass video. What the fuck.
Bro kojima just takes his sake sits on his cool room and think all this wtf 🤯
I'm sending this to my American Literature of the Sea and Maritime Culture professors respectively.
!
MGS convinced me that Kojima and his team understand America better than most Americans.
This video really begs the question. Who would win in a fight? Venom snake or captain ahab? My bets on the guy who lost a limb
Mgs5 is definitely my least favorite game play wise of the series. But these videos definitely make me appreciate aspects of the story
Gameplay wise it’s arguably the best, story wise it’s arguably the weakest.
@@jackpowrie3 I think the open world method in mgs5 doesn't work with the mgs formula and fundamentally betrays the unique stealth mechanics series is known for.
@@dances_with_incels you can stealth all you like.
I don’t know but MGSV was one whale of a time.
I find it hilarious and perplexing that Bush wasn't even indicted or punished with waging war against Iraq when Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.
Hence hegemony.
how are u gonna completely rip off the other vid from 2 years ago comparing the same concept even down to the thumbnail lmao
leave mgs v already, go work on silent hills and death stranding
>smile
>puns
what is this tiktok presentation and overnarration and self excusing and using an intro
where muh old futurasound