Philosophies From the Metal Gear Series

[Pinkie-Dawn]

It's no secret that the Metal Gear series is known for its deep philosophies and conspiracies involving war, from corruption of social media from Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty to Senator Armstrong's "I Have a Dream" speech from Metal Gear Rising: Revengence. While it takes place in a fictional universe of Earth, who's to say if any of these philosophies could have legit points and apply to the real world in order to make our lives better? Could our government have been controlling every war after WWII, or are memes, according to Monsoon, the true ruler of our own lives? What philosophies and conspiracies from the Metal Gear series do you believe bring more legitimacy for our world than the philosophies we follow today.


Originally I was going to post this at the Video Games section, but I'm told I'll get more responses here in the Round Table. Feel free to move this thread to that section instead if you believe that's more appropriate.

 

[ORegan]

One of the biggest themes that main MGS games portray is one that they never outright mention (which is impressive because this is a series renowned for cramming their themes down your throat with long exposition,) is that pretty much ALL people in power are neither 100% good, nor 100% evil, and for the most part have a pretty valid reason for their cause.*

• Liquid wanted to break free of the destiny that he felt he could never escape from, and it's explained in MGS2 that during the time of MGS1, he also knew of the patriots and was using the uprising on Shadow Moses to base an offensive against the Patriots after securing health of the Genome soldiers.
• Solidus was 100% being a freedom fighter by wanting to find the elusive patriots and stop them to bring free will back to the American people. So much so that even the character you play as outright mentions that he doesn't want to stop Solidus, but only does so because you(Raiden) have nanomachines that could have intel.
• Snake and Otacon mention in MGS2 that they know what they're doing(leaking info on Metal Gear Ray) constitutes as treason and technically makes them terrorists...and this is BEFORE the whole wikileaks fiasco
• The Boss was simply doing what she could to protect her country, even if it would mean her reputation would be tarnished and be known as the worst American traitor. She was merely covering the trails of the American Philosophers and at the same time avoiding WWIII.
• Big Boss was pursuing his interpretation of The Boss' dream. The same could be said for Zero. One wanted soldiers to never lose their worth by having the freedom to not commit to one country which frees them from the burden the boss carried, while the other wanted to control as much as possible to prevent a situation where another would have to sacrifice as much as she did.
• Ocelot by far is more sympathetic when you realize that all his scheming and evil deeds where to put an end to the corrupt AI systems that Zero lost control over.
• Dead Cell was framed by the Patriots and wanted payback against those who tarnished their names and livlihoods...except for Fatman, he was just in it to kill Stillman.
• The B&B squad where being controlled by the ghost of Psycho Mantis pretty much the whole time and where unstable to begin with. Foxhound and the Cobras where pretty much just following their commanding officer save for Mantis who is a sociopath and Ocelot who already got mentioned.

*Except for Volgin. He was simply a sadist who had power due to possessing all the money.

Then there is the main message of the game, which is that nuclear deterrence is a Mexican standoff that is almost guaranteed to blow up in everyone's face...quite literally