A Nietzschean Take On Metal Gear

Dan Chamberlain

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A Nietzschean Take On Metal Gear

Dan Chamberlain digs really deep into the Metal Gear franchise to look at the Nietzschean motivations of Solid Snake, Big Boss and The Boss.

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Gethsemani_v1legacy

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Except the Boss didn't start out as some Overman, but was ret-conned into one in MGS4. MGS 3 portrays her as just another pawn in the game of the Super Powers. Despite all her skill, her will and her achievements she ends up sacrificed, literally like a pawn in a Chess game, when the USA decides it was the best move to make. That is at complete odds with Nietzsche's idea of the Overman, who would not be bound by common morality like "duty to your nation", which is the reason Boss gives for going along with the plan all the way up until Big Boss kills her (and sets the stage for his disillusion with service to a nation and gives birth to his idea of soldiers without nations). The Overman would certainly not be in service to something Nietzsche considered as base as politicians (who embody the oppressive masses that the Lion must rage against and rise above), and this makes the entire analysis faulty.

Not that I think the analysis was bad, necessarily. I just don't think Kojima understood Nietzsche all that well. Like many Japanese artists he has a fascination with symbolism and loves to apply symbols in his works, even when the meaning or philosophy behind the symbol doesn't make much sense in the context of the medium it is presented in. Kojima probably just found Nietzsche's quote really cool and felt that it fit with the "twist" in MGS V so he put it in.
 

Revnak_v1legacy

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Gethsemani said:
Except the Boss didn't start out as some Overman, but was ret-conned into one in MGS4. MGS 3 portrays her as just another pawn in the game of the Super Powers. Despite all her skill, her will and her achievements she ends up sacrificed, literally like a pawn in a Chess game, when the USA decides it was the best move to make. That is at complete odds with Nietzsche's idea of the Overman, who would not be bound by common morality like "duty to your nation", which is the reason Boss gives for going along with the plan all the way up until Big Boss kills her (and sets the stage for his disillusion with service to a nation and gives birth to his idea of soldiers without nations). The Overman would certainly not be in service to something Nietzsche considered as base as politicians (who embody the oppressive masses that the Lion must rage against and rise above), and this makes the entire analysis faulty.
Except that the ending combined with her other quotes was supposed to show that her loyalty was really to the world. Not the Philosophers, not her nation, not her lover, not her student, but the world as a whole. Remember the whole part about her going into space and realizing there were no borders up there, that nations aren't a real thing, just a construct? And the whole thing about there being no such thing as an enemy or an ally in absolute terms?
 

visiblenoise

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Gethsemani said:
Except the Boss didn't start out as some Overman, but was ret-conned into one in MGS4. MGS 3 portrays her as just another pawn in the game of the Super Powers. Despite all her skill, her will and her achievements she ends up sacrificed, literally like a pawn in a Chess game, when the USA decides it was the best move to make. That is at complete odds with Nietzsche's idea of the Overman, who would not be bound by common morality like "duty to your nation", which is the reason Boss gives for going along with the plan all the way up until Big Boss kills her (and sets the stage for his disillusion with service to a nation and gives birth to his idea of soldiers without nations). The Overman would certainly not be in service to something Nietzsche considered as base as politicians (who embody the oppressive masses that the Lion must rage against and rise above), and this makes the entire analysis faulty.
This is a bit of a literal interpretation, both of the Overman and of the Boss's actions. Nothing says that the Overman shouldn't ever serve a cause it didn't invent. And just because the Boss obeyed didn't mean she was being weak or submissive. In fact, I think her ability to think beyond her own life in trying to shape the world the way she wanted to is arguably quite Ubermensch-esque.

...Assuming she was being honest about her words and justifications to Snake.


Great article!
 

Fat Hippo

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I really enjoyed reading this, as much for the philosophy 101 on Nietzsche as for the comparisons to the Metal Gear series. However, I think this kind of Nietzsche-like progression would probably have been better from a narrative standpoint if it all took place with a single character. So if we could have accompanied Solid Snake on a journey from Camel to Lion to Child. Of course, that would have taken a great deal more planning and storytelling-coherence than anything we've ever seen from Kojima.