I'm just gonna spoiler tag my entire contribution for thisAdam Jensen said:You can't say that he was a coward based on that. We don't have a clueAgentCooper said:Big boss never lived up to the legend that preceded him. He was a fucking coward. When it was a double who was doing everything to live up the big boss title. Did you forget Miller only found out later on about the double? Big Boss fucked over Miller by lying to him. He did all this to get heat off himself and in the end it was not worth it. Big Boss became a villain out of necessity and not out of spite. He had a perfect vision of the world as one united being. Him simply being a child killing dick hole was not true.This is not complicated at all. It's just bad storytelling. Kojima fucked up his own convoluted story to such an extent that only more Metal Gear games could try to fix it. Because in the current state MGS V makes no sense at all because of that ending.what the real Big Boss was doing and where he was doing it.
I can't believe that someone on Kotaku managed to sum it up nicely: http://kotaku.com/why-metal-gear-solid-vs-ending-was-so-disappointing-1729833383
Big Boss was probly establishing FOXHOUND. It fits in the time-frame, he likely did it while the medic was in the coma under a different code-name. What exactly happened TO him is kinda unimportant, he's in Peace Walker mode, he's gonna get a lotta land and build a mech with a nuke and then PROFIT!! And this is where the medic comes in.
Phantom Pains' whole theme is the idea of language and identity affecting how you see yourself, and does it pretty awesomely in general. So the twist totally fits (and has some neatish foreshadowing which I thought was a glitch) but it also functions as kind of a 'discrepancy' filler.
If Big Boss did something out of character in the MSX games (like... die)? Or Liquid/Ocelot have weird memories of him? No problem, there were two big bosses. Ocelot claims Liquid's arm is controlling him? Nah, he's doing that thing that he did to the medic. This does leave some holes, like, why Big Boss also goes evil but that can probably be summed up by the whole... he kinda already was. That Mission 43 bit? Big Boss was already willing to do that. While the Phantom wipes out his own soldiers, Big Boss is using them as body-doubles so he can work with impunity.
Phantom Pains' whole theme is the idea of language and identity affecting how you see yourself, and does it pretty awesomely in general. So the twist totally fits (and has some neatish foreshadowing which I thought was a glitch) but it also functions as kind of a 'discrepancy' filler.
If Big Boss did something out of character in the MSX games (like... die)? Or Liquid/Ocelot have weird memories of him? No problem, there were two big bosses. Ocelot claims Liquid's arm is controlling him? Nah, he's doing that thing that he did to the medic. This does leave some holes, like, why Big Boss also goes evil but that can probably be summed up by the whole... he kinda already was. That Mission 43 bit? Big Boss was already willing to do that. While the Phantom wipes out his own soldiers, Big Boss is using them as body-doubles so he can work with impunity.
I think the real problem here, and the one that article has, it's probably a little too simplistic to call Big Boss a villain. He's not terribly bright, but it took him like 80 years to realise that NOT fighting is an option. Hell, it took him that long to tell Snake that, yeah, maybe live in peace rather than be a soldier long past the point of being physically fit. This is a guy who's sole motivation is, and always has been, the fact soldiers can never really 'retire'. The poster-child for taking care of the world's veterans. His solution wound up being not 'end war' but 'endLESS war' so that soldiers are never redundant. The nukes are always just a final resort bargaining chip. Liquid took it different, SOLIDUS took it different but Big Boss? High speech aside, he really does just want a place for soldiers.
Whatever he was doing, he was still aware of events going on even if he wasn't directly involved in them.
... plus, it's MGS, if we want to reconcile weirdness maybe let's start with Psycho Mantis reading your memory card?