Why are people making such a big deal of out of Quiet from MGS 5?

[Neurotic Void Melody]

So many posts. So little time.

If you play the game, it is pretty shameless about the objectification of her. There is no hiding from the laughably embarrassing scenes of her gyrating in a manner of different erotic fashions. She is integral to the main story either way, though now I use doggie in fox mode instead, as soon, as I learnt that Quiet's new costumes are no less revealing. Did somebody mention cosplay? There is not much to cosplay there, to be honest. A bikini, Torn tights and a sniper rifle. Jobs a' gooden! But surely no different than a poor, texan soccer mum on a humid summers morning, hunting local wildlife for supper? (no offense intended to any poor, texan soccer mums who happen to read this during their glorious morning travels).

What is slightly erking me is that she looks incredibly similar to the female protagonist from Infamous: First light. Who is a great lead in the game. But it looks here like Hideo fell in love with that character model; stole it, took out a little weight, pumped the titties up to dangerous jiggy chin-knockout level, removed her clothes, removed her voice (cos...like...women are too scary to actually talk to and engage on a human level, so screw having to think up a script for that side of feral ferrets) then allowed the story to be debated and elated by all the amazed and fearful soldiers on your army (sort of like Kojima's office conditions, i'd imagine) while the player gets to wonder why most of her dancing screen time can't just be used for something a little more interesting and less cheap.
A good gameplay addition would have been to allow us the option of selecting an entrance tune for her, like the helicoptor's. Then they could add "Foxy Lady" to the soundtrack and we could have achieved the same goal in some serious, satirical style!

Previous metal gear has always been up and down with characters throughout the series, but there is no trying here at all. Which puts Hideo's original comment before MSGV release, in an even wierder context.
The only reasoning I can come up with for his belief that we would accept his humourous veil of a backstory, is that he may be under the impression metal gear fans completely accept and follow the MSG canon/timeline. Which in itself, plays out like he makes it up as he goes along (A poor man's Phillip Pullman, one might say). He thought he could use that same technique in a meta-debate. Oh well, it does match the consistency of his usual writing logic at least.

On the upside, I found my first female soldier for motherbase last night. Well ok, she was originally a prisoner of the last soldiers I brainwashed, so maybe I shouldn't be too excited for more variety just yet. It does get boring hanging around serious, gruff males all the time. The kids are no better! Just squeakier versions of wannabe tough guys. Where is my Billy Elliot musical on my oil rig, Kojima? About the harsh expectations of childhood upbringing on a male dominated, villian's home base?? You have much to learn, Kojima. If only you'd come out of your house a little.
Look, I got these treats all just for you. See? They're little jelly dancers. With nipple-boobies. Closer, Kojima...a little closer...

 

[Redryhno]

With sniper wolf the graphics where so boxy it wasn't exactly porn, unless you're Chinese.

Eva was a femme fetal,used sex appeal to get what she wanted.

Beauty and beast unit was not only referential to beauty and the beast but things are automatically worse if tragic back stories happen to women, instead of guys. Plus they were only sexually displayed when out of their armour, then they just zombie walk at you.

Quiet is just naked all the time, camera constantly zooms to inappropriate body parts and the reason for her walking around wearing next to nothing? She breathes through her skin .... WHY!? It was a character designed by erection ... so lonely guys can ogle them and women who like to show off "what their mama gave them" can cosplay them.

I'd rather her be dressed like an assassins creed member, not wearing string or even worse ... coated in blood/silver/gold!

And what about Fortune? Vamp? Raiden? Hell, even Johnny when he takes off his facemask? All of them have been fanservice and blatantly sexualized at one point or another as well if we're gonna say Quiet is...The Beauties were just a rehash/revamp of MF in MGS2, who was simply a rehash of Sniper Wolf from MGS1. This is NOT new ground or topical, this is Metal Gear Solid, there's blatant sexualization of half the characters in the series at one point or another.

Snake flirts with every woman you meet in the series pretty much, and people threw a shitfit because the camera simulating his view and eyes were attracted to Naomi's cleavage in MGS4. It wasn't even a scene where there was talking going on yet, just him looking at her. Meryl's attire is just a change of pants away from Quiet's most of the time, and people can talk about the graphics not being the same as they are now, but when each game in the franchise came out, they were some of the best graphics at the time.

If it were pretty much any other military-themed game, I'd be right there agreeing with you for the most part(it would depend on how serious it takes itself and if the plot or world is near MGS levels of crazy bullshit), but again this is MGS we're talking about, bullshit reasoning is sorta par for the course...really don't see why people have such a hard-on for hating this. I mean seriously, Fortune had a cameltoe for most of MGS2, I wouldn't be surprised to find out Gray Fullbuster's related to Vamp, and the Beautys were all in gimp suits...camo bikini sniper really isn't that out there in this universe.

Spoiler

Especially considering she's the one that tries to kill you at the start of the game...

Hell, I can understand people not liking it, but anyone that says this is completely different haven't really seen the other games all that much...This is just a bit more mainstream "fetish" than most of the others in the franchise.

Also, I find it sorta funny that everyone is laying the blame at Kojima's feet, instead of "publisher interference obviously" like they have with so many other games...not defending it, just pointing out that there hasn't been a single "FUCK KONAMI" comment here despite them getting more involved in steering things, yet anytime another dev screws something up, it's blamed on EA execs...

Oh. Well I love you too Adam.

Pardon me for thinking that the character was stupidly written.

It's a Metal Gear Solid game. Of course it's stupidly written. But that doesn't detract from its charm. You know what does?

End game spoilers:

Spoiler

the fact that you're actually playing as a hypnotized nameless soldier who's undergone cosmetic surgery to look like Big Boss instead of playing as real Big Boss.

Fuck that shit. That's what we should talk about. Kojima didn't just troll us this time. If I had known about this I wouldn't have bought the game. I wanted to

Spoiler

play as Big Boss and to see him interact with all those characters. I wanted to see his downfall and how he became the villain.

Instead I got practically nothing. A game that pretends to have a story only to take it all away from you in the end.

Oh yeah, fuck that, I'll admit I never was much into MGS as a series beyond it just being one of those things you've gotta play at some point, or even Big Boss specifically(it always seemed needlessly convoluted to me), but that ending is just all kinds of fucked up and bait-n-switch. But I'm somewhat willing to let it slide because of the Konami bullshit and didn't Kojima say he didn't want ot do MGS5 at some point in the recent past? I'd have just liked there to be some kind of descent that you don't have to see from other entities points of view to see there.

 

[EternallyBored]

Wait, if she breathes through her skin, shouldnt she be covering up with something breathable in a desert environment? I imagine, she might have difficulty with sunscreen, and sunburns could cause dangerous inflammation, especially over that much of her body, effectively closing off the pores shes using for respiration.

Here's the explanation in its entirety, I am assuming since this topic is about Quiet and people are throwing around the explanation sans spoiler tags that no tags are needed here, I will be spoiling things about enemy abilities here and why characters have certain powers in the game.

Quiet breathes through her skin with the aid of parasites throughout her body. She attempts to assassinate the main character at the beginning of the game and gets doused in flammable liquid and set on fire. This subsequently destroys her lungs so the breathing aided by the parasites in her skin is how she stays alive.

It's also how she eats, through photosynthesis, like a plant, and as the game calls out, specifically like another character from MGS called The End, an old man sniper that had the parasites that were eventually put in Quiet as well as the other Skulls units, which are bad guy super soldiers basically.

Now, you are right that this makes the bikini excuse basically a bunch of BS, plants can photosynthesize through airy light cloths covering them, as long as enough light reaches the surface, and air gets through just fine in such clothes. The kind of clothes many desert dwelling tribes wear should not interfere with either her breathing or eating. The explanation mostly just shows that Kojima has no idea how photosynthesis works, even if she couldn't photosynthesize, she only does that to eat apparently, her parasites are like Code Talker's, and Skullface, both who wear clothes just fine.

Their excuse for that is that the fire destroyed her lungs, of course it left her skin perfectly intact despite another character, Skullface also being burned by fire and being badly scarred even after parasite treatment, her parasites can apparently also repair burn scars for some reason. She also still has intact vocal cords despite being unable to talk due to another parasite she has that could kill people if she speaks English. Why she doesn't just write her messages down, or use Code Talker to translate for her since she can speak Navajo and so can he, is anybodys guess, but honestly, the whole plot is a mess.

Quiet could have worked as a character, but she's a mess of contradictions, plot holes, and her holding the idiot ball. There are a few other characters in similar circumstances to her, none of which have her restrictions, the basic justification isn't actually that she breathes through her skin, as other character like the Skulls, Skullface, and Code Talker do the same thing, the reason she wears the bikini is because she got doused in a chemical that set her on fire but left her skin and vocal cords in tact so it could strategically only burn her lungs and digestive system, despite another burned character that seems to suffer none of these drawbacks.

It also doesn't help that she gets two outfits later in the game that basically are clothes she can put on. One of which being Sniper Wolfs outfit from MGS 1.

 

[inmunitas]

Different culture, different history, different religions, different ideas about things. Stop expecting the whole world to cave to your narrow-mindedness, and just enjoy art for what it is. Which is what you are suppose to do with art anyway, whether you like it or not, or has everyone forgotten that?

 

[Redryhno]

______ could have worked as a character, but _____ a mess of contradictions, plot holes, and ___ holding the idiot ball.

Not trying to undercut you here, but you really just described every character with a name in the series at one point or another...

 

[Erttheking]

Snip

Yes. Yes it is a stupidly written series. But I find that the series TRIES to be taken seriously, and it hurts the most when the game tried to do something serious and its silliness got in the way. So I'm calling out bullshit where I see it.

Really your complaints capture my problem with the series. You WANT to take it seriously. It wants you to take it seriously. then it does really stupid shit. And everything goes to hell.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I don't know but I also find it strange that Stephanie Joosten was completely fine with the portrayal of Quiet while random dudes on the internet consider a character wiggling her ass and showing her cleavage as a harcore porno all of a sudden. Exemplary of the prudish times we live in indeed. Fortunately Kojima is from a different generation.

Well, I doubt she had much to say in what matter the character was ultimately used. And it's also kind of bad form to suddenly criticize the people that gave you a paycheck, unless they treated you like shit. Plus, she's a model so she's likely used to getting specific directions for posing attractively. But the problem is, Quiet isn't supposed to be just a Maxim model with a sniper rifle, no more than Big Boss or Ocelot. And if she is, just fucking admit it, don't rationlize with some bullshit condition.

This has nothing to do with prudish times. This is about her fuckable assets overtaking her actual character completely. A character we're supposed to take seriously. It'd be the same as Big Boss constantly shoving his giant bulg in the camera, because look at what huge dick he has. No seriously, look, look, it's so floppy and tied to the laws of gravity.

 

[Crimson Cade]

Step 1: Make bait for progressive hipsters
Step 2: Watch them take bait and produce tons of free coverage
Step 3: Fuel shitstorm with more nonsense to "justify" it
Step 4: Profit

Did you rike it?

 

[babinro]

If I had to guess it's the timing (Big name AAA title after a gaming 'drought') and the poor attempt to justify her as something other than objective fan service.

It seems as though people are more sensitive/fed up with this stuff in gaming now then they would have been back when MGS4 came out. As time passes people will only speak out against it more and more especially with regards to respected franchises.

Personally, I'm not a MGS fan. Never have been. I've only briefly played the 4th installment and never bought the 5th. I can't speak on this subject first hand. I will say that the Jimquisition on the subject did NOT display the character with any level of dignity or seriousness. It instantly took me out of the atmosphere being setup from shots in the same scene where she wasn't present.

It's like watching Star Wars Episode 1 and getting into the movie a bit until Jar Jar enters the frame. He almost instantly takes you out of the movie by how much of a contrast he is to the events going on the seriousness of the characters.

Lets just suppose we're all cool with Quiet's appearance and story reasons that justify her look, personality and mannerisms. Fine.

Why the special camera angles for that character? Why can't we use the standard shots you see for everyone else when Quiet is on screen doing her thing? It's not like we get constant ass and bulge shots of the male characters at all time. The game goes so far out of it's way to treat Quiet like an absolute joke it hurts the flow of scenes and takes you right out of the experience.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Because she's an even more blatant source of fanservice in a world that isn't strictly devised for fanservice.
Who the fuck wears a bikini top to battle?

And EVA was not?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XcRtn8_cFA

And who exposes their clevage during a Sniper duel?

https://youtu.be/rr7YPzuPLas?t=231

Yes, they look idiotic.
Quiet looks even more idiotic.

 

[CaitSeith]

Might be off-topic, but I've been a week ago to a con, and it had some Mass Effect actors and for some reason they did a shitty snide remark at MGS5's Quiet while saying how Jack is better (because they live in a world that Mass Effect has better writing and characters than a Kojima game), and people cheered, isn't Jack just as bad character for wearing what amounts for a belt for no reason?

I suppose that it's better to have no reason than to come up with a nonsensical reason and claim it as valid. Ironically I sense a feeling of disappointment on the MGS fans' criticism about Quiet, similar to the ME fans' complains about the ME3 ending.

 

[CaitSeith]

And pretty much of 99% of the arguments in the human history. It doesn't matter if you trash every of your oppenent's points and make him admit defeat. He'll leave more sure than ever that he was right and you were wrong.

 

[JustAnotherAardvark]

I couldn't get past the "our protagonist runs around with a chunk of shrapnel protruding six inches out from his head"; Metal Gear games just aren't targeted at me, I guess. Pity, as I'm hearing it's got incredible stealth / shooter game play.

 

[EternallyBored]

______ could have worked as a character, but _____ a mess of contradictions, plot holes, and ___ holding the idiot ball.

Not trying to undercut you here, but you really just described every character with a name in the series at one point or another...

To an extent, yeah, Kojima has serious issues with writing characters consistently and likes to overexplain where character abilities come from even if it doesn't mesh with previously established lore. This game is a particularly egregious example with its super powered parasites used to retroactively explain the Cobra units powers from MGS 3 (except the Boss who's just a badass, and the Sorrow, who is just psychic).

The parasites that make things like the nanomachine super soldiers from MGS 4 look like weaker knockoffs despite being 30 years more advanced, only revengeance has tech that surpasses the parasite driven BS in MGS 5. I could also rant about how sehalanthrapus is a giant step up over every other metal gear in the series, the Shagohod at least looks primitive, Peace Walker was pushing it, but sehalanthrapus looks like it could blow the NES metal gears as well as REX and Ray out of the water. It could probably beat every MG in the series except maybe Excelsus from MGR.

While it doesn't get repeated in cutscenes to a comical extent like in 4, parasites really are this games version of 4 using nanomachines to explain things that didn't need to be explained.

As for quiet, aside from the outfit not making sense even with their excuse, mostly looking like the company just doesn't understand how photosynthesis and air flow through different types of cloth works, her refusal to speak just annoys the hell out me. There are so many situations that could have been avoided if she had just had a note pad and paper, or used code talker later in the game, or hell, use that fancy idroid with hologram technology to transmit messages, Ocelot and Miller can send Snake mission info, but apparently Quiet is too stupid to send a simple, "yo Snake, there's a parasite that kills people if they speak a certain language, watch that shit, ya dig?". It's not even reluctance as she shows in Chapter 1 that she wants to prevent the parasite from getting on Mother Base.

So much of her character just feels thrown together, that might be because most of the rest of the characters are either criminally underdeveloped or just barely there, so it's not just her, the whole story really just doesn't feel complete or well assembled. It almost seems like there were some rewrites somewhere in the development process where plot threads got mashed together on short notice after Konami stopped giving Kojima more time with the game.

 

[AgentCooper]

Oh. Well I love you too Adam.

Pardon me for thinking that the character was stupidly written.

It's a Metal Gear Solid game. Of course it's stupidly written. But that doesn't detract from its charm. You know what does?

End game spoilers:

Spoiler

the fact that you're actually playing as a hypnotized nameless soldier who's undergone cosmetic surgery to look like Big Boss instead of playing as real Big Boss.

Fuck that shit. That's what we should talk about. Kojima didn't just troll us this time. If I had known about this I wouldn't have bought the game. I wanted to

Spoiler

play as Big Boss and to see him interact with all those characters. I wanted to see his downfall and how he became the villain.

Instead I got practically nothing. A game that pretends to have a story only to take it all away from you in the end.

You did kind of see Big Boss as the Villain.

Spoiler

Big boss sold the world a phantom a imitation to get heat off himself after the MSF incident. It also explains how Big Boss survived Metal Gear 1. Big Boss sent Solid Snake "to his death" in hopes of Venom killing Solid.

Also, this explains it better than I ever could.

Spoiler

Pre-MG 1 Years have passed, Big Boss somehow became corrupt which leads to the modern storyline of Metal Gear Solid. In an era where ?war is nowhere to be found?, Big Boss got hungry and decided to develop a weapon of mass destruction (thinking that it will start a new era of war). He then sent Gray Fox into Venom Snake?s Outer Heaven fortress to look for intel about the said weapon. Gray Fox was captured and his last words in the radio was ?METAL GEAR.?

Metal Gear Big Boss then sent Solid Snake inside the fortress (confident that Solid Snake will fail) in order to save Gray Fox, and destroy Metal Gear. Solid Snake manages to save Gray Fox and destroyed the new Metal Gear, TX-55 by placing landmines next to its feet. Big Boss didn?t expect that Solid Snake will complete the mission so he decided to send his copy, Venom Snake. After destroying TX-55, the Outer Heaven fortress will self-destruct. While escaping, Solid Snake met with Venom Snake, believing he is the real Big Boss. Solid Snake defeated him, killing him, and manages to escape the Outer Heaven fortress. Venom Snake is now dead. The fortress was destroyed and the Operation Intrude N313 was a success. He got a call from the real Big Boss saying that he is still alive and they will meet again.

 

[jurnag12]

From what I understand, 2 main reasons:

1) The design is really on the fetishistic side. There's a difference between showing cleavage and literally wearing a bikini as a main clothing piece on battlefields in a desert.

2) Kojima tried to justify the design during the initial outcry over Quiet's design months ago by saying that her backstory would perfectly justify her choice of clothing and make everyone that perved over her feel ashamed for even wondering about her that way. The explanation is apparently quite lacking, with it being rather clear that her backstory was very much written to justify her wearing nothing but swimwear throughout the game instead of it being a natural consequence thereof.

TL;DR: It's bad even by the usual standards, and Kojima basically shot himself in the foot with his initial response

 

[Redd the Sock]

Because we're a lot more politically minded now than we were for past games. Actually, I think that many are just more sex negative than they wish to admit, at least for a male created character. If Quiet really existed in real life the grief she gets would be called out as "slut shaming", but a man created her, so every move is wrong now. More telling is the reasons, which, are BS, but in a series where nanomachines solve everything I'll give it a pass. She has what could be defined as a medical condition that would make her more comfortable dressed as she is, and we still say variations of "can't you cover up a bit."

Makes me anxious for when the nudist community wants representation in gaming. That'll be fun.

 

[EternallyBored]

If I had to guess it's the timing (Big name AAA title after a gaming 'drought') and the poor attempt to justify her as something other than objective fan service.

It seems as though people are more sensitive/fed up with this stuff in gaming now then they would have been back when MGS4 came out. As time passes people will only speak out against it more and more especially with regards to respected franchises.

Just because we don't remember it doesn't mean it didn't happen, the OP is wrong, there was a lot of criticism against the BB corps when MGS 4 came out. It even got some non-gaming sites attention when it came out that there were activated scenes where the BBs in their jumpsuits would pose to music while you snapped pictures of them. I remember reading multiple opinion pieces about sexualization in games and how it was dumb when it happened.

Just because the OP doesn't remember anyone complaining when MGS 4 came out doesn't make it true, it happened, about to the extent its happening with Quiet now: a few opinion pieces and/or videos, some debate with a lot of butthurt people overreacting to everything, and gamers lamenting about how come nobody complained about Eva in MGS 3, except people complained then too, but it long ago enough that most of those articles are close to impossible to find now.

 

[Azure23]

It's a kinda silly in game excuse, but mostly I just feel like they missed an opportunity with the character. She can go invisible, she can change the color of her skin to some extent, why not just say she has octocamo esque technology built into her skin and have her blend in? It'd be useful for a sniper, and if Kojima wanted her to be in that outfit the rest of the time so be it, at least it makes a bit more sense for her clothing to be skimpy if her skin acts as a changing camo suit.

My real problem is with the way the camera is constantly ogling her, or her random helicopter yoga.

 

[Worgen]

Quiet is a great character ruined by her being whored around by Kojima. And remember, this is a 50-year old man we're talking about.

An old man with more testosterone in his midget bod than you emasculated dudes in the prime of your life. *bah* I don't know I think Quiet is a fun character to look at and they don't want all that mo-capping to have been for naught. The characters in Metal Gear are often conceptualized heavily(in that they carry realistic themes) but very light-hearted(almost or completely comical) in their execution, leading to the kind of contradictions the series is known for and which is part of its charm. I mean, Kojima created Otacon and made him deliberately clumsy with women specifically just so 'geeks' would have someone to relate too.

I don't know but I also find it strange that Stephanie Joosten was completely fine with the portrayal of Quiet while random dudes on the internet consider a character wiggling her ass and showing her cleavage as a harcore porno all of a sudden. Exemplary of the prudish times we live in indeed. Fortunately Kojima is from a different generation.

Her design fucks up her character and the tone of the game overall. For the most part it tries to have a realistic feel too it, then suddenly you see this chick doing stripper stretches in a string bikini. If you think anything other than "this is so stupid" you need to jack off more. They should have had her covered in scrapes and scars and shit from rolling around in dirt in her dumb outfit.

This is Metal Gear, not Skullgirls. We all know that Kojima is a randy ol bastard but Quiet's design is just a new level of stupid.