Metal Gear / Characters

This page lists characters who first appeared in the original Metal Gear.

For other characters in the franchise, see the Metal Gear character index at Characters.Metal Gear.

For the final boss of this game, see Punished "Venom" Snake at Characters.Metal Gear Solid V.

Characters that debuted in Metal Gear:

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Solid Snake

"Kept you waiting, huh?"
^{Click here to see Old Snake in MGS4}

A.K.A.: Old Snake, Iroquois Pliskin, David

Voiced by: Akio Ōtsuka (JP), David Hayter (EN)

"I only felt truly alive when I was staring Death in the face. I don't know, maybe it's written into my genes."

The star of the show for much of the Metal Gear series, Solid Snake is an infiltration specialist whose exploits usually revolve around destroying the titular Metal Gears, nuclear-armed Humongous Mecha whose very existence shifts the balance of power in the world dramatically. Through this, he becomes entangled in a massive web of control and deceit centered around the Patriots, a shadowy Ancient Conspiracy group that has been engaged in clandestine wars for decades. Without a doubt Solid Snake is "the man who makes the impossible, possible."

The jump to 3-D gaming drastically expanded Snake's character, with the revelation that he was shaken up pretty badly during the MSX era, and that he's actually a laboratory-grown clone of his recurring enemy, Big Boss. He becomes a hermit in the interim, but is forcibly pulled out of retirement when Metal Gear rears its ugly head yet again. The Alaska incident has the benefit of pairing Snake with his future partner, Otacon. Together, the duo combine their brains and brawn to delay the proliferation of Metal Gear, whether it be by lobbying the U.N., or simply blowing up every prototype in sight.

Eventually, Snake's flawed clone DNA catches up with him, and he prematurely ages into an old man. The character was officially and canonically retired in MGS4, with recent games focusing on the past adventures of Big Boss and one focusing on the later adventures of Raiden.

Whilst Snake is indisputably The Hero of the Metal Gear universe, due to the story's non-linear approach he is only the player character for roughly half of the games in the series. The other two protagonists in the franchise are his father Big Boss and protege Raiden.

'80s Hair: God, that mullet...
- Slightly less mullety in MGS2, more just generally longish and held back by the bandanna. It's most obviously such while disguised as Iroquois Pliskin and not wearing said bandanna. But he is totally rocking the old man mullet in MGS4.
Action Dad: Snake counts as this once foster daughter Sunny comes into his life.
Adaptational Jerkass: In the interactive graphic novel version of Metal Gear, he is completely disinterested in Naomi's motives behind injecting him with FoxDie whereas in the game, he was sympathetic when he discovers her relationship with Gray Fox.
Aerosol Flamethrower: How he beats Big Boss in Metal Gear 2.
Aesop Amnesia: Played with. His entire character arc is him repeatedly learning the same lesson about his freedom from the battlefield at the end of every game, only to end up back on the battlefield because otherwise you couldn't have a sequel. This was a factor in Kojima's decision to officially retire him in MGS4, by giving Snake Clone Degeneration-induced Rapid Aging, failing health, and a year left to live at best; for the most part, every later Metal Gear Kojima worked on has been a prequel focused on Naked Snake/Big Boss, whose character arc is (or at least was supposed to be) him coming to terms with the fact that he refuses to leave the battlefield. On the other hand, much of Snake's character development revolves around his reason for coming back to the fight: he goes from being a fresh, inexperienced commando who fights purely because he's ordered to (original game), to doing so for more personal/selfish reasons (to overcome his nightmares in Metal Gear 2 and then just to feel alive in Metal Gear Solid), to doing so because he feels a responsibility to make the world a better place for future generations (his and Otacon's anti-Metal Gear activities prior to and during Metal Gear Solid 2, his several assassination attempts on Liquid Ocelot in Metal Gear Solid 4).
Afraid of Needles: Drebin asked if he was this before injecting him with a syringe to update his nanos in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. In this case, his fear or rather hesitance was perfectly justified, as the previous time he got an injection before a mission, it turned out the person injected him with the unwanted gift of FOXDIE. He should have followed that gut instinct. However, new addition helps prevent him from becoming a living Weapon of Mass Destruction.
Ambiguously Bi: After the events of MGS1, Snake and Meryl were a couple, although it didn't last. Afterwards he started living together with Otacon, and raised an adoptive child together with him. In MGS2, Snake can take photos of scantily clad posters of both men and women alike, and if you show the photos, Otacon will remark that the male ones explain a lot about Snake's past behavior, Not That There's Anything Wrong with That. Which implies it's far from the first time Snake has visibly perved on another man.
Ambiguous Situation: Despite it being made clear in MGS4 that he had a year left to live at absolute best, his ultimate fate is never conclusively addressed in the events of Rising. Adding to the ambiguity, Raiden mentions the philosophy he passed on in an optional Codec conversation; throughout the exchange, Raiden refers to him in the present tense while others uses past tense.
- This may be a reference to the Japan-exclusive Solid Snake Sword, which contained the spirit of Snake and spoke with his voice when it hit things. If you take the sword as canon, then Raiden may consider Snake to technically still be around.
Alliterative Codename: Solid Snake.
Anti-Anti-Christ: He was originally created, along with his brothers, to enforce the Patriots' will (albeit unknowingly), but he eventually managed to destroy the Patriots and save the planet from control.
Anti-Hero: A cynical man who nevertheless does the right thing, though some have suggested that he isn't really all that good.
The Anti-Nihilist: He doubts whether or not his actions will make a difference in the long run and knows how brutal and senseless life can be, but still devotes himself to the cause of creating a more just, peaceful world by stopping the proliferation of superweapons, especially Metal Gears. The speech he gives at the end of MGS2 is his take on the information control speech given by GW, spun using this trope as a basis; he believes that the world has a responsibility to pass on any information possible, using memes that are either good or bad so that future generations can learn from the past. As he so succinctly puts it:
Snake: "Building the future and keeping the past alive are one in the same thing."
Amazon Chaser: He has hints of it, with him doing some low-key flirting with Holly and eventually inviting Holly out for dinner in Metal Gear 2 (although he ultimately doesn't show up for said date), and he is clearly attracted to Meryl in MGS1, and their relationship turns overtly romantic at the end of the game. He appears to have moved beyond it in MGS2, where him and Otacon talks about Olga, and he makes a grumpy throwaway comment about him having "had enough of tomboys", indicating that whatever he had with Meryl turned sour.
Arbitrary Skepticism: Despite living in a world where Humongous Mechas, Psychic Powers, and cyborg ninjas are commonplace, Snake refuses to believe that Vamp is truly immortal. Unlike most examples of this trope, he turns out to be right.
Arch-Enemy: Liquid Snake. Starts out as Unknown Rival, as Liquid has been nursing a huge grudge against Snake for years even before they meet, while Snake has no idea who the former is. By the end of the Shadow Moses incident, Liquid has killed and/or impersonated Snake's mentors, Master Miller and Gray Fox, making this extremely personal. Liquid then proceeds to hound Snake through Sons of Liberty and Guns of the Patriots, via pulling a Grand Theft Me on Revolver Ocelot, and becomes his most recurring foe. Although "Liquid" in Guns of the Patriots is really Ocelot having brainwashed himself into thinking that he's Liquid, it's telling that his antagonism of Snake is one of his defining character traits.
Artistic License – Military: Stillman sees through his Paper-Thin Disguise thanks to the various inaccuracies in his story, such as his use of Marine Corps and SAS mottos, despite impersonating a SEAL, giving himself a higher rank than a field operator would have, and using equipment meant for rear echelon command personnel.
Badass Bookworm: While not on the level of say, Otacon's mastery of engineering or Liquid explaining Asymmetry theory, Snake is proficient in just about anything that has bearing on military science. He also understands more about biology than Liquid does, as he demonstrates knowledge of apoptosis^note and genetics in his private conversation with Naomi.
Badass Normal: Is able to take on a world of cyborgs, psychics, and supernaturally empowered warriors and win.
- Some argue this distinction, as Solid Snake was a clone of Big Boss. However, there are indications that the geneticists considered him a flawed copy (most tellingly, Big Boss and Solidus were more physically robust, and Snake's training seems to have been less intense than Liquid's or Solidus's), so the trope is averted in spirit. Remember too that he is the clone of a regular man, Big Boss was by all accounts a normal human with no modifications whatsoever. Despite being a clone of a legendary soldier that soldier was still a badass normal.
- Incredibly one-sided battles he's managed to win with only on-site-procured weapons include: a Hind-D helicopter, one piloted by a guy who used it to take down two F-16s, a tank with only grenades, a giant crazy-lady-piloted robot wolf, and a handful of giant war-robots over the years.
Badasses Wear Bandanas: His trademark accessory is the bandana he constantly wears.
Bad Liar: While not as bad of a liar as Roy Campbell or even his father Big Boss, it is clear that he isn't all that good at lying, as evidenced with his first appearance in the Plant chapter of MGS2: he states that he got to the Big Shell via a fast-rope descent from a Navy Chopper, yet that exact moment one of the sea lice from earlier falls off of him. Likewise, he disguises himself as Iroquois Pliskin, yet he gets portions of his uniform wrong (headsets are only used for commanders who are kept off the battlefield at all costs), and he quotes the wrong military mottos (he says "Semper Fi" and "Who Dares, Wins", which are the Marines and the British Special Air Service mottos respectively). Also overlaps into Paper-Thin Disguise.
- Then, when MGS4 comes around, Snake tells Meryl that the UN sent him to the Middle East to do threat assessment on the local PMCs and see how they're affecting their refugee protection efforts. Meryl, having heard rumors of an assassin targeting Liquid Ocelot (which is what Snake was really there for), is not fooled.
Bag of Spilling: Lampshaded in MGS2, when his stealth camo shorts out in the opening cutscene. Drat.
- Subverted, however, during the second guard invasion aboard Arsenal Gear. Snake tosses out infinite ammo to the player, having brought along his ∞ bandanna.
Batman Grabs a Gun: Played with, as the in-universe explanation as to why he never used CQC before MGS4 is because of Big Boss's betrayal; in his words, it didn't feel right using the fighting style of "a man who betrayed his unit". He uses it now because Big Boss's Cold War-era exploits were declassified recently, meaning most soldiers on the battlefields of MGS4 know CQC, and Old Snake's first response to someone using it on him is to respond in kind.
Be All My Sins Remembered: He does not like it when someone calls him a hero. In his own words, he "never was, never will be" a hero, despite saving the world multiple times for Metal Gear and/or nuclear fire. The fact that he had to kill a lot of people to do it weighs on his mind heavily.
Because I'm Good At It: A big part of Snake's angst throughout the series. He's loath to admit it even under the most excruciating duress, but he loves battle, and while his enemies often seek the proliferation of worldwide conflict for the benefit of natural-born soldiers like himself, he has a selfless moral instinct which forces him to stop them at any cost.
Being Good Sucks: And he is well-aware of this. Unlike Big Boss, he pulls through everything life threw at him, but his perseverance kept him from going down the same path as his father. While others want to save the world, he does it his way. Even if it means "living like a pariah".
Beyond the Impossible: He's even regarded in-universe as "the man who makes the impossible possible".
Big Brother Mentor: To Raiden. In Revengeance, he recalls that Snake was the best combat veteran he'd ever seen, a man who absolutely did not know how to quit or fail. Notably, Snake hands his sidearm and cigarettes to Raiden when they first meet in the Big Shell, realizing the poor newbie was sent in without any gear, just like Snake was all those miserable times.
Big Damn Heroes: Rather than Raiden who defeats Solidus, the interactive graphic novel of MGS2 has Snake as the one who defeats Solidus who rants about being Big Boss's greatest son while Snake is a mistake. Snake doesn't even care and took Solidus out in one stroke.
Snake: Fine by me. I rather be a mistake... than be the one who makes them.
Big "NO!": Gives out one as Raiden is squashed by Outer Haven.
Blood Knight: Heavily implied in Metal Gear Solid by Liquid Snake, Psycho Mantis, and even Meryl Silverburgh to enjoy killing and battle. In Mantis's case, he is arguably worse than Liquid.
- This is one of the central conflicts of his character. When he fails in living a peaceful lifestyle (similar to his father), Snake decides to put his Blood Knight tendencies to use for good.
Busman's Holiday: Runs to the ends of the earth just to never see another Metal Gear again... unaware that the Army is building a new one on his doorstep. D'oh.
Broken Ace: Especially in MGS1.
Broken Pedestal: Snake, still bitter over Big Boss's numerous betrayals, is one of the last people to recognize his achievements. Despite that, Snake is hinted to still harbor some respect for his old CO, as he becomes livid when he sees Solidus impersonating Big Boss, as well as the fact that he visits and even salutes Big Boss's grave in MGS4.
But Not Too Foreign: His genetic donor was an unnamed Japanese woman who was an assistant of Dr.Clark/Para Medic.
Vulcan Raven: Blood from the East flows in your veins.
Byronic Hero
Solid Snake: I'm just a man who's good at what he does, killing. There's no winning or losing for a mercenary. I've never fought for anyone but myself, I've got no purpose in life, no ultimate goal. It's only when I'm cheating death on the battlefield, the only time I feel truly alive.
Cain and Abel: With Liquid Snake and Solidus Snake.
Can't Stay Normal: After the events of Metal Gear Solid, he attempted to settle down and live a normal life with Meryl, but eventually gave up and returned to the battlefield.
Character Development: Goes from being a jaded, cynical jerk who could care less about anything but completing the mission to live another day to a jaded cynical jerk who does what he does because it's the right thing to do and no one else will do it.
Characterization Marches On: In Metal Gear, he was a Heroic Mime with fewer lines outside of generic messages and after he accomplished his mission. Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake gives him more lines, but he comes off as being more polite towards his in-field contacts and boss fights. Metal Gear Solid is where he is a Deadpan Snarker and very abrasive when his contacts are hiding something from him. Considering his history with Big Boss, he had every reason to get on to Campbell for hiding something from him.
Charles Atlas Superpower: Not quite as much as Big Boss, perhaps, but the cutscenes in the Metal Gear Solid remake showed him pulling some ridiculous maneuvers. In Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, Snake is still very strong despite his biological age because his sneaking suit augments his strength.
Celibate Hero: While Snake flirts with Mei Leng, and has a short relationship with Meryl, he ultimately sacrifices his romantic attachments for the sake of ridding the world of Metal Gears. His clone degeneration doesn't help in MGS4, as he figures he won't be around much longer.
Child Soldier: Arguably one, as he was raised within the military.
Chivalrous Pervert: Snake exhibits this trait to several beautiful women, especially to Meryl, whom he notes has a cute butt, and to Mei Ling, too.
Clones Are People, Too: He's his own person, and is explicitly described as Big Boss's son.
Clone Degeneration: The reason for his Rapid Aging in MGS4.
Combat Pragmatist: Well known for his unorthodox tactics, like using grenades on a tank. Furthermore, he has no qualms against killing dogs to protect himself.
Conspicuous Trenchcoat: His Eastern Europe disguise in Act 3 of MGS4 consists of this along with a FaceCamo of his younger self. There's a practical reason for the coat, though. If he's equipped with a pistol, he can keep it concealed with his hands in his pockets so long as he doesn't move above a walking pace and doesn't crouch down.
Cool Old Guy: To some extent, in MGS4. Age hasn't slowed him down much, but it still weighs on his mind.
Covered with Scars: In Act Two of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, Snake's physical body is shown to be this. But instead of being seen as a mark of being a badass, it's instead shown as actually being very horrible and extremely tragic to see the total extent of just how much he has gone through.
Covert Pervert: Hinted at in Codec conversations with Raiden in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty.
Damn You, Muscle Memory!: Part of the reason he starts using CQC again in MGS4. He explains that the PMCs are all using "cookie cutter imitations" that they read about, and when they attempt to use it on him, he reflexively responds with the original techniques he learned directly from Big Boss.
Dark Is Not Evil: Liquid referred to himself and Snake as "the brother of light" and "the brother of dark" — while who is who in unspecified, Snake is a grizzled, bitter looking man usually wearing dark clothing (contrasting his brother's light-skinned bare chest).
- Big Mama specifically refers to him as a "shadow, which no light can shine on."
- Then again, considering Mantis's statement about Snake deduced from what is strongly implied to be mind and past reading, Snake himself might have been Dark Is Evil. "Have been" is the key phrase.
Deadpan Snarker: He has his moments, such as during his confrontation with Vulcan Raven, where he quips that Raven must have "excelled at the Muktuk Eating contest" in the Eskimo-Indian Olympics.
- A lot of his dialogue in the comic adaptation is given this kind of spin — it has the effect of adding more humour to what is otherwise a very serious adaptation, in exchange for making him a little bit more of a Jerkass.
Decoy Protagonist: Only in MGS2.
Defrosting Ice King: Part of his Metal Gear Solid character arc.
Determinator: Oh god yes. He crawls out of a microwave hallway with his fingertips!
- It's the only reason Old Snake is still alive from start to finish.
- It's implied by Big Boss in MGS4 that this is what enabled to Snake not to end up like his father despite all the betrayals and manipulations he endured.
Dead Guy Junior: He shares his first name with Zero, Big Boss's close friend until their later falling out over their goals.
Death Seeker: At times. Once he is Old Snake in MGS4, he doesn't really feel he's got a lot left to live for.
Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of the most basic Archetype in Hollywood: the badass Action Hero who blows bad guys to hell and gets the girl. Rather than being a hardcore larger than life hero, Snake ends up being a traumatized mess of a man in response to the hell he's put through throughout his adventures. And, while several women do show some interest in him, the closest he comes to being in any sort of long-term relationship is with Otacon.
Didn't Think This Through: When he moves to disable Metal Gear REX in MGS1, he accidentally activates it for Liquid instead. Problem is, his own observations from his captivity, visions from Psycho Mantis, and Vulcan Raven's admission that the DARPA Chief that he saw die was actually Decoy Octopus, means that Snake genuinely failed to realize or remember that Octopus was lying about the Chief's activation code being taken, and completely fell for Liquid's ruses and playing dumb when he would've otherwise been stonewalled due to the Chief dying mid-interrogation.
Dirty Old Man: Considering what's happening to him by Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, he comes pretty close to the trope by his appearance and reading Playboys to increase his psyche gauge (not to mention giving implied regret of retiring too soon when he hears that Mei Ling apparently got a promotion after catching an eye with an admiral that was implied to be of this trope), even if he is technically middle-aged.
Drama-Preserving Handicap: Two in MGS4:
- After the REX vs. RAY showdown on Shadow Moses, he ends up dislocating his shoulder, rendering him unable to aim his gun properly as Liquid Ocelot makes a getaway on Outer Haven.
- While crawling through Outer Haven's microwave corridor, his Solid Eye and OctoCamo Sneaking Suit are completely fried.
Dressing as the Enemy: On occasion, he will actually use disguises in addition to his traditional brand of stealth. He briefly uses an enemy officer's uniform in Metal Gear, wears Navy SEAL fatigues for much of the Plant chapter in Metal Gear Solid 2, and can wear militia and rebel outfits in the first two chapters of Metal Gear Solid 4, making those factions friendly towards him, rather than shooting him on sight.
Driven to Suicide: In MGS4, Snake intends to kill himself at a graveyard in order to prevent himself from infecting the world with FOXDIE. It was subverted, though, as he ultimately couldn't go through with it, plus it turned out killing himself proved to be completely unnecessary anyway.
Drowning My Sorrows: Snake mentions after revealing his identity to Raiden that before Shadow Moses, he took to heavily drinking while living in isolation at Alaska.
Earn Your Happy Ending: He goes through a shit-ton of both physical and emotional pain, trauma, and betrayals, but by the end of MGS4, he finally succeeds at liberating the world from the Patriots' control and resolves to live the rest of his life in peace with his best friend, Otacon, and his surrogate daughter, Sunny, by his side.
Evil Counterpart: Solid Snake and Liquid Snake. Psycho Mantis's dying speech proclaims that Snake is this to Liquid, stating that he was as bad as Liquid after declaring that Mantis saw true evil which was Snake, before realizing that he's actually worse than Liquid. However, people will be far more likely to conclude that the opposite is true.
Embarrassing Nickname: Snake really hates it when people refer to him as "Old Snake". In fact, just hearing the moniker takes a quarter of his psyche out.
Eyepatch of Power: The Solid Eye System. Unlike most instances of this trope, Solid Snake is not missing an eye and the Solid Eye is a functional heads up display with optional zoom and night vision.
Expy: He began as an amalgam of eighties action heroes, most notably Snake Plissken of Escape from New York. Hideo Kojima is a self-proclaimed fan of that film.
- Other influences include Michael Biehn from The Terminator, Sylvester Stallone in Rambo (the bandanna), Jean-Claude Van Damme (Snake's physique) and Christopher Walken (his face in MGS1 is modeled on Walken's youth). As a consequence, Snake's adventures have a distinct 80's Hollywood flavor to them, especially the music. The MGS1 soundtrack, while darker and more modern, still has a lingering synth element to it.
- Old Snake is Lee Van Cleef, particularly in going from Perma-Stubble to a Porn Stache.
Face Death with Dignity: His attitude towards his eventual demise in MGS4.
Failure Hero: One of the greatest examples in all of gaming. His actions throughout the series effectively keep the Patriots in a position of power, meaning that every game ends with the Greater-Scope Villain winning. Then Snake and his adoptive family destroy the system forever in Metal Gear Solid 4.
Faking the Dead: Snake is lured into an explosive-rigged oil tanker in Metal Gear Solid 2. Luckily Otacon is standing by with a boat. Rather than wait for the Patriots to take another shot at them, the duo go into hiding and are presumed dead. They later turn up on the Big Shell while masquerading as SEAL operatives.
Feeling Their Age: Due to accelerated aging, Snake feels this way for the entirety of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. For example, when he crouches and walks for too long, his back suffers, which didn't used to happen in previous installments. Oh, and his hair is grey and he has a grandpa-'stache.
Female Gaze: He has a truly fantastic ass, something that's emphasised by certain camera angles and outfit choices throughout MGS2 and MGS4.
Flashback Nightmare: Mentioned a few times in his appearances. The first time was in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake when encountering Big Boss at Zanzibar Land, where he states that he took the mission to get rid of the nightmares relating to Outer Heaven that he experienced since his mission to Outer Heaven. In Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, it’s strongly implied that Snake was suffering from nightmares from Shadow Moses (contacting Pliskin while Snake is asleep will have him mumbling something before abruptly screaming Liquid's name, presumably this part was during their fight on REX). Finally, in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, not only does Snake have a nightmare regarding his entry into Shadow Moses, the player even plays the nightmare in Act 4.
Flawed Prototype: He is supposed to be a flawed clone of Big Boss, but exactly how flawed he's supposed to be given that he's managed to put a stop to the Outer Heaven and Zanzbar uprisings, defeated Big Boss, Venom Snake, Liquid Snake, and Solidus Snake in the interactive comic, and even ended The Patroits' hold on the world.
Foil: To Big Boss. Both experience horrible events, both are subjected to betrayal and treason, and both are made to suffer. But while Big Boss embraces hatred and vengeance, Solid Snake defies it. Big Boss kills to get his vengeance, while Snake kills for the greater good.
Forgiveness:
- One of his most noticeable traits that separates him from his father, his brothers, and even Venom Snake is his willingness to forgive and understand other people. Despite being betrayed and manipulated throughout MGS1, he ultimately understood that each of his support team basically had a gun to their head while doing so, and never once blamed them for their actions beyond getting a bit angry. Likewise with Grey Fox where he never once blamed Fox for betrayal and always considered Fox a friend despite being an enemy during the Zanzibar uprising.
- This is even pronounced with his meeting with Big Boss in MGS4. Despite the latter being an enemy commander and tried to send him to his death on his first mission, he ultimately realizes that Big Boss is literally him if he took a dark path that lead the creation of Outer Heaven and Zanzibar Land takeover if he let his own PTSD clouded his judgment.
Free-Range Children: He was born and raised in the United States even though he was raised in the military. Eli was also a free-range child, but kept making trouble with his handlers, and flees to Africa.
Friendly Enemy: With Gray Fox. In Metal Gear Solid, he outright tells Naomi that even if he and Fox were technically on opposite sides during the Zanzibar Land incident, he still viewed Fox as his friend.
Functional Addict: In MGS2, he wryly notes that his "retirement" consisted of him being "holed up in the middle of nowhere in Alaska, drinking too much." He was still, however, able to properly raise and race an absurd number of huskies during that time, and when called back to do the mission on Shadow Moses, he seems to suffer from no ill effects from being away from alcohol over a 24 hour period. On top of that, he's a heavy smoker for most of the series; it's only when his health begins to fail in MGS4 that his allies become concerned and insist he quit, only for him to refuse on the grounds that he's going to die soon anyway, so what harm can it do now?
Gallows Humor: His reaction to discovering just what Outer Haven's microwave hallway will do to someone is:
"You'd have to have a death wish to go in there. Sounds like the perfect job for me."
Genius Bruiser: He is shown to know some history pretty well, and was stated to have an IQ of 180 and fluent in at least six languages (including English and French). He's also without peer in hand to hand combat, and adept with basically every weapons platform he can get his hands on.
- He also catches just about every obscure political or cultural reference anyone makes in his presence, often when the player doesn't.
- This actually serves as a clue to Raiden and Stillman in MGS2 that "Iroquis Pliskin" is more than what he seems (the player, on the other hand, will only be fooled if they're literally blind) when he ends a conversation with the phrase "Who dares, wins." Not many Navy Seals are going to be casually dropping the motto of the British SAS.
Godzilla Threshold: It's part of the In-Universe justification for him using CQC in MGS4. He always knew how, but he refused to use it because of Big Boss betraying everyone after the events of the first Metal Gear. That said, with everyone using CQC to some extent as of MGS4, his more authentic variation of such becomes his own personal Godzilla.
Good Counterpart: To Big Boss. (Almost) identical DNA, similar lives, skills, trials and tribulations, but Snake didn't allow his trauma to make him pull a Face–Heel Turn. Lampshaded by Big Boss himself in their final meeting, commenting his son for this.
Good Is Not Nice: When Snake asks you a question, it's best to answer truthfully.
- Otacon of all people was on the receiving end of this during their first encounter; when Otacon parrots the party line about REX strictly being a missile-defense system, Snake unexpectedly snaps and throttles Otacon in a rage.
- He is shown to be willing to save the world from itself, although that doesn't stop him from sometimes acting like a jerk towards his friends, and at one point manipulate a person into getting himself captured in a really complex method of Trojan Prisoner. Otacon reassures the victim that it was kindly meant.
Good Old Ways: Snake has a low opinion of virtually every 21st-century soldier he encounters. He regards the flashy, inexperienced Genome Soldiers as all hat and no cattle; the next-generation VR soldiers as clowns; the twitchy rookie Meryl as a total liability. Several times in MGS4, he expresses disdain for the SOP nanomachines and unmanned weapons.
Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: He, The Hero of the series, smokes cigarettes, a contrast to the cigar-chomping Big Boss and Liquid Ocelot.
Guest Fighter: In DreamMix TV World Fighters and Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Ultimate.
Handguns: In each game, he carries a different pistol that reflects his character:
- In the classic MSX games, he uses a Beretta 92, which during the eighties, was often seen in movies in the hands of a hotshot Anti-Hero. At the time, it was also the standard sidearm for the US military, showing Snake's loyalty to his country.
- Metal Gear Solid has him carry a Mark 23 SOCOM, which is stated by Nastasha to be a Difficult, but Awesome to use, reflecting Snake's experience. It's also considered a more sensible choice than the Hand Cannon Meryl wields, showing her inexperience.
- Metal Gear Solid 2 gives him a tranquilizer gun converted from a Beretta M9 at first, showing that he wants to cut down on the killing after being called out by Liquid. His lethal pistol in this game is a USP, an evolution of the SOCOM, showing Snake as having undergone Character Development since the previous game.
- Metal Gear Solid 4 outfits him with a Springfield Operator, an updated 1911, which reflects himself during the game; older, but given a few modern accessories to allow him to keep up on the battlefield. This also reflects him becoming more similar to Big Boss, given that the Operator serves as the upgraded version of Big Boss' signature Ace Custom 1911 from Snake Eater in addition to relying on camouflage and CQC.
Handsome Lech: OMIGODHOTNESS I WANNA BANG YOU.
- He hits on girls half his age! He hits on his support staff! He broods over whether to ask Otacon's permission to date Emma! The man has a healthy libido, let's leave it at that.
- He's less of a ladies' man than his behavior would suggest, as his war experiences have severely harmed his ability to open up to other people. Meryl was more than a woman, she was a combat buddy; and even she dumped him.
Hates Small Talk: Another surefire way to piss him off is digging into his personal life.
- He comments in MGS1 that he and Grey Fox — supposedly his closest friend in the world — never talked about anything personal. Just endless conversations about rations and rifle clips, apparently. "Sort of an unwritten rule."
He Who Fights Monsters: Variation in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. His rapidly aging body combined with the FOXDIE virus from the Shadow Moses Incident, making the latter slowly mutate. By the time three months had passed, FOXDIE would kill indiscriminately, and kill Snake in another three months. After he spent his life eliminating Metal Gears, he would essentially become a bioweapon, something Naomi even lampshaded. It was barely subverted when Big Boss revealed that the new FOXDIE Drebin injected him with uprooted the old, meaning he was no longer a biological threat to the world.
Hero Protagonist: Solid Snake is the primary protagonist of the series up until MGS4 and his contributions are the most significant out of all the playable characters overall, successfully undoing almost all the damage done by Fallen Hero Big Boss and Greater Scope Villains The Patriots.
Hero with Bad Publicity: He's been branded a criminal since the Shadow Moses incident, and was framed as an ecoterrorist by the Patriots during the Manhattan incident. Of course, he doesn't really mind this.
Heroes Love Dogs: As a retiree, Snake coped with his demons by becoming a dogsled racer, raising fifty huskies in his cabin. He was even preparing to compete in the Iditarod when Campbell yanked him back into action. Snake is fond of wolves, as well (though the feeling isn't mutual).
- Despite this, Snake admittedly has no qualms against killing attack dogs to protect himself, much to Otacon's horror.
- Turns out this was one of the qualities he's inherited from his dad Big Boss.
Heroic Self-Deprecation: Snake views himself as nothing more than a killer, and he does it because that's all he's really good at. The fact that he happened to save the world a few times while killing people is just a coincidence. Snake seems to have a low opinion of people referred to as "heroes" in general, though; he says in MGS2 that "there's not a lot of difference between heroes and madmen".
Heroic Willpower: If there's one way to sum up Snake past his personality and combat skills, it's that nothing will stop him from completing his mission. It goes past The Determinator because most of the time he doesn't even like his work or what he's usually being forced to do; even if he knows he's an Unwitting Pawn, he simply will not die, no matter if he's facing one of the other Snakes or Big Boss, going toe-to-toe with a towering Metal Gear, taking on an entire army force and the Patriots' pawns, and physically crippling injuries and torture all the while, you name it. By the time his Clone Degeneration kicks in for MGS4, Naomi outright lists this as the sole reason Snake is even physically standing, never mind fighting, because by all logical and physical sense for the human body, anyone short of his willpower would be bed-ridden for the rest of their days.
Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Otacon. Neither has much luck with the ladies, they travel the world together, raise Sunny as joint foster parents, and bicker Like an Old Married Couple. He used to be this with Gray Fox, too.
Humanoid Abomination: Strongly implied to be such by Vulcan Raven:
Vulcan Raven: You are a snake which was not created by Nature. You and the Boss... you are from another world... a world that I do not wish to know.
- Given the existence of the supernatural, the concept of destiny, and Snake's heritage that is both memetic and genetic, Vulcan Raven may have been onto something there. Whatever the case, Snake is superior to a world full of ghosts, monsters, psychics, giant robots, and killer A.I.s. Whether this is merely the case of his tried-and-true badassery or also of an inexplicable innate nature can be debated.
Hunk: Hands down, the undisputed champion of this trope when it comes to this series. Handsome as hell, muscular as hell, manly as hell. And age'll be damned — he's still a certified hunk even after he sports gray hairs. This man's truly one of a kind.
Hypocritical Humor: Snake's a good agent, but chafes at being kept in the dark about his mission. He naturally keeps Raiden in the dark about absolutely everything in MGS2.
- To be fair nobody trusts Raiden because of the Patriots.
I Will Fight No More Forever: At the end of MGS4. With the Patriots' fall and his Rapid Aging ensuring, he'll be dead soon anyway. After one last meeting with Big Boss, David resolves to spend the rest of his life in peace and not waste it fighting.
Iconic Item: His bandanna. Also his cigarettes. Snake somehow manages to smuggle his cigs into every mission, despite being forbidden to bring anything along.
Snake: Sorry to disappoint you, but I did manage to smuggle out my smokes.
Naomi: (exasperated) How did you do that?
Snake: In my stomach. Thanks to that shot you gave me which suppressed my stomach acids.
Identical Grandson: Played With. He is an identical clone of Big Boss, but was gestated, birthed, and grew up just like any other "normal" person. He is also consistently referred to as Big Boss's son, not his clone.
I Read It for the Articles: It is strongly implied that Solid Snake has other reasons for possessing dirty magazines besides using them as bait to distract enemies in Metal Gear Solid. In Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, he refers to the magazines as having "educational value" when trying to convince Raiden that having them isn't that bad, and if the player reads the magazines in the model viewer in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, Old Snake's Psyche Gauge goes up. Because of his aging problem, it also in a way overlaps into Dirty Old Man.
I Work Alone: He's also not a fan of rookie soldiers. FOXHOUND trained him to procure weapon on-site and leave no trace; they didn't prepare him for some trigger-happy fool blundering into his line of fire.
Idiot Hair: A forelock is always sticking out of place on Snake's forehead, though Snake himself is far from stupid.
Informed Ability: He's stated to have an IQ of 180, but you'd never know it from his dialogue. Most of the time he comes across as average at best, and that's discounting his instances of Cutscene Incompetence. In MGS1, for instance, he fails to piece together on his own that the DARPA chief he spoke to was Decoy Octopus in disguise, even though he found Donald Anderson's decomposing body, and continues to trust the information he got from the guy even after being told this and shown that said information doesn't add up. Liquid fools him with his act as Miller despite barely disguising his face and voice and his backstory being inconsistent. He also can't call BS on Naomi Hunter's claimed background because he apparently doesn't know that the FBI didn't have Japanese-American special agents under Hoover in the 1950s. Liquid even questions whether or not he remembers elementary school to be so ignorant.
Informed Flaw: We only have Mantis's word that the seemingly heroic Snake is more evil than Liquid. Mantis's rather harsh judgment of Snake is probably a holdover from when Snake was a Deep-Immersion Gaming Audience Surrogate in the original Metal Gear games; a bunch of potshots were aimed at Snake because of the average video-game player's sadistic tendencies when playing games, presumably so that the conversations about war would seem more relevant if the player was the focus. Because of this, the games never bothered actually portraying these tendencies on Snake's part, so that when he grew into an actual character he didn't quite live up to those Blood Knight credentials. It's also likely that, being a childhood friend of Liquid's, Mantis is maybe more forgiving of Liquid's motivations than he is of Solid's.
Interrupted Suicide: Subverted. While Big Boss does watch him attempt to shoot himself, he stops himself from doing so, after which Big Boss reveals himself and congratulates his son for not going through with it.
In the Blood: Solid Snake is a designer baby made with the DNA of "the greatest soldier ever".
Irony:
- For a man with "inferior genes", he managed to accomplished what Big Boss, Venom Snake, Liquid, and Solidus failed to do: destroy the Patriots.
- Speaking of "dominant and recessive genes", keep in mind that dominant genes were the ones that chldren inherited from a parent, like the hair gene. This is often misunderstood, but look at both Solid and Liquid's hair to realize it: Liquid/Eli has blond hair, while Solid/David has brown hair and is generally very similiar in appearence to Big Boss, so he was the one with the dominant genes.
- He actually accomplishes the one thing that Big Boss and Venom Snake failed to do: Fulfil The Boss's Will.
Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Even after his Character Development in Metal Gear Solid, he's still as abrasive and bitter as ever. However, he's now willing to fight for other people as opposed to just himself. By the time Metal Gear Solid 4 rolls around, he's noticably more bitter, but he's barely rude to anyone.
Knight in Sour Armor: Quite possibly the best example in gaming. Mentally, spiritually, and physically, Snake is put through the wringer throughout the series. He is jaded and cynical, and doubts that anything he does will make any difference in the long run, but he still fights to rid the world of superweapons like Metal Gears because it's the right thing to do, and because no one else will. He doesn't complain, but he has a dark and brooding side seen most clearly in the original Metal Gear Solid. War transforms us, into beasts.
Legacy Character: Despite the fact that he's one of Big Boss's three clones, he's the only who is commonly referred to as "Snake" by everyone, whereas his brothers are known primarily as "Liquid" and "Solidus". Granted, the fact that he was the original protagonist in the MSX2 games, while Liquid and Solidus were introduced much later.
Laser-Guided Tyke-Bomb: Thanks to FOXDIE, he's this to the members of FOXHOUND in Metal Gear Solid and then to EVA, Ocelot, and Big Boss in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.
Legendary in the Sequel: Applies to MGS1, and only increases with each game. This is a guy who took out two Metal Gears with a fistful of grenades.
- With Solidus's fall from grace and the publication of Natasha's tell-all book, Snake's fame reached its zenith. This was the last straw for the Patriots opting to remove Snake rather than allow him to continue discrediting. Even then, soldiers like Raiden refuse to buy Snake as a terrorist, and even suspect he faked his death (which later turns out to be the case).
Lightning Bruiser: Compared to Big Boss (who emphasized joint locks, throws, and overwhelming force) and Revolver Ocelot (who preferred brute strength), Solid Snake is a striker who favors powerful jabs and kicks to stagger and knock out enemies as fast as possible. While this lacks the finesse and versatility of CQC, his style shines in one-on-one combat. This also applies to his appearance in the Smash Bros. universe.
Like Father, Like Son: He is remarkably blasé about entering the most fortified and advanced strongholds in human history armed with nothing but a pack of cigarettes. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater shows he inherited this attitude from his father.
Living Legend: Has reached this status already in MGS1, where Mei-Ling refers to him as "the famous Solid Snake". His fame grows stronger through the series, with Meryl calling him a "legendary hero" in MGS4. However, he ends up becoming the Patriots' #1 enemy in the process.
Living on Borrowed Time:
- During MGS1, he's injected with the FOXDIE virus to kill off the members of FOXHOUND, but Naomi secretly alters it so it would kill Snake as well, but set it to a "wildcard" value. When he questions Naomi about when it would activate and kill him, Naomi tells him of being unsure, and advises him to live his life to the fullest in whatever time has has left.
- Come MSG4, he's dying from Rapid Aging. While Snake always knew he'd never have a normal life, he still has to stop Ocelot's plan before he can die.
Locked Out of the Loop: For most of his life, David spent his childhood in America while Liquid was sent to UK then to Africa. He doesn't discover the dark secrets of his birth or his connections to Big Boss and his brothers until he's face-to-face with them. To wit:
- In Zanzibar, Big Boss pulls a Luke, I Am Your Father revelation (via retcon) after his equipment are burnt, getting into a fistfight with Gray Fox, and now practically defenseless against his father. This parental revelation would replace his nightmares of Outer Heaven with new ones with Zanzibar for years to come.
- In Shadow Moses, Liquid constantly calls Snake as "brother" and reveals that they're both the sons of Big Boss. Apparently, Liquid left such an impact on him that his Zanzibar nightmares were replaced with Liquid haunting him from the grave.
- In Big Shell, Snake finds out about Solidus posing as him. Unlike the former two, Snake doesn't lose sleep or have nightmares involving Solidus.
Macgyvering: He did "kill" the world's greatest soldier with a Zippo lighter.
- He coaches Raiden to shoot pipes and fire extinguishers in MGS2, quoting "necessity is the mother of invention" numerous times. This is undoubtedly a main tenet of FOXHOUND.
Made of Iron: You could write a novel's length of things he has endured, including dozens of gunshots, having half his face horribly burned and crawling through a tunnel filled with lethal microwaves
Martial Arts Headband: His trademark.
Meaningful Name: His real name David is a Hebrew name that derives from King David, the Old Testament Hebrew ruler who managed to slay the giant Goliath with nothing more than a sling and a dagger prior to becoming the king of Israel. Solid Snake, in a similar fashion, has managed to overcome seemingly impossible odds despite being the Les Enfant Terribles clone that contained supposedly inferior genes, and he takes on giant war robots with nothing but a rocket launcher (and sometimes less) on a regular basis. In fact, David in Hebrew means "beloved", as he is the most beloved character in the franchise.
- By extension, David has a brother named Eliab in the bible. Liquid Snake's real name? Eli.
Memetic Badass: Acknowledged in-universe as the man who makes the impossible, possible. Some of his most impressive feats include destroying an Abrams battle tank with only a handful of hand grenades, shooting down a Hind D gunship piloted by a guy who previously used it to shoot down a pair of F-16 fighter jets, and winning a fist fight against a cyborg ninja warrior who can react so fast that he can deflect bullets with his sword. Snake is widely regarded as the greatest soldier to have ever lived, for good reason.
The Mentor: Acts as one to both Meryl and Raiden.
Misblamed: In-Universe; post-MGS, Naomi was arrested for treason and placed in a maximum security facility, only to be broken out three weeks later. Snake was assumed to be the one who engineered this escape, with the incident being added to his rap sheet. However, MGS4 reveals that it was actually Liquid Ocelot who busted Naomi out.
Military Brat: A rare literal example, as not only is he "related" to someone in the Military (he's a clone of Big Boss), but the novelization for Metal Gear Solid as well as the source material and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker implied he was raised within the military from a very early age.
Morality Pet: When Snake starts drifting too far to the dark side, it's usually Otacon who pulls him out of it and reminds him that there's still good in the world.
Mr. Fanservice: That ass is legendary. Emphasis on making his catsuit restrictive in all the right places so that the gazing would be well received while playing the game as Snake. He also gets some costumes and scenes that show off his nice physique throughout the games.
Must Have Nicotine: He often goes to extremes to get his nicotine fix.
- In the original MGS, he swallows a pack of cigarettes to take him to Shadow Moses.
- Taken to extremes in MGS4, where he's constantly smoking and complaining when he can't. Best shown when he reunites with Naomi; he's constantly trying to light a cigarette, fumbling it, dropping it, having to find it again, failing to light it, having it stolen by Naomi, and so on and so forth, for the whole scene, and Naomi doesn't even pause expositing at him about how he's going to die, horribly.
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Let's see, his actions in Outer Heaven resulted in NATO blowing up the Outer Heaven resistance members despite their being their allies, his defeat of Gray Fox and Big Boss not only got Naomi very angry at him (enough to inject a bioweapon in him to target him specifically among other things), but it also led to the Patriots controlling humanity by the 21st century, and heck, even after he defeated both the Patriots and Outer Haven in 2014 while dying, Rising implies things may have actually ended up worse than before.
- Almost everyone who is aware is glad that the Patriots are gone, especially when one considers that they planned to use nanomachines to implement the system across all of humanity.
No Badass to His Valet: To Otacon and Sunny. Neither hesitate to call Snake out on his bad habits, and Sunny is perfectly willing to snatch cigarettes right out of his mouth.
Normally, I Would Be Dead Now: In MGS4, Naomi Hunter performs a thorough medical examination on Snake and notes that due to his Clone Degeneration/Rapid Aging, only his sheer strength of will is holding him together; she specifically notes that a normal man wouldn't even be standing by this point.
Nothing Personal: Even though they were on opposing sides during Zanzibar Land, Snake and Gray Fox still considered each other to be best friends no matter what, with Snake even phrasing this trope by name while telling Naomi as such.
#1 Dime: Snake refuses to go on a mission without his smokes. During the Outer Heaven Uprising, he smoked a brand of cigarettes known as Lucky Strikes^note; since then, he considers them a sort of "good luck charm".
Odd Friendship: Snake doesn't have a whole lot of friends for rather obvious reasons, but laconic, tough as nails, no nonsense soldier Snake and nerdy Otaku, Omnidisciplinary Scientist, and all around Nice Guy Hal 'Otacon' Emmerich have a startlingly genuine friendship, having bonded over their shared ideals. Snake also has, to a lesser extent, several strong relationships with figures from his past... but as far as friends go it's really just Otacon.
Omniglot: He's noted in both Super Smash Bros. Brawl and MGS4 to be fluent in six languages, though the only ones we know of for sure are English and French.
One Last Smoke: He quits smoking after sharing one last smoke with Big Boss in the ending of MGS4.
One-Man Army: Snake is more than capable of taking an army down all by himself, as he demonstrates on multiple occasions. It is downplayed compared to normal uses of the trope, however, due to his relative vulnerability and his operations usually being sneaking operations, but when push comes to shove, that doesn't deter him one bit.
Only I Can Kill Him: In MGS1, Snake is called back into action after his old unit FOXHOUND goes rogue and seizes a nuclear warhead disposal facility. Snake is selected for the mission due to his knowledge of FOXHOUND's inner workings, though Snake denies having any insight into those newfangled Genome Soldiers or weirdo shamans. It also helps that Snake shares the same face as the unit's leader Liquid Snake.
Only Known by Their Nickname: He's only referred to by his real name of David thrice in the entire series. Once in the ending of the original Metal Gear Solid when telling Meryl and/or Otacon, once in MGS4 when Big Mama calls him as such, and in the Truth Records in MGS5.
Only Sane Man: He's the only character in his saga who starts out and ends their story with all their marbles intact. While he suffers trauma similar to Big Boss, he never goes off the deep end into conspiracy and warmongering like his mentor.
Paper-Thin Disguise: For his masquerading as Pliskin to fool any player, they would have to have literally never played a Metal Gear game before, including the tanker section of the same game. Raiden is the only one who buys it, as even Peter Stillman sees the holes in his story.
The Paragon Always Rebels: Sort of. It became somewhat clear that Solid Snake, after the Shadow Moses Incident, was willing to commit actions that would at the very least get people both foreign and domestic hateful of him enough to issue a bounty on his head, and then the Patriots were ticked off enough at him to try to orchestrate the sinking of a tanker in part to frame Snake.
Parental Substitute: To Sunny Emmerich, the biological daughter of Olga Gurlukovich. After Olga's death, Otacon and Snake take over the role of being Sunny's parents, with the former acting as her official legal guardian and adoptive father.
Perma-Stubble: Which develops into a full mustache by the time of MGS4.
Perpetual Frowner: Snake lost the ability to laugh sometime between MGS1 and MGS2.
Player Character: In Metal Gear, Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, Metal Gear Solid, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty^note(But only in the Tanker Chapter), and Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, as well as various non-canon sequels and spinoffs (Snake's Revenge, Ghost Babel and the original Acid). That's not even counting his "Snake vs. Monkey" minigame appearance (although they technically cheated on that one by using the Naked Snake model).
Pop-Cultured Badass: He's at least seen Jurassic Park,^note 2001: A Space Odyssey,^note Escape from New York,^note and A New Hope.^note Ironic, considering Big Boss, his genetic father, was completely ignorant of pop culture.^note
Popularity Power: Like Big Boss, Snake's notoriety in-universe is a nod to his actual fanbase. In fact, even the games are canonical; Raiden has beaten VR versions of Outer Heaven, Zanzibar Land, Shadow Moses, the Tanker, and even Galuade.
Posthumous Character: It's heavily implied that he died between MGS4 and Rising since both games are four years apart and Snake only had about six months left to live.
Pretender Diss: His attitude towards soldiers trained by VR experiences rather than in the actual field, as revealed in MGS2. He has much the same attitude toward the SOP-controlled soldiers in MGS4.
Snake: (appraising Raiden) A virtual grunt of the digital age, that's just great.
Raiden: That's far more effective than live exercises!
Snake: You don't get injured in VR, do you? Every year, a few soldiers die in field exercises.
Properly Paranoid: In the Tanker chapter of MGS2, Snake expresses vocal concern about his mission onboard the tanker, citing that it might be a trap, and also expressing genuine worry that the guards weren't undergoing enough SOP. He's right on both fronts, as the former was revealed to be true as a smear campaign against Philanthropy instigated by the Patriots, and the latter had the Gurlukovich Mercenaries (and later Ocelot) killing the Marines with ease.
Psycho for Hire: See Blood Knight above, most specifically Liquid Snake's line about Solid Snake enjoying all the killing when on REX.
Real Men Wear Pink:
- If Metal Gear 2 is any indication, Snake's a figure skating enthusiast.
- He also has this J-Pop song on his iPod in MGS4.
Rebuilt Pedestal: To at least some extent when Snake reconciles with his father.
Red Baron: He's dubbed as "the man who makes the impossible, possible".
Reflexive Response: When Otacon asks how he suddenly knows CQC, he explains to Otacon that he used to learn CQC until he abandoned it upon finding out about Big Boss' true goal. He then goes to tell Otacon that whenever soldiers decide to use a cookie cutter imitation of CQC, he cites this as a reason as to how he is able to perform it.
Old Snake: When some guy comes at me using that cookie cutter imitation of CQC, my body just reacts naturally. That's all.
Reputation Apathy: Snake does what he needs to do to save the world, even if it makes people hate him for it or he's branded a terrorist in the processes. This is what separates him from Big Boss; whereas Big Boss eventually snapped and sought vengeance on the world for taking everything from him and wanting him dead, Snake just plain doesn't care. Campbell even remarks on this in MGS4:
Campbell: We can't all be as strong as you, Snake. Some of us can't bear living like pariahs.
Resignations Not Accepted: Snake's actions in service of the CIA have assembled a phone book-thick dossier of war crimes which, if the U.S. government so chooses, could piledrive him into federal prison until he's a "very old man". Essentially, Campbell can revoke his retirement anytime he pleases, which he does. Twice. The original idea for the ending to Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots actually referenced this fact, concluding with Snake and Otacon turning themselves in to the authorities and being executed for their various crimes against the state; staff at Konami rebelled against the idea, however.
Retired Badass: He's dragged out of retirement in Metal Gear 2 and Metal Gear Solid. Lampshaded by his appearance in "Snake vs. Monkey" from Snake Eater, where he chews the Colonel out for taking him out of his vacation, asking at one point why he couldn't get Sam or Gabe to handle this.
Scars Are Forever: Near the end of Act 3 of MGS4, Snake gets the entire left side of his face badly burned while saving Big Mama from being burnt. The burn scars remain for the rest of the game.
Scratchy-Voiced Senior: While he was always had a Smoky Voice, come MGS4, Old Snake's voice is the deepest and most gravelly it's always been. Of course, it doesn't help that he's also been a heavy smoker his entire life.
Separated at Birth: With Liquid Snake. They were born in Carlsbad, New Mexico but Snake spent his childhood in Oregon while Liquid was moved to England shortly after their birth. They had similar upbringings though, both being raised in isolation and receiving extensive education and military training.
Shell-Shocked Veteran: His PTSD is so severe, he retires from FOXHOUND and retreats into the snowy mountains of Alaska. In MGS2, we see his flashbacks of Outer Heaven have been replaced by nightmares of Liquid taunting him.
Shirtless Scene: He gets two: the first in the original Metal Gear Solid when he's captured by Liquid and Ocelot, and the second in MGS4 when Naomi has him undergo an extensive medical exam. The latter counts as Fan Disservice due in part to his Rapid Aging, and the mere sight of what is happening to him is enough to both horrify and move Naomi to tears.
Shrouded in Myth: It seems like everyone who meets Snake for the first time has some sort of memetic badass picture of him.
Signature Move: His go to move is to sneak up behind enemies and perform a Judo chokehold until they pass out.
Silver Fox: In MGS4. Despite having the body of an old man, Snake still has a fairly muscular body and an extremely prominent, well-sculpted ass.
Smiting Evil Feels Good: In MGS1, he angsts over the fact that he genuinely enjoys killing enemy soldiers. Killing enough people in the fourth game will result in Liquid's below accusation ringing in his mind, causing Snake to throw up in disgust with himself.
Solid Snake: I don't want that kind of world!
Liquid Snake: Ha! You lie! So why are you here, then? Why do you continue to follow your orders while your superiors betray you? Why did you come here? Well, I'll tell you, then. You enjoy all the killing! That's why!
Solid: What?!
Liquid: Are you denying it? Haven't you already killed most of my comrades?
Solid: That was-!
Liquid: [chuckling] I watched your face when you did it. It was filled with the joy of battle!
Solid: You're wrong...
Liquid: There's a killer inside you. You don't have to deny it; we were created to be that way.
Smoking Is Cool: Until he finally quits in the fourth game.
- Ironically, he actually tells Raiden not to smoke as it would "stunt his growth" in a Codec conversation. Even with trying to cover his identity (he was disguised as Pliskin after all to keep his "death" faked), the fact that he actually carried cigarettes around (he was the one who gave Raiden the cigarettes in the first place) would borderline Hypocritical Humor. (Truth in Television as smokers are frequently the most adamant bunch when telling non-smokers NOT to start smoking)
  - In MGS4, with all he goes through, by the time of the final act, he's coughing up his lungs and sucking on a breathing machine, and he's still asking for a cigarette. Definitely not cool. (Also Truth in Television, as anyone will know who's known an inveterate smoker ill with terminal lung cancer. "What harm can it do me now?" seems to be the line of thought; indeed, aside from the potential for explosion in careless handling of open flame around bottled oxygen, it's hard to come up with an answer.)
Spanner in the Works: The reappearance of Snake does not make the Patriots happy, as the Big Shell scenario was intended for Raiden alone.
- Solid Snake was also one to Big Boss. During the original Metal Gear, he was always intended to die due to Big Boss feeding Venom Snake information about Solid Snake's mission. Not only did Solid Snake kill Venom Snake and destroy Outer Heaven. He managed to defeat Big Boss in Metal Gear 2 and destroy Outer Heaven's organization a second time, thus Big Boss lost everything he built up in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, and later has only a few key allies left as support in Metal Gear Solid 4 where his father truly dies with the goals fulfilled.
Smoky Voice: In the English dub, Snake has a coarse and weathered voice, not only to reflect his age but also partially from him being a habitual lifelong smoker. By MGS4, it's deteriorated quite a bit, both through his old age and cigarettes. The drastic upgrade in Snake's growling in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots was David Hayter's idea; he thought that Snake's voice would completely fall apart as he prematurely aged.
Stomach of Holding: As mentioned above, he managed to smuggle his cigarettes in with him to Shadow Moses in his stomach, due to a shot that suppressed his stomach acids.
Strong and Skilled: He's a super soldier with enhanced strength, speed and agility and decades of combat experience and skill in a variety of martial arts such as Judo, Karate, Boxing, Jiujitsu, Aikido, Muay Thai and Taekwondo.
Suddenly Always Knew That: Snake has a tendency to break out a new skill when it's most needed (Hey, if Snake Plisskin could become an expert surfboarder in an instant...). He learned to rock climb and hang-glide just in time for Metal Gear 2. MGS1 reveals him to be a master of scuba diving (though he previously swam through a swamp to reach Outer Heaven, it didn't involve sub-zero water or a torpedo) and rappelling — two abilities he puts to use in the game. In MGS2, he even boasts to Stillman that he's an expert in bomb disposal. However, it's not entirely unreasonable for him to know such a broad range of combat skills having been trained from a young age and been a special forces operative.
- He was trained in CQC by Big Boss, but (conveniently) never used it until after MGS3 was released in stores, claiming he preferred not to copy the moves of his sworn enemy. Big Boss's fame in the Metal Gear world is proportionate to his popularity among gamers; hence, the enemy soldiers all use CQC because Big Boss's adventures are enjoying a revival, so Snake sensibly decides to fight fire with fire.
Super-Soldier: Was a clone of Big Boss, and via the Super Baby Method he was one of two surviving fetuses in a method of abortions of the fetal growth.
- He may also be a subversion of the trope. Metal Gear Solid repeatedly claims that one of Big Boss's clones was inferior to the original, the other twin and Solidus. If this is true, then there's a strong chance that Solid Snake is the inferior clone.
Sympathy for the Devil: It's common for Snake to relate with his enemies during their post-Boss Battle dying speech. The best example is after his fight with Sniper Wolf: when Wolf declares herself to be nothing more than a dog for shaming Wolf's people and going along with Liquid's plan, Snake comforts Wolf and assures otherwise. It's ultimately subverted by the time of MGS4, where he's just too tired to care and explicitly tells Drebin not to expect him to feel sorry for the B&B Corps. Hilariously subverted in Metal Gear 2, Running Man asks how Snake was able to win with his speed. Snake in return asks "Maybe you weren't fast enough?" as Running Man dies.
Tall, Dark, and Snarky: His height has varied from 178 to 182 cm, he has dark hair and one very sharp wit, playing this trope completely straight.
Talking Weapon: He returns in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance as a talking wooden katana DLC weapon that is apparently infused with his soul called the "Snake Soul" Wooden Sword.
Technical Pacifist: He's considered the greatest warrior on Earth, but he's committed to preventing violence whenever he can and explicitly tells Raiden in MGS2 that, regardless of what he does it for, killing people is never right.
Too Much Information: In MGS4, there's Snake's Codec call to Otacon while hiding in a trash can/dumpster. When Otacon asks Snake how he knows how it is where the household dumps their waste, Snake explains in full, such as it smelling bad from last night's leftovers from dinner, as well as bugs crawling around his face, apparently roaches, a lot of them, as well as something crawling up his leg, leaving Otacon completely grossed out by the end. When questioned by Otacon whether he even feels sick from this, Snake responds that if it keeps him out of sight, he'll go so far as to hide in a toilet.
Took a Level in Cynic: Twice. The events of Outer Heaven and Zanzibar Land did him in the first time (Big Boss's betrayal, and several deaths of former allies and field contacts such as Gustava). He took the worst of it in Metal Gear Solid 4. It took Big Boss himself to help him realize he should spend the rest of his life peacefully.
Took a Level in Jerkass: Due to the events of Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, Snake was cordial to his in-game contacts and field agents, and when he does talk to them, his diction (or manner of speaking) comes off as polite. Come Metal Gear Solid where he becomes assertive towards his own in-game contacts and field agents who were too green to even trying to shoot him. 4 took this further down the line due to Clone Degeneration, his Rapid Aging heavily affects him to the point of being a Jerkass to everyone involved.
Trojan Prisoner: Had to undergo this in the original Metal Gear in order to locate the prison cell that Gray Fox was imprisoned inside.
- He does a variation in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty: Namely, he gets Raiden captured, faking betrayal and allowing him to be brought before the Sons of Liberty in order to lessen security onboard Arsenal Gear. However, neither he nor his accomplice, Mr. X/Olga Gurlukovich, let Raiden in on the plan beforehand, presumably to ensure that Raiden's reaction was genuine, causing Raiden to be quite irritated at Snake afterwards.
Turn Out Like His Father: In which Big Boss points out. Just like Big Boss, Snake ends up being betrayed by those who used to be his allies (including his father and Gray Fox). Both men wanted to live outside the battlefield, but their traumas prevents them from forming a normal life. They both also created organizations to put a stop to the Patriots' plans. But whereas Big Boss created his so that soldiers can have a meaning in their lives, Snake just wanted to save the world from itself, even if he has to be a war criminal. And in the end, the world wants them dead, but where Big Boss would rather seek his revenge against the world, Snake plainly doesn't care.
Typhoid Mary: He carries the FOXDIE virus, engineered to kill the members of FOXHOUND as well as those involved in creating Metal Gear REX (i.e., the ArmsTech President Kenneth Baker). By the time of MGS4, it's stated that the FOXDIE Naomi injected him with was mutating and within at least three months would indiscriminately kill people left, right, and center, effectively turning Snake into a Person of Mass Destruction. Fortunately, a second strain of FOXDIE injected into him by Drebin cancels the first out, effectively stopping the outbreak before it starts.
Two-Faced: At the end of Act 3 of MGS4, he suffers a nasty burn that scars the entire left side of his face◊.
Underwear of Power: Snake's sneaking-suit may count.
Upgrade vs. Prototype Fight: Twice over. He is considered an inferior clone of Big Boss to Liquid's superior, and defeats him. Then he operates REX against RAY designed to destroy REXES and its derivatives, and win.
The Unfavorite: Solid Snake and Liquid were grown via the Super Baby Method, with six of their siblings being aborted to promote growth in the remaining two. Even hedging their bets, the Patriots ended up with only one satisfactory clone: Liquid. Solidus was a third clone was later created, suggesting the Patriots really had no use for Snake as an insurance policy anymore and received sub-standard training as an adult. Regardless of his unspectacular genes, Snake surpassed Big Boss, the other two, and even Venom Snake, proving once and for all that DNA does not determine one's fate.
Unwitting Pawn: Running back and forth to heat and cool the key card in what he thought was the REX deactivation routine. Being the vector of the FOXDIE virus may also count in another way.
Villain Killer: His battles with FOXHOUND end with most of them dying. The exceptions are Ocelot, who goes on to become a recurring character through the series, and Decoy Octopus, who was already dead by the time Snake arrived on Shadow Moses.
Warrior Poet: He can be rather philosophical when the occasion calls for it.
Weak, but Skilled: Snake triumphs repeatedly against soldiers with numerical and technological superiority (the Genome Soldiers in the first game, the Gurlukovich Mercenaries in the second game, and the PM Cs in the fourth game) just because he knows what he's doing and has the confidence and ability to pull it off. Even in the fourth game when his body is rapidly breaking down from old age, he still kicks tons of ass, just down to his sheer skill at covert warfare. Not even people with borderline supernatural abilities are much of a match for him.
We Do the Impossible: A legend in the black ops community, "The man who makes the impossible possible" because he can do things that [are considered by other characters to be impossible.
Weapon-Based Characterization: He prefers .45 caliber handguns, showing both his preference for subterfuge as opposed to straight combat and his old-fashioned sensibilities (plus, lower-velocity rounds are also easier to use with a suppressor). Also lots of grenades, mines, and explosive charges, for the same reasons. He's primarily depicted with a Mark 23 SOCOM in Solid and an M1911 in Guns of the Patriots, and while he uses a 9mm USP in the tanker chapter of Sons of Liberty he switches back to a SOCOM as his handgun of choice for the rest of the game. It says something that in his guest appearance in the Super Smash Brothers series, the developers made sure to put a holstered SOCOM pistol on his model even though he never uses it in gameplay.
What Happened to the Mouse?: In Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, his fate is never conclusively addressed; during an optional Codec call, Raiden refers to Snake in the present tense, whereas others refers to him in the past tense, effectively leaving his fate open for Kojima to decide what to do with him.
What You Are in the Dark: Snake recognizes he is a soldier and a killer, and believes for most of his life he's fated to die on a battlefield. Despite being betrayed and abandoned many times, he climbs out of his despair, and decides to struggle on by fighting Metal Gears all over the world, because no one else will.
Raiden: What are you, and Otacon fighting for?
—>Snake: A future. You can stop being part of a mistake, starting now.
White Sheep: Of all the Snakes, he is the only one who did not turn villainous thanks to holding on to his moral compass. He and his two brothers were born through the Les Enfant Terribles, but had a villainous goal to defeat the Patriots while Big Boss and Venom Snake hates the world that wants them dead while creating a nation of soldiers to keep fighting. Snake has no reason to hate the world nor have ulterior motives born from hate but to save the world from itself. This is why Big Boss has so much respect for him in the end as Snake did not Turn Out Like His Father at the worst way possible.
Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Hilariously, this is Snake's attitude towards Sunny's cooking skills: a bad habit of burning or undercooking eggs and Snake looks physically ill whenever Sunny specially prepares a plateful for him.
Willfully Weak: In the MGS universe, there are two somewhat distinct systems of fighting, Close Quarters Battle ^note and Close Quarters Combat ^note, with CQC being a more advanced and efficient art. Because CQC was Big Boss's signature, Snake refuses to use it and relies mostly on CQB until MGS4. This does however give him one advantage — since CQC relies on manipulating a target (preferably with a hand-gun and knife) where CQB revolves around threat suppression, practicing CQB makes Snake a deadlier opponent in a straight fight. The Final Boss of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots reflects this preference, as the game mechanics shift to a more combat focused style using moves from the first two Metal Gear Solid games rather than the "grab" system of CQC from the latter two.
World's Best Warrior: Through the games Metal Gear, Metal Gear 2 and Metal Gear Solid, Solid Snake cements himself as the greatest soldier of his generation, and quite possibly even the greatest soldier to have ever lived. While the most genetically imperfect of the three brothers cloned from Big Boss, his sheer skill and Heroic Resolve put him head and shoulders above his "better" brothers. Raiden as of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance can claim to have surpassed him, but when considering only baseline humans not augmented by cybernetics or other abilities, no one else comes remotely close to Snake.
- An entry in the MGS4 Database, a free DLC, even verbatim calls him "The strongest soldier in history".
Would Hit a Girl: If they're the enemy. However, he's not totally unconscionable. Before his first boss fight with Sniper Wolf, he told Naomi he didn't want to see any woman die in front of him, which may stem from seeing Gustava Heffner die in front of him in Metal Gear 2. When the B&B Corps are defeated non-lethally, he takes the time to check their pulses before moving on to resume his current mission.
You Didn't Ask: He keeps a lot of info from Raiden, perhaps as a form of revenge for having to talk entirely in questions during the other games. One of the funnier gags in MGS2 is Raiden's growing incredulity at Snake not sharing what he knows.
Younger Than He Looks: An extremely tragic example of this: The Patriots tampered with his genes prior to his birth, changing them to greatly accelerate his aging process once he reached an age of around 40, as it would be the point his physical condition would have peaked and, seeing how he was meant to be a soldier, he would have by and large outlived his purpose. As a result, Snake is 42 by the time of Metal Gear Solid 4, but looks like he is on the edge of 80, and he won't very likely live past the age of 43.
Youngest Child Wins: Possibly inverted: As of Metal Gear Solid 4, he is the only one of the Les Enfants Terribles children who not only survived, but can live in peace for the rest of their lives, and he's the eldest of the children (or at the very least the middle child).
Your Days Are Numbered: In MGS4. Due to his Clone Degeneration-induced Rapid Aging, Snake has, at absolute best, only one year left to live.
Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: It is implied when Snake reveals his true identity in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty that the organization that he founded, Philanthropy, committed actions that were comparable to terrorism during their raids on Metal Gear facilities. Unfortunately, this made it easy for the Patriots to frame him for the Tanker debacle.
Zen Survivor: Philosophizing is one of the few ways he copes with the trauma of war.

Big Boss

"Let it go, my son."

^{Click here} to see Naked Snake in MGS3

^{Click here} to see Snake in MGS:PW

^{Click here} to see Big Boss in MGSV

^{Click here} to see Ishmael

A.K.A.: Naked Snake, Jack, John Doe, The Legendary Soldier, The Legendary Mercenary, The One-Eyed Man, Saladin, Vic Boss, Ishmael, The Bandaged Man

Naked Snake voiced by: Akio Ōtsuka (JP; MGS3, MPO, MGSPW, MGSV), David Hayter (EN; MGS3, MPO, MGSPW)
Big Boss voiced by: Chikao Ohtsuka (JP, MGS4), Richard Doyle (EN, MGS4), Kiefer Sutherland (EN, MGSV)

"If the times demand it, we'll be revolutionaries, criminals, terrorists. And yes, we may all be headed straight to hell. But what better place for us than this? It is our only home. Our heaven and our hell. This is Outer Heaven."

In 1964, a man named John, an agent of the Black Ops unit FOX, saves the world from nuclear Armageddon. Along the way, he's forced to slay his teacher and adoptive mother codenamed the Boss. For his actions, he is christened "Big Boss" by the President of the United States and inherits his teacher's title of "the Greatest Warrior of the Twentieth Century".

He later goes on to found the private military companies Militaires Sans Frontieres and Diamond Dogs, as well as the U.S. Army black ops group FOXHOUND. In the first Metal Gear game, Big Boss secretly leads the uprising at Outer Heaven and sends FOXHOUND rookie Solid Snake to investigate it, not expecting that he will actually survive. In Metal Gear 2, Big Boss takes control of Zanzibar Land and kidnaps a scientist who developed an alternative fuel source. Solid Snake is sent in to rescue the scientist, and ultimately kills Big Boss with a makeshift flamethrower.

While he was originally little more than the Big Bad of the first two Metal Gear games, Big Boss later received a great deal of Character Development, becoming the tragic protagonist of the prequel games.

For tropes pertaining to the Venom Snake persona in The Phantom Pain, go here. Go here for the version of Big Boss in Snake's Revenge.

'80s Hair: Has a mullet twenty years early and sports it throughout The '70s.
Absurd Phobia: He is afraid of vampires of all things. (Of course, this being the Metal Gear universe, this fear might not be quite so absurd or irrational after all...)
The Ace: Considered this throughout MGS3, and his legend exploits this. He's good enough that losing an eye only leads to one instance of trouble with depth perception. Then he gets broken.
Affably Evil: He may have been willing to cross any line to give soldiers a place in the world, but he was an otherwise likable guy: kind to his subordinates, respectful of his enemies, and full of many goofy character quirks.
Alliterative Name: His codename is Big Boss.
Alas, Poor Villain: At the end of his life, despite being a war criminal who would cycle new soldiers in and out of combat, and antagonized Snake on his first two missions, the latter realizes Big Boss was just a man who has as much, if not more, traumatizing experiences on the battlefield as his. He was manipulated into murdering his own mentor who desired for peace, and twisted her will for his own benefit, which he shows regret in doing. Once he wakes up, Big Boss decides to make peace not only with Snake, but with himself, and chose a peaceful death.
Ambition Is Evil: Solid Snake performs precision strikes against threats as they appear and succeeds. Big Boss tried to raise several sizeable organisations to accomplish his goals, went to seed from the stress, and ultimately fails.
And I Must Scream: After his battle with Solid Snake at Zanzibar, he was left heavily burned and just barely alive, but the Patriots recovered him and injected him with nanomachines to keep him from dying. After this he was kept in a cryogenic coma, during which he was semi-aware, as the Patriots used him for extensive experiments, leaving quite the marks on his already damaged body. He was in that state for fifteen years until the destruction of the Patriots' AIs finally let him wake up. Luckily for him, EVA had in the meantime been able to steal his body back from where the Patriots kept him and used parts of Liquid's and Solidus's bodies to restore him to his former appearance.
Anti-Hero: During his younger days, he was trying to make the world a better place, even if it meant fighting and killing on the battlefield to do so. And even after becoming extremely disillusioned at the end of Snake Eater, he nonetheless keeps trying to do the right thing.
Anti-Nihilist: As Solid Snake's predecessor, Big Boss once had a very similar philosophy, but became a Well-Intentioned Extremist and one of the series' main antagonists when he took romantic notions of being a soldier too far, though it's hard to blame him for it, with all things considered.
- He eventually returns to anti-nihilism at the end of Guns of the Patriots, finding closure to his long and storied life: he reconciles with his son and reaffirms that world peace is Worth Living For, performs a mercy kill on a comatose old friend who had unwittingly become the keystone of the War Economy, salutes the grave of his mentor (who was also an Anti-Nihilist who sacrificed her life and reputation to make the world a better place) and enjoys a final smoke before finally passing away.
Anti-Villain: After realizing that he rejects The Boss's philosophy of self-sacrifice for nations that care nothing for you, he becomes willing to kill, torture and brainwash even non-combatants to make his dream of a nation where soldiers will always be needed a reality. Eventually, he even threatens the world with a nuclear weapon. However, even at his most villainous, he still showed compassion to his former enemies and cared deeply for his men.
Archnemesis Dad:
- He's the nemesis of his own son Solid Snake/David in Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2. Liquid Snake/Eli is inmensely jealous, having wanted to kill Big Boss for years. And Solidus Snake/George Sears was the one to idolize Big Boss, modeling himself after the legendary mercenary.
- Subverted with The Boss. The US government required him to kill her in Operation Snake Eater, and she allowed herself to be the fall woman for Volgin's detonation of a Davy Crocket she gave him. Snake has very mixed feelings about having to kill her with his own hands, and he knows it's what he was ordered to do. By acting on killing her, it left nothing but emotional scars that stays with him for decades right until the end of his life that he makes peace with himself so that with her Will fulfilled, he can finally rest in peace so that her Will will carry on.
The Atoner: While he's very much aware of how far he's fallen, takes him decades until the end of Guns of the Patriots before he at long last atones.
Back for the Dead: He returns at the end of MGS4, only to die shortly after.
Badass Back: Some of his CQC moves allow for these moments.
Badass Boast: "You don't have what it takes to kill me."
Badass in a Nice Suit: For his final appearance in Guns of the Patriots. Turns out he had some good reasons to.
Badass Longcoat: In his later years. The khaki trenchcoat is a standard attire for FOXHOUND, but it originated with Gene's FOX unit.
Badass Normal: Unlike his sons, Big Boss has had no genetic tampering, nor nano-augmentation, nor suit of power armor (though Solid Snake's genetics are actually supposed to be a flawed clone), and yet, his feats of military prowess are every bit as legendary.
- As Ishmael, he appears to be an unarmed, otherwise unremarkable individual, he's the only reason why Venom Snake manages to make it out of the hospital, fending off a heavily-armed force of XOF soldiers and The Man On Fire. He also takes out the superhumanly strong Quiet (who had just moments earlier tossed him like a ragdoll) while unarmed, by improvising a flamethrower.
Bad Liar: During the Peace Walker incident, whenever confronted in regards to why Big Boss is in Costa Rica, he always comes up with a lie about why he's there, a lie that's very easy to pick apart. These include:
- Claiming that he was a Colombian bird photographer when meeting Amanda and the FSLN. His camera is not even set right, and when he rescues Chico, he actually slips up and calls himself a war photographer. To cover up his mistake, he says that he takes pictures of "the birds at the battlefield" in a somewhat unsure tone.
- Claiming that he's an entymologist, and that he's looking for the Ulysses butterfly. Huey points out that Ulysses butterflies are not present in Costa Rica, and Snakes says he meant the Morphos butterfly, and he's trying to get some for the CITES Washington Treaty. Huey tells him they aren't covered in the treaty.
- Claiming that he's an ornithologist and that he was looking for the Quetzal for the CITES Washington Treaty.
Bag of Spilling: The rival military outfit XOF takes out Mother Base along with Big Boss's entire arsenal. Big Boss lands in a nine-year coma after this incident, which strips away his muscle mass.
Bait the Dog: Though he has saved orphaned children on the battlefield, his dialogue with Snake in Metal Gear 2 states that he intends to cycle them in and out of battle, meaning he'll save war orphans, train them, and send them out as harden soldiers. Snake even thinks that's going too far.
Bandaged Face: This is probably because he's in a hospital, but it also shows him as The Faceless Ishmael and helps him hide his true identity.
Baritone of Strength: Befitting someone who is known as "Big Boss" and has founded two PMCs and a U.S. Army black ops group, Akio Ōtsuka and David Hayter give him the same baritone Solid Snake's famous for. The latter replaced later by Richard Doyle and Kiefer Sutherland.
Been There, Shaped History: In MGS3, he, along with Sigint and Zero, came up with the American classification for the dreaded Mil Mi-24 (the "Hind"), and he was also the one who came up with the cardboard box trick that Solid Snake and Raiden made frequent use of. With Kazuhira Miller's help, he also founded the world's first private military companies.
Being Good Sucks: Moreso than Solid Snake, and he knew it too. Everything he ever did was for the sake of his country and The Boss, but no matter what, life found a way to take everything from him. When he found out the whole world wanted him dead, he decided he had enough and created Outer Heaven.
- Being Evil Sucks: ...At the same time, he ultimately realizes how selfish his goal was, and wants to fulfill The Boss's will correctly. When he sees David one last time, he commends his son for not falling the path he did.
Benevolent Boss: There's a good reason why his followers have genuine undying loyalty to him. This is easily his greatest redeeming quality.
Berserker Tears: While he was already suffering from executing The Boss — and gradually started to lose his composure throughout Peace Walker — being forced to tear the aforementioned AI's pod apart (reliving his "matricide" once more), caused his sanity to take an even further nosedive.
Big Boss: Why?! (As he's banging on the pod he just dismantled.) I don't understand! Answer me! Tell. ME. WHY! ANSWER ME! BO-O-O-OSS...!!!! ...why?
Big Bad: Of Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, wanting to enforce his ideals of Outer Heaven and give soldiers like him a place in the world through nuclear superiority, using Outer Heaven in South Africa (Metal Gear) and Zanzibar/ Tselinoyarsk (Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake) as his bases of operations.
Big "NO!": Lets one out during Paz's Heroic Suicide at the end of Ground Zeroes.
Blood Knight: One of his primary reasons for creating Outer Heaven and later Zanzibar Land was to give himself and his soldiers a place where they can go to war endlessly, due to the fact that he only ever felt truly alive when fighting in a war.
- He did originally intend and, more importantly, attempted to live his life peacefully after Operation Snake Eater (namely as an instructor or a hunting guide), but he ended up dragged back onto the battlefield.
Body Double: How he survived the original game, as revealed in The Phantom Pain.
Body Horror: As Naked Snake, he participated in a Bikini Atoll hydrogen bomb test to show the effects radiation had on soldiers exposed to the site aftermath. Whereas most others developed acute radiation symptoms, this simply rendered him sterile. Then he went through MGS3, having most of his body tortured and brutalized with permanent scarring and a dead eye. Then he went through Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain, barely surviving a chopper crash in the middle of the ocean and an explosion practically to his face. Then came the MSX games, where Venom Snake is the one killed by rockets in Metal Gear and then he's seemingly put down for good by being set aflame into a burning crisp in Metal Gear 2. Then he survived as little more than a burnt husk of a mentally conscious cadaver for the years that followed until he was restored in secret in Metal Gear Solid 4, which still doesn't last long before his heart is killed internally once and for all by FOXDIE.
Bond One-Liner: Something he usually does.
Book Ends: The Guns of the Patriots novelization claims that Zanzibar Land was originally Tselinoyarsk, the place Naked Snake infiltrated in Snake Eater, suggesting that the location where his fame arose is also where he meets his final defeat.
- MGS3 ended with Big Boss saluting The Boss's grave, thus beginning his Start of Darkness, while MGS4 ended with him saluting The Boss once more in his death throes. He's also seen shedding a Single Tear, completely overcome with guilt.
  - Chronologically, the whole series begins and ends with him smoking a cigar.
Break the Cutie: He was a fairly nice guy who wanted nothing more than to serve his country. Operation Snake Eater changed that, and turned him into a bitter and angry shell of a man. Losing an eye and killing your old mentor and mother figure (who never even betrayed her country) will do that to you. Granted, he kept some of his quirks as well as a strong sense of morality, but for only so long...
Break the Haughty: Amusingly, going into Operation Virtuous Mission, Naked Snake is easily the most smug a protagonist has been in the entire franchise, utterly cocksure of himself from beginning to end.. until The Boss shows up in person. The rest of MGS3 is him having to take his pride and capability as a soldier and temper it on top of his skill to overcome the impossible, setting in stone the legend of Big Boss as we know it — where, by that point, he simply doesn't give a damn about how much of a legendary soldier he's become.
Breakout Character: While Big Boss has always been an important character to the series since the very first MSX game, it wasn't until the debut of his younger self Naked Snake that he gradually began taking the role of the series' protagonist away from his son Solid Snake. Having already starred in four prequels (Snake Eater, Portable Ops, Peace Walker, and Ground Zeroes), the amount of canonical Metal Gear games starring Big Boss matches the amount starring Solid Snake.
Broken Ace: In Peace Walker.
Broken Bird: Became this when he killed The Boss in MGS3, and never really recovers. In his final meeting with Solid Snake, Big Boss openly admits he was essentially dead inside from that day onward.
Broken Pedestal:
- The Boss becomes the former to him after The Boss's faked defection. At the end of Peace Walker, he denounces The Boss as a fraud for laying down the gun and embracing peace, but still tries to enforce his interpretation of The Boss's will and honor his mentor's memory.
- The U.S. government becomes one to him and stays a broken one because of what they did to The Boss, though he retains some respect for his country.
- Big Boss himself becomes a Broken Pedestal to two other people:
  - To Solid Snake, his prized student and son. After the events of Outer Heaven and Zanzibar Land, Solid Snake is so bitter over Big Boss's betrayals that he's one of the last people to recognize his achievements, and swears off using CQC for nearly two decades. That being said, he still retains some respect for his old CO, being livid in MGS2 when seeing Solidus impersonating Big Boss, as well as the fact that he visits and even salutes Big Boss's grave in MGS4.
  - To Kazuhira Miller, his second-in-command and best friend during the events of Peace Walker. In the post-credits scene of the True Ending, Ocelot tells Kaz of Big Boss's true plan: leaving everyone he ever knew behind so he could conduct his own war against Cipher, building the true "Outer Heaven" without his old comrades, and having the Diamond Dogs acting as a decoy, complete with an exact body double of Big Boss (who is the character you play as throughout the whole game). After losing his comrades, his limbs, and even his dream, Kaz finally gets his revenge on those who wronged him, only to find out that he feels completely hollow and that his best friend is an impostor, the real Big Boss having abandoned Kaz without a goodbye. Having truly lost everything, Kaz furiously swears that Big Boss will pay for his betrayal, and that Kaz will be more than happy to train the phantom and his sons to oppose him.
Bunny-Ears Lawyer: The man is a total geek over his guns and cardboard boxes. He also sincerely believes in Santa Claus.
- Also, he apparently has a tendency to misunderstand exactly how some items are considered valuable to most people in other ways besides battle.
- In Portable Ops, in a conversation with Para-Medic, Para-Medic explains about El Dorado and that even though it technically doesn't exist, there is evidence to suggest that there were similar civilizations that used gold even in the present, and mentioned that they used gold knives. Naked Snake expressed interest in the knives, although not in regards to its value as much as using the knife to distract the enemy so he could CQC them into submission, with Para-Medic exasperatedly explaining that she wasn't meaning that.
- In Peace Walker, Paz explains to Big Boss about the Stone Spheres in Costa Rica, where it is not known what they were used for, but Big Boss guesses that he could use them for a trap, and that being nearly perfect spheres would make them perfect for rolling down slopes, causing Paz to express shock at what Big Boss is implying.
  - Though all of that is perfectly in character for Big Boss as in Metal Gear 2, he claims that personal wealth doesn't mean anything to him, war is the only thing that has ever satisfied him. He doesn't look at those things in terms of how valuable they would be because money doesn't have any intrinsic value to him; money is nothing more than a means to an end, namely funding his ability to wage war.
- At several points, he didn't seem to understand much about sexual orientations. Notable examples include when he calls EVA about Raikov, to which, despite EVA's not-so-subtle hints that Raikov was homosexual, Naked Snake seemed completely oblivious and didn't seem to know what EVA was talking about (at one point, he even misconstrues her hints as believing that she formerly dated Raikov yet he broke up with her), expressing confusion to Para-Medic's suggestion that he use the Raikov mask to shake up Volgin ^note, and he also seemed slightly taken aback and confused when Cecile reveals that Strangelove, her captor, seemed to be a lesbian and have a romantic fascination with the same sex. Pretty much the only one where Snake seemed to have any clue about was heterosexuality, going by his reaction to some of EVA's comments.
Byronic Hero: Particularly in his Protagonist Journey to Villain.
Characterization Marches On: In the first game, Big Boss is a generic villain with no personality. Come Metal Gear 2, and he becomes far more complex and with more complicated motives and philosophies than most villains in modern games, let alone the 8-bit era. However, his father-son relationship with Solid Snake is completely absent, since the plot point wasn't even introduced at that point, leaving his appearance in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots to address that. The prequel games add on to this, detailing that he was an eccentric dork prior to his Face–Heel Turn.
Charles Atlas Superpower: Big Boss's superior soldier genes apparently have some mutant healing factor thrown in for good measure, since he's able to still move around after breaking his legs twenty times as long as he's put splints on them.
- Apparently Big Boss is also capable of bench-pressing the equivalent weight of AI Weapon Cocoon's main body above his head.
  Paz: It's a miracle!
Chekhov's Gunman: After the car crash, Ishmael mysteriously goes missing and isn't mentioned again. The True Ending establishes that he exited the car safely and set the stage for his phantom's creation.
Child Soldier: Portable Ops implied that Naked Snake had participated in the battlefield while he was still very young. He was also a member of the Green Berets (a special forces group) and a veteran of the Korean War as early in his twenties; however, he is canonically born in 1935, so the only known way he could join a special forces group and be a veteran of the Korean War (assuming the former actually preceded the latter) is if he joined the military at a really young age. Being The Boss's apprentice might have helped as he was 15 when The Boss took him. He later attempts to raise child soldiers in Zanzibar Land, though their lack of hostility towards Solid Snake's and Big Boss's reference of "the wars of tomorrow" suggest otherwise.
Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Inverted Big Boss has a tragic tendency of getting backstabbed by a lot of the people he loves, and even more tragically is that most of them geniunenly love him back but circumstances force their hands (The Boss, EVA, Zero and the Patriots, Kaz and Huey), ironically the only person that doesn't betray him is Ocelot of all people. We also see how this pattern changes him game by game, becoming colder and more distrusting, paving the way for how he would become in the original games. By the Phantom Pain he decides enough is enough and becomes determined to be the one that betrays rather than the one being betrayed as demostrated by his treatment of Venom Snake, his best and most loyal soldier and later to Solid Snake himself, his own son and a man he claimed he respected, during the original Metal Gear.
Cigar Chomper: He picked up the habit from The Boss who was known to smoke them. His preferred smokes appearing to be a fictional brand of Cuban cigars, modeled after the H. Uppman No. 2.
Close-Range Combatant: While skilled in many areas of warfare, he is particularly skilled at CQC, a combative system he developed in conjunction with The Boss. In ''MGS3, he even notes that there are times when a handgun can be more useful than a rifle, as it allows him to quickly switch between knife and gun to suit the situation.
Color Motif: Green.
Combat Pragmatist: Going by the scene where Naked Snake first enters Dolinovodno during the Virtuous Mission, Snake has absolutely no problems with shooting down a hornet’s nest that's directly above a KGB soldier if it meant passing by undetected.
- This habit annoys Ocelot who protests if Naked Snake shoots the hornet nest or flings grenades during their fight.
- Notably, he had no problem brandishing an automatic weapon (the Patriot perhaps?) against Solid Snake totally-unarmed and wounded. He still lost.
- Subverted with his battle against The End, where if the player kills the old sniper early or lets The End die of old age first, Naked Snake will mention disappointment that he didn't beat the old man in a fair battle.
- Averted in Portable Ops, where he outright refused to kill Null while the young soldier was unconscious, despite being told how much of a threat Null will be while awake. Sparing him would prove to be beneficial for both men in the long run.
Composite Character: Made of equal parts from Che Guevara, John J. Rambo, Snake Plissken and Commander James Bond (young and old Sean Connery).
Conditioned to Accept Horror: Quite aside from the Training from Hell he received from The Boss, on top of what he went through to become a Green Beret, Big Boss's many painful experiences have made him cynical about his flirtation with horror.
- He's come to accept that he's destined to live in the heat of battle as long as he lives. When Paz asks Big Boss about his thoughts on peace he says flat out that he doesn't know what peace looks like, and in an odd way the battlefield itself brings him a type of peace that "real peace" could never satisfy. By the time he fights Solid Snake in Zanzibar Land, his stance has been progressively worse as he claims that it's their fate to die bitterly like a dog on the battlefield. He goes so far as to say that nothing else matters to him; not money, not power, not even lust — only war.
Cool Old Guy
Cooldown Hug: With Solid Snake. And a damn touching one at that.
Covered with Scars: Admits to this in Snake Eater, and Volgin acknowledges this in his torture scene if you received enough wounds to max out your life bar.
Crazy-Prepared: In Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, he apparently wised up to the two prior captures he endured, and fashioned a fake snake-shaped scar as a means to smuggle in a jigsaw which he can use to cut the lock off in the event that he did end up captured and didn't have an alternate means of escape.
Create Your Own Hero: A large case of irony, given he was Solid Snake's commander and the man who taught him what he knew in FOXHOUND. If he hadn't betrayed Snake in Outer Heaven, the latter would have been his greatest asset in his war against the Patriots, considering they have a mutual goal to put an end to the Patriots' hold on the world. Plus, it was Solid Snake who ironically manages to accomplish the goal The Boss wanted.
Create Your Own Villain: Had he simply killed or rejected Ocelot instead of befriending, the son of his mentor would have likely remained a vicious government operative than the highly destructive zealot for his cause that Ocelot wound up being.
Dark Messiah: Witness the unlimited sway he holds over thousands of troops across the globe, and it's clear how dangerous this man can be if pushed too far:
Big Boss: Yes, we may all be headed straight to hell. But what better place for us than this?
Deadpan Snarker: Naked Snake proves to have a really dry, yet impish sense of humor and a sharp tongue to boot, frequently making quips at the expense of both allies and enemies.
- In MGSV, this trope is one of the first hints revealing that player character is not the real Big Boss, as Venom Snake is far less capable of snark, while "Ishmael" fires off quips like ammo.
Death by Disfigurement/Death by Irony: Well, he barely avoided kicking the bucket, but the tropes still apply. It's his habit to keep lighters on him what became his undoing, when Solid Snake picked up one he dropped in a room, and then used it as part of a makeshift flamethrower to immolate him. Then again, it's heavily implied that his defeat at Snake's hands is actually intentional.
Death Seeker: Hinted at on multiple occasions:
- He pretty much begs Dr. Strangelove to torture him to death when captured.
- The lyrics to "Heavens Divide" from Peace Walker seem to indicate he wishes for death so that he can rejoin The Boss.
When Heavens Divide
Time will come, to softly lay me down
Then I can see her face, that I long to see
- Solid Snake's response when asked about his supposed murder of Big Boss, even as the latter revealed their true relationship?
Solid Snake: He wanted it.
- In Guns of the Patriots, he outright states that he was "already dead" since the minute he killed The Boss, and takes being infected with the FOXDIE strain as a good thing, finally relieving him of his burden. One phrase in particular screams this trope:
Big Boss: (Tearing up.) Boss... You only need one snake. No... The world would be better off without snakes.
Deconstructed Character Archetype: He takes the deconstruction of the Action Hero even further than his son:
- While we initially meet Naked Snake as a seasoned soldier, his first mission turns him from being a Wide-Eyed Idealist with Patriotic Fervor into a Shell-Shocked Veteran who felt that he became an Unwitting Pawn to the government when the mission's true nature was revealed to him: a political affair carried out to kill an innocent soldier (who served as his mentor) and ensure that the United States made off with a fortune. As such, he left the United States to start his own private military company that became involved with increasingly morally-questionable operations, which eventually led to him being branded as a terrorist in spite of the fact that his actions successfully prevented nuclear war. After his base of operations was destroyed for the first time, he became a shell of a man that decided to fully embrace his role as a war criminal as long as it meant he could create a "heaven" for soldiers like himself — which, of course, would come at the cost of making the rest of the world a living hell for everyone else.
Decoy Protagonist: An odd case in MGSV. He is the protagonist of the first part, Ground Zeroes, but The Reveal in The Phantom Pain is that we weren't playing as him but his body double Venom Snake. So the twist is essentially that he was a Decoy Protagonist when we were lead to believe he was simply the protagonist of the whole thing.
Defector from Decadence: Ultimately, a soldier, no matter how legendary, is just a tool, something to be used and then readily replaced. Big Boss lost some respect for his native land after he learned that the Boss was in fact innocent of defection and that the U.S. Government cast her aside because of an unanticipated factor involving Volgin and a nuclear weapon. ^note Of course, it's revealed in both Portable Ops and Peace Walker that The Boss's death was planned from the very beginning. This was a major impetus for Big Boss founding a Spartan-esque "nation of soldiers".
- Eventually, he ended up leaving Cipher after Zero had him cloned without his knowledge or his consent.
Dented Iron: In Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, not counting any injuries the player sustains in-game, he gets a couple of broken bones during the Virtuous Mission and loses an eye during Operation Snake Eater.
- His injuries rack up further in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake following his encounter with Solid Snake and he winds up as a charred, limbless shell. And he's still alive. He does get better after some surgery, though.
Despair Event Horizon: He crossed it when he was forced to kill the Boss. In his own words:
Big Boss: Ever since I killed The Boss... with my own hands... I... was already dead.
- While he was utterly and irrepairably heartbroken after killing The Boss, what truly turned him into villainy was dismantling the Mammal Pod AI (modeled after The Boss's personality) in Peace Walker, essentially forcing him to relive the same tragedy.
Deuteragonist: Of the whole series. He's got the second-most playable appearances (4) after Solid Snake, and still plays a major role behind the scenes in the few games he doesn't appear in.
Difficult, but Awesome: His CQC in Snake Eater is generally held to be extremely complex. That said, it's also generally held to be the most overpowered version of said CQC.
Disappeared Dad: Intentionally remained out of the lives of Solid Snake, Liquid and Solidus, due to not considering them as sons. He did personally mentor Snake within FOXHOUND, and informed of their relationship before Snake "killed" him, but there is no evidence to suggest that he ever met Liquid or Solidus. The fact that Liquid/Eli interacted with Venom and even inadvertently vowed his lifelong mission against Venom (not the original Big Boss) contributes to the Dramatic Irony of his character arc.
Disney Death: Twice.
- Though with the reveal in The Phantom Pain that there are two Big Bosses after MGSV this has been Retconned to only once. The "Big Boss" who died in Metal Gear was actually Venom Snake.
Don't Call Me "Sir": For at least ten years after the events of Snake Eater, he preferred to go by the Naked Snake codename or just Snake rather than Big Boss. It takes until the end of Peace Walker for him to embrace the Big Boss title.
Do Wrong, Right: While he was impressed by Ocelot's Improbable Aiming Skills, he chews him out and gives him advice on firearms such as not to use techniques on the field that he hadn't practiced let alone even properly existed and most notably to use a revolver instead due to a tic he noticed which would normally damage regular firearms, but would be better with a revolver.
Dramatically Missing the Point: When the Peace Walker weapon, powered by an AI patterned after the Boss' personality and memories, drowns itself rather than risk nuclear war, Big Boss is irritated and declares it as proof that the Boss betrayed him and everything that a soldier should stand for.
Driven to Villainy: His own existence is a kind of premature Hell. So why not share it?
Drives Like Crazy: He has half a dozen near misses when attempting to flee from the hospital in Cyprus, due to not looking at the road until it's almost too late to avoid several oncoming fire trucks. It's also foreshadowing; Americans drive on the right, but in Cyprus they drive on the left.
Dying Alone: A subversion. Despite their long-standing relationship as enemies, Big Boss peacefully dies in front of his last living son. They even share a final smoke together.
Even the Guys Want Him: Almost every guy shows some attraction to him. Ocelot in particular has confirmed romantic feelings for him, thus why Ocelot is forever loyal to Big Boss. Too bad Big Boss barely understands the concept of homosexuality or sexuality in general.
Evil Counterpart: To Solid Snake. Their lives mirror each other, they faced very similar hardships, betrayals, and formed powerful friendships. But Solid Snake was able to overcome his pain, forgive his friends for betraying him due to circumstances beyond their power and not succumb to villainy, while when Big Boss's allies (EVA, Zero, Para-Medic, SigInt, Paz, and eventually Kaz) turned on him, he became a villain. Lampshaded by Big Boss himself who says that if David were put into the same situations he was in, his son wouldn't have made the same mistakes.
Experienced Protagonist: By the time of Snake Eater, he's a Green Beret and a veteran of both the Vietnam War and Korean War.
Expy: Starts out as one to Snake Plissken. Then turns into one to Colonel Kurtz.
Extreme Omnivore: The first question he asks of any wildlife in Snake Eater is how it tastes, assuming he even waits to call Para-Medic before eating it.
Eyepatch of Power: Losing an eye doesn't stop him from being a good shot.
Eye Scream: He is well-known for having an eyepatch, so players can expect him to lose an eye at some point during Snake Eater:
- The scene in question comes when Naked Snake's being tortured by Volgin, although it ends up being a Double Subversion. In order to clear her name as a spy, Volgin orders The Boss to cut out his eyes, and very nearly does, but is stopped at the last minute by EVA/Tatyana. Ocelot is then threatening EVA with three revolvers, loaded with a single bullet. Snake jumps in to push Ocelot out of the way, but ends up on the receiving end of a shot. However, it wasn't even a bullet that cost him his eye - the cornea was burnt out from the muzzle flash.
Face–Heel Revolving Door: Ulimately dies as a Face after both him and David bury the hatchet with each other.
The Faceless: Almost all of his face is covered with bandages, save his eyes and mouth while recovering with Venom Snake.
Failure Hero: His largely well-intentioned actions wind up causing far more harm to the world than good.
Fake Ultimate Hero: Zigzagged. While he was still one of the biggest badasses of his generation:
- His title "Big Boss" was given to him for "officially" besting The Boss in battle, thus he was granted the title to show his superiority over The Boss as a soldier. Except The Boss had actually thrown the fight, as the CIA would have assassinated him if both he and The Boss had returned from the mission alive.
- According to Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, Zero and later the Patriots actually exaggerated most of Big Boss's reputation to cement his status as their icon, though the feats he pulls off during the prequels (particularly in Peace Walker) calls into question just how much of it was a lie.
- Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain plays with it further when you realize that part of his reputation, strictly speaking, didn't come from his own actions, but to Venom Snake doing these exploits on his behalf. He acknowledges this, deeming that he and Venom Snake are both Big Boss; they're equally "real" because they both created his reputation.
Fallen Hero: A formerly good and idealistic man who got sick of seeing how soldiers were used, abused and then thrown away by their ungrateful governments, and eventually threatened to put the world in a state of never-ending warfare to ensure this would stop happening.
Fantastic Drug: Subverted; he injects Venom Snake with digoxin in an attempt to help him get back on his feet, but it doesn't work as well as he hoped it would resulting in a Controllable Helplessness scenario for Venom Snake. Ironically, giving Venom Snake a shot of digoxin might have actually made the situation worse, as improper dosage can cause fatigue, weakness, and bradycardia.
A Father to His Men: Most of his subordinates thought the world of him. He even helped extract some, like Gray Fox and Naomi Hunter, or Sniper Wolf, from warzones into relative safety in America or Outer Heaven.
Final Boss: Kind of appropriate, considering his codename, but he serves as this in the first two games. Except not really, as the "Big Boss" fought in the first game was actually Venom Snake.
Flashback Nightmare: It's implied in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake that Big Boss himself suffered from nightmares from the battlefield (he reacts to Solid Snake's mention of nightmares with some recognition).
- In Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, Naked Snake awakes from a nightmare that presumably was flashing back to his capture by the FOX unit and Null.
- And in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, the two instances that Big Boss was unconscious, he had dreams relating to his fights against The Boss in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater.
Foreshadowing: There's a lot of hints to his true identity when Venom Snake interacts with him in his "Ishmael" disguise during the prologue of MGSV.
- His covername Ishmael is simultaneously the main character and a supporting one.
- During the fight with Quiet, you can hear Big Boss's distinctive grunt as Quiet punches him and recovers; no matter how much of a Cunning Linguist he is he can't keep up the act when fighting for his life.
- Just before he introduces himself, he ruefully states, "You're talking to yourself".
- During his fight with Quiet, he weaponizes some chemicals along with a lighter. Because of course Big Boss would have a lighter on him, right?
- Also with using improvised weapons to set Quiet on fire, how did Solid Snake beat Big Boss in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake?
- When Quiet throws a knife into his shoulder, he only winces in pain momentarily. After setting Quiet on fire, he promptly throws it back at Quiet without too much difficulty and even shrugs off the (not inconsiderable) pain afterwards. Of course, being Big Boss himself, even serious injuries don't slow him down very much.
- He spouts a Bond One-Liner when Ahab asks him whatever happened to the woman trying to assassinate him, something Naked Snake was noted to be quite fond of doing.
- During the foyer section of the prologue, if he dies, a "Time Paradox" message appears, the same as if Naked Snake died during Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, whereas Venom Snake dying evokes a standard "Game Over" message.
- For a random patient, Ishmael is very competent in stealth and combat- certainly much more than Ahab, who makes rookie mistakes like not ducking for cover against an attack helicopter searchlight, and not feigning death when investigated by XOF's death squad.
- Ishmael seemingly dies when a gunship shoots the ambulance he and Venom are in. Once Venom wakes up, he notices right away that Ishmael is missing, assuming it was just in his head. In actuality, Ocelot manages to recover Big Boss while Venom was still unconscious so that the former would able to create Outer Heaven under the radar.
- Big Boss scoffs at the idea of peace, since fighting is all he knows, and did not agree with The Boss' ideologies. Notably, he deliberately misinterprets her will (until the end of his life, when he decides to make peace with his surviving son). Venom, however, does not, and looks forward to the day soldiers can lay down their weapons and live in peace.
- Speaking of the sons of Big Boss, whenever the boys are mentioned in any capacity, he has nothing but contempt for their existence, but nonetheless tells Ocelot to treat them as any other person. Venom, however, is more than willing to bond with Eli.
- During the fight against Peace Walker and Metal Gear ZEKE, he can bench-press and deflect these giants' stomps prompting awe from his comrades for his impossible feat of strength. Venom does not display this strength when dealing with giants and trying to do the same on Sahelanthropus will get Venom squashed flat.
- In Metal Gear Solid 4, EVA shows Snake his charred body, and a closeup shows that he's missing his left eye. Big Boss actually lost his right eye in Snake Eater. It actually hints that EVA stole Big Boss' body from the Patriots. She was using the parts of Solidus, who lost his eye in Sons of Liberty.
Forgotten Fallen Friend: While he mourns The Boss, Solid Snake doesn't lose much sleep over violently killing him in his second game due to how he was an outright terrorist at that point. After learning of their biological relations, Solid Snake deigns to visit Big Boss's grave on occasion, but doesn't hesitate to train a gun on him during their "reunion" in the fourth game.
Four-Star Badass: Sometime after MGS3.
Friend to All Children: Before Snake Eater, the only clue we had to Big Boss's kinder side was his adoption of war orphans from across the globe. He and his surrogate son Frank Jaeger (Gray Fox) formed a "family" of sorts with one of their charges, a girl who would grow up to assume the identity of Naomi Hunter.
- In Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, Solid Snake can converse with Big Boss's children who appear throughout Zanzibar. Ominously, one orphan mentions that their father figure "doesn't like adults", alluding to Big Boss's hatred of the world's politicians.
Freudian Excuse: Oh good lord. It's all over his page, it actually holds a lot of water.
The Generalissimo: With the U.S. believing him dead, Big Boss took over the third world backwater of Zanzibar Land sometime in the late nineties. His sprite wears the official beret of Zanzibar's troops, but his fatigues are green rather than tan.
Genius Bruiser: He is a great soldier in his field, and will use any tactics he can take on an opponent.
Glass Eye: As a part of his Ishmael disguise, he momentarily substitutes his iconic Eyepatch of Power for one of these during the Prologue of MGSV to make it appear like he has two eyes.
Going Commando: As Ishmael, his ass is clearly visible through the slit in his backless hospital gown because this wouldn't be Metal Gear if we didn't see his butt.
Go Out with a Smile: Overlapping with a Tearful Smile, at the end of Guns of the Patriots.
Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Both before and after his Face–Heel Turn, he smokes cigars. By contrast, Solid Snake smokes cigarettes.
Gun Nut: Revealed early on during Snake Eater, when Eva gives him his M1911A1 pistol during their first meeting. Naked Snake drools over every detail of the gun, rhapsodizing about what a beautiful, expertly-customized weapon it is.
Handicapped Badass: You know his accomplishments in Snake Eater? Well, it was strongly implied that he hadn't even fully recovered from the injuries he sustained during the Virtuous Mission, which included a broken arm, lacerations, and a broken rib, during that time, not to mention losing an eye during the course of said mission and still accomplishing it.
- He's also apparently able to aim with his missing eye. How? Because he's Big Boss.
He Who Fights Monsters: After twenty years of protecting earth from sci-fi warmongers with bottomless bank accounts, Big Boss fancies becoming one himself. Of course, the same could be said for the rest of the FOX unit, too.
Heel Realization: Like Venom Snake, Big Boss is aware of how lost he is, but nonetheless pushes through as he's come too far. It's not until decades later that he fully rejects his actions, however.
Hero of Another Story: While fans thought that The Phantom Pain was going to be the story of how Big Boss was the Big Bad of Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake prior to the game's release, the game in actuality is an elaborate backstory for the "Big Boss" that players would fight in Metal Gear.
Heroes Love Dogs: In an optional Codec call with Para-Medic in MGS3, he reveals that he's a fan of dog-sledding, a trait shared by one of his sons.
Heroic Suicide: He successfully manages to convince David to not shoot himself... by (knowingly) contracting FOXDIE the minute he embraced his son as a father.
Hijacked by Ganon: Solid Snake is called into Zanzibar to rescue Dr. Marv and prevent his formula from being turned against the United States. FOXHOUND is initially unaware of Big Boss's hand in the kidnapping.
Hoist by Their Own Petard: It's the training that he gave Solid Snake in FOXHOUND, along with instilling the mindset of a soldier that would haunt Snake for the rest of his life, that Snake proceeded to use to foil his and everyone else's plots multiple times over. Big Boss himself even admits in his betrayal that Snake was supposed to die as part of an elaborate ploy to get the rest of the world to back off — but he was just too good to be stopped.
Honor Before Reason: In Portable Ops, he refused to kill the helpless Null (Gray Fox) in his culture tank because he couldn't defend himself.
Horrible Judge of Character: A common trait of his and possibly his biggest character flaw:
- He trusted EVA throughout Operation Snake Eater even though EVA never provided the correct passphrase. While EVA did assist him in completing it, it turns out EVA was actually a Chinese double agent who was using him to complete her own mission. Though at least in this case, he may or may not have been onto her ruse given he slipped her the fake Philosopher's Legacy microfilm by the end.
- He believed the government's story that The Boss defected to the USSR. It took EVA flatly telling him the truth to get him to understand. To his credit, even though he witnessed the "defection" with his own eyes, he still didn't fully believe it and constantly kept pressing The Boss for answers or to admit The Boss didn't really defect.
- He originally misunderstood The Boss's goals that she wanted to pass on. Instead of seeking a united and peaceful world where soldiers would no longer be needed, or to live happily by leaving the world to its own devices, Big Boss sought to change the world and reshape it to where there was constant war and soldiers would always be valued and have a place. It wasn't until years later, at the end of his life, that he finally understood what The Boss really wanted and managed to pass it onto his remaining son.
- He trusted Kaz Miller as his partner and co-leader of the MSF. It was then revealed that Miller had been in collusion with and receiving funding from Cipher who Big Boss considered his greatest enemy at the time.
- He allowed Chico to try to sell a photo of the Chrysalis and pass it off as a UFO photograph because he believed that Chico wouldn't actually be able to. The end result was that Chico successfully sold a Chrysalis photograph to a tabloid magazine in Grenada, to which Sir Eric Gairy, Grenada's prime minister at the time, read it, and believing it as well as various rumors about various cattle mutilations and abductions being reported across the Americas that were suspected to be the result of the CIA Peace Sentinels activities, requested for the UN to set up a research facility to investigate aliens, which also nearly got the Prime Minister targeted by the CIA.
- He fell for Zadornov's deception as "Professor Gálvez" until he fell right into an ambush by set up by Zadornov.
- He was fooled by Paz's deception (thinking that Paz was just a little school girl) and allowed Paz free roam of the base. Paz went on to modify and hijack Metal Gear ZEKE on Cipher's orders to attack Big Boss.
- He trusted and recruited Huey Emmerich to his PMC as the head of his research staff. Huey in turn sold the PMC out to Skull Face and helped with the attack on Mother Base that destroyed the MSF and nearly killed Big Boss.
- His most notable example is during Operation Intrude N313: He sent his son Solid Snake to infiltrate Outer Heaven, a private military company run by his body double. He was sure that the rookie agent would be overwhelmed by Outer Heaven's forces quickly. Surprisingly to him, Solid Snake managed to infiltrate Outer Heaven, defeat its elite forces, destroy Metal Gear TX-55, and kill Venom Snake (despite Venom Snake having the full intel on the infiltration and Big Boss misleading Solid Snake the whole time).
- He completely misjudged Zero after he left Cipher, figuring that Zero was his worst enemy who wanted him either under control or dead. In reality, Zero never stopped considering Big Boss as a closest friend and readily came to save and protect Big Boss's life when he was in danger.
Big Boss: Did Zero really hate me? Or... did he fear me? It's too late to ask him now.
Human Popsicle: For the duration of MGS. His frozen remains serve as a MacGuffin for the Genome soldiers and the rogue FOXHOUND who are demanding his remains so they can use them to cure genetic disorders the Genome army is apparently suffering from as a result of gene therapy.
Hypocrite:
- Solid Snake flat-out calls him one before their second (actually only) and final duel after Big Boss declares the only satisfaction true soldiers need is war itself. At first Big Boss claims he wished to uphold The Boss's will of a peaceful world... but his choices, tactics and philosophy (soldiers and war are a chaotic freedom unto themselves), make Outer Heaven little more than a dark mirror against the Patriots.
- When he is presented evidence contrary to his viewpoint in that The Boss eventually wanted soldiers to put down their arms and live in peace, Big Boss views this as a personal betrayal. During the decades long Cold War with Zero's A.I.s, he was content to twist The Boss's legacy for his own revenge, something he later comes to deeply regret.
- He is highly against the Les Enfants Terrible project and disowns the three Snakes but goes along with Zero's plan to create a "fourth clone"; Venom Snake.
I Did What I Had to Do: Big Boss's decision to leave everyone he still cared for behind and go along with Venom Snake serving as his double can be seen as this. All to exact revenge on Cipher with his own secret war.
I Have Many Names: Sniper Wolf knows him as "Saladin", a high honor in the Middle East. He has also gone by Naked Snake, John Doe, and Jack.
- In the NES localizations, he's "Commander South" (a play on the controversial Col. Oliver North). Two characters never seen in Snake's Revenge but mentioned in the advertising an manual similarly take up Big Boss's character role as the masterminds. They are Colonel Vermon CaTaffy" (Muammar Gaddafi) and "Higharolla Kockamamie" (Ruhollah Khomeini — subtle, eh?), who are both interestingly seperate characters with their own history to explain why Snake desired his titular revenge.
I Was Quite a Looker: Averted, surprisingly. Old age hasn't diminished his good looks one bit. If anything, he's turned into a Silver Fox.
If I Wanted You Dead...: When he reappears at The Boss's grave after Solid Snake's attempted suicide in MGS4, Solid Snake quickly reloads and draws his gun at him and assumes that he's back to settle the score. After a few tense moments of holding one another at gunpoint, Big Boss uses a technique The Boss once used on him to get Solid Snake to lower the gun by dropping his own. He uses the moment to disarm Solid Snake and gives a combined Cooldown Hug/Final First Hug, softly reassuring his last living son that he didn't come all this way to pick a fight with both men being so near to death's door as it already was. It works.
Improbable Aiming Skills: Zigzagged.
- Even after losing use of his right eye, Big Boss continued to use firearms with a right hand dominant stance, not even bothering to tilt his weapons so he could use his good eye. Apparently he aims with pure muscle memory alone because he is never seen using weapon sights after that. Yet he is still a top-grade marksman with pretty much any weapon he uses.
- Truth in Television: His shooting method is a style once commonly taught in the U.S. Army. The "Quick Kill" shooting method has the shooter use their rifle without using the sights, although this is relegated to close range engagements.
- Played Straight: Cutscenes in MGS3 still have Naked Snake doing things like aiming a sniper rifle or The Patriot with the sight over his eyepatch.
Insistent Terminology: He's known as "Big Boss" after Operation Snake Eater, but the marketing for the series consistently refers to him as "Snake". While this is justified in the earlier installments, where he considers the title a Medal of Dishonor and a source of internal conflict, it becomes increasingly confounding as the series goes on and he embraces the title.
- This becomes particularly noticeable in Ground Zeroes, where the game introduces him as "Snake", and even refers to him as "a former hero once known by the codename "Big Boss"", when the reverse is true, and the only times he's referred to as "Snake" is when receiving certain orders and the game over sequence.
Irony:
- His fight against Quiet turns out to be a mirror of the fight between him and Solid Snake in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, except this time Big Boss is the one injured, weaponless, and forced to make an improvised incendiary weapon, against an opponent armed to the teeth. Quiet's XOF uniform's color palette being similar to Solid Snake's iconic Sneaking Suit in MGS1 helps with the allusion. Like father, like son, huh?
- His ambition of creating a world of perpetual conflict where soldiers will always be needed winds up coming true thanks to the War Economy come Metal Gear Solid 4, and it's a product of the very system he was trying to destroy. The irony is not lost on Solid Snake.
I've Come Too Far: By the height of his Protagonist Journey to Villain. Big Boss is fully aware of how far he's fallen and how monstrous he is, but keeps pushing forward because he sees no reason to stop anymore.
Jack of All Stats: In games with multiple playable characters, such as Portable Ops or Peace Walker, his stats are balanced, but all high, with most of them being A-rank. In the former game, he has the highest CQC stat and his weapon proficiencies are good across the board, with his pistol and assault rifle stats being higher than other guns. Throughout the series, he's skilled at close combat, sniping, and demolitions.
Kick the Dog: Delivers several at the height of his fall. He callously uses his rookie soldier to retrieve false information and when that went south, tried to get him killed or abort his mission. Then he threatened and attacked several nations, using stolen nukes and OILIX, which resulted in the death of doctor Kio Marv, gave a cynical breaking speech to Solid Snake, convinced that life has no meaning beyond the battlefield, and finally decided on the unequivocal use of child soldiers in Zanzibar Land, feeling it was "only logical" to feed them back onto the battlefield against his enemies. After all, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is suggested to be the very start of this—in that he ultimately sanctioned the creation and activation of Venom Snake, even when it was a) a decision made for him by Ocelot and Zero, much like the Les Enfantes Terribles which he rejected; and b) it basically condemned a man to "becoming a demon" much like himself, with that man being his most loyal follower too.
Kill the Ones You Love: The Boss, to be precise. He never really recovered from it.
Knight in Sour Armor: He was pretty idealistic, even if he was just operating under orders, until the end of Operation Snake Eater. After that his view of the world and the world's governments was drastically altered for the worse.
Kung-Fu Jesus: Big Boss has some overtones of the "villainous" kind. His reappearance in the graveyard of MGS4 marks both his Resurrection and Second Coming, as he prevents Solid Snake's suicide and casually switches off "Lucifer" (Zero), though the former is ultimately what costs him his life.
Large and in Charge: The MGS3 casting sheet describes him thusly: "6'5" high, and his physical constitution is thick like Schwarzenegger. He has an 'all mighty', tough fighting style."
Last Request: Just before he dies in MGS4, he asks Solid Snake to live out what little time there's left to live in peace and not to waste it fighting. David promises to do so, deciding to finally quit smoking as the first step.
Legacy Character: He was the original "Snake", having received the codename for undergoing missions with minimal supplies and equipment. Stealthy and unarmed, like a snake. Thus, he serves as Solid Snake's predecessor in the prequels. Even after attaining the title of Big Boss at the end of MGS3, he still prefers to go by Snake, as evident by the fact that it's still his primary name in Portable Ops and Peace Walker. By the end of Peace Walker, however, he fully accepts the title of Big Boss. The Phantom Pain has him finally casts off his former code name to his decoy Venom Snake.
Luke, I Am Your Father: This does not actually happen during Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, but is rather a retcon introduced in MGS1 where Solid Snake only shared this revelation with Campbell, but it's an open secret amongst Liquid's faction.
MacGuffin: In both MGS1 and MGS4, his body is sought after by the villains; FOXHOUND seeks it in the former to use his "soldier genes" to perfect the Genome Soldiers, and Liquid Ocelot needs it because Big Boss's biometrics and DNA are the key he needs to hijack the Patriots' system and put it under complete control.
Made of Iron: In the original Metal Gear, the guy took 4 propelled rockets to the chest before collapsing, and somehow survived the nuclear explosion that engulfed Outer Heaven. The truth is, the guy who fought Solid Snake in Outer Heaven (a body-double) did not survive. Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake and all of the prequels expand upon this to hilariously absurd levels.
- In Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater alone, on the ill-fated Virtuous Mission he ends up getting his arm broken, a broken rib and multiple lacerations from coming out second-best to The Boss and being thrown off a bridge. Not even given a week of recovery where his medical officer admits he should be back in intensive care rather than on a mission to save the world, he then gets shot in the thigh with a crossbow bolt, poisoned by the venom of one of the deadliest spiders on Earth, beaten to within an inch of his life, subjected to 10 million volts of electroshock torture which is so painful that he pisses himself and then gets his right eye shot out. And this is just what happens to him canonically in the story cutscenes, not even counting injuries that can be received in the game. A normal person put through all this would be a physical and psychological wreck, but this is the greatest soldier in the world we're talking about, so this doesn't even slow him down.
Magnetic Hero:
- Big Boss builds an army from scratch; Cipher blows them all to hell; Big Boss sets about building another, bigger one.
- Three of Solid Snake's former allies, Gray Fox, Kyle Schneider, and Dr. Madnar, all defected to Big Boss's side in the wake of MG1. Gray Fox stayed with him out of filial and professional loyalty; Kyle was moved by how Big Boss remained behind in Outer Heaven to help the refugees (after NATO callously bombed the ruins). Dr. Madnar joined Big Boss as he felt that he had been shunned by the scientific community for his revolutionary ideas.
- Just to show just how much loyalty he inspires, he's the only person in the entire franchise, barring The Boss, who Ocelot is truly loyal to.
Man on Fire: Solid Snake immolates him at the end of Metal Gear 2, resulting in a messy death. The Patriots immediately extracted his remains and put them on ice, setting the stage for MGS1.
Martial Arts Headband: He wears a bandanna for ten years. By the time of Metal Gear Solid V, he's stopped wearing one.
Manly Tears: Shedding them is one of the very last things he does.
Meaningful Name: "Big Boss" is kind of a giveaway, isn't it? His Chinese name is "Tai-pan", a clever double meaning; it's shorthand for "big shot" or "boss" in corporate culture, but taipan is also a type of snake.
Medal of Dishonor: Awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for murdering The Boss to save America's face.
- Made even more so when it is later made apparent that the reason that The Boss had to die didn't even to do with saving America's face and that a certain member of the American Government wanted her offed from the start, and actually manipulated the events of the ending of the Virtuous Mission just so there could be an excuse to send Naked Snake in to kill The Boss.
Mercy Kill: In Peace Walker, Amanda asks him to do this to Chico should the worst happen. He does do this, but rather kills Chico's old self as a quivering child and invites Chico to live a new life as a soldier.
Mole in Charge: He was leading FOXHOUND and Outer Heaven (via his doppelgänger Venom Snake) by the 1990s. Ensuing that if the U.S.A. decided to act against his own forces, he could control what action the U.S.A. would take against him. Like sending in Solid Snake, an underequipped rookie that he personally trained with little chance of actual success. He's replaced by Colonel Campbell after his apparent death.
Mook–Face Turn: The majority of Big Boss' soldiers in both his armies composed of captured enemy soldiers who are convinced to fight for him.
Mr. Smith: The guy's real name is literally "John", and some even calls him by "John Doe". To muddy the waters further, the only one of his sons who has a known last name has the family name "Sears". So his name may be: John Doe or John Sears. And that's just going on what tiny fragments of information there is.
My Greatest Failure: He views the killing of The Boss, his mentor and mother figure who taught him everything he ever knew as a soldier, and then going on to fight for causes that she never would have believed in as his greatest failure. He goes so far as to claim after that point he was "already dead" emotionally. At the end of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots as he stands above her grave, Big Boss proclaims to his son that if their roles had been reversed, he probably wouldn't have made the same mistakes and that he still has a chance to do things better than he ever had.
- As of Peace Walker and especially Ground Zeroes, witnessing Paz's Heroic Suicide is all but outright stated to have become this for him as well, to the point her impact extended well into his dying breath.
Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: He personally trained Solid Snake, who was given subpar training due to his inferior genes in the military, everything he knew. Which included using Improvised Weapons, teaching him CQC, how to get out in sticky situations. The first one was his undoing as Snake was able to defeat him using a lighter and a spray can.
No-Sell: Throughout Snake Eater, EVA (a highly trained spy and seductress) keeps coming on to him in increasingly direct ways, and he usually just flat-out ignores EVA. This turns out to have a thematic resonance, as she points out, she was the deceiving "Eve" who tempted the "Snake".
No Dead Body Poops: An inversion occurs in Metal Gear Solid V as he and Venom Snake play dead in a hallway full of corpses to avoid a group of soldiers. Noticing one of the corpses emptying out he uses an iv bag filled with water to give the illusion that he’s dead. Unfortunately, the soldiers begin double-tapping the corpses, making the ruse moot. However, the soldier who was about to double tap Ishmael does buy it, seeing the 'emptying out' as a sign he's really dead and doesn't shoot. Unfortunately again... Ahab is quickly found to not be doing so, and doesn't do anything to sell himself playing dead. It is only by grace of the Man on Fire showing up when he did that Ahab didn't get shot dead.
Not Quite Dead: As revealed in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, he actually survived his final showdown with Solid Snake at Zanzibar Land, albeit barely.
No Social Skills: Played for Laughs. In Snake Eater it is established that not only he lacks any knowledge about pop culture and films like his future son, Solid Snake,^note but, in EVA's words, he is completely slow on social cues; he doesn't realize that Ocelot is into him, and doesn't quite get that both Volgin and Raikov are lovers (even as EVA directly shows a photo of the two together). He loses this as he transitions from "Naked Snake" to "Big Boss".
Offing the Offspring: He tried to do this to Solid Snake on his first mission in Outer Heaven, but Big Boss' training went too well as Snake was able to traverse the entire fortress without issue, save key hostages, and destroy Metal Gear T-55. Big Boss' final gambit was sending Venom Snake after him, but ultimately fail, and Outer Heaven was destroyed. He tries again in Zanzibar to confront him, but Snake's training allows him to defeat him yet again.
Old Soldier: Even in old age, he proved himself the best soldier of his era. It took a clone of himself, that he personally trained, to finally get the better of him one-on-one.
One Last Smoke: Shares one with David right before he passes away.
One-Man Army: Where do you think Solid Snake got it from? Big Boss isn't known as "The Legendary Soldier" for nothing!
The One That Got Away: Portable Ops at least has it be clear that Snake still cares for EVA despite her betrayal, and while Snake and EVA can meet again as part of a difficult side-quest with the implication they get together again, MGS4 establishes this didn't happen.
Order Versus Chaos: What his conflict with Zero ultimately boils down to. Big Boss's goal is to establish an anarchic perpetual battleground where soldiers are free to serve as mercenaries and do battle without allegiance to any government, ideology, or creed, whereas the latter hopes to unite the world under a One World Order government run by Big Brother AIs.
Papa Wolf: Don't ever hurt soldiers under his command. XOF learned this the hard way in Ground Zeroes, with help from Big Boss's assault rifle.
- Notable is that for almost the entire attack on Mother Base, he was completely calm while fighting, until he sees one of his men get killed in front of him, at which point he yells in anger and almost goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge right there.
The Paragon Always Rebels: As Naked Snake, he was an American hero and came back home well-decorated after the events of Operation Snake Eater. The same mission disillusions him to the war machine and tries to create a nation where soldiers can serve free from their home nations.
Parental Substitute: Was this to Sniper Wolf, Gray Fox, and Naomi Hunter. Ironically, Solid Snake viewed him as this before Big Boss revealed that he was actually his father.
Pet the Dog: Even at his worst, Big Boss was Affably Evil and a Benevolent Boss to the end, and still had the capacity for kindness and compassion:
- During the Truth tapes in The Phantom Pain. Both Zero and Ocelot intended for Venom Snake to merely be a Body Double or decoy for Big Boss and was supposed to be nothing but a disposable tool to him. Big Boss for his part refused this notion and disliked the fact that one of his most loyal men was reduced to a decoy. When Big Boss reveals the truth behind what had happened, he insists that neither him nor Venom Snake are Big Boss, but rather the legend of Big Boss belongs to both men. On top of that, despite making it clear that he doesn't consider Eli/Liquid Snake his son, he nonetheless orders Ocelot to treat him like a human being should they encounter him.
- At the end of the first game, he takes it upon himself to save Kyle Schneider and the members of his rebellion from Outer Heaven's self-destruction, despite them being his enemies at the time; this led to Kyle defecting to Zanzibar Land in gratitude.
- In MGS4, despite believing that Zero had always feared him and wanted him dead, he still feels compassion and brotherly love for his old friend and CO. When he Mercy Kills Zero, Big Boss gently hugs at Zero's death throes to ease the pain of passing.
Polyglot: Metal Gear Solid 3 reveals he's perfectly fluent in Russian and Peace Walker shows that he has at least some basic knowledge of French, Spanish, and Cat.
Pop-Culture Isolation: Discussed in-universe. Several of his conversations in Snake Eater with Para-Medic will have her asking him if he's seen certain movies, to which he often replies "No". He is, however, aware of James Bond movies, but voices his disdain for those as seeing Bond as an unrealistic spy while Zero geeks out at a mere mention of it.
Posthumous Character: His impact and legacy are felt long after Solid Snake immolates him in Metal Gear 2. Many characters worship the ground he walked on (some more literally than others), and his body is even used as a MacGuffin in Metal Gear Solid. This ends up being subverted, as Metal Gear Solid 4 reveals that he was being kept alive in a barely-cognitive state by the Patriots. Metal Gear Rising, the only game in the series to take place after his final death, barely mentions him at all.
Perpetual Frowner: During the Solid Snake era, Big Boss is drawn to look as he has the biggest frown on his face during artwork cutscenes. After he was revived, he still has a frown even after the Patriots' destruction.
Properly Paranoid: Naked Snake mentions his being exposed to the Bravo Shot atomic blast in 1954. He mentions that while he hasn't shown any symptoms, he suspects that symptoms will pop up sooner or later in his life. This was later confirmed when he was revealed to have been made sterile as a result of the event.
The Protagonist: Of MGS3, MPO, MGSPW and MGSV. Well, not really in the latter game.
Protagonist Journey to Villain: At the beginning of his story, Naked Snake is (essentially) as green and naive as Solid Snake was during the original two MSX Metal Gear games. His exploits in the prequels (Snake Eater, Portable Ops, Peace Walker, and The Phantom Pain) all lead to him eventually being the Big Bad of the original two Metal Gear games. His speech at the end of Peace Walker particularly cements his role as the future villain:
Big Boss: We will forsake our countries. We will leave our motherlands behind us and become one with this earth. We have no nation, no philosophy, no ideology. We go where we're needed, fighting not for country, not for government, but for ourselves. We need no reason to fight. We fight because we are needed. We will be the deterrent for those with no other recourse. We are soldiers without borders, our purpose defined by the era we live in. We will sometimes have to sell ourselves and services. If the times demand it, we'll be revolutionaries, criminals, terrorists. And yes, we may all be headed straight to Hell. But what better place for us than this? It is our only home. Our Heaven and Our Hell. This is Outer Heaven.
Real Award, Fictional Character: At the end of MGS3, he's awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.
Real Life Writes the Plot: Like how he is with Solid Snake, his and and Snake's voice actors in the Japanese version, Chikao Ohtsuka and Akio Ōtsuka, were not in good terms with each other prior to Metal Gear Solid 4 and Hideo Kojima found out about it. Kojima would deliberately chose Chikao to voice Big Boss, and the first line he was given were to let go of the grudges they had for each other. They both eventually reconcile with each other just like Big Boss and Solid Snake would.
Real Men Wear Pink: He likes wearing the "Oyama" face paint and doesn't mind the GA-KO camo, even asking "What's wrong with being cute?" and also molded a piece of C3 into a butterfly, albeit more as a reference to a previous scene.
Red Oni, Blue Oni: He is ultimately the blue to Solid Snake's red, though not initially.
Red Right Hand: Big Boss loses a good deal of his anatomy over the course of his story. If you played any of the previous Metal Gear games, you would know that this was going to happen anyway. In fact, his amputated (left) forearm was foreshadowed all the way back in Metal Gear 2, though it was assumed Solid Snake caused that injury. Except that's not what happened.
Redemption Equals Death: At the end of Metal Gear Solid 4, he finally locates and gives Zero a Mercy Kill, officially ending the decades and globe-spanning feud and plots. He also admits that his plans and actions did nothing but make the world a worse place. Too bad that, by reconciling with and getting close to his son, hugging him, he inadvertently gets infected with the new FOXDIE strain. He takes his fate as a good thing, however.
Repaired Pedestal: Feels this way towards The Boss after learning of the conspiracy. At the very end of Metal Gear Solid 4, he considers himself to be "already dead" since he killed The Boss.
- Likewise in MGS4, he repairs his own pedestal in the eyes of David. As after explaining what went wrong between him and Zero and finally ending it, then admitting he was wrong, before finally dying, his last living son gives him one last smoke, then salutes him.
Retired Badass: Between MGS3 and Portable Ops.
Revenge: One of the key reasons for his actions, as well as being a Fatal Flaw. A lot of his actions began because of being an Unwitting Pawn forced by the government to kill The Boss for an unjustifiable reason. Unfortunately, his anger toward the government makes him want to create a world where soldiers will always be needed, and causes him to forget The Boss's wish for a peaceful world that she wanted him to continue in her steed.
Running Both Sides: Since he founded FOXHOUND and Outer Heaven, he ran both organizations until Solid Snake exposed him. Actually, he wasn't really running Outer Heaven, as his doppelgänger Venom Snake took control of the organization in his place.
Scars Are Forever: He has a facial scar on the left side of his face underneath his temple region that he received during the XOF attack on MSF's Mother Base back in 1975. He carries it on with him to the very end, in 2014.
- Subverted in Peace Walker. It initially seemed like he cut himself a scar in the shape of The Boss's scar, but it is later revealed to be faked, having placed a jigsaw on his person by disguising it as a scar in case he got captured.
Shadow Archetype: Big Boss represents what Solid Snake could have become had he allowed the trauma he suffered through to send him down a similar path and pull a Face–Heel Turn. During their final meeting, Big Boss even commends Solid Snake for not making the same mistakes he did.
Shared Family Quirks:
- Like Solid Snake/David, he has an affinity for cardboard boxes, dog-sledding, and smoking (though he prefers cigars over cigarettes).
- Like Liquid Snake/Eli, he has a desire to outdo his predecessor, seeing them as both superior and inferior to themselves.
- Like Solidus Snake/George Sears, he has a habit of seeing his subordinates as his children, yet will dispose of them to accomplish their own goals, as well as being a Noble Demon willing to do horrible things to bring about his vision of a better world.
Shell-Shocked Veteran: He states that on the day he killed the Boss, he pretty much died inside.
- Alluded to in Metal Gear 2, when he's quite candid with Snake about the nightmares soldiers suffer from their experiences. Big Boss explains to Snake that those nightmares never go away, those feelings are ingrained into a soldier and will always be a part of them; in the same way the killer instincts that drive soldiers to desire more conflict are equally as ingrained, and there is no way to exorcise these demons, therefore the only sane solution is to embrace them.
Shooting Superman: In MGSV, he shoots at the Man on Fire with a silenced pistol... right after he saw that "thing" shrug off machine gun fire and a helicopter missile without a scratch. He quickly realizes how pointless it is and instead shoots open a water pipe to fend it off.
Shout-Out: His choice of smokes, modeled after the H. Uppman No. 2, are a reference to John F. Kennedy, who preferred the H. Uppman No. 2.
Shrouded in Myth: Big Boss literally has no identity, making him a perfect candidate for FOX. And MGS4 suggests that the Patriots actually exaggerated a good portion of his reputation to cement his status as their icon. ^note
Shut Up, Kirk!: Towards Solid Snake during their climactic duel in the second game when his protege refuses to just roll over and die, citing a credo about never giving up and always believing in victory that Big Boss himself told him. Big Boss scornfully rebukes the notion, waving it off as rubbish.
Significant Double Casting: Shares the same voice actors with Solid Snake and Venom Snake.
Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!: He doesn't really believe in peace, even during his Cold Warrior days.
Silver Fox: He's in his sixties by the time of the first two games, and 79 by the time he finally dies for real in MGS4, but aside from graying hair, he retains the chiseled good looks he possessed in his youth during Snake Eater.
Slowly Slipping Into Evil: Just look at his images, as each game in the prequel game progresses, Big Boss becomes a darker character:
- To list: In MGS 3 (1964), he becomes disillusioned with the U.S.A. due to being manipulated into killing his mentor; in Portable Ops (1970) he begins kidnapping enemy troops and turning them to his cause (implied through torture if needed); by Peace Walker (1974) he had started a mercenary nation willing to provide services to any paying customer and even included at least two (technically one) child soldier(s) amongst his ranks, as well as developed a nuclear weapon; by Ground Zeroes (1975) he was actively infiltrating foreign military, bases/assassinating (or kidnapping) High Value Targets under contracts, and covering up his possession of WMDs from the United Nations; by The Phantom Pain (1984) he had restarted his mercenary group (though now with even LESS scruples) and entrusted a loyal soldier into taking the fall for him; finally by MG 1 and 2 (1995 & 1999 respectively) he was declaring war upon the world.
Smoking Is Cool: His choice of cigars are Habano-brand Cuban cigars, and will correct you if you mistakenly call them cigarettes. He even smokes while he's dying, even lampshading it saying: "This is good, isn't it?"
Smoky Voice: Like father, like son, Big Boss has a coarse and weathered voice from both his time as a soldier and being a habitual smoker. While both Snakes have the same smoking habits, Big Boss smokes Habano-brand Cuban cigars instead of normal cigarettes.
Start of Darkness: His character arcs over Snake Eater and Peace Walker prequel games show you just what motivated him to create Outer Heaven and become the Big Bad of the first two Metal Gear games: seeing how disposable soldiers are to the world first hand over and over again eventually drove him to create a place where soldiers would be honored rather than thrown to the side.
Still Believes in Santa: In the briefing file about NORAD in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, it is revealed that Big Boss, despite being a badass Super-Soldier, still believes Santa exists and refuses to listen to Huey's reason.
Still Wearing the Old Colors:
- In Portable Ops, Peace Walker and Ground Zeroes, each one of his uniforms still bears a FOX unit logo, though in Portable Ops his sneaking suit had been stolen from FOX.
- In Metal Gear 2 his sprite wears a green uniform, opposed to the tan uniforms of his troops. The green uniform having been the standard uniform of the FOX and MSF units.
- This is brought up by Snake in MGS4 when Otacon asks why Meryl is still wearing a FOXHOUND patch on her uniform when FOXHOUND no longer exists. Snake's response is that some soldiers like to keep patches, or other mementos like maybe a tattoo, to remind themselves of their old units out of some leftover fondness or loyalty they may have to those memories. This implies that Big Boss has some attachment to his old unit.
- Likewise in MGS4, when he confronts Snake in person, he is wearing the officer's trenchcoat of the FOX (and its successor FOXHOUND) units. This is despite both units having long since been defunct.
The Stool Pigeon: An inversion of the Lacerated Larry type in Peace Walker. He remained silent about the truth behind his killing of The Boss outside of the official story of "betrayal" the United States when Dr. Strangelove tortured him. Unfortunately, his remaining silent on the issue is exactly how Strangelove managed to deduce the truth behind The Boss's final mission.
Suicide is Shameful: In Peace Walker, he refuses to Mercy Kill Chico at Amanda's request for this reason. Also, in MGS4, he commends Solid Snake for not going through with blowing his brains out, remarking there's "no need for [David] to go just yet." Of course, he also ends up switching off Zero's life support in the same conversation, but that was to finally put an end to the Patriots, and by that point, Zero was nothing but a brain-dead vegetable.
Big Boss: Amanda, we gave up our homes. But we're still alive. We're still fighting. And there's always another reason to keep on living.
Super-Strength: Implied in Peace Walker, where Big Boss was capable of lifting up a sealed garage door to gain entry to Peace Walker's hangar twice with his own bare hands, and, at least in gameplay, bench-pressing even Cocoon. Which is roughly the size of a small-town municipal building.
Surpassed the Teacher: The source of his codename; Naked Snake was deemed "above even The Boss" when he defeated and slew his mentor, and thus was dubbed Big Boss by the President. Big Boss didn't feel the same, however, and it took ten years for him to embrace the title.
Sympathy for the Devil: In MGS4, despite their long history of animosity, and believing Zero hated him and wanted him dead, when he comes face-to-face with the vegetative Zero after awakening from his coma, Big Boss feels nothing but pity and compassion for his former friend before giving a Mercy Kill.
Big Boss: Now that I’m actually face to face with him again, the hatred is gone. All I feel is a deep sense of longing. And pity.
Then Let Me Be Evil: At the end of Peace Walker, he gives a speech about how the world will view MSF differently as time goes by; either as revolutionaries, dogs of war or terrorists and he is willing to accept that role as a villain. And thus, Outer Heaven was born.
That Thing Is Not My Child!: His initial reaction to his three clones; in fact, the discovery that Para-Medic had cloned him under Zero's orders in the first place was ultimately what led him to defect from Cipher. As revealed in the Truth tapes in The Phantom Pain, he adamantly refused to acknowledge them as his sons, to the point of refusing to see Eli in Africa. Nonetheless, he came to respect David as a person and fellow soldier who he personally trained, and still orders Ocelot to treat Eli like another human being regardless. It is only at the very end of his life that he finally acknowledges David as his son who he encourages to live in peace with what time there's left.
Big Boss: They're no sons of mine, and they're sure as hell not me.
Ocelot: Just a bunch of cells grown in a lab?
Big Boss: What they are is much sicker than that.
Thou Shalt Not Kill: Prefers to simply tranquilize or knock out enemies rather than kill them unless killing is the only option.
Took a Level in Badass: He was already The Ace when he goes into Operation Virtuous Mission, but The Boss, his very own mentor, utterly trounced him with zero effort when they were forced to fight for the first couple times. By the end of Operation Snake Eater, he has Surpassed the Teacher, and gains the legendary moniker of Big Boss, going from a "newborn" without any emotion of his own to carry into battle into a genuine war hero — and a Byronic Hero that has firmly become a Broken Ace for what it took to come so far.
Took a Level in Kindness: The first thing he does after waking up from nanomachine-induced coma and seeing Snake again after their fateful battle in Zanzibarland is use CQC to hug him, showing he has finally accepted David as his son with no enmity he used to have when the latter used to work for him and became bitter enemies.
Trademark Favorite Food: Used to express a one-track interest regarding eating the many animals he came across during Operation Snake Eater, but snakes stuck out as a particular favorite to the point where he reacted with confusion when hearing about snakes being imported as pets, not food.
Tragic Hero: Big Boss's dedication to his allies and his desire to avoid war ultimately causes him to lose everyone he cared about while being hunted by governments and militaries from all over the world.
Tragic Keepsake: Has had three major ones, all of them alluded to his deceased mentor:
- He kept wearing The Boss's bandanna, which he snatched from her head during the Virtuous Mission, for ten years. After watching the Peace Walker AI weapon drown itself in the ocean, he finds some closure to the event at last and casts it off to the winds.
- He also kept The Boss's weapon, the Patriot, after executing her with it, as his personal weapon; using it until his death, 40 years later.
- His smoking habit in general could be considered a huge one, as his sharing a final smoke with David before his passing demonstrates.
Training from Hell: It's strongly implied that he underwent this when under The Boss's tutelage and when joining FOX. In regard to the former, The Boss tells Volgin (who at the time was shocking him with electricity that was said by Volgin to be around ten million volts) that it wouldn't break him as The Boss trained him not to, and in the case of the latter, Cunningham stated that any attempts at beating him wouldn't even qualify as torture to Naked Snake due to his former FOX membership.
Übermensch: He develops his own moral code, and doesn't care if that makes him "evil" in the eyes of others.
Undignified Death: Subverted. Big Boss seemingly dies at the end of Metal Gear 2 when Solid uses an Aerosol Flamethrower to burn him - a rather pathetic end for a man who used to fight superhumans and once benched a 90-ton robot in his youth. Except this burning wasn't immediately fatal and he slipped into a coma and stayed that way for fifteen years. His actual death at the end of Guns of the Patriots is quite poignant, having a last smoke while burying the hatchet with his son.
Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Well, young adult, anyway.
Villain Killer: In Snake Eater, his battles with the Cobra Unit end like this, with their deaths being very over-the-top compared to the more somber ones seen in the game.
Villain Respect: He freely admits that while he never saw Solid Snake as his son, he did respect Solid Snake as a man and fellow soldier.
Villain with Good Publicity: Up until his plans for Outer Heaven are stopped by Solid Snake. However, in MGS4, his popularity skyrockets once more after the Patriots declassify all files relating to his past exploits, including Operation Snake Eater, much to his son's annoyance.
Solid Snake: The war criminal, reinvented as a hero.
Vindicated by History: In-Universe. As mentioned above, Big Boss's exploits had gotten recognition to the point people wanted to use CQC. Solid Snake naturally finds it stupid, to the point that he even calls the PMCs' CQC as cookie-cutter imitations.
Walking Spoiler: He's the twist villain of the very first game who comes back from seemingly certain death on two later occasions, as well as the Decoy Protagonist of the MGSV duology.
Walking Transplant: Big Boss reveals EVA hid his body and uses both Liquid's and Solidus's parts to replace damaged parts.
War for Fun and Profit: The ethos behind Outer Heaven. Big Boss's objective was to give soldiers without a home someplace to belong, as well as an escape from Cipher/The Patriots' umbrella. As Big Boss happened across war orphans during his travels, he began integrating child soldiers into his army too. His intentions were benevolent, but Outer Heaven set the stage for a perpetual war machine, which Les Enfants Terribles and Desperado later accelerated.
We Used to Be Friends: His friendship with Zero ended when he found out about the Les Enfants Terribles project and the Sons of Big Boss were cloned without his consent. This causes him to break off with the Patriots with EVA and Adam joining him. Both Para-Medic and SIGNIT remained loyal to Zero, and Big Boss' entire conflict throughout the '70's and 90's was a personal war between his Outer Heaven faction against Zero.
Weak to Fire: The only way to cause his alleged death in Metal Gear 2 is to immolate him with a lighter and a can of hairspray.
We Can Rebuild Him: After his "death", EVA recovered his body which gets patched up using parts of Liquid's and Solidus's corpses.
Well-Intentioned Extremist: Given how horrifically governments and groups like Cipher treat soldiers in the Metal Gear Universe, it's not surprising Big Boss wanted to make a world where they'd always be needed.
Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: He's deathly afraid of vampires and all subject matter related to them; specifically, Bram Stoker's Dracula. Para-Medic uses this to raise his adrenaline levels and spur him into action.
Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: The man had a life could best be described as a Trauma Conga Line of absolutely epic proportions:
- First off, in 1964, he's forced to kill the only woman he had ever loved — the same woman who had served as his mentor and mother figure since his childhood, all because somebody in the U.S. government held a grudge and set her up.
- Ten years later, Big Boss comes up with the project for a Warrior Heaven heaven: a place where soldiers can live free from the manipulations of governments, and be given the honor and respect they deserve. Along the way, he decides that The Boss abandoned her soldiers, her virtues, and therefore, him as well. Said project is then promptly destroyed, as he watches hundreds of the men and women he adored as family die in front of him, and he's sent into a nine-year coma.
- After returning to action, Big Boss strives to take revenge and build his Outer Heaven, gathering a formidable army, and also nuclear weapons, only to be foiled and crippled by his very own son Solid Snake. He is then held in another coma, essentially becoming a prisoner within his mind for fifteen years. And when he's finally able to reawaken, and reconcile with Solid Snake, he dies shortly after. All things considered, it's a wonder Big Boss didn't snap sooner than he did.
World's Best Warrior: He's renowned as the greatest soldier of the 20th century, and he can certainly back it up. It took the efforts of Solid Snake, a clone of himself who Big Boss personally trained, to finally take him down.
Wouldn't Hurt a Child: In MGS3, though he's perfectly willing to fight and beat up Ocelot, he refuses to let EVA shoot Ocelot In the Back while running away because Ocelot's "still young."
Wrote the Book: Co-invented CQC with The Boss, and invented the use of the tactical cardboard box as a hiding place. He even originated the very idea of the "Stealth Mission" — hence, the Metal Gear franchise owes its existence to this man. Zero pitched the idea after hearing about The Boss's war stories; the Stealth Mission is actually a modified version of what the Boss termed "Snatch" missions, wherein an agent is sent to extract a VIP. Obviously, these missions ruled out a full-on assault or tripping alarms since the hostage would instantly be killed. Virtuous Mission (a Snatch Mission) and Operation Snake Eater (a Sneaking Mission) were intended as test drives, to convince the higher-ups at Langley to marry spies and soldiers into a single unit.
You Are What You Hate: Over the years, he became as manipulative and deceitful as the politicians who manipulated him in his youth. His ambitions even turned his small team of earnest operatives into a cabal that would forge a war machine infinitely worse than the one that chewed up and spat out his mentor.
You Have No Chance to Survive: When he confronts Solid Snake in Zanzibar Land, the agent has just emerged from a fire, lost all of his gear, and is utterly defenseless. And he still refuses Big Boss's offer of a quick death. The commander can only marvel at his audacity:
Big Boss: Really...? And how do you expect to beat me in your condition? With no weapon?
Solid Snake: Never give up. Fight until the end. Always believe you will succeed, even when the odds are against you... Those are your words.
Big Boss: Even I make mistakes from time to time.
You Kill It, You Bought It: His codename "Big Boss" stems from his assignment to kill the Boss and her Cobra Unit.
Zen Survivor: With moments left to live, Big Boss stays completely calm and offers some final words of wisdom to his son.

Gray Fox (Grey Fox)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gray_fox_mg_3.jpg

"I was raised by adults to be a tool of war."

^{Click here} to see Gray Fox in MGS1

^{Click here} to see Null

AKA: Frank Jaeger, Frank Hunter, The Cyborg Ninja, Your #1 Fan, Deepthroat, Null

Voiced by: Kaneto Shiozawa (JP; MGS1), Jun Fukuyama (JP; [MPO=]), Greg Eagles (EN; MGS1), Rob Paulsen (EN; MGSTTS), Larc Spies (EN; MPO & MGSDGN)

"We're not tools of the government or anyone else. Fighting was the only thing... the only thing I was good at, but... at least I always fought for what I believed in."

Gray Fox is the only member of FOXHOUND ever to receive the Code Name of Fox, and not without good reason; Frank Jaeger had to grow up in harsh conditions. Originally a child soldier, he was one of the deadliest people on earth at just the tender age of eleven. Frank was rescued by Big Boss, who tried to leave him at a relief shelter where he could be safe, but he ended up getting abducted by the CIA/the Philosophers so they could turn him into the perfect soldier, codenamed Null.

After a series of complicated events, he ends up supporting Big Boss and Zanzibar Land, and then nearly dies, and is turned into the Cyborg Ninja. As the Cyborg Ninja, Fox helps his old buddy Solid Snake one last time in Shadow Moses to take down Metal Gear REX in the events of Metal Gear Solid.

Already Done for You: The Cyborg Ninja leaves quite a mess behind. On the plus side, he eradicates all enemies in the basement of the warhead storage building, and his magnetic field shorts out the door locks on Otacon's office.
Anti-Villain: In Metal Gear 2, where he defects because of his loyalty to Big Boss and mistreatment at the hands of the US government, not because of any misplaced anger. He even sends Snake anonymous support to apologise for his role in the conflict.
Ascended Extra: Given Fox's major role in both Metal Gear 2 and Metal Gear Solid, and the way Snake talks about him in later games as if Fox was some sort of mentor during the Outer Heaven incident, it's very surprising at how little Fox actually does in the first Metal Gear. He gets kidnapped, Snake rescues him, and he disappears for the rest of the game. The player can even kill Fox before untying him, which has no real effect in the outcome of the story outside of demoting Snake's rank by one star.
Back for the Dead: Unfortunately, thanks to Liquid, he goes back to being dead - for good.
Back from the Dead: In Metal Gear Solid.
Badass Boast: "A cornered fox is more dangerous than a jackal."
Because I'm Good At It: He laments that fighting was and is his only talent in life, but has some reconciliation in that he never sold out his beliefs and fought for a cause he felt was unworthy.
Big Brother Mentor: To Solid Snake.
Big Damn Heroes: His Dying Moment of Awesome starts when he swoops in out of nowhere to prevent Snake being crushed to death by Metal Gear REX.
Blood Knight: Not necessarily enjoying battle, but he does feel as though he needs war, as he isn't able to function in society if he is deprived of it.
Blood Is the New Black: The Cyborg Ninja's duds get sticky in the remake.
Brainwashed and Crazy: The method of his training as Null was placing him within a memory/emotion depriving tank, and presumably left without free will as a result.
Child Soldier: Most of his origin story entails this, as early as someone working at a work camp in the early stages of the Vietnam War to as late as being deployed in the Mozambician War of Independence and later experimented upon.
Combat Sadomasochist: "Hurt me more!" Justified, as he wants to die especially after he was denied the chance to die by Dr. Clark and instead put through the Cyborg Ninja project, and preferably die a painful death of fighting.
Cyber Cyclops: His helmet does have eye slits, but the big orange light in between draws most of the attention.
Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: By the time he is a Cyborg Ninja, he "should be dead" but is kept alive through prosthetics, though it really seems to cause him more suffering than just dying would. Being a guinea pig for dozens of cybernetic and gene therapy experiments probably didn't help either.
Cyber Ninja: The first Cyborg Ninja.
Cyborg: What he unwillingly became between MG2 and MGS, thanks to Dr. Clark.
Death by Disfigurement: In Metal Gear Solid, he dies just after losing an arm. He didn't die from the injury, however, but by getting stomped (repeatedly) by Metal Gear REX.
Death Seeker: In Metal Gear Solid, he just wants Snake to put him out of his misery. Liquid is only too happy to oblige.
Desperation Attack: If his HP is completely depleted during his boss fight in Metal Gear Solid, he will unleash a powerful AoE shockwave that deals a good chunk of damage to your HP, and will deflect any bullets fired at him until he exhausts himself. This gimmick is completely absent in the Twin Snakes remake.
The Dragon: To Big Boss in Metal Gear 2.
Dying Moment of Awesome: He saves Snake's life and picks a one-on-one fight Metal Gear REX, inflicting critical damage on it before he's killed.
Family-Unfriendly Death: Metal Gear REX turns him into a bloody stain on the floor.
Friendly Enemy: Gray Fox and Snake are best friends and war buddies, but conflicting ideologies pit them against each other in Metal Gear 2.
The Friends Who Never Hang" He and Snake are best friends, but they are never shown spending any meaningful time together apart from a few minutes here and there on the battlefield.
Heel–Face Revolving Door: Definitely ends as a Face in Metal Gear Solid.
Heroic Sacrifice: Gets killed destroying Metal Gear REX's radome, but this forces Liquid to expose himself for the second round against Snake.
Heterosexual Life-Partners: Snake consistently refers to Gray Fox as his best friend.
I Have Many Names - The only Metal Gear character to have more aliases than any of the Snakes or Ocelot (Frank Jaeger, Frank Hunter, Gray Fox, Deepthroat, Null, the Cyborg Ninja).
Katanas Are Just Better: Uses one as the Cyborg Ninja.
Killed Off for Real: In Metal Gear Solid.
Known Only by Their Nickname: Variation. Gray Fox is often identified by that name rather than "Frank Jaeger". However, Frank Jaeger is also not even his real name, as it was actually given to him by his comrades in FREMILO in reference to his means of killing soldiers (he acted as a frank young boy, yet then killed them with the ferocity of a hunter when the soldiers let their guard down). His real name (as in: birth given name) is unknown.
Legacy Character: Not him, but the Cyborg Ninja, which would go on to be this. The codename is used by Mr. X/Olga Gurlukovich in MGS2, and Raiden becomes one in MGS4 and MGR.
Machete Mayhem: In Portable Ops.
Man in the Machine: His organic body is grafted surgically to his robotic exoskeleton, and he has to constantly take anti-rejection drugs or suffer extreme pain. It's artistic license on Kojima's part, though.^note
Meaningful Name:
- His surname "Jaeger" is German for hunter, as in Naomi Hunter's older brother, and is in itself derived from a common tactic he employed as a child soldier by stabbing Portuguese soldiers with a knife when they let their guard down.
- Even Gray Fox has significant meaning to it. The code name is treated as a rank, and it aligns with Big Boss's "Naked Snake" code name; both men were named after their mentor's former unit, implicitly being regarded as dangerous as an entire Badass Army.
- Also, his codename during MPO was Null, which is the German word for Zero and is meant to exemplify that he was a lost number in an unethical CIA project for creating the Perfect Soldier, due to being the Sole Survivor and Sole Success of the project.
Megaton Punch: The second to last phase of his boss fight in Metal Gear Solid. On later difficulties, it's a guaranteed One-Hit Kill.
Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: He didn't truly defect from America until after Operation Intrude N313, but it was made very clear that he was very sore about his country well beforehand due to their denying his lover Gustava Heffner U.S. citizenship, forcing her deportation, and thus being responsible for all the hell she has to endure in her birth country.
My Hero, Zero: He is known as "Null" in his youth during MPO (Null is German for Zero).
My Master, Right or Wrong: Justified due to Big Boss saving his life twice (arguably three, if one does not count Mozambique and counts the two times he saved him in Portable Ops).
Mysterious Protector: In Metal Gear Solid as Deepthroat.
Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot
Noble Demon: Even when he's a villain, he's downright chivalrous.
Nominal Hero: In Metal Gear Solid, where he is motivated purely by his desire for a fight to the death with Snake. He winds up as a Knight in Sour Armor by the end, choosing to die for something he believes in by saving his old friend.
Nothing Personal, When Snake talks about him to Naomi, he told her while they were on opposing forces in Zanzibar rather than on the same side, he states this is the reason.
Obi-Wan Moment: "Snake, we're not tools of the government or anyone else. Fighting was the only thing... the only thing I was good at... but at least I always fought for what I believed in. Snake... farewell."
Precious Photo: In his sister's locket◊ in Metal Gear Solid 4.
Psycho Prototype: Kind of. While not quite a prototype, it is known that he was the only successful test subject in the Perfect Soldier Project, as most of the other test subjects died from the procedure.
- He is, however, this to the Genome Soldiers, SOP troops, cyborg ninjas, and cyborgs in general. The experiments performed on him provided the make-up of entire armies and special units for a decade and then some after his death.
Recurring Boss: Null is fought twice in Portable Ops.
Redemption Equals Death: He wants to die, but believes that only a fight to the death with Snake will do. It isn't until his Heroic Sacrifice that he's finally allowed to rest in peace.
Retcon: His origin story in Portable Ops contradicts the original origin in Metal Gear 2. In Metal Gear 2, Gray Fox states that he first met Big Boss in Vietnam, where he was working in a labor camp as a half-white war orphan. In Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, Naked Snake says he first met Gray Fox in Mozambique. Should also be noted that the official Metal Gear Solid 4 database doesn't even mention the former.
The Rival: He is considered to be the rival to Solid Snake, and in MGS1, has someone he knows working on Snake's side. In Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, he even says they're rivals. But he is also The Mentor by helping Snake during the events of Outer Heaven, and continues to play this role even when the two are supposed to be enemies.
Shell-Shocked Veteran: Fits the bill: He needs war despite clearly not liking it, has been through war enough times that he cannot function in society, and is also implied to suffer from Post-traumatic Stress Disorder.
Sixth Ranger: To Snake's support crew in MGS.
The Slow Walk: In the Twin Snakes remake.
Stealth Mentor: In Metal Gear 2 (where he provides anonymous radio support) and Metal Gear Solid (where he helps Snake despite wanting a fight to the death).
Straw Nihilist: While he was under the persona of Null, he indicated that he saw no point in life, feeling that even if he doesn't kill anyone, they still die anyways, and remarks that the world is "full of death".
Super-Soldier: He was even referred to as the Perfect Soldier in Portable Ops.
Super-Speed: He was shown to be extremely fast even when he was not the Cyborg Ninja.
Trickster Mentor: In Metal Gear Solid, he wants to fight Snake to the death and help him save the world. In that order.
Together in Death: When Snake tells Fox Gustava would be waiting for him. Ends up subverted in Metal Gear Solid until he's Killed Off for Real.
Tyke-Bomb
Unexplained Recovery: Subverted: While he did ultimately survive Zanzibar Land, he also was recovered by a cleanup crew belonging to the Patriots and was experimented on by turning him into a cyborg ninja, and the process was heavily implied to be quite horrific and very, very painful. In fact, not only was he used as a guinea pig for the Cyborg Ninja project, but also the gene-therapy project as well, and had to be sedated with drugs for four months as they experimented on him. Also, at least two instances where Gray Fox encountered Snake before his final hurrah, he also spazzed out and seemed in pain, with the second time screaming for medicine as he was losing himself.
Walking Spoiler: He's the Cyborg Ninja in Metal Gear Solid.
Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: What he goes through would be an understatement. He was a Child Soldier during the Mozambican War of Independence and killed dozens, if not hundreds of battle-hardened soldiers during the conflict. Big Boss rescues him, only for him to be taken by the CIA and used as a test subject which deprives him of all sensory reaction and emotions. He later kills Naomi's parents and adopts her as his sister, only to be reminded of his guilt over this action every time he looks at her. He ends up killing the very woman he loved in Metal Gear 2, wishing to make her happy and Snake could not keep his promise for them to be Together in Death. Finally, he is a full-blown Death Seeker, wishing to die by Snake's hand in Metal Gear Solid. He didn't get his literal death wish until Liquid crushed him with Metal Gear Rex.

Dr. Madnar (Dr. Pettrovich)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/madnar.gif

Dr. Drago Pettrovich Madnar was a Russian robotics engineer responsible for the creation of the TX-55 Metal Gear and its successor Metal Gear D.

Badass Bookworm: He is surprisingly spry for an elderly scientist. Notably, in Metal Gear 2, he manages to hold Snake in a prolonged stranglehold and almost kill him.
The Ghost: He repairs Raiden's cyborg body in Guns Of The Patriots, but he isn't actually seen or heard.
Heel–Face Revolving Door: He makes a Face–Heel Turn in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, voluntarily joining Big Boss in creating the Metal Gear D. But after his defeat at the hands of Snake, he feels enough regret to help Snake out by informing him of how to defeat Metal Gear D. He eventually makes a full Heel–Face Turn, helping Raiden and becoming an acquaintance of Otacon, whom he asks to deliver a formal apology to Snake for what happened in Zanzibarland.
The Mole: But only in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake.
Obviously Evil: Even as soon as he's reintroduced in the sequel, he's not terrified about the idea of mass-produced Metal Gears, but more excited, spelling out that he's perhaps not entirely in the right mindset. While his original codec portrait is Albert Einstein, the reworked Shinkawa design also gives him something of a shadowed Thousand-Yard Stare, making him inherently creepier than any other character in the cast.
Orwellian Retcon: His last name was introduced in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake
They Called Me Mad!: After he deflected to the USA following the events of the first game, he tried to integrate into to the local scientific community, but they found his theories too radical and ostracized him; the whole ordeal made him quite embittered.
Reluctant Mad Scientist: Big Boss took him capture and forced him to use his expertise to design the TX-55 Metal Gear. The same thing happened to him in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, where he was forced to design its successor, Metal Gear D. Expect in the latter case, he actually worked for Big Boss voluntarily, wanting revenge for the whole "They Called Me Mad!" thing he underwent between the installments.
Unexplained Recovery: How he survived Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake is unclear.

Ellen Madnar (Elen Pettrovich)

The daughter of Dr. Madnar and a former Bolshoi Ballet star.

Damsel in Distress
Happily Married: A rare Codec conversation with Snake and Otacon mentions that she's happily married with kids.
Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter: If her portrait in the manual is any indication, she's very pretty.

Kyle Schneider/Black Ninja (Black Collar)

The leader of the Outer Heaven Resistance. Returns in Metal Gear 2, having defected to Zanzibar Land.

Because You Were Nice to Me: Joins up with Big Boss because he saved them from being killed in Outer Heaven's self-destruction even though he was technically Big Boss's enemy at the time.
Lost in Transmission: He ends up being silenced before he could report to Snake who the leader of Outer Heaven was.
Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Part of the reason why he defected to Zanzibar Land dealt with this trope, as most of his resistance was killed by NATO in an air raid, with them not even caring because they were war orphans and war refugees, and he himself was severely injured and experimented upon.
Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: He's not just any ninja, he's an astronaut ninja! Trained by NASA... somehow.
Shout-Out: The original name for his ninja getup was Black Collar, which was a tribute to Blackcollar (the title of a novel about space ninjas).
Trope Maker: The technical originator of the "Cyborg Ninja" trend in Metal Gear, where previously appearing allies would be reintroduced as antagonists or slightly more morally ambiguous allies later on. Although, as clarified below, he's not a cyborg.
Unexplained Recovery: He ends up returning as an enhanced ninja (not a Cyborg Ninja, that comes later with Gray Fox).
You Killed My Father: His main motivation for creating the resistance was because his wife and child were killed in an incident not revealed other than it involving Outer Heaven.

Diane

The former vocalist of punk band Thin Wall. Provides Snake with info on most bosses as well as Outer Heaven's weapons system and traps.

Boyish Short Hair: Justified as she was a punk star.
Cannot Spit It Out: If you call her when fighting Big Boss' Phantom.
"This is Diane! I don't know how to defeat Big Boss... Now it's all up to you! Solid Snake! ... I... want to tell you... Er, nevermind... Be careful..."
My Sister Is Off-Limits: Her brother Steve answers when you call her outside a boss battle, making up excuses for why she's unavailable at the moment. One of his lines implies that he thinks Snake is trying to get in bed with her.

Jennifer

A member of the Resistance movement. Infiltrated Outer Heaven posing as a nurse in order to rescue her brother, who had been taken hostage. Helped Snake by giving him information on equipment and weapons.

Quirky Miniboss Squad

Shotmaker (Shotgunner)

A mercenary and prison warden at Outer Heaven; he guards the cell block where Gray Fox is held.

Defeat Equals Friendship: Given his Soviet origins, he most likely started out as a highly-skilled 40th Army operative in Afghanistan who got Fulton-kidnapped by Venom Snake.
Dirty Communists: Prior to his joining Outer Heaven, he was formerly a Spetsnaz operative for the Soviet Union.
Implacable Man: Implied by his being the only guard in the prisons of Outer Heaven besides the guard dogs.
Renegade Russian: He was a Spetsnaz member before becoming the jail guard of Outer Heaven.
Shotguns Are Just Better: Shotguns are his specialty.
"Nobody has ever been able to escape from here."

Machinegun Kid

A mercenary at Outer Heaven who guards the parachute needed for the jump into the Building 1 courtyard.

Defeat Equals Friendship: Given his British origins, he most likely started out as a highly-skilled Rogue Coyote operative in Angola who got Fulton-kidnapped by Venom Snake.
Evil Brit: He was formerly a member of the British Special Air Service.
More Dakka: His weapon of choice is a machine gun.

Bloody Brad (Arnold)

Two cyberoid units built by Dr. Madnar during his time as a captive in Outer Heaven.

Dual Boss: There are two Arnolds/Brads, but unlike the other bosses, the boss theme does not play in their room on the MSX and don't attack you in their room unless you step in front of them. You can destroy them immediately after getting the Rocket Launcher, and eventually you WILL need to destroy them to get the Level 7 keycard, which is needed to proceed to Building 3.
Mecha-Mooks: The Bloody Brads/Arnolds are two Terminator-esque cyborgs guarding one of the rooms in Outer Heaven.
Shout-Out: Originally named Arnold after Arnold Schwarzenegger, referring to his role in The Terminator.

Fire Trooper

A mercenary at Outer Heaven who guards the elevator that leads out of the Building 2 basement.

Fire-Breathing Weapon: His specialty is a flamethrower.
Fire Trooper: I'm Fire Trooper! I will burn you alive!
All Germans Are Nazis: Subverted: He was a member of Outer Heaven and of German origin, but he was in fact a former member of the anti-terrorist German police division GSG9, which was created as a way to deal against terrorist threats without worrying about becoming another Nazi Germany.

Dirty Duck (Coward Duck)

A mercenary at Outer Heaven who holds the last keycard needed to reach Metal Gear/the end of the game and hides behind three POWs and a trap door. Should not be confused with Howard the Duck.

Awesome Aussie: His nationality isn't stated in the game or the manual, but his usage of boomerangs implies that he was Australian. It's also deconstructed, as he's shown to be a dirty fighter.
Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are: Zig-zagged but lampshaded.
Coward Duck: I'm Coward Duck! You can't shoot me, can you?
Dirty Coward: Why do you think he has the name Dirty Duck? In addition to having three hostages in front of him, one of whom is the brother of a major resistance operator, but the hostages also have a trap door right in front of them, severely limiting the battle zone.
Human Shield: His specialty, besides his use of boomerangs and having a hidden trap floor smack-dab in the middle of his boss room.
Shout-Out:
- His original name, besides the obvious implications of how he fights, is a Shout-Out to Howard the Duck.
- It could also be a reference to Down and Dirty Duck, a 1974 adult animation, which in turn was made to cash in on the success of the Fritz the Cat animation.invoked
Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: He used to be the commander of the terrorist group known as "Egg Plant".

Metal Gear Codename: TX-55

Created to serve as a deterrent to protect Outer Heaven from enemy nations.

It possesses two nuclear warhead launchers and it's one of the most compact Metal Gears ever created.

Puzzle Boss: In the MSX version you destroy it by detonating C4 on its legs in a sequence given to you by Doctor Madnar... except he forgot the last one. It's right. And it requires the precise amount of C4 charges you can carry at maximum.
Stationary Boss: The real battle is dodging two laser cannons while trying to apply C4 to Metal Gear's feet.
The Unfought: Technically, as Solid Snake destroyed it before it's activated.
- Whereas in the NES Version, Snake destroys, not Metal Gear, but a Supercomputer that controls Metal Gear's nuclear missile launching capabilities.

Characters / Metal Gear
aka: Metal Gear Big Boss

Characters that debuted in Metal Gear:

Quirky Miniboss Squad

Alternative Title(s): Metal Gear Solid Snake, Metal Gear Big Boss

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Characters / Metal Gear aka: Metal Gear Big Boss

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Characters that debuted in Metal Gear:

Quirky Miniboss Squad

Alternative Title(s): Metal Gear Solid Snake, Metal Gear Big Boss

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Characters / Metal Gear
aka: Metal Gear Big Boss