Headscratchers / Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

• Why does Ocelot greet Big Boss with practically ZERO familiarity? We all had to suffer his hammed up false familiarity with Big Boss is MGS3, and then, now, in MGSV it's a perfunctory "My name is Revolver Ocelot" with a nod like he just taught Double-B that water is wet and the knowledge will take him far. W. T. F. I realize most sequels, follow-ups, whatever, shell out the hammy openings, but it should have been "Snake, it's me, Revolver Ocelot" or "Big Boss" because technically RO has been in the loop and knows he addresses Big Boss. I'm very foaming beside myself with this, not to mention the crap ass appearance (not entrance) of Revolver. Spoiler: Are we to assume RO has already begun wiping his psyche and really is greeting BB for the first time?
  • Ocelot and Big Boss, along with EVA, Sigint, Para-medic, and Zero, have formed a group together before this, called "The Patriots", and this was before Peace Walker. So, Ocelot knew Snake quite well before the events of Phantom Pain, not to mention that behind the scenes, The Boss has told Ocelot about Snake during Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, and had to play along withe "false familiarity".
  • Also, since Snake is literally suffering brain damage from that "horn" in his forehead, Ocelot can presumably pass off his introduction as a way of jogging "Big Boss's" memories, in case he "forgot" him. That and the fact that it's likely been a while since they last met, so he might not be instantly recognizable.
    • Ah, excellent. I was caught up in what I described as a "hammy" intro. It was just the exact wording that roped me in: "I'm Revolver Ocelot." It's like you say, Big Boss was probably displaying tells that triggered Ocelot to know instinctively that things weren't processing the same . . .
• How on earth did Big Boss, Miller and the Medic end up in a hospital after the attack on the MSF base by Skull Face when their base was right in the middle of the ocean, far away from any country or island (making it difficult to locate and quite far from any nearest hospital really let alone city) and the helicopter crash would have probably rendered them unconscious or at least too injured to actually remain afloat out in the ocean?
  • Judging by the cutscenes depicting the aftermath, the Medic and Miller were both functional, and were able to haul the injured BB into an emergency raft. Other survivors likely found them, or others returning from missions to their now-gone base. That or since the tapes reveal Zero had BB and the Medic hidden in the Cyprus hospital, agents loyal to him might have scooped them out of the water, with the attack being orchestrated by Skull Face's faction.
• In Mission 18 "Blood Runs Deep", Miller wants you to eliminate the prisoners so they don't talk about... well, anything about Diamond Dogs. As soon as Big Boss discovers that the prisoners are children, why does Miller act like it's okay to follow through with the execution (if we can assume Miller knew that Snake wasn't going to kill the kids anyway)? How did he even know that these kids in particular were the prisoners that had information about D.Ds and yet not know who they were in the first place?
  • You aren't eliminating the kids for Diamond Dogs, you've been hired to do it by their former general to tidy up loose ends. Miller figures it out because there is literally one prison in the spot where the targets area.
• Why does Quiet shoot you if you use the anime Paz cardboard box?
  • Is this during or after her boss battle?
  • After the boss fight. I just tried using the box to fool some mooks, then she shot me for God knows why.
  • Quiet likes the Big Boss. Quiet sees Big Boss using a box bearing the image of another girl he knows. Quiet gets angry and jealous, can't say a thing, instead shoots Big Boss. It's supposed to be a silly detail, nothing more.
  • (Original Poster) I don't mind, I think it's pretty funny. I just wish I had known that before trying to capture those A+ mooks.
• Is it ever explained why in TPP The Eye and The Finger have reversed roles? In Ground Zeroes the black guy was the Eye and the white guy was The Finger. In TPP they are the opposite.
  • I haven't played it in a while, but doesn't Kaz suggest that they alternate between the roles with one playing spotter and one playing shooter?
  • That's how Marine scout sniper teams operated in Vietnam (and today). You have a two-man team who alternate being the sniper and the spotter, equally adept at both roles, who're supposed to trade off at set periods.
    • So it's more a case of them switching handles/codenames between operations, in addition to them trading roles.
    • Or, the handle/codename is associated with the role, not the person. So if it were real life, radioing for 'The Eye' will always get you the spotter, no matter which one that happens to be.
    • But if you extract both of them in that mission, Kaz will mention that Glaz wears sunglasses to hide his fake eye after stabbing his own out and Palitz wears a prosthetic finger after chopping his off, suggesting they felt guilt over their actions. Switching codenames only serves to make that self-mutilation moot.
• At the beginning of the game, the assassin throws her knife at Ishmael and it hits him in the shoulder. He just yanks it out and carries on as usual. The weird thing is there is no blood on him, and getting freaking stabbed in the shoulder doesn't slow him down at all. Minutes later, he gets torched by the Man on Fire and even though he puts it out quickly, his flimsy hospital gown has absolutely no damage on it. Later on, when the attack helicopter opens fire on your ambulance, Ishmael suddenly falls unconscious at the wheel, but there's no blood on him so he didn't take a bullet. What's going on here?
  • Isn't it obvious? We're talking about someone that went through all of Operation Snake Eater and all the damage and injury that entailed, he just used the Cure menu.
• By the end of the game, it is revealed that Ishmael is actually the real Big Boss. That's all fine and dandy, but if you look closely during the hospital sequence you'll notice Big Boss is clean shaven whilst disguised as Ishmael. How is it possible that only minutes later Big Boss suddenly has his trademark beard again when secretly meeting up with Ocelot?
  • Either Ahab is so out of it he can't see the beard, or the bandages are in fact an entire mask like the one Hideo was wearing to officially announce the game.
  • Not only does Ishmael lack a beard, he also has both of his eyes uncovered and seemingly undamaged. Either Big Boss had his eyes covered for the escape in a mask, or Ishmael isn't actually Big Boss.
    • maybe he had the damaged eye replaced with a cosmetic prosthesis during the timeskip? its an Option for DD, so its not completely out of the question, and would help in blending in.
  • This troper likes to believe the answer is a combination of Venom's hallucinations caused by his head injury and the hypnosis he was subject to during his coma to convince himself he is the real Big Boss. He is hallucinating a generic, two-eyed, bald-faced man concealed by bandages while likely also thinking "This Big Boss-class soldier can't possibly be Big Boss, because I am Big Boss", further reinforcing the validity of his hallucinations.
  • He was subject to hypnosis severe enough to more or less destroy his memory of himself. A further hypnotic suggestion implanted to distort the appearance of Big Boss (to protect the illusion in case he even sees him by mistake) doesn't seem like much of a stretch, especially coupled with the hallucinations mentioned above.

• In the prologue, why doesn't Ishmael just carry Ahab? And the dialogue about actual button controls just kills immersion.
  • That would probably be a good way to get them both killed, and your opinion about immersion isn't really a headscratcher.^note This is a series where a character will point to their bandana and explain that they have infinite ammo, talking about buttons on the controller is pretty tame in comparison.
  • Ishmael is spending that time checking corners to make sure it's safe to move. Likewise the only way you'll both escape is if you're strong enough to move on your own which might take longer to happen if he's carrying you.
  • There's also the fact that Punished Snake has to believe that he's Big Boss, and by extension the player does. Would Big Boss let himself be carried by someone else? No, of course not. If Punished Snake let himself be carried, he might realise it's something the real Big Boss wouldn't do, break the hypnotising, and the entire plan would fail.
  • Fourth-wall breaking dialogue has been around since at least the first Metal Gear Solid.^note e.g. "Press the Action button to climb the ladder" or "Can you see where his number of remaining bullets is displayed on the screen?" If anything, trying to avoid it at this point would be worse, because it wouldn't fit with the rest of the series.

• Why are the soldiers in the prologue so stupid? Seriously, they can't see two non-blood soaked men among piles of others, let alone while they are actually moving around under beds? Even Quiet makes some stupid moves for the sake of the plot.
  • They likely just assumed the bullet wounds didn't fully penetrate at that range. Super Best Friends also brought up the point that when the two groups are double tapping corpses, they meet up when they both reach you and give each other thumbs up. They very likely could have both assumed that the other group already checked the center.
    • So it's a coincidence that both groups closing in on both Ismael and Ahab assumed the other group checked that they were all dead (even though they can clearly see that no blood is on either of them)?
    • Pretty much, if you rewatch the scene you can see that they both reach you at the same time, then give each other a thumbs up. They're both saying "My side's all clear" and they're both assuming that that includes the both of you. Though I'd say the point that Ahab clearly can't stop moving is even more jarring than the lack of blood.
  • Okay, the hallway of dead bodies part is explained, but what about parts where Ahab and Ishamel are under the beds? Did the solders seriously not see them, or did they just assume our protagonists were dead? Didn't stop them from double-tapping other victims before, though.
    • They're wearing full-face gas masks, which doesn't give a lot of peripheral vision.
• Since Quiet can apparently phase herself out of handcuffs (which means she can't actually be constrained), why didn't she do so during Mission 45 "A Quiet Exit" where she was supposedly drowned by a soldier, but got her powers back as a result?
  • It wasn't the drowning which gave her her powers back. The soldier removed her trousers, which made her able to breath again. Basically during that entire time she was being suffocated and panicking as a result. So before the drowning she simply didn't think to, and afterwards she was in such a blind rage all she was really thinking about was killing.
    • That does not mean she needed her cuffs cut off. She could have phased out of them by then. I consider it an oversight.
    • It's likely that the reason she would not phase out of her handcuffs is because she actually couldn't due to still wearing a soldier's jacket. Although, if she could perform all those stunts, she should be able to phase out of the cuffs, especially since she did phase-dodging with the jacket still on.
  • How in the hell did the soviet soldier capture quiet, the super strong, super fast, invisible, teleporting, ghost sniper?
    • I believe your team speculates that she must have let herself be caught.
• What was the deal with the cutscene where Code Talker mumbles "Eyes on Kazuhira. A message from the parasites." in an overly dramatic fashion, only for it to never be mentioned again?
  • He's using his parasites to see what's going on around the base, including Miller's activities. It's just a small thing to demonstrate how different he is from the other parasite users.
  • It's possible that it's part of an unfinished plotline. Possibly also foreshadowing that Miller knows Venom Snake's true identity.
  • Considering that one of the things he mumbles is "left leg brace is acting up" it's probably foreshadowing that Huey is betraying the Diamond Dogs
  • It's because by that time Skullface has been killed so Miller's drive for revenge has become directionless. It's when he starts telling the whole base to keep on the look out for spies and making the entire organization overly paranoid. Part of the point of the second parasite outbreak is that Miller had created so much paranoia, what could have been a quick medical containment turned into an absolute bloodbath as soon as people started acting funny.
• Wait a sec... if Quiet can actually talk despite having burnt lungs and needed to breathe through her skin... why, just why can she actually talk? Don't tell me the parasites helped restore her lungs (by then, at least). If that were the case, she wouldn't need to breathe through her skin.
  • Humans don't need to use their lungs to speak. The alternatives use different parts of the throat and the tongue to create vocalizations, the only real need is air, which could easily be transferred to the throat even without lungs, even as simple as just trapping air in the mouth.
    • Oh, I get it. She can basically absorb air through her skin and transfer it to her throat. Man, parasites are weird.
  • Her lungs are damaged, but they're still there. That means that while she can inhale air, she cannot use the oxygen. Just like a heavy smoker can have a big lung capacity, but still can suffocate himself while running.
• Ok, so Time Paradoxes when certain characters get killed are pretty much a mainstay of the prequel games due to said characters having a role in games taking place after. So if Ishmael dies you get a Time Paradox, due to him being the real Big Boss. If you take too long rescuing Miller, you get a Time Paradox for obvious reasons. Then if you kill Eli you also get one since he is Liquid. But why don't you get one when Venom Snake dies? He may not be the original Big Boss, but he is still the Big Boss you fight at the end of the first Metal Gear.
  • It's to make the revelation a little less obvious. While those other examples do exist you generally need to go out of your way to get that sort of result, whereas allowing Venom to die is something that can occur multiple times in a very short period.
    • But if Venom Snake does die, having a Time Paradox like Naked Snake does when he dies would actually help hide the reveal because people will just chalk it up to being Big Boss
    • But then it wouldn't be foreshadowing.
  • Fridge brilliance? If Venom Snake dies, then Big Boss just happens to somehow survive the Outer Heaven incident, just as history pre-MGSV says he did.

• During Quiet's interrogation, Ocelot asks "Ready to talk?" and yet shortly after, he insists that she can't talk due to the risk of spreading the parasite. And yet also, he confirms she can't talk anyway due to burnt lungs. Does Ocelot have Alzheimer's?
  • It's figurative.
    • What do you mean "it's figurative"? Was he trying to be funny? If so, he could have ruined the entire Mother Base.
  • He could be making a point that he, the best interrogator in the world, couldn't get her to break her silence, then started rattling off all the reasons why that's not a bad thing.
  • He only said they can't let her talk because Kaz pulled the bag off her head, which was supposed to be a barrier. By the end of the interrogation he was ready to accept that she really was incapable of speech, or at least that's what she wanted them to think.
    • He probably meant via writing. All she'd have to do to confirm while she was tied up is nod.
• Why can't Quiet simply write as a way to communicate to people since she can't (or won't) talk?
  • Ocelot speculated that she might be dyslexic. While not impossible for dyslexic people to learn to read and write, Quiet might be functionally illiterate.
  • It's also people that she might just be really stubborn and not wanting to give anything to the Diamond Dogs. If she was to start writing things down they might begin to push her more, other forms of torture, etc etc. She's playing cards very close to her chest.
  • If I recall correctly, there's either a tape or a cutscene which mentions a particular strain of Chinese-aligned parasites that not only made it so that the affected had to stop speaking their language, but also messed with the brain in order to make them unable to read or write the triggered language as well. I assumed this was inserted to explain why Quiet doesn't just read or write to communicate: the parasites have made her illiterate in English.
    • But that can't be the case because she spells out an initialism in bullets at one point.
    • There is a big difference in spelling out three letters and being illiterate. She could have been spying on the preparations, saw those three letters over and over again, figured out their meaning and decided to use that as a message. Not likely but not impossible.
    • She might be refusing to write at this stage in order to maintain the illusion that she is simply incapable of communication rather than choosing not to engage in it. If she'd written, there was always the possibility Ocelot might've tried torturing her even harder in an attempt to get her to talk (which it would've been more strongly evident she may decide to), and if she did break, the English strain would break loose.
  • It's still a pretty bad plan considering she keeps it up even as a different parasite strain gets out. She wants to stop the parasite so strongly that she's willing to shove a knife into a soldier's teeth but she's not willing enough to look at Snake and point at the throat for what they should look for. By all means, there's little reason she wasn't shot on sight at that point either since she was threatening the life of a soldier which was one of the lines she was NOT supposed to cross to stay peacefully.
• During Quiet's extraction to Mother Base, as soon as she woke up, why did she keep the handcuff on her? Was she deciding on whether to come in peacefully or not?
  • Given she phases back into the cuffs upon seeing the escort Miller arranges to prevent her from setting foot on Mother Base - and then promptly goes on to aggressively display her abilities, I have to imagine she's of two minds about what she's doing, but does things largely to express her loyalty to Snake.
  • She's conveying that she's co-operating by openly showing that she can get out at any time but is choosing to go and stay where they tell her to.
• When exactly did the Medic become Venom Snake? The Truth mission shows that the transition wasn't made until two days before the XOF attack on the hospital. However, when Zero visits the hospital in the truth tapes it's clear that he's already made the Medic into his own Big Boss. Was the Medic seeing his own face in response to the Doctor saying "This is how you lived to this day" just symbolic to show that he's remembering his true identity?
  • From the timeline, it would be anywhere between February 16th, 1984, to sometime before March 11th of the same year. Seeing his true self in the reflection is symbolic of him remembering his true identity. Play the prologue, and you'll see Big Boss' face when the doctor says that's how he lived, but in the Truth mission he is remembering it quite clearly and so his true face is shown in the mirror during the flashback of the same moment. Also, Zero said he made the Medic into his own Big Boss already meaning that he had already started the hypnotherapy and thus considered himself to be Big Boss, the surgery was just the final piece to make it pretty much complete.
    • But Zero needed to be told which Snake was Jack when he visited back in 1978, which means they must have already looked alike.
    • They could still both have a Bandaged Face at tha
• Why was Big Boss in a coma too? The only two reasons I can think of is because it was noted in the trailer and because Zero needed to visit him while he was sleeping so they'd still have animosity by Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.
  • Because he was in a helicopter crash that killed almost everyone on the helicopter. The only two people confirmed to have walked away from the crash okay are Miller and Mosquito.
    • Actually, if you think about it, even with the prisoners you can extract at the same time, the only casualty is Chico. Big Boss has survived similar accidents and barely been phased, so the coma is a bad plot point to make most of Kojima's Big Boss stories happen 10 years apart.
    • ^ He basically took a helicopter to the face, that's not something he's survived previously. He's also literally behind Venom Snake who takes the shrapnel for him but otherwise the two would have similar injuries.t point, especially given that Ishmael still wears his bandages during the hospital escape.
• Continuing on from that, both characters woke up within a couple weeks of each other judging by the timeline but Ishmael mentions he's been watching over your for nine years, but how could he, if he's been asleep just like you. And where did the "Get well soon. - "Vic" Boss" picture come from if they've both been asleep?
  • The photo actually says "Good Luck" so it might not have too much relevance.
  • Additionally, it's explained in tapes that he actually woke up a while before Venom Snake.

• Why didn't Quiet try to learn any other language while she was in Mother Base? Some of the recruits feared her, but some others were fond of her. Learning Spanish, Swahili or Chinese would have saved lives... and would allow us to hear her voice more often.
  • It was Pequod who didn't know other languages. Besides, with how the rest of Mother Base were basically trying to imprison her, on Miller's orders, in the medical platform, she wasn't going to get friendly with them anytime soon. There's also the bit where she goes berserk on one of the recruits who was infected with the parasite.
  • Because of the way the parasites work, and the shared nature of words across languages - English, for instance, has a lot gleaned from French - wouldn't she have run the risk of potentially triggering the parasites anyway if she said a word or two that sounded like it was English?
    • Not according to Code Talker. The parasites were able to distinguish between two very similar languages in his tests and we not triggered by the use of loan words. She could talk in French and be fine even if she used every word that has been wholesale borrowed by the English language.
• So the final cutscene of Mission 46 is supposed to take place in 1995, during Metal Gear. So why hasn't Venom Snake appeared to have aged any?
  • It's implicitly 1984 still, since Venom's still wearing the same outfit you last left him in. According to the MG wiki, Outer Haven was founded by Boss in the late 80s. MG 1 takes place ten years down the line.
    • Actually it's implicitly 1995 because the opening scene at the beginning of the game says that the setting of that scene is Outer Heaven and Venom Snake has the tape for Operation Intrude N313 tape. It's either a case of Creator's Apathy or PropRecycling. And probably also because they wanted to use pieces of that scene in trailers (which they did) but not give away the fact that that specific scene was actually part of the ending.
    • Going off of this point, cosmetic work doesn't age like organic skin does.
• Regarding Quiet, if she needs to be naked because she's basically a plant now: 1) Why isn't she green? 2) Why was The End fine with wearing a ghillie suit? Being way older than her and (probably) the parasites being the only thing keeping him alive, wouldn't he need to be completly naked too?
  • She wouldn't have needed it if Ishmael hadn't burned her lungs, forcing her to breathe through her skin. The End's suit is apparently some sort of custom camo (based on what you get when you hold him up), which Quiet obviously doesn't doesn't have access to.
  • But doesn't photosynthesis require a total exposure to the sun?
    • Well, look at the top of her cage. It's open to the sky, and thus the sun. She even sunbathes.
  • IIRC, The End was fine wearing a ghillie suit because the 'foliage' on it was actually connected to his body in some way.
• How did they get Colonel Volgin to a coma ward? Only 10-15 minutes would have passed between him getting struck by lightning and Groznyj Grad being nuked, so wouldn't he have been fried when they took the seemingly prudent course of action and taking him to the base's infirmary?
  • Why do you think Volgin's corpse looks or looked the way it does after meeting with Venom Snake while being "controlled" by "The Boy in the Mask"? Also, there was a whole search & rescue thing after the nuke, and they happened to find Volgin who was technically not dead due to the innate power of lightning keeping his body "alive".
• Why infect Quiet with the English strain of the vocal parasite? Given the scope of the operation in the Devil's House, Cipher or Skull Face has their hands on countless vocal parasite language variants they want to make her go through the parasite therapy, yet Skull Face (the only one with the English strains on person) infects Quiet with it. Given how rare the strain is (only 3 were made), why would he risk such an asset on a person? What good will it do to strip away a person's only method of communicating in the battlefield? Assuming that he never knew that Quiet will willingly defect to the Diamond Dogs.
• What exactly was Miller thinking asking Quiet to give the name of the person who infected her with the English parasite when 90% of the main cast and 100% of everyone else are named/codenamed with English verbs and nouns?
  • Miller's own words, "All I need is a name, that won't trigger anything", and he's right. There hasn't been evidence in the game that proved that only one word in a given language would be enough to trigger the parasites to procreate. There have been only those who have consistently spoken a language for more than a minute at least, to make the parasites a threat.
• So a major part of the MGS series is about the Snake family line basically being hardcore badasses, naked,liquid, solid and solidus all generally kicked ass in their primes and beyond, naked snake in particular was this legendary badass to the max, to the point almost any soldier he meets instantly hero worships him and will join his army in a second if slammed to the floor hard enough, inspires loyalty to willingly be shot dead due to parasite infection and will go on to face his own son for an epic showdown, and basically kickstart a line of awesome wait... Venom snake isn't Naked snake? so apparently Big Boss isn't a badass genetically, any old shmoe can become him if basically mindwiped and told. Do you see how this kind of messes up the whole "Snake family are genetically predisposed to being the best soldiers in the universe thing that gets touted in almost every other game? except 2.
  • Venom Snake's achievements don't do anything to damper Naked Snake's abilities. Yes he was a big badass as the player was going through MGSV, but there's nothing that says that the real Big Boss isn't doing even more amazing things on his own missions. Plus, while there have been a variety of other characters that don't come from Snake's genetics that have performed just as amazing stunts as him, they also stay tend to stay dead when you kill them, unlike Snake himself. Without the meta-textual existence of the player, the Snakes may not be the be the best soldier on the battlefield, but he's the one that gets the job done and lives to fight another day, which is cause for admiration in itself.
  • I thought the entire point that the first Metal Gear Solid tried to hammer home is that genetics does not define a person.
  • Venom was not some "old schmo". Big Boss plainly stated that he was the best man MSF had besides himself, so obviously he was a bit more capable to theoretically take up the mantle than some mess hall kitchen-hand.
• How did Strangelove die inside the Hybrid Pod, claiming it was unable to be opened from the inside, when Snake very clearly gets in and out of AI Pods easily by himself in Peace Walker?
  • Even assuming that Strangelove isn't as physically capable as Big Boss, it's rather possible that it was Huey's tampering.
  • You have to keep in mind that Snake wasn't able to get into the AI pods until AFTER he damaged the hatches on top of them while the weapon they were attached to was disabled. So unless one were to use a weapon to shoot up the hatch beforehand, it's probably impossible for any human to open them up with their bare hands.
    • This still Doesnt Hold water. in peace walker, it is EXPLICITLY shown the AI pods can unlock/open their access hatches themselves.( in the cut-scene IMMEDIATELY before Snake starts ripping out the Mammal pods Memory circuits/ Storage drives) the Pod is shown to still be at LEAST partially functional, at the very worst enough of its software is still loaded for the Boss Simulation to be at least partially functional/Coherent. why wasn't Strangelove able to give it an override order, use a manual override or ASK it to pop the hatch?
    • my reasoning for the point above, is that The most revolutionary feature of the Boss AI, from a Cybernetics/AI science standpoint, was it could not just speak SPONTANEOUSLY instead of just using pre-recorded messages, but react and respond to human/English speech instead of needing orders/ instructions to be programmed in/ or responding simply to pre-programmed trigger phases, like a General giving His/Her soldiers orders.
• At no point does anyone attempt to come up with an alternative way to communicate with Quiet - once she fails to speak English to them, at no point does it occur to Snake, Miller or Ocelot that maybe there are other languages she could speak (Code Talker is the only one to think of this, and even then he doesn't share his knowledge with anyone else, nor does it occur to anyone else) or could be taught. No non-verbal communication methods are mentioned, despite the fact that the iDroid could easily be adapted to work as an assistive communication device, or a sign-language interpreter could be brought in to help her. The most logic-bending element of this is Miller insisting that bringing Quiet out onto the field would be dangerous because she can't communicate with Snake verbally, despite morse code being invented for this exact reason. Why the fresh hell did Quiet have to sacrifice herself in order to save Snake when she could have been given the tools to type "SOS" at them?
  • Probably because there was a sandstorm raging. Quiet could've tried to guide Pequod with Morse code, but there's always a small possibility that Pequod doesn't know Morse code. Unlikely, seeing as he's a trained helicopter pilot, but possible.
  • This is false though, they DID try to communicate with her in other ways. Ocelot explicitly tells you that they even tried to get her to write things down, and she refused that.
    • This still doesn't justify the comment about there apparently being no way for her to communicate on the battlefield (again, there's presumably morse code that they can use, even if it's purely for emergencies) and because of this, it still makes her death incredibly contrived. It's even more contrived considering that they have translators on-base, and apparently none of them can aid Pequod in understanding her when she speaks Navajo - he ends up insisting that she has to speak English, even though the resources back at Mother Base should have prevented that from being necessary.
    • There was clearly radio interference when trying to communicate with Pequod, much less MB, and enemy forces all over. No time to translate, or even to explain who she is (as she says). And as noted elsewhere on this page, she may refuse to explicitly communicate so they can't find any way to force info out of her. And that's assuming Pequod can recognize Navajo and then relay what she said back to base, where they'd have to get a radio to Code Talker. All in the minute or two of the cutscene. It's just not practical.
• Ishmael nearly collides with responding fire engines in Cyprus due to driving on the right side of the road. Just seems like a heat-of-the-moment lack of concern for driving on the middle of the road? Nope, he's an American driving in a left-hand traffic country!
• During the opening sequence Quiet reports that she has not yet taken care of the Big Boss, because the patient in the next bed saw her face. She then comes over to shoot the player, rather than Ishmael that was in the next bed. After learning the twist it all makes sense, she was never there to kill the player, but the real Big Boss, the player was the mentioned unfortunate witness in the next bed.
  • You misread the scene. The whole point of that sequence is that Big Boss / Ishmael's identity was an absurdly-guarded secret, and no one in XOF knew he was there, not even Quiet. When she is giving her status update, she is very clearly looking at Venom when she indicates, "Not yet, the patient in the next bed saw my face." If she had wanted Ishmael / Big Boss dead, she would have moved to attack him to begin with, and not waited until the coast was clear / she received direction as to her next move before she proceeded. There is nothing in the "Man Who Sold The World" sequence to indicate that this scene was changed or deliberately misrepresented as part of The Medic's fractured memory.