"...I'm already a demon."
AKA: Ahab, Big Boss, V, The Phantom, The Medic
Voiced by: Akio Ōtsuka (JP), Kiefer Sutherland (EN)
"I won't scatter your sorrow to the heartless sea. I will always be with you. Plant your roots in me. I won't see you end as ashes. You're all diamonds."
9 years after falling into a coma at the end of Ground Zeroes, Big Boss awakens to find his left arm has been amputated and the entire world wants him dead. After escaping from the hospital he's being held in, he assumes the codename "Venom Snake" and takes charge of a new mercenary unit called Diamond Dogs to get revenge on the people who took everything from him, no matter the cost.
It is eventually revealed that he is not actually Big Boss, but MSF's top soldier, a medic who shielded Big Boss from the explosion that downed their helicopter at the end of Ground Zeroes. With the aid of rogue elements within Cipher, including a repentant Zero, Ocelot and Big Boss subjected him to plastic surgery and hypnotherapy to transform him into a perfect Body Double to throw Skull Face and the nascent Patriots off their tail. Years later, he would sacrifice his life to help Big Boss fake his death after the Patriots discovered Outer Heaven.
- The Ace: Even after a 9 year coma, he's still Big Boss's best operative — and thus the perfect candidate for becoming Big Boss's phantom.
- All Your Powers Combined: With no upgrades, his physical abilities are equal to a Combat Unit soldier with no action skills (so a soldier with the Athletic action skill will run faster than he does, etc). Once he fully upgrades his prosthetic arm, he behaves as though he has every action skill (so he runs as fast as an Athletic soldier, has as much reflex time as a Gunman soldier, has as much health as a Tough Guy soldier, etc).
- Anti-Hero: Though he is fighting the evil Skull Face, and he thinks the world of his men, he's still a war criminal torturing non-combatants, stealing nuclear weapons, and employing Child Soldiers.
- Anti-Villain: Even at his most villainous, Venom still has understandable motives, as well as possessing humanity and inner goodness within him.
- An Arm and a Leg: The same skirmish which placed Big Boss in a coma also cost him his left arm. He wears prosthetics of varying complexity in The Phantom Pain.
- Artificial Limbs: After losing his left arm in XOF's attack on Mother Base, he receives a prosthesis. At the beginning of the game, it's a very simple hook arm, but he later receives a more advanced myoelectric prosthesis that not only fully replaces the functionality of his lost arm, but can be outfitted with various gadgets from sonar to electricity dischargers and even a Rocket Punch.
- Artistic License – Biology: Venom Snake regains his entire muscle mass in around 13 days, the length of time it takes to travel down the Suez Canal from Cyprus to Afghanistan. He was a skinny invalid who could barely walk upon escaping the hospital, and needed to be injected with digoxin just to be able to move. Even a protein heavy diet and extreme weight lifting will not accomplish such muscle gain that quickly. Hand-waved by the doctor saying they kept him in shape with massages and electro-stimulation treatments during his nine year coma.
- Ascended Extra: He's basically whoever your favorite male MSF recruit was in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker.
- Ascended Fanboy: Well, in a sense. All the MSF soldiers since Peace Walker idolize Big Boss as their leader. Venom goes above and beyond and becomes Big Boss.
- Audience Surrogate: In the surreal true ending, he is implied to be a representation of the player themselves, who in creating Big Boss's adventures has become as much Big Boss as the character himself.
- Badass Normal: Even before becoming Big Boss's doppelgänger, Venom was considered the best soldier MSF had besides Big Boss himself. So much so that he was chosen to personally accompany Big Boss on his mission to rescue Paz and Chico, providing medical support. Yet even after undergoing plastic surgery and hypnotherapy to make him into Big Boss's body double (which included mentally programming in some of Big Boss's training and experience), he's just a regular soldier fighting enemies who have superhuman abilities, like Quiet and the Skulls. Not only that, but he can take on tank squads single handedly, and win. Taken several steps further with the fact that he can instead steal tanks and kidnap their potentially elite infantry support. And this doesn't even have to be considered an objective, let alone a side-op or part of a story mission. For Venom, it's Tuesday.
- Perhaps best shown in a cutscene on Mother Base, when Quiet is trying to kill a guy who is unknowingly infected with the parasites; she is trying to silence him to save everyone else. She easily throws aside two men trying to stop her, and her Super-Speed and Super-Reflexes are well-established. But then Venom steps in and she lasts about four seconds.
- Badasses Wear Bandanas: He can wear a bandanna on his head as an optional clothing.
- Bag of Spilling: A rival military outfit, the XOF, takes out Mother Base and nearly all his allies. Big Boss lands in a nine-year coma after this incident, which strips away his muscle mass. When he finally comes to, he's so weak that he has to literally crawl his way out of the hospital with his two hands at first. Subverted, due to his not actually being Big Boss, but a body double.
- Becoming the Mask: In the true ending, Naked Snake tells you that both you and he are Big Boss now, as you've both helped to create Big Boss's legend.
- Big "NO!": Venom screams in anguish as the final hallucination of Paz draws to a close. In the cut episode, he also shouts to the sky when he mistakenly shoots Eli.
- Book Ends: He ends The Phantom Pain remembering what really happened to him at the end of Ground Zeroes. Also, this ending comes after playing an alternate cut of the Prologue hospital mission.
- Body Double: At the start of Phantom Pain, he's about to have plastic surgery to look like another random soldier whose appearance is for you to decide. It doesn't actually occur however. That's because in reality, that soldier used to be you, and you've already had plastic surgery to become Big Boss's double.
- Body Horror: In addition to his missing left arm, he has a piece of shrapnel lodged in his forehead in the shape of a horn, said horn being embedded in his brain and being impossible to remove without risking a brain haemorrhage.
- Brainwashing: Is subject to hypnotherapy to act like and believe he is Big Boss.
- Byronic Hero: He becomes far more brooding after what happened to him in Ground Zeroes.
- Canine Companion: Can adopt a wolf pup named DD/Diamond Dog to serve as a Buddy.
- Canon Character All Along: Even after turning out to be a doppelgänger, the credits reveal him to be the Big Boss from the final battle in the original Metal Gear.
- Card-Carrying Villain: After rescuing Miller, he openly admits to being a demon and states that Heaven's "not his kinda place."
- Character Customization: You get to customize your online appearance at the start of Phantom Pain. This also becomes your appearance before becoming Big Boss's phantom. Completing the game unlocks this appearance for use in single player.
- Chick Magnet: Quiet is in love with him as is every other woman at Mother Base, apparently. The given reason for this goes, "The Boss is... well, the Boss." In other words, when you wear the face of Big Boss, you become an instant ladies' man.
- Cigar Chomper: He is a doppelgänger of Big Boss, so this is expected. Subverted most of the time, as he prefers an e-cigar filled with Wormwood, but during his birthday cutscene he is given a crate of real cigars which he happily smokes one.
- Clone by Conversion: How he becomes "Venom Snake". After saving Big Boss by jumping between him and a bomb going off, the medic is given plastic surgery to look like Big Boss, and undergoes hyponotherapy to act like and even fully believe he is Big Boss (which initially works decently well given Venom's brain trying to heal itself, but was incomplete due to XOF attacking the hospital before the therapy course was completed). This essentially made him the "adopted" brother of Solid, Liquid, and Solidus.
- Combat Medic: His role back in the MSF. While he is never shown in combat during Ground Zeroes, there is a good reason he was chosen to accompany Big Boss on the mission to rescue Paz and Chico. Even before becoming Big Boss's doppelgänger, he was considered the best soldier the MSF had to offer (outside of Big Boss himself), so he did not lack in the combat department.
- Convenient Coma: Averted, as his coma was medically induced starting in 1975. He was frequently brought about to a semi-conscious state for hypnotherapy sessions, before being put under again. This was to make sure he did not wake up before the real Big Boss. His coma was ended in 1984, when XOF located him and Big Boss. This coma allowed for a Time Skip where the bad guys and his allies could build up their forces.
- Covered with Scars: All the injuries he takes at the end of Ground Zeroes leaves him with tons of facial scars in Phantom Pain. Not only that, but his entire torso is covered in huge twisting scars and large patches of permanently discolored and burn-scarred skin. That said, it's done little to detract from his attractiveness.
- Cruel Mercy:
- At the end of the game, when they come across Skull Face crushed under a collapsed radio tower, begging for a quick death, Venom and Miller instead elect to use Skull Face's own Mare's Leg to blow most of his limbs off, leaving him to die slowly as revenge for his destruction of MSF nine years ago. Ultimately averted, as right after they do so, Huey kills the man himself.
- After Huey is confirmed to have betrayed both MSF and the Diamond Dogs, Venom Snake lets him live despite literally everyone in Diamond Dogs cheering for his death. Instead, he has Huey exiled from Mother Base on a life raft too small to support his mechanical legs, stripped of his greatest treasure and exposed to the world as a fraud.
- Deadpan Snarker: While nowhere near the extent of the real Big Boss, Venom does get some zingers in every once in a while. For example, there's his reaction to Miller deciding to give the Child Soldiers he rescued proper quarters and schooling to give them a better life rather than go with Venom's plan to recruit them into Diamond Dogs:Venom Snake: So what, we're running a daycare now?
- Dented Iron: In Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, he loses an arm and ends covered in burns, scars and embedded shrapnel.
- The Determinator: He's not going to let anything get in the way of his revenge against XOF and Cipher.
- Doomed by Canon: He's the Big Boss Solid Snake kills in the heart of Outer Heaven at the end of Metal Gear.
- Doppelgänger Gets Same Sentiment: Played With: while at face value Ocelot and Zero exploits this for the benefit of Big Boss and the Outer Heaven/Zanzibar Land project (Ocelot even enforcing this on himself via hypnosis), the characters surrounding him take it all pretty different when the truth comes out. The personnel of Diamond Dogs, especially in the aftermath of "Shining Lights", sticks by him and proclaims they will stay under Venom's command to the end. In contrast, Quiet and Eli/Liquid Snake leave Diamond Dogs never even realizing the difference. The same is true of Huey, except he was kicked out. And then there's Kaz, who takes it very badly and vows undying hatred against the real Big Boss.
- The Dragon: He's the most trusted subordinate of the original Big Boss, aka Ishmael, and eventually begins leading Outer Heaven when the other Big Boss is leading FOXHOUND back in the US.
- The Dreaded: Nobody likes the thought of going up against Big Boss in battle. Eavesdropping on enemy conversations will reveal that they know they're going up against the best of the best, and it frightens them. Thanks to the game's dynamic difficulty, enemies gradually begin using more extreme tactics to kill him — including firing mortars on his position.
- '80s Hair: Averted. After waking up from his coma in 1984, he starts tying his mullet up in a ponytail.
- Empowered Badass Normal: Thanks to progressive upgrades into his cybernetic arm, Venom eventually gains access to a small range of "powers" that no other Snake (before or after him) has ever displayed. This includes raining lightning storms down on his enemies, like Volgin used to. See Shock and Awe below.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Despite being, and playing up his reputation as a ruthless mercenary commander, Venom has lines he will not cross. Noticeably, he finds Huey both disgusting and revolting, and when he discovers that he had been hired to assassinate Child Soldiers, he refuses to harm the children and takes them back to Mother Base after faking their deaths; of course, this part is undermined slightly by the fact that he spared them with the intent of recruiting them into Diamond Dogs himself.
- Evil Makes You Monstrous: Due to the hidden "Demon Points" counter, every immoral action Snake commits (killing animals or enemy soldiers, attacking your buddies, killing Diamond Dogs staff, developing nukes, etc.) will slowly cause this to happen to him. At 20,000 points, his shrapnel horn grows significantly to resemble an actual horn, and at 50,000 points, it grows even longer and Snake becomes permanently covered in blood, becoming a true "demon." Story-wise, there are also certain cut-scenes (both in-game and deleted footage) showing that Venom sees himself in the mirror specifically like this, usually in the aftermath of a major trauma or a morally-questionable decision he makes.
- The Faceless: He was covered in bandages for 9 years so no one would be able to recognize him. His full face isn't shown at any point during his appearance in Ground Zeroes either, being at least partially obscured by either camera angles or bits of scenery at all times. On the photo where he poses alongside Big Boss and Miller, he wears a balaclava.
- Fake Memories: Courtesy of the surgeons employed by Cipher, to ensure he would be the perfect Big Boss body double. Ocelot ensures they stick by utilizing info dumps regarding background information of the life of Big Boss to reinforce them.
- Fashionable Asymmetry: In The Phantom Pain, he wears a single glove over his right hand while leaving his left (prosthetic) hand bare.
- A Father to His Men: Loves his Diamonds Dog soldiers dearly, and greatly mourns their deaths. The subtext here is piled up on considering in addition to Naked Snake/Big Boss's original proclamation of Outer Heaven in Peace Walker, Venom also comes from the position of being under the original Big Boss's command, and is therefore working towards living up and building on that legend as well.
- Final Boss: The credits reveal that he was the Big Boss fought at the end of Metal Gear.
- Featureless Protagonist: Invoked at the start of Phantom Pain, where you get to do Character Customization for apparent plastic surgery that never happens. He's also a literal stand-in for the player, similar to Raiden in Metal Gear Solid 2. This is why the character's past before Ground Zeroes is never discussed, and why you're allowed to customize his former appearance and birthday.
- Foreshadowing: To an honestly insane degree. The "twist" that you are just a doppelgänger of Big Boss is all but posted on the screen in big bold letters, almost even before the game was released.
- Some people theorized that Venom was a body double before the game even came out because he uses electronic cigars, while Big Boss had previously told Huey that "the real thing's always better" in reference to e-cigars. Of course, he also said he'd be willing to try them if smoking became less socially acceptable.
- An early hint to many players was that the medic in Ground Zeroes shares Big Boss's voice actor (though distorted to try and mask this, as well as getting between Big Boss and the explosion, specifically blocking the right side of his head from the shrapnel (where Venom Snake's "horn" is).
- During the scene where Kaz and Big Boss are being treated after the chopper crash, Big Boss does not have a piece of shrapnel lodged in his head.
- Another clue was that his face was heavily scarred, especially the chunk of shrapnel lodged in his head, while Big Boss's face in MGS4 was free of such scarring.
- Venom Snake's eye is green, while Big Boss was known for his striking BLUE eye(s).
- One of the game's most prominent songs "The Man Who Sold The World" is a song about meeting one's doppelgänger.
- The player is asked to make a custom avatar to "hide" Venom's identity, yet he is always defaulted to look like Big Boss.
- The codenames "Ahab" and "Ishmael" were glaring hints to each's identities for anyone familiar with the story of Moby Dick.
- When Venom asks who Ishmael is, Ishmael responds with "You're talking to yourself.".
- During the escape from the hospital, "Ahab" was oddly silent and following orders, while "Ishmael" was taking the lead, effectively taking down the XOF hit team, and making action hero one liners all the way.
- Venom Snake is required to abduct/recruit a soldier who could translate Russian for him, while Big Boss was noted for his fluent and flawless grasp of the Russian language.
- Unlike Big Boss, who was a trove of snappy one liners and quick wit, Venom is often oddly silent, apparently not knowing what to say. A big example is during the mission to deal with the parasite outbreak on Mother Base, Kaz makes a statement then goes silent, obviously expecting Venom to finish his sentence. Only to be met with silence, with Venom finally responding to it after Kaz had started and finished talking again.
- Venom was shown to tilt his weapon so that he could use the sight with his good eye, while Big Boss fired apparently by muscle memory alone, the sights lining up with his eye patch.
- Huey initially notices that "Snake" looks somehow different that he remembered, struggling to recognize him.
- The restored Mammal Pod (an A.I. based off The Boss) did not recognize Venom Snake, despite previously being able to recognize Big Boss.
- When the Man on Fire finally corners and pins Venom Snake, then Venom's face is briefly changed to the player's custom avatar, with the Man of Fire likewise turning into his own true identity as Volgin as he realizes that Venom Snake is not the man he had been hunting.
- Meta Example for anyone who had played previous Metal Gear Solid games. Venom had his DNA compared to Eli (who would become Liquid Snake), and it turned up negative as a match. Eli was a clone of Big Boss, meaning there was no chance the test should have come up negative.
- Similarly, the mere fact that he's called Venom Snake. Big Boss at this point had long since stopped using his Naked Snake codename and everyone in the game refers to Venom Snake as "Big Boss" or "Boss" anyway. However, "Venom Snake" does line up with the LET naming scheme of [X] Snake, hinting that Snake is another of Big Boss's copies though in a far less drastic way.
- Observant players can see a Freeze-Frame Bonus while riding in the helicopter between missions. When the player can see Venom's reflection in the windshields, if they zoom in the image of the player's custom avatar is maybe shown in the reflection.
- One of the hidden missions in Mother Base involve collecting images of the MSF, which cause Venom to hallucinate seeing Paz. This culminates with a hallucination of a version of the fateful night of XOF's attack, focusing on the medic successfully locating the second bomb, instead of focusing on Big Boss's actions during the event. After the hallucination ends and you get a hallucinatory cassette tape of Paz revealing the truth, she specifies that she "fought Snake", not "fought you."
- If the player kills Diamond Dog troops near Ocelot, Ocelot will comment along the lines of "You're not the Big Boss we wanted after all.".
- If you get close to Sahelanthropus and allow it to stomp on you, you'll be squashed flat with no prompt to bench press it. Big Boss was always known for his Charles Atlas Superpower (having superior soldier genes and all), being able to block a stomp from the likes of Peace Walker and throw it off balance.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: The medic who saved Big Boss was an ordinary soldier (known as the single best soldier the MSF had besides Big Boss) before the fall of MSF. As Venom Snake, he essentially became Big Boss's spitting image, not just in appearances, but in combat capabilities: he would go on to destroy XOF, kill Skull Face, and found Outer Heaven.
- Good Counterpart: Despite his rather horrifying appearance, there's a lot of in-game hints that Venom is the more benevolent side of the two Big Bosses, often showing mercy, honor, and compassion towards his foes, and being much more tempered, and level headed than say Kaz, or even the original Big Boss. Further reflected by Outer Heaven's morality, compared to Zanzibar Land. This is likely due to the remnants of his original personality. Being a medic, his primary duty in life was the preservation of life. Opposed to Snake whose primary purpose was to end the lives of MSF's enemies.
- Eventually subverted by the end of the game. With the final scene of the game making several allusions to Venom Snake's role in Operation Intrude n313 and threatening nuclear war upon the world via Metal Gear (his reflection in the mirror showing him covered in blood, and his "horn" having grow to its largest possible size). Despite now knowing he isn't the "real" Big Boss, he fully accepts his role as Big Boss's doppelgänger and becomes his image in morality as well as looks.
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: He has several thin scars on his face, in contrast to Skull Face, who is nothing but scar tissue.
- In the end of MGSV, a reflection of himself in the mirror depicts his "horn" (the shrapnel logged in his head, which grows as he racks up negative karma) being its full size. Showing that his scars eventually fall well within the "evil" side of the trope.
- Hallucinations: An early radio conversation with Ocelot reveals that Venom Snake's shrapnel wound is pressing on his optic nerve, which could cause him to see things that aren't there. These hallucinations include things like a giant whale on fire, and Paz having survived. You even hallucinate cassette tapes of her!
- Handicapped Badass: He loses his left arm during to the events of Ground Zeroes. Not that it hinders him at all...
- Heroes Love Dogs: He can adopt a wolf pup named DD.
- Heroic Mime: Not literally mute, but he's way less talkative than the real Big Boss. Other than a few times in cutscenes and when interrogating enemies or giving orders to buddies, he's silent the entire game. He won't even talk in CODEC calls, his teammates giving him hints exclusively one-way instead.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Threw himself between Big Boss and the helicopter's door to shield him from the explosion of the bomb hidden in Paz. While he survived the explosion, helicopter crash, and gods knows how long stranded at sea, the brain damage he suffered mixed with 9 years of hyponotherapy essentially "killed" his original self/personality. Leaving only an "imperfect" duplicate of Big Boss.
- Hook Hand: What he initially has as a left hand prosthetic in The Phantom Pain.
- Horned Humanoid: During The Phantom Pain, he gets a chunk of debris and bone lodged in his forehead, which takes on this appearance.
- I Have Many Names: In The Phantom Pain alone he's refered to as Venom Snake, Big Boss, Ahab, V, and the Phantom. Or alternatively Big Boss's phantom.
- I Let Gwen Stacy Die: Mixed with My Greatest Failure and Survivor Guilt, the medic deeply regrets being unable to save Paz, his final patient. It goes so far that he starts hallucinating she survived.
- I Owe You My Life: As thanks for saving his life, the real Big Boss made him the "second" Big Boss after he threw himself in front of the explosion to shield him when Mother Base was attacked.
- I've Come Too Far: He's fully aware of how far he's fallen come the end of The Phantom Pain, but sees no reason to turn back from his current path.Venom Snake: I'm already a demon. Heaven's not my kind of place, anyway.
- Irony: Out of all of Big Boss' soldiers, the one who ends up becoming a One-Man Army is a medic. A combat medic, but still.
- Karmic Nod: "I'm already a demon."
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Due to the shrapnel "horn" in his head, he has some memory loss and has to be reminded of certain events, like his leadership of MSF and how Miller helped lead him, and can no longer speak Russian without an interpreter. With the reveal that Venom Snake is a Body Double of Big Boss, it's explained that the real reason for the "amnesia" is because Ocelot couldn't finish implanting him with Big Boss' memories, as XOF was set to attack the hospital Snake was stationed at sooner than expected.
- The Last Dance: He knew he was going to die in Outer Heaven, either by the self-destruction sequence, or Solid Snake, but he threw himself in the final battle regardless.Venom Snake: ...Another mission, right Boss?
- Legacy Character: Chronologically, he's the fifth Snakenote and the third Bossnote As far as the series release order goes he's the SIXTH man to hold the codename Snake.note
- A Lighter Shade of Black: Regardless of how far he's fallen, he's still the lesser evil to Skull Face. And in many ways, the original Big Boss, who exploited his own loyal soldier to serve as a Body Double.
- Lima Syndrome: His Love Interest, Quiet, becomes such for him after he defeats and captures her.
- Loss of Identity: His original persona died in the helicopter crash in 1975, as the hypnotherapy he received to turn him into Big Boss's doppelgänger was through enough that he retained the "Big Boss" personality even after regaining some of his original memories and realizing he was a copy.
- Made of Iron: He canonically survives a number of explosions and a vehicle crash in the hospital escape and it takes several rockets to put him down in Metal Gear. The medical upgrade allows him to take more punishment.
- Magic Plastic Surgery: Thanks to Cipher's surgeons, he looks identical to the real Big Boss, albeit Covered with Scars.
- Magnetic Hero: Word of God is that Snake is the only reason Miller and Ocelot work together at all, or any of the Mother Base staff for that matter; he outright states that Diamond Dogs would collapse without Snake around. In fact, a cassette tape reveals that Miller tried to recruit some MSF survivors to Diamond Dogs during the nine-year Time Skip, but they refused to come back simply because Snake wasn't there.
- The Medic: He is the MSF medic that assists in extracting the bomb from Paz's stomach at the end of Ground Zeroes.
- Meaningful Name:
- He is referred to at a few points as V - as in the roman numeral five - since he's the fifth Snake after Naked, Solid, Liquid, and Solidus.
- His alternative nickname "Punished Snake" held true: His home and family of MSF were destroyed, lost his right eye and left forearm, sustained many terrible scars on his face, and suffered through a nine year coma. The horn made of shrapnel served as a reminder of his punishment.
- "Ahab" also qualifies, as he pursues revenge to a self-destructive degree. Being named by the original Big Boss/Ishmael hints that he was intended to do just that.
- Considering that he's Big Boss' Body Double, "Venom Snake" could reference how there are venomous and mildly/nonvenomous snakes that evolved to have similar appearances. One may assume it's ironic that the duplicate is called "venom", but it's been theorized
that the less dangerous snakes are the ones being copied.
- Meaningful Rename:
- After everything he goes through in the run up to The Phantom Pain, he dubs himself "Venom Snake."
- Due to his exploits and successful masquerade, the real "Big Boss" dubs him worthy of the title "Big Boss" as well, a title he accepts.
- Meatgrinder Surgery: In Ground Zeroes, he conducts one on Paz to remove the bomb from her body. Given that they don't know when it'll go off, he's forced to do so without anesthetic. All the while, Paz is fully conscious and screaming in agony. All he could do was have Big Boss and Chico hold her down to minimize her struggling interrupting the removal. Too bad there was a second bomb though...
- My Greatest Failure: Failing to find the second bomb, hidden in Paz's vagina. The hypnotherapy used to convert him into the mental clone of Big Boss was cut short due to XOF locating the hospital, thus remnants of his original personality and memories remained in his subconscious. This included the immense guilt of his failure causing the death of Paz and Chico, as well as the near death of Big Boss, Kaz, and himself. This guilt manifests as hallucinations of Paz having survived, and flashbacks to the night of XOF's attack on MSF, except a version of the event where he did find the second bomb...until reality finally sets in and the hallucination crumbles (well...explodes).
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: As revealed after bringing Code Talker back to Mother Base, Snake's destruction of Mfinda Oilfield to stop the water pollution allowed the vocal cord parasites to spread through the water and infect the villages downstream.
- His bringing Huey onboard Mother Base, allowing Ocelot to freely torture him, and assigning (comparatively) lacking security to watch him, allowed Huey to sabotage Mother Base and start a severe parasite outbreak on the station.
- His refusal to (really) harm Eli, despite the kid having genuinely attempted murder him on more than one occasion lead to Eli stealing Sahelanthropus, then later becoming Liquid Snake and causing the events of MGS1.
- No Name Given: At the start of Phantom Pain, you're told your name is now "Ahab", and your past no longer matters. His true name is never given in Ground Zeroes, and you get to decide what it is right at the beginning of Phantom Pain.
- Older Than They Look: Being that he was once Big Boss's subordinate, it's easy to assume he's much younger. In reality he's actually three years older than the real Big Boss.
- Old Soldier: Having been born in 1932, he is 52 when the player is placed in his shoes for V's main story, and he is 63 when he takes on Solid Snake in Metal Gear 1, and yet the battle is canonically regarded as among the most brutal and difficult fights Solid Snake ever endured in his career note . All this is because of his years of combat experience, on top of having already been MSF's top operative (besides Big Boss himself), then brainwashed to become Big Boss's doppelgänger.
- One-Man Army: He single-handedly takes out multiple squads of Russian soldiers, African mercenaries, and XOF killers in Phantom Pain. He may not be the "real" Big Boss, but he has well deserved the right to the title alongside the real deal.
- Player Character: He serves as the player character of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.
- Papa Wolf: In the cut "Mission 51", he shoots down three XOF soldiers trying to kill Eli, but shoots him on accident due to head injury that temporarily made him color-blind.
- Protagonist Journey to Villain: Despite once working with the relatively heroic MSF unit, by The Phantom Pain he's a revenge-driven, self-confessed "demon."
- Subverted, his actions during the bulk of MGSV actually paint him as less malevolent than the real Big Boss. Its not until he rediscovers his true identity and accepts his role as Big Boss's copy that he becomes just as heinous as the man himself.
- Psychotic Smirk: In The Stinger, he gives a small one after regaining his memories and being deemed worthy of the title of Big Boss by the real deal, showing he's embraced his role as the former's doppelgänger.
- The Quiet One: Is this in Metal Gear Solid V. Kojima has stated that he wanted Venom Snake to be more akin to a silent protagonist with other characters leading the plot. This is likely to invoke the Heroic Mime trope, as Venom Snake is a stand-in for the player. It also serves to contrast him with "Ishmael"/the real Big Boss, who is shown to still be fond of spouting his quips and Bond One Liners as Venom escapes alongside him in the prologue. The few quips of his own that he tries, tend to come out pretty awkwardly...
- Racial Transformation: His former ethnicity as the Medic is determined by the player at the start of the game, so this comes into play if he was given a non-white appearance.
- Rage Against the Reflection: At one point, he smashes a mirror with his prosthetic hand. It happens at the very tail-end of the final cutscene, when Venom (seeing himself in full "Demon Snake" mode) is seemingly about to go out and face Solid Snake himself at the tail-end of Metal Gear. note
- Remember the New Guy?: He's supposed to be Big Boss' best soldier back in MSF, but the existence of such character is never acknowledged in Peace Walker. The player has to go out of their way to find a medic with very high combat stat to match Venom's description, and even then the game won't treat him any differently than any other soldier.
- Revenge Before Reason: He doesn't care who he has to kill or torture to get revenge on Skull Face.
- Red Right Hand: After being consumed by his desire for revenge at the end of Ground Zeroes, he ends up with a literal red hand, albeit his left as opposed to his right. The horn-like protrusion from his forehead fits this description perhaps even better.
- Retcon: The reveal of his nature rewrites certain plot points in the original MSX games:
- In Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, a character off-handedly mentions a rumor that Big Boss was some kind of Cyborg. Phantom Pain reveals that this particular "phantom" Big Boss did indeed lose his left arm and had it replaced with a cybernetic one. The real Big Boss, of course, still has his arm.
- His whole existence does this, as it not only provides a different reasoning on how Big Boss survived the events of Outer Heaven, but also sheds new light on the conflict between Big Boss and Zero. Namely, that Zero had actually become The Atoner and helped Big Boss and Venom survive, Big Boss was never really fighting Zero; he was fighting Zero's creation, which had morphed into a beast of its own long before we were led to believe it had.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: His attitude in The Phantom Pain. He's hell-bent on getting revenge on Skull Face and XOF for taking MSF and 9 years of his life from him, and is perfectly willing and able to do anything to do so, even after he admits that he's crossed the point of no return.
- Shock and Awe: His Stun Arm, which begins as little more than a gimmickry taser, but once fully upgraded, transforms into "the Wrath of Zeus". Behold.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: There are several heavy implications that he reciprocates Quiet's love, but she (likely) dies before the two can truly go anywhere.
- Still Wearing the Old Colors: In Phantom Pain, he wears an MSF patch along with his Diamond Dogs one by default.
- Super-Speed: The mobility upgrade available at Mother Base increases his sprinting speed. Upgrading it enough makes him sprint to nearly the same level as Raiden in the "Jamais Vu" mission in Ground Zeroes.
- Supporting Protagonist: The real Big Boss is actually Ishmael; this man is a decoy.
- Surgical Impersonation: Is the target of an involuntary one in order to turn him into a body double for Big Boss.
- Taking the Bullet: When the second bomb inside Paz explodes almost immediately after she jumps out of Big Boss's chopper, he throws himself in front of Snake and takes the full brunt of the explosion. Later, this is what ultimately convinces Big Boss to go through with the Phantom plan. The medic had already ready proven to him that he was perfectly willing to sacrifice his life to save his without any hesistation; as such, he believed that he wouldn't mind doing it again in a more "figurative" sense.
- That Man Is Dead: While not directly spoken by him, Ocelot states that "the medic", aka who Venom used to be, died in the helicopter crash in 1975, leaving only the Venom Snake persona. Venom himself follows this in his actions. Fully accepting the name and identity of "Big Boss", even after learning he is a doppelgänger.
- Together in Death: According to a brief bit of developer commentary, Venom Snake and Quiet are reunited in death after Solid Snake kills him in Outer Heaven.
- Tomato in the Mirror: Almost literally, as the final reveal that he's a body double of Big Boss occurs while he's staring at himself in a mirror.
- Took a Level in Badass: While already a badass in his own right as The Medic, Snake becomes even more of one over the course of the story. Further adding to Big Boss' legend.
- Trauma Conga Line: In MGSV alone, he fails to find the second bomb sewn into Paz, gets the brunt of the explosion that lodges shrapnel all over his body and blows off his arm, most of his allies get killed, the military organization he dedicated himself to is all but completely wiped out, his CO Kaz ends up losing An Arm and a Leg, he falls into a 9 year coma, his personality is steadily erased to make him into Big Boss's body double, he finds out Huey betrayed MSF, and so on. Skipping to the end, nothing goes well for this guy, up to and including getting shot with an RPG by Solid Snake while the organization he built up for years literally explodes around him.
- Undying Loyalty: Was Big Boss's most loyal, and trusted soldier. He even throws himself in front of a fiery explosion to shield the legendary soldier. Even after he regains his memories and knows full well what Big Boss condoned to be done to him, he doesn't even hesitate to head out on another mission given to him by Big Boss.
- Unreliable Narrator: As noted above, Venom Snake sometimes sees things that aren't there. The biggest example is the Paz side-quest. Also includes Unreliable Expositors too, as Snake hallucinates Ocelot and Miller explaining how Paz lived.
- Walking Spoiler: Discussing his backstory or who he really was in Ground Zeroes spoils the Twist Ending of Phantom Pain. The fact that, on This Very Wiki, Venom Snake has his own section shows that he isn't the real Big Boss, since each Character Page only deals with characters that debuted in each game.
- We Can Rebuild Him: Gets a cybernetic arm with multiple abilities after losing his real one at the end of Ground Zeroes. For added points, the arm sometimes play The Six Million Dollar Man sound effect when you use it.
- Would Hurt a Child: Played with. While he can tranquilize or otherwise knock out any Child Soldiers he encounters, Miller explicitly forbids him from using lethal force; killing even one kid is an automatic mission failure. He also has no problems physically fighting Eli, and even breaks his arm in retaliation for Eli's attempt to stab him in the back.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: In one of the post-game missions several Mother Base staff members and soldiers are infected with a fatal and contagious parasite. This leads to one of the most brutal sequences of the game where Snake is forced to kill all the infected people. There's even a Hope Spot where one soldier seems uninfected...but just as Snake is about to leave with the soldier, it's revealed he's infected too. Snake Mercy Kills the soldiers and suffers a Heroic BSoD afterwards.
