I think that was the idea since even back in MGS 4, it was established that Zero still cared for Big Boss to preserve him after Zanzibar land, but also to use him as an eternal icon for his ideal society.
So when Peace Walker was written, I could see Paz and Cipher framing Big Boss for terrorism as a kind of abuser tactic to make Big Boss reliant on them by isolating him from the world stage.
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"Skull Face is also impressive in his ability to sublimate his hatred. He spends decades working for an Englishman and his conspiracy (including working for the SAS and later CIA before joining the Patriots) only to then plan to kill all English speaking people in the world.
Mind you, he's one of the rare Complete Monster people in the franchise.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Sep 8th 2025 at 6:55:09 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.Nope, definitely caught me off guard. And even though numerous clues were dropped suggesting that Huey was responsible for not properly vetting the IAEA contact and allowing the false-flag attack on Mother Base in Ground Zeroes to occur, the lack of clear evidence meant there was still a plausible chance he had been forced into becoming a mole.
Well, until he started repeatedly acting like a cowardly douche in Phantom Pain, then it just proved Miller's hypothesis that Huey wanted to move on from MSF was likely correct.
Edited by SgtRicko on Sep 21st 2025 at 11:51:28 AM
Im not sure if Kojima had his role set in stone, but it is a bit hard to think that the Huey who stood up to Hot Coldman over Peace Walker being nuclear capable and felt guilt for the mere fact that he was born on the same day as Hiroshima getting nuked, as the same guy who was happily using his own son as a test subject for Metal Gear Sahelanthropus and drowned his wife for trying to stop him.
The lack of loyalty IS consistent though, but even in Peace Walker he was fascinated by the power of the A.I. mechs so there’s that little hint but it’s still a leap to go from his PW self to his Phantom Pain self.
I imagine Skull Face bought him out and he got worse over the years.
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"Remember the very first thing we ever found out about him was that he attempted a murder-suicide with a little girl — his own stepdaughter no less. Because his son was being sexually exploited by his wife and Huey considered it an insult towards him.
Anyone familiar with MGS 2 and read the MGS 4 database knew Huey Emmerich was a monster. That made Peace Walker's portrayal of him a bit confusing, though even that game had hints of what he'd become.
Edited by M84 on Sep 22nd 2025 at 2:59:48 AM
Disgusted, but not surprisedYeah that I remember but his first on-camera scene was that bit with Hot Coldman, leaves quite an impression.
I’m old enough to remember the pre Phantom Pain days when Huey was still reasonably popular, and it was speculated that his death was actually a Patriot plot to destroy Big Boss’s allies.
Turns out, he was beneath their notice and he took care of that loose end himself.
Edited by RedHunter543 on Sep 23rd 2025 at 3:06:35 AM
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"Peace Walker did show us that he wasn't above plagiarism either. He presented the ideas of Granin as his own.
Huey's own asshole tendencies were in full display in that game. It's just easy to miss them since the more obvious asshole Hot Coldman was in that game too.
Edited by M84 on Sep 23rd 2025 at 3:12:16 AM
Disgusted, but not surprisedIt is also overshadowed by how personable and charming he is. The writing uses your memories of Otacon to disarm you and think Huey is a swell guy.
I still remember that bit of him and Big Boss over Santa Claus.
Hell, he greets Venom like an old friend and is able to act like a helpless victim because he’s that deluded he’s able to lie convincingly for the first few interactions.
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"Yeah at first glance, you might think he’s just having a good laugh at how silly Big Boss is for believing in Santa Claus like a friend.
Then you realize he’s having a good laugh at how naive Big Boss really is and thinking about how he can exploit that.
He already stole from Granin.
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"Huey is a good character I think because I think he's a guy who under other circumstances could have been a hero but his Never My Fault, Dirty Coward, and Pride outweigh his good qualities by miles.
But yes, I really thought we'd have found out his murder/suicide was actually the Patriots having murdered him and framed him.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Sep 22nd 2025 at 1:33:07 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.Speaking of the events of MGS 2, there has some thankful progress in regards to how the fandom saw what happened to Otacon. The man was exploited by his step mom into sleeping with her, and people actually made fun of him for that.
Most notably the Hiimdaisy comics. Which was a shock when I first read those comics since they were notoriously mean to Otacon for that, and there were comments calling him a creep for what his step mom did to him.
Heck, some of the old comments 2010 ish were actually sympathetic to HUEY in that situation, and said his attempted suicide was correct because "If my son seduced my wife, I'd kill myself too."
Which is all sorts of fucked up, but this feels like something for men's issues.
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"Pretty much his legacy in the end. A lying, deluded, plagiarizing, hypocritical, egotistical shithead who can only cause harm to others all in the pursuit of pointless selfishness.
Burning love!Cipher did lose control of himself by the time of Phantom Pain thanks to Skull Face, so I personally blame Skull Face, Sigint and the others for what the Patriots did.
Skull Face even gloated that the thirst for revenge would infect the system that Zero created which is meant to foreshadow GW and the others.
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"Though even Sigint wouldn't have had the opportunity to program the Patriots the way he did if Huey hadn't murdered Strangelove.
Disgusted, but not surprisedIt's to a big degree what the game had already done with Big Boss. We're "introduced" to the Young Big Boss with him looking and sounding like Solid Snake, and being a dork. And to a great degree this is to make us like him and not think "But this guy is actually a villain".
Edited by Ghilz on Sep 22nd 2025 at 11:27:52 AM
It really is impressive just how much Huey infected damn everything in the backstory without actually accomplishing anything truly of or on his own.
I did initially fall for his act in Peace Walker, but that’s because Peace Walker was literally the first game in the series I played. When I replayed it after going through 1, 2, and 3 I saw him very, very differently and realized exactly why Kojima introduced him on screen as a man in a wheelchair being kicked down a staircase by one of the most unapologetically evil characters in the series.
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I suspect the idea, retcon or not, is that once Big Boss is framed as a terrorist then he has to return to Zero with hat in hand. The Patriots would be the only group that could protect him at that point.
Alternatively, Skull Face was giving the orders and Pax discovered it too late. Which admittedly fits because the whole frame-up job as nuclear terrorists and later attack on Mother Base was all Zero working with Huey. When Pax failed to frame Big Boss, Zero just decided to kill everyone onboard anyway.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Sep 8th 2025 at 6:52:14 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.