First game I played that had Huey in it was Phantom Pain. At first I had assumed he was just Otacon in a wheelchair, and if you just go by voice and appearance, that's basically true, and that him being around Big Boss meant they were going to develop the same relationship as Snake and Oracon, and that rubbed me the wrong way, just because it felt like they were going to copy and paste this cool comradery onto a different pair of characters, making both sets less unique. I'm actually glad Huey turned out to be so different from his son.
Edited by WillKeaton on Sep 22nd 2025 at 11:41:14 AM
I think if Venom had more interactions with Huey it would've been easier to understand and feel betrayed by his turncoat nature, but the way Kojima now tells stories it makes it harder to really get what's supposed to be going on, even with his interactions with Miller and Ocelot.
I don't know if anyone else thinks so, but the reserved way his protagonists act now leave me feeling a little disconnected compared to the pre-Mgs 5 games.
Edited by Avenger09 on Sep 22nd 2025 at 5:11:38 PM
@ M84
If it was a Patriot operation they wouldn't have failed to take out Emma too. Emma survived because Huey was an incompetent piece of shit to the very end.
To me, considering what we see of Emma every time that incident was brought up, it would work in the Patriots' best interests to try to kill Emma yet stop at the last second to take advantage of how she reacted after that.
Edited by HallowHawk on Sep 22nd 2025 at 10:43:14 AM
See, it makes more sense to me that Huey died the way he lived. He was a failure. His last act was even a failed murder-suicide. He only succeeded at the suicide part.
Heck, if the Patriot AI was capable of contempt it's plausible that even they thought he was a piece of shit not worth the effort to kill.
Edited by M84 on Sep 23rd 2025 at 1:47:34 AM
Disgusted, but not surprisedIt's amazing how many problems in the setting are due to either:
- A trigger-happy psychopath nuking his own country for shits and giggles (Volgin)
- A cowardly selfish little shit trying to duck blame his whole life (Huey)
Almost everything was down to a couple of assholes acting with the absolute pettiest motives.
Edited by M84 on Sep 22nd 2025 at 10:27:53 PM
Disgusted, but not surprisedDon't forget Hot Coldman and certain other officials who felt the Boss was a threat to them and arranged for operation Snake Eater.
He was the guy who told Volgin to nuke his own country. Which TBF, he was going to do anyway.
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"I’d argue that Hot Coldman also belongs on that list because he’s got really petty motives of his own.
Like trying to create world peace by nuking every country to create detente. Somehow.
Also starting Operation Snake Eater because he really hated the Boss.
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"I wouldn't count Hot Coldman since, as awful as he was on a personal level, his plan's goal was an attempt to disprove MAD theory. He did have a greater motivation besides his own petty envy of The Boss.
Heck, even Volgin had grander ambitions beyond sating his own sadism like uniting the whole world under Communism. Though nuking his own country was just his own sadistic impulse.
I've argued before that the most truly petty and selfish character in the series is Huey Emmerich.
Edited by M84 on Sep 22nd 2025 at 11:04:04 PM
Disgusted, but not surprisedI mean Hot Coldman caused Operation: Snake Eater because he embezzled the money the Boss was using to get high level intel.
We also gain a bunch of Evil Is Petty types if we include Revengeance.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Sep 22nd 2025 at 10:21:03 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.Operation Snake Eater was a desperate ploy to salvage the disastrous failure of Virtuous Mission after Volgin impulsively launched the nuke. Killing the Boss was a bonus to the CIA.
The Revengeance bosses are all in one way or another driven by war and what the war economy did to the world. It’s the mess the Patriots left behind.
Edited by M84 on Sep 23rd 2025 at 2:02:29 AM
Disgusted, but not surprisedHot Coldman actually arranged for Volgin to fire the missiles. Hence why the Boss gave them to Volgin in the first place as part of a deal sweetener with her supposed defection.
This was elaborated with Portable Ops but Peace Walker retconned it so instead of nameless CIA director guy, it was Coldman who arranged it.
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"They didn't directly arrange it, though one CIA analyst who studied Volgin's character thought it was likely Volgin would fire the nuke on his own volition. No one told Volgin to nuke his own country, it was something he did on his own. The Philosopher's Legacy was still the higher priority, but having an excuse to finally get rid of the Boss was a bonus.
And what do you know, Fatbrett did a vid analyzing the Boss' character:
tl:dw; The Boss is a harsh critique of a soldier being totally loyal to one's nation. The Boss had an almost nihilistic view of what it meant to a "perfect" soldier. What keeps her from being a totally empty tool of the USA are her lingering maternal feelings towards, Jack, her spiritual son. Indeed, the one time she actually hesitates to do something for the sake of her mission, it's when she's ordered to cut out Jack's eyes to "prove" her loyalty.
The vid also criticizes how hollow patriotism really is due to how much a nation's values can shift depending on who is currently leading it. This is reflected in how the Boss' devotion to her nation has spiritually and physically hollowed her out.
Fatbrett plans to cover Volgin, someone he describes as a more typical videogame villain compared to the Boss, in his next vid.
Edited by M84 on Sep 24th 2025 at 3:08:28 AM
Disgusted, but not surprisedAs per the wiki on Portable Ops:
"Gene would later claim that a CIA strategist had manipulated Volgin into nuking Tselinoyarsk, as part of a greater plan to assassinate The Boss from the beginning."
"As a director in the CIA,[1] Coldman was involved in planning the death of The Boss due to fear of the renowned U.S. soldier's influence.[2][3][4] During the Virtuous Mission, The Boss was allowed to "defect" to the Soviets in order to locate a massive cache of funds lost in World War II, providing GRU colonel Volgin with two Davy Crocketts as proof of her supposed sincerity. Volgin subsequently launched one of the miniature nuclear shells at the OKB-754 research facility in Tselinoyarsk, sparking an international incident. "
" Do you really think Volgin committed that terrible crime of his own will? // Snake: What? // Gene: It was all a setup from the very beginning. Volgin launching the nuke... The Boss' death... Even your mission in Groznyj Grad, Snake! It was all the work of your country and a single, deviously cunning strategist. // Snake: You're saying it was all a setup? By who!? // Gene: The Boss gave up her life, even if someone else willed it."
There's even a whole article on the strategist:
https://metalgear.fandom.com/wiki/Strategist_(Operation_Snake_Eater)
The idea was that someone specifically arranged for the Boss's defection to include the rockets and that someone planned with Volgin to fire the missiles to ensure Operation Snake Eater would happen.
Personally, I think it was Hot Coldman since he does gloat about being the man who planned Snake Eater.
Edited by RedHunter543 on Sep 24th 2025 at 3:49:04 AM
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"I read that article. It makes arguments against it being Hot Coldman too.
Edited by M84 on Sep 24th 2025 at 3:55:14 AM
Disgusted, but not surprisedYeah back in the day, the story treatment implied it was Zero who arranged for the Boss to die and was secretly collaborating with Ocelot, to lead into the reveal that Zero was the mastermind behind the Patriots in MGS 4.
But then Kojima soft retconned that idea, and introduced Hot Coldman who is strongly implied to have arranged for the Boss to die with Volgin.
It does make him recreating her as an A.I. through Strangelove even more of a sick plan.
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"That is actually what Gene straight up implies:
"Gene: So... You never knew. Six years ago, during Operation Snake Eater, Volgin launched an American nuclear missile at Sokolov's research lab. This caused a change in plans, and the U.S. government had to assassinate its own operative, The Boss, to prove its innocence. And you were the assassin, Snake. Do you really think Volgin committed that terrible crime of his own will? // Snake: What? // Gene: It was all a setup from the very beginning. Volgin launching the nuke... The Boss' death... Even your mission in Groznyj Grad, Snake! It was all the work of your country and a single, deviously cunning strategist. // Snake: You're saying it was all a setup? By who!? // Gene: The Boss gave up her life, even if someone else willed it."
It does put a new spin on Hot Coldman's boast that he was the one who planned Snake Eater.
Edited by RedHunter543 on Sep 24th 2025 at 3:56:54 AM
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"Either way, I do think Coldman is in the same league as Huey and Volgin in terms of sheer pettiness since he arranged for Snake Eater because he felt threatened by her influence.
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"There were greater motivations besides his own fear of the Boss though. The nuclear launch created a very serious diplomatic incident that could have led to the Cold War going hot. Snake Eater needed to happen to stop this. They also wanted the Philosopher Legacy.
But Volgin? He launched a nuke for nothing but to satisfy his own sadism.
And Huey? He backstabbed pretty much everyone in his life to duck accountability and to sate his own ego. And unlike even Volgin or Hot Coldman, he had no grander motivations or ambitions to go along with this. Unless you count his obsession with walking tanks.
Edited by M84 on Sep 23rd 2025 at 4:04:06 PM
Disgusted, but not surprised

Of course, my introduction to Metal Gear Solid was Brawl, and MGS 3 was my first game. I played it with the wikipedia article telling me was a future villain, and I was intrigued.
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"