From MGS2 up until the very, very, very end of MGS4, we were led to believe that Revolver Ocelot had his body essentially hijacked by the ghost of Liquid Snake via his arm transplant. This was in outbursts during MGS2 and then a full transformation into Liquid Ocelot by MGS4.

But then at the very, very end, in that graveyard scene, we learn that the whole Liquid Ocelot personality was a smokescreen. The outbursts in 2 may have been real, but by 4 Ocelot had removed the rebellious arm, replaced it with a robot arm, and then hypnotized himself into thinking he was still possessed by Liquid's ghost.

Ocelot had regained control of his mind and body, but wanted The Patriots to think that he was still being controlled by Liquid. The reason given for all this is that it was to "avoid suspicion from The Patriots". The thing that I still don't get, even after going through a bunch of MGS Wikia pages, is why that reasoning is supposed to make any sense. Up until that point, Ocelot had (ostensibly) done nothing but support The Patriots, while Liquid's entire deal was "fuck The Patriots".

So how is taking on Liquid's personality supposed to make him LESS of a target to The Patriots. If anything, I feel like it should have raised MORE red flags.

The only possible explanation I can think of, which was briefly alluded to on one of the wikia pages was that The Patriots distrusted Ocelot just as much as they distrusted Liquid, but Ocelot has had a much better track record for getting shit done. Ocelot has always ultimately gotten what he wanted/needed, but Liquid's one big plan (Shadow Moses) was a disaster that ended with his own death.

But is "Liquid is just too incompetent to be a threat to us" really the reasoning?

I'm pretty sure the actual reason is "I make this story up one game at a time", but in-game? I have no idea, just like you. The patriots even send people to take him out. Nothing inconspicuous about him.

I think so. Ocelot impersonates Liquid and so the Patriot A.I. sends Solid Snake after him again thinking that it shouldn't be a problem for Snake since he defeated Liquid once already. I think the problem people have with that is why the Patriot A.I. would be fooled by that in the first place. But Metal Gear.

I always assumed he did it because then the Patriots would assume Ocelot just became some crazy person who isn't really that much of a threat. At least until it's too late to do anything about it.

I think committing to MGS2's dumb Liquid arm thing and continuing it in MGS4 was a mistake, especially when in the end it was "Nahhh, just kidding, it was Ocelot all along, because Liquid is super dead." Also Liquid Ocelot just felt like Ocelot to me, but with more business guns. They didn't bring back Cam Clarke, instead using Ocelot's voice actor, so Liquid Ocelot, as a character, just felt like Revolver Ocelot who liked saying "Brother!" a lot and wanted to bring down the Patriots and create perpetual war. It didn't feel like "Oh, those are more like Liquid Snake objectives", because Ocelot was such a quadruple agent at all times that it's like "Sure, fuck it, maybe his goal all along was to bring down the Patriots, even though in MGS2 he actively cocked up Solidus' plan to do so."

Fuck it, I don't even remember what Ocelot was trying to accomplish in MGS2, other than steal RAY at the beginning.

Anyway, I think it's really weird that they turn Liquid Ocelot into the Big Bad of the final chronological game in the series, because it feels really unearned aside from "Hey surprise, he has this plan to usurp control of all the Patriot systems, which isn't even that bad because the way the Patriots control everything is kind of fucked up as is." Ocelot always felt like the scheming vizier who is repeatedly the right-hand man of the actual bad guy and then backstabs him at the last second. So surprise, Ocelot is the final boss of the game, but his whole plot to bring down the Patriots isn't even that bad, and he's actually doing a favour for The Boss/Big Boss all along. And then MGS4 has to include SO MUCH EXPOSITION to justify why Zero is actually the Big Bad of the whole series because hey, this random barely important CO character from MGS3 actually went on to create a bunch of AI that got way too out of control and have been causing all of the problems in the Solid Snake half of the timeline.

I guess my problem with "Surprise! Zero is a huge asshole" coming out of MGS4 is that it doesn't even pay off well in later games. Zero has almost no direct involvement in Peace Walker and MGS5, since the people you actually deal with are, respectively, Slow Fastman/The Russian Guy and Spooky Skull Guy for the most part.

Also MGS4 makes everything out to be about Zero vs. Big Boss's interpretation of The Boss' will, but then Peace Walker/MGS5 undermine/contradicts that with Big Boss kinda getting past The Boss and having different ideals and ambitions of his own.

@kasaioni: The Patriot AI as theyve established is entirely pattern based and not particularly "smart". Zero & gang were to be the real braina, but they all died.

Yeah, it was literally to fool an AI that would just pass simple checks. I.e. "Well, he sounds like Liquid." Which is dumb because, at least with the arm he had the DNA.

This is what I gleaned from reading the Ocelot, Liquid, and Liquid Ocelot wikia pages (and some of this may not be 100% accurate):

• Ocelot has been plotting against The Patriots pretty much since the beginning...
• ...but this plot involved working FOR them throughout MGS1 (killing the DARPA chief, not giving Liquid the launch data, and generally dragging his feet when Liquid ordered him to to things), MGS2 (stealing Ray for The Patriots, for instance), and theoretically MGS4 up until he turns on them.
• Liquid has ALSO always been against The Patriots, but HIS plan to take them down immediately was hamstrung in part by OCELOT'S plan to take them down LATER after he'd gained their trust.
• In 2, the outbursts by Liquid were supposedly Liquid's personality actively trying to sabotage Ocelot's plans, out of spite or whatever. Ocelot wouldn't have wanted Solid and Otacon to get in his way on the tanker, but Liquid had taken control long enough to leak details about the tanker plan to Philanthropy (S&O's little club name). Additionally, Ocelot wasn't supposed to make a big scene on the tanker, reveal himself, and announce his plans to take down The Patriots, but Liquid yanked the steering wheel out of Ocelot's hands again.
• Solidus was a third character who wanted to take down The Patriots, but Ocelot and/or Liquid ended up fucking up those plans for some reason or another.

Writing all that out, it seems like Liquid, Solidus, and Ocelot all had basically the same end goal: destroy The Patriots. But each one wanted to be "the one to take down The Patriots" so badly that they spent just as much time getting in each others' ways as they did plotting themselves.

Presumably his plans were in his head after the whole Zero and Boss split. I mean, Ocelot's a founding member of the Patriots. He could've just... I dunno, shot them all there and then.

@bbalpert: So much of that feels like at the time, they were writing Ocelot to be this shadow agent working for unnamed antagonist (in MGS1) and The Patriots (in MGS2), then an enormous rewrite happened once they got into Ocelot's past and Kojima actually had to commit to Ocelot's origin, Big Boss' origin, and The Patriots' origin in MGS3 and MGS4. Then they had to retrofit everything as "Ocelot was perfectly carrying out the will of the Patriots for multiple games BUT IT WAS ALL A PLOY."

Like, it's convoluted as fuck, but for no real purpose because I don't think there's some huge payoff in MGS4 when they finally lay out all of what Ocelot was up to.

I don't remember anything about a robot arm? Anyway, it was all a smoke screen that he completely committed to so he could bring down the patriots. He built himself up to be liquid because Ocelot didn't have the same ambition so he used liquids ambition to give the patriots something to focus on. He went through all that trouble to fool the patriot AI into destroying itself trying to take him down, it also gave Solid snake more motivation to go forward as well. His personality in 3 seems like a smoke screen as well, in reality (if his characterization in V is to be believed) he's a pretty level headed mellow dude who does whatever it takes to carry out his mission which often includes self hypnosis.

@oursin_360: I think that's the thing that bothers me. Every game feels this need to rewrite Ocelot's "true" personality, and all the other games are just an act. Even if it all squares up, it feels like such a Lost-esque, make-it-up-as-you-go-along move, where they just fit Ocelot into whatever role they feel like for each game, instead of just putting in a new character. Like, hammy arm gesture Young Ocelotin MGS3, into MGSV Ocelot, into hokey cowboy Ocelot in MGS1, into whatever the fuck MGS2 and MGS4 Ocelot. It's so schizophrenic, and half of the charades/fake personalities don't even make much sense.