One thought that's been bouncing around in my head for a while now has to deal with the heavy handed moralizing about "what it means to be a soldier" throughout the series, which I thought was really deep stuff when I was younger, then I thought it was total bullshit when I got older, and now I try to think about it from the author's perspective.
Thing is, Kojima and whoever assists him with the writing in these games, doesn't have a very good grasp on the reality of life in service. They have advisors on hand for technical details, but when it comes to the actual character archetypes, they're pretty much relying on movies. This shouldn't be much surprise to anyone, Kojima is obsessed with movies, and to my knowledge has never served in the military.
What's interesting is that the philosophies that his characters espouse sounds less like something out of a war movie, and more like something out of a samurai movie.
They obsess over things like loyalty and honour, pontificate endlessly about what ideals they fight for, and they talk about war and "the battlefield" as if their lives would be meaningless without it. Just go back and watch those cutscenes between Snake and The Boss at the end of MGS3 and tell me that doesn't sound like an exchange between two Japanese generals prior to an epic sword battle. Hell, the entire relationship between Snake and the Boss is far more samurai and his master than it is soldier and his commanding officer.
Thing is, once I noticed this, it started showing up in other games, anime, and Japanese popular fiction, so I'm not sure if that's just a cultural thing, like this is just a Japanese ideal of what a hero should be, and therefore heroic soldiers should fit that mould, or if Kojima was taking a more specific inspiration and wanted that archetype for his characters.
Anyway, just a little food for thought.
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