I want to talk about Paz because I feel her segments are pretty powerful in developing who your character is. The last thing your character would remember before being held in a comatose state and hypnotherapized is Paz. His last patient. You meet Paz in this game through a weird way that could have been missed completely and I feel that was a mistake. I found Paz's room by mistake. Others found it from people who posted about it on the internet. If you weren't looking for it, you could have easily missed it. That's a shame.
I understand the reason she wasn't talked about in the main story line at all. She isn't real. It's disheartening to think a lot of people will miss it. It shows a pretty fucked up cutscene of Doctor Boss going all in on Paz's vagina to find the second bomb and retcons the death. Through tapes in GZ we were told she was destined to death regardless of the bombs. She can't be alive even if they found the vagina bomb. Paz is dead as fuck. The V shaped wound hasn't healed a bit when you look at her either.
Every Wandering MSF Soldier side op you complete you get a photograph you show Paz. She mentions how great it was in '74 then says her head hurts. She provides a bit of backstory to PW and some character development. You find her with her wound half open at some point and Ocelot comes in saying the doctors don't know how it happened other than self inflicted. It gives you a feeling of protectiveness over Paz. It is a fucked up thing to hurt yourself, you'd intervene if your friend was doing something like that. This whole time you are showing her these photo's to help her through her trauma. And then you walk into the room. She is standing at her bed not facing snake, picking at her stomach as blood drops hit the ground. Snake seems concerned but does nothing. That is frustrating at first but there is nothing he can do. She turns around, digs into her stomach and pulls out a bomb. Falls back into the bed and explosion. Snake wakes up outside the room, unable to get in (with a disappearing butterfly for artistic effect).
Paz's little story path here really makes the character of Venom Snake feel a bit more realized in my opinion. She was his last patient, one he did not save. She was an integral part of Metal Gear story and has direct ties to Zero/Cipher who is/are played up as the main antagonist. It opens a small window into the mind of Venom Snake. He desperately wanted to help her and unfortunately couldn't. He desperately wanted to believe he got the second bomb, and she took her life in her own hands leaping from the helicopter. It adds to the "Punished" part of his name.
From the first cutscene where it shows him finding the vagina bomb it very clearly shows an MSF soldier running in front of Big Boss proper to take the blast of the explosion. The only characters we see in that helicopter are Big Boss, Chico, Paz and the Medic. The Pilot is too busy flying to rush out of his seat to shield the boss. While the very first mission gives a ton of hints that you are not Big Boss proper, that cutscene should give you idea that Big Boss couldn't have taken any serious shrapnel from an explosion. Which is what is explained in the first mission by the doctor. It's a little segment of the game that gives you hints that you are indeed not the boss, while also building a bit of character for this Medic who is not just someone who was "One of the very best we had". MGSV fails in some ways to make Venom Snake more than just a throwaway decoy. But the Paz sequences were a step in the right direction, while also reconnecting us with a character we know and understand.
Just about every Metal Gear character has his role to play in the overarching story. While Venom Snake certainly has that with being Big Boss' decoy while BB builds Outer Heaven (later tying the MSX games into the main lore properlyish) and ending skullface; he doesn't have anything lasting. There is something to say that this is the players chance to be a part of the story. That you yourself as a player have impacted the Metal Gear series but it's a weak leg to stand on.
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