Kaz - I hate him. Help me not (SPOILERS)

[socharis]

First thing, I largely skipped Ground Zero because I'm honestly not sure I have the stomach for what happens to Paz. I've seen the movie on YouTube though (skipping the squick and torture parts), so I know that Miller was a lot more affable earlier. My observations are based on his character in TPP.

1. Before I judge his character I've got to ask -- what does he do? Ostensibly he's the XO of Diamond Dogs, but other than relaying intel and giving a couple of speecehs he doesn't seem to do anything. Venom recruits soldiers, decides who to dismiss, how to allocate resources, which platforms to build, which roles staff are assigned to, who gets sent to quarantine, who gets deployed on which missions, how to handle nukes... nearly everything.
I could assume it's actually us lowkey playing as Kaz during the administrative parts of the game, but there are places where they specifically tell Venom that HE has to do this stuff, like with the quarantine. Furthermore, the intel he relays to you comes from the intel team VENOM builds and manages. What the Hell?

2. Emmerich deserves Hell, but Kaz seems all too eager to lower himself to torture just for the pleasure of it. He then waits until after the battle gear has been completed to judge him, giving him the false belief that Huey ever had a chance. And during his judgment of Huey, he's all too willing to sentence him to mob justice; simply murdering him on the spot. He's infuriated when Venom decides to exile him (wait, I thought Kaz was the XO. Surely this could have been the ONE time Kaz exercised his authority).

3a. Quiet. He's right to be suspicious of her, but going so far as to say he'll kill her if you bring her back despite both Venom and Ocelot coming to her defense is crazy. They weren't saying "let her roam free," they put her in a cell. His argument is that she's with Cipher; but the Diamond Dogs are entirely made up of individuals who've abandoned previous allegiences and have been welcomed into a band of outcasts. They even stuff the ones that haven't YET been convinced into the brig until they come around. I suspect he's angry at Cipher and wants to take it out on anyone associated with them, even if it means setting aside his stated values. And calling her an "it" was just a low blow.

3b. He's right to be suspicious of her wanting to go on missions with Venom; that's a crazy gamble. I'll give him that. He handled the situation like a child being denied chocolate, but he did have a point.

3c. When she jumps in the chlorine tank he's still stuck on the "what's this ♥♥♥♥♥ up to" idea. By this time she's gone on more missions with Venom than any of the grunts and earned both his and Ocelot's trust. That's just a personal annoyance; he's so caught up in his grudge against Cipher than nothing she says or does can ever earn her anthing even resembling the benefit of the doubt. How is that fair?

3d. When they find out she has the third English parasite, they torture her. Now this is ♥♥♥♥ed up on a lot of levels, because setting aside the countless times she's proven herself and the fact that torture is just plain ♥♥♥♥ed up.. she could have spoken English the moment she got on the base and infected everyone, like fifteen missions before we had any idea that there WAS a parasite, nevermind how to treat it. And what were they torturing her for? Information? If she'd answered his questions by speaking English she'd have doomed them all anyways. Was he just excited that he finally had something he could twist into a thin excuse to torture someone associated with Cipher? What the Hell was the point of it?

3e. When she leaves he STILL assumed the worst. In spite of everyone she'd done (and hadn't done, since even when she WAS forced to speak English she leaves the game to prevent it from hurting anyone).

Whether or not the hardships Kaz has faced (and I know there are many) have made him into a terrible person aside, he at the very least has no business being a leader of anything. He's bitter, cruel, irrational, and never thinks clearly or objectively. He's traumatized and likely suffering from PTST, I'll give him that; but those aren't good traits for a leader either.

Can someone please prove me wrong? I want to like him like everyone else seems to like him, but I'm finding it impossible. He's almost evil.

[Null]

You're gonna extract him?

[Deathraven13]

Kaz manage the whole place as in manage food, electricity, and he used to convince people before. So he his the mom basically.

For Emmerich Kaz lost a lot so of course he is furious. BB is the father (so he is superior).

Mommy want to protect the house.

Mommy his mad when she have her periods.

[socharis]

Originally posted by Deathraven13:

Kaz manage the whole place as in manage food, electricity, and he used to convince people before. So he his the mom basically.

For Emmerich Kaz lost a lot so of course he is furious. BB is the father (so he is superior).

Mommy want to protect the house.

Mommy his mad when she have her periods.

A leader should be cool under pressure and even-handed. Sort of like Ocelot (who I know is a double double double double double double double double double agent, but still).

[Holografix]

Have u completed all the missions?

[Deathraven13]

Originally posted by socharis:

Originally posted by Deathraven13:

Kaz manage the whole place as in manage food, electricity, and he used to convince people before. So he his the mom basically.

For Emmerich Kaz lost a lot so of course he is furious. BB is the father (so he is superior).

Mommy want to protect the house.

Mommy his mad when she have her periods.

A leader should be cool under pressure and even-handed. Sort of like Ocelot (who I know is a double double double double double double double double double agent, but still).

When you have been tortured and lost everything....... you have no time for BS like being a cool headed leader.

[socharis]

Originally posted by Deathraven13:

Originally posted by socharis:

A leader should be cool under pressure and even-handed. Sort of like Ocelot (who I know is a double double double double double double double double double agent, but still).

When you have been tortured and lost everything....... you have no time for BS like being a cool headed leader.

Which is exactly why he makes a bad leader.

[Deathraven13]

Originally posted by socharis:

Originally posted by Deathraven13:

When you have been tortured and lost everything....... you have no time for BS like being a cool headed leader.

Which is exactly why he makes a bad leader.

He does the job pretty well, you don't want to be on his bad side, besides him and the rest are just a decoy.

[excelatrate]

I like to see Ocelot and Kaz as two sides of Venom.[/B}
On one side, you have Ocelot who's cool, calculated and fairly democratic about things. He is more caring, he raises an animal and wants to save Quiet.

On the other side you have Kaz whos vengeful, impulsive, damaged and opposed to the world in general. He is hateful, he wants to kill Huey and Quiet.

Ocelot represents to me the part of Venom that still sees the beauty in the world and Kaz represents the vengeful, damaged part of Venom that has been too tortured over time to see reason.

In a way to me in the game they almost exist to function as literal manifestations of Venom's thoughts.

[abcd]

Kaz lost his vision, an arm and a leg to Russian torture for the sake of a more-convincing Cipher narrative. Also most of his lines are overdramatic and come off scripted, for example the speech on proxy wars where his sudden insight brings him to his knees to opine.

He's another puppet dancing on his strings, and he's mad about it. Really mad. He wants Boss to feel this way too, and to share in his desire for revenge. Sort of a vessel for the 'spirit' of Boss' vision, one who is literally blind yet uncannily perrceptive of his surroundings.

He's a poor leader but a good administrative lieutenant. Leadership requires putting aside feelings to make the 'right choice' for everyone, but the small details of administration are often so constant and overwhelming that something like an endless thirst for revenge can be quite helpful for staying motivated. The job also tends to be more concrete and focused on finding simple right/wrong answers to things like supply or morale problems. When those potential answers all turn into equally-bad decisions, that's when leadership comes into play. Miller usually defers a lot of those sorts of questions to Boss.

[Holografix]

why do you want people to convince you about Kaz?

[Firaeveus Carron]

Kaz has every right to be bitter, so does Big Boss. Sure, the Big Boss we play as doesn't express himself much in the Phantom Pain because it's not actually Big Boss and Konami likely didn't want to spend more money than they had to on Kiefer, but we do know that the real Big Boss ends up becoming bitter and cynical.

We don't get to see much of what Kaz does when we're not conversing with him, but he ran Mother Base and Diamond Dogs. Kaz has left a few base decisions to Big Boss, but an overwhelming majority of the decisions, implementations and managing of Mother Base and Diamond Dogs was done by Kaz. Big Boss has always been more of the figurehead and role model, just as he was when he was involved in the establishment of the Patriots.

Kaz is the embodiment of anger, bitterness and vengeance in the Phantom Pain. He has had everything taken away from him and has little to no tolerance for anyone or anything that contributed to his past losses, nor does he have much tolerance for anyone or anything that could potentially threaten what he has built up in the present.

If you ask me, it was clearly intentional to have Kaz struggle with his leadership role in MGSV. We saw a calm, collected and composed Kaz run the show in Peace Walker, but now we see him making rash decisions and frequently contending with the Boss and Ocelot because of his emotions. Personally, I enjoyed the character development. With the Boss and Ocelot remaining entirely composed throughout the entirety of MGSV, exploiting the events of the past to shatter Kaz's composure made things a bit more interesting.

Now, at the end of MGSV, we have Kaz essentially being left behind by the real Big Boss. For the first time, Big Boss ventures off to establish a new base of operations, Zanzibar Land, without his former co-leader. Kaz is left with absolutely nothing in the end and decides to eventually help out Solid Snake after feeling that he had been betrayed by Big Boss.

[socharis]

Originally posted by Holografix:

why do you want people to convince you about Kaz?

I know how popular he is; so I'm wondering if there's something I'm missing. I'm clearly in the minority. More than that, I (as the player) am supposed to feel a sense of camaraderie with him, but all I see is someone I'm not sure I want on my side, nevermind that he has the authority to brutally interrogate people.

To be perfectly fair, in terms of the interrogation scene I'm nearly as annoyed with Venom and Ocelot as I am with Kaz. They just sat back and let it happen. That's on them too.

[Grandmaster HellSpaWn]

Originally posted by socharis:

Originally posted by Deathraven13:

When you have been tortured and lost everything....... you have no time for BS like being a cool headed leader.

Which is exactly why he makes a bad leader.

This is stupid, no leader in the world would remain cool if he saw everything fall apart. lmao

[KarmaTheAlligator]

"My hamburger fell on the floor! Must be Cipher."

Originally posted by socharis:

Originally posted by Holografix:

why do you want people to convince you about Kaz?

I know how popular he is; so I'm wondering if there's something I'm missing. I'm clearly in the minority. More than that, I (as the player) am supposed to feel a sense of camaraderie with him, but all I see is someone I'm not sure I want on my side, nevermind that he has the authority to brutally interrogate people.

To be perfectly fair, in terms of the interrogation scene I'm nearly as annoyed with Venom and Ocelot as I am with Kaz. They just sat back and let it happen. That's on them too.

As far as I know, Kaz is popular not for how he is in TPP, but for how he is in Peace Walker.

[Holografix]

Originally posted by socharis:

Originally posted by Holografix:

why do you want people to convince you about Kaz?

I know how popular he is; so I'm wondering if there's something I'm missing. I'm clearly in the minority. More than that, I (as the player) am supposed to feel a sense of camaraderie with him, but all I see is someone I'm not sure I want on my side, nevermind that he has the authority to brutally interrogate people.

To be perfectly fair, in terms of the interrogation scene I'm nearly as annoyed with Venom and Ocelot as I am with Kaz. They just sat back and let it happen. That's on them too.

The Phantom Pain is a tough story. Full of bitterness, resentment, emptiness, loss of purpose, ill will, and most of all Revenge. Kaz, Venom and Ocelot are mercenaries. Quiet is ex-XOF These are not nice people. It is a complicated story as well. One of Kojima's most mature stories where it is all blur -- no bad, no good. Just tactics and merc maneuvers for pay and profit.

A good cutscene that describes how the player should feel about Kaz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yumgQ56XsNQ

So yeah, you aren't missing anything. Kaz is not likable. He is a good character, but he is not likable. The story might shed some sympathy towards him given that he's lost his arm and leg, but the speech he gives at the beginning of Chapter 2: Race has echoes of another character in Metal Gear Solid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJir93p7QWk Gene is a villain

Just like the song from the official soundtrack says, these are "Not Your Kind Of People."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k4os5vzyag