"There are no facts, only interpretations." (The Man Who Sold the World-Truth spoilers and speculation)

[Valdyr]

Let me preface this by saying I'm fine if the "real" ending is that the "Truth" mission (and the "Truth Records" cassette tapes) is indeed telling us what actually happened; I just want to get that disclaimer out of the way so people don't derail the thread by trying to accuse me of just "not wanting to accept the truth" instead of discussing my ideas.

Basically, my proposal is this: Venom Snake and Jack are the same person, and the phantom/decoy plot is a fantasy cooked up in Jack's broken mind. I'll explain my reasoning for this in more detail below.

Anyway--why are we assuming the "Truth" mission/tapes actually represent reality, when the mission itself is introduced with a quote saying that truth doesn't exist? It's a direct, deliberate contradiction. Kojima didn't put it there by mistake. We only see "reality" in the game through the perspective of Venom Snake, and we already know he's an unreliable narrator. What do I mean by this? Well, the entire Paz side story, including an entire set of audio tapes, is nothing but a fantasy generated by Snake's delusions and hallucinations. The fantasy is so elaborate that not only can he listen to cassette tapes that (presumably) have nothing recorded on them, but he even "sees" Ocelot and Miller arrive in Paz's room to explain her supposed survival. Why should we assume that this is the only such delusion that Snake experiences? We know that Paz couldn't have survived, because it's simply not physically impossible and defies common sense. So why don't we apply that thinking to other things we're told are true?

Kojima has put some seriously over-the-top wacky sci-fi/supernatural stuff in his games, but he's always attempted at least a flimsy sort of "well, I guess that sort of makes sense in a crazy way" justification for it. But let's be honest: the whole concept of Venom being a MSF soldier who underwent hypnosis and plastic surgery to become a perfect decoy of Jack isn't just wacky, it's simply not possible, and Kojima doesn't try to throw in "parasites!" or "nanomachines!" to hand-wave it into making some kind of sense. The fact that it's simply absurd and impossible makes me wonder if it's just a delusion like Paz's "survival". Even if you had the best plastic surgery in the world to make another man look exactly like Jack, it's simply not possible that he would be able to be "taught" Jack's memories through hypnosis, or be able to perfectly imitate his voice--especially since he was in a coma for 9 years! Even the most skilled vocal impersonator would need time to practice and study their subject, and unless they were fortunate enough to already have a similar-enough vocal range and timbre, they couldn't fool the best friends and associates of the person they're imitating. We have no reason to think "Venom" was a master actor as well as a doctor and elite commando.

So I don't think "Venom Snake" exists except as a split-personality of Jack. The trauma of the attack on Mother Base, both physical and psychological, broke him. In the coma, he withdrew into the fantasy that he wasn't actually Big Boss, but someone else, in order for his mind to make sense of what happened. Big Boss wouldn't have missed the warning signs about Huey. Big Boss wouldn't have led all those men to their deaths for nothing, men who believed in him with unshakeable faith. Big Boss wouldn't have messed up and let Paz and Chico die right in front of him like that (and Miller, too, as far as he knows while he's still in the coma). But he remembers those things happening. So to resolve this internal contradiction, he performs mental gymnastics until he decides: he must not be Big Boss, just a fake, a phantom implanted with memories from the real Big Boss, through some hypnosis technique that only really exists in the realm of imagination.

All of the little "hints" throughout the game that Venom isn't Jack can be explained as more delusions and hallucinations, especially the Mammal Pod AI, whose sentience was destroyed at the end of Peace Walker when it was submerged in the lake. It's only capable of regurgitating quotes from The Boss now, not thinking or forming new phrases. It never said "Jack...it's not you, is it?", because The Boss never said that. It's just Venom/Jack's imagination, in a moment of paranoia where the conscious "knowledge" of the "decoy plot" almost rises to the surface, and he's afraid someone will realize he's a "fake". The DNA test of Eli never happened--that was all in Jack's imagination to reassure him that he had nothing to do with the clone son he never wanted and always hated--to reassure him he wasn't Big Boss, after all, but just a super secret espionage plot decoy, thus absolving him from some of the guilt about what happened 9 years ago.

What do you guys think? It could go either way for me, at this point, but I'm starting to like my interpretation more.

[Valdyr]

Oh yeah, and another really obvious "things that never happened because they're literally impossible" tidbit, that I've even heard people who don't subscribe to my interpretation point out: Just about all of the "truth record" tapes couldn't possibly logically exist. Who recorded them? Where did they come from? I say it's all in Jack's head, just like Paz.

[GrayHound]

Originally posted by Valdyr:

Let me preface this by saying I'm fine if the "real" ending is that the "Truth" mission (and the "Truth Records" cassette tapes) is indeed telling us what actually happened; I just want to get that disclaimer out of the way so people don't derail the thread by trying to accuse me of just "not wanting to accept the truth" instead of discussing my ideas.

Basically, my proposal is this: Venom Snake and Jack are the same person, and the phantom/decoy plot is a fantasy cooked up in Jack's broken mind. I'll explain my reasoning for this in more detail below.

Anyway--why are we assuming the "Truth" mission/tapes actually represent reality, when the mission itself is introduced with a quote saying that truth doesn't exist? It's a direct, deliberate contradiction. Kojima didn't put it there by mistake. We only see "reality" in the game through the perspective of Venom Snake, and we already know he's an unreliable narrator. What do I mean by this? Well, the entire Paz side story, including an entire set of audio tapes, is nothing but a fantasy generated by Snake's delusions and hallucinations. The fantasy is so elaborate that not only can he listen to cassette tapes that (presumably) have nothing recorded on them, but he even "sees" Ocelot and Miller arrive in Paz's room to explain her supposed survival. Why should we assume that this is the only such delusion that Snake experiences? We know that Paz couldn't have survived, because it's simply not physically impossible and defies common sense. So why don't we apply that thinking to other things we're told are true?

Kojima has put some seriously over-the-top wacky sci-fi/supernatural stuff in his games, but he's always attempted at least a flimsy sort of "well, I guess that sort of makes sense in a crazy way" justification for it. But let's be honest: the whole concept of Venom being a MSF soldier who underwent hypnosis and plastic surgery to become a perfect decoy of Jack isn't just wacky, it's simply not possible, and Kojima doesn't try to throw in "parasites!" or "nanomachines!" to hand-wave it into making some kind of sense. The fact that it's simply absurd and impossible makes me wonder if it's just a delusion like Paz's "survival". Even if you had the best plastic surgery in the world to make another man look exactly like Jack, it's simply not possible that he would be able to be "taught" Jack's memories through hypnosis, or be able to perfectly imitate his voice--especially since he was in a coma for 9 years! Even the most skilled vocal impersonator would need time to practice and study their subject, and unless they were fortunate enough to already have a similar-enough vocal range and timbre, they couldn't fool the best friends and associates of the person they're imitating. We have no reason to think "Venom" was a master actor as well as a doctor and elite commando.

So I don't think "Venom Snake" exists except as a split-personality of Jack. The trauma of the attack on Mother Base, both physical and psychological, broke him. In the coma, he withdrew into the fantasy that he wasn't actually Big Boss, but someone else, in order for his mind to make sense of what happened. Big Boss wouldn't have missed the warning signs about Huey. Big Boss wouldn't have led all those men to their deaths for nothing, men who believed in him with unshakeable faith. Big Boss wouldn't have messed up and let Paz and Chico die right in front of him like that (and Miller, too, as far as he knows while he's still in the coma). But he remembers those things happening. So to resolve this internal contradiction, he performs mental gymnastics until he decides: he must not be Big Boss, just a fake, a phantom implanted with memories from the real Big Boss, through some hypnosis technique that only really exists in the realm of imagination.

All of the little "hints" throughout the game that Venom isn't Jack can be explained as more delusions and hallucinations, especially the Mammal Pod AI, whose sentience was destroyed at the end of Peace Walker when it was submerged in the lake. It's only capable of regurgitating quotes from The Boss now, not thinking or forming new phrases. It never said "Jack...it's not you, is it?", because The Boss never said that. It's just Venom/Jack's imagination, in a moment of paranoia where the conscious "knowledge" of the "decoy plot" almost rises to the surface, and he's afraid someone will realize he's a "fake". The DNA test of Eli never happened--that was all in Jack's imagination to reassure him that he had nothing to do with the clone son he never wanted and always hated--to reassure him he wasn't Big Boss, after all, but just a super secret espionage plot decoy, thus absolving him from some of the guilt about what happened 9 years ago.

What do you guys think? It could go either way for me, at this point, but I'm starting to like my interpretation more.

No.

[supertrooper225]

I find that a very interesting theory. But I don't think it holds much water. Why didn't BB have the same scars and missing hand in the future? Stuff like that.

[Valdyr]

Originally posted by supertrooper225:

I find that a very interesting theory. But I don't think it holds much water. Why didn't BB have the same scars and missing hand in the future? Stuff like that.

Which future? Metal Gear 1/2, or MGS4? I didn't think we were really counting people's appearance in the old Metal Gear games, since Snake looked like Sylvester Stallone and Big Boss was Sean Connery. And wasn't Big Boss's body in MGS4 "rebuilt" from Solidus's body after BB got screwed up in MG2?

[supertrooper225]

Originally posted by Valdyr:

Originally posted by supertrooper225:

I find that a very interesting theory. But I don't think it holds much water. Why didn't BB have the same scars and missing hand in the future? Stuff like that.

Which future? Metal Gear 1/2, or MGS4? I didn't think we were really counting people's appearance in the old Metal Gear games, since Snake looked like Sylvester Stallone and Big Boss was Sean Connery. And wasn't Big Boss's body in MGS4 "rebuilt" from Solidus's body after BB got screwed up in MG2?

Yea, but they didn't mention anything about a hand and his face was apparently intact. No scars or anything... It doesn't seem to match up.

[Valdyr]

Originally posted by supertrooper225:

Yea, but they didn't mention anything about a hand and his face was apparently intact. No scars or anything... It doesn't seem to match up.

That's true, and it might be significant, or it might not be. Character designs can change quite a lot over the course of any given fictional series, and certain details can get retconned...like Big Boss having a totally different English voice as of MGSV, for instance.

[darkdeath174]

Wow I didn't know you were that close to John that you could use the name the Boss and his close friends call him.

As for what you say, no. Hideos twist is that we weren't playing Snake all along, we were playing his Phantom.

The title of this game even tells you the truth about Vemon. Kojima has stated that he would never use Roman numerals in a main game titles. So this game is actually Metal Gear Solid Vemon: The Phanom Pain. My guess is, if the fall out had never happened, we would have most likely got a actual MGS5 showing what Big Boss was up to.

[Raylight]

Spoilers - ...... Well Big boss (Venom) gets killed by Solid . Yet you see Naked snake talk to him at the end of mgs 4. Meaning that they would be 2 Big boss and Venom existence was real. + In some tapes there is conversation between ocelot and kaz about Venom and Naked snake being 2 different person. If all these tapes were Naked imagination the entire game itself would make no sense at all..

[ZetaZaku]

Originally posted by darkdeath174:

Kojima has stated that he would never use Roman numerals in a main game titles. So this game is actually Metal Gear Solid Vemon: The Phanom Pain. My guess is, if the fall out had never happened, we would have most likely got a actual MGS5 showing what Big Boss was up to.

Not really. Kojima wanted Peace Walker to be MGS5, but Konami didn't allow a PSP game to be a numbered game. If anything, MGSV would be MGS6. And you are right, V is probably refering to something. Either V for Venom, V for Peace, V for Vendetta lmao.

[Hazy_Maze_Cave]

I like it. And given the game world it's almost entirely feasible. There don't seem to be hard and fast boundaries about what is real and what is not in this game.

Interpretations indeed.

[Seraphic/8X]

I thought BB's name was John?

[Xarathox]

Originally posted by ϟ Lightning ϟ:

I thought BB's name was John?

It's John, Jack, Snake, Boss. He has no real name, just whatever someone wants to call him.

[Hazy_Maze_Cave]

My main problem with this theory is you kind of have to say anything can be a hallucination. Once there it is hard to support your theory because all evidence is suspect.

So tapes are out. And gameplay is out bc you see Paz. And cutscenes are out bc again Paz. There is no more game left!

I wonder, is Big Boss self aware? Self aware as a character in a video game? Solid Snake famously joked about "infinite ammo" but perhaps "Kept you waiting, huh?" in Ground Zeroes was BB talking to the audience.

Then again the game is there, and there are reasons why things are the way they are. Perhaps not literal, narrative truths to behold but symbolic and thematic. His guilt over Paz. Him turning his back on Kaz's newly hyper-conservative nature. Kaz has gone through a life-altering change here too. He lost an arm and a leg, lost his MSF, and lost his best friend for 9 years. If Big Boss is really Split Boss then maybe Kaz just realized what a liability he was. I think Kaz is a very practical man, the Wozniak to Big Boss's Jobs. He lost even more than the medic, thus is consumed by revenge. I think it is safe to say Kaz is more or less realistically portrayed by the events of MGSV.

Psycho Mantis is in Ground Zeroes as well, but in a flashback inside of a "Histocial Re-creation". The real Big Boss seems to know his part in the game. Dutifully re-creating moments from his cloned son Solid Snake's mission on Shadow Moses island.

I honestly think the theory has a lot of weight behind it. There are bits and pieces, memories from previous games, throughout MGSV.

If Big Boss is suffering from severe PTSD, brain damage, the total loss of everything he built, and the loss of his arm, I can see him splitting into good/evil twins during Ground Zeroes. It sort of fits with having the two Big Bosses in the airplane in the Paz retcon cutscene. The mirror scene makes a lot more sense as well. His personality has split as symbolized in his shattered visage.

He disappears into smoke. What about Kojima's timeline? Big Boss's Phantom is clearly the one to die. Perhaps he had been struggling with this duality, this split personality, this fight between good and evil, a one-man war, for too long. Solid Snake had to kill both the good and the bad sides of Split Boss's dual personalities.

[Misha]

Originally posted by Xarathox:

Originally posted by ϟ Lightning ϟ:

I thought BB's name was John?

It's John, Jack, Snake, Boss. He has no real name, just whatever someone wants to call him.

his name is John. But John can also be called Jack - becuase name John came from Jack. (or otherwise) geddit

[Valdyr]

Originally posted by Adam_Vania:

My main problem with this theory is you kind of have to say anything can be a hallucination. Once there it is hard to support your theory because all evidence is suspect.

So tapes are out. And gameplay is out bc you see Paz. And cutscenes are out bc again Paz. There is no more game left!

I wonder, is Big Boss self aware? Self aware as a character in a video game? Solid Snake famously joked about "infinite ammo" but perhaps "Kept you waiting, huh?" in Ground Zeroes was BB talking to the audience.

Then again the game is there, and there are reasons why things are the way they are. Perhaps not literal, narrative truths to behold but symbolic and thematic. His guilt over Paz. Him turning his back on Kaz's newly hyper-conservative nature. Kaz has gone through a life-altering change here too. He lost an arm and a leg, lost his MSF, and lost his best friend for 9 years. If Big Boss is really Split Boss then maybe Kaz just realized what a liability he was. I think Kaz is a very practical man, the Wozniak to Big Boss's Jobs. He lost even more than the medic, thus is consumed by revenge. I think it is safe to say Kaz is more or less realistically portrayed by the events of MGSV.

Psycho Mantis is in Ground Zeroes as well, but in a flashback inside of a "Histocial Re-creation". The real Big Boss seems to know his part in the game. Dutifully re-creating moments from his cloned son Solid Snake's mission on Shadow Moses island.

I honestly think the theory has a lot of weight behind it. There are bits and pieces, memories from previous games, throughout MGSV.

If Big Boss is suffering from severe PTSD, brain damage, the total loss of everything he built, and the loss of his arm, I can see him splitting into good/evil twins during Ground Zeroes. It sort of fits with having the two Big Bosses in the airplane in the Paz retcon cutscene. The mirror scene makes a lot more sense as well. His personality has split as symbolized in his shattered visage.

He disappears into smoke. What about Kojima's timeline? Big Boss's Phantom is clearly the one to die. Perhaps he had been struggling with this duality, this split personality, this fight between good and evil, a one-man war, for too long. Solid Snake had to kill both the good and the bad sides of Split Boss's dual personalities.

Thanks for your input. Yours is the kind of post I was hoping for.

I agree that it's a problem that all evidence in the game is suspect--but this is a problem Kojima created, not me. We only see things through Venom's perspective, and because of the Paz stuff, we know that he's capable of having very elaborate visual and auditory hallucinations and going to extraordinary lengths to rationalize them as "reality". The player may have suspected something was very wrong, but as far as Venom was concerned, it was real until he himself (as Paz) comes to the realization that he was inside a delusion and Paz died 9 years ago, after all.

I don't know how we'll ever know for sure if "Truth" is indeed true, or if I'm onto something with the idea that Jack is just deeply disturbed, or if the truth is something else entirely, unless Kojima himself decides to set the record straight. But I kind of doubt he will. It doesn't seem like him to give direct answers, except on really silly things that have persisted for too long (like the fan rumor about Quiet being Chico). And I think he deliberately intended for it to be ambiguous, hence the in-your-face paradox of the "Truth" mission opening with a quote saying truth does not exist. We've been given a gift from The Man Who Trolled the World...