The Phantom Pain Analysis / The AI Pods Final Recording

One of the things I grew to really like about MGS4 was how Snake unknowingly carried on The Boss's will, philanthropys motto being "To Let The World Be" which was essentially The Boss's philosophy. Big Boss says at the end of the game "Boss you were right, it's not about trying to change the world, its about leaving the world the way it is, its about respecting the will of others, and believing in your own. Isn't that what you fought for?" Throughout the game Old Snake trudges through his final mission while this motto is pasted across his chest. The man who never met The Boss, the inferior clone doomed by his fathers genes carries on the will that his father so tragically failed to do.



And now with The Phantom Pain, Otacon has also become an inheritor of The Boss's will, and it's done very suitably and beautifully I think. In the final ai recording Strangelove is locked inside The Boss AI by Huey. She's left to suffocate to death as payback for sending Hal, her son to America so he is away from his psychotic father. Vanessa Marashall was fantastic playing Strangelove in Peace Walker and she steals the show again in the one and only piece of dialogue she has in this whole game. While slowly suffocating to death inside the mammal pod she pours her heart out to the boss, possibly to the boss ai hoping that her soul is in fact a part of the machine. It's also worth noting that the boss ai was also referred to as "the phantom hero" in peace walker. It's almost like a person on their death bed praying to god, which again is very suitable as The Boss IS the god of the series, she is constantly portrayed as a god, with zero and big boss being the two religions that misinterpret her will. mgs3 constantly portrayed her as the creator and innovator time and again, her purity, perfect foresight and all knowing nature together with her utmost loyalty really made her our to be this larger than life entity within the series, there is no other character that is at the same wavelength. There's also alot of room here to talk about how Kojima speaks through The Boss but we'll leave that for another day.



Anyway, during Strangeloves final moments as she pours her heart out to her god, her dying wish is that her son could carry The Boss's will, to somewhat redeem her of her sins, for whats shes done with taking part in the patriots ai's. She essentially created the destruction and saviour of the world at the same time. "They made me...simulate his will...so that even after the body was gone...that will would keep turning the way they wanted" This is strangelove as the destroyer of the world, and what her sins are. She programmed the ai's to inherit Zeros will and for the ai's to keep turning after the body was gone. This is what causes the world of mgs2 and mgs4. "If I could pass your will onto a child I carried.... My genes, your meme.... the father would be... irrelevant." This is Strangelove as the saviour From generation to generation to generation, the boss's meme is eventually passed down to the two men who rejected their genes, who rejected what fate told them, which perfectly contrasts the Strangeloves and the hueys and the big boss's who cannot break away and lean towards the dark side. This isn't completely true as Otacon and Snake in many ways were always pawns of the system, but they still did what was right within the cage they were trapped in. Its absolutely brilliant how this is done, how it ties so many of the overarching themes of the series and of course the core theme that ties every game together, what to pass on to the next generation. Absolutely brilliant, best part of the game easily in my opinion.



There is alot more that can be discussed here as well with regards to other things Strangelove says here, how she references The Boss's child and how that ties into these themes.The will that Ocelot so tragically carries etc but I'll leave that there for now.

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