10 Video Game Bosses You DON'T Want To Beat
4. The Boss - Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
Known as Voyevoda, or "The Warlord", The Boss was the creator of the Cobra Unit in Metal Gear Solid 3, a strike team devoted to defeating the axis powers in World War 2.
A philosopher (in both literal and esoteric in-game context), a brutal combatant, and the mother of Revolver Ocelot (making Ocelot, quite literally, the Boss Baby), The Boss presents a unique opponent to the player - she is both betrayer and betrayee, and despite understanding she is nothing but a pawn, continues with the mission devotedly.
Approaching The Boss in a field of ineffably blinding white blossoms, the fight starts explosively before getting progressively intimate, eventually ending in CQC (Close Quarters Combat, not Crispy Quail Colons), where she constantly compliments him on his growth as a soldier and a person. When she eventually falls, she passes her mission to him, and asks him to end her life.
The player accepts that, as Snake, they are also nothing more than a puppet of their superiors. In killing The Boss, Snake's former mentor, the player must play the part of merely perpetuating a cycle - the cycle of soldiers accepting orders in spite of emotions or moral implications.
After Snake Eater, Snake is given the name of "Big Boss", to imply he is in some way superior to The Boss - an empty title he himself initially refuses to accept - and perhaps the inability to choose in the face of duty is a disquisition on the structure of ALL videogames.
...Sorry, it got a bit serious there. Crispy quail colon, anybody?