Metal Gear Solid V: Phantom Pain - 10 Fan Theories That Save The Ending

4. Characters Are Neither Good Nor Evil, Merely Pawns

Another way to explain why the game didn't chronicle Big Boss' descent into villainy is because no one character in the entire series is purely "good" or "evil". Even Zero, who was introduced in 4 to be the mastermind behind the Patriots and a pretty crappy guy, was revealed in V to have been a vegetable the whole time, and that everything that happened after 1984 was pretty much out of his hands. Sure the likes of Ocelot, Big Boss and Zero are pretty shady people who you wouldn't trust to pick you up on time, but every single one, and even villains like Skull Face, all think they're doing the right thing. Even the most moustache-twirling baddies with names like Skull Face still retain a semblance of humanity, with motivations only slightly worse than the game's supposed "heroes." Solid Snake himself isn't a through and through good-guy, and MGS1 makes several allusions to the fact that he enjoys the killing and the trail of destruction that he leaves behind. In the end, everyone in the MGS series has been manipulated and played at some point, pitted against each other thanks to some higher power. Big Boss is played to kill The Boss, Solid Snake is played to kill Liquid Snake, and just about everyone has been tricked into murdering someone they weren't supposed to. MGS V, more than any other game in the series, blurred the morality of every character forever.