Uploaded April 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
“You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” This quote, which sounds like ancient wisdom, is only from 2008, but has set a prevailing narrative since; today’s friends will be tomorrow’s enemies. It’s fitting for Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid 3, particularly The Boss, in a usual bout of fact vs fiction for the MGS series. The Boss’ story explores loyalty, ideals, nation, and more, which this video essay will attempt to explain; why does the hero become a villain?
With Metal Gear Solid Delta releasing this year, it was only right to have some discussion and analysis surrounding the story from Kojima’s Snake Eater, the game which introduced MGS fans to a new side of Big Boss. As the cold war threatened nuclear catastrophe between the United States and the Soviet Union, Snake is sent in to stop Volgin, the Soviet Commander, destroy Shagohod, the nuclear capable tank, and eliminate The Boss, the once American hero turned traitor/defector. However, as Snake comes to see, reality, truth, fact, is anything but this prevailing political narrative. After all, weren’t the US and USSR friends only a handful of years before they’re now raging enemies? The Boss is actually against “loyalty to the end,” the undying devotion to nation which allows such things to occur, where story and narrative shape facts and reality, rather than the other way around. The devotion she has isn’t to a country which morphes and changes so often, but to her ideals; to things like unity. She explains this is what’s important; what do you believe in, outside of these things lille nation which can only ever be false narratives? Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is well deserving of a video essay to analyze and discuss these themes
0:00 Intro
2:25 Part 1 | Obsolete and Obscure
11:50 Part 2 | Inherited Will
17:18 Part 3 | Fit the Narrative
25:33 Part 4 | Loyalty to the End
31:24 Outro
#mgs #mgs3 #metalgearsolid3 #videoessay
“You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” This quote, which sounds like ancient wisdom, is only from 2008, but has set a prevailing narrative since; today’s friends will be tomorrow’s enemies. It’s fitting for Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid 3, particularly The Boss, in a usual bout of fact vs fiction for the MGS series. The Boss’ story explores loyalty, ideals, nation, and more, which this video essay will attempt to explain; why does the hero become a villain?
With Metal Gear Solid Delta releasing this year, it was only right to have some discussion and analysis surrounding the story from Kojima’s Snake Eater, the game which introduced MGS fans to a new side of Big Boss. As the cold war threatened nuclear catastrophe between the United States and the Soviet Union, Snake is sent in to stop Volgin, the Soviet Commander, destroy Shagohod, the nuclear capable tank, and eliminate The Boss, the once American hero turned traitor/defector. However, as Snake comes to see, reality, truth, fact, is anything but this prevailing political narrative. After all, weren’t the US and USSR friends only a handful of years before they’re now raging enemies? The Boss is actually against “loyalty to the end,” the undying devotion to nation which allows such things to occur, where story and narrative shape facts and reality, rather than the other way around. The devotion she has isn’t to a country which morphes and changes so often, but to her ideals; to things like unity. She explains this is what’s important; what do you believe in, outside of these things lille nation which can only ever be false narratives? Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is well deserving of a video essay to analyze and discuss these themes
0:00 Intro
2:25 Part 1 | Obsolete and Obscure
11:50 Part 2 | Inherited Will
17:18 Part 3 | Fit the Narrative
25:33 Part 4 | Loyalty to the End
31:24 Outro
#mgs #mgs3 #metalgearsolid3 #videoessay
