Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-5085906-20130627191357/@comment-4913740-20140803124500

Fair point. But how Boss is perceived doesn't have to be completely altered by player influence. Take the game Bully for example; you could treat people from every clique kindly and you do all their missions and what not. However, for story reasons, they're required to hate you at one point or another. And Big Boss is described negatively by Kaz in MG2. He has to do something to be regarded in that manner by his former friend, beyond rebelling against the Patriots since it's clearly a goal that Kaz shares in MGSV. Leaving this reputation's defining completely up to player action would not work well with the future continuity, although Kojima has stated that this game might not mesh well with the canon, so perhaps this is what he was referring to?

I failed to mention it, but I was also thinking of the clip where he smears ashes on his face. It was quite a strange act that nobody seems to question in the trailer.