Board Thread:Metal Gear Solid V/@comment-3365837-20150304213210/@comment-64.33.250.214-20150306175725

Psycho Mantis actually does address the player by reading the memory card (causing him to mention the different games in there, and even quote Hideo Kojima for some games in the Japanese version) and causing the player to move.

If you wouldn't rush to respond, you would have noticed that I explicitly said that Psycho Mantis addresses the player directly.

Not the same thing with Liquid where he says the exact same thing regardless of what the player actually did. I didn't say it was the same. I said that within the same game, Psycho Mantis addresses the player. I'm noticing that you seem to be a literalist in your manner of speaking.

And if that's not enough, The Twin Snakes even goes as far as to show you a flashback to Snake killing the soldiers when Liquid is taunting him (and before you claim they didn't have Kojima's involvement, let me remind you that The Twin Snakes' infamous cutscenes were Kojima's idea, so of course he was involved there), even if you tranquilized your enemies or knocked them out. Unless Kojima directed or scripted those cutscenes himself, then they were not technically his idea. Twin Snakes retconned a lot in terms of how cutscenes played out.

It may have been directed at the player in MGS4, but it most certainly wasn't directed at the player in MGS or in TTS.

How do you know for certain? Trophies, by the nature of their design, exist to break the fourth wall. If this fourth wall break was an homage to MGS1 (which evidence suggests it was) then you have to ask what makes it an homage. Killing in MGS1 was largely optional, so consider the symbolism behind the Liquid's quote.

If Liquid wasn't addressing the player, then how do you explain his statement that he "watched your face when you did it"? It's unlikely that Liquid could have seen a close up of Snake's face. Either he was lying or breaking the fourth wall to spook players. And BTW, if Pyro Bison's speech actually was inspired by Liquid's speech in Ghost Babel, it would have been made obvious by Pyro Bison saying the speech the same way Liquid did (ie, he doesn't generate a number that matches with the player and uses only one word that implies the total amount up to that point).

That's just taking things at face value. Kojima may have BASED the idea from Liquid's speech, but altered it so as to make it unique. Villains in the franchise normally have their own dialogue, and rarely do they recite lines from previous games. The exception is the "One Boss and One Snake" line, which is repeated in variation. And BTW, the definition of nihilism is claiming that nothing really matters or there isn't any point to believing in anything, and that's EXACTLY what The Boss promoted (heck, she even said explicitly that there's no point in believing in anything so long as you have the mission, and having relationships is the greatest sin a soldier could make). Believing in the mission is believing in something. Therefore it can't be nihilism. A true nihilist should be opposed to the idea of having any kind of purpose or involvement, such as in military/politics. At the end of the day, Boss and company have a goal. Which is to prevent war, to liberate the world from control, and to allow free will.

Yeah, and Kefka had the goal of destroying the world and making that his purpose

That is not a goal so much as it is a desire to remove goals from the world. Kefka didn't do anything after becoming a god, he didn't even completely destroy the world. During the latter part of Final Fantasy VI, Kefka did nothing but sit on his tower.

Skull Face also had the goal and purpose of liberating himself from Zero

Skull Face has not been fully fleshed out as a character. Ground Zeroes was just a teaser. We'll have to wait until Phantom Pain to learn the true scope of his goals.

as did the Joker trying to create "a new class of criminal" in The Dark Knight

The Joker said "This city deserves a better class of criminal, and I'm gonna give it to 'em." He didn't say that was his goal. His true motivation is chaos, and so he referred to himself as such. There's no grand scheme beyond that, he merely acts on a whim. The idea to make Batman choose over Rachel or Harvey was probably something he thought up while on the toilet. It's not something that required dedicating years of his life to planning.

And for the record, when she said, and I quote, "As long as we have "loyalty to the end," there's no point in believing in anything... even in those we love. [...] The only thing we can believe in with absolute certainty is the mission, Jack."

You're disproving your own point. If The Boss said she believes in the mission, then she believes in something. Nihilism means believing in nothing at all. She also believes in loyalty, which is a moral concept. Nihilism rejects all moral principles.

...Which is nihilistic in the end, since if it's impossible to prove truth, what's the point in even believing it.

If relativism were "nihilistic in the end" then it would not be relativism, it would be nihilism. It's true that relativism means not believing in an absolute truth, but that doesn't mean it is anti-truth, or that it discourages the discussion or pursuit of truth. You can believe in God and still be a relativist, but you must acknowledge that you cannot ultimately prove God. Only God can prove himself.