Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-86.46.22.35-20130403153709/@comment-6747658-20130413123746

Well Kojima is not shy of retconning things considering some other retcons that have occurred during the series, however if he does choose for Ishmael to be actually Frank then it would retcon more then just Frank's story. In truth, Portable Ops already made the mistake of retconning Frank's background and set his potential birthdate somewhere in between 1950 and 1955, when you go by his Metal Gear appearances, you'd say he's about his early thirties at best but with his appearance and backstory in Portable Ops this makes him at least in his late thirties/early 40's.

One thing is for sure, Ground Zeroes and Phantom Pain really seem to great potential to retcon quite some things and established dates.

Back on topic, I still feel that Ishmael is in fact no one at all and just a figment of Big Boss' imagination. Adding in to what I already said in a few posts back, I did forget the ambulance crash scene where we see someone with bandages wrapped around his head behind the steering wheel, supposedly this again is Ishmael but in the aftermath of the crash, only Big Boss is seen crawling out of it, from there he meets up with Psycho Kid and a familiar Cowboy (believed to be Ocelot), we never see Ishmael again.

There's also the fact Ishmael is barely helping Big Boss to get around, for someone who's looked over the man for 9 years, this is very odd to say the least, even more so as they seem to be in a hurry to get out of the hospital.

Now I do hate to pick out a reference from a CoD game, but I think Black Ops explains the situation as best. Here the main character believes he is interacting with someone whom is revealed to be long dead, and all the actions that this man did were actually the actions of the main character himself.

People's mind can really be that messed up that they believe things, it's been seen before, so it may well be possible that Big Boss believes and sees a guy named Ishmael, but in reality it is all his own doing. This would explain why the so-called "pick-me-up" drug isn't working, why Ishmael is not helping Big Boss to move through the hospital and why he remains unharmed, as well as why only Big Boss ends up crawling out alone from the car crash.