Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-86.46.22.35-20130403153709/@comment-1672596-20150407095340

64.33.250.214 wrote: Also Ishmael has yet to be shown anytime after the hospital and there's one scene where he appears to be set on fire then a scene is shown later where he's not singed or anything.

Code Talker isn't shown outside of one scene, where he appears to be in a dark room with lit candles. Does that make him a hallucination?

Some would argue that Kojima was purposely being confusing with how he spliced the trailers together. It looks like Ishmael was being fired at during the hospital sequence, then the camera turns and we see a bandaged character standing in the doorway. We only see from the back a brief image of a bandaged character being shot at. So it could just be another hospital patient, and Kojima was trying to disorientate the audience.

Another example comes during the e3 2013 trailer, where Big Boss stands in front of imprisoned children. The scene following it shows Boss firing a gun. This gives off the illusion that he was gunning down those children. Others have suggested that these scenes were shot that way for dramatic effect, and that Boss probably wasn't firing at the children.

These are cinematography technics used to create hype, while minimizing plot spoilage.

Right, I don't know how you meant this, but it comes off mighty snooty imo, and how do you know Yong doesn't support the theory? even if he doesn't just because he hasn't done a video on it doesn't mean he hasn't considered doing so, maybe lack of info on the character is stopping him.

Maybe I was being snooty, that's up to you to interpret. I'm just perplexed by the sheer amount of fans who default to this theory whenever the topic of Ishmael's identity presents itself.

Yong made a video hypothesizing that Ishmael is the Medic. If he's willing to take that stance, I'm sure he'd be willing to cover the hallucination theory if he believed it. Maybe when gets bored with lack of Metal Gear news, he'll get around to it. The theory has been around for a while, and he jumped into the "Chico is Quiet" theory early on.

Care to elaborate? I haven't seen strong evidence against him being an hallucination. Then again in fairness I haven't seen any for either.

In the words of Solid Snake: "Are you kidding me?"

People claim Ishmael disappears after the hospital when Boss regains his senses. That he disappears after the car crash. Why name a character for such a short portion of the game? Names have important meaning to Kojima. Many should already know about the recurring Bible references throughout the franchise.

Ocelot: Adamska, or Adam

Eva: Eve

The story of Adam and Eve is familiar to most people. Eve tries to make Adam eat an apple, and there's something to do with a Snake. A scene in MGS4 shows Eva offering Ocelot an apple, while Solid Snake is standing there.

Big Boss: John

John was a major figure in the Gospel, who symbolically passed the torch to Jesus. Jesus is sometimes referred to as the son of David or son of Abraham. Boss respectively passed the torch to Solid.

Solid Snake: David

Biblical David is famous for being a child soldier when he was in his teens, who surpassed his brothers, and defeated the giant Goliath. He was one of eight children. Solid Snake joined the military in his teens, and was the child of eight clone embryos. He surpassed his brothers, and defeated a giant in the form of Metal Gear.

Liquid Snake: Eli, or Eliab

Eliab was a brother of David, and one of eight children. Eliab became jealous of David, because his father chose David over him as a soldier. Liquid was envious of Solid, because Solid was chosen as Boss's favorite clone.

????: Ishmael

Ishmael was a child of Abraham, cast aside in favor of his brother Isaac, who was the ancestor of David and Eliab. Prophecy said of Ishmael, "he will live in hostility toward all his brothers."

Because he's creator of the Metal Gear universe, Kojima has referred to himself in-game as "God".

Once you've taken into account the significance of the name Ishmael, it would seem uncharacteristic for Kojima's ongoing Biblical theme to make the character a mere hallucination with little role beyond the first chapter.

One thing often cited as evidence of Ishmael being a hallucination is that Snake isn't carried or helped to walk by Ishmael, but I've never seen an explanation of why that would be impossible to hallucinate.

The hospital gets overtaken by a group presumably out to get Big Boss. Why would you drag someone into a potential line of fire? Ishmael appears to be scouting ahead while Boss attempts to regain his senses and mobility.

Although I agree overall with your point (besides, even with the Fight Club reference, I honestly don't buy the whole "hallucination" theory when Ishmael was clearly seen driving the vehicle, not to mention Big Boss obviously couldn't have driven since A., he's just gotten out of a coma, and lost quite a bit of muscle memory as a result, and even if he DID somehow manage to remember how to drive in time, he's missing a functional arm, since he had a hook device in its place, which isn't going to have a lot of functionality in gripping, which, you know, you need to do to use the steering wheel), I do have some things to point out:

Namely, the only characters whose names specifically were intended to reference the bible were Ocelot and EVA, owing to the ADAM and EVA bit. Even then, only EVA actually plays up the references a lot. Solid Snake's name of David was actually meant to reference either Dave from 2001: A Space Odyssey, or Dave from Policenauts, John/Jack for Big Boss I suspect was to play out on the whole Raiden aspect after Raiden himself was initially viewed unfavorably by the Western Market, and we don't even know if Eli is actually going to be Liquid Snake, especially when Kojima never indicated one way or another that he actually IS Liquid. Don't forget, during Peace Walker's development, Kojima actually confirmed fairly early on that Kazuhira Miller and Master Miller were intended to be the same character, not to mention strongly implied that Huey Emmerich was indeed related to Otacon in a way only we would know, and I think he pulled similar stunts with Naked Snake and Major Ocelot in Snake Eater (and the former we never even see him identified as Big Boss until very late into the game), and if Eli actually were intended to be Liquid, he would have indicated it long before now. Besides, not all of the Les Enfants Terribles children had biblical names. Just look at Solidus Snake: His real name was George Sears, which unless I'm mistaken never even originated from the Bible. As far as Ishmael, that was actually intended to reference Moby Dick (as evidenced by the burning whale in the VGA 2012 trailer plus the GDC reveal trailer for 2013). Most of the names having biblical ties (again, exempting EVA and arguably Ocelot) are coincidental at best (not to mention I doubt Kojima has a lot of good views on the Christian or Biblical religion anyhow considering he effectively made an implied comparison between God and the Patriots, not to mention a comparison between Solidus and Satan and even implied the latter was the lesser of two evils).