Raiden

Raiden (雷電), real name Jack (ジャック), was the adoptive son of George Sears. He was adopted after his parents were both killed by Solidus early in his childhood. From an early age he was trained to be a soldier and earned several nicknames due to his skill in combat. During The Manhattan Incident, he discovered that George Sears was Solidus Snake, and that Solidus killed his parents. Sometime after this, he was outfitted with a cyborg exoskeleton to keep him alive after being tortured by The Patriots in which they removed part of his head.

Early Years
Raiden was adopted by Solidus Snake after Solidus killed his parents, but before that, it rained when he was born. He became a child soldier from as young as the age of six, in Solidus' "Army of the Devil" as part of the "small boys unit" during the first Liberian Civil War. Like the rest of his unit, he was regularly drugged in order to be conditioned and kept under control. Survival meant he was commended and rewarded, and killing to survive became his only purpose. He was trained personally by Solidus, to the extent that Solidus declared, "Your name... your skills... everything you know, you learned from me." Due to Jack's outstanding kill record, he gained a number of nicknames, two of the most prominent being "Jack the Ripper" and "White Devil", the latter probably in reference to his pale skin and white hair. When the war ended, Jack was one of the survivors, and Solidus lost track of him.

Early Career, And Meeting Rose
After the end of the Civil War, Jack left Liberia for the United States and eventually forgot his past. There he joined the United States Army's Task Force 21 Corps, where he received further training, and possible mental reconditioning before being eventually deployed on the ill-fated Big Shell mission. He also trained through various virtual reality simulations, including some which were based on the Shadow Moses and Tanker incidents that Solid Snake was a major participant in.

On April 30th, 2007, Jack met Rosemary with the two arguing over which building King Kong climbed in the movie of the same name. They continued to argue all the way to Battery Park only to discover the Skyscraper Museum was closed. The two went their separate ways. They met again afterwards, shocked that they worked in the same place, and later went to the top of the Empire State Building, suddenly not caring who was right or wrong. Eventually, Jack grew to love Rose deeply, but his harsh experiences had left him melancholic and emotionally distant, and he constantly shut her out of his problems. Rose was persistent in getting Jack to open up to her, even during his missions, which became a constant source vexation for him. It isn't until the end of the Big Shell incident that Jack regained his memories and finally opens up to her, explaining that his past had for a long time been a jumbled mess, and even though it haunted him he could never quite put it together to figure out why. Jack's revelation later brought Rose closer to him.

At the beginning of the Big Shell mission, he was shortly referred to as Snake before his codename was quickly changed to Raiden by Colonel Campbell, as the leader of the terrorists was also referring to himself as Solid Snake. The terrorist leader was later revealed to be none other than Raiden's adoptive father, Solidus Snake. Raiden took to the mission with much hesitance, as he had only been trained in VR missions and had no actual field experience and often proved somewhat indecisive at times.

Raiden later met up with Iroquois Pliskin a Lieutenant Junior Grade with the United States Navy SEALs, who was revealed to be the true Solid Snake, who had faked his death two years prior during The Tanker Incident. Raiden and Snake were able to join forces to take down Dead Cell and implant a virus into GW, the Patriots AI that was running Arsenal Gear, an enormous Patriots warship built under the Big Shell. He was then captured by Olga and Snake, but Olga freed him shortly afterwards, telling him they needed to use him so Snake could sneak on board. Raiden then met up with Snake, who gave him Olga's High Frequency Blade. The pair battled through Arsenal Gear's Arsenal Tengu commando soldiers before encountering Fortune. Snaked told Raiden to go ahead, with Fortune claiming that Snake was the root of all her misery. Raiden, hesitant at first, left Snake to face Fortune. Raiden went on to battle against the horde of mass-produced versions of Metal Gear RAYs managing to defeat several of the before collapsing from exhaustion. Just as Raiden was about to be killed, Olga came to his aid. By doing this, she revealed herself as an enemy of Solidus, who appeared and killed Olga. Olga's final words were for Raiden to live. As Solidus ordered the remaining RAYs to kill Raiden, the virus planted into GW went into effect, disabling the the RAYs which were disposed by Solidus out of anger.

Later into the mission, it was revealed that Raiden was merely a puppet of The Patriots, and that his entire mission on the Big Shell was a lie, a scripted event cunningly devised by the Patriots. Additionally, the "Colonel" he was speaking to was actually GW, an AI created by the Patriots, posing as Colonel Roy Campbell, created by Raiden's hopes and expectations of Campbell. They told him that he was just a weapon, a creation of the Patriots with no purpose but for what they made him. The AI instructed Raiden to defeat Solidus, which he had no choice but to do, as Solidus planned on launching a nuclear strike which would wipe out Manhattan.

After the fierce battle on top of Federal Hall, it was then revealed that even Rose, Raiden's longtime girlfriend, was a Patriots spy sent to keep tabs on him, who even went as far as to alter her appearance to Raiden's liking so that he would keep her in his life. Raiden solemnly forgave Rose, who had actually fallen in love with him over time, and they agreed to start a new life together.

Rescuing Sunny
Following the Manhattan Incident, Raiden met Big Mama, the leader of Paradise Lost, an anti-Patriots resistance group. Big Mama supplied Raiden with the whereabouts of Sunny Gurlukovich in exchange for the data he had obtained on Big Boss's location from GW. During this time, Raiden experienced a progressively worsening case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder stemming from the suppressed memories uncovered at the end of the Manhattan Incident, and his emotional problems reached a peak following his rescue of Sunny. Raiden began to abuse alcohol and stay out late, often coming home drunk and covered in cuts and bruises. Rose eventually told Raiden that she had suffered a miscarriage, and his alcoholic behavior continued until, one night, he didn't come home.

Raiden later helped Paradise Lost in attempting to retrieve Big Boss' remains, but was captured by the Patriots, who kept him in Area 51 where they subjected him to brutal torture and used him as a guinea pig for their experiments in exoskeletal enhancement surgery, during which his head was severed at the jaw and transplanted to an entirely synthetic body. He was eventually rescued by EVA and her resistance forces, and would go on to track down the underground cybernetic expert Dr. Madnar, who would supply him with a new cybernetic body and white blood, in Eastern Europe. Following this, Raiden traveled the world, honing his techniques and developing skills as a tracker while living with natives in Alaska.

Raiden returned in 2014, and while Solid Snake was in South America, he contacted him through Codec, helping him track Naomi, also commenting that he had been helping Big Mama find the corpse of Big Boss. Raiden appeared in person in the South American Marketplace where he helped Snake and Otacon escape by fighting off the Gekko and later Vamp. He defeated Vamp once again and escaped with Snake, Otacon and Naomi.

After a dialysis and a "white blood" transfusion with the help of Dr. Madnar, he returned again to help Snake at Shadow Moses. He has a final face off with Vamp, after Snake returned him to his mortal state, on top of Metal Gear REX, with Raiden emerging the victor, finally killing Vamp once and for all. With Snake controlling REX, Raiden assisted in his escape by warding off the Gekko chasing them, eventually being caught under debris caused by the Suicide Gekko. He sets himself free from under the debris by removing his right arm. He put himself in the way of Outer Haven, stopping its path and holding it back. Raiden was crushed under it, screaming Rose's name and remembering a conversation of how they met as well as images reuniting with her at Federal Hall during the the end of the Manhattan Incident before he loses conciousness. He was confirmed later to be alive by Otacon but was in no state to help Snake in his final mission aboard Outer Haven.

However, as Snake made his way deeper into Haven, he was saved from a group of FROGS by Raiden, who was now wielding his sword between his teeth. As he defeated several of them but was eventually overwhelmed, but as Snake and Otacon destroyed GW once again, this time along with the other three AIs, the FROGS were incapacitated and unable to kill him.

Afterwards, Raiden was sent to a hospital and his old body parts were grafted back on, hence the deep scars seen over his joints. Upon Raiden waking up from his surgery, Rose and a small child entered the room, but Raiden ignored them both, thinking that the child was Roy Campbell's, who Rose had married during Raiden's disappearance into the Alaskan wilderness. Rose told Raiden that the child was his, and her miscarriage was a lie. She explained that her marriage to Campbell was a plan that they both had orchestrated to protect herself and their son from The Patriots so as to not give the Patriots any reason to capture Rose and John, as they would provide no leverage against Raiden. In other words, Raiden's lack of awareness of his son and his disdain for Rose meant that both would serve no purpose to the Patriots, as their suffering would not move him in any way. Stunned, Raiden forgave Rose once again, as she felt desperately guilty from being unable to tell him from the danger it presented. She proceeded to introduce their son as John and the three huddled together in reunion. To him, at that moment, it felt like a scene from Beauty and the Beast. But Rose reassured him that he was no beast, but her husband. Raiden then vowed that he was done running, while Rose vowed that she was done being scared.

Behind the Scenes

 * At the time of Metal Gear Solid 2's release, Raiden was disliked by many fans of the series due largely to his apparently "whiny" personality and largely androgenous appearance, as well as acting as the protagonist over Snake. However Hideo Kojima has stated in interviews that he was mainly put in for new fans of the series so that he could ask questions that a veteran like Solid Snake wouldn't ask, and to make Snake seem more impressive as a character. Hideo has also explicitly stated that Raiden is his favorite character in Metal Gear Solid 2.
 * Metal Gear Solid 3 makes use of Raiden's character as well as his appearance. Selecting the option "I like MGS2" before starting a new game, triggers a change in the opening, in which Naked Snake is wearing a mask that looks identical to Raiden's face. Later in the game, Major Ivan Raidenovich Raikov (who also bears an identical appearance to Raiden) must be neutralized and stripped of his clothing to be impersonated to infiltrate a section of Groznyj Grad.
 * Raiden himself appears as a recruit character in Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Plus modeled after his original Metal Gear Solid 2 look, and not his Cyborg Ninja look.
 * Raiden also appears in one of the Secret Theatre shorts made by Kojima Productions for their website. Entitled "Metal Gear Raiden: Snake Eraser" where Raiden attempts to "erase" Solid Snake by traveling back in time in a Terminator-like style and attempting to assassinate Naked Snake, all ending in failure in a humorous fashion. Even once, after realizing he wasn't going to kill Naked Snake, he went back to the events of the Zanzibar Land Uprising (complete with MSX graphics) to kill Solid Snake himself, ending in similar failure.
 * In the first Metal Gear Solid 4 trailer (which ran on the engine for MGS3, also known as the Metal Gear Solid 4 Directors trailer), Raiden makes a parody appearance along with Snake (dressed to look like Sam Fisher, the main character of the UbiSoft game, Splinter Cell). The trailer depicts them fighting over who will be the main character of MGS4, Snake wins the fight easily, sitting in the "main character" chair, signaling a chime. But just as Snake leaves and before the credits roll, Raiden is seen eying up the chair, and as the screen fades to black the same chime is heard.

Trivia

 * Raiden is the only cyborg ninja out of the entire series to have survived, as Gray Fox was killed by Liquid Snake and Olga Gurlukovich was killed by Solidus.
 * Raiden's never-used sidearm in MGS4 is the classic-mainstay SOCOM, as demonstrated by the Medicom Action Figure based off of the designs by Yoji Shinkawa