Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-3060460-20131118222424/@comment-9174065-20140321202114

Well, the bandana is just an icon of character. Big Boss wore his to remind him of his mentor, until he finally came to terms with her death and let it go. However, for Big Boss, I'd say his "icon" is more the eyepatch now than anything else. Solid Snake's icon IS the bandana. He chose to wear it every mission from MG2 on, with no real motive other than personal preference, and also maybe out of memory of when he first wore it along with the other members on his team during Zanzibar Land. Either way, he made the bandana his own; that much is clear.

And, if you think about it, wouldn't Big Boss be able to get an eye transplant if he really wanted to...? They have all this great technology in that universe before it should even be possible, such as robotic limbs and, um, METAL GEARS. To name a few. You'd think that it would be simple to just replace his eye, right? I have a feeling that Big Boss would have chosen to keep his damaged eye out of memory of taking a bullet for EVA, meaning it, too, is personal preference. He sacrificed his right eye to save a life, and if he just replaced it like it was nothing, that might come off as him renouncing the life he saved as though he didn't care. Of course, the eyepatch IS obviously an icon, as it was made to be so way back when the first MG was made, and therefore can't just disappear now, but if Kojima needed an excuse to explain it logically, I assume that it'd be something like this.

So, TL;DR -- I like Big Boss without his bandana from Peace Walker forth, with his eyepatch to replace the loss of the badassery, that was, The Boss's bandana. And Solid Snake? Bandana forever, baby.