Thread:Weedle McHairybug/@comment-1191892-20200203180054/@comment-1672596-20200203190815

Evil Tim wrote: Naw, they don't have to be direct, it's a scale. You can be sublte in how you approach it, it's just the general idea of recognising there is a world outside of the fictional one in some way, that there's something beyond the fourth wall. It's less breaking it and more bringing things inside it in that case, but it's still fourth wall humour since as an audience member you have to know the context of an in joke. For example, the thing about Big Boss' sniping experience works on its own, but it's pretty clear it's actually referring to the player's "experiences" of sniping while they were playing as the current character's son (well, technically his brother, clone and all).

And the fact that the series never addressed Snake's Revenge or the bad NES conversion of Metal Gear doesn't mean it can't make reference to Kojima's attitude towards Portable Ops, that's a total nonsequitur.

And of course there's a PA system, characters can hear music coming from somewhere and can recognise that it's stopped, and Naomi then tells you what that music is for. It doesn't mean any of the other music in the game is supposed to be there, just that one piece. 1. True, but if we're going to be doing a fourth wall thing, it'd better be something that is 100% confirmed and not allow for any other explanations.

2. Yeah, actually, it does, especially when Kojima generally tries to follow a pattern regarding these things (notice how most of the games tended to reuse plot elements and stories from other games, for example), that, and he certainly considered it canon enough to literally include stills from that game in Guns of the Patriots during montage scenes with EVA and Liquid Ocelot (to say little about the paintings in the chapel and even having Portable Ops explicitly being included in that timeline thing during Naomi's exposition speech in Act 2, the one that ended with two more games "under construction"). Besides, wouldn't it have been easier to just have Miller say "Finally, we can leave all that crap from Portable Ops behind... And break into the mercenary business for real."? That's what I would have done in Kojima's position to make clear that was meant to be a fourth wall break communicating my views and not an actual story detail.

3. And again, there's literally nothing beyond Snake commenting that the music stopped to point at a PA system (and I'm pretty sure him commenting on how the music stopped would hint that all the music other than MAYBE the outdoor BGMs are part of a pre-selected PA track). If there was a codec call from Meryl or Otacon noting that the base has an ongoing PA system to play tracks, that would work. There was more of a hint at a PA system with Metal Gear 2 where the music stops and is replaced with the Zanzibar anthem at times as well as having the soldiers stand at attention during that time while a voice says "attention", since at least there, it does in fact point to a PA system within the base interior at least. As it is, it could just as easily be the same thing as Kazooie's "the music's changed" remark.