Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-86.46.22.35-20130403153709/@comment-6747658-20130408083733

I say he is no one at all, instead he is a figment of Big Boss' imagination, and here is why I think so:

First of all, Ishmael claims he has watched over Big Boss for the past 9 years, but why is he a (buttnaked, really, you can see his crack in the gameplay trailer) patient with his head fully bandaged? That doesn't make much sense really.

Secondly, he injects Big Boss with Digoxin, I'll come back to that in a moment, but what's odd is, that syringe comes out of nowhere, as during his introduction, his hands are empty and it's not likely for a syringe containing Digoxin to be just laying around. Further more, Digoxin isn't a "pick me up" drug, it's used for heart failures. While yes it increases the efficiency of pumping blood, it also slows down the heart rate, it is not a drug you'd use to get someone back up on their feet.

Also, during the gameplay trailer when the elevator blows up and the two get blown away, we get to see that Ishmael is on fire and frantically beating it off to douse it..which is normal of course, but Ishmael is burning for a while and when he finally gets up he is -perfectly- fine, there are no burn marks or anything to be seen. For a guy whose been on fire for a bit, you'd think that would be present.

Lastly, though this may be purely due to the lack of events in the trailer, Ishmael is not at all seen anymore during the later parts. We last see him hiding with Big Boss but then that's it, he's gone. For someone who's supposedly watching Big Boss for 9 years, that is odd. You would think he is present when Snake meets Psycho Kid again outside and later when he meets Cowboy.

I think that, with everything going on, Ishmael is a figment of Big Boss' imagination, and serves as a bit of a narrator in the first part of the game.