Okay, fair point. But still, I am so sick of Raiden being described as some kind of ineffectual loser, when he's not. He is awesome and personally I would have been totally cool with Kojima exploring his massive amounts of trauma more, not that I'm not writing two extremely long fanfic that do exactly that or anything. And anyway, would it have been so hard to throw some kind of qualifier in there, like "He appears to have no actual combat experience," or "He says he has no actual combat experience." I mean, the game's been out for years, it's not like they need to worry about spoilers.
And is he really that emotional? He spends most of his codec conversations with Rose trying to fend off her attempts at establishing emotional intimacy, other than that one time they reminisce about their first meeting. Personally he's always struck me as pretty emotionally stunted, like he's working off some ideas he has about how normal relationships are supposed to work, but doesn't really have any basis in his own experience. And no, I'm not bringing that up in my fanfic either. Really, the girliest thing about Raiden is the way he falls over, and you can hardly fault him for something like that.
I'm also sick of people saying he's gay. Yeah, I totally slash him, but in canon he has a girlfriend. And he always reacts to Vamp with disdain, if not outright antipathy. I like the fact that most authors in the fandom make them work through some initial awkwardness when slashing them, and tend to base any kind of sexual relationship on the fact that they are too incredibly messed up, introverted people, rather than trying to say they've got some kind of fated romance or Raiden was secretly lusting for Vamp's marblesque crotch all along, because that so would not work for the pairing.
I keep running into the character limit when I talk to you, Fly. flight_wo_wingsNovember 24 2010, 14:19:22 UTC
Okay, before I get my metapants on I need you to know that this comment made me laugh way too hard. I needed that, thanks. Also I think I want to marry you for mentioning Python, because I watched a walkthrough of Portable Ops last week and oh my god, Python is awesome. With his angst over Big Boss and his history as a pawn of the government and victim of immoral experiments, and his Pinheadesque head. So much love. I don't think it'd be going too far to label him the cyborg ninja of Portable Ops, would you? I mean, he's definitely more of a cyborg than Olga.
I definitely agree that there's a ridiculous double standard between the degree of emotional anguish Big Boss is allowed display versus what Raiden's allowed to display, though I'd like to point out that Big Boss' emotions might also be slightly more acceptable because he's also reacting to events happening on a more epic scale. Raiden has to deal with a clingy girlfriend -- Big Boss had to shoot his beloved mentor (who also happened to be a hot cougar) in the head. While I doubt any players of MGS have ever had to do the latter, the odds are pretty good many of them have had to deal with clingy significant others or parents, or have watched other people deal with the same. The element of familiarity ruins some of the mystique. It's kind of like how I'm completely uninterested in reading high school AUs or stories about kids going to high school, unless they're going to high school AND piloting giant robots to save the world, because I hated high school and don't want to think about it when I'm trying to indulge in some escapism. But that doesn't really excuse the fact that yeah, saying Raiden's girly is horrible on multiple levels.
The only aspect where he is much more emotional than Snake is the one where he is willing to admit when he's suffering because of the mission -
I think you've nailed one of the reasons why I was so dissatisfied with his character development in MGS4. Raiden may be emotionally stunted, but he's still more accessible, emotionally speaking, than Snake. He's willing to admit that he's having trouble dealing with all the crazy shit he's experiencing, and it looked like he was on the road to truly baring his soul to Rose and asking her for help before she turned out to be spy for the Patriots. In a sense, he really is meant to be a stand-in for the player; even though he's not actually a rookie, his PTSD brings him down to that level, and he reacts to things in ways a normal person could conceivably react. Of course, Snake does that too, but watching someone drink themselves into oblivion so as to dull the pain of punching your best friend to death in a minefield wouldn't make for a very interesting game.
I've never felt a wordiness like this before!flight_wo_wingsNovember 24 2010, 14:19:54 UTC
Anyway, the original point I was going for before I went off on a tangent was that, in MGS4, he stops talking about his own personal issues. He turns into a total death seeker, who only cares about his own safety in so far as he will go charging into the most dangerous situations possible, because he wants to die. I think it's kind of sad, really. He was on the road to something like recovery at the end of MGS2, and then he just gets shut down completely. Even the "happy ending" he gets with Rose and John didn't seem like enough, because even then he's completely full of self-loathing. And how he's ever going to trust Rose again after everything she put him through, anyway?
It kind of makes me wonder of Kojima ever entertained the idea of just killing Rose off, like Gray Fox killed Natasha/Gustava in MG2. There are a lot of parallels between Fox and Raiden, after all.
Also, yeah, it's seriously kind of hilarious, in a completely awful way, how much the male part of the fandom did a 180 degree turn over Raiden. Did they not notice all the sexual tension brewing on-screen between him and Vamp? Then again, it seems like most of those guys have gay-shaped blinkers on or something; I hear from a friend who sometimes frequents MGS message boards that even now you still sometimes get new players showing up to ask if anyone else thinks that Raikov guy might be a little gay. Or there's the guys on youtube who completely flip their shit whenever someone posts the date with Kaz mission, like the fact that Big Boss might have been bisexual would RUIN THE SERIES FOREVER or something. It's enough to make me ashamed of my own gender.
Also the heels are silly, but not as silly as Raiden holding his sword in his mouth. What is this, One Piece?
But yeah, his actual portrayal is almost defensively heterosexual,
Considering that he's a former child soldier, it honestly wouldn't surprise me if he had some Issues with gay men. But that train of thought is really too horrible to stay on for very long.
But yeah, I could totally see some purely physical sexual attraction, I just don't think Raiden would be immediately willing to jump into bed with Vamp unless they'd already established some basis for a relationship other than trying to stab each other with knives. There's that one fanfic by Falstaff, Privideniya; I tend to consider that the definitive take on Vamp/Raiden, simply because there is so much awkwardness between them, and they spend so much time working through their issues with each other in a way that involves virtually no introspection, but rather a slow understanding of each other in an almost physical sense. Like they needed to get used to having each other inside their personal space before the relationship could progress further, if that makes sense.
I really wish she'd pick that fic up again, even though the entire half concerning Ocelot has been hopelessly jossed. It was really cool.
Vamp sure did grow a lot of body hair between 2 and 4. :O What exactly was IN those nanomachines, Naomi?
I AGREE COMPLETELY. It's like Kojima, nooooo, tell us more! But then I feel that way about the MGS3 bosses too. I want to hear more about the bees.
Ah, but see, the player expected all that. Anyone with any prior experience in the series would have already fought an angry British clone, a cowboy, a psychic, an enormous tattooed Inuit, and a sniper with a never-explained but clearly supernatural resistance to cold. Or possibly a man covered in bees, a spider man with double-jointed everything, a photosynthetic sniper, an angry Russian cosmonaut with a flamethrower, a ghost, and a sadistic Russian guy with unexplained lightning powers if you did things backwards like me. And that's not even going into the craziness of MG1 and 2. (NASA ninjas!)
My point is that players don't think these things are weird, so they don't tend to dwell on them, especially if the player in question is a member of the heterosexual white boy demographic that skips cut scenes (the heathens!) whenever they get the chance and just wants to shoot things. To such a player, Rose stands out like a sore thumb because she's so ordinary, until we find out she's really a Patriot spy anyway.
So basically my point is that Raiden's experiences really aren't that ordinary, but they seem to be because fanboys are stupid and don't pay attention. It's a rather neat theory, I think. XD It can be used to explain so many things.
I like Rose, but I don't really trust her. She's lied about too many things, and her reasons for doing so are really vague. And I don't care who you are, bothering your boyfriend about your anniversary while he's on a life-or-death mission to save the President is a really dumb idea.
And is he really that emotional? He spends most of his codec conversations with Rose trying to fend off her attempts at establishing emotional intimacy, other than that one time they reminisce about their first meeting. Personally he's always struck me as pretty emotionally stunted, like he's working off some ideas he has about how normal relationships are supposed to work, but doesn't really have any basis in his own experience. And no, I'm not bringing that up in my fanfic either. Really, the girliest thing about Raiden is the way he falls over, and you can hardly fault him for something like that.
I'm also sick of people saying he's gay. Yeah, I totally slash him, but in canon he has a girlfriend. And he always reacts to Vamp with disdain, if not outright antipathy. I like the fact that most authors in the fandom make them work through some initial awkwardness when slashing them, and tend to base any kind of sexual relationship on the fact that they are too incredibly messed up, introverted people, rather than trying to say they've got some kind of fated romance or Raiden was secretly lusting for Vamp's marblesque crotch all along, because that so would not work for the pairing.
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I definitely agree that there's a ridiculous double standard between the degree of emotional anguish Big Boss is allowed display versus what Raiden's allowed to display, though I'd like to point out that Big Boss' emotions might also be slightly more acceptable because he's also reacting to events happening on a more epic scale. Raiden has to deal with a clingy girlfriend -- Big Boss had to shoot his beloved mentor (who also happened to be a hot cougar) in the head. While I doubt any players of MGS have ever had to do the latter, the odds are pretty good many of them have had to deal with clingy significant others or parents, or have watched other people deal with the same. The element of familiarity ruins some of the mystique. It's kind of like how I'm completely uninterested in reading high school AUs or stories about kids going to high school, unless they're going to high school AND piloting giant robots to save the world, because I hated high school and don't want to think about it when I'm trying to indulge in some escapism. But that doesn't really excuse the fact that yeah, saying Raiden's girly is horrible on multiple levels.
The only aspect where he is much more emotional than Snake is the one where he is willing to admit when he's suffering because of the mission -
I think you've nailed one of the reasons why I was so dissatisfied with his character development in MGS4. Raiden may be emotionally stunted, but he's still more accessible, emotionally speaking, than Snake. He's willing to admit that he's having trouble dealing with all the crazy shit he's experiencing, and it looked like he was on the road to truly baring his soul to Rose and asking her for help before she turned out to be spy for the Patriots. In a sense, he really is meant to be a stand-in for the player; even though he's not actually a rookie, his PTSD brings him down to that level, and he reacts to things in ways a normal person could conceivably react. Of course, Snake does that too, but watching someone drink themselves into oblivion so as to dull the pain of punching your best friend to death in a minefield wouldn't make for a very interesting game.
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It kind of makes me wonder of Kojima ever entertained the idea of just killing Rose off, like Gray Fox killed Natasha/Gustava in MG2. There are a lot of parallels between Fox and Raiden, after all.
Also, yeah, it's seriously kind of hilarious, in a completely awful way, how much the male part of the fandom did a 180 degree turn over Raiden. Did they not notice all the sexual tension brewing on-screen between him and Vamp? Then again, it seems like most of those guys have gay-shaped blinkers on or something; I hear from a friend who sometimes frequents MGS message boards that even now you still sometimes get new players showing up to ask if anyone else thinks that Raikov guy might be a little gay. Or there's the guys on youtube who completely flip their shit whenever someone posts the date with Kaz mission, like the fact that Big Boss might have been bisexual would RUIN THE SERIES FOREVER or something. It's enough to make me ashamed of my own gender.
Also the heels are silly, but not as silly as Raiden holding his sword in his mouth. What is this, One Piece?
But yeah, his actual portrayal is almost defensively heterosexual,
Considering that he's a former child soldier, it honestly wouldn't surprise me if he had some Issues with gay men. But that train of thought is really too horrible to stay on for very long.
But yeah, I could totally see some purely physical sexual attraction, I just don't think Raiden would be immediately willing to jump into bed with Vamp unless they'd already established some basis for a relationship other than trying to stab each other with knives. There's that one fanfic by Falstaff, Privideniya; I tend to consider that the definitive take on Vamp/Raiden, simply because there is so much awkwardness between them, and they spend so much time working through their issues with each other in a way that involves virtually no introspection, but rather a slow understanding of each other in an almost physical sense. Like they needed to get used to having each other inside their personal space before the relationship could progress further, if that makes sense.
I really wish she'd pick that fic up again, even though the entire half concerning Ocelot has been hopelessly jossed. It was really cool.
Vamp sure did grow a lot of body hair between 2 and 4. :O What exactly was IN those nanomachines, Naomi?
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(The comment has been removed)
Ah, but see, the player expected all that. Anyone with any prior experience in the series would have already fought an angry British clone, a cowboy, a psychic, an enormous tattooed Inuit, and a sniper with a never-explained but clearly supernatural resistance to cold. Or possibly a man covered in bees, a spider man with double-jointed everything, a photosynthetic sniper, an angry Russian cosmonaut with a flamethrower, a ghost, and a sadistic Russian guy with unexplained lightning powers if you did things backwards like me. And that's not even going into the craziness of MG1 and 2. (NASA ninjas!)
My point is that players don't think these things are weird, so they don't tend to dwell on them, especially if the player in question is a member of the heterosexual white boy demographic that skips cut scenes (the heathens!) whenever they get the chance and just wants to shoot things. To such a player, Rose stands out like a sore thumb because she's so ordinary, until we find out she's really a Patriot spy anyway.
So basically my point is that Raiden's experiences really aren't that ordinary, but they seem to be because fanboys are stupid and don't pay attention. It's a rather neat theory, I think. XD It can be used to explain so many things.
I like Rose, but I don't really trust her. She's lied about too many things, and her reasons for doing so are really vague. And I don't care who you are, bothering your boyfriend about your anniversary while he's on a life-or-death mission to save the President is a really dumb idea.
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