Big Boss (Metal Gear)

**Big Boss,** real name **John**, also known as **Jack**, and formerly known as **Naked Snake**, **Vic Boss**, **Ishmael**, **Saladin**, or simply **Snake**, is one of the central characters of the *Metal Gear* series.

In 1964, a man named John, an agent of the Black Ops unit FOX, saves the world from nuclear Armageddon. Along the way, he's forced to slay his teacher and adoptive mother, codenamed "The Boss". For his actions, he is christened "Big Boss" by the President of the United States and inherits his teacher's title of "The Greatest Warrior of The Twentieth Century".

He later goes on to found the private military companies Militaires Sans Frontieres and Diamond Dogs, as well as the U.S. Army black ops group FOXHOUND. In the first Metal Gear game Big Boss secretly leads the uprising at Outer Heaven and sends FOXHOUND rookie Solid Snake to investigate it, not expecting that he will actually survive. In Metal Gear 2, Big Boss takes control of Zanzibar Land and kidnaps a scientist who developed an alternative fuel source. Solid Snake is sent in to rescue the scientist, and ultimately kills Big Boss with a makeshift flamethrower.

In the AWA fics, Big Boss is set to appear in a future AWA storyline.

## **Appearance**

Big Boss is a tall, muscular man with a short darkish-brown alongside a darkish-brown facial hair and has blue eyes with an eye patch covering his right eye.

## **Personality**

Big Boss had an innate desire for conflict, mostly because that was the only thing he truly knew, having been exposed to combat at a fairly young age. Big Boss often viewed subjects from a military perspective such as using environmental landmarks to set traps, and identifying with aspects of other countries, such as France, by their armed forces and national anthem. However, he was tolerant to people who believed in peace; even if his Outer Heaven vision involved giving the soldier a place where he would always be needed in the world, he had nothing against people who aspired for peace, as evidenced by his interaction with Paz's alleged beliefs towards peace.

He was also sometimes compassionate and forgiving towards his friends and enemies, forgiving Kazuhira Miller after he admitted that he was in on Cipher's plot and forgiving Ocelot for blinding his right eye. However, he was willing to kill Paz to prevent her from talking after she was captured by Cipher.

In addition, Big Boss disagreed with mercy killings, feeling that there was always another reason to live, as evidenced by his response to Amanda's request that he put Chico out of his misery, if the latter should reveal information under torture. Though Big Boss did kill his former friend Zero, it was mainly to finish off the Patriots.

During his youth, he was also willing to sacrifice himself for his country if need be, although his patriotism towards America came into serious question after he was forced to kill The Boss in a conspiracy that showcased to him how even the best of soldiers are expendable to the government. While Big Boss did still have some respect for his country, he wasn't going to live his life the way The Boss had, as a tool for corrupt political aims, and anything he did would be done out of loyalty to himself rather than a country.

The cornea and lens of Big Boss's right eye was damaged, and the eyeball itself ruptured, due to the muzzle burn from Major Ocelot's revolver in Operation Snake Eater. From then on he adopted the use of an eyepatch. Coincidentally, two of his clones would later utilize similar attire, but on their left eyes instead: Solidus Snake, to cover his own damaged eye, and Solid Snake, to aid the vision of his still functioning eye via the Solid Eye device.

Perhaps the biggest effect had on Big Boss's personality was when he was forced to kill The Boss, who was akin to a mother figure to him, during Operation Snake Eater, an action that haunted him for the rest of his life. In his final moments, he told Solid Snake that he was already dead from the moment he killed her. It wasn't until ten years after Operation Snake Eater that he was able to find some closure to the event and go by the title of Big Boss.

Big Boss was implied to be disillusioned after killing The Boss, misinterpreting her final message as The Boss wanted absolute freedom for all. His disillusionment was pushed further at the end of the Peace Walker Incident when Strangelove said that The Boss laid down her gun and wanted to live in peace. Big Boss at this moment believed that The Boss betrayed him and everything she stood for as a soldier. On his death in 2014, Big Boss finally realized what her final will was.

In his later years, Big Boss was shown to be a wisecracker, such as asking whether a uniform Snake procured was a girl's high school uniform, or whether he was moving house after he located a cardboard box.

Big Boss was fond of smoking cigars, and would do so even while undertaking a sneaking mission. He also ended up irritated whenever people either erroneously refer to his cigar as a cigarette or act as though they are the same thing, as evidenced by his reaction to Para-Medic and Sigint's statements about his cigar in 1964. Big Boss also drank alcohol, although he had enough restraint to keep himself from doing so during a mission. He also showed fluency in some foreign languages, such as Russian and French, and was shown to know at least a bit of Spanish.

During the time of Operation Snake Eater, Naked Snake was a fan of dog sledding.

Big Boss did not like spy-genre films, specifically the *James Bond* films, feeling that they didn't portray agent life realistically at all, to the point that he couldn't help but compare himself to Bond negatively even when he knew it was fiction. Because of this, he once got into an argument with Major Zero, who was a big James Bond fan. Zero assumed that one of the primary factors for his distaste was related to Bond's interaction with femme fatales. He also generally did not watch or follow pop culture aspects such as movies, although he was convinced by Para-Medic to see two movies during his missions in Tselinoyarsk: *A Fistful of Dollars* and *Jason and the Argonauts*.

Having a large appetite, Big Boss was willing to eat anything he could capture during his missions into Tselinoyarsk, sometimes not even caring if they were poisonous as long as they at least tasted good. This caused Para-Medic to either scold him if the animal in question was not something to eat, or jokingly call him a cannibal if he was eating something like snakes or jackfruit. During the Peace Walker Incident, he decided not to hunt any animals (although he did jump into the water to eat a raw Arowana fish while searching for the AI lab in Central Heredia during the Peace Walker Incident), as he and his men had plenty of food to eat. In 1984, after Ocelot provided information on certain animals, he would tell Venom Snake not to eat them.

Due to a combination of both his training under The Boss and his drills in FOX, Big Boss was resilient to varying levels of torture to prevent him from talking.

Big Boss possessed no qualms in utilizing unorthodox tactics, such as hiding in a cardboard box, or considering the idea of shooting down a hornets' nest on an unsuspecting soldier during the Virtuous Mission.

During his days as a CIA agent and mercenary, Big Boss indicated that he held several beliefs in myths and the supernatural, in conversations with his comrades:

* He stated that thinking about vampires gave him nightmares, in a radio conversation with Para-Medic regarding vampire bats. For this reason, he would rather she didn't utter the name "Dracula" when speaking to him (as she was quite the movie buff). His fear of vampires was also noted by a female soldier in the Militaires Sans Frontières.
* Big Boss revealed to Huey Emmerich that he believed in Santa Claus, going so far as to argue for his existence. Their conversation related to NORAD, and was in reference to an annual event called "NORAD tracks Santa."

Despite his beliefs, there had been instances where he was unfamiliar with some supernatural creatures, a notable example occurring during Operation Snake Eater, regarding the Zombie facepaint, where he expressed unfamiliarity with the concept of zombies.

In the early 1970s, Big Boss received a snake-shaped scar across his chest, similar to that of his mentor, The Boss. Although its appearance suggested that it was self-inflicted, the scar was actually a fake, and was used to store a jigsaw on his person in case he needed it in an emergency situation. Nevertheless, the shape and placement of the scar served as a visual testament to Big Boss's passion, and even obsession, with The Boss. In addition, similar to his compatriots, he also revered the Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara.

One of Big Boss's flaws was his tendency to underestimate people in regards to accomplishing a task. In one instance, during the Peace Walker Incident, he allowed Chico to sell a photograph of the Chrysalis UAV and pass it off as a UFO photo, believing wouldn't be successful, and another was during Solid Snake's mission in Outer Heaven, where he sent Snake into the fortress state believing that he wouldn't get far, in an attempt to spread misinformation to the West. Both times, this led to potentially disastrous consequences. The first time, Chico managed to sell the Chrysalis photo to a magazine, which, along with other supposed evidence, convinced Prime Minister Gairy to request that the UN set up an agency to investigate UFOs, drawing the ire of the CIA whom considered assassinating him. The second time resulted in Solid Snake gaining information on TX-55 Metal Gear and ultimately destroying it, causing the loss of Outer Heaven, Big Boss's command of FOXHOUND and the death of his best friend and body double, Venom Snake.

Big Boss intended to become an instructor after the events of Operation Snake Eater. In his later years, he eventually served as a combat instructor, working to reintegrate former child soldiers into society. However, he eventually came to believe that soldiers on the battlefield could never be reintegrated into society.

Through years of training and experience, Big Boss developed heightened levels of endurance and reflexes, surviving prolonged periods of pain, torture, and narrowly evading numerous near-fatal incidents.

## **Abilities**

**Powers and Abilities:** Genius Intelligence, Superhuman Physical Characteristics, Enhanced Senses, Master Martial Artist, Marksman and Infiltrator, Invisibility

**Attack Potency:** **Building level+** (Defeated Volgin, whose body carries a charge of 10 million volts, in close combat, and pushed up Cocoon), **City Block level** with weapons (His arsenal should be comparable to his son's).

**Speed:** **Supersonic+** with **Hypersonic** combat speed (Should be comparable to Snake, can fight against Ocelot, dodge Volgin's lightning, and defeat Null, who can block bullets).

**Lifting Strength:** **Class M** (Can push up Cocoon, which weighs approximately 9,500 tons).

**Striking Strength:** **Building Class+** (Defeated Volgin and the Boss)

**Durability:** **Building level+** (Withstood an extended, torturous beatdown from Volgin).

**Stamina:** Very high. Big Boss has incredible endurance and is an expert in wilderness survival, going on with little equipment at the beginning of Operation Snake Eater and surviving off of the wildlife for days as he performed his mission shortly after being gravely injured by the Boss. Even after Volgin tortured him to near death, electrocuting him and beating him down for an extended period of time, Big Boss quickly recovered and continued in his mission, going on to defeat both Volgin and the Boss. Even in his dying moments, as FOXDIE claimed him, he was able to keep on moving when others had instantly died.

**Range:** Standard melee range, tens of meters to hundreds of meters with weaponry.

**Standard Equipment:** Many weapons, such as a knife, pistols, rifles, sniper rifles, grenades, mines, C4, and rocket launchers. Other equipment includes a cardboard box, stealth mats, mine detectors, thermal and night vision goggles, and binoculars.

* **Active Sonar:** A portable device that uses sound waves to detect nearby objects and beings, making it useful for stealth operations. However, the sound it makes can give Big Boss' position away.
* **Anti-personnel Sensor:** A small personal device that can detect the heartbeats and electromagnetic fields of nearby lifeforms.
* **Camouflages:** During Operation Snake Eater, Naked Snake acquired a number of special camo uniforms, some of which possess special abilities.
	+ **Moss:** Gained from the End, the Moss Camo is very useful in grassy and forested areas and recharges Snake's stamina so long as he is exposed to light, with sunlight giving the most.
	+ **Sneaking Suit:** An early form of the Sneaking Suit utilized by his successor, Solid Snake, the Soviet Sneaking Suit is composed of an advanced bulletproof fiber and has exceptional insulation capabilities, making it very useful for defensive purposes.
	+ **Spider:** Gained from the Fear, the Spider Camo is an early form of stealth camouflage that bends light to render him effectively invisible, making him incredibly difficult to detect, but it does so at the expense of his stamina.
	+ **Spirit:** A "gift" from the Sorrow, the Spirit Camo eliminates the sound of Snake's footsteps and allows him to drain the stamina of others while he has them in his grip.
* **Fake Death Pill:** A small potassium cyanide capsule that Big Boss can take to put himself into a deathlike state as a ploy to fool enemies. Its effects can be counteracted by the revival pill in one of his teeth, but if he is in the state for too long, he will die.
* **Motion Detector:** A portable device that can detect nearby moving objects.
* **The Patriot:** A weapon specially made for the Boss, which she passed onto her successor upon her death. While it is quite lightweight, it has strong recoil and is incredibly difficult to aim. Thanks to its internal feed mechanism, which is shaped like an infinity symbol, it has infinite ammunition and can be fired indefinitely without needing to reload.
* **Sonic Eye:** A device that allows Big Boss to visualize sounds and detect their locations easily.

**Intelligence:** It is not for no reason that Big Boss is regarded as the greatest soldier in the world. Having been trained since a young age in combat, espionage, and survival by the Boss, Big Boss is a genius fluent in many languages and with extensive knowledge in subjects such as psychology. He is greatly skilled in CQC, having developed the art alongside the Boss herself, and he has used it to disarm and defeat others, ranging from the likes of Volgin to fellow masters of the art, such as Ocelot, Solid Snake, and the Boss herself. He can analyze situations quickly and act intelligently even under pressure, working to heal his own injuries while on the battlefield and treating EVA with Para-Medic's guidance, and can expertly lead his nation of Outer Heaven and all its soldiers.

**Weaknesses:** Big Boss is missing an eye, is not very academically smart, and has a tendency to underestimate others. He is also terrified of vampires.

## **Trivia**

* In the English version of *Metal Gear Solid*, Liquid Snake tells Solid Snake that Big Boss was in a coma when the Les Enfants Terribles project took place. In the Japanese version, it's simply stated that Big Boss was left sterile due to a combat injury.