The Boss' Contest History

Who is The Boss?
You’ll be hard pressed to find a character in the Metal Gear Solid universe as deep and well-developed as The Boss. Hell, you’ll be hard-pressed to find one as deep or well-developed in any game, period. Much like Revolver Ocelot in Metal Gear Solid 1 and 2, we see with The Boss a character that manages to have the events of an entire game wrapped around her little finger. She is the most feared people in the game. While having no extraordinary abilities herself, she still manages to command a group of people who can, respectively, control bees (The Pain), jump as if from a trampoline (The Fear), torch anything and anyone with a flamethrower/jetpack combo (The Fury), a person who could communicate with the dead before he joined them himself (The Sorrow), and lastly, the “father” of sniping and patience, far outstripping MGS1’s Sniper Wolf – The End, a 100 year-old man who can photosynthesise.

To re-iterate, The Boss has no special, crazy abilities. At all. She’s not a shaman. She’s not a vampire. She’s not a lord of bees. She’s a 100% human warrior, and yet these immensely powerful freaks obey and admire her to the point almost of reverence. That should give you an idea of how feared and respected she is. Hell, even a guy who could shoot 10,000,000 volts of electricity from his body wants no part of The Boss in a fight. She even manages to own Naked Snake, the protagonist of the game and by no means a weakling (he later becomes “the greatest soldier that ever lived", on a number of occasions.

We first see The Boss upon Naked Snake’s arrival at the virtuous mission, where he attempts to rescue Sokolov, a weapons scientist wishing to defect to the United States from Russia. The Boss acts as Snake’s support in the mission – using the famous 141.80 frequency that had been previously occupied by both the “original” Snake brothers (Solid and Liquid) in various disguises. The Boss wastes no time in talking to Snake once the mission begins. It’s been five years since they last met, and even from the sound of his voice Boss can tell that Snake has lost weight. She knows everything about him. She goes into one of the MGS staples – a rant about the theme of the game. In this case, the idea that enemies and friends will always change with the times. Y halo thar, plot foreshadowing. After this, you don’t have to talk with The Boss at all via wireless radio, but she always supplies you with some very handy advice if you do. In any case, she is more useful than Sigint.

However, having rescued Sokolov and survived a confrontation with a young Major Ocelot and his unit, Naked Snake is in for quite the surprise on the thin, rickety Dolinvodno bridge. As Naked Snake crosses it, gun drawn, a silhouette appears, crossing the bridge…it’s The Boss, in all her full-length badass glory. She carries two packages with her, which she drops on the bridge, deliberately making it sway. Evidently they’re heavy, yet she picks it up no problem. “Sokolov comes with me”, she says. Snake is obviously confused, and even more so when hornets descend, thrown by The Pain. The Fear descends and kidnaps Sokolov again, leaving just Boss and Snake on the bridge. The ghost of The Sorrow appears, and for the first time Boss is confused. “It’s raining blood…is he crying?” We’ll find out more about this later. Volgin appears, crackling electricity, which leads to a very confused Snake and a resolute Boss dropping something of a bombshell:

Snake: Boss? What is this?

Boss: I'm defecting to the Soviet Union. Sokolov is a little gift for my new Hosts

It’s obviously inconceivable and painful for Snake to experience such shock – The Boss, possibly the biggest patriot in the country, defecting to potentially their biggest enemy ever? Even less than an hour into the game, this is shocking and quite the plot twist.

Snake raises his gun, but is unable to fire. The Boss, finally exhibiting the warrior ability that had been evident in her since we first saw her, grabs Snake’s gun, dismantles it completely, then proceeds to break Snake’s arm and throw him 200 feet into the river below. A disciple and student she had known for years, tossed away like nothing. Truly a badass.

“Drift away…my place is with them now.”

This cements The Boss’ place as the primary antagonist of the game. Forget Volgin, who, despite his out-and-out villainy, is never as much of a rival as The Boss is to Snake. Snake survives his horrid fall and makes it to Operation Snake Eater, only to meet The Boss again. When they first met, she gave off the sense of only attacking Snake because she had to, as if she was reluctant. Here, she has no problem with covering 20ft faster than Marion Jones ever could and demolishing Snake once again with a cold efficiency. She blocks any attack he makes with complete ease, then uses her horse (!!) to crush his hand, before riding off. She keeps trying to convince Snake to run, telling him that his mission is doomed to fail.

“I don’t expect you to forgive me…but you can’t defeat me, either. You know me too well.”

After the customary shock from Naked Snake, we don’t see The Boss for a while. Sure, she’s mentioned a lot, but we don’t see her for a long time. Namely, in front of the Ponizovje warehouse.

Ocelot’s been playing his crazy revolver games with Sokolov, who obligatorily pisses himself. There’s one bullet in three revolvers, and Ocelot claims that he will be pulling the trigger 6 times in a row after various insane juggling. He pulls it 5, and as he’s about to pull it for the final time – thus killing their hostage and losing the chance of completing the shagohod – The Boss walks in, catches the revolver and fires it. Merely to catch it would be awesome enough, but to fire the bullet when she had a 1 in 13 chance is pretty immense. She knew exactly where it would be.

“There’s no such thing as luck on the battlefield.”

The Boss reports to Volgin that The Pain is dead, to which he throws quite the hissy fit, and she then goes on to explain what is up with The End. Naked Snake does not confront her here, but he’s got plenty of chance to do that later. Most notably, when dressed as a bisexual GRU officer.

Once again, there’s a massive lull between seeing her next – we have to get through the “dead time” of the game (between The Pain and The Fear), and through the mountainous areas, before seeing her. Indeed, The Boss’ only character flaw is that she doesn’t have enough screentime – yes, this is in spite of her 10-minute cutscene towards the end. Anyway, there’s Snake, who can presumably not hear The Boss’ conversation with Volgin and Ocelot as he’s in a mountain quite a distance from Groznyj Grad. The Boss makes reference to the Philosopher’s Legacy and how the Americans are after it – similar to how Raiden and Snake’s missions in the first two MGS were far from what they seemed. The Boss rides off on her horse, telling Volgin that she’s going to get the other Nuclear Missile Launcher – the “Davy Crockett”.

“America is out to destroy the Shagohod and get its hands on your inheritance... the Philosopher's Legacy.”

Once again, she manages to steal a scene despite not having a huge amount of time in it. But coming up would be my personal favourite scene including her - sans the ending and boss fight, of course. Naked Snake, disguised as Ivan Raidenovitch Raikov, walks in to rescue Sokolov, but Volgin arrives before they can escape together. Volgin, who “knows the colonel better than anybody else”, discovers that this is not Ivan at all through a crotch grab. He pulls a gun on Snake, before shooting Sokolov in the kneecaps. Snake uses this opportunity to take Volgin down, but low and behold, The Boss is here! Snake puts up his best fight against her yet, but cannot land a blow. The Boss, once again demonstrating cold efficiency, subdues Snake and takes off the mask, before throwing him. While this has been happening, Volgin recovers the gun and is aiming at Snake.

“Stay out of this!”

She moves from Snake to Volgin like lightning, taking him down with a quick throw. The game then gives us a great shot of the room, showing The Boss in the centre while the three men – Volgin, Snake and Sokolov – writhe on the floor around her. It’s a great visual representation of how far above all three of them The Boss is in terms of warrior prowess. Volgin gets up and The Boss leaves her former disciple, once again, to the inevitable beating at the hands of Volgin.

Cut to the torture scene, where Volgin interrogates a captured Snake. After frying Snake a few times with bolts of electricity, The Boss enters. She acknowledges the fact that Snake will not break, due to the training he underwent with her. Volgin finds a transmitter, which was planted on Snake by none other than The Boss – apparently so the now-dead Cobra unit could ambush him. Volgin, always suspicious, asks The Boss to show proof that her and Snake are not in collusion. Once again, we get a sense of Volgin’s fear of The Boss. “You don’t trust me, is that it?” She asks, while advancing on Volgin. Volgin retreats, obviously unnerved, and puts up a calming hand. “Not that…but he IS your apprentice…” Volgin then comes up with the idea that Boss should cut out Snake’s eyes. She obeys without question at first, bringing the knife close to Snake’s eyeball. But there’s a crucial moment of intervention here, before EVA intervenes and tells The Boss to stop. After Snake gets his eye shot out by Ocelot, The Boss slaps Ocelot hard around the face. Finally, she gives Snake a means to escape. With only Snake, The Boss, and EVA left in the room, The Boss shoots Snake in the leg. Later, Snake digs it out…it’s a fake death pill. Evidently The Boss wanted Naked Snake to escape.

Snake gets out of Groznyj Grad and meets the ghost of the Sorrow. Here, we learn a little more about The Boss. She met The Sorrow two years ago at Tselinoyarsk, in yet another USA vs. Soviet Union spying mission. Boss killed The Sorrow, despite them being something of an item beforehand.

”Boss…you have to shoot me.”

“I can't!”

“Shoot me! You want to finish your mission, don't you? Then... you'll have to shoot me. The spirit of the warrior... will always be with you. Don't be sad... we'll meet again someday.”

Then, a gunshot. Sigint fills us in on the details – and we now know what the deal is with The Boss, when its raining. For example, on the bridge at the end of the virtuous mission, she says it’s raining blood and wonders if “he” is crying. Well, we now know it’s The Sorrow, who is also the father of Revolver Ocelot (hence why Liquid’s arm can take over Ocelot – due to The Sorrow’s abilities as a medium - which is another story entirely).

Now armed with C3, Snake goes back and tries to sabotage the Shagohod hangar. But Ocelot and Volgin, who incidentally have, incidentally, captured EVA, see him. Out of nowhere, The Boss appears and schools Snake once again in CQC. This time around, though, Snake puts up something of a fight against The Boss, but he still loses. Snake is bought in front of Volgin, who rants about the philosopher’s legacy. The Boss takes the Legacy to hide it, also taking EVA with her. Snake fails to destroy the Shagohod using the C3 explosives, and so you have to escape. All the time you make your escape, the threat of The Boss hangs over your head. You know she’s waiting at the lake, and you know that you will have to face her. But first, WORST ESCORT MISSION EVER! YAY! Feh.

Finally, Snake steps into a white field of petals. The Boss is there, waiting. She first destroys Groznyj Grad with a Davy Crockett Missile, before turning and talking to Snake. Snake asks her why she is doing this, and she simply replies: “To make the world one again.” She explains a strong set of beliefs, about how there is no such thing as an “absolute, timeless enemy”, and that we can only have enemies in relative terms. This is an idea she got when she became the first person to go into space, in an attempt to recover human data for future explanations. She saw the Earth as it naturally was – with “no east, no west, no cold war”. And then it hits her…we’re all just part of this little celestial body called Earth. She explains then how she was betrayed by her country when placed on Cuba, and also how she gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, who was snatched away from her by the philosophers. The child was born via a caesarean-section birth on the battlefield of Normandy, and the scar was a snake when it was patched back up.

''“Look at this scar. This is proof that I was once a mother. I gave up my body and my child for my country. There is nothing left inside me now. Nothing at all. No hatred, not even regret. And yet sometimes at night I can still feel the pain creeping up inside me. Slithering through my body like a snake.”''

Then, The Boss tells Snake that they must fight to the death – and that in ten minutes, MiG bombers would destroy the place. Thus begins one of the most climactic boss fights in gaming history. Even without the build-up of almost an entire game behind it, the fight itself is great fun. You must put all your survival skills to the test, as well as marksmanship and CQC abilities – you have to be able to counter The Boss’ enormously powerful attacks to stand a chance. When you beat her, Snake approaches her, lying in the middle of the field.

"Jack... Or should I say... Snake... You're a wonderful man. Kill me. Kill me now. Do it. There's only room for one Boss... and one Snake...”

And Kojima, in a masterstroke, cuts out of the video sequence and says that you must be the one to kill her. I was reluctant to do so, but did it in the end. The game is directed beautifully here. The field turns red, The Boss’ horse approaches her body, and the snake-shaped scar on her stomach slithers out onto the ground and becomes an ACTUAL Snake. A look in first person shows you the ghosts of both The Boss and The Sorrow fading away, both content, alongside the horse. Snake catches a red leaf and departs.

All is not as it seems, though. When is it EVER as it seems when Metal Gear Solid is involved? After a cinematic fight sequence on the WIG plane, with Ocelot (during which Snake recalls The Boss telling him: “Snake…try and remember some of the basics of CQC…”), EVA lands the plane at an Alaskan base, then scarpers while Snake is asleep. EVA tells Snake her true motives here, but it’s what she says afterwards that is the real killer. The Boss never betrayed the United States. She was actually a patriot who died for her country. Her mission originally was to recover the Philosopher’s Legacy from Volgin, by pretending to defect. Of course, the whole plan went to pot when Volgin decided to nuke OKB-754 with an American-made Nuclear missile. The operation was then greatly expanded, meaning The Boss would have to be killed by an American soldier to abort a nuclear war, but before that could happen, The Boss would have to take the legacy. Which she did. “That…was her final mission. And like a true soldier, she saw it through to the end.” Even if this wasn’t sad enough, a quote of EVA’s later on only makes it worse. Rather than be remembered for her superb services as a soldier, The Boss will be remembered as a traitor.

“The taint of disgrace will follow her to her grave. Future generations will revile her. In America, as a despicable traitor with no sense of honor. And in Russia, as a monster who unleashed a nuclear catastrophe. She will go down in official history as a war criminal.”

The Boss is far and away the single most influential character in the entire Metal Gear series. Let’s look at what she’s done: She gave birth to the main villain of the series (Ocelot), was the cause of Naked Snake’s bitterness towards organized governments, which therefore caused the Outer Heaven uprising in the first Metal Gear, is directly responsible for the first two offensive Nuclear detonations since WWII, teaches Naked Snake to become the soldier he is and therefore clone into Solid, Liquid and Solidus, is the daughter of one of the original members of the Wisemen’s Committee, and finally is responsible for the oh-so-reviled Patriots forming as a subsidiary of the Philosophers. Even in the upcoming Metal Gear: Portable Ops, The Boss and her betrayal is STILL playing on the mind of Naked Snake, even six years after the incident, showing that she will have yet more influence. The entire plot of the games revolve around The Boss and her role, and for this she should be commended (whether you liked her character or not), much in the same way that Liquid Snake is commended for his durability.

The story of Boss is a very tragic one. Even without the ending and the revelations behind her final mission, her morals and warrior skill definitely deserve special mention – and for this, she is my personal all time favourite character.

''“Life's end... Isn't it beautiful? It's almost tragic. When life ends, it gives off a final lingering aroma. Light is but a farewell gift from the darkness to those on their way to die.”'' -The Boss (Writeup courtesy of XIII is cool)

The Boss's Contest History
Win-Loss Record: 1-2

Summer 2006 Contest - Limit Division - 4 Seed
 * Limit Round 1 --- Defeated (5) Celes, 66787 [61.08%] - 42565 [38.92%]
 * Limit Semifinal --- Lost to (1) Tifa, 30934 [25.45%] - 90595 [74.55%]
 * Extrapolated Strength --- 39th Place [25.20%]

The Boss is a *great* character (as fully outlined by XIII's overkill bio), so her fans were quite happy to see her make the field. Better yet, they got to see her win a match over a Squaresoft character before her expected blowout at the hands of Tifa. This is likely the best we'll ever see out of The Boss, but it's better than nothing.

Summer 2007 Contest - Division 4 - Second Group
 * Division 4 Round 1 --- 3rd place, 22633 [15.84%] - Vincent Valentine, 55265 [38.68%] - Princess Zelda, 42692 [29.88%] - Miles "Tails" Prower, 22287 [15.60%]

Considering The Boss was stuck in a first round fourpack with Vincent and Zelda, she didn't have much of a chance to do anything. Even so, she had a good struggle for third place with Tails, which she managed to win. That was about the best you could have expected from The Boss, and even if she's not very strong, she's someone who you like to see in these contests because she's such a good character.