Revolver Ocelot and The Patriots

_Metal Gear Solid_ Series

Background

The Patriots are a shadow-government that controls American society. They orchestrate everything from presidential elections to which songs top the charts of popular music. Their most visible agent is a FOXHOUND operative code-named Revolver Ocelot. A marksman straight out of a spaghetti-western, Ocelot hails from Russia , where he served as a major in the GRU before defecting after meeting Big Boss. After Big Boss's defeat, Ocelot becomes a star agent for The Patriots. He earns Solidus Snake's trust while secretly keeping an eye on him for The Patriots. Ocelot provokes Liquid Snake to start a revolt on Shadow Moses Island in Alaska and to seize control of Metal Gear REX. After this fails, Ocelot helps Solidus go underground and begins to organize a simulated recreation of Shadow Moses for The Patriots, who want to test their “S3 Program”.

Introduced in the second episode of the series, The Patriots, known to many as “The La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo”, have become frightened about the spread of digital information. To that end they construct “Arsenal Gear” and surround it with mass produced Metal Gear RAY units as guardians. Arsenal Gear, once active, will allow The Patriots to censor digital information. However, it also serves as the test site for the S3 Program—Selection for Societal Sanity. An agent, a former child soldier code-named Raiden, is sent to Arsenal Gear and must endure a set of circumstances similar to the Shadow Moses incident. By the end he must destroy his foster father Solidus Snake, and he learns that The Patriots want to censor content because of evolutionary reasons. Genetic information is passed down through DNA, but other information, such as culture and individual identity, is not. Should this information be allowed to endure? If so, who decides what is “junk data” and what deserves to be preserved? The Patriots want this power, the power to control history, and their S3 Program proves that since people are merely the creations of circumstances around them, they who control circumstances thusly control all people.

 

Analysis

The Patriots—and any omnipotent shadow-government for that matter—are a frightening organization. They obviously share many characteristics with The Party of George Orwell's 1984 (1949), both in their total domination of a culture and their nebulous existence in the shadows while individual characters serve as their representations. The Party's “Big Brother” is never seen, but the government official named O'Brien serves as the physical stand-in for The Party. Like O'Brien, Revolver Ocelot is adept at torture and is an expert at deceiving everyone around him. Ocelot's omnipresence, like that of Big Brother and O'Brien, serves as a reminder of The Patriots' and The Party's omnipresence. Their influence cannot be escaped, and those who interfere with them are crushed. It's this situation that terrifies people, and especially Americans, who have historic fears of tyrannical governments. It's also why villains like The Party and The Patriots are so effective.