Following on the heels of my last feature, The Top 10 Best and Worst Metal Gear Solid Women, 00.19 suggested I do a men's version. It seemed an interesting challenge, so I set about creating a list of what I find to be the 15 MGS characters best representing the spectrum of the XY set in these games.

For the purposes of this list, I decided to apply the same lens as I did for female characters, and evaluate these men in terms of their gender representation. While it's not my style to go for the cop-out "he told a woman to shut up *gasp* *gasp* *horror*!" that seems to run rampant in "feminist" critique, I also will not pull any punches with some sort of "boys will be boys" excuse.

The numbering from the last list was a little confusing, so for the purposes of this series characters will be ranked from best to worst, with lower values meaning a higher score.

Note: Heavy MGS4 spoilers are sectioned off with bolded warnings.

THE TOP RANK




1. Scott Dolph
Appears in: MGS2
All right, I know what you're thinking: "Scott who?" It seems unfair to start out the gate with this minor character from the tanker chapter of MGS2, but in the entire MGS cast I cannot think of anyone cooler than this guy. Consider his credentials:
-Middle-aged.
-African-American.
-General of the Marines (and good with his troops).
-Family man (father to Fortune).
-Bisexual.

Yes, that's right. We find out in the plant chapter that before his death, Scott Dolph was the lover of antagonist Vamp, who will be appearing later in this list. Alone among MGS's considerable number of less-than-straight characters, Dolph's sexuality is not made into a defining character trait, and he remains just a plain ol' nondescript, calm and collected general-dude until his death. The best way you can tell GLBT characters have made it is when they are positive depictions and they aren't the feature of the text.

2. Roy Campbell
Appears in: MG2, MGS1, 2, 4 and PO. (3 during Time Paradoxes.)
There are few characters in MGS for whom you might actually use the word 'gentleman,' but Campbell is one such. A career military man who served alongside Big Boss during the San Hieronymo Takeover, where he was teased for actually disdaining combat, Campbell is best remembered as the head of Solid Snake's support team in MG2 and MGS1, as well as his advocate and UN liason in MGS4.

At times, Campbell has seemed less than reliable, having a few difficulties with that whole "need to know" rule, but he has never faltered in his support of Solid Snake and has willingly laid down his own career in the military to help him. Following the FOXHOUND Rebellion, Campbell joined the United Nations' counter-terrorism branch to help bring down Liquid Ocelot. UN? What's a wholesome American former military officer doing supporting those pussies, amirite?

MGS4 SPOILER: To top it all off, Campbell extended his help to a distraught and husbandless Rosemary to provide her and her son shelter from the Patriots while Raiden was off somewhere growing a penis. Apart from complaining about her food, Campbell appears to treat her respectfully, asking nothing in return, even though the sham marriage act further fractured his relationship with hotheaded daughter Meryl. By the epilogue, however, Campbell promises to Meryl that he'll do anything to make amends between them. END MGS4 SPOILER.

His past overprotectiveness of Meryl, smacking just slightly of sexism, is his only significant flaw when you get right down to it. A stately, intelligent, respectable man, Campbell is one of few almost completely noble individuals in the series, and it's little wonder that Snake has a hard time hearing an ill word about him.

3. The End
Appears in: MGS3
Without question, Naked Snake's battle against The End in MGS3 is the most epic boss fight in the series to date. Spanning three enormous maps, this fight against the legendary sniper is made even more hardcore by the fact that the dude's over a hundred years old. May it never be said these games do not give ample respect to the elderly.

The engagement, which can go on for hours, is a thinking player's battle of wits and stamina, not your prototypical manly brawl. The legendary face-off against Sniper Wolf in MGS1 frankly pales in comparison.

Finally, despite being so old that women couldn't even vote in America until he was already 60 years old, the End doesn't appear to be the least bit ruffled taking orders from a female commander. Indeed, all the Cobras happily refer to themselves as Sons of the Boss and revere their leader unconditionally; the End just gets additional props for not letting his age color his perspective.

4. The Sorrow
Appears in: MGS3, MGS4 (cameo)
So let's say you're the mother of U.S. Special Forces, you can bench press 880 pounds, and you single-handedly beat the Nazis at D-Day just hours after giving birth to your son. What man is good enough for you? In this case, it's a tall, slender, Russian intellectual with glasses and psychic powers. The Joy's partner and lover during WW2, the Sorrow was an ESP agent and spirit medium, not a fighter. Following the end of war, the Joy --aka the Boss-- was ordered back to the other side of the Iron Curtain to assassinate the Sorrow, and the two engaged in equal combat as enemy soldiers. A pretty unshakeable woman, the Boss was so disturbed by having to kill her former comrade and lover that she lost all faith in her country.

(THEY'RE SORT OF A SYMBOL FOR THE TRAGEDY OF THE COLD WAR, GUYS.)

The Sorrow persisted after his death as a ghost, haunting the jungle in which he had died. He is not really Naked Snake's opponent but a fundamentally neutral spectral figure, acting as ferryman during Naked Snake's brief trip through the underworld, compelling him to face the ghosts of everyone Snake has killed up to that point-- which is bad news if the player has been on a killing spree so far.

A meditative, spiritual and nuanced figure, the Sorrow is among the most distinct characters in the MGS family, not the least because of spiritualism's historically feminine connotations. But really, if your girlfriend is the Boss, you're not going to be wearing the pants in that relationship no matter what. The cool thing is, he's totally okay with that.



5. Big Boss
Appears in: MG, MG2, MGS3, MGS4
Yes, okay, he's the legendary soldier of legendary soldiers. And there's the whole repeatedly trying to kill his son thing. But once upon a time, Big Boss aka Naked Snake was just a guy trying to do his job, and here was this woman EVA who kept trying to thrust her boobs in his face. He only finally starts returning the attraction when it seems that victory is in sight-- a level of professionalism his son could only aspire to.

Para-Medic's attempts to flirt also fall apart within the first radio question, after which she becomes more of a geeky radio sidekick-- the Hal to his Dave, you might say. Para-Medic is even behind Naked-Snake's random decision to paint himself up like a geisha, which they defend to Sigint as "androgynous." By the end, Naked Snake even seems to have forged something approaching friendship with the good doctor, inquiring about her private life without anything even suggesting sexual overtones.

Then there's his relationship with the Boss, which is too complicated for the sexual black and white EVA is accustomed to seeing the world in. He stresses that his feelings for the Boss go beyond love and hate, and that she is even more than a mother to him. In many ways, the Boss is a God figure to Naked Snake, so much so that killing her, he says, made him die inside as well.

MGS4 SPOILER: In the last game, Big Boss reappears to urge his last remaining clone to move beyond war and violence, and even takes the opportunity to embrace him, calling him both "son" and "brother." Nothing could be a greater departure from his violent actions of the past, a fact that seems to send Solid Snake into total shock for a moment. Transformationally post-masculine, the dying Big Boss uses his last minutes on Earth to argue for a world where violence is unnecessary-- in a game about shooting things, for god's sake. END MGS4 SPOILER.

To his discredit, Big Boss has no gaydar to speak of (try having him ask EVA about Raikov and Ocelot, for instance), and could have tried a hell of a lot harder not to be seduced. His track record's still better than that of his son, though.

Tune in tomorrow for the middle rank!

Previously:

The Top 10 Best and Worst Metal Gear Solid Women (Part 1)

The Top 10 Best and Worst Metal Gear Solid Women (Part 2)