grimner said:
Conrtived: Having an unnatural or false appearance or quality; artificial; labored.
Now that I consulted the dictionary in lieu of you doing so, and still in mild amusement as to the fact that I am actually discussing that a man living and mind controlling another through its arm is not a preposterous proposition:
Well, yeah, but that isn't what happened
. It was "In recent memory you've encountered a ghost who attacks you with everyone you've killed in game and a guy who reads your
memory card mind." which just meant when Ocelot said "I'm being controlled by Liquid" everyone took him at Face Value. Because in this setting that's not even a unique event, that's just a particularly busy Tuesday.
1. I actually don't need to explain a self explanatory sentence. The soul of a man living on through its arm (let alone actually controlling the mind of another) is, or should be, the picture perfect definition of absurd (which, by the way is: "extremely silly, foolish, or unreasonable : completely ridiculous"). You simply cannot say this without applying very generous doses of suspension of disbelief. Now, while the same goes to a lot of Sci fi elements in a lot of movies and games, the best and smartest writers in the field actually know that the best approach is actually to NOT try and explain what has absolutely no basis in reality. Look no further than Star Wars, which has its fair share of absurdity, for both sides of that coin: while the oldest movies did not try to explain away established elements such as The Force, the new movies went out of their way to explain them as midichlorians, to the universe's detriment (in explaining it, not only was the mistique of the force diluted, but created an opening through which its science could be dismounted). Kojima takes the latter route and tries to explain away every single absurdity in his stories, which often results in it sounding, you guessed it, contrived, with bigger layers of absurdity being piled up on top of each other in order to clarify the precious layers of absurdity.
See, you say he does this, do you know what's been unaddressed for years? Psycho Mantis. Or Decoy Octopus. Or the Sorrow. Or how MGS2 had things being Fission Mailed at the end. Or why Raiden and Solidus had a f*cking SWORD fight. Not every plot element gets an explanation and more often than not it works just fine. Psycho Mantis says some gibberish to Snake because he's not talking to Snake but to the player. If you're blurring the 4th wall, trying to explain the absurd plot device is something you just don't bother doing (because if you're ragging on the Liquid Ocelot bit you surely can't just accept that there's a freakin' psychic and a freakin' ghost in the same universe. That alone makes the arm thing more feasible)
2. It matters because the whole "Liquid Snake lives through its arm" theory is standard canon for the period of time it was left unexplained. And as was stated before, it was an overexplained, absurd plot point (one that most defies suspension of disbelief in the whole MGS universe), that was then explained retroactively by an even more convoluted theory (that he was somehow only faking it via hypnosis, which was presumedly so strong that caused everyone around him to actually go with it. Guess that makes it AoE hypnosis +5, then?). That Kopikatsu felt the need to somewhat dickishly defend this absurdity bt telling me to "at least know what I am taling about" is good indicative of the original plot point's silliness. And even if the retroactive explanation to said plot point made sense, one just cannot wave it around as a magic wand of retcon. There's nothing in MGS2 to lend credence to the future explanation. Not to even mention that I am in no obligation to know the fine details that may have been "explained" (term used quite loosely, here) in Guns of the Patriots simply because, though a fan of the series, MGS4 couldn't actually hold my interest past the demo.
Not sure I follow this... by the same reasoning, you'd argue Darth Vader's a terrible one dimensional character, and ignore the whole being Luke's Father thing, saying its a terrible plot twist because the first movie never examined it and is indicative of bad planning and writing. Just because it isn't fore-shadowed hugely, doesn't mean it comes out of nowhere, MGS3 at the very least let you know Ocelot had SOMETHING going on beyond what it seemed. Just because we didn't know the story at the time doesn't mean it's absurd and convoluted, it means it was a plot
twist. You're right that it's dumb but as I've been trying to say,
that's almost a plot-device in MGS at this point. You can kill a boss by waiting a week In Real Time! You can like the plot but it's an 80's action film plot, Kojima's attempting to tackle more serious subject matter which is fine (I guess... I'm gonna miss Johnny's irritable bowel being actually a fairly important plot point).
Though I would say you are obligated to at least know what happened in the game if you're deriding a plot point. Using Star Wars analogies again, arguing it's depressing as hell and the moral is you can't beat the empire because you never watched Return of the Jedi doesn't sound like a massively valid view-point does it? (I think we need a new Escapist Rule, every analogy must involve Star Wars. ALL OF THEM!)
Now, usually, I would not bother with people strawmanning a point that I've made, but it actually does illustrate and tie up perfectly with my premiss, as well as the OP: Hideo Kojima can't write for shit. He overexplains plot points that can't be argued in the realm of logic ( which is not only a sign of bad writing, and a violation of the "Show, not tell" basic rule of thumb, but actually a way to expose the fragility of said plot points), and tries hard to have said over the top silliness interwoven with actual contemporary commentary, which is in turn given the same heavyhanded treatment. In approaching sensitive topics such as rape or child soldiers with the same lack of subtlety that is patent in the more "fantastical" elements of your storytelling, you're bound to handle those issues very poorly, to predictable and justifiable backlash.
Yeah, I actually am calling B.S on this, can you name another Plot Point he over-explains? He does do the extremely obvious criticism of current events (I wonder what Guantanamo Zeroes is based on, amirite?), hell maybe he does approach sensitive topics the same way he does the other stuff (I'm ill-convinced but I like the plot because it's ridiculously 80's at all times and is essentially a giant Escape from New York fan-fic written by a Japanese guy, I'm not sure I'm the best marker for sensitivity), but I don't think he over-explains plot points.
Like, the ridiculously weird ones I've listed already/the 4th wall breaking/Volgin's lightning powers (Jesus, I can just keeping going with these, are you seriously still convinced Liquid Ocelot is the stupidest thing to happen in the plot?). I actually can't think of any that he over-explains. Plenty which are just left where they are while science tries to escape from the locked car boot of his imagination, though.
I don't dislike Hideo Kojima, and am not out to demonize him, and can actually mostly enjoy his games and even his over the top stories, despite emphatically not being a fan of him taking half an hour to explain away every single flight of fancy from his mind. None of that makes me acritical, though. While I don't think that he was out to be intentionally callous in his portrayal of the subject, just that he lacks the writing skill required to properly handle the subject.
Again, I don't think he does that. You can say the plots are normally pretty stupid (and as MGS4 liked to point out, Metal Gears are actually a
retarded way to fight a war, a bipedal tank? REALLY? MGS4 being the game where common sense started choking out rogue story-lines behind Kojima's back) but I don't think they're over-explained/convoluted. They're just trying to tell an 80's movie plot through the medium OF a video-game, often using videogame elements (not so much lately which makes me the sad, but whatevs). So... yeah. I guess 'define convoluted' was more a request you do so by illustrating some convoluted plot elements?
