I get that there is a "gamer" reason for them being clueless to explain situations to the player, but with Big Boss it's something more, especially in MGS3. It's more about how he acts around The Boss in general, and the fact he seems to have no idea what it means to be a soldier despite being one for over 10 years at that point (or 15? IIRC he began training with The Boss at age 15 but she claims she chose him cause he was sterile which would have happened when he was 19). It doesn't seem indicative of the man who will become the greatest soldier ever, and I get that Kojima retroactively made that a Patriot misinformation campaign, but to someone who has been playing MGS since 1998 it's *really* hard to accept those kind of retcons especially when you have actual characters that looked up to the man.
Big Boss, or should I say Naked Snake, has always been a weak link for Kojima IMO. Every time they revealed more about him, the worse he became. The Boss is a character that I look at in MGS3, and understand why people would look up to her. She's strong, confident in herself and her convictions, and at least on the surface extremely loyal to her men. Contrast with Naked Snake, who is constantly doubting himself. He's constantly whiny or depressed. I never understand why *anyone* follows Naked Snake. Simply being the guy who killed The Boss isn't enough for me, especially when people stick around after meeting him and that was supposed to be a super covert operation.
Kojima, for all of his greatness, falls into a lot of tropes when it comes to writing main characters which I think greatly hurt Big Boss in the long run. I also feel that his need to have MGS3 take place in the 60's hurt as well. They already de aged him just to make it work (Big Boss originally fought in WWII according to supplemental material) so I get they couldn't really make him a fresh faced early 20's special forces recruit, but maybe they should have had more flashbacks and inner monologue instead of doing everything through the radio?
I dunno, I don't hate MGS3 as much as I probably sound, I just feel that it isn't the masterpiece a lot of people make it out to be. I get why a lot of people liked it more at the time, it's really "simple" and fun, but now that I'm the same age as Big Boss it just feels annoying hearing him act like a teenager. I feel like I'm better suited for that mission than him and I'm hardly a green beret or anything. It's especially disappointing because The Boss feels like everything Big Boss should have been post MGS3, so it's not like Kojima was completely incapable of it, but I never feel like we never really got there because he's so stuck in his style for writing player characters.
