List of characters in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

This is a list of characters appearing in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater.

FOX members

Main article: FOXHOUND

Naked Snake

Naked Snake is an operative for the FOX unit, a newly formed special forces branch of the CIA. He is initially referred as Jack by Major Zero and The Boss, and introduces himself as "John Doe" or just John to Para-Medic and Major Ocelot respectively. He is given his codename at the beginning of the Virtuous Mission, but he is referred to simply as Snake for convenience. He was a former apprentice of The Boss and helped create his hand-to-hand combat style (CQC) with her.

He is initially sent to Tselinoyarsk to retrieve defecting Russian scientist, Dr. Sokolov, during the Virtuous Mission, but fails his mission after he is seemingly betrayed by The Boss and Sokolov's design lab (OKB-754) is destroyed by a nuclear missile. Afterwards, he is sent on a follow-up mission codenamed "Operation: Snake Eater", where he is sent back to Tselinoyarsk to prevent the completion of Shagohod and assassinate both The Boss and Colonel Volgin (her apparent benefactor). During the course of this mission, he teams up with an alleged KGB spy named EVA and fights against the members of the Cobra unit.

While he loses his right eye during the mission, Snake is ultimately successful in completing his mission and is awarded the title of Big Boss by President Lyndon Johnson. However, his success is bittersweet, after the revelation from EVA about The Boss' true allegiance and the fact that her assassination was merely an attempt to use her as a scapegoat for the destruction of OKB-754 caused by Volgin. After this, he holds a strong resentment against his superiors, which would manifest several years later.

For the remainder of Naked Snake's bio, see Big Boss

Major Zero

Template:Metal Gear Character Major Zero is the commander of the special forces unit "FOX". He is Naked Snake's commanding officer and provides him with information about mission objectives and (gameplay) tips through radio. Before establishing the FOX unit, Zero served MI6 under the codename "O" (which is the reason he uses "Major Zero" in FOX), as well as the British Special Air Service, where he became acquainted with The Boss. Major Zero uses the call sign "Major Tom", after one of the escape tunnels in The Great Escape, but changes back to his regular codename in "Operation: Snake Eater". In 1970, years after Operation: Snake Eater, Major Zero disbands "FOX", prompting Naked Snake (already awarded with the title of Big Boss) to establish FOXHOUND the following year.

Para-Medic

Template:Metal Gear Character Para-Medic is a FOX support team member who provides Naked Snake with surgical and medical information. Her nickname is because she is a parachute medical officer. She also gives information on local flora and fauna. She is a big fan of movies, especially monster films like Godzilla. Whenever Naked Snake calls her for information on food, she usually makes a snide remark about Snakes' desire to eat anything he catches, even if it's something normally considered disgusting - such as a tarantula. Her attitude towards him could be considered similar to that of an overcautious mother. She was born in Boston, Massachusetts on June 22, 1936 and also lived in Boston at the time of Operation: Snake Eater. In 1970, she goes on to establish the nation's first paramedic system in Seattle, Washington.

Sigint

Template:Metal Gear Character Sigint is a member of the FOX unit and the self-proclaimed "expert on weapons and technology". He provides detailed information on weaponry, machinery, camouflage, and gadgetry to Snake during Operation: Snake Eater (essentially replacing The Boss' as part of Snake's support crew). He, among others things, invented the binoculars and EZ-gun Snake uses. He provides useful strategies and tactics in boss battles and other situations. His codename refers to the military term "SIGINT", or SIGnal INTelligence. Sigint also has a great interest in this field and advancing forms of technology in general (he makes several hints at the eventual creation of the Internet and World Wide Web), but has faced racial discrimination from any companies that specialize in these fields. In 1965 Sigint joined ARPA and takes part in the development of ARPANET.

Cobra unit

Main article: Cobra unit

The Boss (The Joy)

Template:Metal Gear Character The Boss is a legendary American soldier, and the founder and leader of the Cobra unit. She is known as the mother of US special forces. During World War 2 she was part of the invasion of Normandy and ultimately helped lead the Allied forces to victory. She is also called The Joy, and in Russia she is known as Voyevoda.

The Boss serves as a mentor and mother-like figure to Naked Snake, with whom she developed the fighting technique known as Close Quarters Combat (CQC). Snake has a deep attachment to her, and is reluctant to oppose her in combat even though he must in order to complete his mission. Hideo Kojima revealed in the Metal Gear Saga DVD that Snake and the Boss were lovers but he decided to focus on the mother-like part of their relationship. During Operation: Snake Eater, in addition to CQC, The Boss also uses a machine-gun pistol called The Patriot which was made especially for her. Modelled after a shortened version of the Colt XM16E1, it carries 100 5.56 x 45mm NATO rounds in a Beta C-Mag, but doesn't run out of ammo. The reason for this is because the internal feeding mechanism is shaped like an infinity symbol, a joke used in a conversation between Naked Snake and Sigint.

She is also the daughter of one the original members of the Wiseman's Committee, the head council of The Philosophers, the American branch of which would later become The Patriots, the true power holders of the USA.

In 1942 she established the Cobra unit.

In June of 1944, she and The Cobras took part in the landing at Normandy. They had been given a top-secret mission to locate and destroy enemy V-2 rocket installations. She was pregnant at the time and gave birth to a child on the battlefield who was taken away by The Philosophers. He would later grow up to become the man known as Revolver Ocelot [1]. The father of this child is The Sorrow.

In 1947 she disbanded the Cobra unit.

On November 1st 1951 she participated in the "Buster Dog" atomic testing at Area 7 in the Nevada desert.

In 1960 she was sent to space on an unofficial mission, because the American government wanted human data (One year before Yuri Gagarin's flight into space). Unfortunately, the U.S. didn't have, at the time, the technology to block cosmic radiation. She was sent up because she had already been irradiated once.

In 1961 she was sent to Cuba, to Bahia de Cochinos as a part of a CIA-sponsored invasion under the guise of taking Cuban exiles back to their country. The US government betrayed them and the exiles were killed by the Cuban army.

In 1962 she faced The Sorrow, her old comrade in Tselinoyarsk on a secret CIA mission. The Sorrow had gone back to the Soviet Union after The Cobras had split up after World War 2. The Boss killed The Sorrow. It is revealed that The Sorrow let her kill him in order to complete her mission. The ones who gave The Boss that mission were The Philosophers.

During the Virtuous Mission, The Boss defects to the Soviet Union, taking the rest of Cobra unit along with her. In reality, she was ordered to betray her country to go undercover and steal the Philosopher's Legacy from Colonel Volgin, and destroy the Shagohod. However, Colonel Volgin launched an American-made portable nuclear shell, which the Boss smuggled into Russia with her at Sokolov's design bureau 'OKB-754', to destroy all the data on the Shagohod. Coupled with the FOX Unit's aircraft radar signature, leads Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev to believe America was behind the nuclear attack. Because Khrushchev demanded proof the United States was not involved, the American government realized that to stop a nuclear war, it will have to abandon its most treasured soldier, and stage a mission into Russia to assassinate her. The Boss realizes that she will have to give her life for the country she loves so much, and die at the hands of her most beloved disciple, Naked Snake. Following her orders to the bitter end, she is ultimately defeated by him during Operation: Snake Eater; it was for completing this mission that Naked Snake received the title of "Big Boss". Although history officially remembers her as one of the world's greatest traitors, Naked Snake insisted that her tombstone read "In memory of a True Patriot who saved the world".

Before her final duel with Snake, she spoke of her desire to see all the peoples of the world united, and described how The Philosopher's Legacy was the only means via which to reunite The Philosophers, and with them, the people of the world. Thus, while she may have been considered after her death as a traitor to her country, it could be seen that her true beliefs were that the world should be united as one.

Hideo Kojima revealed in the MGS3 commentary that The Boss was designed based on the image of Charlotte Rampling.

The End

Template:Metal Gear Character The End is the Cobra unit's "Ancient Sniper" who even The Boss respects. He is known as the "father of modern sniping," as all modern sniping techniques are based on his teachings. He was born in the early 1860s and is over 100 years old during the events of Operation Snake Eater (set in 1964), and has fought in countless wars, including World War II.

Like several of the other members of the Cobra unit (as well as the similar units FOXHOUND and Dead Cell), he has unusual, possibly supernatural abilities, in addition to his extraordinary sniping skill with his modified (with tranquilizer darts, a sniping scope, foldable stock, and pistol grip) Mosin-Nagant M1891/1930. He has the ability to communicate with animals, either verbally or empathetically, and he uses them, particularly a favored pet parrot, as spotters. He is also an autotroph: the symbiotic photosynthetic moss interlaced with his skin and flesh can sustain him for long periods without food or water (or even higher body functions). This mossy covering, supplemented with mundane clothing, also serves him as excellent camouflage.

His codename, The End, comes from the fact that he is very near death from old age. Outside of battle, he is wheeled in a wheelchair instead of moving under his own power, and he spends much of his time in a state of catatonia very near to death. He is capable of sudden bursts of speed in battle, and is still a master sniper, but if left unattended he has a tendency to nod off, even in a fight.

During Operation: Snake Eater, Snake meets and battles The End in a long sniper duel in a thick forest spanning three "zones": a river crossing, a plateau, and a clearing. Despite his orders to stop Snake, The End seems disinclined to actually kill Snake; his rifle is loaded with tranquilizer darts. If he defeats Snake, he simply deposits him in an unlocked cell, instead of killing him. The End also uses stun grenades. After The End is defeated, however, he detonates a concealed explosive, committing suicide, as with the other members of the Cobra unit.

Per Hideo Kojima's predilection for odd boss battles and game elements that break the fourth wall, The End can be defeated with a pair of unusual alternate techniques, instead of simply tracking down and shooting him. After one week passes (according to the PlayStation 2's internal clock) after first encountering The End, he dies of old age, sparing the player the need to defeat him. He can also be killed by shooting him in his wheelchair, in an early scene in front of the Ponizovje Warehouse. (If he is killed here, the battle with him is replaced with a squad from the Ocelot unit.) If the player kills and/or eats The End's pet parrot, she appears in The End's death scene as a ghost.

The End was based on "Old Boy", a character that was originally created to be used in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. Old Boy was an ancient soldier who had, among other things, been a Nazi general, and a mentor to numerous soldiers, including Big Boss. The character was discarded early during development, but his concept was reused in Metal Gear Solid 3.

The Fear

Template:Metal Gear Character The Fear is the "Spider Soldier" of the Cobra unit.

He is known for his superhuman speed and agility, as well as his freakish, fearsome appearance. His elbows are double jointed, and he has a long, lizard-like tongue, forked through surgery, that he can use to grasp objects. Capable of dislocating his joints at will, he is able to crawl, flip, and leap extremely quickly in the manner of a spider, and also climb and jump around in trees with ease, and also uses a variety of lines to enhance his mobility.

The Fear is armed with two crossbows. The larger of the two is called the William Tell (which he uses for knock-down power), and the smaller is called the Little Joe (which he uses for fast reload time). Some of their bolts are coated with the venom of a number of poisonous animals. One that hits Snake in a cutscene is said to be coated with the venom of the Brazilian Wandering Spider. He also employs grenade arrows, as well as ones that burst into flames upon impact. Due to his speed and flexibility, he is also extremely formidable at unarmed combat.

To inspire fear in his enemies, The Fear uses stealth camouflage, which renders him virtually invisible by bending light around his body. However, The Fear's camouflage is powered by his stamina. If it runs out it will be useless. Because his stealth camouflage drains stamina at an alarming rate, The Fear must feed often to keep it up. Players can take advantage of this by throwing poisonous food around for The Fear to eat. He is also a master at creating boobytraps, and many are set in the area of the jungle where he battles Naked Snake. He was ultimately defeated by Snake. Upon his defeat, he shortly hangs suspended in the air on several ropes, like a spider's web, finally facing that which he had been inspiring in his victims for himself; the fear of dying. He then detonates the Microbomb all Cobras were equipped with, destroying himself in a lethal shower of his remaining crossbow bolts.

The Fury

The Fury is the "Flame Soldier" of the Cobra unit. His codename reflects the unrelenting fury he feels towards the world and everything else while he is fighting. He wears a fireproof Soviet space suit and is equipped with a jetpack and a powerful flamethrower. Unlike most flamethrowers, his uses liquid rocket fuel.

The Fury is a former Soviet Cosmonaut. After World War II, once the Cobra unit was dismantled, he returned to Russia. He was sent into outer space on an unofficial Cosmonaut flight. An accident occurred, and upon re-entering the Earth's atmosphere, he suffered severe burns all over his body, which left him unable to feel any pain. While he was being burned, he saw the Earth obscured by the wall of fire. That caused him to be obsessed with a vision of the Earth in flames, as well as his development of pyromaniacal tendencies.

The Fury was eventually defeated by Naked Snake in an underground battle near Groznyj Grad, the massive military fortress established by Colonel Volgin of GRU. The heavily injured and horribly burnt soldier activated his jetpack, launching himself into the roof at high speed - believing that he was "coming home". He was killed on impact. Together with the rubble from the collision, two angry fire spirits - the embodiment of The Fury's rage - chase Snake around. The first collides with the door to Groznyj Grad, and the second, screaming "The Fury!" destroys the corridor that Snake had quickly entered.The Least Popular Boss in the Game, No-one likes him

The Pain

Template:Metal Gear Character The Pain is the "Hornet Soldier" of the Cobra unit. His codename signifies the pain he feels while on the battlefield. He is the largest of the Cobras, at well over 6'7" tall. Despite his size, he is incredibly agile, and performs backflips with ease.

He has the ability to control large swarms of hornets at will. He gained this ability by allowing hornets to sting him for days on and on for months at a time, until the hornets came to believe that he was one of their number. As a result of this, his face is covered with welts from the stings. He is also said to carry a Queen in the pack on the back of his hips, using her sound to guide the hornets. Additionally, he carries a large array of vials containing alert pheromones on his vest, which he flings at enemies to guide hornet swarms at them.

Besides his hornets, The Pain is armed with a Tommy gun and grenades, and can use hornets in conjunction with these weapons. He can protect himself from gunfire and other attacks by covering himself with a thick shield of them, and can create an exact duplicate of himself, shaped out of hornets, to confuse his enemies.

He also raises special hornets called "bullet bees" inside his own body. When he removes his balaclava (revealing his disfigured face), the bullet bees are released from his mouth. They move at extraordinarily fast speeds, and upon contact with their targets, they burrow inside them and feast on their flesh until the point that the target has expired.

The Pain was ultimately defeated by Naked Snake in a battle in an underground cave. Upon his defeat, experiencing the pain of the hornet stings all over again, he activated a microbomb like that all the Cobras carried, destroying his corpse and his entire swarm.

The Sorrow

The Sorrow is the "Spirit Medium Soldier" of the Cobra unit. Like the other Cobras, his codename reflects the emotion he brings to the battlefield.

Although he has no actual unique combat abilities like the other Cobras, The Sorrow is gifted with the powers of a medium. He is able to summon the dead and assume their combat abilities by bringing their spirits into himself. Communicating with dead soldiers also gives him several advantages during a battle, such as learning of enemy positions.

The Boss and The Sorrow fought together as part of the Cobra unit during World War II and participated in the Allied landing at Normandy in 1944. The two had a child together (Revolver Ocelot, revealed in a secret radio conversation inside the Chyornaya Peschera cave area, when coupled with the Boss's soliloquy near the end of the game), who was taken from them by The Philosophers. After the War, he worked for the Soviet Union (however still kept his M1911A1 which he had with him during the war as seen in the image to the right) and was ultimately killed by The Boss during a covert mission at Tselinoyarsk in 1962.

During the Virtuous Mission and Operation: Snake Eater (both occurring in 1964), The Sorrow appears as a ghost. Several times, he is seen crying blood. Whenever he does, rain falls from the sky. He frequently appears during the games' first-person view cinematic sequences, where he can be seen observing Snake and the events of the game (and occasionally offering helpful hints, like a key radio frequency). The Sorrow's corpse can also be seen during a secret R1 scene after Snake is thrown off of the Dolinovodno bridge, after Snake bandages himself.

During an apparent nightmare, The Sorrow forces Snake to walk down a seemingly endless river. To make Snake "feel the sorrow of those whose lives he ended," he makes him encounter the ghost of every single person killed during his mission (depending on the player, this can be anywhere from no less than four to in the hundreds). The ghosts of fallen Cobra unit members also appear. The Sorrow also prophesised that Big Boss would be killed by his own "sons" Solid Snake, Liquid Snake, Solidus Snake.

The Sorrow is responsible for summoning the lightning that kills Colonel Volgin (proof of this is seen when Snake is holding EVA and the player looks in first person view).

Although he may seem like an enemy (after all, he is, or was, a member of Cobra unit), he gives more help to Snake than harm.

The Sorrow finally disappears after reuniting with The Boss after her death (When her horse walks up you can see them standing together before vanishing).

Supporting characters

EVA

EVA is a female spy who claims to be a KGB agent sent to assist Naked Snake in Operation Snake Eater. She also claims to be one of the NSA codebreakers who defected in September 1960 along with ADAM, another NSA code-breaker. EVA uses her charm, good looks and nice figure to win over the trust of Snake as she double-crosses Colonel Volgin, Ocelot, and The Boss to help him reach Sokolov and the Shagohod.

According to her official profile, she was born in Meridian, Idaho on May 15th 1936. She is 5 feet and 10 1/4 inches tall, weighs 149 pounds and has blue eyes. Her measurements are 36-23-34.

Her weapon of choice (as seen pictured), is the Chinese Type 17 version of the C96 Mauser (The "Broom Handle"). When she uses it she is seen using the "bandit shooting" technique which is the first hint behind her background.

It is revealed in her final monologue that EVA was actually an agent of the Chinese Philosophers (and actually not the NSA codebreaker EVA) and that her mission was to retrieve the Philosopher's Legacy and kill anyone who she came across. As she watches Snake sleep on the cabin floor, she made the distinct decision not to kill him, as she had promised The Boss.

Snake then returned the microfilm containing the Philosopher's Legacy's whereabouts. The microfilm EVA had was given to her by The Boss during Snake's battle with Volgin, turned out to be a fake (Ocelot replaced it and took the real one with him). Thus the American branch of the Philosophers was able to obtain the portion of the Legacy that China wanted. However, the American Philosophers (later the Patriots) were unable to obtain the entire Legacy, 50% still belonged to the Russians until 1970, when the American branch finally obtained the remainder of the Legacy.

After Operation: Snake Eater, EVA disappeared in Hanoi during the Vietnam War in 1968 without a trace.

Ocelot

Main article: Revolver Ocelot

Nikolai Stephanovich Sokolov

Template:Metal Gear Character Nikolai Stephanovich Sokolov is the chief developer of the Shagohod project. He is said to be the man most responsible for the multi-cluster engine used in the A1 Vostok rocket that sent Yuri Gagarin into space. After Gagarin's flight he became the head of the newly-established design bureau OKB-754. He began working on the Shagohod, a massive tank equipped with rocket engines and capable of firing nuclear IRBMs. Later he became afraid of his own creations and wished to defect to the west. He contacted a western mole which sneaked him and his family over the Berlin Wall. When he arrived on the western side, he was exhausted by the whole ordeal and was checked into a hospital in West Berlin. Just one week later the Cuban Missile Crisis occurred. Secretly America and the Soviet Union agreed that in return for removing their missiles from Cuba, America would send Sokolov back to the Soviet Union. On October 29th Major Zero got Sokolov out of the hospital and handed him over to eastern agents. On August 24th 1964 Naked Snake was sent to Tselinoyarsk to rescue Sokolov via stealth.

Note: for the actual Soviet engineers who were behind the design of the Vostok Rocket, see Sergei Korolev and Valentin Glushko.

Sokolov was being guarded by KGB troops, who were under orders to keep him from falling into the hands of Colonel Volgin of GRU, a member of the USSR Army's extremist faction, even if they had to kill Sokolov in the process. When Snake walked into Sokolov's room he was throwing design-sketches for the Shagohod into an oven. Sokolov asked Snake if he was one of Volgin's men and said that they would never get "it" from him. Snake informed him that he was an CIA agent sent by Major Zero, who was "Sorry for being so late."

As Snake left with Sokolov, they were ambushed by KGB soldiers. Suddenly, they were approached by the commander of the Ocelot unit of Spetsnaz, who referred to himself as Major Ocelot, before shooting the KGB soldiers dead in a heartbeat. Moments later, Spetsnaz soldiers had surrounded Snake and Sokolov, who exclaimed "GRU operatives!" and ran for his life, leaving Snake to take them down single-handedly.

Moments later Snake rejoined Sokolov at the rope bridge in Dolinovodno, where they spotted the Shagohod testing its missile delivery system. Sokolov informed Snake that without him overseeing things, the USSR would be unable to complete the Shagohod. Snake started to lead him to safety when they met The Boss and her Cobra unit, who captured Sokolov while The Boss took care of Snake, throwing him over the bridge into the river hundreds of feet below. Sokolov was taken to the design labs of his rival Aleksandr Leonovitch Granin while Colonel Volgin used a nuclear warhead and mortar The Boss had brought as a defection present to the Soviet Union to blow up OKB-754.

Snake goes on operation Snake Eater to rescue him. The two meet again in the West Wing of the Weapons Lab in Groznyj Grad. He told Snake about the Shagohod, and helped him by suggesting how to blow up the hangar with C3. Sokolov makes the noble decision to not come to the United States, because he knows he will be used to make "weapons that should never have existed in the first place."

Sokolov was eventually tortured to death by Volgin when he would not reveal the spy that was helping Snake.

Yevgeny Borisovitch Volgin

Template:Metal Gear Character Yevgeny Borisovitch Volgin is a GRU colonel who attempts to seize control of the Soviet Union by deposing Nikita Khrushchev and installing Leonid Brezhnev and Aleksei Kosygin in his place (He is a member of the Brezhnev faction and a member of the Soviet army's extremist faction). He has inherited a large sum of money from his father (Boris Volgin), who was in charge of managing and laundering the $100 billion fund that would come to be known as the Philosopher's Legacy. He hopes to use this fund and the superweapon Shagohod to gain world dominance. He established a major military fortress in Groznyj Grad where the Shagohod could be developed.

Volgin is a giant of a man, at well over six feet tall, and is known throughout the Soviet Union as a brutal, cold-blooded sadist. His most distinguishing facial feature are the scars on his face, which he burnt by himself. He thoroughly enjoys torturing prisoners, and is even said to remove their blindfolds before he beats them to death. Volgin is bisexual, as can be seen by his relationships with both Major Ivan Raidenovitch Raikov and Tatyana. Apparently, he is deathly afraid of tree frogs. He is also known for having problems with glowing mushrooms. He is also an ex-boxing champion which can be seen when he beat Naked Snake to a pulp after Snake knocks out Raikov.

During World War II, he took part in the Katyn massacre, in which the Soviets murdered over 25,000 Polish citizens. Also, during WWII, Volgin was behind Soviet ranks, waiting to catch any deserting troops, and punish them by death.

His body carries an electrical charge of ten million volts. Throughout his battles, he uses a number of powerful electrical attacks, including shooting lightning bolts at will. He is also shown manipulating cartridges by using his electrical powers to ignite the powder in the casing. A technique he uses is to hold rifle cartridges between his fingers or in his palm, and then uses an electrical jolt to shoot them like a gun. He can protect himself from gunfire by surrounding himself with a strong electromagnetic field as well. Because of these abilities, Volgin is known in the West as Thunderbolt.

He is killed during Operation Snake Eater, along with the Shagohod. Following a grueling fight with Naked Snake, his body is immolated after being struck by a bolt of lightning during a storm, summoned by The Sorrow (proof of this is seen when Snake is holding EVA and the player looks in first person view). The lightning bolt makes him catch on fire, which causes the gunpowder inside the cartridges in his ammobelts to explode, eventually killing him.

Volgin's catchphrase

Throughout the game, Volgin uses the Japanese phrase "Kuwabara, Kuwabara!" Which when translated to English means 'mulberry field'. According to Chinese legend mulberry trees are not struck by lightning. When Kuwabara is said twice it is believed to ward off lightning.[2]

Snake Eater game creator Hideo Kojima stated in an interview that Kuwabara is "...like a little spell. There was this historical figure in Japan called Mr. Kuwabara who was afraid of lightning. So Volgin, with all his electricity, doesn't want any rain or lightning to hit him."

Throughout the game, Volgin says "kuwabara" whenever it is raining outside. However, near the end, he doesn't say this (and actually mocks the thunder) and is struck by a bolt of lightning (summoned by The Sorrow) which kills him.

Minor characters

Aleksandr Leonovitch Granin

Template:Metal Gear Character Aleksandr Leonovitch Granin is the director of the OKB-812 Granin Design Bureau (also known as the Graniny Gorki Research and Design Lab), and has been twice awarded the Order of Lenin and the Order of Stalin, which he wears proudly on his suit jacket. He claims that he has developed countless weapons in the service of his "great communist society" since the Great Patriotic War and that it was thanks to him that the Soviet Union were able to "stamp out the Nazi scum" (implying that he also performed research during World War II). It was he who created the basic design for the mobile ballistic missile system SS-1C, but, before the events of Operation: Snake Eater, his latest project (a design plan for what would later become the Metal Gear itself) was cancelled in favor of Sokolov's Shagohod project, a fact about which Granin was quite bitter.

During Operation: Snake Eater, Granin, while drowning his sorrows, is confronted by Snake and decides to help him with his mission to rescue and extract Sokolov and destroy the Shagohod, thereby eliminating his research rival and his rival's pet project.

He would not live to benefit from his betrayal, however, as he ends up getting killed. Volgin, suspecting Granin of being the spy aiding Snake, "interrogates" him, putting him inside a large steel barrel and pounding away at it with his electrically-charged attacks until Granin is dead.

Granin was a colleague of Otacon's grandfather (who was also a weapons designer during World War II, involved in the Manhattan Project), and it is presumed that he either sent his plans for the precursor to Metal Gear to Emmerich or that Ocelot stole them and presented them to his superiors within The Patriots.

Granin also bears a striking resemblance to Sergei Korolev, one of the real life Soviet scientists who accomplished the achievements accredited to both Sokolov and Granin.

Ivan Raidenovitch Raikov

Major Ivan Raidenovitch Raikov is the right-hand man and lover of Colonel Volgin, and a parody of Raiden. Snake has to knock him out and then drag his body into the locker room in the East Wing of Groznyj Grad Weapons Lab in order to steal his clothes and sneak into the West Wing.

There are numerous references to Raiden (from Metal Gear Solid 2), ranging from Raikov's appearance (his face is nearly identical to Raiden's), his name (his patronymic means "Son of Raiden," his fighting style, and his effeminate nature and voice. His patronymic is actually a pun that can be interpreted into Japanese as the phrase "Raiden no Vitch"; depend on the context, it can be seen as "Thunderbolt the Bitch", with Thunderbolt being the English meaning of the name Raiden, or "Thunderbolt's bitch", in which thunderbolt is the nickname of Colonel Volgin. A small thunderbolt can also be seen on Raikov's underwear when Snake places his body in the locker.

One of the authors stated that Raikov's sexual relationship with Volgin is only a rumor, however, when playing through the game, there are several points that not only confirm, but very openly solidify the fact. Perhaps the most obvious one is when Volgin grabs Snake's (who's disguised as Raikov) crotch twice, and upon discovering he is not Raikov, says "I know the Major better than anyone else." The crotch-grabbing again makes reference to Raiden, where President Johnson grabs Raiden's crotch to confirm that Raiden is a man. Raikov's sexual orientation is clearly homosexual, as an adult magazine will not hold his attention. Also, in Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence, there's a parody named Metal Gear Raiden, which shows Raiden wanting to eliminate Big Boss by travelling through time, but fails at each time and warps in a different period. In the parody, Colonel Volgin finds Raiden in a cell close to the one Snake was locked up in and guarded by Johnny. The following actions may either shock you or make you weirded out:

Volgin says things about his dear Ivan, then proceeds to either rape or beat up Raiden, with erotic saxophone playing in the background.

In the Japanese version of the game, Raikov is voiced by Kenyu Horiuchi, the same voice actor for Raiden in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty.