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Rose: Jabber and Jiggles

Features

Written by Edward

Friday, 22 May 2009 10:50

From the people who bought you BB:OHYLTSBALHDS

There is many a Metal Gear character that is open to analysis, is Big Boss deluded, selfish, maniac or greatest hero of the series? Is George Kasler the greatest Metal Gear character, or greatestest Metal Gear character?

But in terms of sheer impact on the fans, there are few supporting characters (especially Codec contacts) who had such an effect as Raiden’s needy Patriot Spy squeeze: Rosemary. Like her or loathe her, her impact is undeniable; and if your able to look past her annoying qualities, she can be quite an interesting character. No honestly, stifle your laughter.

Our world vs. MGS2 world: Justifying Rose’s Place in the Game

MGS2 presents an interesting combination between the world of bisexual vampires and blonde haired black women that Raiden has been dropped into, and the real world we live in. And it is important to remember that while both realities are often in separate locations from each other (e.g. all the crazy stuff taking place in an Oil Rig, or a facility for the dismantling of nuclear warheads) the key dynamic is that MGS world still exists within our world.

I.e. Vamp and Solidus can only exist in the MGS2 world. But the society that the Patriots control is “our” world. Think of a cross section of a hard-boiled egg. The yolk is the MGS world and the white is the real world. Both are still part of the egg, but are separate from us. The egg thus becomes the “MGS universe”.

An interesting question could be raised from this as to which world Raiden lives in. If you listen to the conversations between him and Rose that are spread throughout MGS2, you will hear little snippets that place the pre-Big Shell Jack in “our” world. He and Rose attend parties, go out to dinner regularly, and have a fairly normal relationship on the surface. So pre-Big Shell Raiden is a character of “Our world”. During the Big Shell, however we discover that Raiden was something of a prolific child solider raised by a clone of an insane war criminal who had an ongoing feud with a catatonic former friend who controls the USA with AI’s; all this because a woman who died 20 years before Raiden was even born, said she was unhappy with the Cold War. Did you get all that? It doesn’t matter if you did, the point is pre-Rose Raiden definitely exists in the MGS world. Ultimately these two parts of Raiden’s life come smashing together in MGS2, creating the confusion and uncertainty you see in Raiden throughout the game.

I’m not going to look into MGS4 Raiden because in my eyes they completely ruined the character there, to appeal more to casual fans and the Raiden haters from MGS2. Effectively stripping the character of all the quality and development from MGS2 and replacing it with flashing lights, a horrible VA from Flynn (obviously an attempt at trying to make Raiden sound “tough”) and self-indulgent fights.

‘Course that’s just my opinion.

Now that entire preceding paragraph may have seemed irrelevant, but it is bare with me. So now we move on to Rose. Which world does she live in? Well, it’s kind of difficult to judge. Obviously some human Patriot goon got to her so they could get her to spy on their “beloved monster”. At the same time we know from MGS2 that the Patriots have become little more than a group of malevolent artificial intelligences. Rose however still firmly places herself in the real world. This can be seen (as mentioned before) in her social behaviour with Raiden. She, like Raiden, exhibits qualities of both our world and the MGS world. He place in the game is thus justified via her later development; she and Raiden are in essence a microcosm of the entire MGS universe.

The same cannot be said for the clones of Big Boss, or even Big Boss himself who’s always tied into things that cannot exist in our world.

Why she is interesting.

“Jack do you know what day tomorrow is?”

The most pertinent and recurring quote in all of MGS2. It is posed by Rose and no other. Now first we must look at what this quote stands for. Rose is well aware that Big Shell is merely a training exercise, the Patriots are more than likely to have informed her of this. That said what happens on April 30th? Solidus is killed, Arsenal destroys part of New York, and the entire Big Shell ideal give Raiden a new lease on life. This is very important to remember. Rose in this instance becomes a vehicle for driving perhaps one of the most important ideas the game presents which is that of Raiden’s life being his own or someone else’s creation. After Solidus is dead, and he becomes informed about the Patriot’s control, Raiden is free to make his own decisions with his life (as Snake explains at the end).

So we can conclude that Rose’s place in the game is that of helping to drive home that very important theme.

Not that that’s the only reason she’s interesting. For some people Rose and Raiden’s constant chatter about their personal life hampered playing MGS2. However I for one find these conversations an important part of fully understanding Kojima’s intent with MGS2. You see these conversations are a means of bridging the divide in the MGS universe between things that can only exist in fantasy, and things that exist in our world. Rose’s banal questions about what they’ll have for dinner tomorrow in the midst of Raiden viewing a Vampire chop to bits a group of heavily armed Marines contribute to the overall surrealism of the story and help to create a paradox between the two worlds, something that never leaves Raiden throughout the whole story. It could be said then that Kojima realised that having such an incongruous relationship between what Raiden’s hearing from Rose and what he’s seeing with is eyes; would ultimately be beneficial for the gamers understanding of the game. Needless to say it seems in this case that Kojima over-estimated his audience.

These conversations also provide a great deal of development for each of the characters, along with numerous instances where their fate is foreshadowed. There are plenty of times when Rose talks herself into a corner and cuts the conversation off abruptly. Also Raiden’s revelations in the torture room are foreshadowed via his reluctance to answer some of Rose’s more difficult questions, questions that we later discover were asked as part of her job as a Patriot agent.

Rose develops the greatest deal during the Arsenal Gear act. They moral dilemma she faces with being a Patriot agent and truly being in love with Raiden is fully revealed. On one hand she loves Raiden, on the other she knows the Patriots will obliterate should she not comply with their demands (the malicious acts she sees Ocelot committing throughout the game no doubt would reinforce this to her). Now here I’d like to answer a question that has been posed thousands of times: “Is Rose an AI?” You’d think that her appearance in the flesh at the end of the game would have answered that question, but no. Again she appears in MGS4, but there seems to be some degree of confusion as to when she stopped being real and became an AI.

So I’ll explain it. Rose is real, up until the point she hangs up on Rose after their chat in the torture room. From that point on she is an AI, you can tell when AI Rose is speaking sometimes because her pupils will disappear. There is a moment when she reveals she’s carrying Raiden’s baby, now this is a toss up. It could be a Patriot ploy; it could be her on some other frequency, but she is definitely an AI from that point on. Except for when she appears in person.

MGS4

Rose doesn’t really develop in any interesting way in MGS4. She does part-take in a quasi-relationship-fake-out thing with Colonel Campbell, but for the sake of not spoiling you I won’t go into details. Suffice to say her conclusion is under-whelming. She does give birth to Raiden’s son though. What this paragraph is about however is what her character is reduced to in MGS4.

Rather than being a vehicle to develop the main character she becomes nothing more than a meaningless codec contact with nothing to say. This is no doubt a knee-jerk reaction from Kojima to the negative reaction she received from some fans. They made her talk as little as possible, having effectively nothing important to say when she does and the character pretty much stagnates. The crowning achievement in this is that for whatever reason, Kojima decided to add a little easter egg by which you can make Rose's breasts shake by shaking the Sixaxis. Was this a joke? It wasn't funny. Was it a Policenauts reference? Why not make it so you can do it to Meryl then.

This says more about the maturity and insightfulness of gamers around the time MGS2 was made than it does about Kojima (although it does say a lot about Kojima). Effectively the presence of a well rounded and realistic female character in the game threw some people off. She's no different than a real girl-friend would be if she was talking to her boyfriend on the phone while he was in a war-zone. It's disappointing.

However that said, seeing as Rose had served out her entire purpose in MGS2 and there really was no need for her to be there. Her job could have been done by Nastasha or Norden or Kasler.

Conclusion

In summary Rose is a character with much more depth than appears on the surface. Her place in MGS2 is as a vehicle for character and plot development. If you replay the game and be patient I’m sure you will come to this conclusion too.

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