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MGSV: The Official Guide

*Please note that although this is the MGSV guidebook, the two sections of MGSV (These being Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain) are denoted by their respective titles. Thus, at times there is specific notation as The Phantom Pain, or Ground Zeroes, within the text. This is true of the guide)

Transcription by: @swooshywoo

The top of the page is titled “WHO IS ISHMAEL?”

There is a note at the beginning.

“Note

At the request of Konami, we cannot conclusively reveal the exact truth about Ishmael’s identity here. This final thread of the full Metal Gear Solid V narrative is actually revealed in a special post-story “secret” mission, and acts as a reward for truly dedicated players. Instead, this section examines available evidence acquired prior to the secret mission.”

The main article is as follows.

“When Bis Boss awakes from his nine-year coma, he is assisted (indeed, saved) by a mysterious man called Ishmael – the occupant of the other bed in the two-person ward. Ishmael has bandages on his face, so we can never tell for sure who he is, but his voice is eerily, immediately familiar. When Big Boss asks who he is, Ishmael enigmatically replies:

‘Who am I? You’re talking to yourself. Been watching over you for nine years, and… call me Ishmael.’

Towards the end of the prologue, where Big Boss escapes from the hospital in Cyprus, Ishmael disappears after the ambulance they are riding in crashes. Big Boss leaves the vehicle and is soon rescued by Ocelot – but Ishmael is nowhere to be found.

The most obvious explanation would be that Ishmael does not exist. A mere figment of Big Boss’s imagination, Ishmael is a device conjured up by a mind struggling to cope with both rediscovered consciousness and the desperate need to escape the chaos at the hospital. In a sense, Ishmael could be his survival instinct in corporeal form. This idea is backed up by a variety of factors: the way that Ishmael vanishes like a ghost; the fact that the hospital staff never seem to address or acknowledge Ishmael’s presence next to Big Boss in the opening scenes; his assertion that Big Boss is talking to himself when asked who he is; and the most salient detail, that he appears to have the exact same voice as Big Boss. All of these clues combine to suggest that Ishmael might be a hallucination that Big Boss uses to inspire his incredible escape, against all odds.

Were it that simple! There are many moments in the prologue that make it clear that Ishmael is undoubtedly real. Quiet, when she arrives to assassinate Big Boss in the hospital, has a short radio conversation where she acknowledges Ishmael’s existence: ‘Not yet. The patient in the next bed saw my face’, she says. If she can see a patent next to Big Boss, it means there actually is one and everything about the defeat of this assassin suggests a second party. Secondly, during the ambulance escape, Big Boss is clearly seated in the passenger seat on the left, with Ishmael driving on the right hand side – which makes perfect sense only if Ishmael is a real person, as right-hand drive vehicles are the norm in Cyprus, just as in Great Britain. Hallucinations might be a useful source of gestures, advice and motivation, but they certainly can’t accelerate, steer and shift gears at high speed – and the same could be said of anyone riding shotgun with an imaginary friend at the wheel. Finally, when Big Boss later asks Ocelot about the identity of the man who helped him escape from Cyprus, Ocelot pointedly ignores the question – something that will raise alarm bells for all players familiar with the ways and wiles of that particular character.

If Ishmael really exists, the question is: who is he? Though it is impossible to solve this enigma with absolute certainty until a secret mission is unlocked by fulfilling very specific late-game requirements at the end of Metal Gear Solid V, huge clues can actually be found in the closing cutscenes of the Ground Zeroes episodes and – in extended form – in the Phantom Pain reveal trailer released in 2011.

The first key clue is that the on-board medic who removes the first bomb implanted in Paz’s body has a very similar (practically identical) voice as Bog Boss. He only speaks a few words during these scenes, but the evidence is irrefutable: his voice is at least a close match.

A second clue can be seen when this medic deliberately sacrifices himself and shields Big Boss from the detonation of the second explosive that was implanted in Paz’s body. His behavior is not surprising given that he must be one of Big Boss’s most trusted men, which you can easily surmise from his presence on a critical operation. As a consequence, you would expect the medic – and not Big Boss – to have suffered the brunt of the shrapnel impacts. The man that takes center-stage in the The Phantom Pain – Ahab – clearly has a huge and unmistakable piece of shrapnel protruding from his skull, an object that apparently cannot be removed without causing irreparable brain damage. Which leads us to…”

Page one ends, page two begins.

A third and decisive clue is revealed during the scene that follows the crash of Big Boss’s chopper, set in a nearby medical facility. In this, Miller is badly wounded but conscious. Big Boss, on the other hand, still in his outfit from Operation Ground Zeroes, is on the brink of death. The huge, nuclear-grade reveal that is made in this cutscene lasts for no more than a couple of seconds, which is why so many fans will have missed it. Big Boss’s face is briefly seen, and it most definitely does not feature a piece of shrapnel evocative of a horn on the right-hand side of his head.

A final clue comes from Miller in that very cutscene, seconds after Big Boss’s face is shown. Miller asks the doctors: “How is he doing?” to which the doctors reply that Big Boss is stabilized but in a coma. And at this point, Miller adds: “What about him?” clearly talking about a third patient in the room, just off-camera in the foreground. Who else could that man be, other than the on-board medic who sacrificed himself to protect Big Boss – the medic whose body must be riddled with shrapnel from his position at the open side door after the explosion and during the moment of impact?

For long-serving series fans, the fact that Ishmael’s corner of the room is decorated with a distinctive flower with white petals – the Star-of-Bethlehem, inextricably associated with The Boss – will be seen as a smoking gun. The single vase positioned close to Ahab’s bed is moved there by a nurse: itself a potential clue.

There are more hints scattered in the Phantom Pain main storyline for those who pay close attention. For instance, when Emmerich sees Big Boss for the first time, in the hangar where he is rescued, he looks closely at his face and appears dubious that he really is Big Boss, as if something about him doesn’t quite add up. Something similar appears to occur when Ahab retrieves Volgin’s body in Chapter 2: a moment of recognition that seemingly quells the flames of the Man on Fire. Most tellingly of all, when Ahab first encounters the “phantom” Paz at Mother Base, there are clearly two versions of Big Boss on board the helicopter during his hallucination.

Another example is found during the scene where Ocelot interrogates Eli – someone who we can safely assume to be Liquid Snake, one of the three clones created in the “Les Enfants Terribles” project – after the latter facilitates the escape of child soldiers from Mother Base. When Eli asks where Big Boss is, Ocelot replies: “I told you, your father’s not here”, even though Ahab is watching the scene on the other side of a one-way mirror. Perhaps even more tellingly, a genetic test performed on Ahab leads to negative results. It is implausible that such a test would fail to establish a connection between Eli and Big Boss since they are clones – yet another hint at Ahab’s true identity.

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