Zombies Ruin Everything

“The world today has become too soft. We’re living in an age where true feelings are suppressed. So we’re going to shake things up a bit.”

You’ve got tricksters, and then you’ve got magnificent bastards. If [Revolver] Ocelot isn’t the latter, then I haven’t been playing Metal Gear Solid and where am I mother, just take me home, I’m crazy and smell fresh bread. I hear it’s amazing when the famous purple stuffed worm in flap-jaw space with the tuning fork does a raw blink on Hara-Kiri Rock.

I need scissors! 61!

Now that all that’s out of the way, let’s get into the personality profile of a guy who’s been double/triple/quadruple-crossing everyone since we were first introduced to him in 1964. The son of the Boss and the Sorrow (What a lineage), Ocelot had never shied away from his natural talents and learned skills in the field with his chosen weapons. But it’s not until the events of Shadow Moses (MGS1) and beyond that we get to know how truly deep this guy’s act goes. Any time you think you’ve got him figured out, he’s goes against it and does the opposite.

Often typed as ENTJ and more often INTJ, it’s not until MGS4 that we see his true motives come into play and his “endgame” revealed. While it looked like control through threats was his original plan, working “under” Liquid Snake, we eventually come to find out that Ocelot has been under the deepest of cover, working for, and ultimately against, the shadow government known as the Patriots. His goal? To free the world of the AI system that has its digital hand around the throat of society, unbeknownst to its people.

By using Solid Snake (and about thirty other “pawns”), Ocelot is able to play a major part in ridding the world of the oppressive system and even have one last showdown with Snake; reliving the old days with the “son” of the only man Ocelot has ever looked up to- Big Boss.

So why ENTP?

The -NTJ typings seem to stem mostly from Ocelot’s true intentions be concealed and from this, understandably, leads users to see Ocelot as the ultimate behind-the-scenes schemer, as Death Note’s Light or Star Wars’ Emperor is. But Ocelot’s goal isn’t one of total domination as we’d previously been led to believe. He’s more of a Starscream type minus the cowardice. Working under whoever the boss of the game was, but with his own plan in mind all along.

But planning of any sort doesn’t mean it’s Te (Extroverted Intuition), specifically when the “plan” is partly made up of the abilities of the planner, partly made up of their expectations of others, and majorly made up of great freaking timing.

The dominant function of the ENTP, Ne (Extroverted Intuition), is all about constant observation and interpretation of the world around the user. In other words- possibilities. Juggling multiple ideas and likelihood, this will always have them and their Ne cousin, the ENFP, thinking about “what could be.” Hardly satisfied in the moment, to the outside observer, the ENTP’s actions and motives can appear random and without meaning. While to the ENTP, even if it’s to alleviate boredom, will always have a reason behind what they do, leaving ENFP to actually be more “random” than anything, while the ENTP might really have some bigger idea behind their perceived weirdness.

All the same, this can make the ENTP untrustworthy to those around them, who want to pinpoint the idea behind the ENTP’s behavior…all while the ENTP thrives off of playing against those expectations. It’s Ne, specifically in fiction, that will have audiences questioning the practicality of the character’s plans. If the writing is done well enough to cover it’s tracks and leave out the plot holes, you won’t be able to say it’s impossible, just highly improbable.

The biggest negative behind this, aside from friends and acquaintances being unsure of the ENTP’s character, is that it might often feel to the ENTP that they have no personality of their own at times and that their opinions and beliefs might actually only be cemented as an antagonist of what another believes and nothing more…if the ENTP isn’t careful, this can become true.

This fits Ocelot well, as much of his plans involve some of the most complex and convoluted plot points ever conceived. Let’s stick with this “one”-

*Inhales*

After working for Liquid Snake in MGS1, Ocelot has his hand severed by Gray Fox. By MGS2, Ocelot has had Liquid’s arm replace his missing limb since Liquid is now dead. But Liquid’s spirit is slowly beginning to posses Ocelot’s mind whenever Solid Snake is near. Fast forward to MGS4 and Liquid has completely taken over Ocelot’s mind, and now goes by Liquid Ocelot. Ultimately it is revealed that through temporary possession, in-depth hypnosis, drugs, nanomachines, and some damn fine acting, and had his Liquid limb replaced with a robotic one. Ocelot was pretending to be “Liquid” to draw Solid out, eventually defeating Ocelot’s superiors, which was what Ocelot wanted all along but still needed to pretend he was serving out the Patriots wishes.

*Takes breath*

Of course there’s much more to it than that but the point remains the same. Ocelot’s goals are personal (Reviving Big Boss) while also having the bigger picture in mind (Freeing the world from the Patriots) and he does this in the most seemingly random, complicated scheme ever hatched.

So while it’s not as simple as “Ne is random! Ocelot is random! The end!” Ocelot’s overarching scheme is something that couldn’t have been planned for in the long term, as Ne is also a more about the immediate idea. The scheme would have had to have been orchestrated by dealing with the unexpected and playing much off of others’ expectations of not only Ocelot himself, but his reliance on others to stay true to their own character for his own ideas to come to fruition. Improvisation and misdirection are key to this, as is the strong suit of the ENTP.

Dealing with things head-on or with the long term in mind past just what they can anticipate around the corner is not their strong suit and unfortunately, loyalty can be an issue as well, as we know Ocelot to not be the most loyal of subordinates.

Sorry Liquid, Solidus, Volgin, the Patriots.

Since this character has got so much going on that can’t be explained here without stretching this post out thrice the word count I already have, here’s a video giving an account of Ocelot’s history.

This entry was posted on 09/01/2015 at 1:26 am and is filed under MBTI Rationals, MBTI Stuff with tags entp, mbti in fiction, metal gear solid, Ocelot. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.