Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots/Heartwarming

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • The ending of Metal Gear Solid 4, in which Big Boss uses his much vaunted CQC techniques to disarm Snake and then give him a hug before telling how much he respects him as a man, then dies after sharing one last cigar with his son.
    • In spite of his claims that he never thought of David as a son, John Doe's love for him as a father is all but confirmed with this:

"Snake, you are free now... Don't waste it... Start a new life..."

  • What makes it all the greater is Big Boss and Snake's Japanese voice actors are father and son in real life.

Made all the more heartbreaking for the fact that David has has only but SIX MONTHS left by that time.

  • Seconded. The touching, soft music, the imagery and glowy hazy-ness of all the white flowers in the cemetary, and Big Boss's "This is good, isn't it?" never fails to make this troper tear up.
  • Even though EVA may not have believed David's father loved him, she freely admits that she always has.

"I'm sorry...your father never wanted you. Human life isn't meant to be manipulated like that. I knew that, but...I wanted you."

  • Sunny forming a microcosm of the ideal of world peace when she says of her new friend "We don't understand each other's language but we're having fun."
    • Don't forget Meryl and Johnny's wedding.
      • Hey hey now, don't forget Johnny's Meryl's proposal!
    • Something apparently overlooked: after GW goes down and the absence of the system leaves Outer Haven's unmanned defenses dead weight, it also leaves the FROGs as lumps of weeping, broken women from the onslaught of, until now, suppressed battlefield trauma. The ensuing montage includes a scene of the Missouri's Marines, although keeping their guns trained at all times, rescuing them, with the less debilitated FROGs in the rafts trying to comfort the ones who have lost the will to even move.
      • The part that really gets to this troper is one FROG holding another who has collapsed while stroking her head. Seriously one of the sweetest things she has ever seen.
    • This troper, for one, got a little bit of this every time Big Mama (AKA EVA) says "That's my boy!". Now if that isn't a touching mother and son moment, nothing is.
    • Let's not forget Raiden's segment in the end of the game either. After suffering all kinds of headbreaking injuries, emotional and physical, Raiden is fitted back with an organic-lookalike body and then reunited with Rose, who is accompanied by a little boy. She reveals that the child is Raiden's son and her apparent marriage to Colonel Campbell was just a cover to protect John from The Patriots. John tells Raiden he's cool like a superhero, and then flourishes his toy sword just like Raiden did in MGS2. The three of them embrace, Raiden promises Rose he will never abandon her again, and they finally get to be the family they always wanted to be. Say what you will about Raiden, but you can't deny that after all the crap he had gone through in his life, he really needed and deserved that happy ending.
  • In the celebratory moments after Meryl and Johnny's wedding, Campbell simply looks up to the heavens and says, "Thank you, Snake." The best moment of the game.
      • I've only completed #2, but that scene between Raiden and Rose before the Sons of Liberty credits made me very happy for them both.
    • Oddly, this troper found the scene in the act 5 briefing where Otacon pulls out his lighter and lights Snake's cigarette for him, despite berating him throughout all the games about his smokes, to be extremely sweet.
    • Don't forget the final scene that played after the credits rolled. Otacon promises Snake that he will remain with him as a witness to his life, remembering everything that Snake ever was, and saying that he and Sunny will stick with him until the day Snake dies. Makes this troper choke up every. single. time.
    • The most heart-rending line is "You don't have to come." And the most heartwarming is the fact that Otacon will not hear of it. There's just something in my eye... every single time.
  • Kind of an odd example for me: I found Psycho Mantis's utter glee when using a controller with Dual Shock 3 technology to be oddly heartwarming. Yes, he killed a lot of people. Yes, he attempted to make Meryl blow her own brain out...in two different games. No, he wasn't sorry about any of it. But he got one last chance to have a little fun messing with your controller, and he's so happy about it he practically sounds like a kid in a candy store.
  • Big Boss's CQC hug with Snake towards the end of MGS4. The rest of the scene qualifies as both this and a decent Tear Jerker.
    • Additionally, plays with "Well Done, Son" Guy, by having Big Boss tell Snake point-blank that he never considered him his son, but held him in high regard as a soldier. In the context of the series, it is rather touching.
    • Raiden's epilogue. Definitely cheers you up if you spent the game pitying the guy's situation.
    • This is good, isn't it.
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