Raiden
From the Metal Gear Wiki
| Raiden | |
|---|---|
 Raiden in Metal Gear Solid 2. | |
| Real name | Jack |
| Also known as | Jack the Ripper White Devil Briefly assumed the codename "Snake" before the Big Shell incident. |
| Nationality |  American (originally from Liberia)
|
| Affiliations | Small Boy Unit (Liberian Civil War), Force XXI (sometime before 2009), Pseudo-FOXHOUND operative unknowingly employed by The Patriots (2009). |
| Current status | Alive |
| Game series | Metal Gear Solid |
| Appears in | Metal Gear Solid 2 Metal Gear Solid 4 |
| First game | Metal Gear Solid 2 |
| Created by | Hideo Kojima |
| Designed by | Yoji Shinkawa |
| English voice actor | Quinton Flynn (MGS2, MGS4) Charlie Schlatter ("Metal Gear Raiden: Snake Eraser") |
| Japanese voice actor | Kenyū Horiuchi |
| Motion capture actor(s) | Eiji Morisaki |
Raiden, also known as Jack, is the adoptive son of George Sears. He was adopted after his parents were both killed early in his childhood. From an early age he was trained to be a soldier and earned several nicknames about his skill in combat. During the Manhattan Incident he discovered that George Sears was Solidus Snake and that Solidus killed his parents. At present time he has a combination of nanomachines and an exoskeleton keeping him alive, although the reason for the exoskeleton is currently unknown.
Contents |
[edit] Biography
[edit] Early Years
Raiden was adopted by Solidus Snake after Solidus killed his parents. He became a child soldier from as young as the age of six, in Solidus' "Army of the Devil" as part of the "small boys unit" during the first Liberian Civil War. Like the rest of his unit, he was regularly drugged in order to be conditioned and kept under control. Survival meant he was commended and rewarded, and killing to survive became his only purpose. He was trained personally by Soldius, to the extent that Solidus declared, "Your name... your skills... everything you know, you learned from me." Due to Jack's outstanding kill record, he gained a number of nicknames, two of the most prominent being "Jack the Ripper" and "White Devil", the latter probably in reference to his pale skin and fair hair. When the war ended, Jack was one of the survivors, and Solidus lost track of him.
[edit] Early Career In America
After the end of the Civil War, Jack left Liberia for the United States and eventually forgot his past. There he joined the Task Force 21 Corps, where he received further training, and possible mental reconditioning (or else he surpressed his bloody childhood memories, as he had no recollection of them until Solidus jogged his memory when they met again years later) before being eventually deployed on the ill-fated Big Shell mission. He also trained through various VR (virtual reality) simulations, including some which were based on the Shadow Moses and Tanker incidents that Solid Snake was a major participant in.
On April 30th 2007, Jack met Rosemary, who eventually became his girlfriend. Jack loved Rose deeply, but his harsh experiences had left him melancholic and emotionally distant, and he constantly shut her out of his problems. Rose was persistent in getting Jack to open up to her, even during his missions, which became a constant source vexation for him. It isn't until the Big Shell incident that Jack regains his memories and finally opens up to her, explaining that his past had for a long time been a jumbled mess, and even though it haunted him he could never quite put it together to figure out why. Jack's revelation later brings Rose closer to him.
[edit] Manhattan Incident
At the beginning of the Big Shell mission, he was shortly referred to as Snake (perhaps he inherited it from Solid Snake, this is unknown however) before his codename was quickly changed to Raiden by Colonel Campbell because the leader of the terrorists was also referring to himself as Solid Snake (later revealed to actually be Solidus Snake).
Quite late into the mission it was revealed that Raiden was merely a puppet of The Patriots, his entire mission was a lie (a scripted event devised by the Patriots), the Colonel he was speaking to was actually GW, an AI created by the Patriots, posing as the Colonel. They were telling him that he was just a weapon ... a creation of the Patriots with no purpose but what they made for him.
He dates Rosemary, but towards the end of the mission she revealed she was just a Spy sent by the Patriots to keep an eye on him, before she eventually fell in true love with him. She also told Jack that she was pregnant. She said to him "See me for what I am, okay?" and he nodded, and they agreed to find their future together.
[edit] Guns Of The Patriots
Raiden has been confirmed to return in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots as a non-playable character. In the 2006 E3 15 minute trailer, Raiden was shown at the end in Cyborg Ninja attire which is created by Tokugawa Heavy Industries the same company who also created Frank Jaeger's Cyborg Ninja exoskeleton suit.
According to Yoji Shinkawa, Raiden appears to be "Falling Apart" with most of his body being made up of cybernetic prosthetics. It is unclear how he had become cybernetic, though the only organic parts is his head and spine. To show further proof of his cyborg-like body, Raiden stabbed himself while Vamp held him -- The blade entered into his body and out of Vamp's back. Raiden, unflenching and unaffected by the pain. What reason Raiden had for trading in his humanity for a powered exo-skeleton suit is unknown, but it may have had something to do with the fact that the Patriots never gave him back his real blood when they replaced it with his nano-machines during the events of the Plant Chapter in MGS2.
[edit] Behind the Scenes
- Raiden is disliked by many fans of the series due largely to his personality and character, however Hideo Kojima has stated in interviews that he was mainly put in for new fans of the series so that he could ask questions that a veteran like Solid Snake wouldn't ask, and to make Snake seem more impressive as a character. Hideo has also explicitely stated that Raiden is his favorite character in Metal Gear Solid 2.
- Metal Gear Solid 3 makes use of Raiden's character as well as his appearance. Selecting the option "I like MGS2" before starting a new game, triggers a change in the opening, in which Naked Snake is wearing a mask that looks identical to Raiden's face. Later in the game, Major Ivan Raidenovich Raikov (who also bears an identical appearance to Raiden) must be neutralized and stripped of his clothing to be impersonated to infiltrate a section of a base. This was obviously a means for fans who disliked Raiden to, in a sense, attack him as they have longed to.
- Raiden himself appears as a recruit character in Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Plus modeled after his original Metal Gear Solid 2 look, and not his new Cyborg Ninja look.
[edit] Guns of the Patriots trailer
In the first Metal Gear Solid 4 trailer (which ran on the engine for MGS3, also known as the Metal Gear Solid 4 Directors trailer), Raiden makes a parody appearance along with Snake (dressed to look like Sam Fisher, the main character of the UbiSoft game, Splinter Cell). The trailer depicts them fighting over who will be the main character of MGS4, Snake wins the fight easily, sitting in the "main character" chair, signaling a chime. But just as Snake leaves and before the credits roll, Raiden is seen eying up the chair, and as the screen fades to black the same chime is heard.
Raiden also appears in one of the Secret Theatre shorts made by Kojima Productions for their website. Entitled "Metal Gear Raiden: Snake Eraser" where Raiden attempts to "erase" Solid Snake by traveling back in time in a Terminator-like style and attempting to assassinate Naked Snake, all ending in failure in a humorous fashion. Even once, after realizing he wasn't going to kill Naked Snake, he went back to the events of the Zanzibar Land Uprising (complete with MSX graphics) to kill Solid Snake himself, ending in similar failure.
[edit] Gallery
 Raiden with the visor down |
 Raiden from MGS 2 wielding Olga Gurlukovich's long HF Blade. |
 Raiden artwork from MGS 2 |
| Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots Characters |
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Solid Snake — Otacon — Raiden — Naomi Hunter |
