Talk:Liquid Snake

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Page needs unlocking to allow members to clean up the content and language; some of the grammar in this article is atrocious! BBMSteve 23:46, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Contents 1 genes 2 when is Liquid not THE liquid? 3 Tense 4 Snake 5 Unnecessary spaces ?

[edit] genes

At the end of the game wasn't it stated that Liquid actually possessed the dominant genes? If it does, it doesn't make sense as blonde hair is essentially a recessive trait... that and a person containing the same dominant genes would look very much like a person with the same dominant genes (as snake looks almost identical to naked snake when compared with liquid)-D558

Blonde hair is a recessive trait, yes, which implies that Liquid does have recessive genes. However, Big Boss is also blond, which means his genome must have TWO recessive hair colour chromosomes and NO dominant ones. Therefore, as Liquid is a clone of Big Boss, it is impossible for Big Boss to have given Liquid or Solid Snake dominant hair colour genes. That is why Liquid is blond and not dark-haired. Liquid did not receive ONLY dominant genes; he received all of Big Boss's dominant genes. Also, it is worth noting that dominance doesn't always equal "good"; displaying a recessive trait isn't necessarily a weakness. BBMSteve 16:19, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Big Boss does not seem to have blonde hair, as naked snake has brown hair and in later appearances he has grey/white hair because of aging. Therefore if liquid has all of Big bosses dominant genes he would have the gene that makes his hair brown (whether through dominance over a coupled recessive gene or incomplete dominance with its partner allele.) -D558

I thought Big Boss showed recessive physical traits - blue eyes, blonde hair, etc. Maybe I'm wrong though... BBMSteve 17:50, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Well big boss definitly has brown hair which is not recessive (its either dominant or an incomplete dominant trait, i can't remember) so unless Liquid dyed his hair this was a mishap. As for eye color Big Boss, Liquid and Solid Snake all have blue eyes meaning that either Big boss had a Double dominant blue eye genotype (if blue eyes are dominant) or a double recessive genotype (if blue eyes are recessive) leaving no room for variation to "pick and choose" alleles/genes to distribute/pass-on in the Les Enfants Terrible project. As far as Big Boss himself, It is certain that he does have some recessive genes as he was a normally conceived human but they would only show if he just possessed those recessive genes and they would have to be in all of his clones but this cannot be the case for brown hair -D558

As far as I'm aware, both human hair and eye colour are polygenic traits, meaning they are controlled by two or more genes. However, the inheritence pattern for blonde hair and blue eyes is considered to be similar to monogenic traits. If you play MGS3 again, I'm sure you'll agree with me that Naked Snake's hair looks a lot lighter than the average brown-haired person's. Anyway, I am no expert in genetics, so I'm not going to argue this any further. If I'm being honest, I think you're thinking into the whole thing a little too deeply; what does it matter if there's a mistake? Snake has dark hair, Liquid has blonde hair. The end. BBMSteve 19:41, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't mean to oppose you to the point of aggravation. I am a Biochem student but it has been awhile since i worked with dominance with respect to hair color but as far I know, I think it is wrong genetically. - D558

Oh, you've not annoyed me at all, it's just that I cannot provide any more arguments as I simply do not know enough about the subject (it's been 7 years since I studied anything of the sort!). If you do find an answer to this, I'd be more than interested to hear what you have to say. Until then, I'm going to forget about it. :P BBMSteve 20:01, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

For now at least, I think the most important thing to bear in mind that it is never stated that Big Boss carried one dominant and recessive allele for each trait, so it's possible that both Liquid and Solid inherited recessive and dominant traits. And don't neglect the importance of the effects of Liquid's environment on his hair colour. I usually have quite dark hair, but exposure to strong sunlight often causes it to turn blonde... BBMSteve 20:17, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

-Snake is the dominant clone and Liquid is the recessive clone, as is indicated by their hair colour. The reason most people get confused is they assume dominant = superior and recessive = inferior, when this isn't the case at all. Liquid believed that his recessive genes were inferior to Snake's dominant genes, when it was actually the other way round. This was down to Big Boss, who lied to Liquid to give him an inferiority complex. By telling Liquid he was worthless, he knew Liquid would fight 10 times harder to prove he wasn't. Another reason was that he wanted a successor for Outer Heaven, he knew that Liquid's hatred of him would lead him to attempt to surpass him. Liquid is the one who inherited the most 'soldier genes' from Big Boss, making him the 'superior clone'. Ocelot never mentions dominant/recessive genes in MGS1's ending phone call, he just says Liquid's 'superior'.

Actually, Big Boss DIDN'T lie to Liquid Snake (Heck, they barely even had any contact. I mean, Solid and Liquid Snake's conception was the reason why Big Boss left the Patriots, remember?). I mean, if ANYONE lied to Liquid in regards to the recessive genes, it was probably Major Zero or another one of the Patriot members, and that's assuming that someone told him rather than him just simply finding pictures of Big Boss while he was Naked Snake, and thus ASSUMED that he must have the recessive genes just because Solid Snake resembles him more.

• • This is wrong. Snake is the recessive clone and Liquid is the dominant clone. Shinkawa has stated Liquid actually isn't blonde, but dark haired like his brother; apparently, his hair was bleached blonde by the sun during his time in the Middle East. Yes, this wouldn't work, but hey.
    
    The recessive clone couldn't possibly inherit most of the soldier genes, that isn't how genetics work. In an individual organism, recessive traits are the ones not expressed in the organism's phenotype; this means that if the recessive clone posessed those traits, Big Boss himself would not have posessed them. Liquid was more or less right as far as the Les Enfants Terribles project was concerned: Big Boss' recessive traits would be considered useless because they would not be the ones that made Big Boss who he was; therefore, as far as the project is concerned, 'dominant' really does mean 'superior.' We just have to assume all the 'soldier genes' were dominant-recessive pairs in Big Boss, since that's the only way any of it works. Of course, the whole dominant / recessive clone aspect is pointless, since a straightforward clone of Big Boss would have exactly the same dominant traits without doubling them up. Most likely, when Liquid talks about 'all the...genes' he's really talking about all the soldier genes, since the project would have no interest in altering the others anyway, and otherwise the two would look completely different, when they're stated and shown at the start of MGS to be identical.
    
    It's worth noting that originally both Snakes and Big Boss were supposed to be natural blonds (Snake is blonde and looks exactly like Liquid in the MGS briefing, and it seems the decision to give him dark hair was made late on, considering Meryl tells him he's identical to Liquid when he clearly isn't), and Shinkawa was still talking about designing a blond Big Boss in MGS2's time.Evil Tim 05:30, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

how does liquid appear identical to snake if he has different hair, skin, accent nationality, personality etc. hes completely opisite.

The Accent could be explained with the fact that he was deported to Britain and lived there since he was a baby.

Did they have the same mother?

Considering how Liquid Snake identified both himself and Solid Snake as "twins", as well as EVA's stating she is the mother of both Snakes, yes, they DEFINITELY have the same mother (at least in terms of the Surrogate mother aspect.).

dear god. that would make liquid half japanesse.

not necessarily

I know Liquid has a British Accent, but can someone state which specific British Accent he has? As in, is it Southwestern English/Western Country? East Anglican? Western Midlands/Black Country/Birmingham? East Midlands? Liverpool/Scouse? Mancunian/Manchester? one of the East Lancashire dialects? Yorkshire? Newcastle/Geordie? one of the Northeast England dialects?

[edit] when is Liquid not THE liquid?

with the events of metal gear solid 4 finding out that liquid has not taken over ocelot and it was all a well play staged act shouldn't we reroute all "liquid ocelot" links to ocelot?

It's less confusing for people who may not have played the game. Also Ocelot's page is long enough as it is. --Fantomas 10:07, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Tense

Following the changes to this article made yesterday by Fantomas, I'd like to draw users' attention to their choice of tenses: although we all know that Liquid dies at the end of Metal Gear Solid, it is stylistically bad to use the past tense when referring to him. When referring to fictional characters in fictional works, we always use the present tense as, if we were to go back to the beginning of MGS, Liquid would still be alive. Fictional works and their events are not constant with real life ones, and, as such, we cannot refer to them in the past tense. May I, therefore, suggest that Fantomas undoes these changes, reverting to the present tense? BBMSteve 18:02, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

EDIT: I have edited the article myself, retaining appropriate additions whilst editing the article for style, including reverting to the present tense where necessary. BBMSteve 18:33, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

We were informed by someone when this Wiki was in it's early days that past tense (as if all events had already happened and all articles take place "in-universe" as though being written by someone who exists in MGS canon) was neater and sounded better style-wise. We, as a wiki, agreed and have been trying our best to do this whenever we feel is necessary. --Fantomas 23:19, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Style-wise, you should always be encouraged to use the present tense when writing about fiction. I quote from Wikipedia's "Tense" note in its "Writing better articles" style guide:

Works of fiction are generally considered to "come alive" when read. They exist in a kind of perpetual present tense, regardless of when the fictional action is supposed to take place relative to "now." Thus, generally you should write about fiction using the present tense, not the past tense.

"Homer presents, Achilles rages, Andromache laments, Priam pleads."

"Darth Vader is a fictional character from Star Wars."

"Holden Caulfield has a certain disdain for what he sees as 'phony'."

"Heathcliff, who is taken in by the wealthy Earnshaw family as a child, falls in love with their daughter, Catherine."

No style guide would ever recommend using the past tense when writing about fiction, so I'm afraid it's a case of you following bad advice. May I therefore make the suggestion that you henceforth revert to using the present tense in the quest for better style? BBMSteve 11:15, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

We're not Wikipedia, we're closer to a fan-site, really. We like it this way, and this is how we've been doing it for coming up on four years now. While I appreciate you trying to help us, this is the way we've been doing it, and this is the way we like doing it. I personally think it looks much better in past tense. --Fantomas 11:52, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

All I'm doing is giving you the best advice. Whether you like it this way or that, the fact is that it is bad style to write about fiction in the past tense. I fully understand that you might prefer to use the past tense yourself, but the fact remains that this is not the established practice. I shall no longer undo your changes, more out of respect for your editorial decision than any acceptance that it is correct.

Just so you have some kind of idea of my experience, I am a university-educated, native British English speaker who works with languages on a daily basis (German-to-English translation, proof-reading, copy editing, content writing, précis writing, etc.), who ran a Metal Gear fan site between May 2001 and February this year. Perhaps you know my site? SSGS (formerly Solid Snake's Game Shrine) was its name. If you have any MGS fonts/typefaces installed on your computer, they are my own work. I'm only telling you this so you know that I'm not just some clueless idiot, inciting editing wars.

Given my experience, I would very much like to be an active part of this wiki, although it is somewhat off-putting when what I know to be good advice is repeatedly thrown by the wayside, in favour of your somewhat misguided conceptions of good style. Once again, I implore you to reconsider using the present tense where it is correct to do so, although I accept that you are probably unlikely to do so.

Well, I'm not completely disregarding it. If any of the other admins here feel this way is better than the way we have been doing it, I'd be more than happy to allow the change to present tense (which, admittedly, at this point would be a massive task).

To explain our stance a bit better, when we first decided to do it this way, the idea was that the majority of articles (mainly character and event pages, anything that actually exists in the universe) would be treated as though they weren't works of fiction, but actual events/things that really existed. Examples like CQC, which keeps this up until the controls section, or FOXHOUND which is written as though FOXHOUND is a legitimate thing that existed, and doesn't once give any hint that it is a fictional group. We thought it was an interesting way to tackle a Wiki, especially one with such a rich universe. --Fantomas 13:18, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I think past tense is better, whatever "wikipedia says" I don't trust because 99% of these articles aren't allowed to exist there. There's a lot of prescient to writing fictional wikis in the past-tense; Memory Alpha is a great one that does it. Metal Gear is a rich enough world to use past-tense. DraculaZETA 14:26, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

DraculaZETA, it's not necessarily a question of precedent set by a few wiki contributors, but of what is correct and widely recognised as good style. And the style guide could have come from anywhere; that it came from Wikipedia is merely a coincidence.

I fully understand your opinion, Fantomas, however strange and stylistically inappropriate it may seem to me. Maybe I'm just one to stick to traditional methods. The main problem inherent to this approach is when new games are released and only few details are known about them. Take the new Metal Gear Solid: Rising as an example: when writing the wiki for this game, until the full plot is known, the future tense will be used, even if the events of the game occur somewhere inside the existing time line (where you are using the past tense), causing inconsistencies in your overall production. Using the constant present tense eliminates this problem.

Finally, if you are going to stick with the past tense, you might want to use it uniformly throughout the wiki (cf. Metal Gear REX and Shagohod).

[edit] Snake

Minor question, but isn't it strange that Solid Snake is always referred to as "Snake" and never "Solid" except when using his full codename, yet Liquid Snake is almost exclusively referred to as "Liquid"? The Man In The Black Cape 22:20, October 4, 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Unnecessary spaces ?

Whats with all the unnecessary spaces being added in? -- Bluerock 16:17, November 10, 2009 (UTC)

It's because of the new editor Wikia implemented a while ago. --Fantomas 19:26, November 10, 2009 (UTC)