Moby-Dick Has Come To: Not Another Epilogue Thread

Let me begin this with saying how excited I am to finally contribute something of worth to this subreddit, and that there is more to all this Melville stuff than I've seen here thus far. I'll do my best to sway you towards my manner of thinking: that the similarities between TPP and the book are massive, and that our story will continue instead through achieving Nuclear Deterrence, not pressing combinations of buttons in vague locations.

We can begin with a VERY brief overview of Melville's book for those of you who aren't terribly familiar.

A man named Ishmael sets off to Nantucket and takes a job aboard a whaling ship: The Pequod, which is captained by an amputee named Ahab who swears revenge on a white whale that had taken his leg years before: Moby Dick. The hunt for the whale sinks the Pequod and leaves all but Ishmael dead, who survives only to be rescued by another whaling ship and live on to tell us the story years later, this time as the narrator.

All these names should be familiar to you as they're used time and time again in MGSV. Kojima released footage of MGSV under "Moby Dick Studios," Pequod is the name of Venom's helicopter pilot, Big Boss tells us to "call him Ishmael" in Cyprus, and we are called by the code name "Ahab" multiple times throughout the game. I feel like Kojima's naming of his fake studio is a point in the right direction, perhaps towards underlying themes and additional content to The Phantom Pain. My interpretation of the work will begin with the simplest: the helicopter call-signs.

From Morpho to Pequod

For this we need to recall the ending scenes of GZ and how they're expanded upon in TPP. I believe the destruction of Morpho is an obvious call to the sinking of Ahab's previous ship by the scar-ridden white whale, except this time it's BB's helicopter being shot down by an XOF rocket under the orders of an equally white and equally scar-ridden human, Skull-Face.

"Call Me Ishmael"

These are the words spoken to us when we first meet the real Big Boss in Cyprus; keep that in mind when you read this quote;

His importance relies on his role as narrator; as a character, he is only a minor participant in the action. Because he was the first person narrator, much early criticism of Moby-Dick either confused Ishmael with the author himself or overlooked him.

You can find that quote here

I know I'm a fan of painting the real Big Boss as Kojima, I can't speak for the rest of you, but his minimal participation in the story thus far is important because we don't learn of Ishmael's survival and importance as a narrator until the epilogue of the book, which wasn't included in the original printing. Moby-Dick is a story about Ahab (not Ishmael) the same way TPP is a story about Venom (not Big Boss). This is probably the most important part of my thesis, but we'll get to that towards the end.

"Your Name is Ahab"

This is the apparent code-name of our protagonist, though it's not often used, and the similarities between the two characters is pretty staggering. Skull-Face took our hand the same way Moby-Dick took Ahab's leg, with both characters swearing revenge on their enemies at the expense of those who follow them. Ahab's crew dies in battle against the whale while Venom is forced to kill a large portion of Diamond Dogs in order to halt the spread of the vocal-cord parasites.

The Missing Epilogue

This is where I start taking the theory and running with it, under the assumption that MGSV's ending has yet to be fully revealed to us.

The stark difference between Moby-Dick and TPP is that the whale is the end of Ahab, while Venom is shown to have been victorious against Skull-Face. I'm going out on a limb, but now that we have exacted our revenge I believe our white whale has reverted to what it was back in Peace Walker, peace through nuclear deterrence.

You guys can find a phenomenal thread about that here and I suggest you read it to understand how deep this all goes. Once Diamond Dogs creates a world free of nukes, Big Boss' importance to this story will finally be realized:

Outer Heaven will rise.

TL;DR: DON'T KEEP NUKES, DISMANTLE ALL THE NUKES YOU FIND WITH THE HOPES THAT IT GIVES US CHAPTER 3

Edit: Miller lived too, I forgot :-)