The Boss

The legendary soldier whose sacrifice birthed the era of the Patriots.

The Boss (ザ・ボス, Za Bosu), also known as the Joy (ザ・ジョイ, Za Joi), is a character from the Metal Gear video game series. She first appeared in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (2004). The Boss is a legendary American soldier, leader of the Cobra Unit, mentor and mother figure to Naked Snake, and is known as the mother of the U.S. special forces. She is not the biological mother of Ocelot; Ocelot is the son of The Sorrow and a Philosopher's daughter. The Cobra Unit's involvement in the Battle of Normandy in June 1944 is not established in canon as a specific victory led by her.

Quick Facts

Series: Metal Gear
First game: Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (2004)
Creator: Hideo Kojima
Designer: Yoji Shinkawa
Voice: EN: Lori Alan; JA: Kikuko Inoue
Motion actor: Eriko Hirata
Nationality: American

Lore & Background

The Boss's likeness was modelled on the English actress Charlotte Rampling. In the finished game, she wears a pale-colored combat outfit. The director, Hideo Kojima, originally planned to have her in a blue sneaking suit similar to Solid Snake for the finale, but this idea was cut. During the shooting of the final scene between the Boss and Naked Snake, Eriko Hirata (the Boss's motion capture actress), having read the script beforehand, was so moved by the scene that she broke down into tears. Kojima said in 2012, he would "love" to create a prequel game starring the Boss as the protagonist. The Boss appears as one of the main antagonists in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. She infiltrated Volgin's forces alongside the Cobra Unit under orders from the U.S. government as part of Operation Snake Eater. Throughout the game, Naked Snake repeatedly encounters the Boss to kill her as ordered by his superiors. Following Volgin's death, the Boss reveals she is not the daughter of The Sorrow; The Sorrow is the father of Ocelot, not her parent. After one final fight, Snake fights and kills the Boss; the Philosophers' Legacy is a microfilm hidden in the statue of the Philosophers, not in Volgin's body, and is retrieved by Snake after the fight, not given by The Boss. The whole mission is later revealed to be a coverup by the United States so that the Boss would steal Volgin's treasure and then die at his hands to avoid a conflict between America and the Soviet Union. EVA reveals in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker that the Boss infiltrated a sleeper agent into the USSR's OKB-1 from 1959 to 1961 to gather more information about the Sputnik program with a little help from the Philosophers. Claims that she was launched into space on April 12, 1961, as part of Project Mercury, or that she was airbrushed out of an official picture of the Mercury astronauts as the eighth member, are fan inventions not supported by canon. The Boss's entire personality is also reconstructed in a special AI system developed by Strangelove for the Peace Walker weapon. The Boss died on September 2, 1964, at Tselinoyarsk, USSR, at the age of 42.

Reader's Guide

She was eventually commissioned into Project Mercury to test the Mercury capsule and launched into space at roughly the same time as Yuri Gagarin's flight on April 12, 1961. However, the capsule suffered heavy damage upon reentry. The Boss, dubbed within the program as the "Mercury Lady", survived the crash but was rendered comatose for six months. All evidence of her role in the program was erased, including airbrushing her out of an official picture of the Mercury astronauts, of whom she was the eighth member.