User blog:Pat141elite/PE Proposal:Colonel Volgin

My next proposal is going to be Colonel Yevgeny Borisovitch Volgin from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. Take note, his appearance in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain will be ignored.

What is the work?
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is a stealth action game directed by Hideo Kojima. It was developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Japan and published by Konami. It is both the last canonical game and last Metal Gear game overall to be developed by KCEJ prior to the formation of Kojima Productions a year later.

Serving as the overall prequel to the original Metal Gear series, the setting takes place during the Cold War, FOX operative Naked Snake (who would later go on to become Big Boss as he attempts to rescue a weapons designer and sabotage an experimental superweapon known as the Shagohod. Additionally, at the height of the Cold War, America's greatest agent, a woman known only as The Boss, defects to the Soviet Union. At the same time, an extremist named Colonel Volgin fires an American-made portable nuclear missile at the Soviet design bureau OKB-754, sparking an international incident. In order for America to clear its name and avoid World War III.

Towards the end of the game, The Boss's betrayal is revealed to be a ruse and later ended up giving her life so as to save her country and the world even when it meant that her name would go down in history as a traitor and war criminal. Since then, her death has affected Snake so much, to the point that he had adapted a cynical worldview and changed the progress of modern warfare in the succeeding generations.

Who is the villain?
Colonel Yevgeny Borisovitch Volgin is the de-facto main antagonist of the game. A Stalinist GRU colonel who conspires to overthrow Nikita Khrushchev in favor of allowing Leonid Brehznev taking over the Kremlin. After his apparent death, Volgin resurfaces as the Man on Fire in MGSV: TPP, while having Tretij Rebenok taking control of him.

What did he do?
Born sometime in the late 1900’s to early 1910’s, Volgin became a boxing champion as a young man. In World War II, he participated in the Katyn Forest Massacre, where 20,000 Polish soldiers were massacred and Volgin.

They would often remove the Poles’ blindfolds before he beat them to death. He also served in the Soviet Secret Police, the NKVD, and was given the job of punishing anyone who tried to desert the Red Army, blaming prisoner revolts to alleviate fear. Volgin aided in putting down the East Germany Uprising and Hungarian Revolution and has stated that he personally killed over 100,000 anti-communist activists.

At some point before 1964, Volgin’s father, Boris Volgin, died, allowing him to illegally acquire the Philosopher’s Legacy, an enormous cache of money collected from China, the Soviet Union, and the US. With it, he built a huge fortress, Groznyj Grad, in the Tselinoyarsk mountains.

Volgin also obtained the blueprints for the Objekt 279 tank after the project to build it was deemed too expensive and was able to construct at least eight with the Philosopher’s Legacy. Volgin then conspired with the army and the Brezhnev faction to bring down Khrushchev After Khrushchev joined forces with Sokolov’s Shagohod, Volgin hired Alexander Leonovitch Granin, hoping to have him construct a Metal Gear. But it soon became clear Granin wasn't getting the results Volgin wanted and thus he turned to the Shagohod idea.

Volgin contacted The Boss in 1964, using the spy network of a Philosopher and suggested that she defect to the Soviet Union so as to overthrow Khrushchev without endangering his own position. The Boss accepted, but unbeknownst to Volgin, this was actually part of a plan by the US government to obtain the Philosopher’s Legacy from him and expose Shagohod’s development.

A month later, Volgin supervised the Boss’ official defection and ordered her to kill Naked Snake since he saw Volgin’s face, as well as the fact that the Boss wouldn’t let him join them. However, Volgin, having not anticipated the US government’s actions, fired an American-made nuclear warhead at Sokolov’s research facility. He intended to frame the US government for this, but in actuality, the DCI had manipulated Volgin into doing this as part of a plan to assassinate the Boss.

This set off a whole international incident and started Operation Snake Eater. During the operation, Snake's constant intervention in his plans, as well as the presence of a spy in his ranks, angered Volgin greatly. However, he didn’t realize the spy was Tatyana, who he constantly abused, but did think that Granin was a spy. Volgin arrested and tortured him by trapping him in an oil drum, then striking it with his enormous strength and electrical powers.

However, he killed Granin in the process before he said anything and found a transmitter in his shoes, which meant he either was a spy or it was planted on him. Volgin called in a Hind helicopter and additional soldiers to help guard Krasnogorje, so as to make sure Snake didn’t get into Groznyj Grad. After The Pain, The Fear, and The End were killed, Volgin sent in Flame Troops to avenge them by burning Snake alive. While in his fortress, he managed to catch Snake, who’d disguised himself as Ivan Raidenovitch Raikov, to find Sokolov.

Enraged that he hurt Raikov, Volgin beat him senseless and brought him to an interrogation cell where he tortured him with electrocution. However Snake was mentally trained to resist physical torture, but a transmitter fell off of him that the Boss had put there, supposedly to make it easier for the Cobra Unit to find him. Volgin ordered the Boss to cut out Snake’s eyes to prove she wasn’t the spy but Tatyana intervened. Major Ocelot threatened her with his revolvers and Snake kicked Ocelot to save Tatyana. However the muzzle flash blinded Snake in one eye and satisfied, Volgin left while Snake was brought back to his cell.

But he managed to escape his prison, while Shagohod was completed, allowing Volgin to give his scientists and engineers some time to rest. However, it seemed that he planned to eventually execute them so they didn’t reveal Shagohod’s existence. Volgin found Snake putting C3 explosives on Shagohod’s fuel tanks so as to destroy the weapon and managed to capture him again with help from Ocelot and the Boss. But as this was going on, EVA was stealing the Philosopher's Legacy microfilms from the vaults underneath Groznyj Grad, revealing that she was actually Tatyana. As opposed to his previously sadistic behavior, Volgin said he valued her as a “pet” and that he’d “cared” for her, but now planned to execute her for her betrayal.

Volgin then took on Snake in combat himself, but suffered defeat and found himself betrayed by Ocelot, who refused to obey his orders. He said that he’d promised the Boss not to follow any orders that involved killing Snake, even if they were Volgin’s. As Snake and EVA escaped on a motorcycle, Volgin pursued them in the Shagohod, which hadn’t been destroyed thanks to the technicians draining the fuel tanks. He laid waste to his own fortress in his determination to kill the two and even killed his own men that got in his way.

Volgin eventually activated the boosters in an attempt to run Snake and EVA over, as well as incinerate Ocelot, who was behind the boosters at the time. Finally, the Shagohod was almost completely wrecked and Volgin took what was left of it to attack Snake and EVA. Even after it failed completely, he used his own electrical powers to keep it running, but was finally defeated by Snake with an RPG. As he stood on top of the wrecked Shagohod, Volgin was struck by a bolt of lightning and Snake wondered if that was the Sorrow's doing since he appeared briefly.

Mitigating Factors
Volgin is a psychopathic, power-hungry and sadistic opportunist who conspires with the Brezhnev faction to overthrow Khrushchev so he can control the Soviet Union in the shadows. Even though he and Major Ocelot share a common similarity for sadism and mastery of torture; the similarities end with Ocelot drawing the line since he idolizes Snake and even considers him a rival, and Volgin's own sadism rubbing off on Ocelot, making the latter a bit more sympathetic in comparison.

Despite having a high amount of respect for both Snake and The Boss; and his bisexual relationship with Raikov and EVA/Tatyana, Volgin is still by no means a redeemable character to begin with. This is made apparent that he's very abusive towards EVA, he even said he cared for her as a “pet” and it almost pained him to have to execute her.

Heinous Standards
If torturing his victims aren't heinous enough, then what about firing an American-made nuclear warhead at a research facility in Mother Russia itself? As a consequence, Volgin killed countless, if not entirely, of his own countrymen, even if they were on the opposing side. Even Ocelot was really pissed off by that when he and Volgin were butting heads after the latter killed Granin during an interrogation before he could divulge information on a mole within Volgin's ranks.

Final Verdict
Volgin is basically Roman Barkov (or Nikita Dragovich) with Emperor Palpatine's powers.