During my vacation, I finished reading Kojima’s “The Creative Gene”. It’s truly remarkable how he has consistently absorbed inspiration (Memes) from numerous books, films, and music over decades, merging them with his own ideas to create new works (Memes). His sensitivity and creativity are extraordinary. The Memes he loves and the Memes he creates have spread to players in every corner of the world through the medium of games.

This book also answered a question that had long puzzled me: In the trailer for “Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes,” I was deeply impressed by the cool introduction of the villain Skull Face, and while “The Phantom Pain” filled in his background (through listening to cassette tapes), I could never fully understand why he harbored such deep hatred for “language.” Where did this hatred come from? How did Kojima come up with this idea?

Hungarian-born French writer Ágota Kristóf’s childhood village was occupied by Germany, forcing her to use German; later, after being liberated by the Soviet Union, she had to learn Russian in school; then, due to war, she fled to Switzerland where she spent years learning to read and write in French. Throughout this, her native Hungarian was continuously stripped away, ultimately leading her to write in what was called the “enemy’s language” - a foreign tongue not her own. She transformed this “tragedy of forced language loss” into literature, creating “The Notebook Trilogy” and her autobiography “The Illiterate.” Kojima was profoundly impacted when reading Ágota’s works.

Even without explicit confirmation, I believe this Meme was Kojima’s inspiration for creating Skull Face, Quiet, and even the Psycho Mantis. Through this, Skull Face’s hatred for “language” finally finds its full justification.