About

The Sorrow

The Sorrow was a powerful spirit medium and a former member of the Cobra unit who used his psychic powers to aid his fellow soldiers on the battlefield. He was romantically involved with The Boss and is revealed in the course of the game to be the father of her child Ocelot. After the ideological rift created by the Cold War loyalties changed with he and The Boss each taking their respective sides. Later, he sacrificed himself for The Boss when they met on a battlefield, via a bullet through his left eye, after the Cobra unit disbanded. He makes many hidden appearances (in ghost form) throughout the game's cut scenes although he can only be seen in first-person view. Towards the end of the game, when the clock is counting down to a massive explosion of rocket fuel and C3, The Sorrow can be seen in a number of cut scenes holding up a sign displaying the amount of time left.

Since The Sorrow is already dead at the time the game begins, Snake does not face off against him in a traditional physical fight. Instead, he meets him in the spiritual realm after jumping off a waterfall. He cannot kill The Sorrow in the battle. Instead he must wade through a river swarming with the spirits of all the men he has killed, while dodging the attacks of The Sorrow, who twitches violently in mid-air in front of him.

The number of ghosts that appear in this segment is directly proportional to the number of people the player has killed in the course of the game; hence, if the player does not kill any unnecessary targets, only the other Cobra unit members will appear to attack Snake. The dead soldiers that Snake encounters along the river all showcase the methods used to kill them, ranging from their throat being slit and blood spewing out, their head being bent backwards as a result of having their neck snapped, to a vulture flying around their head and pecking away at their flesh. Snake eventually reaches The Sorrow's body at the end of the river. The entire 'fight' can be completely avoided if Snake uses a knockout pill and then a Revival pill. However, if Snake makes it to the Sorrow and touches him, he 'dies'. Using a Revival Pill will resume the story, however, if you take this path rather than avoiding the scenario, Snake will have a special camouflage, which renders his footsteps completely silent as if his feet were not actually touching the ground and gains back stamina if he chokes an enemy, in his inventory, presumably given to him by The Sorrow as a gift for reaching the end of the river.

At the end of the game when Snake kills The Boss, the player can see the ghosts of both The Boss and The Sorrow materialize and then fading away into the afterlife using first-person view during the following cut-scene.

In Metal Gear Solid 4, after defeating Screaming Mantis, Psycho Mantis appears, but is taken back to the realm of the dead where he rightfully belongs by The Sorrow who makes a brief appearance repeating the same line to Snake that he did to The Boss as he died before disappearing. The Sorrow can also be seen as one of the dolls held by Screaming Mantis, which she uses to control the dead bodies of fallen soldiers.