About

Monsoon is one of the primary antagonists in the 2013 hack and slash action game Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. Monsoon's nihilistic in-game monologue about memes as units of culturally transmitted information that control humanity gained much online notoriety, with fans eventually associating the speech with internet memes.

Origin

On February 19th, 2013, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance was released in North America for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles. In the game's main campaign, the player controls the mercenary Raiden, who eventually must fight the cyborg ninja Monsoon.^[1] Prior to the boss battle, a cut scene is shown featuring a conversation between the two characters, during which Monsoon expresses his philosophical views on memes, calling them the "DNA of the soul" (shown below).

Monsoon: "Free will is a myth. Religion is a joke. We are all pawns, controlled by something greater: Memes. The DNA of the soul. They shape our will. They are the culture. They are everything we pass on."

Spread

On September 22nd, 2012, prior to the game's release, a page for Monsoon was created on the Metal Gear Wiki.^[1] On April 13th, 2013, Monsoon was mentioned in the "Memes: Metal Gear" article on TV Tropes.^[10] On April 28th, the Tumblr ask blog "Ask Monsoon"^[9] was launched, featuring cartoons of Monsoon answering various user-submitted questions.

On December 12th, FanFiction.net^[11] user wheel-of-psychosis submitted a fanfic titled "Metal Gear Memevil: Code Monsoon." On February 3rd, 2014, Tumblr user Suddenlywolf^[3] posted an image featuring a Monsoon quote, gaining more than 29,000 notes over the following year (shown below, left). That month, the video game guide site Prima Games^[8] published an article titled "10 Coolest Deaths in the Metal Gear Franchise," ranking Monsoon's demise as #10 on the list. On March 3rd, 2014, YouTuber Turkish Phantom posted a clip of Raiden saying the phrase "Your memes end here" after Monsoon's defeat (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Image macros of the character are often posted in ironic meme threads on 4chan.^[6][7] Also as of March 2015, there are over 370 submissions under the tag "monsoon metal gear" on DeviantArt.^[12]

Search Interest

External References