Note: This entry contain spoilers to Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.

About

Quiet is a fictional character that appears in the 2015 stealth action video game _Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain._ Despicted as a sniper with seemingly supernatural abilities that the player can recruit early in the game, the character has become the subject of controversy due to her sexualized design since her reveal in 2013. The character was voiced and motion captured by Stefanie Joosten.

Origin

While Quiet originally made her first appearance in the VGA 2012 trailer of The Phantom Pain on December 10th, 2012,^[1] the character later made her official debut in the E3 2013 trailer of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain on June 10th, 2013 (shown below, left). Quiet is first encountered during the prologue of The Phantom Pain and later reappears in the 11th mission of the game where players are given the opportunity to recruit the sniper after defeating her in battle (shown below, right).

Spread

After Quiet's official reveal, the character was met with criticism due to her design being considered over sexualized. On September 3rd, 2013, Hideo Kojima posted a tweet in which he asked Metal Gear artist Yoji Shinkawa to make some of the characters more "erotic".^[2] Kojima then continues that the decision for Quiet's design was made to encourage cosplaying and figure sales.^[3][4]

On September 6th, 2013, Polygon published an interview with Hideo Kojima in which he explains futher regarding Quiet's design. Kojima stated that Quiet's design was chosen to fit with the character's unique features. Kojima added that design was also chosen to add a "sexiness" to the character.^[5]
On September 7th, 2013, Kojima posted several tweets stating that Quiet was created to be an "antithesis to the women characters" and once that players recognize her secret, they will be ashamed of their words and deeds.^{[6][7][8][9][10][11]}

On September 9th, 2013, Kotaku published an article regarding various theories regarding the reason of Quiet's skimpy attire.^[12] On March 29th, 2014, reddit user thevainglory submitted an imgur image on r/metalgearsolid which theorizes that Quiet is in fact Chico from Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker and Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes (shown below, left). The post gathered 224 points (96% upvoted) and 205 comments prior to being archived.^[13] The Imgur image gathered over 67.000 views in a year.^[14]

On May 8th, 2013, Youtuber YongYea posted a video where he analyzes the theory which gathered over 210.000 views in a year (shown below, left). On May 29th, 2014, Quiet voice actress Stefanie Joosten debunked the rumour during a Kojima Station episode, stating that difference in gender between the two characters being the reason.^[15]

Discussions posts regarding Quiet has appeared on a number of sites including 4chan^[16] and Tumblr.^[17] On the art sharing site DeviantArt, typing the keyword "Quiet Metal Gear" would yield more than 1.400 results.^[18] On May 26th, 2015, Stefanie Joosten posted an image on herself with Quiet's Play Arts figure which gathered over 3.800 likes, 453 shares, and 172 comments (shown below, left).^[19] On September 5th, 2015, reddit user Kromgar submitted an image of Stefanie posing with Quiet's figure on the r/gaming which gathered over 5.000 points (93% upvoted) and 500 comments (shown below, right).^[20] The image was subsequently reposted to FunnyJunk by user gareaap September 9th, 2015, which gathered over 50.800 views and 1.395 likes.^[21]

On September 1st, 2015, Youtuber SSSniperWolf posted a video compilation of the best Quiet scenes in Metal Gear Solid V: the Phantom Pain which gathered over 3.2 million views in 3 weeks (shown below, left). On September 8th, 2015, SSSniperWolf posted a video of Quiet's "rape" scene in the game which gathered over 1.2 million views in 2 weeks (shown below, right)

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References