The Glory of Jetstream Sam

the metal gear series has always been rooted in a mixture of japanese and western culture from minor things such as japanese myths and legends appearing during events like the cold war or one of the leading major characters in the whole series hal emrick being such a weeaboo that he chose the name otakon based off of otaku convention call me ottacon it stands for otaku convention and otaku is a guy like me who likes japan animation the one theme found through a good amount of the games is the conflict between the western cowboy and the samurai though when platinum games was brought into work on a spin-off continuation to the series and metal gear rising revengeance they ended up blending together both the samurai and cowboy into the same figure this being the bold and brazen brazilian brandishing a blasting blood red blade samuel rodriguez also known as jet stream sam [Music] [Music] samuel rodriguez also known as jetstream sam takes on the role of the rival character during the events of metal gear rising revengeance and also gets to be a playable character in the dlc for that game sam challenges ryden both in his skill with a sword but also in his ideals and morals and much like most rivals in character action games sam also is a great example of the skill gap between the main character at the beginning of the story and at the end and works in a great meta-narrative aspect where the player themselves wants to get strong enough to actually be able to face sam on an equal footing along with this he blends in elements of both the western cowboy and the eastern samurai into a single person and has a backstory that plays into both of those character archetypes own history though before we discuss that any deeper let's discuss the meaning behind his name and his design samuel rodriguez goes by many different names be it jet stream sam or menueno all of these titles fit him both in universe and in a meta contextual sense starting first with samwell which is often shortened to sam and while it is a very common latin american name it seems to have been chosen due to the same portion being connected to samurai as he is not only referred to as one in the game but the lead writer etsu tamare describes him as such as he is a traditional samurai by design along with this the rodriguez portion of the name was also likely picked not only due to the fact that it's a common family name in brazil but also to play on the origins of the name itself as rodriguez means son of rodrigo and rodrigo is portuguese for roderick and roderick itself means famous power so sam himself comes from a lineage of great and famous power as the rodriguez family is one that inherited a blood red blade from the famous swordsmith muramasa but it was mistakenly translated to the murasama by his family because the lead reuteretsu loves it when something from japan gets misunderstood elsewhere which is very similar to a famous case in the wizardry games where the murasama was introduced when it was supposed to be the muramasa it was the strongest sword in that game and wizardry went on to be this huge success in japan and they pointed out the issue right away and it was corrected in those versions along with this the murasame can be seen as a portmanteau of both the real muramasa blades and the murasame of japanese lore but besides a world famous sword the rodriguez family was also traditionally trained in kenjutsu or more specifically in the style of setsu gen ken or the way of the murder sword which was a sword fighting style that focused on violence as an end goal for a fight and the family was so intertwined with this fighting style that they developed their own dojo within brazil called the rodriguez new shadow school samwell picked up on these traditional values and became not only a master of the murder sword technique but inherited the murasama from his father he was so good at sword fighting in fact that sam could easily pick up on someone's skill level and training from just fighting with them for a few moments which i think is evident enough that he lived up to the rodriguez portion of his name though eventually one of his father's pupils thanks to orders from the cartel would cut him down leading sam to vanish from brazil likely as to avoid his own assassination though he also wanted to hone his blade and improve upon his skills and he did so being fueled purely by violence in his own fighting style and revenge he would later return to brazil slaying not only his pupil but declaring war on the cartel as a whole playing the role of a vigilante sam would become somewhat of a mercenary taking on jobs as a bodyguard and proving his family name proud when during the early 2000s he became somewhat famous for managing to take down a hit squad composed of around 10 mob goons all armed with automatic weapons using only his family's sword and this was long before the era of cybernetic enhancements so this really showed how skilled of a swordsman sam was this event is likely what led to his nickname menueno the cold southern wind of brazil it's not a name that he actively took on but something more assigned to him because as i mentioned sam at this time was making a name for himself targeting and destroying multiple cartels which then caught the attention of senator armstrong who then leaked information about his involvement with world martial the pmc which compelled sam to go after armstrong seeking to kill him for the purpose of him sacrificing soldiers for the comfort of an office and sam felt that this was unjust due to his own sense of justice inherited by the samurais bushido one specific aspect that he believed deeply in was the culture surrounding seppuku or seppuku not the action itself but more the idea that people should pay directly for their crimes so he traveled to the headquarters of world martial and torin taunted his way through the facility equipped with a new exo power suit one designed to enhance his speed strength and mobility mostly just so he could keep up with the cyborg ninjas of the modern age and his family's sword now modified into a high frequency blade with an id lock on it and a special modified sheath that had a rifle mechanism that allowed him to load magazines and fire out the blade this sheath was designed with the explicit purpose to add extra momentum to sam's quick draw strikes giving his murasama the extra edge when it came to facing more cybernetic opponents and his skills with these tools which to him were more an extension of himself allowed him to make it all the way to armstrong who revealed that he had brought him all the way out here to recruit him and give him one final interview in which the two would fight sam would then force the pugilist politician to fight at his full power studying his movement and more specifically his nano machine's hardening speed and he perfectly timed it out and managed to outpace it in their conflict quick drawing and severing armstrong's forearm in their clash though the senator just hardened his stump and speared sam to the ground ruining his arm but offering him a place at world martial sam begrudgingly takes him up on this offer realizing truly what armstrong and monsoon meant by their speech as losing a limb or two won't stop world martial because disassembling it is more than just killing their figureheads world marshall then supplied him with a new cybernetic arm turning samwell from a samurai to a cyborg and in a way he lost a part of his identity in this defeat as sam lost his ideals for justice embracing his pursuit of violence because even though he was opposing armstrong's philosophies and his actions he couldn't end that evil just by cutting him down so he decided to ride out the wave because it would allow him to hone his blade and many more conflicts he while not officially becoming an actual member of the pmc had become another desperado he was jet stream sam a wind of destruction and this aspect of sam losing himself as his bushido melts away is made very apparent in his boss theme the only thing i know for real as it is a theme that details sam's own struggle with his loss of identity and ideals as bit by bit the song lyrics depict this man who is climbing this mountain of success but is becoming something that he hated until he is no longer a person but a thing that only knows how to kill [Music] the only thing i know [Music] is [Music] so one thing that makes sam's theme very different from other bosses in the game is that it loses its lyrics during its secondary phase when ryden knocks sam's sword away as in this moment sam is detached from the tool that gave him purpose and it's forcing him to rely on his artificial limb and his mastery of martial arts in that moment sam is the most human he's ever been the lyrics no longer apply to him but when he reclaims that sword and the lyrics come back in in full force this is sam fully accepting himself as a tool of desperado now we're talking about [Music] and a really cool thing is this aspect of the boss fight follows the blade into the final battle of the game as when ryden gets the murasama and it's knocked out of his hand the boss theme between him and armstrong loses its lyrics as well until ryden reclaims it and with this sword passed down to ryden he is actually able to fully bring down armstrong world marshal and change the world allowing sam to die both like a samurai and like a cowboy speaking of which sam's whole character seems to be heavily inspired by both the western cowboy and the eastern samurai and blends together the history of the two media icons into a single figure be his samurai roots from his traditional orthodox training to the specific choice and origin of his blade down to his general standing and design as sam wears scars of his previous battles and has a very rodent samurai look to him with his long unkept hair up in a ponytail he also has the figure and wandering nature that befits the classic samurai icons such as yojimbo though a lot of the aspects that are seen in him are also iconic in cowboys as well such as blondie from the fistful of dollars trilogy and on top of that the addition of a rifle sheath to his arsenal blends together the samuraito and the cowboys quick draw and on top of all this sam also finds himself surrounded by iconography from western movies such as companies like world martial which is a name that is in direct reference to the american old west town marshal or the fact that he runs with a gang called desperados which is connected to the bold outlaws of the american old west especially cinema and especially of more spanish descent and even his cybernetic face guard imitates that of a outlaws bandana covering his face and removing his identity which then in turn plays into his theme a bit along with this sam's death is also varying character for his cowboy-like nature he passed with the bittersweet knowledge knowing that he left behind a legacy that will do good for the world it's seen in things like shane red dead redemption or even tombstone with doc holliday's passing and then of course atsutamari mentions that the battle between him and ryden near the end of the game was supposed to hearken to both samurais and wild west gunmen as the two men draw their blades and prepare to fight each other over conflicting ideologies which is a structure between most villain and hero dynamics in classic samurai movies though like in a western ryden rides in upon a steel horse or a motorcycle and the setting of the final duel is an isolated desert like the ones that you see in wild west movies and to top it all off there is a pre-programmed tumbleweed that rolls between the two before they clash blades and if we read a little bit more deep into this sam himself also seems to be in part inspired by the history of samurais and cowboys as in his original casting call sam was described as someone with the complexion of an italian sicilian or greek man even though he was always stated to be a brazilian japanese birth and for those who don't know italy is a major figure in the rise of the iconic cowboy that we know today with sergio leone's dollar series which in itself is a reimagining of the famous kurosawa film yojimbo which it in itself is inspired heavily by john ford's film stagecoach and the cycle continues on and on from there the sam's design being built on the image of an italian man could very well be in reference to his mixture of both cowboy and samurai as well along with this the idea that sam went to the west and was changed as a person very much fits the story of yojimbo to fistful of dollars as the movie fistful of dollars was made as almost a direct one for one reshooting of yojimbo as a story but the rights to access yojimbo were not kept and thus the movie was considered plagiarism work that was stolen and changed now don't worry eventually the movie production behind yo jimbo gained access and rights to releasing fistful of dollars in japan which in turn made them more money than yojimbo ever did so things worked out in the end there but sam when he went somewhere else was physically changed and ideologically changed into a different person he was sandro who became the man with no name sam is a perfect example of a character who lost himself in his work he is the perfect rival for ryden in a sense painting this dark future possibility for him if he was ever to lose himself in a similar way character designer kinichiro yoshimaru gave him this asymmetrical design to play off ryden specifically for that reason and it is ryden who is one half of sam's hull character as he really sets him off as he sees a portion of himself buried within ryden because ryden is this killer wearing the mask of a hero and sam was hell-bent of bringing that killer out of him in their interactions he would force ryden to face part of himself and when he came out the other end stronger than before sam saw the man that he couldn't be so when ryden cut him down he was confident that ryden could do what he couldn't and with that all said and done i hope you enjoyed this video and if you want to see more videos like it in the future of a patreon at patreon.com many not the bad guy patreon is very helpful for the channel and helps keep it going so any small amount helps and if you want to know the only thing that i know is real is that you can buy a copy of shimaneta a boring word with the concept of dirty jokes don't exist at by shimonetta.com

Channel: Meti『Not The Bad Guy』

Views: 75,757

Rating: 4.9697542 out of 5

Keywords: Jetstream, Jetstream Sam, Samuel Rodrigeus, Samuel Rodrigues, Metal Gear Rising, Revenegnce, MGR, Metal Gear Solid, Murasama, Muramasa, Murasame, Katana Zero

Id: 2DAhDC31nvI

Length: 15min 35sec (935 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 20 2020