For You & Only You

At first glance, Revolver Ocelot appears to be a deranged wannabe cowboy with a gun fetish and a penchant for torture but he's so much more than just that. While there's no denying the depths of his unspeakable cruelty and general disregard for human life, Ocelot is perhaps one of the most complex characters of the MGS universe. He's a multi-layered character chock full of contradictions. His love and hate relationship with that of his mentor and rival Big Boss, hints just how twisted and convoluted Ocelot is as a character. Make no mistake, Big Boss and Ocelot were originally adversaries who met on the fields of Tselinoyarsk during Operation: Snake Eater back when he was a cocky young major of the GRU. Arrogance has always played a unique role in Ocelot's general personality, especially since the man certainly loves to make an entrance where ever he goes. Ocelot is a prideful individual who absolutely believes in his skills as a gunslinger. He's no average soldier but rather be highly trained operative with a slight flair for the dramatics. Between his bloodlust for combat and his general fondness for danger, Ocelot utterly embodies the spirit of the Wild West with his unique fondness for spurs, cowboy boots, and typical Post-Civil War regalia. This Russian's strange fondness for the West stems from his love for spaghetti westerns. In his youth, Ocelot liked to think of himself as a "cowboy" and would go through great lengths to emulate stars upon the big screen. He would of course take this odd quirk with him into adulthood and eventually coin the name "Revolver Ocelot" after his brief skirmish with Big Boss.

Essentially, Big Boss helped create the Revolver Ocelot the world has grown to fear and hate. His obsession with the legendary soldier leads Ocelot down a dark road that would eventually drag him into conflict after conflict. His love and admiration for the legend are somewhat fanatical at best, almost desperate. He always goes out of his way to seek John's approval and will do nothing to receive it even if it means eventually killing himself in the process. This stems from the fact that despite their rivalry, there's a level of familial respect between them due to their relationship with the Boss, Ocelot's mother. The Boss was a former war hero known for service in World War II alongside the world-famous Cobra Unit. She was John's mentor and she taught him all she knew. Ocelot was unaware that she was his mother until much later in life but that made John the closest thing to family he had. Ocelot was stolen by the Philosophers right after his mother went into labor. Having no family of his own, it makes sense that he would latch onto Big Boss so tightly. Their heated rivalry becomes more of a friendly one as the years pass on but Ocelot's level of devotion borderlines on maniac since he'll stop at nothing to fulfill Big Boss' will. While there's much debate regarding why Ocelot is so intensely devoted to John, some do believe it's love that binds him to Big Boss. As mentioned in his conversation with Kazuhira Miller in MGSV: Phantom Pain, Ocelot sympathized with Quiet's decision to defect from the XOF to their side because she's "In love with the Legend" much like him.

"--might say his fate was akin to death. With a smile on his face, he destroyed himself for Big Boss' sake, believing, if giving up my insignificant personality will obliterate Zero's repulsive world, the world I helped bring about, I will do so happily.

Ocelot is typically a calm and collected individual with a mean poker face. He never likes to reveal all the cards within his deck and he's a master manipulator with the gift of the silver tongue. Always one step ahead of the game, Ocelot is known to plan everything out meticulously well to the perfect "T". He knows how to use people and likes to play into their egos or insecurities at a whim. Ocelot is the kind of man who demonstrates great control of his emotions thanks to his ability to compartmentalize his emotions with harsh rationalization. In psychology, compartmentalization is described to be an unconscious psychological defensive tactic use to avoid cognitive dissonance, or in layman's words, emotional discomfort. He can stop the anxiety of conflicting personal values and morals within himself just by boxing away his emotions. It's a defense mechanism that is unique to him but it doesn't come without its side effects. The horrors of war eventually catch up with a man in the long run. The same could be said for Ocelot if he didn't undergo intense hypnosis to keep those demons at bay. The treatment also helps serves to keep him from spilling the goods if he was ever captured by enemies. He's a triple agent, there's much that he knows and there are many who would love to pick at his brain.

As showcased in Phantom Pain, Ocelot does actually have a low-key persona that isn't a gun-totting psycho. He often acts as the voice of reason despite his double-crossing antics and does happen to offer unsolicited advice to both Solid Snake and Raiden in the later install. He also has a penchant for operating as both the righthand man and foil to some of the most villainous characters in the series. More often than not, Ocelot often schemes against the very bad guys he's supposed to be aiding which give him this slight antihero persona about him. He manages to double-cross and kill both Liquid & Solidus Snake while also betraying the former leader of the GRU, Sergei Gurlukovich, to return Metal Gear Ray to the Patriots. Then Ocelot successfully murders all the Patriots except for Major Zero and uses himself as a catalyst to bring down the Patriot A. I after gaining control of the Guns of the Patriot system. Much like his mother, the Joy a.k.a the Boss, Ocelot sacrifices himself to undo what the Patriots began. While he's hardly as pious or gentlehearted as his mother, Ocelot certainly wanted to free the future generations of humanity from the failures of the old.

He's a very difficult character for fans of the series to fully comprehend since it was originally assumed he was just a villainous traitor but there's some semblance of humanity left within Ocelot. That truth is apparent in various reincarnations of the Metal Gear Solid series and hinted to loosely in earlier installments. Despite all his absurdities and villainous comical moments, Ocelot is an invaluable ally and agent.

COMBAT: While Ocelot doesn’t possess any superhuman abilities at all, he’s actually quite well trained in the art of war. He’s proficient in Systema, which is a Russian martial art based on the natural flow of energy and efficiency of motion within space, thanks to his days with SPETSNAZ. Later he would abandon his Systema roots for CQC (Close-Quarters-Combat) which is a similar practice created by the Boss and her apprentice Naked Snake (Big Boss). Ocelot is a gun specialist with a fondness for revolvers. His favorite gun is the Single Action Army also known as the Colt. 45. Ocelot has the uncanny ability to ricochet bullets off various surfaces to kill his enemies. He’s also the master of the “quick draw” and has an amazingly steady hand.

STRATEGY: Years of combat training and survival tactics with some of the world’s most renowned intelligence bureaus (CIA, SPETSNAZ, KGB) makes Ocelot perhaps one of the most efficient strategists known. He also makes a rather decent field commander thanks to his days in Diamond Dogs under the command of Venom Snake. While it goes unstated whether or not he rose beyond his rank of 'major' in the GRU, it's speculated that Ocelot eventually became a 'colonel' to hold such a standing influence with the Russian special forces.

ESPIONAGE: While he doesn’t look it, Ocelot is trained in the art of espionage, stealth, and infiltration. His skills are on par with that of Big Boss but he happens to do things a little differently from his rival. It’s because of his talents as a spy that enabled him to be recruited by the PATRIOTS shortly after Operation: Snake Eater. It also helps that Ocelot is a proficient codebreaker able to decipher even the most complex encrypted messages.

Multilingual: Ocelot is fluent in Russian, German, Italian, Portuguese, French, and English. His native tongue is Russian. He prefers to read books and documents in his native language but can also read English fairly well. Ocelot is also known for his fake Southern drawl that he uses to hide his Soviet origins. (i.e. Troy Baker's performance in MGSV)

Toxin Immunity: It's mentioned several times throughout the series that Ocelot is completely immune to certain toxins, i.e. truth serum. "Truth serum" is a colloquial term for a range of psychoactive drugs used in an effort to obtain information from subjects who are unable or unwilling to provide it. These include ethanol, scopolamine, 3-quinuclidinyl benzilate, midazolam, flunitrazepam, sodium thiopental, and amobarbital, among various others. Ocelot is allegedly immune to most of them thanks to years of conditioning.

As mentioned briefly within his personality section, Ocelot is a master of hypnotherapy/brainwashing. Ocelot used hypnotherapy to convince himself that the body-double (Venom Snake) was Big Boss during the events of Phantom Pain but Ocelot kept utilizing such tactics to keep himself one step ahead of the Patriots. For the uninitiated, hypnotherapy is a type of complementary medicine in which hypnosis is used to create a state of focused attention and increased suggestibility. It's suggested that Ocelot was using cognitive/behavioral hypnotherapy throughout the events of Phantom Pain to play the role of the tactical instructor at Motherbase all while ensuring the other troops never caught wind about Venom Snake's true identity. As the story of Metal Gear Solid progresses, it's hinted after the Shadow Moses incident that Ocelot was still using hypnotherapy upon himself along with a cocktail of drugs and nanomachines to keep the newly forged "Liquid" persona in check.