During any playthrough of theMetal Gear Solidfranchise, players will continually encounter the phrase “La-li-lu-le-lo.” Despite sounding like a string of gibberish, the phrase is actually a key piece of information that runs through the entire series—even though it is not mentioned in the firstMetal Gear Solid.
It is slowly revealed during the events ofMetal Gear Solid 2that “La-li-lu-le-lo” is a code word for an organization known as The Patriots. The secret code is alluded to in an early encounter with Richard Ames, who goes on to describe the influence that The Patriots have over the United States government. Later, during a run-in withPresident James Johnson, the nanomachine code word is confirmed, and the full power of The Patriots is revealed when Johnson tells Raiden that the organization was responsible for picking him to be president.
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Who Are The Patriots in Metal Gear Solid?
An easy way of thinking of The Patriots is to think of them in a similar fashion to the Illuminati. They are a clandestine society that is mostly responsible for the events that occur throughout theMetal Gear Solidfranchise. The Patriots organization was formed by Zero and Big Boss (also known as Naked Snake) followingthe events ofMetal Gear Solid 3in an effort to gain control of the world and manipulate it to the vision of The Boss—not to be confused with Big Boss, her would-be successor.
SinceThe Boss diesbefore The Patriots are actually formed, the future of the organization is formed primarily on Zero’s interpretation of her legacy. While The Boss espoused the virtues of a unified world and greater freedom, Zero confuses her legacy into a sort of vision of world domination, primarily through controlling the media and mass information.
What does “La-li-lu-le-lo” mean in Metal Gear Solid?
Since The Patriots are strongly associated with the control and suppression of information, they had to keep the existence of their organization as secretive as possible. In line with Zero’s vision, he designed theSons of the Patriot systemin order to control humanity through a dual system of AI and nanomachines. As such, soldiers and those with potential knowledge of The Patriots were injected with nanomachines that prohibit them from mentioning the name of the organization. Any time someone injected with the nanomachines attempts to say “The Patriots,” they instead say “La-li-lu-le-lo.”
The control exerted over their soldiers acts as an example of The Patriots' overarching goal. If they can control what people see and hear, through the use of AI that spreads information or nanomachines that controls what information that humans spread, they can essentially control the world.
Why “La-li-lu-le-lo?”
There’s actually an interesting logic behind the development team choosing the phrase “La-li-lu-le-lo.” When learning English, students often practice the vowels as “a-e-i-o-u.” Similarly, the Japanese alphabet can be read phonetically as “ha-hi-hu-he-ho,” “ma-mi-mu-me-mo,” and so on. More importantly, the Japanese alphabet does not contain the letter “l,” meaning that the phrase “la-li-lu-le-lo” would not only be complete gibberish to aJapanese audiencebut also difficult to pronounce.
By happy coincidence, the phrase is also gibberish to English-speakingMetal Gear Solidplayers, so this likely explains why it was kept in the English version. It’s probably the case that the phrase was purposefully chosen because of its difficult pronunciation so as to mirror players' experiences with the in-game characters who are rendered physically incapable of sayingThe Patriotsby virtue of nanomachine interference.
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