Not only would Sen. Armstrong get votes, he'd be VERY popular.

"Raiden calls armstrong insane, as if thats a disqualifying factor in American politics." Truer words have never been spoken.

In Senator Armstrong's defense, the nanomachines aren't JUST a cheat. When you realize that Raiden is also augmented, it means nothing anymore. The bigger aspect of the nanomachines are that the senator's enhancements are completely invisible, giving the illusion that he's fighting with his own hands, instead of for something he doesn't understand. This shows very well with his 5 minutes speech: He was being cornered by Raiden and beaten up, but once he began to talk about his own speech, he slowly began to regain strength. Armstrong is not just powered by money... he's powered by convictions. There's a reason why he doesn't use a blade or anything else but relies on brute force, mankind's oldest weapon.

The fact that a guy like him is still more willing to give someone on the other side a chance than the average political person today soeaks volumes

MGR was surprisingly right about the memes. The game outlived and surpassed it’s own story. Ahead of its time, truly. Memes aside, Armstrong is just… a very good antagonist.

To be honest, he’s almost like Thanos in a way. He knows exactly what the problem is, but his solution to the problem is the most horrible, and insane solution anyone can think of.

"Raiden destroys the death murder robot, Then, armstrong marches out and beats the crap out of raiden with his bare fists" is a sentence that could ONLY come from the Metal Gear Franchise.

Armstrong's reliance on nanomachines for his physical strength is perfectly in line with his worldview. Being able to lead people and convince them to do what you want _is_ a strength.

Holy shit i just realized. Armstrong tells jack to "fight for something you believe in" and he literally does. Once he has sams sword, jack starts fighting for an ideal hes always believed in but denied: revenge God this game is so fucking GOOD

The fact the Armstrong is a "might makes right" villain that *actually believes* might makes right both makes him unique and terrifying because... you can't really argue with him. Try to claim good triumphed over evil? *Nope.* You just beat him at his own game. You followed his rules, and you were just the better player. So many "might makes right" villains crumble at the end, revealing it as just a flimsy argument for them to be in charge. The fact Armstrong at the end goes "Yup, you win. You make the rules now" and follows through on his stated philosophy makes him extremely difficult to beat in a battle of ideals. And in the end... Yeah, he and Raider *aren't* so different. Armstrong is all like "I want a world where the strong take what they want and the weak are extinguished, and I'll kill anyone in my way to do it." Meanwhile Raiden is like "I want a world where the strong protect the weak, where the hungry and poor are fed and taken care of... *and I'll kill anyone in my way to do it."*

"Fk 24/7 of trivia and celebrity bullshirt and the media" He got a point there

I love how Armstrong changes his attitude when he thought he got through to raiden. It shows his honesty. He doesn’t want war to have war he admits he wants one last war to end all wars. A man by his word as insane as it is. He sticks by his goal and doesn’t deviate. He wants exactly what he says. So yes he definitely would win if he was real 😂😂😂

I always thought that when Armstrong says "weak" he doesn't actually mean the powerless, the disadvantaged in society, but rather the "morally weak", people without conviction, without willpower, the kind of people that drifts along the current of life, those who let themselves be easily influenced. And by contrast, the "strong" are the people who have the balls to stand up for what they believe in, those who work hard to accomplish their dreams. Wich i think fits perfectly with the American myth, Armstrong wants America to go back to the time of the frontier, a society of self made men. And Raiden is the perfect example of Armstrong's ideal, he was a child soldier and managed to survive, he was a tool of the Patriots and managed to break free from their control.

The whole bit where Armstrong is so happy that Raiden caves in only to be betrayed three seconds later after a almost vulnerable handshake and hug, you can’t help but briefly feel sorry for him, he is THAT charismatic. As batshit insane as he was, he was still charismatic as hell

"That's a nice argument, senator. But why don't you back it up with a source!?" "My source is that I made it the fuck up!"

To Armstrong, the nanomachines are just another gun, and he's just the right American with a licence

Every single enemy in MGR used augments, Armstrong using them is not cheating. It literally serves as an explanation as to why he isn't destroyed by his own men or Raiden.

I think Armstrong failing to see the flaw in his logic gave him a crucial weakness in his fight with Raiden. When Blade Wolf showed up with Sam’s Murasama, he doesn’t believe Wolf would be willing to sacrifice himself to let Raiden kill him. He tries to intimidate him. If he helps Raiden, he’s dooming himself. Armstrong believes that if you want a job done right, you need to have the strength to do it yourself. He doesn’t believe in self-sacrifice to further a cause. So when Wolf challenges this line of thinking with his own actions, Armstrong’s completely blindsided. He goes for Wolf instead of trying to maybe catch the Murasama or something. He only sees Wolf as another one of the nonsense-spouting helpless nobodies he’s purging.

The relationship between Raiden and Armstrong, despite having such a short time to develop, is arguibly the highlight of their interaction. Despite seeing the former as a threat to his plans, Armstrong sees Raiden as the perfect example of a "self made man". A child soldier who survived, was trained to be Snake's equal and became a nigh unstoppable cyborg "vigilante" And as far as Armstrong's idea of "strength" its probably not literal strength, but *moral* strength. Someone who is unwilling to compromise his own morals for something as base as greed and where politics doesn't get in the way of good people like Raiden dealing out true justice. Its why he's not too mad at dying once he realises that Raiden's eyes have sort of been opened by his journey throughout the story. Like he said, he left behind a worthy successor.

Putting aside all the fighting, I feel bad for Armstrong when jack is tricking Armstrong by giving false hope. He Picks jack up, dusts him off, and even gives jack a hug. When jack tricked Armstrong and pushes him aside you can see the pure disappointment in his face, like bro was just looking for a friend 😢.

Kojima’s understanding of the American psyche is always incredible.

There's a nice detail about Armstrong and Raiden's fight in the cutscene. Raiden manages to briefly get the upper hand while tearing apart Armstrong's supposed reason for his plot. Then when Armstrong finally admits what his real goals are, he gets back to thrashing Raiden easily. In other words, Armstrong is at his most powerful when he is honest about who and what he truly believes.

I think Japan has a better handle on American culture and politics than we do. I wonder what else they see in us.

Completely lost my mind when I played this a decade ago and he quoted both Martin Luther King Jr and Ronald Reagan in the span of like 3 and a half minutes.

I always thought Armstrong's idea of strong isn't purely physical but overall strength. Like a smart person is also considered strong for him.

I want to point out something that you missed in your essay Watch the end credits scene. Raiden quotes Armstrong a couple times as he talks to his people, talking about people fighting in wars they don't understand, for causes they don't believe in, and how he has his own war to fight. For better and for worse, Armstrong's ideology does live on in Raiden

Everyone has weakness, but not everyone is weak

He sounds like less of a villain then any politician we have today, you could’ve convinced me he was the protagonist if you wanted to

Something that i noticed when Armstrong dies is that he completely covers Raiden's shadow when he falls, reinforcing the fact that Raiden and Armstrong are the same,since Raiden carved his path through sheer determination and strengh and that is exactly what Armstrong was talking about when he was giving his speech about the strong purging the weak. This means that Armstrong was just the shadow of Raiden, they WERE the same.

To this day, my favorite reaction to Armstrong is when Super Best Friends played. When Armstrong said, "I have a dream" Matt and Patt both said, "What?" Then Raiden said it too and they just absolutely burst out laughing. God damn poetry right there.

Senator Armstrong is so memorable because, up until the final boss fight: you never expect him to be the kind of guy who would want to put up a fight but then.. He subverts your expectations and breaks new ground. He's probably the greatest twist final boss since Giygas from Earthbound.

come to think of it, maybe it wasn't a mistake that Armstrong used nanomachines to get an edge in the fight he knew was coming. he didnt know it WOULD be Raiden but eventually he knew someone would come to challenge, rival, or equal his power. power both symbolically and physically. power in their ideals or the philosophy in strength determining right. carving your own path because no-one can stop you. it takes years, training and incredible motivation to get to where and what Raiden is. so to be able to create that successor or rivaling "hero" Armstrong needed to be the biggest threat in both symbol and presence. only someone who was strong enough in motivation and strength equal to his would be able to take him down. which proves his concept. also something else I noticed at the end; as Armstrong speaks his last words about kindred spirits we see the red light leave his eyes but as the camera pans back to Raiden we see a similar light shine in his. Raiden might not believe in Armstrong's ideals but he nonetheless is proof that they aren't exactly wrong and even that that's not by nature a bad thing. Raiden is free to do good and does, despite it being through the business end of a sword that can cut through almost anything. with that in mind also know that in this world Armstrong envisions a person like Raiden is truly rare, wanting to good and having the strength to do it. mistral killed for the sake, sundowner was a cruel bastard who created child soldiers for fun, monsoon was searching for truth/reason in endless war, and Jetstream Sam was a man who lost himself in pursuit of revenge and eventually didn't even know why he was fighting anymore. each children of Armstrong's beliefs and yet all were to be pitied in some way. which i would list if i had time.

This guy is the reason I love Videogames. By far the best video game villain, Zeus my ass. The most quotable, iconic and fun character out of one of the best game franchises. Metal gear rising is my favorite game and this guy is 90 percent of the reason.

Armstrong is a type of villain that I've been craving more of for a long time: A caricature of the negative aspects of American Exceptionalism, but presented in the bombastic and undeniably contagiously fun way that American patriotism tends to present itself with. In the same way Captain America represents the ideals that America strives for, Armstrong represents the ugly realities of America and its culture, but presented in an equally stars-and-stripes-laden package. It's a form of villainy that presents itself with the look and feel of the good guy. It's a very realistic portrayal of how villains can be compelling ideologically and aesthetically, using a real-world template that we're very familiar with. We need more things like this.

As insane as Armstrong is, his perspective on war is more noble than our current understanding. War is young men dying and old men talking as the quote goes. But in Armstrongs world people will fight on their own terms instead of being shipped off to a country they don’t know to a war they don’t want to fight for reasons they’ll never truly understand. At least if Armstrong’s word existed, if people were going to fight they’d be fighting and dying on their own terms for their own reasons which is arguably better than what we currently have.

One thing I love, is that you barely knew Armstrong before his fight, you see him for like 10 seconds in a cutscene, but he was characterized so well during his fight that he is so beloved

I can’t believe this guy is voiced by the same guy as Mimir from God of War. The two characters could not be more different.

Saying Armstrong is a "cheater" for his nanomachines is like saying Raiden is one for his cybernetic enhancements. The strength Armstrong refers to isn't a purely physical one anyways.

I think an essay on Raiden would be interesting too. Cause in the post credits seen, he literally says "I got my own war to fight." Meaning that Armstrong did indeed have an impression on Raiden.

Armstrong's points are primarily driven by the realization that people are being forced to die and suffer for the desires of people who will never care about them and will never share their pain. Not just soldiers. Working people. Families. They build skills and strength that they never get to benefit from because powerful spineless people don't want them to be happy or safe... Because happiness and safety is all any normal person could ever want from life. When Armstrong says "purge the weak", he doesn't mean the poor and frail. He means the people who send others to die in their place for their own gain. The ones who push all their risks onto other people.

Armstrong is the kind of guy I would go to war for. Not because he's a great politician, but because I know he would be jumping around ripping up tanks and truly helping in the war.

My favorite line from Armstrong is after he went on his rant on everything wrong with America, Raiden asks how he got elected, and his response is "Well, I don't write my own speeches." Everything he said is unhinged and highly controversial, and he knows it damn well. It's a line that implies that he know how to work the system in spite of his radical beliefs.

The thing about armstrong is that very little he ever said was wrong. The only things he really didnt nail down was the methodology, thats why hes so likable despite everything

I would like to point out that the voice actor that played armstrong also played mimir in gow and celebrimbor in shadow of mordor

I mean, in all fairness, almost no villain in MGR fights using 'their own strength'. They're cyborgs, their strengths come from their kit and how experienced they are in using them, in addition to certain underhanded tactics. Out of all of them, Armstrong is the most grounded and fair out of all of them. Sure he is roided with nanomachines, but all that's doing is just buffing his physical might and endurance. Everything else is just him pulling on his own 'martial prowess'. I'd say given the worldbuilding and the story, the nanomachines were a great compromise. Armstrong used what was needed, but it isn't like he's able to summon minions, create invulnerable shields, cut anything into ribbons, or be able to split his body and put it back together. He's just all roided up so his bluster can pack some literal punches.

my favorite kind of villian: the kind whose ideology isn't entirely wrong, just taken to an extreme. Individual freedom is important, self-determination is important, but armstrong's dog-eat-dog world would be pretty terrible. chaos and mayhem isn't very epic.

Great breakdown. I genuinely believe that someone grandiose like Armstrong that spouts Nationalism and Individual Strength complimenting community (like you said) would dominate American Culture for the next 100 years. The idealism from the Founding Fathers and call for an united America from Lincoln are literally the basis for everything Americans believe. They all spouted Freedom as being the ultimate ideal. Side note: Abraham Lincoln was SO instrumental to America's Unity we have one of our biggest and most famous Monuments dedicated to the man in our Capital. I swear the air around that place feels different.

2:20 I mean, tbf, there’s Sundowner, who was some random jackass who LOVED war. If he could get married to it, he probably would.

I think you missed a great opportunity to talk about how gameplay can show a character's personality Raiden, for example, moves with agility and grace while chopping his enemies to bits, showing his combat experience as well as his ruthlessness. However, Armstrong is different. Armstrong is by far the easiest boss is block/parry in MGRR because all his attacks are so slow and telegraphed, showing just how inexperienced he is. However, he is still dangerous due to his massive health bar, his fire attacks that are hard to avoid, his powerful melee that hit like a truck, his throwing building at you that you have to cut precisely, his self healing that you can interrupt if you're quick. Everything is due to his nanomachines. All this helps show, (remember show, dont tell) you about Armstrong's worst and best traits. He is powerful not because he is hard working or talented but simply because he is rich enough to buy a shortcut. But on the other hand, he fights more honourably than every other boss (except Jetstream Sam) Mistral uses Dwarf Geckos to harass you while you fight. Monsoon uses smoke grenades and uses his unique body to attack from a distance and avoid attacks. While also throwing helicopters, and giant spinning wheels of death. Sundowner uses a helicopter to attack and harass you. He uses explosive shields, and he sends goons and swings massive poles at you when he starts losing. Compared to that, Armstrong may be a privileged, powerful villain but he has ideals and principles, and you can see that in how he fights because, unlike all those bosses he doesn't fight dirty and accepts his loss with dignity I had to rewrite this comment 5 times because KZfaq kept crashing.

His ideas, on paper, aren’t terrible. While he does take it to the extreme, he wanted a world where the people came before the government. And he works to prove his goals.

I really like the exposition in 27:30 with Armstrong lying on the ground dying with his body resembling Raiden's shadow (reflecting a version of him that took a darker path with his understanding of strength and morals)

something I've noticed is that in his first speech, Armstrong doesn't swear even *once.* he only starts dropping F-bombs once the fight with Excelsus begins. for some reason I don't really see people bring this up, but it's probably yet another part of that "squeaky-clean image" that Armstrong presents to the American public.

You misunderstand. Money is also a form of strength, power. The product of work, influence, skill. He earned his enhancements and did not "cheat" any more than Raiden, who is in a body that is also worth an insane amount of money. Plus, look at him. He's jacked to the point of being peak human. His flesh looks as strong as physically possible. If using nanomachines makes him weak, then relying on a HF blade also makes Raiden weak. Such tools are just necessary to fight in this universe. The greater irony is that a man who espouses radical individualism is powered by billions of cooperating robots.

"none of the antagonists are evil for the sake of being evil" Literally Sundowner

Senator Armstrong 2024!

Once in high school, in history, we were all told to make our own political campaign for president. A lot of people worked in groups, but i worked alone because i didnt wanna risk my idea being overrulee. My idea was to copy and paste armstrongs ideology. I had a speech and some advertisements, and i got first place. The american people love this guy

I am a real American. Fight for the rights of every man. I am a real American. Fight for what's right!!! FIGHT FOR YOUR LIIIIIFE! -Senator Armstrong

If Armstrong really were a cheating coward, that would mean he’s afraid of actually losing and dying. He expresses no fear of anything like that. That’s why Sam was working for him. When Raiden literally kills him, he only expresses admiration for him. Armstrong dies only telling Raiden that he hoped to have taught him something through it all. No fear, and only acceptance

Senator Armstrong is the good deconstraction of the villian is because he is honest and not a viliian if you wathing on his deeds. If Stiven Armstrong was a true villian as a Homelander of some freak, he will not so merciful to the Sam and Raiden and he has a other purpors not like a true villian, that want Power and money(for power). Stiven Armstrong is the best the personification of a politician who cannot talk about his dream, because he could be considered a fascist. And with Raiden he saying true because he know, that he would be agreed with him, deep inside.

The video touched upon something that seemingly no one else realizes when they say they agree with Armstrong, that when he talks about the strong ruling over the weak, he's saying it in a world where physical strength is purchased through cybernetic augmentation, and Raiden and the cyborg enemies in the game only got the way they are behind the capital of a PMC or a national army. Armstrong himself is some brand new technology that no one else has even heard of which probably required billions of dollars of R&D to develop. Not even one percent of the people who would vote for Armstrong would be able to afford the hardware to get themselves above the very lowest tier of the new hierarchy he wants to establish.

Pretty good, but I have some criticism. Armstrong isn't talking about strength of body, but strength of will. He desires a country defined by the Ubermensch. People like Raiden and Armstrong who will fight, suffer, even die for ideals wholly their own. He believes that those with strength of will will naturally stamp out the weak like Khamsin, who fight for empty ideals they don't understand, fight wars they don't care about, cowards who create death and suffering for no purpose and yet beg and plead when given the same treatment. Of course this is still a nonsensical ideal for the same reason that the utopia Andrew Ryan wanted was an impossible ideal: someone has to scrub the toilets. It sounds cool if everyone was their own master off fighting a meaningful battle against ideals they don't believe in, but unless you have "weak" workers without their own 50 page essay on ideals who just kind of work and chill, everything breaks down.

Armstrong only says that his Nanomachines harden with physical trauma. But this doesn't really make him stronger, just more durable. On the contrary. Making your muscles and skin more rigid and resistant by hardening them up would decrease their elasticity, and by extension your physical strength. So not only is Armstrong really that strong on his own - he was fighting with a handicap. Edit: Btw yes please gimme some more Metal Gear content.

That final shot of the dying Armstrong lying perfectly in Raiden's shadow would have perfectly set up another game.... If it was ever possible.

I think when he says weakness he means a moral weakness, or an inability to fight for what one believes. In strong he means someone who is so certain in their beliefs that they will die for them.

"Could he get elected?" Frankly, I don't into social media, and I'd vote for him. Purely because of the line "fuck chicken shit bureaucrats." Guy is just so charismatic.

I think that a big part of senator armstrong's character that often goes misses is that he is also a caricature of Japan's own nationalists and warhawks. The kind of people that admire the country'a dominance during wwii and the economic excess of the 80s without knowledge of nor care for the atrocities that took place within those periods.

Armstrong a villain? “Press ‘X’ to doubt”

"He says he could break the President in half with his bare hands and I believe him" Obvious statement of a life time.

The reason I know that Armstrong would get votes, is that he's the most popular character in the game. By a huge margin. And even I have gotten into that. And I think what nails is is "I have a dream" which is the best line for his entire characterization. I don't know if this line was developed by the localization team, or if the writer truly did understand this man, somewhere along the line, this man became as American as any American you could find. Even more so. America hates bureaucracy and committees culturally as well. It's fundamentally populist as well desiring things in the hands of people. It's a very VERY deep understanding of how America ticks which plays right into almost every American's worldview. I think however what this analysis misses is how "the weak" fits into Armstrong's worldview. It's not just the physically weak. It's the people who abuse the system and such actions. It's not the child on the side of the road. And to him, that's just an impetous become stronger.

Best denconstruction of a character that I've seen so far. I have not even played MGR yet but this analysis really kicks in my interest

I get it. you literally put everything on my mind into words that I couldn't until now. I was waiting for a video like this. I was waiting for someone to say all this things. thanks.

I was _not_ expecting a MGR video from Brett, but I have never been happier to see one. Greatest antagonist in video games.

Hideo Kojima is my favorite game director, his analysis on America and the internet is spot on, but also, his games aren't nihilistic about the problems we face. Like at the end of MGS2, when Raiden gets to choose his new name and life, free of GW's control

Armstrong kind of reminds me of Saxton Hale from TF2. Funny enough, one of Saxton’s rules is that anyone who can beat the CEO of Mann Co in a fist fight gets to take the title of CEO. Oddly enough, a part of me agrees with him. Exercise is not only a healthy thing to do, but if the leaders were the only ones fighting, that would save millions of dollars!

The funny thing is, Raiden and Armstrong do fundamentally agree on the idea that strength is virtuous, with one caveat. Armstrong thinks that strength absolves you of wrong. Raiden thinks that strength should be used to make sure people can't force the "could-be-strong" to be weak. In a society where every disagreement is solved via armwrestling, it is objectively unfair to gatekeep access to the gym or to cut off your opponents arms. You have essentially robbed them of their ability to be free. Raiden advocates for a purely viruous strength, where the only thing keeping the weak from becoming strong is their own desire. It's a great moment of accidental Libertarianism that more people need to appreciate.

Not only is the narrative brilliant, but the themes of the bosses add to it too, express things that we don't get to see in some of the villains. While Collective Consciousness is more from Armstrong's point of view, It Has To Be This Way could be Armstrong or Raiden. The soundtrack could make its own essay.

Aside from the memes, I always thought Armstrong was an amazing villain! A pure showman who is all about the stuff the worst of us here in the U.S. are fervently obsessed with. He's ahead of his time!

Very well done video. I stumbled across this video randomly and haven't played MGR because I wrote it off as Devil May Cry with a Metal Gear theme, but I'm contemplating actually playing it now.

Japanese writers often criticize America and its culture in a particular light based on America’s foreign policy, including Japan as an unequal and conditional ally. I think Senator Armstrong sums it up the most blatantly, and this helped me spot the pattern show up more subtly in so many other stories.

The best part of Armstrong is that he appears right at the end and completely steals the show every second he's there. Truly a master class of a villain, his philosophy was also something you could agree with but also understand the means he used were where he went wrong, when he gets to the "Fuck american pride... Fuck everythingthing" in his speech we see that he believes in what he says and it's not a lie to him

22:46 you could say that about pretty much every character in MGR. The Winds of Destruction are all cyborgs with advanced custom bodies, Sam uses an exo suit to increase his strength and movement to stand up to cyborgs. Blade Wolf and the other robots didn't earn their strength, they didn't train, they were built with their weapons. Raiden himself is a cyborg, and after he got beaten by Sam, he got a new, more advanced body. Heck, they even address this in a CODEC call about cyborgs in sports. Everyone doesn't fully have their own strength, they just use expensive, high grade technology. That is the same type of "cheating" you criticize Armstrong for.

Billions would die if Senator Armstrong were real.

PLEASE DO THE REST OF MGS. I for real don’t know what you don’t have a million subs, you’re very detailed in your analysis and breakdowns of these characters. I plan on doin some breakdowns of characters myself on my other channel, and I’d love to see my favorite series get their villains analyzed by someone who really pays attention like yourself💯

Everytime I see Armstrong I can feel the patriotism

Armstrong would win in a landslide on the simple fact that he offers “security “ just by his appearance. Let alone his talking points. He’d atleast win all of the south and every purple state would be a red state.

When you describe him this way, it elaborates why Raiden is a perfect counter to Armstrong. He has LIVED in the world Armstrong seeks to create: a selfish hellscape where out has to fight, steal, kill, and commit all sorts of other atrocities in order to get what they want. Armstrong’s cheating with the nanomachines prove that he doesn’t fully know what exactly he’s proposing.

Armstrong has the best final boss theme ever

Raiden's Strength also comes from his Cybernetic Body. So I don't see this so much as a hypocrisy on Armstrong's side, just a scaling issue. We are at a scale where, money provides strength. I think what it boils down to is a level of naivete, Armstrong is naive enough to think that that kind of true freedom would be anything more than a continuing of the status quo as it is. The "Haves" ruling over the "Have Nots" Nothing would truely change if he succeeded, things would just get harsher as there would not be layers of political and socioeconomic fuckery between people with money and power, and their want to just trample everything they see as beneath them.

Ain't even gonna lie, Senator Armstrong makes a lot of good points. There is some truth to what he says, whether it's that this country is rotten to the core, or that he says that people have no values, and all they care about is money, or when he says fuck all the media and internet bullshit. I love him and the plot to this game. It's so smart, truthful to an extent, and hilarious.

Senator Armstrong made more convincing arguments than this video essays author.

I'd trust Sen. Armstrong over anyone currently in the Senate or the House of Representatives nowadays.

Armstrong having nanomachines doesn't lessen his ideals about strength, he had the opportunity to gain more power and he took it. Others would be able to gain cybernetics, just not the cutting edge stuff that Armstrong has. But if someone was skilled enough to steal the blueprints of those nanomachines, they would have the same power that Armstrong has. As we see with his death by Raiden's hands, he would hold no hard feelings for being taken out by someone who was stronger then him.

The nanomachines actually don't make Armstrong stronger, they just make his skin virtually impenetrable

“people would find it appealing” bro, I FIND IT APPEALING i know it would never work tho

I would vote for Armstrong in a nanosecond.

There's actually an internet meme that Armstrong is a part of called "Be the American the Japanese think you are" that plays on the ridiculously over-the-top stereotypes Americans have in Japanese media.

Honestly, I would love Solidus video, as he is often overlooked compared to other villains due to his nature being extension of Big Boss.

Your talk of building community and empathy during this was so so nice to hear

He doesn’t speak of physical strength in the fight, you fool.

I think an interesting detail in the Armstrong death scene is how Armstrong lies in front of Raiden, almost as if Armstrong is Raiden's own shadow. Paired with the dialogue from Armstrong, and it's pretty interesting. I also like how the camera moves upward to reveal Raiden standing above Armstrong.