Headcanon Soap Post

THIS IS VERY LONG SORRY. I haven't read over it in awhile but I don't think its changed much.

Okay here we go (also I've never posted this much text before so I'm sorry if the formatting is terrible):

Synopsis:

I think Soap is a really interesting character with lots of contradictory traits that manage to all work together in a way that makes sense. He comes off as confident, even cocky, but behind-the-scenes he’s journaling to himself about his experiences, feelings, dwelling over mistakes, how he’s going to train harder, be better, etc. He’s a team player but extremely suspicious and has to know and trust his teammates 100% in order to feel even remotely comfortable. He has zero boundaries with his authorities yet regularly gets away with it. He’s growly and threatening but never outright violent. He’s extremely good at what he does, knows it, yet thinks only as a team player, wants to help his friends/allies, never tries to take the spotlight for himself. His specialties are DEMOLITIONS and SNIPER, because of course why not pick two of the most difficult jobs and master them. But mostly its his interactions and dynamic with other characters that I find really interesting.

Disclaimers:

• I mostly stick to canon lore (MWII 2023 & MWIII 2024, plus I cherry-picked some lore from previous games), plus some extras.

• I don’t accept the MWIII ending (and most of MWIII in general). It was garbage storytelling and I don’t owe it my emotional investment. Honestly, I prefer to just pretend that it never happened and they’re still making the Las Almas sequel (I miss Valeria, Alejandro, and Rudy). But I guess if I had to make a new ending for MWIII: Soap is injured by Makarov and in the hospital on a ventilator. Price still kills Shepherd. It gives us more emotional investment with Soap alive (but at what cost? How injured is he? Can he still fight? But he’s also probably REALLY pissed off…) We can still maybe get the Captain Soap arc. Ghost is torn between vengeance, his duties, but also worrying about Soap in the hospital. I dunno, there’s just so much more you can do with this than just, oop, Soap dead, Shepherd dead, um… now what? I’d prefer an emotional cliffhanger. With the original ending I think the next game is going to just continue on as though nothing happened. Maybe Mara will replace Soap and Ghost gets a “real” love interest. Okay okay I need to stop, I’m getting too worked up lol, but fuck MWIII seriously, I’m so pissed. Such a disappointment and a waste of good storytelling potential

• I’m not from the UK, or the US. When I’m speaking I use my own lexicon. If I’m writing from a characters’ POV, I use their own terms. I don’t know why I have to say this, but I get comments all the time on the fact I said something like “soccer” instead of “football” in my own artists' notes.

Firstly:

• I picture Soap as in his mid-30s, around 5’10, basically very similar to the actor. He’s referred to as “kid” a couple of times in the game but my dude does NOT look like he’s younger than like 36. (Also I just refuse to think of him as any younger as 30 as a personal preference).

Career-driven, perfectionist/workaholic, extremely hard on himself

• This is like THE most canon Soap characteristic and every game reiterates it again and again.

• Pre-game canon: He lied multiple times about his age to try to get into the military early

• He’s a sergeant in this game. We know he was a very good/impressive trainee. He was especially very fast at clearing out rooms (hence “Soap”). He’s praised regularly by others (In Zombies, Ravenov, who Soap is pretty much outright hostiles towards, has a whole monologue praising Soap).

• His specialties are sniper and demolitions, which is an interesting combo, but actually makes sense. You’d need to be good at maths, physics, numbers, distances, measurements, chemistry, etc; very logical, systematic, strategic thinking. And both require patience and extreme precision

• He has a tattoo signifying his faction/career. Its in a very obvious place, impossible to miss, so he’s clearly very proud of what it stands for.

• In the previous games’ journals he wrote, he was constantly talking about training, sketching training and gym schedules and times, trying to better his time. He complained about other soldiers getting distracted by alcohol and women. Even when he was injured and in hospital he talked about his training plan afterwards to speed up his recovery process as fast as possible. He berated himself constantly about being too slow or not beating his previous training records.

Confident, forward, natural leader/takes charge easily, strong feelings of responsibility, but also a deep need to know the people he’s working with

• Pre-game canon: Soap played soccer (goalkeeper) and loves sports. Goalkeepers have an extremely high level of responsibility and stress

• In his first interaction with Ghost he casually walks up, engages in easygoing banter, friendly punch to the shoulder, and walks off. Definitely not standard procedure/professional for a sergeant to address their lieutenant like this, just before a mission, in front of everyone else. I still don’t know WHY he does this. He has zero boundaries with authorities, we know this already, but it goes beyond being overly friendly/familiar to being disrespectful. Soap doesn’t really trust others’ judgment, and he constantly questions Ghost’s instructions/decisions in their first mission together (Ghost doesn’t seem to care and responds with patience, or maybe just nonchalance). Soap maybe thinks of himself as being more capable than some of his superiors until proven otherwise. It might be just being overly confident/cocky, but maybe also just a logical, healthy reservation – rather than trusting someone 100% just because of their title/role, he needs to see them prove themselves first. However by the end of the mission Soap admits to Ghost that he was right.

• When Soap and Ghost meet Alejandro, Soap basically leads introductions – he approaches Alejandro first, introduces himself first, never even looks to Ghost. During the mission Soap also just straight up asks Alejandro very personal questions. I don’t know why – maybe talking keeps him calm/focused (he loves to talk, as we know), but considering his interactions with other people in Zombies, he just REALLY likes to know who he’s working with. Some of the questions may seem irrelevant, but in Zombies Soap constantly questions Ravanov on how old he is, and states that he needs to know who he’s working with in the field. Soap is basically outright hostile to Ravenov though

• Lastly: the mohawk. That is not a hairstyle for people wanting to blend in or go with the flow. Its very much a statement look.

Hotheaded, impulsive, problems with authority, suspicious

• Once knocked out a military cop and locked him in his own vehicle (canon lore)

• In Zombies he’s suspicious of EVERYONE and constantly gives Ravenov and Laswell a hard time

• He talks shit to people all the time, threatens them, but its more of a deep, simmering rage than explosive. He’s never violent, never lashes out and hurts anyone out of anger. He’s very disciplined in this regard. However when it comes to TALKING shit, he just can’t seem to stop himself.

• Interestingly there are NEVER any repercussions for Soap challenging his authorities. There was no disciplinary action for the military cop incident. Every inappropriate/unprofessional interaction with Ghost is ignored (sometimes he gets a sarcastic remark from Ghost, which usually only makes Soap banter back even harder). Shepherd calls Soap a “kid”. In Zombies, Laswell basically begs Soap to just go along with her plan. There’s never really a true power dynamic with Soap and ANYONE.

Desires praise/validation??? Cocky bastard??? Or…?

• I’ve changed my mind on this one. In MWII Soap constantly asks Ghost if he’s doing a good job and seems to be seeking praise/validation. But Soap’s tone was always very light and joking in nature. I think now that Soap is actually just being cocky: he KNOWS he’s good at what he does and just wants to rub it in or get a rise out of someone else. He may also just be pushing Ghost, because he knows how good Ghost is and he wants to see JUST how good he is. Soap obviously really enjoys (maybe uhhhh too much) watching Ghost in action, and Ghost likes showing off for him. It’s an… interesting dynamic, for sure. However throughout the games Soap clearly never needs outside validation so I think this interaction in MWII was just him fucking around with Ghost. Sort of literally…

Caring, genuinely likes other people, also a bit of a hero complex

• Soap is a very likable person, even to the other characters in the game, and he constantly shows how much he cares about not only his companions but civilians and humanity at large. Even his enemies don’t seem to hate him that much.

• He and Graves were clearly very good friends. He probably makes friends for life and has a wide net of people he knows and trusts and can turn to.

• He also makes new friends immediately and will die for them (Ghost, Alejandro, Rudy, etc). He risks himself during the mansion mission, allowing himself to get caught, trusting his companions to pull through for him. And except for Graves, he’d only met these people a few days ago.

• He’s always talking, touching, interacting with people in some way, be it unnamed soldiers in a truck during a mission, his superiors, and even total strangers. He really likes to be involved with everyone around him. I used to think he was seeking some kind of comfort or something, but now I think he’s PROVIDING comfort and security to others, and uses pretty simple human interactions to gauge and understand other people better.

• He’s extremely upset by betrayal and it seems to consume him

Handsy/tactile, physical

• Sniper and demolitions expert -> very tactile/physical

• Fist bumps Ghost’s shoulder, fist bumps soldier in truck, pats Ghost’s shoulder

• Chews gum (MWIII), smokes occasionally (previous game & MWIII)

• He plays soccer (goalkeeper) and likes snowboarding

• Every single outfit he has, he wears something around his neck (except for the Las Almas outfit. He DID have a mic collar on in concept work, but in the actual game he’s not wearing anything around his neck while in Las Almas).

Random other canon things we know:

• He speaks some Spanish in MWII. I doubt he’s fully fluent, but still, when did he learn Spanish and why? Does he speak other languages? I like to think he wants to be able to communicate with people so he’s maybe learned very basic conversational phrases in various languages. But it may also be his Suspicious Bitch nature lol, he needs to know what other people are saying

• Likes the mountains, dislikes the beach

•  Likes Scotch, dislikes tequila

• Likes coffee, dislikes tea

• Doesn’t like dogs/scared of dogs (but he pets a random dog in MWIII. This is more of an Easter Egg thing though, as the dog’s name is “Riley”)

My own thoughts:

• Loves the outdoors. Probably goes camping, swimming, scuba diving, etc. Probably up for anything, honesty. Skydiving, all that shit

• Not musically inclined whatsoever

• Gets up early/morning person (has to work out/do training)

• Social drinker, but limits himself

• No drugs (in a previous game he even complained about being on pain medication while in the hospital lol)

• Occasional/situational smoker (smokes cigars in a previous game with Price; smokes while undercover during MWIII campaign)

• NSFW thoughts: I have no strong feelings about this. I generally think of him as a bisexual switch, but I constantly have different ideas and I dunno, I don’t really care lol. Usually I think of him as being overtly flirty with Ghost, and Ghost is much more reserved. But I also really like the idea of Ghost being gay, Soap is bi-curious but closeted, and Ghost is the one being the menace. One of the great things about these characters is there’s still so much room to come up with different ideas and scenarios. I really don’t have one main headcanon storyline for them (my ADHD could never commit). From canon we know that these two characters have a unique relationship and bring out something from one another that no other character is seen doing. I definitely get no “little brother” vibes from Soap – they are outright flirting in multiple parts of the games. If you replaced one of them with a female character, you really think anyone’s going to say she’s a “little sister” to Ghost? Hell no. But just because they’re two male characters, they have to be “brothers”. Mhm, sure sure sure… People always mention the Alone mission, but for me it’s the one with the CCTV cameras. There is no heterosexual explanation for any of that entire mission. We even have Ghost say goodbye to Soap before he leaves, Soap turns around to get to work, then Ghost walks all the way across the room to pat Soap on the shoulder, look him in the eye, say goodbye again, and THEN leave. And the awkward Soap thumbs-up… Super weird, completely unnecessary interaction and I fucking love it. Masterpiece. 10/10