>>201 I always took that as a deliberate idea of history repeating itself, the same events playing out in different contexts with different participants, as time spirals out. Each iteration has certain roles taken on by different characters, as you say - I always felt we were supposed to notice that events repeat themselves in each game, and the characters dutifully taking on their roles mostly don't realise their position in the bigger picture. There is an overarching story of the "deep state" Patriots orchestrating the events that unfold, each character playing their part. Snake and Otacon think they're stalking the Patriots, then find out they behaved exactly as the Patriots predicted they would when they lured them in. Raiden takes his mission seriously, but it's made obvious to the player that it is a simulation based on Snake's previous missions, and he is a puppet playing his part.

It makes me think of in the Bible how Judas betrayed Jesus for seemingly selfish reasons, but he was just playing the part he had to play for Jesus to be arrested and executed, in the divine plan to save humanity... or in the Bhagavad Gita when Krishna tells Arjuna that all humans are born to play the part He intended for them in his grand plan.

There was something else in the Japanese version which to me suggested the repitition of ideas and characters was deliberate. Certain characters are voiced by the same voice actress, which isn't the case in the English version, but my memory is a bit fuzzy on which ones...