MGS4's Flashback Events juxtapose what we might call "dead images" (stills from previous games) with "live images" (the game in action). These Events work toward both narrative and associative ends, though the term "flashback" registers as a narrative technique. Some Flashback Events do serve narrative purposes, yet many identify MGS4's live images as iterations of the Saga's tropes.

The game's first Flashback Event works on this associative level. Old Snake salutes Big Boss's headstone, and pressing the X button unlocks a series of images of Big Boss saluting The Boss's grave at the end of MGS3. Were this Flashback Event purely narrative, it would mean that Old Snake is Big Boss (which is untrue). If we consider this Flashback Event as an associative gesture, though, then it identifies Snake as a stand-in for Big Boss – as Big Boss's proxy.

Flashback Events reveal a nervous system of Saga tropes and roles, identifying live images with dead images of earlier iterations of those patterns. They identify Snake with Big Boss, Raiden with Gray Fox, Ocelot with Liquid Snake, and Naomi with Emma.

Think of these tropes as anatomical blueprints whose outlines were drawn by previous games in the Saga. Each successive game builds upon the patterns of previous games by modifying its new iteration with other elements from previous games. We can glimpse a network of associations by tracing one such trope's genealogy: that of Snake's Outside Help.

• In Metal Gear 1, Snake received tips and assistance from members of the Resistance movement.

• Metal Gear 2 distilled this general trope into a specific role filled by Gray Fox. 

• Gray Fox reprised his role in MGS1 as an informant, sporting robotic enhancements similar to those that had given Big Boss new life in Metal Gear 2. MGS1 made the Outside Help trope seem fresher by remixing a secondary element from the previous game into that trope's current iteration.
   
  
• MGS2 self-consciously offered Olga as a new Cyborg Ninja and, hence, as a blatant iteration of the Outside Help trope. Solid Snake also appeared as an outside force whose information and aid directly impacted Raiden's mission, so much so that the AI Colonel reprimanded Raiden's reliance upon Snake because "that man was not part of the simulation."
   
  
• MGS3 restored the role to its original state as a multi-character trope when Snake received Outside Help from two supposed NSA defectors. Not only did Ocelot and EVA form an unnamed Resistance against Volgin, but each became "one of your [Snake's] fans," iterating the spirit of Gray Fox's and Raiden's admiration for Solid Snake.

MGS4 remixes all earlier elements of the trope by splitting it between Raiden and Drebin. Drebin introduces himself as Gray Fox had, as "neither enemy nor friend." He also appears as one of Snake's "fans," given his fanboy enthusiasm for supersoldiers. Raiden intervenes on the battlefield to give Snake radio intel and protection. The whole force of the Outside Help and Resistance tropes culminate here, and MGS4's Flashback Events direct the audience's attention to the characters' iterations of those stock roles.

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