This is tangential to the main point you are making, but:

... I also always interpreted Raiden as basically Kojima more or less openly mocking or taunting the western player base of... well, mostly white male, naive/emo/astoundingly insecure children.

I remember there being absolutely massive backlash when MGS2 came out with tons of 'gamers' just calling Raiden a 'gay little effeminate f@ggot boy' and shit like that.

... Which I found quite funny in a meta-ironic sense.

And then of course, if you....actually do play through the game... well, from Raiden's POV, .... it basically is a shonen, a coming of age arc, making mistakes, struggling, being confused... but ultimately getting his shit together just enough to ... well maybe not " "save the day" ", but avert utter catastrophe...

... as well as Raiden develops maturity as a character, reveals that... he actually has a lot of extremely serious trauma in his past, and he genuienly becomes a hero as he comes to terms with, and overcomes much of it.

...

MGS2, where Hideo Kojima dared to ask: What if an action hero wasn't an absolute badass with a gruff voice?

(took western culture almost 20 years to even come up with the phrase 'subversion of expectations'...)