For me, the old Soap was a childhood hero as he is quite literally the ONLY Scottish protagonist I’ve ever seen in a video game. Not only that, but in the original trilogy he is handled respectfully and portrayed as a professional soldier. Many depictions of Scottish characters to come out of America are usually quite stereotypical but Soap wasn’t…
Then the reboot came out, he’s voiced by an American VA putting on a really bad Scottish accent, he’s portrayed stereotypically, is very unprofessional and prone to outbursts of rage that would realistically result in his discharge or suspension and in MW3 reboot is reduced from a protagonist into a catchphrase-quipping sidekick.
The original Soap died like a hero, the new Soap dies like an idiot in an incredibly avoidable situation. What I personally find most egregious about the new portrayal of Soap is the utter disservice it does for actual Scottish soldiers. Scotland only makes up around 5% of the British population yet we make up 13% of the British Armed Forces and an even higher number of Britain’s Special Forces yet we are rarely if ever actually shown. Even in Battlefield 1, where 130,000 Scots, like 2-4% of our nations population, died in WW1 yet there’s only one Scottish voice in the entire game. Time and again we receive little to no representation in the British military in any media- the last movie I can think of that explicitly included Scottish soldiers was the Kings Man, which was a very stereotypical and negative portrayal of Scottish soldiers who all die unceremoniously but are one-upped by an Englishman.