A lot of people on this forum are pretty sure (thanks to Ocelot's call to Solidus) that Liquid has all of Big Boss' dominant genes and Solid has the recessive, but then why is Liquid blonde and Solid brown haired?
It has been known for quite a while that the "brown hair gene" is dominant and the "blonde hair gene" is recessive.

i have also pondered this and have argued with people on youtube that if liquid is the dominant than how does liquid have blond hair, which we all know is recessive genes. i think that ocelot was referring to liquids reflexes and the fact he had the upper hand in shadow moses what with all the genome soldiers and metal freakin rex.
if you have see the cut scene where liquid is talkin to snake and walkin on the hand rail and then makes a flip and makes another flip into rex. this is an example, but this is just my idea
:fox: :guard: :sniper: :snake: :violent: :mantis: :guard:

Snake got the dominant genes, but is the inferior soldier. Liquid got the recessive genes but is the dominant soldier.

He doesn't. Liquid has the recessive. Solid has the dominant.

However the MGS story introduces the idea of inferiority with genetic material. It purports that the clones of Big Boss are different:

• Liquid supposedly received Big Boss' superior soldier genes
• Solid got the inferior soldier genes
• Solidus received an even amount of both inferior and superior genes.

However some people think that: recessive=inferior/dominant=superior, which isn't true.

Well, that would make more sense I guess, but if Liquid has the "superior soldier genes", why is it that:
Liquid + REX < Snake + Stingers + Chaff G + A little help from Fox
Liquid + Fists < Solid + Fists
Liquid + Car + Machine Gun = Solid + Car + Machine Gun
If it was that Solid Snake won one fight, I could count it down as a bit of luck in getting the upper hand, but 2 wins and a draw seems a little too Solid favouring for me.

It's symbolic, it's a representation of the message of the MGS story (in both MGS 1 and the entire series); that your genes don't dictate what you are and what you can do. Solid won regardless of what his genes told him.

Ah, right! I guess it does add a little more weight to Naomi's speech about not being controlled by your genes. Thanks Helikaon :)

It was also under the impression that Snake received the recessive genes because in the beginning of MGS1, Snake had blond hair and dyed it prior to the mission. But in the previous titles, MG and MG2, he had brown hair. The only possible explanation is that Solid Snake grew his hair out dyed it blond. During his briefing he cut his hair and dyed it back to his original color, brown. So yeah, problem solved.

And if that's true then why Liquid is angry in MGS1 when he's referring to his recessive genes? He talks like he has taken all the rubbish from the old man.
He should be happy and 'prude' about it and not angry at Snake because he is superior to him.

EDIT: Liquid's conversation with Snake in MGS1 before the first Rex battle.

I believe this looks pretty clear of how Liquid feels and what he really is.

No it wasn't. It only appeared blonde because of the inverted colours in the Briefing, Snake always had brown hair.

@MGS.
Liquid believed that he was inferior, according to Ocelot (and Kojima) however he was the superior result of LET. However regardless of whether he was or wasn't (I personally find the idea of inferiority/superiority of clones farcical) the fact that Liquid believed he was inferior was what led Snake to be able to beat him.

Dominant genes have jack shit to do with superiority and MGS1 never claimed that. Liquid says "flawed, recessive genes", meaning he believed he had the flawed genes which happened to be recessive. The reason he believes this is because BB pretty much told him he was genetic garbage. This is why he lost to Solid, who had an abundance of confidence compared to Liquid.

I really doubt that. Think about it, if you were fighting to the death with some guy who had survived being inside an exploding REX and was then punched off the top of it and then still survived with enough strength to chase after you whilst driving and shooting accurately, I'd be feeling pretty inferior and unconfident not matter what I'd been told.

Yeah, but then we come to the subject of why he couldn't snuff out Solid in the first place. He had a damn 10-or-something-ton-weighing supertank that fired missiles, lasers, had a railgun and walked on two legs and still he couldn't squish, slice or blast the shit out of a a single man running around a colossal deathmobile like a cockroach when the lights are turned on.

Besides, Solid had a reason to despair too; Liquid survived being inside an exploding REX, thrown off its remains, being shot God knows how many times and finally dying not because of the aforementioned, but because of a fucking virus. Then he comes back to life through an arm. Talk about a seemingly invincible opponent.

But still Solid has pushed on. All I'm saying it's rather obvious Liquid's self-esteem took a big blow when the man he admired told him he was nothing but leftovers from creating the man Big Boss likely believed to be his only true worthy successor. Liquid was genetically the superior one and had a military training equal to Solid and still couldn't beat him. The only way to explain that is that he didn't believe in himself.

Kojima himself said he didn't mean to be "scientific."

When he said dominant, he meant superior and when he said recessive, he meant inferior.

But Liquid's still got to have the recessive genes. I mean, blonde hair is a recessive trait, yes?

And either way, Liquid's got to have the superior soldier genes, whether they're called dominant or recessive. Ocelot himself said that during the phone conversation and he should know.

That kind of goes against your whole "confidence was the deciding factor" thing. If I was in a fight against a giant war-machine, I'd be feeling incredibly unconfident and inferior about it, so Snake should have lost according to your confidence theory. And inversely, I was in a giant war-machine and fighting a guy with a stinger launcher, I'd be feeling pretty damn confident, so your theory should've made Liquid win.

And when you look at that "and still he couldn't squish, slice or blast..." bit, that's not really the case. Snake would've lost that fight if it wasn't for Fox turning up. Fox appeared when Snake was literally inches away from being squished underneath REX, blatantly saying that Liquid should've won that fight, so this eventual win wouldn't have boosted Snake's confidence as much as you might think.

Also, there's the difference in state of mind. It's one thing to sit here safely at home and say "if I'd beaten someone so clearly so many times, I would feel confident that I was better", but think about it as if you were there. The fact that the guy had survive all these mad things would way overpower the fact that the mad things had happened, especially when the guy in question is chasing you down with a machine gun.

It doesn't go against it in any way. My whole point was that Solid won because he had more confidence. But yes, Fox showing up probably saved his life during the REX battle. On that I agree.

But I didn't say that it was the deciding factor. I just said Solid has done better and the fact he didn't have to listen to an old bastard telling him he was shit since birth, might have had something to do with it.

But he wouldn't have had more confidence. Human vs REX = extremely low confidence

That's my whole freaking point. Solid was the underdog and still he won.

You said he won because he was more confident.
I showed he clearly wasn't more confident.
You think these are the same point?

No. You said he wasn't more confident because the odds were terribly against him. I say that since he won despite those odds he had more confidence.

You said "Solid won because he had more confidence", not "Solid had more confidence because he had won"

well. the reason Liquid has blonde hair must be because genes are some of nature's most advanced things. there are so many things we don't know. it's possible having only dominant genes but still have blue eyes (which are reccesive)
maybe the same goes for Liquid's hair?

Uh, I'm dizzy..

I may have made some sort of typo along the way, which has clouded what I mean.

I think the main reason Solid won Liquid time after time is because his basic level of confidence was greater than that of Liquid's.

I think I remember watching the briefing for MGS1, and I'm fairly sure Snake was blond. We heard him cutting his hair, but maybe he dyed it, so he definatly wouldn't 'be mistaken for the terrorist leader'.

Snake didn't dye his hair but he did cut them.

The camera that was recording was probably old and turned the screen into a 'sepia' tone which displays almost everything in brown and darker. You can't realize colors on that tone.
What seemed blond to you must been the light hitting on Snake hair/head and you mistaken it for blond.

Snake didn't knew Liquid before and he didn't know what it looked like. Also we can only seen (or hear) Snake cut his hair not dye them.
Hair dying would take several minutes, not just seconds and I don't think a legendary hero like him will dye his hair.

watch the special on twin snakes, snake cuts his, and probably dies it, etc so he is different

Look - he never dies his hair. It was brown in MG1, MG2 and always was brown Solid Snake's natural hair colour is brown. The briefing was displayed in a certain light, making the colours look different. And he never once said that he dyed his hair.

Snake's hair color is brown, the briefing scene was monochrome, plus I don't think he would really take the time to dye his hair what with the threat of a nuclear attack and everything going on.

If you had to save the world within 24 hours would you really waste 3 - 4 of them on dying your hair so you wouldn't be confused with the leader when you're going to have to be stealthy anyway?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62_gEqYRhtA

Not blonde.

As I have gotten it:
Liquid Snake - Got the best Shit
Soludus - Got the middel Shit
Solid Snake - Got the worst Shit

But I think that since they are clones then maybe the dominant is blonde.
I don't know. This is just my thoughts :D

One correction, Solidus got "best" and "worst". It really doesn't have anything to do with the hair color and dominance. It's just a fiction game, nobody really cares if anything makes sense or not.
/discussion.