Which ending do you prefer?

[Dirty Duck]

Why couldn't Snake and Meryl make it work? I can't remember how much they talk about it in MGS4

I think Meryl ending works the best as its him having the hollywood ending despite himself, he definitely wouldn't have submitted to the torture and if he did Ocelot would've gone off of him.

That's a good point about Ocelot, he would have lost a lot of respect for Snake. But in the context of MGS1 (and what we assumed was the case in MGS2) I do feel that Snake and Otacon sharing their grief and channeling it into making the world a better place works really well for their characters. Snake isn't a character who could ever have that Hollywood ending, and that is why him and Meryl didn't work despite the Meryl ending winding up being the canon one. Even after "getting the girl" and riding off into the sunset he couldn't shake the feeling that he didn't deserve that life, that he was made for fighting and nothing else.

It's why the Philanthropy setup in MGS4 with Snake having an unconventional family unit in Otacon and Sunny is quite nice, despite constantly running away from love he finds a life with people that care about him anyway, whether he feels worthy of it or not.