According to series creator Hideo Kojima, the decision to make a new character replace Solid Snake for most of Metal Gear Solid 2 stemmed from the developer's desire to develop Snake from a third-person perspective instead. Kojima also stated that Raiden's character and its perception by the audience were important to the overall feel of the story. The idea of having a second main character was inspired by the Sherlock Holmes short stories and novels in which the narrator was not the title character, but his friend Dr. Watson. Kojima affirmed that Snake was the game's protagonist instead of Raiden. Yoshikazu Matsuhana, assistant director for the project, was uncertain about this decision; he considered Raiden a "weak-looking character", but decided to follow Kojima.[1] The codename "Raiden" was based on a historical combat aircraft of the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service, the Mitsubishi J2M Raiden.[2] It was initially planned to be written in katakana as "ライデン", but was changed to the kanji form "雷電" because of the original resemblance to Bin Laden's "Laden" in katanana, "ラーディン".[3] The relationship between Raiden and Rosemary was inspired by Kojima's own experiences; their names, Jack and Rose, are a reference to characters in the film Titanic.[4] Raiden in Metal Gear Solid 2 is considered to be a representation of the player through the experiences between the player and the character during the game.[5]