Gillbob316 Wrote:
I don't know why... after like, 20ish years and 10 games... people still feel the need to quibble about the how and why of dead characters coming back to life in Mortal Kombat...
Fun Fact: Nearly every single character in this franchise, except one by my eye, has in point of fact... DIED at least once.
"What? No they haven't!? When!?"
Well several of them have had one-off deaths at various points throughout the series, but lest we all forget EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM DIED, except for Kahn and Raiden at the end of Armageddon/Beginning of MK9...
And Kahn and Raiden have both been dead at least once before that. Kahn was "killed" by the Deadly Alliance, only to get unkilled in Deception. Raiden blew himself up in Deception, only to come back as Dark Raiden... in the same game. Yes, in point of fact, characters have died and been resurrected in the span of one game in this franchise.
The only character, by my count, to have never once died, is Skarlet... because she was introduced after the great pyramid culling.
Some come back as zombies
Some come back as wraiths
Some come back as Oni, Smoke Monsters, Cyborgs, Shadow Warriors & Demons, or some other sort of wacky slave to Quan Chi or the Dragon King
Speaking of Dragon Kings, sometimes they're dead for a zillion years, but their spirit can dupe a guy into collecting six rocks, which then allow them to possess Reptile and just keep strolling right along into Outworld like they own the place...
Some are already dead before we ever even meet them, yet still fully functioning members of the cast, capable of interacting with the living
Some come back exactly the same as they always were, with no wacky dark magic or slavery to show for it
I'm pretty sure some of them have been ghosts a couple of times
Still, some are killed off, only to later be revealed to have never died at all
Some basically just decide not to be dead anymore. After dying in MKII, Johnny Cage basically just said, "Huh, the door to heaven is closed... I guess I just won't be dead anymore." and ghost walked back down to earth and into his apparently fully functioning and intact body for MK Trilogy/MK4.
Some of them die, only to reappear perfectly fine and exactly the same in the Netherealm... and then just walk right out of hell exactly as they were before Death (because you can evidently do that in this universe) (Mileena died somewhere in that MKII-UMK3 area, only to then be exactly the same and working for Shinnok in MKG... because... I guess she just woke up in the Netherealm after she died and continued being an evil minion.)
Baraka may or may not have been cut in half one time and then resurrected by stapling himself back together (the rumors remain unsubstantiated. *Cough*)
And when all else fails, when anyone and everyone is dead, they all get time-travel retconned back to life in a rewritten history that's mostly familiar, but with a few fun new plot twists... most of which involve killing them again.
Does it really MATTER how they're alive? REALLY!?
They're alive because they wanted them to be in this game. Whatever flimsy excuse they attach to their resurrections this time is largely inconsequential, and should in no way have to depend on the flimsy resurrections put forth in the past.
This is one of the few franchises where, "Yeah... dying doesn't matter in this series" truthfully IS the best answer...
It really doesn't. A character can literally die, and then just get back up and stop being dead in this franchise. Should Ed Boon deem them worthy of it.
One of the best posts ever.
And this is actually one of the things I like about the MK universe. From fatalities to the constant deaths & resurrections it just laughs right in the face of death. As someone who has lost quite a few people in real life and finds human mortality to be depressing and a bit scary, that's a cool thing.
