While I agree that the stories and the franchise overall would be strengthened by a real sense of danger and urgency if they were bold enough to kill off certain characters as no real villains pose any particular threats because everybody survives to fight another day (and those who do happen to fall immediately return in a revenant form), that is the problem these games face in the story department.

This franchise has many established realms, one of which being Hell, so no character is ever truly gone as boom! They're immediately back on the scene as a revenant (and usually playable for that matter).

At the end of the day, it's a fighting game first so story naturally comes second. As much as I love the lore, it's never going to be taken completely seriously and I've given up on them having credible threatening and imposing villains, good plots and fantastic character arcs.

STOP with the pessimism.
We had great story arcs like mk mythologies where nobody diede (well, except for Scorpion, but we already knew what his story was about, and of course Gods and Demonesses, which are immortal by definition).

Deadly Alliance killed one single character and later was zombified. The Dead and resurreted heroes don't count because they do not appear in MK DECEPTION.


Also MK9 's story was good, except for Subby becoming a cyborg just for shock value.

Kitana for example. No person lives 10,000 years, flat out. One way to look at it is, she had a normal human aged lifespan and died before coming back and had the long life after death (then becoming Edenian). Same process would apply to other characters who are greatly numerous in age too.

Kitana was never human. She is Edenian, and Edenians are the descendants of gods. Beings from pretty much every realm except Earth have an indefinite lifespan, which really makes you wonder how humans drew the short straw.

Also, I doubt that the Cyber Sub-Zero business was done for shock value, at least not exactly. That was more of a "What if?" for the new timeline and they probably wouldn't have taken it past MK9 anyway (unless the fans really liked it). The Sindel Massacre, though? Yeah, that one was for shock value.

The whole purpose of killing of the good guys in MK9 was to have them become revenants working for Shinnok. The only reason they became revenants was because Shao Kahn stole those warriors souls and gave them to Quan Chi, so he could turn them into revenants.

Why are so many people on the 'dead characters are automatically resurrected in the Netherrealm'-train? The games explicitly show that's not the case.

In Raiden's chapter in MK9, Raiden promised Quan Chi the souls of the Earthrealm warriors, and Raiden was surprised Quan Chi already had those souls. They were given to him by Shao Kahn. If souls were automatically resurrected in the Netherrealm, Raiden would not have been surprised to see those characters there.

In Sonya's chapter in MKX, we are shown how a revenant is created. Quan Chi's magic makes them rise out of a pool in his fortress. Yet still so many people keep thinking it happens automatically.

Why?

The fuck...Well Edenians do live that long. Hell they live longer! Do you apply the same logic to Elves too?

Okay. The only "train" I'm riding is that's where an evil being goes. Not that that's where all the dead go because...well MK follows the same logic as the biblical mythology. Good go to the heavens evil go to the Nether-Hell. And they do not require someone to build them a body in order to physically manifest in those realms...

Quan Chi took the souls that Shao Kahn has given him and had to turn them into revenants in order to have total control over them.

Okay, so what's the purpose of that pool thing in Quan Chi's fortress?

To quote me here "Quan Chi took the souls that Shao Kahn has given him and had to turn them into revenants in order to have total control over them."

Those who he wishes to control he will filter through it and tern them into his revenants to gain complete control over.

And specifically when speaking about the Earth defenders those souls could not exist in the Netherrealm without being coerced by Shao Kahn and then Quan Chi's magic.

And for the record the only reason I am doing this AGAIN! Is because you clearly have me pegged as an idiot according to your words in your first post in this thread.

So, you are saying that Johnny, who was still alive at the time, was already resurrected some random place in the Netherrealm (or even the Heavens, since Johnny isn't evil), and Quan Chi was transporting him through that pool to make him obedient to him?

I'm not calling anyone an idiot. I just don't understand why people keep believing this when all signs point into another direction.

We were watching his soul being ripped from his body and transferred into the revenant right before ours and everyone else's very eyes! I mean it's right there man!

I just...I don't understand you man I do not see how you can see the logic in your conclusion of how this stuff works?

Heaven and Hell. Mysticism, magic, implausible realities. Demons and angels, Wraiths and three headed dogs and devils. People getting their brains eaten for eternity for living a life of sin...Just...DUDE!!

You have tried to explain it to me numerous times but oh my god you are soooo wrong. I'm sorry I don't mean to constantly keep getting into confrontations with you and being an antagonistic prick but I just see a gigantic flaw in your line of thinking.

they can't fully kill off certain people because they know alot of fans will be pissed off i don't think a lot of mk fans would buy the game if Scorpion and Sub Zero was fully dead, not even Ed and the NRS team can fully remove them out of the games cause they are characters they have worked on since MK1 i mean look at how many games Scorpion missed, mk3 he was not in on game.

so by killing of characters and having some weird bizarre excuse to bring them is because they are originals and you don't mess with them, the other characters that are not super popular or Ed/NRS do not care for of course they will remove, but trying to future the game franchise and make it all with new characters let's all be honest we would hesitant at first if we would like it or not.

look at mkx it hasn't even been a yr and people still bitch/moan/upset that so and so isn't in or the roster sucks etc etc

they added 8-10 new characters and alot of people were either Cassie is like Johnny, but looks like Sonya she is a copycat or Cassie is like Johnny and Sonya why have all three of them in the game such a waste

well it is not really they want to make us the fans get use to the new characters with the old ones being apart of them, if mkx was all about new characters and like 80% of the roster were kids from previous characters not everyone would enjoy that

could you live with a mk game with no kitana, sonya, rain, baraka, sub, scorpion not a lot of people could

look at the kp2 people are super pissed cause rain, baraka and others aren't in it. so characters dying and being brought back NRS/Ed can always go back and forth with their story lines to keep the characters from aging super old so they can keep them around, now that jade, jax, kabal and them have died and some have been brought there really is not useful anymore i agree cause they get brought back in later games.

so having a MK game with all new characters a new roster not everyone would be please and want the originals in it i mean they did make MK so changing it up alot is not always the right decision right away

slowly i get them adding new characters to point where there would be newer characters in future games

sorry i made this long, if i does not just pretend it made sense

So, the revenant body is created by Quan Chi? And it's a different body than the one someone automatically gets in the Netherrealm or the Heavens?

The only thing we disagree on is whether a soul automatically gets a body in the Netherrealm or the Heavens?

I only use canon Mortal Kombat material as my reference, not what the Bible or any other work says. It may be based on other things, but that doesn't necessarily means that's exactly how it works in Mortal Kombat.

I think the soul is automatically incarnated in the Heavens or the Netherrealm after death.
It may not be a body as we know it, a mortal body, but they definitely get a representation of their soul to move around.
The Netherrealm is not empty. It's filled with evil souls who have died over the years. They're not just floating around. They have a representation of themselves.

The real question is: what happens to those who get their bodies destroyed while in the Netherrealm?
Like the comic showed with Havik, Drahmin and Moloch

That's possible. A new weak body that can't possibly overpower anyone or escape the Netherrealm by itself.

I assume if your idea is true, they just get a new 'body' when their soul is reincarnated again? In Havik's case, I think he was never dead before. So that would have been his first dead.

I think (and hope) that the comic will be declared non-canon by MK11. It already has inconsistencies with MKX and MK9. It 'll end up like the expanded universe in Star Wars. It was canon, but Episode VII made it non-canon.

Humans probably live the shortest life because Earthrealm has the least amount of magic intrinsic to the realm. That is the most logical explanation. That tome Johnny Cage found will shed more light if it is canon.

At the end of the day this is a fighting game. And fighting games are all about the characters in them. So NRS will try to find ways to bring dead characters back so people can play their favorites again. Does it weaken the games? Absolutely. Can I take them seriously knowing dying just means missing a game at best? Nope. Would the games be better if death had some actual weight? Damn right. Because then there'd be some fuckin' stake.

One of the biggest things that made me mad regarding a popular character being brought back was Raiden in Deception. The motherfucker died in the intro and STILL shows up in the game as a playable character. Think how cheap DA would've felt if they made this big deal about Liu Kang being dead but he was still playable in the game. Sure we get Dark Raiden out of it but Fujin should've taken Raiden's spot for that game and been the Protector of Earthrealm for a game.

But no we still had to have Raiden because he's one of the favorites.

this is true
thanks
the resurrection of the characters is an impediment for the game
the introduction of new characters in the story gives a new taste and a new approach
to dot the letters

I think they can't escape because there are no portals out of the Netherrealm. It's extremely hard to get out of there.
Remember that in the original timeline, Quan Chi was trapped in the lower planes of the Netherrealm, unable to use his sorcery and it took Drahmin and Moloch leading him to a portal , else he could not have gotten out.

I think their manifestations (bodies if you call them that) re pretty powerful, they basically become demons in the Netherrealm.



I hope you're wrong. I enjoyed it very much and it clarifies a lot of things.
Yeas, minor things like Cassie and Jacqui stating they've never been to Outworld or Ermac being thrown around back and forth are annoying, but it was mostly great. Kittelsen is talented.

I think a person consists of a body and a soul. After death, the body stays where it is, and 4 things can happen to a soul:
- If a person was good, the soul can ascend into the Heavens
- If a person was evil, the soul can descend into the Netherrealm
- A soul can be stolen by beings that can control souls, like Shang Tsung and Shao Kahn. And they can use it for other purposes.
- A soul can stay in the realms of the living and manifest itself as a spirit, if for some reason it's path to the afterlife is blocked. Like Johnny Cage in Trilogy, and Liu Kang in Deception.

There are 2 ways to resurrect a person.
- One way is to reanimate the body without a soul, like zombie Liu Kang in Deception. This blocks the path of the soul to the afterlife.
- Another way is to give the soul a new body. Most resurrections were done this way.
But in both cases, it requires someone to do something. A soul is powerless without a body, and a body without a soul can only function when something controls it (like Dark Raiden controlling zombie Liu Kang).

All this above is how I think it works.

I agree that there are probably very few portals out of the Netherrealm, but that probably isn't the only thing preventing people to return. I also think that most demons aren't dead people, they're just native to the Netherrealm.

Onaga didn't have a body when he appeared to Shujinko as Damashi. I think his cult and later the Dragon Egg prevented his soul from moving on to the afterlife. The power of the kamidogu allowed him to use Reptiles body as a vessel for his soul. The Dragon Egg transformed Reptile's body.

The comic isn't bad, but it limits the possibilities for future games. Many characters died (or were severely injured). If the comic is non canon, they don't have to think of a way to bring those characters back unharmed in future games.
They can use elements from it even if it's not canon. Shaolin Monks was entertaining, but it was non canon. And that's a good thing. Doesn't mean that they can't use ideas from it (like Kung Lao being at the first tournament, disguised as a guard).

Onaga didn't have a body cause he had never re-materialized in the Netherrealm. His soul had escaped the Netherrealm cause of his still loyal holy men.

Once he died, killed by Shujinko, his soul descended into the Netherrealm, where Nightwolf trapped it.
We actually he his soul materialize there and getting trapped.
From that point on, he was fu***, as Shinnok's power was greater than his and basically made Onaga his little bit**.

And this is absolutely the truth.

A major part of the problem is that NRS cannot win. Fighting games tend to carry over characters between sequels, and that's expected by people who play the games. It's practically a genre trope. Killing off characters means less favourites coming back for sequels, and that risks alienating people who play as those characters. Keeping too many of the same characters leads to complaints about nothing progressing or changing, and less-than-happy comparisons to Street Fighter.

So NRS is left with hard choices and a hell of a balancing act. Folks complain about the four new Special Forces characters being relatives or descendants of existing characters, but when you consider the time gap and the relatively few characters left alive at the end of MK 2011, it makes sense that many in the newer generation of good guys are going to be relatives under the tutelage of the older characters.
But then, it's like: "Well, shit, this is Mortal Kombat, and nobody expects death to have any finality. And conveniently, we wrote in a way to keep the characters we killed off in the last game around. Liu Kang, Jax, Kitana, Kung Lao - welcome back to the fold! Oh, and Sub-Zero, we found a buyer for your cyborg suit on eBay, so it's back to familiarity for you! What's that? The fans aren't happy about the way we brought back their favourite characters?

And they're complaining about the unplayable cameo characters we put in to at least pay them service and show their fans what they've been doing?

And they're complaining about Kitana using Jade's moves, even though we gave them to her as a character nod and a way to include Jade in some form for the fans?

Now they're complaining about the guest characters, new characters, and the return favourites in the Kombat Packs - one of which they've been asking to see again for the better part of sixteen years?"

The end result is a messy situation in which NRS are doing a hell of a job attending to every type of fan's insecurities, yet still dissatisfying everyone in some form or another. They try to cater to everyone. Some of us want to see the death of a character have some significance and duration, others rage about, "how could they kill off Unnamed Tarkatan Extra #3 in the Market battle when he had such promise?" Some are more concerned about story direction, others about the actual working mechanics of the game engine.
When it comes down to it, I think NRS' recent trend of making controversial decisions that guide the series' story and mechanics the way that they, as the developers, would like to see them go has been responsible for the most enjoyable aspects of the last two games. The resurrection of characters as Revenants feels forced, an appeasement measure for diehard fans, but they manage to do better with it than most properties that attempt the same thing.

You mean in Nightwolfs Deception ending? Isn't that just his spirit? And I don't think he died that time. His soul was taken from his host body just before Shujinko could deliver the final blow according to Onaga's Armageddon bio. Shinnok found him, and I believe he gave him a new body. As a former Elder God, he should have the power to do that.

Good catch on Nightwolf trapping Onaga's soul. I never made that connection before.

I agree for the most part with Stahlgeist.

But there are some things they could do to make it better for at least most fans I think:
- Remove variations. It makes balancing more difficult and makes it even harder to come up with unique moves for the characters. Most fans don't like it if their favourite character is reduced to a variation of another character. Maybe 30 characters in the base roster was possible without variations.
- Have all the characters you fight against in any mode playable.
- Fewer new characters. There are already over 70 MK characters. 8 new characters was okay in MKX because of the time jump, but go easy on it in future games. Give some previous 'new' characters a new chance.
- Fewer guests. One guest per Kombat Pack is enough. I'd prefer none, but that may be to much to ask.
- Balance out the roster some more. With the previous points taken into account. You could still have 12 out of 14 MK and MKII playable characters in the roster. Add 4 new characters, and the 4 kids from MKX. That's 20 and we still have room for 10 more. Add more characters that we haven't seen for a long time. Vanilla MKX only had Shinnok.
- BETTER COMMUNICATION!!! Announce what's in the pack when you announce the pack. Not in detail, but you could announce kombat pack 2 as having 1 returning (3D era) classic, 1 new character, and 2 guests. Then people wouldn't be as disappointed as they are now. And STOP hinting at characters that aren't going to make it anyway.