I would just like to make a little note here that at no time in the original continuity was Quan Chi ever referred to as a necromancer. Once.

His powers were more sinister than Shang's yes. But he never demonstrated any powers of necromancy outside of summoning some skeletons.

That's why he needed Shang Tsung in Deadly Alliance. If his powers were what they are now. He could have just resurrected the Dragon Kings army himself.

No. The Netherrealm again is hell. Bad things go there when they are destroyed.

Happened when Quan Chi died via being vaporized by Raiden. Mileena wound up there not because she was resurrected by because she was evil and then recruited by Shinnok because he needed warriors. It's where bad people go. Bi-Han went there because of all the evil deeds he had done for the Lin Kuei and the realm itself transformed him into Noob Saibot due to the corruption that resided within him.

Or are we just going to pretend like Quan Chi is the sole reason there is anyone in the prison of souls? Or tortured beings impaled on spikes? All of that Quan Chi then?

Also Shinnok was never this death obsessed being then either. He was just a mighty cosmic being confined to hell. He could do whatever he wanted. If he wanted to summon skeleton hands then he could. The man was the sole reason the Netherrealm even looked as it did when we saw it.
Unlike now where what...he was the god of death?

Can we just stop this. Can we please stop defending the dumb shit from this new continuity. The Ne-fuck it. Hell works as it works any other time in fiction. If you're bad. You go there. If you escape then die. You go back. You can try and explain it all away with Quan Chi all you want but you are wrong.

Wait...the hell am I even doing. None of this matters. Like at all. The lore the characters none of this shit even matters now. I don't care. Fine Quan Chi populated the entire Netherrealm with the souls of the dead. And once you die without him your soul is just nothing at all. You are one with the life stream of the force.

That's true. He was never called a necromancer. But Scorpion's MK4 bio does state that Quan Chi offered Scorpion life, in exchange for his services as a warrior. That was Quan Chi's first appearance in a main series game. We knew since then he could resurrect dead people.

Quan Chi needs access to souls in order to resurrect someone. He gives souls a new body to inhabit. That's why he needed Shang Tsung in Deadly Alliance. To give him the souls he needed to resurrect the army. It is still true in the new timeline, as he was given the souls of the fallen warriors by Shao Kahn. Otherwise he would not have been able to resurrect them.

Ever since we first saw the opening video of Deception, it had always been a theory amongst fans that Quan Chi teleported away just before Raiden released his essence. Quan Chi's return in Armageddon was not explained, so that theory could be true. Maybe he did die. Maybe Shinnok resurrected him. We don't know.

There is a difference between a soul and a person. There are souls in the prison of souls. They don't have a body. I believe that Quan Chi's soul is in the Netherrealm, but as long as nobody gives him a new body, he is powerless.

Shinnok's motives have always been to conquer Earthrealm and Outworld, and wage war against the Elder Gods. I don't see a difference between then and now.

Bad souls go to the Netherrealm, good souls go to the Heavens. But without a body, those souls are almost powerless.

Offering Scorpion "life" meant transporting him to Earth.

Quan Chi is described as a free roaming sorceror, able to travel the realms at will. He is a demon that learned how to use magic. Necromancy is magic pertaining to the dead, wich both Shang Tsung & Quan Chi do in differing ways.

Who knows why Quan Chi couldn't just let Shinnok escape Netherrealm the way Scorpion & Noob were allowed out? Being the manipulative bastard he is, we already know he's using Shinny, with giving him a fake copy of his amulet, and iirc, wanted Shinnok's power for his own.



Ka-Tra

I have a feeling Shujinko and Fujin will have something to do with restoring the heroes in the next game. I am crossing my fingers for this to happen.

Life has nothing to do with location. It's not because you're in the Netherrealm that you are dead, and that going back to Earthrealm makes you alive again. Nightwolf wasn't dead when he visited the Netherrealm in MKD.

Maybe that's how you interpreted it at the time, but more recent information shows that's not true. That doens't mean they retconned anything. It just means your interpretation was wrong.

Looking at how powerful Shinnok is, the Elder Gods probably did more effort banishing Shinnok than they did with other beings, making it harder for him to escape.

Nightwolf was visiting to dump the evil energy he had absorbed. He draws in negative energy to purify people. It's one aspect of his shamanism. I never thought he died, he was able to be there because of the taint, just like Shujinko. He wasn't dead either.

You don't need someone to give you a body in Netherrealm.
Drahmin wasn't always an Oni demon, he was an Outworld warlord before he died. I don't recall him needing Quan Chi or anyone else to make him a body.

What about Sareena? How did she get her body after Quan Chi "killed" her for betraying him? Rewarding betrayal doesn't make sense.

Why did Ashrah have a body if she left/betrayed the Brotherhood of the Shadow?

Demons had bodies, regardless if they looked like Humans or monster things. They weren't all dead either. You don't need to be dead to exist/reside in the Netherrealm, just tainted, bad or evil. Demons are born/exist in other realms also. Some even leave Netherrealm to visit other realms, with & without help.

Netherrealm is where the dead go, it is the realm of the dead. The other realms are considered the realm of the living, nobody goes to Earth/Edenia/Outworld when they die.

"Welcome back to the land of the living."



Ka-Tra

I thought Nightwolf absorbed negative energies in order to be able to visit the Netherrealm. But that's not the discussion here.

Why would traveling from Netherrealm to Earthrealm make you alive, but traveling from Earthrealm to Netherrealm does not make you dead? If the realm that you're in makes a difference one way, it should also make a difference the other way.

That's true, Drahmin wasn't always an oni. But that doesn't mean that he had no help in becoming an oni. We simply don't know. It's not because we don't know that it happened automatically. He could have been made an oni by Quan Chi, although I think that is unlikely. His potential as a tormentor could have been recognized by Lucifer or Shinnok and he could have made him an oni. He could even have been an oni all his life, and the Outworld warlord story can simply be a legend that surrounds him. We don't know.

Sareena is a good one. It appears that she indeed died and reformed as her demon form automatically. Maybe she didn't die and her human form was taken away from her for her betrayal, while sending her back to another part of the Netherrealm?
Maybe her bio in MK:TE isn't canon, as it may not have been written by Vogel's team. The game was only for Gameboy Advance. Another team created it. Reiko's MK4 gameboy ending also revealed him to be Shao Kahn, which turned out not true. MK:TE has Noob Saibot working for Shao Kahn. Why would he be working for Shao Kahn? It says Sektor fought many battles with Outworld forces. When did that happen. He had only been hunting Sub-Zero and Cyrax.
That one bio isn't going to convince me as there are so many arrows pointing in another direction.

I don't remember Ashrah ever dying...

I agree. My point was that being in a certain realm has nothing to do with being dead or alive. You can be alive while in the Netherrealm. But leaving the Netherrealm doesn't make you alive.

Only the evil dead go to the Netherrealm, the good go to the Heavens.

I think we can agree that there are many holes in MK's story. And that some things were changed over the years. Much was left to our imagination and fan theories during the old timeline. But I think Quan Chi's death having an impact and limiting chances for death characters to come back is a good thing, as it gives death more meaning.

I remember years ago people were making fun of Johnny Cage dying and coming back again (even before Deception, when he had only died and came back once). At least now we can see the effects of dying in almost every character. Most of them are revenants, and the ones that came back are changed by the experience. The only one where we didn't see any change yet is Sub-Zero.

In the end, whether it was like this in the old timeline or not (signs point to yes), death meaning something is a good thing for the story.

This.

The scene where Sub-Zero, Scorpion and Jax turned human because "almost revenant" Johnny Cage got blown up was total magic bullshit. Ooooh the shockwave from it wiped away the evil off them. Bitch please.

Did Havik died in the comics? If not...there you go NetherRealm.

Please...don't fix them. Every character that is a revenant I feel needs to stay that way. I'm not saying they can't manage to be "good", they seem to have free will in this form, after all, but I really like the designs and characters of Kitana and Liu Kang this game.

So... without a body in hell, how are you tortured?

What, a glowing light ball is trapped in it's memories or some shit?
Like an unending nightmare?



Ka-Tra

Psychological torture?
An unending nightmare is a possibility.

Maybe some of them were given some sort of a body for physical torture. One that was not as powerful as their original body and maybe lacked some features.

The demons or oni should always be in power. If a body just reformed in it's original state, and with it's original powers, there would be billions of evil people in the Netherrealm, and eventually would be able to easily overpower the demons, oni and other Netherrealm beings. They would also be able to escape the Netherrealm, if they found a portal. That's a serious design flaw. There should be no means for any dead person to escape the Netherrealm, without some help.