Nahhhh we already have her "clone" sister Mileena being the evil one, Kitana is good one. Plus as she is my favorite character from the whole series, she is forever the one fighting for justice and to destroy evil.

Sounds to me like you don't like Kitana and want her to be someone else.

I had a similar desire to see something like this, but, definitely not being 'evil', since that would just make her another Tanya. I would've liked to have her being being a very ruthless, nihilistic and perhaps Machiavellian character, doing morally grey things to achieve her goals but still holding onto friendships, basic honour codes like respecting her fallen comrades and her emotional attachment to Liu Kang. Being an assassin and being raised by Shao Kahn for 10,000 years had to have had some dark influence over her if it only took about 20 years for Bi-Han to be pre-ordained to become Noob.

I'm sure you can argue that this is the case, but it seemed like they were steering away from that to me. On another note, this might also probably conflict with the original story-telling intent which was probably that of the raising heroine Kitana was supposed to be like Sub-Zero instead of this dark, edgy stuff people want.

Bi-Han is evil because he likes killing, he has no mercy, he embraced what he was taught.

Kitana, as you said, is more like Kuai Liang. Someone who had this life forced on them but spent the entire time with their conscience in the back of their head going "this is wrong, we shouldn't be doing this, but I guess we have no choice so just suck it up and deal with it for now until an Option B comes along..."

But at what point in his life, though? Unless you believe some characters were destined for evil.


It makes sense for Kuai, but for Kitana, I can almost imagine her seeing her job as a patriotic duty to her emperor, whom she just accepts as her father and how fatherly figures who were gods in the past and is emperor of an entire universe would act, and though she doesn't like it, she does it with pride. And I think at some point, she would learn the fluidity of the honour in war and ruling an unstable empire being raised by Shao Kahn, which might shape her to be as I imagined before.

Maybe we're on the same page and I'm just explaining myself dumbly; I do think Kitana would be a good character deep-down inside, but things like killing, risking lives of innocents for the greater good/ perhaps being despotic and crushing rebellions in a Shao Kahn-esque manner or being deceptive with alliances or such would probably be second-nature to her.

Well...here's where I think the characters in question's motivations come from:

Bi-Han - In Mythologies, he justifies killing Scorpion (even though the dude was begging) as "He would have killed me if I didn't kill him first." That's probably his reasoning for every excessive life he takes. His "evil" comes from being experienced as an assassin, his heart is hardened by the bitterness and cynicism necessary to do a deadly job, he sees being merciless as the only means of survival. He may see his loyalty to the Lin Kuei in the same terms. "I do whatever they tell me, I don't question it, I don't care...because if I did, the grandmaster would kill me." There might be an element of selfishness there too where his MK1 ending indicated that when paid for a job, the assassin gets at least a significant share, so he's probably making a good living.

Kuai Liang - The fact that he was active as "Tundra" before his brother's death might contradict it, but I've always assumed that Kuai is a rookie, that MK2 is probably his first big mission, so all of his assassin habits come from training that has yet to be put into practice. He lacks his brother's concept of kill-to-survive because he hasn't been faced with situations where sparing someone had consequences, so all he has is his own gut telling him killing makes him uncomfortable so he'd rather avoid it when he can and only do so when the mission absolutely requires it.

Kitana - (Note that I'll be referring only to the events of the old timeline here, because the new one left things too twisted for a logical prediction, i.e. almost immediately after finding out the truth, she ended up a zombie serving the Brotherhood of the Shadow so who knows where her morals will end up)

I have no doubt in my mind that Kitana's past is a bloody affair and that she has many, many sins to atone for...but regardless of what she was taught, practiced, and willingly accepted over several thousand years as an assassin (And note that we don't know how much of Kitana's childhood Sindel was alive for, it's entirely possible her mother tried to teach her some good before committing suicide, which would leave doubts in her mind about right and wrong during her training and assassin life)...the moment she found out her "father" had been lying to her for her entire life would have thrown everything else she ever believed or was taught in the name of serving him and his empire into question.

It's likely learning the truth of her parentage either came from the Edenian resistance or led her to make contact with them. From them, she would have learned the Edenian way of life and seen everything wrong with Shao Kahn's version of morality.

Or she could simply have arrived at the same conclusions herself via critical thinking. Morals are kinda obvious if you're not a clinical sociopath. Basic human empathy combined with logic and reason will tell you all you need to know about concepts like "hurting innocent people is wrong" and "cruel and unusual punishment". You may put these thoughts aside when you're told what to do and fear what will happen to you if you don't, but once you find out the guy telling you what to do is not someone you want to be working for, you're gonna give this stuff a second thought.

Continuing to follow Kahn's orders while she was trying to stay undercover is one thing...but to use the tactics he taught her after finally being able to publicly denounce them and turn against him in MK2 would be hypocritical...and would certainly not do anything to lessen the guilt she probably feels for all the blood on her hands from serving Kahn. I mean, that's just me assuming...but if it were me in those shoes, I'd want nothing to do with any more killing or sneaking or underhandedness if I found out that all along, all the murderin' I'd been doing was in service to, y'know, the worst monster in history. I'd be trying to atone for that shit and clean up my image...ESPECIALLY if I lived in a universe where there's proof that Hell exists and sinners go there when they die.
The other thing is that, in a kingdom that ISN'T ruled by a villain, assassin tactics AREN'T NEEDED to keep the peace. There are no rebels or dissidents in a realm that isn't oppressed. Any people Kitana would be ruling, whether it be a freed Edenia or an Outworld where Kahn is dead, would welcome the peaceful Edenian form of government. What would Kitana need to be ruthless or Machiavellian FOR?