If you'd go back through my posts, you'll find that is blatantly untrue. Since my first post I've been telling you that "what race means" is not what people here actually want to fucking talk about (why do you think nobody but you and me have posted in this thread since we started? Nobody else cares!), they want to talk about what races the characters LOOK like, these threads are about physical appearance.

When I started actually debating back about what race and ethnicity mean in terms of genetics and dictionary definitions, it was WRONG of me to do that because you were dragging me off-fucking-topic and I was falling for it.



No, I still disagree with your highly selective definitions of "race" as "species" and "ethnicity" as cultural. It's completely valid, and what most people in the real world actually mean when they use those words, to group members of the same species into multiple categories based on physical features common to geographic origins, like skin color, slanted eyes, larger noses or lips, et cetera, and any sapient alien race is just as likely to do this same categorization among their own people because while they may not have protruding noses, and their skin might come in blue and purple instead of peach and brown, they're just as likely to have multiple breeds with physical differences to distinguish them, caused by evolving in separate environments on the same planet. They'll probably have all the social parts of ethnicity too, or have had them in their world's past, all the tribal behaviors like speaking multiple languages, having multiple religions and governments, tribes developing technology at different rates and using all these factors as excuses to discriminate amongst themselves...(though I'd certainly like to believe that any race who invents deep-space travel will have first grown past these sorts of things and be able to unite under one banner. This doesn't apply to MK though, since it's about primitive feudal worlds that meet us by magic portals rather than spaceships.) These things would not logically be exclusive to the Planet Earth experience or the Human brain, both the physical and social differences of ethnicities are a natural and logical result of ANY intelligent species with emotions developing/evolving in separate groups in separate ecosystems across the same planet. (There's also an argument to be made that anthropomorphization and human-looking "forehead ridges" aliens in Sci-Fi shows and movies isn't necessarily wrong, that the humanoid form is the most efficient and likely for intelligent life to have, as opposed to aliens being squid-monsters or something otherwise incomprehensible and dissimilar to us.)

I'm just SICK OF TALKING ABOUT THAT and always have been because it's NOT what the SPIRIT of these threads is ever really about.

I appreciate that you meant no offense and all, but the reason I call you names is because you've been extremely frustrating in not getting my point. The fact is that I've been saying the same things over and over for like three days...and said it all before two months ago, and you STILL do this to people's threads and I find it inappropriate. (Not to mention all the times this argument happened while MK9 was coming out.) You're coming across as somewhat slow to learn or unwilling to listen.

Once again, here is my main point as summarized as I can make it: If you want to talk about the dictionary definitions and social implications of "race", make your OWN thread instead of getting pedantic in threads about people who, at their core, just want to talk about what recurring physical characteristics characters in Mortal Kombat are supposed to have. You can't keep giving people a hard time just because you don't like the shorthand terminology they use.

Why must one person in an argument has to rely on name calling rather than using nice words to maintain a mature debate.

I still am waiting for a purple skinned character.

Because the debate didn't belong here, and quickly stopped being anything but repetitive and anger-inducing. I can't be respectful to something I think is completely inappropriate.

If Riyakou made his OWN thread for this argument, it wouldn't make me angry and I wouldn't go in to his own thread and call him names and be an ass to him...though I'd still probably tell him I think it's unrealistic to believe categorizing members of the same species by different geographical origin and physical traits is a concept alien races won't have. Any creature with cognitive capacity like ours is going to be just as tribal as we are.

The title of this thred clearly reads "Open for Debate". That kind of means debating on the subject it was made for does belong here. You basically just said that a topic doesn't belong in the topic it was made for. It's like saying that it's inappropriate to talk about MK on an MK website.

All Riyakou is saying is that there is only one king of human. Edenians are not humans, nor are Chaosrealmers, Outworders, or Seidans. Only Earthrealm's basic ad general figures can be called humans. Aliens are not humans. Their demographics, or ethnicities, do not even matter.

Really, what's so hard to understand? And why does it have to come down to getting pissy about it when it clearly should be a peaceful debate between the ranks of the MKOmmunity without hostility? It's not like he's threatening to murder you if you don't agree with him.

Bottom line is this, we can't choose the ethnicities of people from seperate realms because WE DIDN'T MAKE MORTAL KOMBAT> We can't choos what means what when we didn't write nor do we own the story. It should just be a peaceful debate abotu what ethnicity certain characters should be, would be if human, and whether or nto you can call an alien black, right? OR wrong? HOW SHOULD WE KNOW!??

That's the whole problem:

The TC never asked "whether or not you can call an alien black" (that's clearly not what he meant by "open for debate" and you know it) and Riyakou never expressed any interest in talking about what human ethnicities the non-human characters LOOK like and are BASED on by the developers who chose to make Outworlders and Edenians look like humans even though they're not, including persons of color.

That's TWO separate conversations, and one of them isn't quite relevant to the other.

I can't be peaceful when my attempts to explain this have been met by stubborn refusal to understand. Antagonistic behavior, deliberate or not, provokes a return in kind.



Why Riyakou's argument is relevant to a discussion about what the characters who look human despite not being human are intended to LOOK like and remind us of. There's a REASON everything in Outworld looks Japanese even though they have no Japan there. It would be much truer to the spirit of the thread to talk about why that is, what the intentions and influences of the creators were when they came up with these ideas, than to get anal about how Outworld's species and cultures shouldn't be compared to Earth's because it's a separate planet.

He got hung up on language and missed the intent.

It's like, when people WANT to talk about appearances, you can't feed them variations of "looks don't matter, it's what's on the inside that counts", that's just obnoxious.

It seems the only person who doesn't understand my point is you.

I will, however, recall a statement I made (not my point), for the sake of breaking ground.


In a more in-game perspective, there has yet to be any confirmation of any character outside of Earthrealm having any form of identity other than their species or homeworld. Therefore, we technically cannot identify them in any other way, as it will be inaccurate.

Well I certainly got that you keep wanting to talk about something other than what characters look like in threads about what characters look like.

None of the other points you tried to make seem terribly important in the face of that.



Physical appearance IS a part of identity. Both in the real world, where it has a tremendous effect on how we see ourselves and other people and behave, and in a work of fiction where each element of a character's design is deliberately chosen to convey things about that character and separate them from the other characters in unique, identifiable ways.

Also, I've just had a crazy thought: How do we even know Earth-humans, Edenians, and Outworlders aren't related? You're assuming they're separate alien races, but there's a lot of mysteries and unfilled in blank spots about the creation and history of the MK universe.

For starters, we know that all mortal life was created by the same thing, the dreaming imagination of the One Being. Every realm is a piece of him that was separated from and secretly wants to rejoin the others, making him, in essence, a kind of living Pangaea-realm.

We know that the realms have been connected to one another by portals for as long as they've existed, so travel between them has been possible for the entirety of human history.

We know that the only reason Edenians live so long (which is their only biological difference from Earth humans) is their ancestors interbred with the gods. Which means the ancient ancestral Edenians, the ones having sex with gods, did NOT have the same lifespans their part-god children and descendants do.

We know that Onaga's tomb in Outworld is, for some mysterious reason, covered in ancient Edenian heiroglyphics, which waaaay predate the time when Kahn merged Edenia with Outworld.

Also note that during the Tobias-written era, Shao Kahn used to refer to Earthrealm as "the Mother Realm" with no explanation for what that term actually means ever given. And the creators deliberately named Edenia for the Garden of Eden, which in Abrahamic mythology is where the human race was originally created and lived until God moved them to Earth. What if there's some sort of significance to one of these things?

I fully acknowledge this is just speculation and circumstantial, but it is entirely possible that the "human" races on all these different realms are so similar because they're in fact descended from the SAME race, separated by interdimensional migration thousands of years ago.

In that case, we'd be making a ridiculous amount of assumptions, and by that logic, humans would be able to live tens of thousands of years (i;e, Sindel is at least 40,000 years old, Kitana at least 10,000) with little aging on their bodies. Shao Kahn is raiden's brother, and Raiden, as a god, has been alive forever. Earthrealm's primary species called humans are lucky to live past 100 years old. And to assume that we're connected would imply that either
A) Edenians, Outworlders, and all of these other humanoid alien species should live at average human rates.
or B) That humans should be able to live for millenia naturally.
Take into account, many characters from Earthrealm do have abilities that allow them to live longer than others (i.e, Liu Kang, who cannot age because he is champion of Mortal Kombat, and that is bestowed upon him along with the MK definiton of immortality.)

To call edenians related to humans and Seidans related to Ouworlders would require a ridiculous amount of assumptions that have not been conirmed br NRS and would leave us to wonder how through that connection that the other species live so long.

It's like trying to predict the future 100 years from now.

Yes, Edenians have alegitimate reason to live so long. But in Seido, or Chaosrealm. Hell, Quan Chi is immortal, but he looks like a gothic bald dude. He's from a different realm. (A side note, why do we keep calling them planets when they're realms. I'm pretty sure hell isn't a planet, and that a floating world of bridges is not a planet, though since each realm has a Sun,i could see that argument, but there's a thread for that now.)

That's very interesting points you showed Razor. Especially,I am intrigued about human population of Outworld,Earth,Edenia,hell,even Chaosrealm and Seidan looking very similar.

Well,the way I see it,I think dragons and humans are the two biggest species in MK universe. You have dragons everywhere,particularly in Outworld (Onaga himself,so there must have been more dragons during his time,he is called Dragon King for a reason),Edenia (Orin and Caro,so there could be more) and Earthrealm (Saurians,descendants of Zaterra,should have evolved from dragons,because there is a reason Onaga possessed Reptile in MKDA. He can't possess,let's say human or vampire or Shokan or anybody else,so there is evidence for me personally). Freaking Elder Gods are dragons themselves.

And of course you have humans everywhere,including these three realms and Chaosrealm and Seido (even though Seido guards have silver hair,I wonder if it is common trait for all Seidan Guardsmen,since Dairou is former Seidan Guardsmen and different from them).

I also am very interested why Outworlders live so long as well (Bo Rai Cho for example).

What I think is since we were given the reason why Edenians live so long in Rain's bio,I have this theory,since the ruler before Kahn,Onaga was called Dragon King,he was the king of the dragons,who by default live for a long time. Since we don't see so much dragons in Outworld I presume they went extinct (even in MKDA Blaze is guarding what was called the last dragon egg),so maybe some of them escaped to Shokan realm and interbred with humans to create Shokan species,while the rest were slain by Shao Kahn and somehow their death or some magic of their death got spread on human population or something like that? Because I honestly think there is no other explanation for why Outworld humans live as long as well,it has got to do something with Onaga and dragons. Ever thought about it?

Also,you remember you wondered why all Edenians returned magically to Edenia,once Kitana and Sindel freed it in MK3? And what happens if one of your parents is Outworlder and another is Edenian?

I just happen to think that since those who are half Outworlder half Edenian have part of Edenian in them are given choice by Elder Gods either go to Edenia or stay in Outworld,but to be honest,I don't think there are many interbred children like that because Edenians are the most known rebels of Outworld,so I would think most Edenians hate Outworld and Shao Kahn but can't do anything about it. So I would think they would have this tradition of not crossing path with Outworlder or marrying them.

You gotta also admit that Edenians and Edenia are paradise kind of realm,unlike Outworld which has this gothic Japanese evil culture about it (even though during Onaga's rule it could have been different,but Edenians were conquered by Kahn,they would never know),so I would also say even if Outworlder or Edenian try to get together,there is this cultural difference so to speak. But all of these are my theories.

Quan Chi is former Oni,who somehow discovered magic and evolved because of it into human looking creature. It is hinted in the conversation with other Onis in MK Deception Konquest.They say something along lines that Quan Chi used to be like them,I can't recall exact words.

Yes, but the argument is about comparing people who look like humans, but aren't, to humans (in a nutshell, it obviously is much more than that.)
Quan Chi looks human, but he's been alive for such a long time that he could be as old as the NetherRealm itself (thank you, John Vogel). But he looks like a bald dude with tattoos and make-up.

Let's just use this as something to help you understand, my friend, imagine somebody who knew nothing about MK picked up Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance. He looks at Quan Chi on the Select Screen and makes their decision. Many people could mistake him for human. Same with Raiden, or Shang Tsung

Not many characters look lik ethey could guranteed be a different species. Reptile, it depends, the Shokan and Centaurs, okay, Oni, okay, yeah, but in ratio to the people who do, they're pretty slim.

Dude, you're not paying attention. Edenians live so long because they've interbred with gods. At a certain point in history, BEFORE they had kids with gods, Edenians DIDN'T live extra-long.

I recognized that. Did you even read the post? Really, it's not like I'm unaware, it's basic MK History. But that leaves the question of Seidans, Outworlders, Chaosrealmers, and anybody who appears human from any other realm.

Take for example, the realm Ilkan from the TV Show. Somebody from Ilkan would not be a human, unless they are specifically called human. Otherwise, they're basically, in your words, an alien.

How do you know what people from Ilkan are actually called? I don't think it ever comes up in the episode. Besides, some people call Raptors/Saurians "Zaterrans" because they lived on Zaterra...but they were originally from Earth and moved to Zaterra. Anyway, Ilkan isn't canon in the games, and the cartoon was created way before most of the info we have about the nature of the MK universe was invented.

We have no real proof Outworlders live longer than humans do. Bo' Rai Cho does, but he could have a unique power we haven't been told about yet. Li Mei is the only other Outworld citizen who's playable in the games and for all we know, she's actually as old as she looks, since her character's backstory is all about being a young and naive kung fu student.

We also have no proof Seidans are different from humans biologically, that they live a long time or anything like that. And any differences between Chaosrealmers and Humans can be chalked up to the fact that the laws of nature in their realm were rewritten by the God of Chaos, so now they can walk around with their skin peeling off.

Emm...Not sure about the last paragraph. Why I say that is you remember Lei Chen siege in Outworld? When that event happened,cuz I can't remember? If it is a long time ago,then it proves my point because Hotaru was around those times...

About Outworlders you might be right that it is exclusive trait of Bo Rai Cho to live for so long. I even had this crazy idea long time ago that Bo Rai Cho is former Mortal Kombat champion,possibly in Outworld vs Edenia tournament,after which Kahn conquered Edenia. Why Bo Rai Cho stopped fighting for Kahn and started training Earth guys therefore turning on Kahn is another subject you can get creative with...Anyways,it is fantasy of mine,cuz I can't explain his long life any other way.

The rate Shujinko ages in Konquest is so muddled and confused that you can't really use that to determine how old anybody's supposed to be. Half of Konquest isn't even canon.

Besides, Hotaru has white hair. He could just be a 60 or so year old man like Shujinko is.

Yeah,but not only Hotaru,all other Seidan Guardsmen have white hair,which makes me think they recruit what,only old people? And besides Dairou used to be Guardsman too,but doesn't have white hair anymore since he left them.

And to be honest,facial features of Hotaru and Shujinko are way different,one looks young and another CLEARLY looks old. Which makes me believe white hair is just common trait of Seidan Guardsman...Maybe they dye them when they join the ranks? Like how people shave their heads when they go to army?

Meh, that's just reusing an NPC model over and over. It's hardly like it's canon. I kinda doubt Dairou used to have white hair and it changed color when he left the Guards.
Anyway, Hotaru's face looks kinda old to me. But then, everyone's face is wrinkly in the MKDA graphics engine.

It would be making an assumption, but we could say that Jade is black and Kitana is White, because those are colors not a specific place on Earth. Midway/NRS means for their characters to look like a specific race. I'm not sure what Li Mei would be, Yellow?

Well...that's not actually what color her skin is.

Hsu Hao would be "yellow", maybe even slightly green, but he's actual Mongolian-Chinese, from Earth...some might say a racist stereotype of one.

I was joking.

Sorry, didn't see a punchline.

"There is an order to the universe -- laws that all of nature must obey. For centuries I have imposed order on those who would wreak havoc. Outworld has long been a source of disruption, but an old ruler has made a triumphant return. During Onaga's rule, his military forced peace throughout his domain. I will see that his return brings order to this war-torn realm once more. I will fight against the insurgents to clear a path for the Dragon King's coming."

Huh. How about that.

Well dammit, now they need to explain why people from Orderrealm live so long.

I wish Vogel would think this shit through before randomly slapping agelessness on every fucking race in the franchise. It makes it seem like living forever is normal and Humans are the ones who're weird.