Shao Kahns deaths?
0
posted08/28/2014 07:53 AM (UTC)by
Avatar
DrgnLdy
Avatar
Member Since
04/27/2014 09:53 PM (UTC)
I want to know your opinion on this; do you think it would've been better if Shao Kahn had actually died one or perhaps several times along the way of Armageddon?

In MKII, he dies by turning to stone and crumbling, but that's retconned. In MK3, it's strongly implied he explodes which frees the souls of Earthrealm, and would logically explain /how/ the souls of Earthrealm are freed instead of the retcon that just being beaten up frees humanity's souls and that he fled. Deadly Alliance... Probably the most infamous retcon with Shang Tsung and Quan Chi killing a clone, but it was originally told make the deadly alliance look unstoppable.

I agree that a lot of these retcons are lame; I feel that a lot of his originally intended deaths were interesting ways to go, such as Havik's original Deception ending in resurrecting Shao Kahn. Or, even further back, that Shao Kahn was destroyed by Liu Kang, probably with the help of the Elder Gods to completely annihilate him from existence during MK3, or even MKII when Shao Kahn turned to stone, the price for losing his tournament.

On the other hand, I feel like the soul binding backstory of Kahn and his minions is also very interesting, perhaps even worth the crappy retcons in keeping him alive and also giving him the backstory of obtaining more power from conflict itself. Also, I feel that death during his own tournament, would be kind of lame under consideration; the same with dying in his own invasion of Earthrealm. Kind of incompetent, wouldn't you say? Looking back, I think it was more satisfying of a concept that Shao Kahn was weakened, and had to suffer the consequences of his empire crumbling around him with the chance of even meeting death by Edenia and Shokan.

It makes me wonder, if Shao Kahn really had been killed at some point, (especially during the Deadly Alliance) how exactly would Shang Tsung (and perhaps even his other subjects) had survived if Shao Kahn had perished?

For those of you who don't like these retcons, how would you explain away Shang Tsung and possibly the likes of Kitana, Reptile, etc.'s continued existence with Shao Kahn's death? If you'd erase Shang Tsung's soul binding out of existence, how would you explain his ability to win Mortal Kombat tournaments for Outworld? I don't think it could be written off as "Well, maybe the Elder Gods didn't consider Shang Tsung a 'citizen' of Earthrealm anymore b/c he was a wandering sorcerer/ choose to fight for Outworld," because then what about Bo' Rai Cho's backstory of being unable to fight for Earthrealm in Mortal Kombat? I'm sure if things worked that way, Bo' Rai Cho would've renounced his Outworld denizenship or whatnot.

Anyway, what do you think of all this? The retcons, worth it? Nay?
Avatar
RazorsEdge701
07/30/2014 09:25 PM (UTC)
0
Well first of all, they never really said that anyone other than Shang was pledged to Kahn in that "if he dies, I die too" way.

But as far as explaining how Shang could come back in a world where Kahn is dead, I'd play it like this:

We know that because he pledged his soul to Kahn, that means when Shang dies, his soul doesn't go to the afterlife, it goes to Kahn.

In Armageddon, it was revealed that Shang keeps spare bodies, unfinished clones of himself, stored in the Flesh Pits. Meat is one of those bodies (he somehow got loose and developed a mind of his own).

Shao Kahn resurrects Shang (After Raiden blew himself and the Deadly Alliance up in the Deception intro) by putting his soul in one of those bodies and then they go attack Li Mei's village again so Shang can steal all their souls and gain enough power to regrow his skin and get back to full strength.

So if Kahn is dead, then there's nowhere for Shang's soul to go when he dies...so he becomes a ghost. And as a ghost, he could theoretically just possess one of his Meat bodies on his own. Or he could possess another person and run around as them, sorta like that one noncanon Deadly Alliance ending where Liu Kang possessed Kano.
Avatar
DrgnLdy
07/31/2014 09:45 AM (UTC)
0
Was always under the impression that if Kahn died, Shang's soul would instantly be absorbed and follow where ever his soul went. That just seemed to make the most sense to me, since pledging your life to your emperor was like becoming property in a sense, and Shao Kahn is all about owning souls as his.

RazorsEdge701 Wrote:
Well first of all, they never really said that anyone other than Shang was pledged to Kahn in that "if he dies, I die too" way.
I know, and, it probably makes the most sense considering Kahn probably didn't just trust anyone knowing his sorcery secrets, but it would've been kind of cool if, say, Kitana had unknowingly pledged her soul too.
Avatar
RazorsEdge701
08/03/2014 04:09 AM (UTC)
0
DrgnLdy Wrote:
Was always under the impression that if Kahn died, Shang's soul would instantly be absorbed and follow where ever his soul went.


That's logical...I'm just riffing alternative outcomes based on the fact that death is never instantaneous, time actually passes while a soul floats from its body to whatever realm it's going to when you die in the MK universe, and that if your will is strong enough, you can resist the pull of the afterlife and become a ghost like Liu did in the old timeline.

I seems to me that if Kahn did die, the soul pledge could certainly make sure Shang dies too, but could it actually force Shang's soul to become, like, tethered to Kahn's and be dragged to the same realm Kahn goes to when he dies? When a soul stealer is killed, all the souls they've ever stolen are SUPPOSED to be set free. You can't put a soul inside another soul, you can only put souls inside a body. (that's one of the problems with Sindel's death in MK9. She had all of Shang's souls. Whenever Shang dies in a game or the movie, we always see an explosion of ghosts flying out of his body and into the sky set free. But we didn't see this happen when Nightwolf vaporized her. So what happened to Kenshi's ancestors, were they invisibly freed or are they somehow still tied to her in death and Quan Chi owns them now?)

And here's a thought: Do we even really know what happens when Shao Kahn dies? He USED to be a god and gods are supposed to reincarnate. But that's because Gods' true forms are pure energy, they only take fleshy "mortal forms" to interact physically with mortals, and like when Raiden blew himself up, the released energy will eventually re-collect itself to form a new god.

So like...theoretically, when he gave up godhood, does that mean Kahn's not a being of energy anymore, he's stuck in his "mortal form" forever, so...he'd not have the reincarnation power? Would he end up in Hell? There are noncanon endings that suggest Kahn himself has a soul that can be stolen or go to Hell like a mortal, like in Quan Chi's MK9 ending where he adds Kahn to his slave army.
But there seemed to be a running theme in MK9 that even when you think you've dealt Kahn a mortal blow, he'll just heal up and keep coming back. He's so powerful that he's either unkillable or nearly so, he was even almost immune to the Elder Gods' powers. So how do we know for sure they blew him up at the end? For all we know, they actually carried him off to the Heavens and imprisoned him because he won't friggin' die.
Avatar
YellowLedbetter
08/03/2014 05:38 AM (UTC)
0
It seems to me that Kahn didn't really die. In fact he faces the judgement of the Elder Gods, and that can take the eternity, which I doubt.

But there's something far more interesting than that.

Raiden thinks he prevented Armageddon for the simples reason that his amulet fixed, and it was broken by a reflex of his future alter ego in the apex of Armageddon.

But the amulet is not a sign of Armageddon, as he thinks. The amulet marks his death, not the end of all things, even though both things happened by consequence, they are no necessary events.

So, once Shao Kahn has been taken - and now you see why dead/judged is the same - there will be no Kahn to follow the same steps of the first timeline and eventually end on the top of the pyramid after killing Blaze (as confirmed by Vogel).

On other words, Raiden prevented Shao Kahn from the battle of Armageddon on that day, that hour, that year. So, he prevented his own death, and of course, prevented that his amulet broke. What he thinks is a prevention of Armageddon is a mere impression. It was only postponed.
Kombatants will keep growing (and now we have more characters), unstabling the realms, being influenced by the OB...apocalypse is a prophecy, there's no escape, only hiding for a while.
Avatar
RazorsEdge701
08/03/2014 08:00 AM (UTC)
0
I've been saying since before MK9 even came out that "Stopping Shao Kahn from winning isn't the same thing as stopping Armageddon. Raiden is an idiot and the only way to prevent Armageddon is to find & destroy Blaze before he can make the pyramid rise and become a giant lava monster."
Avatar
YellowLedbetter
08/03/2014 08:03 PM (UTC)
0
Finally I found someone who agrees with me! wow

Dude, it's so clear that he only prevented his death in the future. Believing that he stopped Armageddon by taking Kahn out of the way is so naive.

It's like you go to sleep with kombatants growing too numerous and too powerful, bringing the destruction of the realms with their intensified kombat. Then, when you wake up, Shao Kahn is the big threat, he is the bringer of Armageddon confused

Avatar
DrgnLdy
08/22/2014 02:20 AM (UTC)
0
RazorsEdge701 Wrote:

And here's a thought: Do we even really know what happens when Shao Kahn dies? He USED to be a god and gods are supposed to reincarnate. But that's because Gods' true forms are pure energy, they only take fleshy "mortal forms" to interact physically with mortals, and like when Raiden blew himself up, the released energy will eventually re-collect itself to form a new god.

So like...theoretically, when he gave up godhood, does that mean Kahn's not a being of energy anymore, he's stuck in his "mortal form" forever, so...he'd not have the reincarnation power? Would he end up in Hell? There are noncanon endings that suggest Kahn himself has a soul that can be stolen or go to Hell like a mortal, like in Quan Chi's MK9 ending where he adds Kahn to his slave army.
I've always wondered that myself, but perhaps that only applies to Earthrealm gods since they're gods of some element not like Kahn was, who was a god of a theme of something... which was war. I mean, what exactly would he disperse into? I have also wondered that if the only reason ex-Elder God Raiden reincarnated was /because/ he was an Elder God or because he was of the race of gods or was a former god of Earth. I don't know what to think about Tsung dying and coming back; I mean, what you say makes sense, and maybe it's what the MK team would've done if Kahn actually had died, but it still seems kind of lame to me. Maybe for the same reason people dying and constantly coming back is, but it feels like a little more. See, Liu Kang being able to resist death makes some sense; his character has always had strong convictions, but Shang Tsung? He just seems morally and probably mentally weak as a person, always taking the easy way out of things, so I don't imagine his soul would be strong enough to resist a pull to the afterlife. But also, what you say makes sense about souls not being merged with souls but just being inside the body makes sense, but I think even in this case Tsung's soul would be specially glued to Shao Kahn because it wasn't taken by force but it was a voluntary soul bind. I also kind of wonder how much exactly souls get to keep their individual existence since they're just extensions of the One Being anyway. I've also wondered if the Elder Gods just destroy their souls once they go to Heaven after a certain point because of this. I mean, why keep fractions of the One Being in their home? Lol.
Avatar
RazorsEdge701
08/22/2014 06:35 PM (UTC)
0
Well the Elder Gods don't live in Heaven, they live in the privacy of the empty Void outside of the Realms. Heaven is just a collection place like Hell is, so the Elder Gods probably don't care about souls or where they go. (Besides, since souls have no physical mass, they're probably not "pieces" of the One Being, they would count as figments of his imagination...figments that should be taken seriously though because they're apparently the fuel source for all superpowers/magic in the universe. Also, I'm not sure souls CAN be destroyed, I mean that's kinda why afterlives exist. Bodies can die, but souls are immortal and indestructible.)

I think the Lesser Gods like Raiden and Fujin normally live in Heaven and watch over their realms from there, or use it as a neutral place to meet and hang out with gods from other realms though, that's why Shinnok attacked it in MK4. He wasn't just trying to take out the Elders, he was after ALL deities who could oppose him.

Also, this is based on nothing but a belief that a "species" should have a standardized "biology", but I'd like to think that Raiden's god-form being made of lightning and the same for the other Earth gods is not an Earth-specific or Element-specific thing.

Thus, a God of War's true form would be made of "war", a God of Love's true form would be made of "love", et cetera...which I realize sounds like nonsense since war and love are abstract concepts, ideas of the mind, not physical things...but abstract concepts being imagined as having a tangible form is kinda the core conceit of all religion.

Think of it like the lore of the Green Lantern comics, where pure emotions like "fear", "rage", "love", etc. can manifest as a glowing light of a specific color and beings like "Parallax" exist, who is the personification of all Fear in the universe, a cosmic-level parasite with a body made out of that yellow light.
That's my theory anyway. It's also possible, probably more likely, that Raiden and co.'s "essences" aren't actually made of their element, they're just made of pure energy. 'Cause when Raiden released his essence to explode in MKD, it wasn't a giant explosion of lightning, it was pure light.
Avatar
krajax
08/27/2014 06:01 PM (UTC)
0
Ummm I thought Shao Kahn was just a mortal sorcerer adviser to Onaga before he took the throne. He was appointed by the Elder Gods to advise Onaga but I don't think his bio says he was one of the former gods.
Avatar
RazorsEdge701
08/28/2014 02:03 AM (UTC)
0
1) Kahn has been called "an immortal" since the original trilogy.

2) Direct quote from Damashi, about just what being an advisor to Onaga MEANT: "There was a time when he was much like Raiden is to your Earthrealm"

3) One of the backwards-speech clips in Deception Konquest, when played in reverse, says: "Shao Kahn, Lucifer, and Raiden are of the same race of beings."

4) John Vogel confirmed on Twitter that Kahn was specifically the Protector-God of Outworld. I even asked him what Kahn was the god OF, but he jokingly replied "meanness" because NRS devs are dicks like that.
Avatar
krajax
08/28/2014 03:13 AM (UTC)
0
RazorsEdge701 Wrote:
1) Kahn has been called "an immortal" since the original trilogy.

2) Direct quote from Damashi, about just what being an advisor to Onaga MEANT: "There was a time when he was much like Raiden is to your Earthrealm"

3) One of the backwards-speech clips in Deception Konquest, when played in reverse, says: "Shao Kahn, Lucifer, and Raiden are of the same race of beings."

4) John Vogel confirmed on Twitter that Kahn was specifically the Protector-God of Outworld. I even asked him what Kahn was the god OF, but he jokingly replied "meanness" because NRS devs are dicks like that.


So Shao Kahn being the god he is didn't need to poison Onaga secretly. He could have just popped into the palace and say, "Hey I'm a Protector God you're just a mortal dragon" and just blast Onaga's head off with laser beams and take over the throne. What was Shao afraid of? It's not like Onaga is at the same level of power as Shao Kahn given the former's ambiguous origins...
Avatar
RazorsEdge701
08/28/2014 07:53 AM (UTC)
0
Well us not knowing Onaga's origins works both ways, we don't know that the Dragon King isn't as tough as a god. There are plenty of people who aren't gods who could beat Raiden in a fight.

Also, Damashi (Onaga himself) is the only one who knew about the poison and could tell the story. Perhaps that's why Kahn used it, he didn't want to implicate himself, in case Onaga's followers would turn on him as a traitor when he took the throne.
Pages: 1
Download on the App StoreGet it on Google Play
© 1998-2024 Shadow Knight Media, LLC. All rights reserved. Read our Privacy Policy.
Mortal Kombat, the dragon logo and all character names are trademarks and copyright of Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.