How are the villains "weak"?

[SaltShaker]

Raiden at a minimum helped in defeating Shinnok 4 times (In the past, with Liu, with Cage, with Cass)

the first one has no info

beyond that Raiden helped train Liu Kang and is thousands of years old and a master of various Martial Arts

Kahn should be cake for him

But this is a fighting game story so no care is applied to it so because they need someone to lose, they lose

Imagine watching DBZ during it's run, and Piccolo beats Perfect Cell at the end of the Cell Games.

This is Kitana bodying Shao Khan 1 on 1.

Shao Kahn wasn't the Big Bad of 11. Or of X, or MK4, etc. There have been other Big Bads.

Kitana is like 10,000 years old. Definitely of a higher pay grade than Sonya.

Also, power levels are bullshit. The whole point of introducing them as a story trope is to show how meaningless they are. That's from Toriyama himself. The trope is designed to raise the stakes so that when our protagonist overcomes them, it's even more meaningful.

What I'm trying to say is that none of this matters and the characters that "win" or "lose" in the vast majority of fiction has nothing to do with "power level" and everything to do with what a writer feels best suits the story.

Shao Khan is the big bad of MK. Not sure that's even debatable. If you surveyed "who is Mortal Kombat's villain" I'm pretty certain Shao Khan would win the poll and probably by a landslide.

Couldn't disagree more with the latter. Power levels matter significantly when storytelling. You said it yourself, it raises the stakes, but needs to be believable. It would be garbage storytelling for Liu Kang to have beaten Goro and Shao Khan the first time if they both were "guys with irrelevant power levels taking a bunch of Ls". It was significant BECAUSE of their power levels. Imagine if DBZ didn't have Gohan beat Perfect Cell, or not even Goku, or not even Trunks, but Piccolo was the one because "the story was making him King of Namek". That would have been ridiculous. Just like Kitana beating Shao Khan was ridiculous because the writers needed to progress the story with her taking over as Khan.

Then you make it more absurd because that's not her real level, so you later write in stories like Sheeva beating her down lol. To advance more story. Sheeva who has maybe the most Ls on this side of Baraka, can wash up someone strong enough to take Shao Khan 1 on 1?? If that's not inconsistent I don't know what is.

 

[Cicada 5]

Imagine watching DBZ during it's run, and Piccolo beats Perfect Cell at the end of the Cell Games.

This is Kitana bodying Shao Khan 1 on 1.


Shao Khan is the big bad of MK. Not sure that's even debatable. If you surveyed "who is Mortal Kombat's villain" I'm pretty certain Shao Khan would win the poll and probably by a landslide.

Couldn't disagree more with the latter. Power levels matter significantly when storytelling. You said it yourself, it raises the stakes, but needs to be believable. It would be garbage storytelling for Liu Kang to have beaten Goro and Shao Khan the first time if they both were "guys with irrelevant power levels taking a bunch of Ls". It was significant BECAUSE of their power levels. Imagine if DBZ didn't have Gohan beat Perfect Cell, or not even Goku, or not even Trunks, but Piccolo was the one because "the story was making him King of Namek". That would have been ridiculous. Just like Kitana beating Shao Khan was ridiculous because the writers needed to progress the story with her taking over as Khan.

Then you make it more absurd because that's not her real level, so you later write in stories like Sheeva beating her down lol. To advance more story. Sheeva who has maybe the most Ls on this side of Baraka, can wash up someone strong enough to take Shao Khan 1 on 1?? If that's not inconsistent I don't know what is.

Good thing Mortal Kombat isn't Dragon Ball Z.

 

[Rude]

Imagine watching DBZ during it's run, and Piccolo beats Perfect Cell at the end of the Cell Games.

This is Kitana bodying Shao Khan 1 on 1.


Shao Khan is the big bad of MK. Not sure that's even debatable. If you surveyed "who is Mortal Kombat's villain" I'm pretty certain Shao Khan would win the poll and probably by a landslide.

Couldn't disagree more with the latter. Power levels matter significantly when storytelling. You said it yourself, it raises the stakes, but needs to be believable. It would be garbage storytelling for Liu Kang to have beaten Goro and Shao Khan the first time if they both were "guys with irrelevant power levels taking a bunch of Ls". It was significant BECAUSE of their power levels. Imagine if DBZ didn't have Gohan beat Perfect Cell, or not even Goku, or not even Trunks, but Piccolo was the one because "the story was making him King of Namek". That would have been ridiculous. Just like Kitana beating Shao Khan was ridiculous because the writers needed to progress the story with her taking over as Khan.

Then you make it more absurd because that's not her real level, so you later write in stories like Sheeva beating her down lol. To advance more story. Sheeva who has maybe the most Ls on this side of Baraka, can wash up someone strong enough to take Shao Khan 1 on 1?? If that's not inconsistent I don't know what is.

Homie, You're making this point to the wrong one because I am a huge Piccolo stan. Give my man as many Ws as possible. He needs em.

 

[Marlow]

Why is it ok for Liu Kang to have beaten Goro and Shao Khan the first time, but not Kitana beat Shao Khan?

 

[Rude]

Wait, is that where the term "power levels" comes from? From some manga writer?



Faramir: Your his bodyguard?
Sam: His gardener.

More or less, yeah.

 

[Rude]

Why is it ok for Liu Kang to have beaten Goro and Shao Khan the first time, but not Kitana beat Shao Khan?

You know the answer.

 

[Eddy Wang]

Good thing Mortal Kombat isn't Dragon Ball Z.

yet it was still given as an example

 

[Eddy Wang]

Why is it ok for Liu Kang to have beaten Goro and Shao Khan the first time, but not Kitana beat Shao Khan?

No one was beating Shao Khan in the last thousands of years, no one could, Liu Kang was the "Chosen one" for a reason, he could, in a storyline where fighters like the great Kung Lao which Liu is a descendant from, lost his life to goro, didn't even reached Shao Kahn, to have Liu Kang come and do it, not only Goro, Shang Tsung and then Shao Kahn in that order which no one could do it in the more than a generation.

 

[Juxtapose]

While power levels was indeed a thing in DBZ, that is actually known as the "Shounen" format, where there is always someone stronger next, and the gonist is always drawing power out of the ass and overcome it, that's literally how shounen mangá works.

Reason why HunterxHunter is very popular and one of the greatest mangas ever written it's because it's the oposite, the fights are all decided by logic, and the protagonist is just a small fry on a world full of beasts he doesn't even get to reach.

That's good to know.

Personally, I've always had a strong dislike of anime and manga, so knowing this gives "power level" discussions and extra layer of cringe for me now .

 

[Eddy Wang]

That's good to know.

Personally, I've always had a strong dislike of anime and manga, so knowing this gives "power level" discussions and extra layer of cringe for me now .

I usually enjoy Mangas or Manhwas where logic is implied, but some shounens are good too.

for example, everyone enjoyed Solo Leveling, but that Manwha grew stale the instant the main protagonist became a Shadow Monarch, he basically peaked the entire state of the series that every single guy they threw at him, had the exact same result, his power was infinite at that point, so there wasn't anything to expect after that point.

However, there is a new Manhwa named the "return of the Flowery Mountain Sect" Which also has this protagonist OP thing, but the setting is done different, the guy was one of the strongest of his time, but fighting a demon clan he died, all his skilled brothers died, and many skilled martial artists died in that era, he is reicarnated nearly 100 years later, and he retains his memory, and what he can do, but his body can't keep up with his knowledge, so he still beats the shit out of ppl, but he knows his limits, on top of that the quality of martial arts declined a lot from the past 100 years, and we are still seeing where that goes.

 

[SaltShaker]

Why is it ok for Liu Kang to have beaten Goro and Shao Khan the first time, but not Kitana beat Shao Khan?

Is this for real? Because Liu Kang is literally "The Chosen One" the GOAT fighter beating everyone until he beat them both? Liu took a nap beating Kitana prior to beating them. Yall are reaching hard. If Kitana was so strong that she could handily beat Shao Khan then there's no point to a lot of MK's history.

I haven't seen anyone address the fact that Sheeva, a character who legit took nothing but Ls all series, was able to beat Kitana 1 on 1. If Sheeva is strong enough to beat someone who "of course she could beat Shao Khan", then pretty much 90% of the roster should also be able to beat Shao Khan.

Also, most importantly actually, dudes are acting like it's some attack on women when characters done right as females are historically well received. Weak deflective argument no one is making. Ripley is a literal GOAT in the Alien series. Sarah Conner is the GOAT. Wonder Woman is the GOAT, CASSIE CAGEEE was a GOAT in MKX, etc etc. Kitana is not, and has never been in 30 years, a GOAT, which is why her beating Shao Khan was ridiculous and lazy.

 

[Eddy Wang]

Liu Kang is Luke Skywalker, if that's still hard to digest

 

[Dankster Morgan]

Why is it ok for Liu Kang to have beaten Goro and Shao Khan the first time, but not Kitana beat Shao Khan?

So, the reason I have an issue with Kitana defeating Shao Khan is more about why wait until now to do it? She decisively beats his ass right after fighting Kollector (who is a jobber but still).

This is the Kitana from the MK2 section of MK9, who we in MK9 saw lose to Sonya (with Jade helping her), Smoke, and most importantly Liu Kang himself who absolutely toyed with her and was seemingly having no difficulty whatsoever defending himself from her in the cutscene. They establish that Liu Kang beats Kitana EASILY, does other crazy shit like beat Scorpion and Quan Chi at the same time, and just be super impressive in general. So him beating Goro isn't some mind blowing thing because the game actually fed us information to lead us to believe he'd have a chance. Kitana gets killed by Sindel and it is heavily implied that if Liu were there to help, the massacre could have been avoided period. Like @SaltShaker says, power scaling is important for stories like this. It's not like Game of Thrones where it's plausible for the Red Viper to fight the Mountain because they're still just people, these MK characters have super powers, and their capabilities are well established.

If Kitana was able to fight Shao Kahn, why did she serve him so long? So either she's just really stupid, doesn't care to put an end to his tyranny, or the MK11 version of her is inexplicably stronger than the MK9 version despite being the same character.

Basically, the short version is that Liu Kang is constantly winning hard fights. Kitana meanwhile gets jobbed to Liu, as well as Smoke who doesn't scale to Shao Kahn at all.

The arguments in favor of this scene are sexism and that story doesn't matter.

1 ) It has absolutely nothing to do with her being a woman, and sexism is a lazy way to deflect criticism from this. It is about the information we have been given about Kitana's, Liu Kang's and Shao Kahn's capabilites, reinforced several times. If this scene strikes you as odd, it doesn't make you a sexist. The Sindel massacre scene didn't strike me as odd at all. Sindel was already built up as a problem, then was given all the power of Shang Tsung, AND her opponents didn't know this so they were caught off guard. She was established as a threat, and there was a payoff following the setup. Sure, there are some people that have issues with this scene, but it pales in comparison to fan reactions to the Kitana scene, because we have NO information based on how Kitana scales to other charaacters to think she is capable of winning this fight. For those reasons, I think sexism isn't a valid argument, so don't let yourselves be gaslit into thinking you're a sexist just for noticing shit.

2) The story not mattering is a fine argument to make in general, but some people want to be able to take it seriously. If you don't care about the story, thats fine, but don't use it as an argument as to why people who DO care about the story should just ignore bad writing.

And @Marlow I quoted you, but this isn't directed at you at all dude, or anyone here in particular, but the argument in general. I just saw this as an opportunity to say my piece.

 

[Dankster Morgan]

Is this for real? Because Liu Kang is literally "The Chosen One" the GOAT fighter beating everyone until he beat them both? Liu took a nap beating Kitana prior to beating them. Yall are reaching hard. If Kitana was so strong that she could handily beat Shao Khan then there's no point to a lot of MK's history.

I haven't seen anyone address the fact that Sheeva, a character who legit took nothing but Ls all series, was able to beat Kitana 1 on 1. If Sheeva is strong enough to beat someone who "of course she could beat Shao Khan", then pretty much 90% of the roster should also be able to beat Shao Khan.

Also, most importantly actually, dudes are acting like it's some attack on women when characters done right as females are historically well received. Weak deflective argument no one is making. Ripley is a literal GOAT in the Alien series. Sarah Conner is the GOAT. Wonder Woman is the GOAT, CASSIE CAGEEE was a GOAT in MKX, etc etc. Kitana is not, and has never been in 30 years, a GOAT, which is why her beating Shao Khan was ridiculous and lazy.

I didn't see this post until I had already made mine, couldn't (obviously) have said it better myself.

 

[Marlow]

Is this for real? Because Liu Kang is literally "The Chosen One" the GOAT fighter beating everyone until he beat them both?

I mean I kind of get that, but why can't the version of Kitana that shows up in MK11 get a turn as the "chosen one"? If Liu Kang can do it, based on his background, then surely her background (assassin, trained for 1000's of years) qualify her?

 

[Rude]

I mean I kind of get that, but why can't the version of Kitana that shows up in MK11 get a turn as the "chosen one"? If Liu Kang can do it, based on his background, then surely her background (assassin, trained for 1000's of years) qualify her?

Additionally, if we can believe that Johnny Cage - a normal human - can beat a Lizard Man with superspeed or a crime boss with advanced cybernetics, I don't see why Kitana beating Shao Kahn is a problem.

If you think Stryker beating Mileena, Kintaro, and Ermac is fine, then I think your anti-Kitana bias is less about power scaling and more to do with ideology.

Not directed at you Marlow. You're awesome.

 

[Dankster Morgan]

I mean I kind of get that, but why can't the version of Kitana that shows up in MK11 get a turn as the "chosen one"? If Liu Kang can do it, based on his background, then surely her background (assassin, trained for 1000's of years) qualify her?

Well it's because she's an already established character. They should have waited till Liu reset the timeline, then they could make Kitana the baddest mf of all time.

 

[Marlow]

Basically, the short version is that Liu Kang is constantly winning hard fights. Kitana meanwhile gets jobbed to Liu, as well as Smoke who doesn't scale to Shao Kahn at all.

Sure, but she also wins plenty of impressive fights in the other games. She clearly has the background and technical ability such that her having the fight of her life/overcoming seemingly insurmountable odds isn't such a crazy thing.

these MK characters have super powers, and their capabilities are well established.

But this is the same problem that comics have, where people try and do the "Iron Man beat this bad guy, who beat these 4 X-men, so he should be more powerful than The Thing" kind of logic. I don't think following power levels is as necessary in a setting like MK, especially when we know that the story telling is going to involve a bunch of characters fighting a bunch of other characters.

 

[Dankster Morgan]

Additionally, if we can believe that Johnny Cage - a normal human - can beat a Lizard Man with superspeed or a crime boss with advanced cybernetics, I don't see why Kitana beating Shao Kahn is a problem.

If you think Stryker beating Mileena, Kintaro, and Ermac is fine, then I think your anti-Kitana bias is less about power scaling and more to do with ideology.

Not directed at you Marlow. You're awesome.

I think the Stryker stuff is just as bad as the Kitana stuff so you're right there, but Johnny Cage isn't a normal human. He is far more powerful than Kano or Reptile, at least as good of a fighter as Kano, and much smarter than Reptile. Reptile and Kano are some of the biggest jobbers in the franchise, Johnny funny enough got one shot by Shao Kahn, which is the entire point.

 

[Marlow]

I haven't seen anyone address the fact that Sheeva, a character who legit took nothing but Ls all series, was able to beat Kitana 1 on 1. If Sheeva is strong enough to beat someone who "of course she could beat Shao Khan", then pretty much 90% of the roster should also be able to beat Shao Khan.

I just don't think fights need to work like some pre-arranged game of Stratego.

 

[zerosebaz]

Roses are red
Kitana shouldn't beat Khan
Stryker should lose to kintaro
Raiden should lose to Kang.

 

[Dankster Morgan]

Sure, but she also wins plenty of impressive fights in the other games. She clearly has the background and technical ability such that her having the fight of her life/overcoming seemingly insurmountable odds isn't such a crazy thing.


But this is the same problem that comics have, where people try and do the "Iron Man beat this bad guy, who beat these 4 X-men, so he should be more powerful than The Thing" kind of logic. I don't think following power levels is as necessary in a setting like MK, especially when we know that the story telling is going to involve a bunch of characters fighting a bunch of other characters.

It is some crazy thing though, comic book fans would rage if Darkseid got his ass beat by, idk, Aquaman in fair 1v1. It doesn't mean Aquaman is a scrub, but he's no Darkseid. If you don't think powerlevels matter, that is fine, and maybe an argument worth having. But you're arguing with people who think they do matter, because like you said it's a story about characters fighting each other, so how else are you supposed to make sense of the stakes in the story?

You're right that she has the technical ability to maybe win this fight, but Batman despite having amazing technical ability got his ass beat by Reverse Flash, due to... power scaling. He has no business fist fighting the Reverse Flash, and Batman fans aren't shocked or pissed at the result. The person who wrote that fight understands and respects the lore of both of them.

 

[Rude]

I think the Stryker stuff is just as bad as the Kitana stuff so you're right there, but Johnny Cage isn't a normal human. He is far more powerful than Kano or Reptile, at least as good of a fighter as Kano, and much smarter than Reptile. Reptile and Kano are some of the biggest jobbers in the franchise, Johnny funny enough got one shot by Shao Kahn, which is the entire point.

At that point in the story, Johnny Cage was just a regular guy. The whole green energy as a plot point(not as a game mechanic, mind you), didn't become a thing until MKX. And by then be was going toe to toe with Scorpion and shit. These things have never been consistent.

 

[Rude]

It is some crazy thing though, comic book fans would rage if Darkseid got his ass beat by, idk, Aquaman in fair 1v1. It doesn't mean Aquaman is a scrub, but he's no Darkseid. If you don't think powerlevels matter, that is fine, and maybe an argument worth having. But you're arguing with people who think they do matter, because like you said it's a story about characters fighting each other, so how else are you supposed to make sense of the stakes in the story?

You're right that she has the technical ability to maybe win this fight, but Batman despite having amazing technical ability got his ass beat by Reverse Flash, due to... power scaling. He has no business fist fighting the Reverse Flash, and Batman fans aren't shocked or pissed at the result. The person who wrote that fight understands and respects the lore of both of them.

Didn't Batman shoot Darkseid? I mean...

 

[Afk Skinny]

Stryker had no reason winning those fights, especially Kintaro. It felt like a cheap way of saying 'look how cool he is! He was able to beat Kintaro!' And normally I don't really care too much about who beats who and chosen one type stuff, but I can only suspend my disbelief so much. Imagine if Sindel wasn't evil and her and her daughter together put a stop to the tyrant who threw their life into chaos and took away their home. Something like that would be a lot more meaningful than just saying Kitana is now strong enough to take on Shao when all story beats points to the exact opposite