How are the villains "weak"?

[Dankster Morgan]

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.

I agree they have never been entirely consistent, but Kitana vs Shao Kahn is the most egregious example (as explained in the manifesto above I wasted too much time writing). Scorpion, despite being the mascot and arguably the best actual character in terms of layered writing is pretty mid in terms of power level. Yeah, Johnny Cage's glow up (no pun intended) is pretty bad, and I have issues with him and Cassie.

If they were like "holy shit, Kitana tapped into the peepeepoopoo orb with the power of shitfart and it was too strong for Shao Kahn! She had NO IDEA she could do this, but was backed into a corner! Caught him by surprise too!", then I'd have less issues and it'd be more comparable to Cage who tapped into his powers by accident, thinking he was about to die for Sonya. It is a dumb plot point, but is also to show how much more selfless Cage has become, and how he has had to step up after all of their friends died.

Instead we get Liu verbatim saying "OF COURSE SHE CAN DO IT" after the fight, which I'm just not into. I don't ENTIRELY mind that she won, but like have Shao be injured, give Kitana a power boost like Johnny got, dumb as it is, would be infinitely better than what we got.

 

[Dankster Morgan]

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

He didn't square up and fight him though, not without some plot device gadget. Batman hits above his weight class with trickery, intellect, and plot armor. He also loses fights too, like his win / loss against characters like Deathstroke is surprisingly close. Kitana beat Shao Kahn in a fair fight, which is what bugs me. Same with the Stryker vs Ermac stuff, it's bullshit.

 

[Cicada 5]

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.

Liu Kang was never the Chosen One. That's something only in adaptations. In the games, he was simply a very skilled fighter.

And Kahn was beaten by Taven before the events of the first game.

 

[Cicada 5]

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.

People are complaining about Cassie in this very thread.

 

[Rodney Quillz]

Power levels never mattered in Mortal Kombat. Liu Kang, a man with no divine heritage or special destiny - the chosen one crap is only in adaptations, he was simply a very skilled Shaolin monk in the original games - has defeated Shang Tsung, Shao Kahn (twice) and Shinnok. And then he gets killed by Shang Tsung in Deadly Alliance. In Mythologies, Sub-Zero defeats five deities, including an Elder God.

The NRS games have their flaws, but sticking to a hierarchy that the original games never followed isn't one of them.


The two-time Earth champion of Mortal Kombat can't deal with a mere two opponents? Sounds like Liu Kang isn't all that impressive if all it takes to beat him is having more numbers.

Well Liu Kang was booked like Hulk Hogan under NRS during the midway era, I’m pretty sure it’s implied that if the deadly alliance hadn’t sneak attacked him that they both would have gotten their asses kicked.

The problem is that it was way too easy, so easy that you could ask yourself why didn’t Shang just do that in the first place? If shapeshifting into Kung Lao and using a cronie as a distraction was enough to kill Liu, why did Shang job to him so much? Lol.

 

[Dankster Morgan]

Liu Kang was never the Chosen One. That's something only in adaptations. In the games, he was simply a very skilled fighter.

And Kahn was beaten by Taven before the events of the first game.

That doesn't take away from his feats thouugh

 

[Dankster Morgan]

People are complaining about Cassie in this very thread.

Rightfully so

 

[Cicada 5]

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

The guy who lost his arm to Vader in their first fight, only won their rematch by tapping into the Dark Side and would have been killed by a frail, shriveled Palpatine if not for Vader's interference?

Every argument people make for why Liu Kang is this unapproachable fighting god only highlights the impossibility of his feats. If the 10,000 year old warrior princess and assassin who trained under Kahn has no business defeating him, then Bruce Lee with fire powers makes even less sense doing it.

 

[Cicada 5]

That doesn't take away from his feats thouugh

And Kitana losing some fights doesn't take away from hers.

 

[Cicada 5]

Rightfully so

The defense rests.

 

[Rude]

He didn't square up and fight him though, not without some plot device gadget. Batman hits above his weight class with trickery, intellect, and plot armor. He also loses fights too, like his win / loss against characters like Deathstroke is surprisingly close. Kitana beat Shao Kahn in a fair fight, which is what bugs me. Same with the Stryker vs Ermac stuff, it's bullshit.

I don't really think it is bullshit though. Like the original games, the Earth was being defended by normal martial artists and Raiden vs ice ninjas and Goro and a bunch of other fantastical creatures. The whole point of the story is humanity overcoming overwhelming odds.

If you can't buy Stryker beating Ermac, then I'm not really sure what you're here for story wise. Jax, Sonya, Stryker, Cage, they're all just humans doing their best vs the supernatural. It's kind of the main conceit of the franchise.

 

[Rude]

I went back and watched the scene where Shao loses. We don't actually see the fight. That's player controlled. We only see the beginning and the end. Canonically, anything could have happened. It seems fine.

 

[Rodney Quillz]

He didn't square up and fight him though, not without some plot device gadget. Batman hits above his weight class with trickery, intellect, and plot armor. He also loses fights too, like his win / loss against characters like Deathstroke is surprisingly close. Kitana beat Shao Kahn in a fair fight, which is what bugs me. Same with the Stryker vs Ermac stuff, it's bullshit.

I mean to be fair you are basing Ermac off of his power levels in the old timeline where he defeated the onaga controlled earthrealm characters with ease.

All he’s done in the nrs timeline is rip jax arms off and job.

Mileena was a newly manufactured clone I don’t think she had even been alive a week yet when she faced Stryker.

He absolutely should not have beat Kintaro though that was definitely PIS.

 

[Dankster Morgan]

I don't really think it is bullshit though. Like the original games, the Earth was being defended by normal martial artists and Raiden vs ice ninjas and Goro and a bunch of other fantastical creatures. The whole point of the story is humanity overcoming overwhelming odds.

If you can't buy Stryker beating Ermac, then I'm not really sure what you're here for story wise. Jax, Sonya, Stryker, Cage, they're all just humans doing their best vs the supernatural. It's kind of the main conceit of the franchise.

I think Stryker beating Reptile is borderline okay, just not Ermac. I think I've thoroughly explained my issues with the Kitana vs Shao Kahn fight and if you don't agree that's fine. What I look for in the story of these games is just some stakes I can get behind. With some tweaks like explaining how they're winning these fights, I'm ok with that. Cage I basically see as not being outclassed by these characters for the most part once he has the green stuff.

Sonya and Jax are as BS as Stryker, but once again should be fighting the Reptiles and Barakas of the world.

I think it wouldn't be hard to have characters in the story mode be fighting characters at a similar power level to themselves. I can easily buy Sub-Zero / Scorpion, Raiden / Shinnok, Cage / Ermac, Jax / Baraka, Cyrax / Sektor, etc, each plausibly defeating each other in a fight, so when I see Scorpion fight Sub-Zero I know it's a tough fight that he could win OR lose depending on the circumstances. Stakes are high, it's anyone's fight, I'm engaged to see where it goes. Once a Stryker fights an Ermac or a Kitana fights a Shao Kahn, I can't help but check out.

Take another controversial scene from MK11. D'Vorah kills Scorpion. She loses a fight to him because duh, then she poisons him while he's distracted. Kitana could have fought Shao Kahn, lost in the next cutscene, then her allies intervene and distract him long enough for her to get a killing blow.

 

[Dankster Morgan]

I mean to be fair you are basing Ermac off of his power levels in the old timeline where he defeated the onaga controlled earthrealm characters with ease.

All he’s done in the nrs timeline is rip jax arms off and job.

Mileena was a newly manufactured clone I don’t think she had even been alive a week yet when she faced Stryker.

He absolutely should not have beat Kintaro though that was definitely PIS.

I was kind of thinking of the cutscene where Ermac ragdolls him into the subway. Ermac beats Cage and Jax in the story mode before that and loses to Liu and Sub, which I can buy. Stryker doesn't even have the technology that Jax or Sonya has to give them an edge, he's just a dude ya know

 

[Cicada 5]

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.

Kitana is a 10,000 year old assassin and martial artist who trained under Kahn himself.
The same Shang Tsung whose soul empowered Sindel was also beaten by Kitana and the Great Kung Lao. By your logic, Kitana should have taken down Sindel singlehandedly.

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.

Kitana thought that Kahn was her father for most of her life. She spent so much time serving him because she didn't see any reason not to until she learned the truth of her heritage. You spend all this time talking about respecting established lore and ignore this vital part of Kitana's story?

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.

Let's ignore that comments from users like Liukangmain that are more than enough proof that the resistance to Kitana beating is rooted in sexism to a degree. Why is it that Liu Kang's impossible feats, despite his relatively mundane background are acceptable, but Kitana, who has all the reason to be able to triumph over Kahn in her backstory, gets questioned? Have you ever considered that her losing to the likes of Liu Kang, Smoke and even Sindel is the bad writing that makes no sense?

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.

I would hardly call Kitana defeating the man who destroyed her family and took her realm bad writing. That's basic Hero's Journey 101.

 

[Dankster Morgan]

Kitana is a 10,000 year old assassin and martial artist who trained under Kahn himself.
The same Shang Tsung whose soul empowered Sindel was also beaten by Kitana and the Great Kung Lao. By your logic, Kitana should have taken down Sindel singlehandedly.



Kitana thought that Kahn was her father for most of her life. She spent so much time serving him because she didn't see any reason not to until she learned the truth of her heritage. You spend all this time talking about respecting established lore and ignore this vital part of Kitana's story?



Let's ignore that comments from users like Liukangmain that are more than enough proof that the resistance to Kitana beating is rooted in sexism to a degree. Why is it that Liu Kang's impossible feats, despite his relatively mundane background are acceptable, but Kitana, who has all the reason to be able to triumph over Kahn in her backstory, gets questioned? Have you ever considered that her losing to the likes of Liu Kang, Smoke and even Sindel is the bad writing that makes no sense?


I would hardly call Kitana defeating the man who destroyed her family and took her realm bad writing. That's basic Hero's Journey 101.

Yeah obviously there are SOME sexist people, but it doesn't invalidate the argument in general, just the people that argue it in this way. If Jax or Cage beat Shao Kahn, I'd be just as shocked. Strkyer vs Ermac, both Cages vs Shinnok, all very stupid.

This can be best summed up by looking at who these characters (the MK2 portion of MK9 versions of Kitana and Liu) win and lose to PRIOR to the MK11 Kitana vs Shao Kahn fight.

Kitana wins against Smoke and Johhny Cage together (weird because Smoke beats her 1v1), Mileena (inferior clone), Jade, and Shang (legitimately impressive feat).

Kitana loses fights against Liu (EASILY), Sonya (even with Jade helping her), Smoke, and Sindel

Overall wins more than she loses and beats Shang, not bad at all.

Liu beats Kitana, Ermac, Scorpion and Quan Chi together, Goro, Shang, and Shao Kahn.

Loses to Raiden.

Like dude, you'd have to be actively trying to not notice the difference. You say Liu's "impossible feats", but the game gives us constant reinforcement over the fact the Liu Kang is capable of killing Shao Kahn. Kitana gets basically the opposite. Didn't she get captured by 2 jabroni tarkatans in a cutscene in MK9? AFTER Shao Kahn told her the truth? MK11 Kitana would have just kicked Shao Kahn's ass! She could do it the whole time after all. So who's stupid? Kitana or the writers?

Yes, her background is impressive, but so is almost every single character's. I get that it's not a perfect way of measuring it, cause you could say "oh wooow are you saying Sonya is better than Shang Tsung?" Like obviously no dude, but this is what we have to work with to try and make sense of the story.

 

[Felipe_Gewehr]

Have you ever considered that her losing to the likes of Liu Kang, Smoke and even Sindel is the bad writing that makes no sense?

I read everything in the thread and just wanna give my two cents here and say that I agree, this is the part that makes no sense to me. I don't care if Kitana can defeat Shao, I just find it weird for them to go with that if she was previously beaten by arguably less powerful people (Smoke in this case), and what's even weirder is that she fights both Johnny and Smoke and wins - this is in the same game, you can't even argue that it was a different writer taking over!

 

[Dankster Morgan]

I read everything in the thread and just wanna give my two cents here and say that I agree, this is the part that makes no sense to me. I don't care if Kitana can defeat Shao, I just find it weird for them to go with that if she was previously beaten by arguably less powerful people (Smoke in this case), and what's even weirder is that she fights both Johnny and Smoke and wins - this is in the same game, you can't even argue that it was a different writer taking over!

see above

 

[Felipe_Gewehr]

see above

I was writing my comment while yours was being posted . I mostly agree with points from both sides to be honest. Still don't understand how the "gets beaten by smoke but then beats him 2vs1" works. And just to play devil's advocate, I think the point of the scene with Kitana being jailed by 2 random Tarkatans was just to imply she was just in complete shock and maybe depressed to the point of not even seeing reason to fight anymore.

 

[Dankster Morgan]

I was writing my comment while yours was being posted . I mostly agree with points from both sides to be honest. Still don't understand how the "gets beaten by smoke but then beats him 2vs1" works. And just to play devil's advocate, I think the point of the scene with Kitana being jailed by 2 random Tarkatans was just to imply she was just in complete shock and maybe depressed to the point of not even seeing reason to fight anymore.

I think thats a valid take. I made my post to give an overview of how the characters are portrayed because I felt like we were getting lost in individual fights (like Smoke), where I think looking at both of their entire win / loss proves Liu >>>> Kitana

 

[Rude]

I think it's a weird take to believe that Earthrealm's defenders can't...you know...defend Earthrealm outside of one guy. But let's ignore that for a sec.

Shao Kahn is heavily characterized by not taking the people he fights particularly seriously. So ubiquitous is this character trait that he often has taunts in his in-game move sets.

Is it possible that Shao Kahn didn't take Kitana as seriously as she should have? That the guy known for telling people they suck and laughing at them in the middle of battle might have underestimated Kitana? And that in doing so, sealed his fate and caused him to take the L?

I mean this is a defining character trait of Shao Kahn. Dude loves to talk shit. Given that we never actually see the fight and given that this is a well established trait of Shao Kahn, is it so unbelievable that Kitana may have taken advantage of this and won?

I understand this is very speculative, but I don't think it is unreasonable. The protagonist overcoming the overconfident antagonist that underestimates them is a pretty common literary trope.

 

[Dankster Morgan]

I think it's a weird take to believe that Earthrealm's defenders can't...you know...defend Earthrealm outside of one guy. But let's ignore that for a sec.

Shao Kahn is heavily characterized by not taking the people he fights particularly seriously. So ubiquitous is this character trait that he often has taunts in his in-game move sets.

Is it possible that Shao Kahn didn't take Kitana as seriously as she should have? That the guy known for telling people they suck and laughing at them in the middle of battle might have underestimated Kitana? And that in doing so, sealed his fate and caused him to take the L?

I mean this is a defining character trait of Shao Kahn. Dude loves to talk shit. Given that we never actually see the fight and given that this is a well established trait of Shao Kahn, is it so unbelievable that Kitana may have taken advantage of this and won?

I understand this is very speculative, but I don't think it is unreasonable. The protagonist overcoming the overconfident antagonist that underestimates them is a pretty common literary trope.

I honestly don’t find it plausible at all. But based on your explanation, I see why you do and that’s cool. Before this further devolves into “I think this”, “well I think this”, I respect you and both of our time too much to continue in all honesty, so I think we’re gonna have to agree to disagree which is all good.

 

[theotherguy]

I honestly don’t find it plausible at all.

If you can use X beat Y, but Y didn't beat Z therefore A can't beat X... I don't see why using a character trait such as described above as a means of justifying what happened is that much different, if that's what is required to make a fantasy story just that little bit more believable.

Yes, it's not there in black and white, but storytelling doesn't always have to be that blatant.

 

[SaltShaker]

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?

She can. Like Dank said, Sindel washing up the entire hero team was perfectly fine. Because her power boost and destruction of them made sense. Kitana was just like "hey, here is the same Kitana that we saw lose to people like Sonya and easily handled by Liu body prime Shao Khan". It just doesn't make sense without a reasonable explanation why she's so strong all a sudden.

If you think Stryker beating Mileena, Kintaro, and Ermac is fine,

Funny enough, that Stryker example is literally what I used as the #1 worst example of storytelling in MK history. It further proves bad writing, not disproving.