Yeah. It’s… I’m in a weird spot right now with how I relate to villains and morality. I still love playing as Shao Kahn, but… I don’t know. It just… feels wrong now.
Understandable. That said, you have to remember, every character is a person, and because of that they’re all going to have some element of good and evil within them, some more than others in one spectrum or the other. A person is the sum of their experiences, biology and culture. In terms of Argus, while certainly what he did was awful, compared to guys like Shao Kahn who has done unspeakably evil acts, I don’t think he’s anywhere NEAR as awful as that. A person can be decent human being but still make mistakes, even downright awful ones.
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I Sympithyze on reptile’s circumstances. But I’m not going to get it confused. While I feel pity for Reptile its important to understand that he is still a bad guy and I don’t think killing people will bring his race back. (especially when all the bosses he worked with didn’t give two hecks about him nor intended to fufill their promises.)
So it would go in line with, its understandable but not acceptable kind of category. I also sympathize with Mileena and Rain’s circumstances as well, but cannot excuse their actions.
Well the one thing that’s very common (and a reflection of the mythologies of our world) When you have a pantheon, the gods tend to behave more like us. Even fictional gods like Argus are no Exception to the rule.
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Oh definitely! Though certain sympathetic and understandable, it does not justify their crimes.
Absolutely. Gods in various religions have very human-like traits, and because of that, you see them doing a mix of both the good and bad. Take Zeus, for example - the dude was a serial cheater, having over a hundred women at the side (I think a hundred and twenty?). And that doesn’t include his male lovers!
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Heck Mr.Freeze from Batman is the best example from this as well.
Yeah, even Poseidon has done some awful stuff, and Zeus is very well known for doing such stuff. Hades also has done some stuff but not as bad as Zeus or Poseidon.
But that’s a topic for another time.
Despite all of this, Even Kotal Khan is not perfect, He does rule better then Shao Khan or Mileena, but I think one of his biggest offenses was sentencing someone to death for stealing bread. Which case while could be wrong, but not serious to warrant severe crimes.
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Indeed, though that’s more indicative of the kind of culture he’s a part of, which seems like early Aztec/Pre-Hammurabi levels of eye for an eye. From what I read, death was a common punishment for those in the Aztec Empire.
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The Osh-Tek do have a culture like the Aztecs.
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And the Mayas too
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And Kotal Kahn seemed big on this death thing. Under his rule:
- He commited genocide on the Tarkata
- Held public executions
- Hung bodies up in his Kolliseum
- Was still killing people in the Deadpool, evidently
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Yeah he’s still not a guy that I would feel safe ruling. But he’s still wa was better than Shao Khan or Mileena. Heck the only reason folks like Reptile obeyed to Shao Khan because Reptile was afraid. Shao Khan ruled by fear. Kotal treated Reptile with respect.
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Kotal is definitely better than Shao Khan, but not by much. It’s cool that Kitana was made Khan, though, but I get the feeling because time has been reset that things will start over again and that plot point won’t ever be explored, that she’ll be back to square one (kind of).
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Mortal Kombat 11 - Official Klassic MK Movie Skins Reveal Trailer - YouTube
Well, looks like the rumors were true. Too bad Robin Shou hasn’t been featured here (yet).
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Curious: how would you define better in this instance?
I really like Kotal Kahn, he’s a fantastic character with polarizing flaws. He’s an excellent general (i.e. your Reptile example is a perfect show of this), but through everything we’ve seen, he’s a very, very poor Emperor.
To be honest, of the four Kahns we’ve seen in the reboot timeline (Shao, Mileena, Kotal, and Kitana), I’d say he was the worst one.
Kotal Khan isn’t interested in conquering and he did subjugate his people. He also ruled by fear. When he died Mileena took over, and she was worse.
Kotal Khan had strict laws but he did cared about his people.
Kitana obviously ruled better sense she decided to work with all the races of outworld.
Though I should’ve told you I didn’t mention Kitana because it was obvious she ruled better than either of them.
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Would’ve been great to see mk skins of the ninjas. A shame Reptile isn’t going to be part of that.
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So, let’s look at Kotal, how he took power, and his rule:
- Kotal was a general under Shao, but was ultimately imprisoned. He was released after Shao’s death, presumably by Mileena, and severed as one of her councilors.
- When Shinnok surfaced and began the NetherRealm War with Earthrealm, Kotal was one of the councilors who urged Mileena to make alliance with Earthrealm against the NetherRealm threat. She refused because she wanted nothing to do with her father’s killers; she didn’t trust Earthrealm.
- It was ultimately on this point that he rebelled against her, and dethroned her, locking her up.
- Once he did so, he didn’t ally with Earthrealm himself, completely flouting his reasons for his coup, and simply took power.
- Finally free of Shao Kahn’s line, people of Outworld, such as the Edenians, wanted to pursue their own freedom. Kotal would not let them. He also continued with executions, arena matches, etc.
- Edenians freed Mileena, and the Civil War started and lasted for several years. Kotal went to Earthrealm for aid, and the first thing Special Forces did was place him in chains!
- His right hand, D’Vorah, who did appreciate him, ultimately saw him as weak and sided with NetherRealm as a double agent.
- After Earthrealm aided him in putting Mileena down, he betrayed them, and ultimately wanted to give Earthrealm to Shinnok in the false hope that Shinnok would then leave Outworld alone.
- He also told the Shokan to basically $%^# off during his rule and committed genocide against the Tarkata.
- When Shao returns, the people of Outworld were cheering for him, and seemed to have no issue with Kotal being executed.
So Kotal’s rain was riff with civil war, disorder, and extremely self-serving motives on his own part. We know he loved power, he was quite fond of ancient humans believing and worshiping him as a god, and yet he didn’t seem too phased when they all died of infection from his blood sacrifices.
His reign, which lasted for about a decade, was a poor one.
For Mileena, we actually know next to nothing about her rule save that she was called the “mad empress.” What we do know during that time is a) she distrusted Earthrealm, but launched no attacks against them, b) mistrusted D’Vorah, c) was concerned about the NetherRealm, but how she was going to address them was never revealed.
That’s it, that’s all we actually know for certain, though we also know Outworld and it’s markets and people kept going and didn’t seem any worse off than under Shao; her and her Tarkata weren’t going around eating everyone or anything.
During her rebellion however, she united Edenians under her (and she’s the mockery of their people), of course the Tarkata followed her, Goro and the Shokan supported her, and she had sympathizers enough to be able to carry on her guerilla war for several years.
While she’s no saint, it doesn’t seem like she was doing a horrible job at this Empress thing, though it seems it was after she was imprisoned that she “grew up.” It would have been interesting seeing her rule again and actually see what she could do.
But back to Kotal, looking at the above, he was a horrible Kahn. There was no peace or stability during his time, and he was in it for power, not for the people.
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It is true that Kotal was not a great emperor. I wasn’t saying he was the best.
Now Mileena never attacked earthrealm but I’m sure they called her the “mad empress” for a reason. You don’t have to conquer a realm to be an evil ruler. Even being more of a tyrant then the guy that came before her wasn’t as bad with his rule, but still very bad.
Plus even though she did try to promise to free edenians, that doesn’t mean she’d keep that promise. She was willing to do whatever it took to get her power back even if it meant recruiting someone like Rain.
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Indeed. But then again, who knows?
She was indeed called the Mad Emperess, though the actual reasoning was never given (though we can make a pretty good guess, of course). And I’m not saying she’s a good guy, I’m simply saying I think she makes a better Kahn for Outworld than Kotal (keeping in mind Outworld is a violent, immoral place by nature, and the average citizen seems okay, or at least used to that).
It was Rain and Tanya that sprung her from prison, and the deal was she frees Edenia, they release her and help her overthrow Kotal.
While she didn’t have the ability to actually demerge Edenia from Outworld, I actually believe she would have kept her word and let the Edenians be free (but in alliance with her). Why?
She actually seemed to care about them. When Rain was burned alive and nearly killed by Kotal, she personally cared for him and tried to help him recover. She also cared for Tanya, who seemed loyal to her as well.
And during her rebellion, she became extremely sick and frustrated of people betraying her to the point where she seemed to really long for trust. I think all of these factors together, and the fact that had she regained her throne she would still have been in a weak position, means she would have lived up to her side of the bargain.
Ironically, as we know, Rain was looking to betray her himself.
I personally think Mileena was one of if not they most developed character through Mortal Kombat X (comics and game); such a contrast from the newly born, impulsive, and savage character we saw in Mortal Kombat: Komplete Edition, but that makes sense as she’s had 25 years to actually experience and grow.
It’s a shame NetherRealm Studios officially decanonized the comics two weeks ago.
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Form what I hear, she was worse than shao khan with her rule. which I guess would Make Shao Khan a proud father.
I’m guess they did after Kotal declared it wouldn’t be freed. Still, even Mileena would’v ehad some alterir motive even though Tanya and rain wouldn’t have anything to worry about. That is until Rain starts to backstab if herand kotal don’t kill each other.
Well that sucks, I guess all the history is lost in between those things now.
Which means
Havok is not dead
Kintaro might be alive somewhere
and the others that died might come back as well.
But then again, none of that matters sense the timeline now goes back to the great kung lao
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