That's art my friend, imagination without real life is a lie. You don't believe Kim Jung Gi woke up one morning with 200 characters on four vanishing point perspective like in a miracle, right?
Can we try to create something extremely surrealistic and provide a good narrative? Yes, we do, hell, we do. Kafka did it, Shelley did it, Bosch did it, Orwell and countless other people. Yet the base is reality, even if you warp over and over again. But to say something is failing for mirroring society? You do realize almost every artwork from painting, literature, music, cinema, etc. survive sometimes centuries after its debut exactly because it inherited principles and similarities to real world? That you can experience in the XVI and in XXI exactly because of that? Not talking necessarily about REALISM, but verisimilitude and credibility based on the real world.
Creative work is much beyond western or eastern comics, there's a whole world beyond that, I'm talking about the creative process in general. Point is: it's just a character background, it mirrors reality because it searches for empathy from the player. I mean, why do I feel such empathy to an immortal demigod who shoots lightning, is it the hat? Or maybe it's something else?
The truth is, some circles of society get triggered by certain backgrounds. Sometimes they can endure a bad decision or a very unnecessary appeal, but they can't stand 5 minutes of a certain background because of political frustration. Sure, there's bad examples of any type, but we are really turning all this nitpicking into real substance? That's so hollow and tiresome.
P.S.: I haven't conveniently changed anything, really don't have to bulldoze every atom to make a point. They changed the lore infinite times (kinda literally currently). It was just a comment exactly about every character has their background, we are humans, we create them, we print our interpretations on them naturally. Problem is when we think NASA is lying about the ISS because Kitana is wearing trousers.
You dropped some heavy philosophy and few artists name and yet not only missed the point completely, didn't contribute to the topic at hand, but you also went to another land entirely. We are talking Mortal Kombat here, sunshine. Kafka nor Bosh have anything to do with that. Not only they are artists who lived in an entirely different time and environment with different amount of information, but they also didn't deal with themes like that. But if you wanna go into philosophy about art. Ok. Let's do this.
1. My art teacher told me in High School. "The best part about Art? Is that you can throw shit at the wall and call that art, for art is always subjective. But the difference between good and bad art is, if that piece can make you feel something, ignite your imagination or make you experience things that you have never imagined before." Reading about alien worlds having exact same issues as our world, not only doesn't ignite imagination, but is literally the cheapest way to write anything. For you're not creating anything, but just copy paste same stuff to other places.
2. No. It doesn't go beyond Eastern/Western art. Don't even try. People enjoy reading about worlds and characters that exist in "WHAT IF" universe. One of the many reasons why people dislike current western comics, is that SJW writers force themselves and their values onto the characters that have different values. They began downgrading Heroes, so they would start acting like them. People don't read Hero comics for realism or down to the ground personality. A lot of people read about them, because those characters inspire people to be better. To seek further. If you just cram your "realism" everywhere, people lose interest. I don't wanna read how a superhero has a hard life, because social media dropped a few bad messages at them.
Eastern media, especially Japan is opposite. If they write about a society where females/males have similar strength, then they write how that world would work in that setting. They don't cram same shit over and over. They explore different ideas and worlds. That's why more and more people prefer to read Manga while western comic industry is literally collapsing right now (which was accelerated thanks to Coronavirus). It is a journey to different worlds. Different species have their own societies. Their own values and their own unique biology. In the meantime here is Mortal Kombat:
We went from 6 to 3 realms.
10.000 year old Kitana acts like she is 20.
Edenian society is the the same as human soecity. (Kitana's ending shows Edenia with European style buildings)
Shokan society is the same as human society, as they also deal with exact problems as we do. (based on very limited information in the new timeline)
Power levels all over the place.
Raiden went from God to Demi God (WTF).
Suddenly Titans came from somewhere.
Etc.
No wonder nobody gives two shits about MK Lore now. What is to care about? At this point everyone has the same values and same problems. Realms could be considered as neighboring countries now.
3. "You do realize almost every artwork from painting, literature, music, cinema, etc. survive sometimes centuries after its debut exactly because it inherited principles and similarities to real world?" I realize that those pieces survived, cause they were successfully preserved or avoided destruction at the hands of the people that would have loved to see them burn. Art is subjective. But this part is debatable, so I am going to leave it at that.
4. "It was just a comment exactly about every character has their background, we are humans, we create them, we print our interpretations on them naturally." That is excusable if world and the characters belong to the said writer. But if you put your hands on a world, that you haven't created and begin changing the core elements of it, to fit your vision? Either you're a shit writer or just an a$$hole.
5. Gods. How many times do we have to say this shit, until you finally gonna get it through your thick skulls. Nobody is losing shit about the fact that they changed outfits to Burkas. Entire shit storm started once the NRS DEVELOPER (Steve Beran) himself came to interview and gave the most idiotic reasoning for the change, which made people realize that the choice WAS NOT ARTISTIC, BUT POLITICALLY MOTIVATED. So I have no idea what the flying f%ck your NASA/ISS conspiracy theory comparison has to do with this topic. You would think that people would start researching for once, before they write something.
At this point I realize, I will write a book here, if I delve any deeper into philosophy so going back to the lore issue. Your message not only missed the point, but didn't give a single justification for what is happening.
Lore (with few backstory changes that DIDN'T FLIP ENTIRE CHARACTER) stayed generally consistent from MK1 to Armageddon.
MK9 - MK11 on other hand. Skarlet alone is the prime example of idiotic writing. In MK9 she was introduced as blood construct and now she is orphan that was taken in by Shao Kahn in MK11. They flip entire character in the same trilogy. She literally went through 3 changes during this one trilogy, which is supposed to be one Journey.
Characters like Raiden or Jax have no character development. Raiden literally stayed the same for three games. He is a meme at this point. "I need to consult the Elder Gods." The moment he changes into Dark Raiden he is immediately erased and you get the same Raiden who needs to ask Elder Gods for permission to go to a toilet.
Now original Raiden was a journey. Hell, he inspired me as a kid, when I saw Deception Intro. That was writing.
And now talking about current nonsense.
So they erased a whole character (Queen Mai, mother of Prince Goro, wife of King Gorbak and the HEIR to the Throne of Kuatan), just to make Sheeva the FIRST QUEEN of Shokan. That is already a disrespect for the lore.
Secondly. We know that Shokans are a race that value honor and strength above all else. Failing a task or being defeated is considered a shame worth death. Among the Shokan, there is one law that surpasses above all others: survival of the fittest and most ruthless. In original timeline there was never a single mention about females being seen, as less than males. Sheeva was actually considered as one of the most savage Shokan, that even gained Shao Kahn's respect, hence why he appointed her as Sindel's personal bodyguard.
This male dominant bullshit only appeared now and that disrespects their original lore, as some feminist dipshit decided to put human politics into a race that values honor and strength, not what you have between your legs. But again, that's what you get for hiring someone that doesn't care about the world they are working on.
Having said that. At the end, I was just pointing out what kind of shit writers pull now. It was already made clear by NRS devs. If you are part of the original lore and don't like this butchery, then you're not a true fan. So I can only point and laugh, at how they are ruining the original world and downgrading it so people can just shut off their brain and scream "WAHMEN POWER".
This is why Western comic industry is collapsing 