The Point of Mortal Kombat?

M

MoonEye821

New member
In studying the Mortal Kombat Mythology I have found a lot of interesting concepts at work. Many religions have a central point. In Christianity, it is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as the payment and forgiveness of humanity's sins. I have tried to discover a central point in Mortal Kombat.

When we look at Mortal Kombat, it is at heart a battle between assimilation and liberty. This is mirrored first in the creation of the realms themselves. There is the One Being and it is trying to consume the Elder Gods. The Elder Gods them smash the One Being, liberating the beings that composed it. That Elder Gods rule with liberty. They all the beings in the realms to do as they please. They created Mortal Kombat to delegate liberty. Unlike the One Being who wanted to consume everything, the Elder Gods don't rule anything with force. In fact, they do so to the incredible extent that the being within the realms can be in pain and dying and the Elder Gods still will not intervene.

Raiden, Fujin, the Gods do interfere in the realms. To such extents that Raiden himself has now turned evil and is just as dangerous to the forces of light, if not more, than Shao Kahn. I have tried to weigh good and evil in the context of Mortal Kombat, and it is difficult. It is hard to claim the Elder Gods as purely good beings. They, who would sit by and watch the entire realm of Edenia be massacred by Shao Kahn. They, who would sit by and watch the Deadly Alliance take over Outworld. They, who would only half resurrect Scorpion's clan; as if to cruelly mock him. Can these beings, who seem at base to be cowardly and without compassion truly represent good in Mortal Kombat? Or, we have Shinnok. At first, I thought that maybe Shinnok would be a better representation of good. After all, he is the middle point between freedom from full assimilation and the chaos of total liberty. Yet, how could a being who plans the deaths of Argus and Delia be good? A being who would slaughter an entire crater full of kombatants , many of which are heroes and undeserving of death. How could this be a deity of benevolence?

Perhaps the twist to the whole Mythology is that all the Gods are evil and only the One Being is good. Wouldn't that be the ultimate irony? That all this time all these battles took place to keep the One Being shattered, only to realize that it alone is good. But, how could a being that denies other beings liberty, autonomy, and freedom be good? A being that demands assimilation?

In looking at this, I must say, there is no clear difference in Mortal Kombat between good and evil. Which, let me make that clear, doesn't mean that there isn't good and evil. The fact is, it is just not clearly defined. The best I have been able to piece together is that the point of Mortal Kombat is that by our actions we make what happens happen. In short, the outcome is in each of our hands. Or, to quote Captain Planet, "The power is yours!"

This is the best I have come up with, does anyone else have anything?
 
I think as long as the realms is safe from merging into one, the Elder Gods will not interfere. They are keeping their oath of not interfering with mortal affairs real good. Things are so hard to balance out. As for the half-ass resurrection of Scorpion's clan, the reason they did that was because he wasn't the one who finished off Onaga himself. It was Shujinko physically and Nightwolf spiritually, plus the Kamidogu were destroyed along the battle. It's hard to keep the order and peace in every single realm forever, and I presume that all things must balance, including battles, deaths, peace, etc.

I think the whole point of Mortal Kombat is about the deciding fate and destiny of the kombatants and the realms.
 
No, it's not. Don't you arrogantly believe that everything is just what it seems on the top. Mortal Kombat is it's own universe, just like every other piece of fiction. There are many different interpretations, and you can always enjoy a good debate as to which one is correct.

Anyways, Moon, I enjoy your interpretation, but in short, you're just reciting humanity. Think about it, in real life, there is nobody who is "good" and there is nobody who is "bad." People have traces of both good and bad in them, so trying to classify them into one or the other is not only inconsequential, but entirely undeterminable. Good and Bad are a point of view, so some people may view some of your acts as good, while others view it as bad.

Nice interpretation, albeit a simple one.
 
Its bascially about the destiny of the kombants, like u said MoonEye. There's actaully alot more to it then blood and gore, believe it or not InfernoScorpin.
 
Oh boy...

Mortal Kombat itself is just a tournament. A tournament created by elder gods to decide the fate of things. Which was nice of them, better than just a massive army overtaking things. Making each realm provide it's best warriors in one on one combat to decide the fate of it's own race and what not traces back to things like early versions of soccer games which lasted for days and the losers were all killed.

The realm of Mortal Kombat only suggests that perhaps there's more to life than just going to work, perhaps there's something, or someone out there who desires what we have while we take it for granted, and until we have what we fail to realize we have almost taken from us, we're contempt to bicker amongst ourselves. Notice though that in the Mortal Kombat realms how fast people are ready to help those who they truely hate when something really hits the fan.

Knowing Onaga must be stopped, Raiden joins forces with the Deadly Alliance to try and stop him.

Just like I honestly think if there's "Aliens" in the universe, and the whole world was threatened by them we've put our differences aside until it, or us, was taken care of. Kind of like the whole, "He's my brother, I can pick on him if I want. You pick on him and we both beat you up."

As for the Elder Gods not interferring, well they should already know what's going to happen regardless, which makes it pointless for them to interfere because then what's the point of anything in Mortal Kombat existing, if everything will be played out how the Elder Gods want it to? More chaos would be caused if the Elder Gods took charge at the first sign of danger.

And the Scorpion's clan thing was completely reasonable. They were all killed legitimately by Quan Chi. Just like Liu Kang was killed legitimately by Shang Tsung. He didn't come back as a human...

"But Sub-Zero, what about Johnny Cage inbetween MK2 and MK3, he came back as a person instead of an undead being."

Well if I'm not mistaken, he was a chosen warrior at the time of his death. Which meant he was supposed to be protected by the Elder Gods from Shao Kahn's hordes of minions. Well he wasn't, and wound up dead. That was pretty much the Elder Gods fault, and they said "My bad, here's your body back." He's one of my favourite's too... Sucks he's dead... Again... And this time it doesn't appear to be an accident... Someone straight up, messed him up.

Like FireDragon said, we've all got good in us. And we've all got bad. I think the point Mortal Kombat makes with that is that at any time we can show either side, it all depends on our circumstances.
 
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