Imagine a character: Sektor as a ninja in MKX

[Immortal Reaver]

What about Scorpion and Takeda?

A Ninja is someone who is proficient in Ninjutsu, it has nothing to do with appearance. Cyrax had a Ninjutsu fighting style but that was simply a game mechanic and not actually canon. Just because you dress as a cop, doesn't mean that you are a cop.

 

[p.W]

A Ninja is someone who is proficient in Ninjutsu, it has nothing to do with appearance. Cyrax had a Ninjutsu fighting style but that was simply a game mechanic and not actually canon. Just because you dress as a cop, doesn't mean that you are a cop.

Just because Scorpion doesn't use ninjutsu moves in-game doesn't mean he's not proficient in it. Moreover, if "uses ninjutsu" can be dismissed as just a game mechanic, then certainly "doesn't use ninjutsu" can also be dismissed as just a game mechanic.

Scorpion is a ninja.

 

[VonKrupt]

A Ninja is someone who is proficient in Ninjutsu

No, just no. Ninjutsu is a martial art, it takes tradition from the classical ninja but it's not the same as being one. In the time of actual ninjas there wasn't even a unified school of martial arts called ninjutsu.
A ninja or shinobi in the sense being used here is an assassin, covert agent or mercenary in feudal Japan. For the ninja it was just as important to train survival and scouting techniques, poisons and explosives, long distance runs, climbing, stealth methods of walking and swimming. The ability to impersonate common professions to take their form in disguise.
For the most part a ninja getting into a fist fight was already a sign he was doing a bad job.

Someone who is proficient in ninjutsu is a practitioner of ninjutsu, that's it. You might call them ninja if you'd like, but there's a reason you don't see all those MMA fighters with a ninjutsu blackbelt calling themselves "ninja", it's ridiculous and they know it. They are ninjutsu blackbelts, as in, praticioners of the current martial art called ninjutsu.

As for Scorpion, you'd notice he was Japanese, lived in feudal Japan when he was a human, and was part of what is called a ninja clan.

 

[Immortal Reaver]

Scorpion is as much of a Ninja as Sub-Zero is a pyromancer.

 

[GloriousDK]

Scorpion was a ninja. Now he's a spectre. But let's not kid ourselves. I think most of us is referring to the colloquial expression of "ninja" for the characters that happen to look most like ninjas. Those being Sub Zero, Scorpion, and Rain. Kinda like how Cyrax and Sektor are NOT ninjas, but for the sake of identifying them, they're known as "cyber-ninjas".

 

[p.W]

Scorpion is as much of a Ninja as Sub-Zero is a pyromancer.

Your opinion is irrelevant. Scorpion is canonically a ninja. You're free to think that he's the worst ninja in the world.

 

[theincubuslord]

Scorpion is as much of a Ninja as Sub-Zero is a pyromancer.

Scorpion is the only ninja in the MK series. His master, Takeda, was once a Lin Kuei assassin, but he betrayed them and made the Shirai Ryu clan and developed the art of ninjutsu which is the fighting style taught to all his students. Scorpion included.

And in the MKX comics, Scorpion was doing the same and taught Kenshi's son Takeda the same art of ninjutsu.

That Scorpion didn't use Ninjutsu as his fighting style in MKDA-MKA is a HUGE oversight on the MK team's behalf. Either way, Scorpion is still a ninja. He isn't a good one though, appearing in explosive fire and yelling at his opponent before the battle. I guess being a Spectre of revenge makes you forget how to ninja.