HehatemeALot
New member
Hey Black people aren't green!
But I see what you mean with Kotal having that hair style(same as mine). Maybe that's why Phil Lamarr is voicing him! XD JK
Kotal Kahn's alignment
- Thread starter D1A1
- Start date
But I see what you mean with Kotal having that hair style(same as mine). Maybe that's why Phil Lamarr is voicing him! XD JK
sub-one
New member
No they're either the tools of evil men, or evil men who have found their niche. I know a lot of vets and this is their EXACT take on it most veterans are disgusted with this country and the atrocities they were ordered to commit, hence why so many resort to drugs or drinking. Argue with that Trash. these men have been in the shit, not just some guy who sits home and labels everyone who performs the duties of their occupation as heroes.
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Yellow Ledbetter
Active member
I thought he would be better with long hair!
Anyway, he is an outworlder, no way to understand at all.
I understand you. IMO, I don't think this is the case. But I really do understand you.
p.W
New member
And during WW2, American soldiers were tools of evil men? I find it very ironic that you want people to be sensitive to the treatment of Native issues in all media (to the extent that MKX, which hasn't done anything terrible on its own, should be held to a higher standard simply because it's not doing its part to fix the problem), and yet you're willing to make these sort of blanket remarks about literally millions of human beings.
Kotal Kahn is shaping up to be a very interesting and powerful character, and he's basically an alien Samoan/Melanesian/Aztec. I don't know why you're focusing on the fact that he subverts Mayan culture by influencing them, and not the fact that he is a bad-ass proto-Aztec, and non-Native audiences who look at him will go "wow, Aztec characters can be pretty cool." We don't go to MK for history lessons, we go for cool characters, and Kotal is doing more for the image of Native American peoples than any historically accurate stuff set in a comic book in the 1700s would or could ever have done.
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sub-one
New member
Yeah he is a rather interesting character. That being said, he is doing nothing for any of the native cultures he was inspired by except being a vehicle with which the mainstream media , yet again bastardizes and removes any prominence or credit to an advanced Native culture by crediting an outside, fictional source for the marvels and advancements made by a complex, advanced, non-anglo culture.
Why is it you never see the Egyptians or Mesopotamians being credited as the source for either Rome or Sparta's culture?
True its not MKX's job to right the wrongs of prior degradation of Native American cultures. However, what it does do is perpetuate a mindset that discredits these ancient astronomers and mathematicians by yet again suggesting that their culture was not a result of their own device or individual intelligence based on the observance of the world around them as they perceived it. It instead injects the preposterous notion that this ancient civilization was the creation of "extra terrestrials" or "supernatural off-worlders".
When do you ever hear ANYONE credit extraterrestrials for the creation of the Colosseum? Never! The engineering marvels of European culture is always credited to the resident European sub-race that inhabits that region. Is it so far fetched to fathom that Egypt or the Cultures of the Americas were in fact and by fact, created by non-European cultures with engineering skills on par with the architects of European provinces.
I'm just sick of Native culture being usurped and used as a vehicle to deliver TRULY far fetched notions like "alien involvement" by a, quite truthfully, hackneyed and ridiculous scientific approach.
There is a lack of History and explanation surrounding these cultures because the "conquering (read: genociding) cultures that made contact with these people eradicated and utterly destroyed all vestiges of knowledge that was housed in the extensive libraries of these cultures in their pursuit of gold and glory. They then took a step further to indoctrinate, assimilate, acculturate and obliterate any trace of the history and culture with in the survivors of these cultures by Catholosizing them and forbidding the practice or repatriation of these knowledge under penalty of death.
To understand my point of view lets say it like this:
China "conquers" the United States. Their first act as the new "occupiers" of this country is to do away with our constitutional and civil rights, as well as our right to practice our individual religions unmolested or speak English under penalty of death. They take away our property and families and burn or destroy any vestige of "western life".
They subsequently remove our children from us and indoctrinate them with the notion that all they were taught is evil, illegal and punishable by execution.
They teach our children the idiotic notion that Mount Rushmore was not the creation of an artist and human will and engineering, but that of some alien race that, in some nigh inexplicable fashion, cut faces into a mountainside with advanced space age weaponry.
Ya see what I'm getting at?
They could have at least made (Kotal) resemble an ancient Native, but nope. He wears a bastardized for of their cultural regalia and isn't even close to being a Native American, they (NRS) make him some kind of Outworldian African. I ave no problem with Africans, or any other race of man for that matter, but couldn't they have at least made him the influence of an african race instead of, once again, discrediting the Natives for their own damn culture?
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p.W
New member
Scandinavian culture was patterned after the alien Asgardians in Marvel's Thor (both comics and film). In Star Trek, the Olympians are aliens. In Stargate, Egyptians and Norse gods are aliens. In Dr. Who, it's heavily implied that the Doctor is Merlin and influenced English society. A disproportionate amount of "aliens influenced humans" do deal with Egypt/Native American cultures, but that's to be expected, they built pyramids. It's not an insult to suggest aliens helped them build pyramids, it's a compliment! We find it difficult to conceive that early civilizations could build things that impressive without alien help.
I don't agree. Kotal isn't unambiguously black. His facial features would make him fit in any number of indigenous Pacific Islander peoples at the very least. And look at his father, does his father have stereotypical African features? No, he doesn't. It's possible that they're based on North Africans, it's possible that they're based on some sort of Native American/Pacific Islanders, it's possible that they're a hodge-podge of all sorts of Earth cultures.
Kotal Kahn is making ancient American cultures look cool. He's not doing it in a historically accurate way, or a politically correct way, but those aren't the ways you want, because those aren't the ways that'll resonate with 16 year olds who buy this game. Kids who buy this game won't know the difference between correct Aztec regalia and NRS's made up regalia (I don't know the difference either). They don't care. You don't need them to care. All you need is for him to be an interesting (not necessarily good) character who takes control of his own destiny. Whether his facial features are inspired by Africans or Native Americans doesn't matter, anyone who looks at him knows that he's supposed to invoke Aztec imagery. And he makes Aztec warriors look cool.
That is the best possible result you can hope for from a video game. I'm not trying to dismiss your frustration, I honestly think that NRS is doing a fantastic job with the character. His influencing Aztec, or Mayan, culture, even if we agree that it's bad (which I still don't) would be a tiny, tiny drop in the bucket of what he is.
I do. But in Kotal's case, it isn't the American government telling people aliens built the American pyramids, it's a bunch of storytellers. And they're not teaching us anything, everyone understands that Mortal Kombat is a work of fiction. That's just not comparable.
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sub-one
New member
First, You mentioned a bunch if "scifi" shows and comics.
I hate to break it to ya, but the people spouting this alien nonsense actually "believe" it happened here on earth and if they don't they are influencing scores of people to believe in that fantastical nonsense. They have even attempted to prove it by crudely interpreting hieroglyphs, or by trying to "reverse engineer" the entire culture by way of the one document that survived (the dresden codex), that at the time was crudely translated by a Spanish friar who had a minimal at best understanding of a 1000 year old culture! There aren't and never were and damned aliens that came here and were all, "hey lets stack rocks like a triangle or sumthin!!!" bull shit! They were built for the same reason the tower of babel was built, to be closer to the stars and try to better understand the solar system and astronomy. because of the lack of incandescent light in those ancient times the night sky was a lot brighter.
How is it a compliment when a group of people is basically being treated as if they were to dumb to construct their own pyramids, simply because the current "scientific methods" can't explain it?
I'll tell ya what, I've worked with archaeologists, anthropologist, geologist and historians, a lot of these scientific methods were only implemented in the last century, with everything before that being conjecture, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that Native people have been here far longer than the "land bridge theory" and as a matter of fact there have been plenty of finds that actually "predate" the ice age that prove that people were here a lot longer than was previously thought and that's been proved with radio carbon dating. That is a scientific fact! The major detractor of "true growth and expansion" in that particular field is the adherence to "grandfathered in" notions and the realization that over 150 years of "documented" malarkey (read: conjecture) would have to be rewritten and a number of so called credible sources and names would be made to look like just the crackpots and whack jobs they are.
And no, kotal does not resemble any pacific islander. read MKX comic issue #6. Kotal is clearly an outworld equivalent of "African" descent. His hair is coarse and close to the scalp (not sure if "kinky" is the p.c. term here).
I dont have a problem with him really, I'm just tired of NA people always having to be saved by some "great (insert color here) hope" and never being portrayed as their own saviors. I can tell you that as a member of a Native American tribe, when people save natives its usually natives, no one else.
This is just another prime example that no one gives two shits about us or our culture and run around perverting our religion and sacred practices.
p.W
New member
If your goal is to convince everyone, you will never succeed. Be content with convincing the people that matter. I assure you, no university in America teaches that the pyramids of Central America were built by aliens. If some moron wants to believe that kind of nonsense, or he wants to believe that the Holocaust didn't happen, or he wants to believe that the Sun orbits the Earth, there's no helping him.
Samoan, Melanesian, Fijian
You're really going to tell me that Kotal couldn't come from an ethnicity that produces these faces? Really? For realsies?
Fighting game, dude. Fighting game.
You think Liu Kang and Kung Lao behaved like Buddhist monks in MK9? They behaved like arrogant, petulant children. Or how about the incompetence of Sonya/Jax's military unit, just sending two people onto an island with no recon and no backup, is that an accurate portrayal of US armed forces? Does Scorpion accurately represent the culture of Japanese ninja?
Lizardman
New member
^ Glad somebody said it. People just seem to make an exception when it comes to the US's conquest of native americans yet they accept other forms of media where there are freedom fighters and oppressors.
Besides generalizing "Mayan" culture like they did in the comics, I like how they depicted the Mayans as freedom fighters trying to repel European conquerors.
jdnice11
New member
^ Didn't read everything but just from a few comments i got the jist of what was going on.
Like they said, its a fighting game, CHILL!!!
If you're upset that your culture was not represented, is probably best simply bc of the fact that their probably not going to be 100% accurate in their depiction which will make you upset.
Like they said, its a fighting game, CHILL!!!
If you're upset that your culture was not represented, is probably best simply bc of the fact that their probably not going to be 100% accurate in their depiction which will make you upset.
Yellow Ledbetter
Active member
Woah, that was pretty cool! Loved to see the invasors butt kicked :laugh:
Hmmm, things worth noting from the comics:
1. He was sent to Earth and became a heroic figure rather than conquering and enslaving
2. He's the last of his species, his race having been annihilated
3. He gets his strength and powers from the sun - without such he's as only as strong as a human
4. He's covered in blue
CONCLUSION:
Kotal Kahn = SUPERMAN!
(sorry, couldn't resist) :twisted:
1. He was sent to Earth and became a heroic figure rather than conquering and enslaving
2. He's the last of his species, his race having been annihilated
3. He gets his strength and powers from the sun - without such he's as only as strong as a human
4. He's covered in blue
CONCLUSION:
Kotal Kahn = SUPERMAN!
(sorry, couldn't resist) :twisted: