History Headscratchers / MORTALKOMBAT

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[[folder: General (All)]]

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[[folder: Mortal Kombat I-IV]]

* Okay. Bo'Rai Cho is a pretty good fighter... but he didn't fight for Earth in the first game's tournament. Oh, it's explained that he's an Outworlder, so his victory wouldn't count as a win for Earthrealm. That explains it. Except.. no. Shang Tsung is an Earthrealmer. His victory wouldn't have counted for Shao Kahn under those rules, right?
** Shang Tsung is soul-bound to Shao Kahn.
** Also, Shang Tsung wasn't the Mortal Kombat Champion. Goro was.
*** Actually he ''was'' the Champion before being defeated by the Great Kung Lao. In the next tournament, he brought up Goro, who became the Champion.

* What's with non-MK characters appearing in the post-2010 games? You can play as DC characters, Jason Voorhees, Freddy Kruger, Alien, Leatherface, and Predator. What happened to the good old days where it was just Mortal Kombat characters? They don't need fancy gimmicks and horror villains to make money. The franchise was fine by itself.
** RuleOfCool. It's just too awesome to be able to fight with/against these characters, despite the NostalgiaFilter that will clearly come to play when dealing with some veteran fans.

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[[folder: Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance]]
* Mokap can't possibly be a canonical character. His bio [[spoiler:takes place during Johnny Cage's ending in which he assists in the making of the movie based on the game, implying the game is already ''over'' by the time he arrives on the scene; bear in mind that Johnny Cage's ending isn't even canon in the slightest]]. His ending [[spoiler:only takes his bio a step further, saying he was also hired to work on the game based on the movie]]. It helps that he was only ever a tribute to Carlos Pesina, who performed most if not all of the motion capture work for the game. Bottom line, [[spoiler:this guy probably doesn't even exist in ''Mortal Kombat''. It doesn't help that he was one of the majority of characters who never received his own bio for ''Armageddon'', and his ending there is the only one that attempts to give him any real story whatsoever - of course, being that it's not canon either, one could easily argue Mokap never really existed to start with nor had any bearing on anything in the franchise]].
** Mokap, name aside, is a perfectly valid concept in the idea that his "actor" is a martial arts master who just happens to do motion cap work. It's just, dude, take off the outfit.
** Mokap is just a guy Johnny knows, his only canon contribution to the series was the final battle at the pyramid in Armageddon which involved everyone Johnny could round up at the time. His contribution in Deadly Alliance is non-canon but that doesn't erase the character.

* Of all the characters they could have added as bonuses to ''Tournament Edition'',[[note]]The second UsefulNotes/GameBoyAdvance adaptation of ''Deadly Alliance'' which had three characters who weren't in the previous GBA port nor in the full-size console versions[[/note]] why did they add Sektor? Do you know what he spends this chapter of the franchise doing? [[spoiler:After being bested by Sub-Zero for the Dragon Medallion, a fact stated in both characters' biographies, he hightails it to Japan to found his own clan of cyberninjas. His ending is only a slight expansion on this idea as it says Sektor has gathered enough manpower to give Japanese authorities cause for concern]]. In other words, [[spoiler:he never actually fights anyone in the game except Sub-Zero, and not even during the time the game represents since it happened ''before'' this chapter started]]!
** Who would you have suggested instead? Almost all the other popular characters were either dead or would have had even less impact on the story.
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[[folder: Mortal Kombat: Deception]]
* Konquest Mode: How bizarre is it that Nightwolf, who is of Native ''American'' descent, claims ancestral land in the name of his tribe that is just adjacent to what is clearly a Chinese village where Shujinko grew up?

* In Deception Konquest mode; it is shown that Onaga is aware of the history of the One Being and the Elder Gods as he tells it to Shujinko through his avatar. Why seek to unite the Kamidogu then and tempt fate?
** Possibly, with the Kamidogu gathered, Onaga could become powerful enough to take on the One Being himself.
** It is shown in his very own ending (can't remember if he got one or if it was an unlockable feature) that Onagas plan was to fuse the realms with himself and BECOME the One Being. It is also generally implied in that game and others that the One Being is manipulating him and every other major villain with the possible exception of Shinnok to get them to conquer the realms and merge them together so that it can be reborn that way, so Onaga might just be an UnwittingPawn.

* Also, how is Raiden in Deception, story-wise? He kinda blew himself up in the opening sequence...
** That was actually covered in Fujin's ''Armageddon'' bio; apparently, when a god self-destructs themselves, their essence re-coalesces and they're reborn, but with none of their past memories or identity (in essence creating a new, "blank slate" version of that particular deity). Something happened to Raiden during that time, though, so he retained his original memories and personality afterwards, as well as turning dark.

* What's going through Raiden, Shang Tsung's and Quan Chi's heads in the Deception opening? Seriously, 'All three of us can't hold him off, so I'll just use all my power on my own.'
** I'm assuming you're talking about Raiden self-destructing after they ganged up to try and stop Onaga. It was basically a desperation move; Raiden probably felt that, if nothing else will stop Onaga, a point-blank suicide bomber attack from a god using the whole of his divine essence to power said explosion was their last, best chance of doing any damage. It wasn't effective, naturally, and Quan Chi ''did'' call the Thunder God on it like he was insane for even trying it, but what else could they have done?
*** Maybe Tsung could try sucking Onaga's soul?
*** That only seems to work when the enemy is almost dead/defeated. Onaga had barely been scratched.

* What is with time in Konquest Mode? Shujinko goes into the Netherrealm just before ''VideoGame/MortalKombat1992'', but then he meets Scorpion while he's there, and gets told that Quan Chi killed Scorpion's family. Scorpion only figured this out near/at the end of ''Videogame/MortalKombat4'', so did Shujinko spend years in the Netherrealm? Furthermore, Shujinko then apparently gets thrown in prison by Hotaru and spends years growing old in there. This apparently takes place between Deadly Alliance and Deception. How? Deception happened right after Deadly Alliance.
** Actually Shujinko goes into the Netherrealm three times during his journey. The third one is where he meets Scorpion, so it could be right after ''MK4''. And Shujinko was thrown into jail by Hotaru during Deadly Alliance, since he has just taught Li Mei some fighting techniques. Deadly Alliance's story didn't happen during a single day: characters got sidetracked, had to deal with traitors and enemies and whatnot. They could have spent years preparing themselves, or maybe time flows differently in Orderrealm. Remember that Onaga appeared to him before confronting the Deadly Alliance and Raiden.
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[[folder: Mortal Kombat: Armageddon]]
* How is Taven okay in the Netherrealm? Only evil mortals can go there without suffering.
** Perhaps it is because he is a demigod. Raiden in ''VideoGame/MortalKombat9'' was able to go to the Netherrealm and back without any difficulty when he unsuccessfully tried to [[spoiler: to make Quan Chi [[DealWithTheDevil an offer of his and other fighter's souls]] to change sides against Shao Kahn unaware that the Emperor of Outworld and the Necromancer had already made an arrangement of their own]]. Though there is another question that should also be asked: Why is there an obelisk in the Netherrealm?
** This bit of FridgeLogic is furthered with the events of ''VideoGame/MortalKombatX'': so far [[spoiler:Johnny Cage, Sonya Blade, Jax and Kenshi]] were able to venture into the Netherrealm and escape alive. Perhaps they were infused with Raiden's power?
** The Netherrealm can house any being for a very short amount of time with no ill effects, but those who are tainted with evil can stay without corruption overtaking them. This is actually demonstrated on different accounts. In ''Videogame/MortalKombatMythologiesSubZero'' Sub-Zero [[spoiler:was able to go to the Netherrealm in chase of Quan Chi after the latter entered the Temple of Elements and snagged Shinnok's amulet moments after Sub-Zero defeated the last God.]] Sub-Zero wasn't by any means evil at all, neither was the Lin Kuei, it was merely what they did that left a taint on his soul. Quan Chi even explains this before Sub-Zero fights him. He tells him that he could not exist here unless his soul was tainted with evil. After escaping with [[spoiler:Shinnok's amulet and returning to Raiden, Raiden confirms what Quan Chi said was true, but that it could only be changed with himself.]] Taken a step further, with Shujinko in ''Videogame/MortalKombatDeception'' the first time he [[spoiler:enters the Netherrealm after his affiliation with the Lin Kuei.]] He is able to return a second time even with his soul cleansed by Nightwolf, as well. Which leads to a bit of a contradiction, if you consider Ashrah. Her sword, the Kriss, [[spoiler:supposedly purifies her soul with each demon slain.]] She claims that if she was purified completely, the Realm would spit her out. In that case, either Shujinko wasn't completely cleansed, or Ashrah was blindsided by whoever gave her the sword, my thoughts on the latter. Even Divine Beings, who are often implied to be pure, should be cast out, as they do have a soul regardless of their God-Like status, but they can step foot there with no harm. The realm itself is a natural corrupting force, given its denizens, so over time truly pure beings would succumb and slowly turn into something terrible after a prolonged time. Of course, to the first troper, Taven DID spend a grand amount of his quest before that moment randomly popping heads of mooks like they were dandelions, that's not anything remotely rainbows and sunshine, no matter life or death. Given that knowledge, however, it's not a stretch to imagine that [[spoiler: Johnny, Sonya, Jax and Kenshi]] are able to endure, especially if you take into consideration the lot of them have committed some acts that could be considered evil, even though their intentions are ultimately good.

* Why don't the Elder Gods allow Armageddon? Why try to prevent it? Armageddon is supposed to destroy the Realms aka the One Being. The Elder Gods have made it clear their are indifferent to the realms unless a direct threat to them arises. If Armageddon destroys the realms than their is no more One Being and no more threat to them. So why take steps to prevent it?
** If I had to guess, destroying the Realms probably ''wouldn't'' take the One Being with them. Instead, that would probably just wake it back up. Which begs the question: Why would the Elder Gods let ''anything'' that led to Armageddon happen? Why would they let Shao Kahn do his thing (albeit greatly delayed due to the Mortal Kombat tournament) rather than simply warn him ''once'' to stop his inter-realm conquest, and then if he persists, kill him like they do at the end of [=MK9=]? Why would they let ''any'' villain get even the slightest bit close to reawakening the One Being? Why would they foist ''everything'' that needs to be done to ensure their own survival to mere mortals and lesser gods rather than use their own incredible, divine power? It's like they don't even ''care'' that their sheer laziness is the ''only reason'' why the One Being can ''ever'' return to threaten them.
** While it's never been stated outright there are some hints that the Elder Gods are just as limited by the rules as mortals are. It's not that they choose not to interfere directly so much as they can't just interfere except in certain circumstances. Likely because the Realms and everyone in them are formed from the One Being.

* In Mortal Kombat Armageddon, the main goal is to get to the top of the pyramid and fight this fire dude. Onaga has '''wings''' why didn't he just fly to the top of the pyramid instead of having to go through the levels like the other characters?
** In regards to gameplay, [[GameplayandStorySegregation well...]] In regards to the intro, just to throw it out there, This Troper wants to think that maybe Onaga's vendetta against Shao Kahn was big enough to distract him from Blaze. ...Meaning it's probably one '''hell''' of a grudge.
** You think the fact that Onaga doesn't use his wings is bad? Raiden can ''teleport''.
*** Shit, in Armageddon, 90% of the characters can teleport.
** I get the feeling that the big fight around the pyramid was more symbolic than anything else.
** It had better be. Otherwise, we're really left to ask why they stop fighting their arch-nemeses to play King Of The Hill without anyone knowing what's at the top.
*** In the Konquest mode of Armageddon, it's established that the kombatants believe there is some great power involved. Once they see Blaze at the top, they know for sure.
** I would imagine that if everyone is fighting near the foot of the pyramid and look up to see Onaga (or anyone who just teleported up there) fighting Blaze, all focus of attack would be brought to bear on the one trying seize control. Even Onaga couldn't win if every kombatant ganged up on him at once.
** Maybe I'm misremembering but I was under the impression that only the last kombatant standing would be allowed to fight Blaze, so going straight to the top wouldn't help much anyway.

* Why is Hotaru on the side of the Forces of Darkness when that's the side that all three of his arch-enemies[[note]]Havik, Darrius, and Dairou[[/note]] are on? Seriously, how did that not set off '''any''' red flags for him!?
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[[folder: Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe]]
* When you perform a fatality on Green Lantern, how come his ring doesn't fly off in search of a new host?
* In general, the separation of a Heroic Brutality from a Fatality is little more than what's said at the end of the fight.
** Green Lantern's "Orb Squeeze" [[ThouShaltNotKill Heroic Brutality]], involves him encasing his enemy in an orb, then levitating it, and crushing his enemy by shrinking the orb, a la Sonya Blade in ''VideoGame/MortalKombat3''. Where's the problem? It's NOT supposed to be lethal, however, during most other Heroic Brutalities, the loser wiggles around on the ground a lot to prove they're not dead. But after this one, the loser is eerily still...
** Other examples are Superman and Sub-Zero's finishing moves. In Sub-Zero's case, he is nothing more than a man with ice powers, yet his fatality is to deep-freeze his enemy then shatter their body with a simple kick. In Superman's case, he freezes them with his cryo-breath, flies up the frozen opponent, drops them to the ground from very high up, then drops on them with the full weight of his body. Now not only does their body not shatter when they hit the ground, but they're somehow still alive after Superman drills himself into their chest. All this is ignoring the fact that the Rage that's infecting the superheroes should be causing them to go against their better judgment anyway (Flash is willing to kill when the Rage overcomes him in the story). The only reason it's a "Heroic Brutality" is because DC just can't tolerate their heroes crossing the line.
** It may be an indication of how much Sub-Zero and Superman are holding back. For Sub-Zero, his more masterful use of ice may allow him to dictate when an enemy is shattered into pieces while Superman may not want to break his enemy apart.

* Regarding Mortal Kombat vs. DC: Okay, they've sufficiently explained how the mystic energy saturating the Kombat 'verse de-powers Superman to the point where Johnny Cage can successfully punch him in the nads. Well, as best as they could. Only problem is that this doesn't explain why Wonder Woman (no known weakness to magic) and Captain Marvel (powers ''come from a magical source''), who have both gone toe-to-toe with Supes in the past, are similarly nerfed.
** PowerCreepPowerSeep
** One should focus on the prospect of [[RuleOfCool Batman duking it out with Scorpion]] and not think too much into it.
** Perhaps the magic of Mortal Kombat behaves differently to that of the DC Universe, "neutralizing" (or at least weakening) each other when they clash.
** This troper's theory is that Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel will be depowered since different gods hold sway in the MKverse. This wouldn't be without precedent, since Raiden was unable to interfere in the events of [=MK3=] because Earthrealm came under the influence of Outworld's gods.
** PowerCreepPowerSeep
*** During the game, it's revealed that it's more than just magic, and that it isn't depowering people as much as taking the power and giving it to others (for example, Shang Tsung becomes much more powerful over the course of the story). Even those immune to magic (Green Lanterns ring keeps messing up, and Captain Marvel is disturbed by the flux of magical power) feel the effects. There's even an arc where Joker gets a huge amount of power and goes on an ass kicking spree (it really shows that he's more powerful when he beats up Deathstroke and almost beats Batman) until Batman tasers him.
*** That might also explain how all characters are more or less supposed to be balanced in the series. For instance, Stryker was just a normal schmuck with some police weapons, but could fight against a sorcerer. Maybe MK universe magic toughened him up and gave his weapons unlimited ammo so he had a fighting chance, sorta like it runs on making things a fair(ish) fight. Would explain how other, more "normal" people, like Johnny Cage or Liu Kang had semi-magical powers (shadow kick, fireballs) for the purpose of fighting Outworld monsters with blades on their arms or who can fly.

* Why is everyone in ''Franchise/MortalKombat vs Franchise/DCUniverse'' besides Lex Luthor and Batman holding the IdiotBall like it was their best friend? I can understand [[UnstoppableRage the rage]] tends to make everyone homicidal at exactly the wrong moment, but what about the parts where someone could just explain the situation without overaggression (such as Batman & Raiden), or even look at the clues that their "enemies" were obviously suffering the same effects they were (nearly every other scene), I'm sure someone should've figured out that the destruction of both universes was bad for the people they think are causing it.
** It's a crossover, it's par for the course.
*** Ugh. And part of this FanFic writer's SelfImposedChallenge is to explain all that so I can write a proper and plausible novelization... All I can really say is... '''much''' revising is planned.
** Also, keep in mind who you're talking about. The characters involved tend to get into fights with each other with little real reason, act like dicks to each other and refuse to share information all the time normally anyway. Hell, Batman pulls horrible emotionally scarring tricks on his sidekicks as training and it's pretty much canon he doesn't trust anyone with powers so even if he did start to catch on it's unlikely he'd tell anyone.
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[[folder: Mortal Kombat 9]]
* Regarding Noob Saibot's Fatality. He splits his opponent clean in the middle while the poor bastard screams all the way to the head. My gripe is that the opponent is ''still'' screaming even after the throat got split, isn't that where the vocal chords are located? Shouldn't that render screaming impossible?
** In fact, way too often Fatality victims scream past the point they should stop ''living'' altogether (''VideoGame/MortalKombat3'' was particularly bad about this), which just makes it all the more intriguing, what with Fatalities becoming more outlandish and overkill with each entry.
*** I feel the Fatalities have gotten somewhat worse over the years because of how overkill they are. At a certain point, the victim is already dead, yet there are Fatalities that, for instance, decapitate the victim and then destroy the disembodied head. Those ones are just stupid.

* Why did the amulet crack after Liu Kang won the first tournament? Had Shang Tsung beaten him then, [[spoiler: Kahn's win would have been legitimate, and the Elder Gods would not intervene]]. The same applies for the second tournament, but given it was forced upon Earthrealm and the rules were changed you could argue it wouldn't count.
** It's possible that the amulet cracked after Kang's first victory because it wasn't a way to save the future that Future Raiden wanted. I'm going to take a guess here, but it seems that magic in Mortal Kombat also seems to be affected by the user's wants. It might be that the amulet cracked because Earthrealm was saved in a way that Future Raiden didn't want. He most likely wanted Earthrealm to be saved by having Shao Kahn destroyed for good, considering the state he was in when he sent the message.
*** Maybe the amulet was constantly cracking. Raiden just happened to notice it after Liu Kang's victory because he thought that Kang's victory was the event from the "he must win" message. So it's not really "oh no the amulet cracked AGAIN", it's more "oh no the amulet IS STILL cracking".
*** In other words, the cracking of Raiden's amulet indicates that ''[[FridgeHorror events happened as his future self planned]]''! At least before Earthrealm must let Kahn merge the realms without winning Mortal Kombat so the Elder Gods can punish him.
*** What the troper above me said. Granted, Future!Raiden's phrasing was extremely vague due to him being in a minor panic from seeing Shao Kahn raise his hammer for a killing strike, so Story Mode can be summed up as Present!Raiden undergoing a 'what the ''hell'' does that message mean?!' quest.

* Couldn't Raiden have [[spoiler: gotten the Elder Gods on his side earlier?]] When Shang Tsung approaches Raiden after the first tournament to propose the second, he says [[spoiler: "If Earthrealm wins, Shao Kahn will renounce his claim to it forever." Raiden accepts these terms and it's implied the Elder Gods go with it. But then Earthrealm DOES win, and Shao Kahn invades, which pretty much means he's still holding a claim to it. Shang Tsung didn't mention that the deal only applied to merging the realms, so is it possible that Raiden could've prevented the massacre at the end if he had realized this?]]
** [[spoiler: Raiden did realize this but he was too late. He really had to wait for Shao Kahn to fully merge the realms before the elder gods finally decide to do something. The massacre happened when he and Liu Kang were out, so if they were there it would've changed things.]]
** Technically, an invasion doesn't equal a claim on Earthrealm. Until he actually tries to take control he's just killing people, which is unfortunate but not against the set rules. Really, it was Sindel that protected Earthrealm for this long, not the Elder God's rules.
*** That's not true, [[spoiler:the Elder Gods make it very clear what they're doing and why at the very end. "Sindel's ward" might have been a real thing, but Quan Chi manipulated Kahn into thinking that was ''all'' there was to it. The ward, implicitly, just kept Kahn out of the realm; him entering it was possible after this ward was nullified, but this ward had nothing to do with the punishment he suffered thereafter. If it did, not even anyone associated with Outworld could enter Earthrealm for the Tournament because they would ''all'' be banished forever. Were it not for Sindel's curse, Kahn could probably have freely come and gone as he pleased, even overseen the Tournament himself. That was probably the only reason Shang Tsung even got sent into Earthrealm to do so to begin with.]]
** I thought the whole deal was that he framed Earthrealm for abducting [[spoiler: Sindel]], allowing him to legally invade it. As for why the Elder Gods don't know better, well... the Gods must be crazy.
*** There's nothing in any of the games whatsoever about Sindel being abducted by anyone.
*** From the [=MK3=] synopsis on Wikipedia:
-->''...his Shadow Priests, led by Shang Tsung, revive his former Queen Sindel, who unexpectedly died at a young age. However, she would not be revived in the Outworld, but in Earthrealm. This would allow Shao Kahn to cross the boundary lines and reclaim his queen''

* Why are [[spoiler: Cyber Sub-Zero and Stryker dead? Sure, Shao Kahn empowered Sindel but I don't think that automatically turns every strike into a fatality.]]
** There might be two explanations. One, [[spoiler:they might have been in really bad shape after their fight with the Lin Kuei, allowing Sindel to finish them off fairly easy]], or two, [[spoiler:they just got knocked out by her initial attacks and actually died in the crossfire of her fight with Nightwolf]].
*** [[spoiler: If you look closely, Stryker's face caves in from Sindel's punch. Couldn't see what killed Sub-Zero, though]]
*** [[spoiler:Sparks and electricity spewed out of Cyb-Zero's midsection, so maybe Sindel punched him hard enough to short-out his cybernetic parts and kill him? By logic this would dictate that Sonya, Cage, Nightwolf, and Kitana are ''seriously'' MadeOfIron considering the onslaught they had to endure.]]
*** [[spoiler: The game actually implies that Cyb-Zero's armor is pretty weak - in arcade mode, it only takes a few strikes for his ''brain'' to be revealed. Plus, Sindel's strikes focus entirely on his head. Given her power boost, that would be enough to cause a fatal malfunction.]]
*** As for [[spoiler: Stryker]] he is [[spoiler: the most [[BadassNormal normal of the cast without any superpowers]]]] so yeah.
*** Plus, if [[spoiler:getting his face caved in didn't kill him immediately, then shock and blood loss would have taken care of that.]]

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DujrDgiHITE&feature=autoplay&list=ULGiVNetSPuqA&index=14&playnext=1 Quan Chi has Shinnok's amulet]]. While it is true that he possessed it since ''Mythologies'', and gave a false one to Shinnok, why is he wearing it so openly? You'd think somebody might notice the amulet of a fallen Elder God on his belt.
** This is made all the more headscratching since he's seen multiple times by two people who'd recognize what it is: Bi-Han (the original Sub-Zero) and Raiden.
*** Well, Raiden's mucking with the timeline caused many subtle changes around the time of the first game, such as a few characters appearing much earlier in-story. Maybe, just like there were slight changes to the first three games' story, there were also changes to the ''Mythologies'' story. Perhaps Raiden DID know, but his future visions implied Quan Chi had a role in stopping Armageddon(which he did, to some extent) so Raiden did not take action against him.
** There's also the ''massive'' continuity problems with Quan Chi sporting the tattoos of Onaga's army when he didn't even ''know'' about Onaga until after Scorpion beat the tar out of him and chased him through the Netherrealm, causing Quan Chi to stumble upon the Dragon King's tomb (this was after ''4''--[[BroadStrokes presumably following some shared variation of Sub-Zero and Scorpion's endings]]--as detailed in ''Deadly Alliance''[='s=] intro).
*** Perhaps Quan Chi managed to find a way to get a peek at Raiden's visions and took advantage of it.
*** Either that or [[spoiler:Shinnok ''himself'' pulled a Raiden as well and gave his past self a heads up (Shinnok survived the events of Armageddon alongside Shao Kahn, Taven, and Liu Kang's spirit, as the Shinnok seen in ''Armageddon'' was [[ActuallyADoombot a clone]]). It could explain why things went so wrong; two parties with innate knowledge of the future combating each other would be more likely to screw up the timestream.]]
*** This theory has a lot of validity, as [[spoiler:the ending'd [[TheStinger stinger]] implies Quan Chi and Shinnok had been manipulating the game's events from the beginning, which they never did to this extent in the original games. Raiden was also his WellIntentionedExtremist self when he sent his messages to the past, so his lucidity was open to question and his messages to his past self were very vague, while Shinnok was probably in a much better position to send himself clear messages on what to do. Perhaps he recognized that Raiden was getting vague messages and he used Quan Chi to manipulate events in his favor while taking advantage of Raiden's desperation.]]
*** To begin with, not all of the tattoos are the same. Most obviously, the ones on his head are different. Perhaps he just has a thing for tattoos? As a sorcerer, he can change them at will - he's his own tattoo artist, after all. Secondly, how exactly Shinnok and Quan Chi manipulated events in this game is never explained, [[spoiler:not even in the Story Mode of the sequel]]. It's possible Shinnok has the same temporal vision-sending powers as Raiden does, [[spoiler:but this is never implied as far as I'm aware in either game]]. The most I can say is that both were aware of what Kahn directly invading Earthrealm would do to him and so manipulated him into doing so, purely to remove him as a threat - something that, for all we know, they tried to do in the ''first'' timeline as well (remember, Scorpion is now asserted to have always been Quan Chi's puppet, even going all the way back to the first game - a {{Retcon}} that is clearly intended to have always been the case, not something that changed because of anything Raiden did or didn't do this time around; Quan Chi has clearly always been there). Perhaps the X comic books have a thing or two to say on this, but I haven't been able to read them, so I can only go based on the games themselves, which I imagine would have mentioned this in greater detail were it true. It sounds rather vital to the plot.
*** In regards to Quan Chi's tattoos. It should be noted that in Shaolin Monks [[spoiler:Quan Chi appears after Shao Kahn is defeated with the red tattoos he has]]. As such, it's possible that the tattoos Quan Chi has may not actually be the Dragon King's tattoos.
*** Shaolin Monks is non-canon, though.
*** According to who? Contradicting one or more games isn't enough to make Shaolin Monks not canon seeing how many times the games have contradicted themselves. [=MK9=] itself contradicts past games in regards to backstories, what with how Mileena is now way younger than she was before the reboot and the Sub-Zeros were taken by a Lin Kuei member away from their parents in Asia with no sister in sight instead of the brothers being taken by their father from America to China away from their mother and sister.
*** Well, the game raises more questions than it answers, and doesn't quite track with the games in the original timeline. For instance, in ''Shaolin Monks'', [[spoiler:Jade gets killed right around the time ''MKII'' would have begun]], but no game released prior to ''Shaolin Monks'' ever said or implied such a thing. Surely, if it had happened, we'd at ''least'' have gotten [[spoiler:some mention of her having been resurrected in time for ''[=UMK3=]'' or ''Deception'']], but ''Shaolin Monks'' is the ''only'' game that even mentions the possibility that [[spoiler:Jade was killed at that time]]. There was no attempt to retcon this game's events into the original timeline, and we can safely say there never will be as it's a moot point now that the series has been rebooted with the 2011 game, precluding any possibility that games like ''Shaolin Monks'' depict events that will be held canon in any game released from now on.
** ''Mortal Kombat 11'' finally provides an answer- Raiden isn't the only one who messes with time, as there is a GodOfGods called Kronika who is a GreaterScopeVillain of the franchise who manipulates everything. All of the differences between this game and the original timeline are explainable by this ''not being the original timeline in the first place'', and even the first game might not have been either. So, again, it is indeed the case that Raiden wasn't the only one messing with time, but it turned out that the greater culprit was not Shinnok but his mummy.

* Why is Noob Saibot so willing to work with Quan Chi? In this timeline, unlike the original, Scorpion hesitates against killing Sub-Zero until Quan Chi projects a false "reminder" image of his family/clan's destruction. Sub-Zero sees the image as well and protests his innocence before being slain. Given how he saw this accusation first-hand, why would he be willing to openly support the person who got him killed?
** It's been implied before that Bi-Han as Sub-Zero and Bi-Han as Noob Saibot are distinct. In his ''Deception'' ending, it's mentioned that he would've been proud of his brother, but his descent to hell stripped away his compassion. In his ''Armageddon'' ending, after killing Blaze, Noob is confronted by Bi-Han, who wanted to "regain control of his divided soul". Noob Saibot is Sub-Zero minus any redeeming qualities; which he'd presumably would've regarded as weaknesses. So he probably wouldn't hold a grudge. Also, as ''Deception'' and his ending in this game show, Noob may be serving under Quan Chi, but he's got ulterior motives.
** Noob is just a [[PersonalityPowers shadow]] of the former Bi-Han.
** It's also pointed out that the two are separate entities when Noob tells Subby that even though they are related by blood, they aren't brothers.
*** That sounds more like a "I have no son!" moment than the literal meaning. Noob was mocking Kuai Liang's revenge motivations because he's so evil that he doesn't even appreciate that someone wanted to avenge his death. Put simply, you would be hard-pressed to find someone in ''Mortal Kombat'' with more evil in him than Noob Saibot. He is nothing but a being of hatred and villainy.
** Or maybe he just doesn't remember that particular event as a result of the whole "brought back from hell deal"
** Or, alternatively, Noob has realized that the easiest way to deal with ''both'' of the characters involved in his death is to [[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder act as their ally right up until the most convenient "do or die" situation]].
** This Troper's theory is that Quan Chi brainwashed him when he brought him back from the dead, same way he did with Sindel.
* Bi-Han and Hanzo are both assassins who died violent deaths. Both were sent to the Netherrealm before returning to earth. Hanzo came back as Scorpion and Bi-Han came back as Noob Saibot. So how come one of them looks like a regular guy (except when he takes off his mask) and the other is, er, whatever the hell Noob Saibot is?
** Scorpion's a specter, Noob is a wraith. There's no further explanation given than that, but the two seem to be different species of TheUndead. Minus the whole "skull for a head under my mask thing" and his one-track mind on avenging his family, Scorpion more or less seems to be the same as he was in life. Noob, on the other hand, had his soul stripped of all compassion and moral restraint, leaving only a corrupt, prideful, vicious assassin. He's a MadeOfEvil HumanoidAbomination.

* When [[spoiler: Sub-Zero is awakened after having his systems knocked offline, it's mentioned in his boot-up interface that higher brain function has been restored, hinting that the Lin Kuei were hampering the brain functions of their cyborg members to prevent rebellion.]] Now, while it's likely that Cyrax got the same treatment, is it likely they did the same thing with Sektor, considering how eager he seemed to become a cyborg?
** Yes. You can never be too careful.
** Well, except that it seems that Sektor is sort of a '''Control Tower''' to the other cyborgs.
*** If you look at the cyborgs' battle damage, you can see their brains being exposed with wires placed in them. This is only really noticeable in the Klassic Cyrax and Sektor models however.

* So wait. At the end of the story, [[spoiler:are Johnny and Sonya the last humans left alive on Earth?]]
** No.
** [[spoiler:Of the heroes? Yes. Out of all the denizens of Earthrealm? It's questionable, but highly unlikely. Shao Kahn's invasion was stopped the same day it happened. As great as his forces were, I don't think they could have gotten to everyone in such a short amount of time, especially if his strongest enforcers were dealing with Raiden's chosen. If Stryker, Kabal, and some NYC S.W.A.T. officers could keep Shao Kahn's elite at bay, I'm hard pressed to believe that the rest of the world would have severe trouble with [[{{Mooks}} the bottom feeders]].]]
** [[spoiler:Last we saw of Kano, he was okay.]]

* Why did the amulet crack after Liu Kang won the first tournament? Had Shang Tsung beaten him then, [[spoiler: Kahn's win would have been legitimate, and the Elder Gods would not intervene]]. The same applies for the second tournament, but given it was forced upon Earthrealm and the rules were changed you could argue it wouldn't count.
** It's possible that the amulet cracked after Kang's first victory because it wasn't a way to save the future that Future Raiden wanted. I'm going to take a guess here, but it seems that magic in Mortal Kombat also seems to be affected by the user's wants. It might be that the amulet cracked because Earthrealm was saved in a way that Future Raiden didn't want. He most likely wanted Earthrealm to be saved by having Shao Kahn destroyed for good, considering the state he was in when he sent the message.
*** Maybe the amulet was constantly cracking. Raiden just happened to notice it after Liu Kang's victory because he thought that Kang's victory was the event from the "he must win" message. So it's not really "oh no the amulet cracked AGAIN", it's more "oh no the amulet IS STILL cracking".
*** In other words, the cracking of Raiden's amulet indicates that ''[[FridgeHorror events happened as his future self planned]]''! At least before Earthrealm must let Kahn merge the realms without winning Mortal Kombat so the Elder Gods can punish him.
*** What the troper above me said. Granted, Future!Raiden's phrasing was extremely vague due to him being in a minor panic from seeing Shao Kahn raise his hammer for a killing strike, so Story Mode can be summed up as Present!Raiden undergoing a 'what the ''hell'' does that message mean?!' quest.

* Why didn't any of the Earthrealm warriors warn Kung Lao when the emperor got off his throne, walked over and snapped his neck? Unless he teleported, which he's never shown the ability to do, they should have seen it coming with enough time to save him.
** They probably just didn't think he was going to kill him. After all, its supposed to be a fighting tournament; that was outright murder. If anything it serves as just another example of [[JerkassGods Elder Jerkass Gods]]; how the ''hell'' can he get away with something like that? Could he just massacre all of the other fighters and just beat the crap out of the weakest in a proper fight, and claim victory?
*** I got the impression that Kung Lao had already won the tournament by beating Kintaro. So outside the tournament he IS free to just murder them all, as we see during the invasion. And I'm not sure the Elder Gods are {{Jerkass}}es, they seem more simply very bound by the rules, if there is no real violation they can't act.
** After Shao Khan snapped Kung Lao's neck, Raiden looked ready to take Khan on directly. As a god, he's normally prohibited from fighting unless challenged, so he must have known Lao's murder was a dire violation that freed him up to kill Shao Khan himself. It's only his uncertainty as to Liu Kang's role and acknowledgement he deserved to avenge Kung Lao that prevented him from annihilating Khan right there.

* Why did Raiden attempt an alliance with Quan Chi to save Earthrealm? Quan Chi has been visibly aiding Outworld throughout the two tournaments and Seido or Chaos realms would have been better choices with less extreme payments. Chaos Realm might have even done it for free, they enjoy war and the chaos it brings.
** He was desperate and, being in charge of defending Earth Realm has not cultivated contacts in those two realms. Simply put, he had no other option. Quan Chi was the only person he knew of who had the power to help him and who would accept what he was offering. Seido would just annex Earthrealm entirely if they decided it was worth the effort, and Chaos is, well, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin chaotic.]] They could just as easily fight '''alongside''' Outworld as fight against them. If they decided to do so, they might have thought getting involved after Raiden asked for help would be too much order for their liking.

* In Stryker's chapter, how did Mileena recover so fast from her fight with Stryker? Reptile, Kintaro and Ermac didn't get right back up afterward, and two of them should significantly be more physically capable for taking said beatings, so how did she do it? Hell, how did she get back up after Raiden blasted her? He's clearly willing to kill Outworld invaders, just look at what happened to Motaro in that same scene, so how did Mileena come out none the worse?
** Hm. Let's see. Because Raiden only [[ShockAndAwe shocked]] Mileena, while he used the [[CutscenePowerToTheMax more lethal]] '''[[MemeticMutation JOHNNY BOUGHT A CAR]]''' on Motaro? So, yeah.
*** Not to mention Raiden, literally, rammed Motaro through a bridge. So heh.
** Mileena was wearing PlotArmor and was part of the roster, whereas Motaro wasn't.

* As per Raiden's desperate plan to ally himself with Quan Chi; not so much the plan itself, but what derails it. When he tries [[spoiler: to offer the souls of Earthrealm's fallen in exchange for Quan Chi's help]], Quan Chi refuses on merit of [[spoiler: Shao Kahn has already made the exact same deal with him.]] So...''how in Netherrealm's name does [[spoiler: Shao Kahn]] have that kind of authority?'' Raiden is at least feasible, given as he's Earthrealm's guardian and all, but '''[[spoiler: Shao Kahn]]'''? [[spoiler: He's an invading conqueror whose "say" revolves around his wife being in the realm; HER soul could be said to be under his authority, and MAYBE Kitana's...but that's where it stops. Even if he doesn't technically try to merge the realms until the end, he's still not in any position to be bargaining with souls that aren't from his own realm.]] How is this allowed?
** Shao Khan's MO is to steal the souls of the people of a realm, generally when they die, afterward they're his to do as he pleases.
*** And isn't anyone perplexed by what the [[spoiler:dead and brainwashed Earthrealm and Edenian warriors are wearing? I mean, in the cutscene, Kung Lao and Stryker are in their alternate costumes and they switch to their primary costumes when fighting Raiden (though the former wore it prior to the Tarkartans attacking the Wu Shi Academy). Also, why does Kuai Liang stay a cyborg, shouldn't he be a zombie human too?]]
*** [[spoiler:The revenants can look like anything Quan Chi damn well wants them to look like. That's not a mystery. Also, just because Shao Kahn made that exact same deal does not mean he actually has any authority to do so. Remember that he stepped into Earthrealm with the intent to invade it and the Elder Gods punished him for doing so - just because he does it does not mean he is legally allowed. No one ever said he actually ''had'' the privilege of using souls that aren't his as a bargaining chip. All that really matters is that Quan Chi called Raiden's bluff and knew how desperate things really were, on top of being evil through & through so he was going to go against Raiden's wishes no matter what.]]

* How does ANYONE with a Tarkatan mouth speak perfect, unmangled English?
** UniversalTranslator. Tarkatans probably speak in an [[StarfishLanguage alien language]], it only seems that [[AliensSpeakingEnglish they can speak perfect English]] despite having that kind of mouth. This may also explain why '''''Chinese''''' kombatants such as Liu Kang and Kung Lao can converse with '''''Americans''''' like Sonya Blade and Johnny Cage. '''[[PunctuatedForEmphasis IN. PERFECT. ENGLISH.]]''' Hell, since Raiden is GodInHumanForm, it is also possible that he also speaks in StarfishLanguage, so the UniversalTranslator trope is pretty much the only way to explain why EVERYONE speaks in perfect English no matter which realm and country they come from.
** Or TranslationConvention. Unless you look up the subtitles and all the characters (Tarkatans, Outworlders, gods) speak in different {{Starfish Language}}s, untranslated conversations won't make any sense.

* In the beginning, Johnny Cage seems to know nothing of the supernatural beings. How did he end up at the tournament in the first place? Also, how can a guy who can throw energy balls still have any skepticism left?
** According to the movie, the best martial artists in the world are invited to the tournament, Cage being one of them, apparently. Or, perhaps he heard of the tournament and decided to attend to test his might against others. As for Cage's skepticism; his ancestry may have given him his Shadow abilities, but that doesn't mean he's spent his entire life around mutants, humanoid lizards, and gods. So, the skepticism makes sense.
** Raiden seems to choose Earthrealm's champions and he seems to have already talked Cage up to Liu Kang by the time the tournament starts to it's likely Raiden chose who he wanted there and Shang Tsung made sure they got there. As for having skepticism while being able to shoot energy blasts keep in mind that the only character in the series established not to have some kind of power is Stryker so energy powers are likely common in this world.
** Some martial artists in real life subscribe to the idea that they can focus their "chi" and use it to strike/knock down opponents without actually touching them. It's likely that in the Mortal Kombat universe, this is definitely real. Johnny Cage is aware of the technique and uses it in the form of his energy blasts; however, he probably shrugs it off as a discipline with a scientific explanation that he doesn't really care about and has no further knowledge or belief in the supernatural. As for his invitation, it was probably orchestrated by Raiden but as far as Cage is aware, it's just some exclusive martial arts tournament that he's been invited to take part in, being notably skilled and a high profile actor.
** Johnny may abide by the rule that he only believes in powers he personally witnesses, which is a fair position to take. He is a witness to his own power, therefore he believes in his own power, but not only had he never previously noticed Raiden or anyone like him, the whole thing was getting too weird for him too soon to take it seriously right away - he was falling headlong down the rabbit hole, and there was simply too much to take in all at once. I think he'd prefer to assume he is the only one with supernatural abilities for the sake of his own sanity until he conclusively proves otherwise, which of course he does in short order.
** Regarding Johnny being at the tournament, remember Shang Tsung's speech "Some of you are here on their own volition, others are here by chance". Probably Johnny heard of the tournament and took it as an opportunity to show his prowess.

* So it seems that Scorpion's clan and family were around back in the Sengoku era of Japan or thereabouts. But the tournament clearly takes place in modern times. I could accept Scorpion holding a grudge for 400-odd years, but unless Bi-han is immortal that can't be the same Sub-Zero.
** Scorpion may not be entirely there anymore after coming back as a specter. He may automatically associate "Cryomancer in blue ninja garb" with "the one who murdered my family".
** Bi-Han is [[KingBobTheNth Sub-Zero V]]. If you consider that Cryomancers live longer lives than Earthrealmers on average, it could be well plausible for us to think that Scorpion thought Sub-Zero I (Bi-Han's ancestor) killed his family and clan. [[spoiler: But of course he didn't, Quan Chi did under his guise.]] Even if you consider that Cryomancers don't live much longer lives than humans, there's a possibility that several of Sub-Zero I's descendants ''did not'' take the name Sub-Zero.
*** I totally buy this, but why didn't Bi-Han simply say, "Dude, that happened centuries ago, I'm not the guy you're looking for?" And why doesn't Scorpion realize any of this? Come to that, how do the Lin Kuei know anything about Netherrealm, Mortal Kombat, or Outworld? Are they not just a family of assassins?
*** It's possible that Scorpion subscribes to a "Sins of the Father" mentality, although that's unlikely, since you'd think Sub-Zero would at least bring that up, and it made Scorpion's quest a lot less sympathetic to modern audiences, so yeah, Bi-Han must be able to live for centuries. As for how the Lin Kuei know about the different realms and their inhabitants, it's implied that they are one of many groups like the Black Dragon that other-realmers hire to do their dirty work on Earthrealm.
** Or, Scorpion's clan just tends to do things old school. They're probably more "traditional" than the more modernized Lin Kuei, reflected by their housing and style of dress. Also, [[AllThereInTheManual according to official sources,]] Bi-Han was 32 when he was killed by Scorpion.
*** They're also more Japanese than the modernized Lin Kuei, who are Chinese. But we know explicitly that Bi-Han killed Scorpion. Specifically, he killed Scorpion during the events of Mythologies; Scorpion, in the original timeline, was after Bi-Han as vengeance for ''his own'' murder, and it wasn't until [=MK4=] that Quan Chi duped him by accusing Kuai Liang of murdering Scorpion's family. Either Scorpion is at the tournament to kill Sub-Zero just for his own murder, and Quan Chi was forced to play the "He murdered your family" card earlier as a result of Raiden's meddling, or Scorpion was there to avenge his family and this is just another one of those mysterious changes that had nothing to do with Raiden.
** If so, then Hanzo is actually a modern-generation member of the antiquated Shirai Ryu, just as Bi-Han is a modern-generation member of the modernized Lin Kuei.

* Sooo...since [[spoiler: all of the heroes aside from Johnny Cage and Sonya are dead, not to mention the fact that many fan-favorites were just killed off]], how is the next game gonna work exactly?
** Most of the characters that were killed died over the course of the next two games anyway. They'll just introduce the characters from four through whatever game the next one involves along with some new characters and carry on as normal. I suspect the goal is to give the newer characters more focus so the fanbase will actually start to like them instead of focusing on the older characters and bowing to fan demand. Just look at Stryker, he got some focus and now people like him quite a bit. Hell, I wouldn't be surprise if Lui Kang was treated as he was to make us more open to accepting Shujinko.
*** Or they could all be under Quan Chi's control, and fighting for Netherrealm. And lets not forget the first law of resurrection.
*** I'm not quite sure what you're saying. The heroes killed by Sindel are under Quan Chi's control and will likely be used against Earthrealm, unless Raiden destroyed their souls while they battled him but even then at least three were left. Either way the story won't be able to focus on them like it did in this game so the new heroes the next game brings in will get to step into the spotlight. And while resurrection is likely, especially if they reintroduce Onaga, it may not be for everyone, it seems even the developers are sick of some of the characters and only included them because they needed to. I wouldn't be surprised if Liu Kang stayed dead, same goes for Kabal and Kung Lao, characters who were introduced but never really did anything important, and with Edenia having not been freed there's really no real need for Sindel, Kitana and Jade to return as they merely divert focus from the plight of Earthrealm. The new timeline is sort of like a screening process, they can look back at the old timeline, expand on the good ideas and discard the ones that didn't work out. A lot of characters were brought in sorely to introduce new characters with each game, forcing out ones that would have made logical sense (notice the near complete lack of Edenians involved in the story of [=MK4=] despite it being about Edenia being invaded, same in Armageddon). Everyone was given their moment to shine, it's entirely possible that that's all they'll get this time around.
** Sequels could simply take a BroadStrokes or AlternateContinuity approach if they want to bring back some (or all) of the characters that have been killed off. However, since it's been established that Raiden can send visions to his past self, he could presumably try to change the past again. By sending a message that's less ambiguous than "he must win", all the mistakes that were made during Story Mode could be avoided, essentially making ''MK 9'' a ShaggyDogStory as they SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong...again. That way they can pick up the story at the SequelHook but change a few details here and there.
** Perhaps the only answer this question needs is to quote John Vogel: [[spoiler:"Nobody ever really dies in Mortal Kombat."]]

* At the end of one of Kung Lao's fatalities, he wipes his hat off with his hand, with a quick movement. How the heck does he do that without cutting his hand?
** Years of practice.

* What are the rules of Shang Tsung's tournament? It looked like any confrontation counted as an official fight, but sometimes people were disqualified and other times they were not.
** It's a game of elimination between two teams, namely Earthrealm and Outworld representatives. When only one competitor remains undefeated, they are crowned the tournament champion and their side is considered the winner of the tournament. However, because Shang Tsung is presiding over the tournament and essentially invoking ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem, any situation that could see Earthrealm lose one of its competitors and edge Outworld closer to victory is declared an official fight in the tournament.
*** If it's a game of elimination, why does Scorpion fight Sub Zero? The Lin Kuei may be from Earth Realm but in the tournament they fight for Outworld as mercenary (As mentioned by Sektor and Cyrax) so why would Scorpion (Who is also subcontracted to Outworld) fight against his own side?
*** For it to be a tournament, it need not be one side against the other. A tournament is inherently a competition of elimination: Competitors challenge each other till one has emerged above all the rest. All that needs to happen is that someone makes it to the top to face Goro. If you're that person and you just happen to be from Outworld, then congratulations, you don't need to get your head ripped off by Goro, and Outworld automatically wins. This is why Earthrealm's fighters have to keep going and can't just allow Outworlders to rip each other apart to clear the path to the top - if someone from Outworld makes it, it's over already. An Outworlder doing so also implies, of course, that all of Earthrealm's challengers have been defeated, leaving Earth defenseless as Outworld subsumes it... or at least retains the title for the next 50 or so years till the next Tournament.
** It may also take into account which fighter makes the challenge.

* How big is Shang Tsung's island?
** Good question. It's hinted that the island doesn't even exist as far as Earthrealm's maps are concerned, from the conversation Sonya has with mission control when she calls for an evac ("There's nothing where you're at!"). [[NoOntologicalInertia It may even blink out if Shang Tsung is theoretically killed permanently.]] The best logical explanation could just be 'as big as Tsung designed it with his sorcery.'

* If Quan Chi and Shinnok wanted Shao Kahn out of the way, why did Quan Chi resurrect Shao Kahn at the end of the second tournament?
** It could be that the Elder God's eventual intervention put a more permanent end to Shao Kahn than Liu Kang's efforts, getting him out of the picture once and for all. If nothing else, helping him complete his plan - to a certain point, at any rate - wiped out most of Earthrealm's best warriors, leaving it vulnerable to an attack from the Netherrealm.
*** Right, in the original timeline, Liu Kang's "killing" of Shao Kahn in ''II'' and ''3'' didn't exactly seem to end his threat (he was still fighting Kitana and Goro's allied forces as of ''MKDA''). Having the Elder Gods destroy him/send him to the phantom zone/whatever they did might be the only permanent way to get rid of him.
** Quan Chi didn't actually resurrect Kahn, he just sped up his healing. So Kahn would have recovered anyway it just would have taken longer. So Quan Chi made the invasion happen faster and with Kahn grateful to Quan Chi, which devalued Shang Tsung, Quan Chi's only real rival.

* How does Shao Kahn own the souls of Earth's warriors? Maybe they could have used the soulnado thing but unlike the original timeline Nightwolf obliterated it with Noob Saibot destroying it. Also you have to be evil to descend there. Raiden warned Bi Han he was screwed if he didn't shape up so why did people like Kung Lao and Jax go there?
** Probably because of Shinnok. He manipulated everyone throughout the game thanks to time travel, and was able to work some things to get them into Hell, with him being ruler of it and all.
** By the sound of it, that's not Shinnok's doing at all. That's just Quan Chi laying claim to the departing souls via sorcery. He also corrupts them mentally, emphasizing their negativity and hatred. Also, Kahn doesn't have to own something to try to use it - he's just that kind of guy: He'll take it regardless of who really owns it or what's expected of him in return. The quintessential megalomaniac.

* Why is Motaro only in a cutscene?
** Mostly because programming him would be too much of a hassle with all four legs. It's practically the reason they did away with his back legs in Armageddon.
** And probably because [[TheScrappy/MortalKombat nobody really liked him anyway]]. I mean, did [=ANYONE=] become a fan of him because way back in the third game he was [[SNKBoss nearly impossible to kill]], not merely immune to but also ''reflecting'' projectiles back at you on top of having a super-powerful one of his own he could use repeatedly without limit? ''I'' sure didn't miss him this time around.

* What was the point of the storyline, exactly? The characters are basically just as bad off as when the game started.
** Armageddon has been averted, which was the entire point of sending the vision to the past. There are more heroes alive at the end (Raiden, Sonya and Johnny) than at the start (all three die during Armageddon). Plus it allows Netherealm to ignore their old canon and move forward in a different direction.
*** I'm not sure it's been ''averted'' per se. It could still happen, it's still in prophecy. What Raiden was specifically fighting to change was Shao Kahn being the victor of that entanglement, which he did - Kahn won't even be a contender in it anymore. I think Armageddon not happening hinges on [[spoiler:Edenia still being merged with Outworld; in the original timeline it was unmerged after Liu Kang won in the third game, but that was more or less because Kitana and Sindel were not only alive but made forces of good, which is not the case here at all]]. After all, something that seems very much overlooked is a detail only revealed in [[spoiler:Shinnok's ''Armageddon'' ending: Shinnok didn't actually participate in Armageddon, sending a copy of himself to eliminate the other bad guys from the series]]. After all, as is pointed out in the next game, [[spoiler:Shinnok can't actually die]], so while Kahn can be sent away permanently, [[spoiler:there is still a possibility that not only can Armageddon still happen, but Shinnok could win instead]]. I say all this because [[spoiler:by the time Armageddon would have happened in the original timeline, it clearly doesn't in this one, and as a matter of fact Edenia's freedom from Outworld is a point of contention around that time in the next game]]. This all applies regardless of [[spoiler:how Shinnok could have manipulated any of the events of this game into happening]].

* What is the deal with all the [[{{Retcon}} Retcons]] that Raiden's changing the past shouldn't affect? How is it that [[spoiler: Mileena being raised along with Kitana]] is suddenly changed to [[spoiler: her ''just'' finished being created and Kitana ''just'' finding out about her]]?
** [[spoiler: Because Raiden isn't the only one who has been changing the past. Shinnok's scene at the end of the game and Quan Chi's presence is a good indication that both of them had information they shouldn't have had at the time, with Shinnok confirmed to have survived the Armageddon fight and in a better position to follow Raiden's lead and send messages to his past self. All of the changes can be chalked up to Quan Chi manipulating events to wind up more favorable to Netherrealm (such as telling Raiden exactly how to defeat Shao Kahn for good).]]
*** That is dubious at best. Shinnok screwing around as Raiden did shouldn't have ''that'' far-reaching of consequences. It's implied in the original games that [[spoiler:the sisters are at least ten thousand years old apiece]], and Shinnok would probably not have cared to go ''that'' far back. For one thing, [[spoiler:Mileena isn't really vital to his plan]], and for another, if he ''could'' go that far back, why not even further? Why not continue to rewind the timeline until he gets what he wants? It's never explicitly implied [[spoiler:in either Story Mode]] that he used similar powers. Instead, we're down to theorizing that he makes petty changes like [[spoiler:changing Mileena's date of birth by about ten millennia]].
** ''Mortal Kombat 11'' provides an answer- Raiden isn't the only one who messes with time, as their is GodOfGods called Kronika who is a GreaterScopeVillain of the franchise who manipulates everything and has been doing so countless times. The original timeline is different because ''this isn't the original timeline'', and indeed the very first ''Mortal Kombat'' game might have been either.

* Is there any particular reason why [[spoiler: post-[=MK9=] Raiden can't send another message to his pre-[=MK1=] self to explain what exactly he needs to do? Post-Armageddon Raiden didn't have much time to send anything more than "He must win," which caused [=MK9=] Raiden to do some rather dumb things in response to that very ambiguous message. Post-[=MK9=] Raiden, however, has some free time on his hands, which means he could send another, far more understandable message to his [=MK1=] self (e.g. personally make sure Scorpion doesn't kill Sub-Zero by making him promise to keep the battle where he can see it, don't let the Lin Kuei capture Smoke or the other Sub-Zero, warn Kung Lao to keep his distance from Kahn when he wins the Outworld tournament, don't let your warriors die en masse, and let Shao Kahn come to Earthrealm and then have the Elder Gods take care of him). There doesn't seem to be a reason why he can't try that, and it would certainly screw over Shinnok and Quan Chi's plans if he did (even though he wouldn't know that they've been interfering so much, he could at least ensure that Quan Chi didn't claim the souls of the dead Earthrealm warriors by making sure that they don't die).]]
** Time travel is a tricky thing, you never know if the changes you make will make things better or worse. We have the advantage of knowing the details of both timelines and weighing which outcome was better. Contrary to appearances, the new timeline is pretty well off, if only by having the Emperor permanently dead, along with Shang Tsung. And with so many apparently permanent casualties Armageddon becomes much less likely to happen.
** Is it really, though? The setup now is "''Mortal Kombat 4'' but no one's alive to do anything about it". If you imagine a reality where whatever Shinnok tried to do in ''[=MK4=]'' goes off without any challengers then that could still be a bad situation. Although ultimately this is probably moot since ''X'' may just skip over any of the ''4''-''Deception'' details that could still persist in the new timeline (such as Shujinko's quest).
*** To quote John Vogel once again: [[spoiler:"Nobody ever really dies in Mortal Kombat."]]
** I imagine the time travel thing was more of a last resort than anything else, something Raiden put off so much he nearly forgot about it till it was too late. It's something none of the gods in the series have used, at least as far as we're aware, because it can do more harm than good. For example, [[spoiler:Sindel killing off half the cast plus herself]] might be bad, but what if Raiden saw that and tried to wind the clock back ''again'' to avoid it? Just ask [[Franchise/BackToTheFuture Marty McFly]] how time travel can go wrong.
** We clearly see the circumstances Raiden is in when he sends back the message though time and it's just moments before Shao Kahn is about to bash his head in for good and seize ultimate power. So no, he ''didn't'' have time to send a better message. Future-Raiden was either erased from history or died at the hands of Shao Kahn.

* Why couldn't the original Sub-Zero beat Scorpion during Shang Tsung's tournament? He had already beaten him in the Netherrealm while he was a spectre/revenant, so even with the power-up of being undead he was still no match for him. What, did Scorpion just get a few lucky rolls on his critical hits?
** Scorpion was astoundingly pissed off.

* How does the first tournament even work? Liu Kang is presented at the only Earthrealm warrior to "reach this level" on his match against Ermac. Yet, neither Johnny Cage nor Sonya have lost a match - Kung Lao can be excused by the fact that he's not supposed to be here. Similarly, how can Ermac be at this level when he's just been introduced as a new kombatant and has therefore not fought anyone? How do the brackets for this tournaments even work? How are 2 vs 1 matches legal for Mortal Kombat (Such as Liu Kang Vs. Scorpion and Quan Chi)? Why doesn't Shang Tsung make ALL matches 2 vs 1 to stack his odds? He's got more warriors anyway (Kitana, Jade, Cyrax, Sektor, Sub-Zero, Scorpion, Quan Chi, Baraka, Ermac, Goro and Himself) Vs Earthrealm's 5 (Kung Lao, Liu Kang, Sonya, Nightwolf and Johnny - Raiden doesn't take part in the tournament).
** Johnny Cage was beaten by Cyrax, no idea about Sonya, she may have forfeited somehow without realizing it. As for why not all matches are two on one in some cases multiple opponents would be an advantage as they'd get in each other's way.
** Sonya likely backed out at Raiden's insistence on having Liu Kang win the Tournament, believing Liu Kang is "he [who] must win". Besides, she wasn't there to save the world, as much as she would have liked to... she was just there to kill Kano.
*** Alternatively, Sonya may have lost offscreen (most likely against Scorpion, the only one who might spare her), while Liu Kang bested whomever else was left. Nightwolf and Liu Kang also may have beaten some characters prior, explaining why Kitana, Jade and Sektor don't show up.
** Johnny: beaten by Cyrax. Cyrax: fled the island after beating Sektor. Sektor: beaten by Cyrax. Sonya: forfeited after rescuing Jax. Jax: not even fighting in the first place. Kano: beaten by Sonya. Nightwolf: beaten by Scorpion. Kung Lao: beaten by Scorpion (plus he was an unofficial competitor anyway). Kitana and Jade were only assassins, same as Sektor, to weed out Earthrealm's fighters, so they didn't officially compete in the tournament. So, it makes sense Liu Kang was the only Earthrealmer left.

* The PS Vita version of the game has a whopping '''fifteen''' costumes added to it compared to the other versions of the game! Why couldn't they have added those to the PC and console versions via DLC after the Vita version was released? Isn't the fact that the Vita version is portable and has extra Challenge levels incentive enough to get more than one copy of the game?
** No, I'm afraid it's not. First, that's not how most people buy games. One in a million might, but most such people would be collectors anyway. Secondly, the point of all that extra content was to attract people who bought a Vita, regardless of how many people actually did (not a whole lot, for the record). Releasing those costumes to other versions devalues this one. It wasn't to get people to buy multiple versions of the same game. That's not how game industry employees think. Finally, most people just don't care enough about that sort of thing, regardless of whether they have the money to spring for it. The few who would don't collectively offer enough money to get the developer to do it.
[numlist:START_NUMBER]
This is a conversation whose OP has recanted the first post:
** That depends on you having a deep enough pocketbook to spring for not just another game but another console altogether. Not only that, but speaking as an Xbox gamer, the Vita version is totally useless to people like me because to unlock this stuff in the Vita version you have to do everything all over again. Why would we buy multiple versions of the same game if there's no way to share progress between them? Of all the possible added perks, that one is a must.
*** This troper is mostly speaking in terms of those who already had a Vita plus another system to begin with. Those who want these extra costumes but can't afford / don't want a Vita would want them as DLC for the PC / console versions even more.
*** But would they want those costumes badly enough to spring for another version of the game, regardless of other costs? Further, if you have the Vita version, with all the extra stuff it has (including the costumes), why would you still have, let alone play, any other? I could understand wanting the costumes as DLC, but from the sound of it you're already making the case that they have nothing to lose in doing so ''because'' people would want to buy both versions since the Vita version came after and has a bunch of extra stuff to sweeten the deal even further. That makes no sense to me.
*** Even if one has the Vita version, most people still like having the home console release of a fighting game for several reasons (arcade fight-stick support, better graphics, ability to play local multiplayer without both people needing the same system, etc.) And considering the fact that people in fighting game tournaments (which always use the home console version of a game) like having alternate skins and palettes to differentiate themselves from their opponents, it would make sense that they would like having more costume options.
[/numlist]

* Noob Saibot's X-ray move causes his opponent to vomit upon his leg when he delivers a side kick to their stomach. Aside from the possibility of the vomit entering his wounds from the battle, why would he try it on Reptile? The guy ''[[HollywoodAcid upchucks acid that melts people down to skeletons in seconds]]''.
** Even moreso with Skarlet's fatality, where she slits her opponent's throat and ''bathes in their blood''. Again, not recommended if Reptile's inwards are as bad as his bodily fluids.
** Perhaps Reptile's acid is spewed from a gland and is not actual stomach acid, which would make sense from a biologist's point of view. This also means that Reptile could effectively fight on a full stomach... Maybe [[MST3KMantra we're reading too much into this?]]
** Reptilian venom in the real world is ''saliva''. Not stomach acids.
** Two points: firstly, this is Mortal Kombat. "Real world" does not apply. Second, Reptile's clearly using an ACID of some sort. Saliva does not melt flesh.
*** Neither does acid. Acid ''dissolves'' things, just like saliva does. Saliva is the first part of the digestion process, and it may not break down matter as quickly as the dedicated acids in your stomach do, but it gets the job started. Think of the various poisons in nature that are described as pre-digesting the food from the inside out. Same thing.
*** Not to mention that it clearly sounds like he's spitting whenever he uses his Acid '''Spit''' special.
*** To the person who claimed that "Real world" things didn't apply to Reptile due to him being of a fictional fantasy race (Saurians), you're wrong in your thinking due to the fact that the Saurians are stated to have evolved from reptiles from Earthrealm [[note]]"The Saurians are reptilian humanoids who evolved from the dinosaurs." "The Saurians were originally native to Earthrealm where their civilization thrived countless years ago." Both of these quotes are from the Mortal Kombat Wikia on their Saurian article[[/note]], thus whatever applies to reptiles from the human world should also apply to the Saurians in theory.
** Noob may not be especially concerned with the potential damage due to his status as an undead entity
** X-Ray Moves aren't canon. The actual gameplay is just for hypothetical purposes.

* Raiden managed to heal Jax somehow with his electricity powers in the second chapter of the game, so why couldn't he [[spoiler:try it on Kitana before she died? Could've at least brought her back from the brink...]]
** Perhaps the wounds were too severe; also, RuleOfDrama.
** [[spoiler: Sindel was halfway through stealing Kitana's soul before Nightwolf intervened. Presumably Raiden's healing powers only work on physical injuries.]]
** I got the impression Raiden was just cauterizing the wound.
*** Jax clearly had a lot of bruises in addition to any actual cuts and wounds he may have sustained. Raiden's powers seemed to heal those as well, and apparently gave him the strength to be able to walk around on his own again, so it's not ''just'' cauterization.

* While it's probably a writing oversight, when Nightwolf approaches Stryker after his victory over Ermac, he says that Raiden is gathering Earth's defenders, to which Stryker replied "Well, Earthrealm defender is about 10 steps above my pay-grade!" How did Stryker know it was called Earth''realm'' when the very idea of other realms existing is something normal people like him wouldn't know about prior to Shao Kahn's invasion?
** Just because you stick realm at the end doesn't mean he couldn't recognize that he would be defending the planet. Plus, it would make sense to assume the monsters attacking are from another realm, so the context is fairly clear.

* In ''VideoGame/MortalKombat9'', [[spoiler:when Raiden goes to the Netherrealm to [[DealWithTheDevil strike a deal with Quan Chi]], the sorcerer reveals that he has dominion over the fallen heroes' souls. Among the lineup of characters is ''Cyber'' Sub-Zero. Since it is just Sub-Zero's soul (his body ''should'' still be in Earthrealm), shouldn't he be depicted as his human self? Similarly, shouldn't Jax be missing his cybernetic arms?]]
** [[spoiler: For Jax it's possible the soul takes a form based on the body when they pass on. As for Cyber Sub-Zero it's possible his soul didn't leave like Smoke in the original time line, and his soul took on the cyborg form when it finally passed on.]]
*** [[spoiler: Considering his soul came back for a HeelFaceTurn, Cyber Sub-Zero is definitely not like Cyber Smoke. As for why his soul took the cyborg form, my guess is that he came to terms with his new self before death, so his soul changed to signify that. Probably the same thing for Jax.]]
* Why does Quan Chi have his tattoos in ''[[VideoGame/MortalKombatShaolinMonks Shaolin Monks]]'', ''VideoGame/MortalKombat9'', and ''[[VideoGame/MortalKombatVsDCUniverse MKVsDCU]]''? All three of those games are set before ''[[VideoGame/MortalKombat4 MK4]]'', and he doesn't get the tattoos until before ''[[VideoGame/MortalKombatDeadlyAlliance Deadly Alliance]]'', whilst trapped in the Netherrealm after ''[=MK4=]''.
** Well, something also came to me about Quan Chi and your insight into his tattoos makes it seem more likely. Think how did Raiden transfer his thoughts to the past? Through his amulet. Now considering that Quan Chi has the amulet of Shinnok, a more powerful god than Raiden it is highly possible he did something similar and is paving his way to power by manipulating events with a clearer understanding of the future. He even throws in a quip about being a [[TitleDrop Deadly Alliance]] with Shang Tsung in story mode although it was likely just an in-joke.
** Either that or Shinnok ''himself'' pulled a Raiden (the real Shinnok survived the events of Armageddon alongside Shao Kahn. Taven, and Liu Kang's spirit; the one in-game was confirmed to [[ActuallyADoombot be a clone]]).

* A major part of Bo' Rai Cho's background is that he would easily be able to fight in a Mortal Kombat tournament, but doesn't because he's from Outworld and, if he wins, he would be allowing Outworld to get closer to conquering Earthrealm, which he doesn't want. Okay, that works. But Shang Tsung is from Earthrealm and serves Shao Kahn, so if he wins a tournament, he'd be preventing his master from invading Earthrealm like he wants to. In the first game, he's obviously counting on Goro winning, but in the second one, he's in by himself and has no excuse.
** Not as hard as you think. Shang Tsung is from Earthrealm, but is a resident of Outworld and a servant of Outworld's emperor. He fights for where he's living. Bo'Rai Cho, unfortunately, lives in Outworld. [[KnightMysterio My]] theory does create the fridge logic of why Bo' didn't just side with Earth, though, or if he's living on Earth why he didn't fight...
*** Bo ''doesn't even live in Outworld''. If memory serves, in ''Deception's'' Konquest mode he trains Shujinko in Earthrealm, and he was probably on Earthrealm if he trained Liu Kang prior to the first game.
*** Shang Tsung is a weird one, he can't be easily compared to Bo Rai Cho. For starters, Shang Tsung essentially had his soul bound to Shao Kahn himself, so spiritually became Shao Kahn's puppet. Meaning that his victories would automatically go towards the master who he is spiritually bound to, and is a puppet of. It's explained with dark magic, when Shang Tsung first took control of the tournament, and when reappearing as an old man after having been seen young prior before, he was essentially "renewed" by Outworld, thus his victories go towards his new, adopted realm. Second of all, that he's absorbed the souls of many warriors over a thousand years, from different realm origins, possibly negated his Earthrealm identification in regards to the tournament victories. Thirdly, and this is just a guess, but with the Elder God's intervening, the same one that presented Shang Tsung with the curse to consume souls for youth maintenance in the first place, it effectively meant Shang Tsung was denied Earthrealm identification for his treachery. With the Elder God's intervention, as well as his soul being spiritually tied to Shao Kahn, I believe it made Shang Tsung 'realmless' in a sense, not actually having a defined realm to belong in, I think that's part of his status as free roaming sorcerer.
*** Wasn't Rain fighting on the side of Shao Kahn during the events of the third game? Now, his heritage and birthrealm is Edenia, but yet his victories went towards Outworld, because he pledged his allegiance to Shao Kahn (and consequently Outworld). And, he betrayed his realm of Edenia, so surely that would deny him Edenian identification, almost like being exiled. I imagine Shang Tsung follows the same course. Bo Rai Cho could have fought for Earthrealm as his adoptive home, he'd just need to be exiled from Outworld and denied identification from it. This didn't happen, he just left of his own accord as far as I know. Nothing more was done.
*** Edenia was still merged with Outworld during the events of the third game so Rain's realm is, technically, Outworld during that period. Kitana then got him to turn on Kahn for a while, until he learned of his true origins and decided to rule Edenia himself.
*** No wonder Outworld was able to conquer other realms so easily. Other realms willingly exile traitors from having the realm identification, meaning they lose numbers, and the victories of Shao Kahn's forces end up going to Outworld as their new adopted realm. I guess that's why Outworld seemed to have ridiculous amount of victories after all. Outworld would basically never exile fighters from it's realm, because obviously they'd gain a new realm identification in their new adopted realm, and suddenly they could compete in tournaments to assist Outworld's enemies, giving the invaded realms a better defense.
*** Perhaps the reason is that Earthrealm is not united and has a bunch of different governments that change over the millennia, most or all of which have no idea that a "Mortal Kombat" tournament is taking place. Tsung is free to fight for Outworld because there is no government on Earthrealm for him to pledge his loyalty to, but Shao Kahn is the absolute ruler of Outworld and the tournament exists solely because of his desire for Konquest, so the rules are lopsided in his favor- Earthrealmers and others are free to choose, Outworlders are not, and that is because one is relatively free from tyranny and one isn't. Maybe Raiden or someone else actually ''allows'' Earthrealmers to make the choice while Kahn forces Outworlders to fight whether they like it or not, and Raiden does this either because he isn't actually in charge or because he doesn't want to be like Kahn.

* How did Kitana go 10,000 years without noticing her twin sister has tarkatan features?
** [=MK9=] [[spoiler:shows Mileena being created during the events of [=MK1=].]]
*** That's a retcon; before ''9'' she was established as being created when Shao Kahn took over Edenia and was raised as Kitana's sister.
** Who's to say she didn't know? Kitana was evil all the way up until the end of [=MK2=]. She probably didn't really care.
*** Kitana discovered the truth about Mileena, and her past before [=MK2=] began, it's why she turns against the Emperor and was helping Earthrealm. Mileena catches her in the act and that's why she was finally allowed to attack Kitana.
** [[CaptainObvious Mileena wears a mask.]] I'd honestly be surprised if more thought went into it than that.

* Movie example: it's assumed that during their fight, Scorpion teleported Cage into the Netherrealm. All right. Cage defeats Scorpion, whose head explodes, a MythologyGag to MKII is made, and the scene ends. Next time we see Cage, he's back on Tsung's island, with no mention of how he escaped from Hell.
** If Scorpion took him there, it could be assumed that killing him would take Cage back. Simple.

* How does ANYONE with a tarkatan mouth speak perfect, unmangled English?
** Two words: UniversalTranslator. Tarkatans probably speak in [[StarfishLanguage a language alien to at least the Earthrealm inhabitants]], it only seems that [[AliensSpeakingEnglish they can speak perfect English despite having that kind of mouth]]. This may also explain why ''Asian'' kombatants such as Liu Kang, Kung Lao, and the Sub-Zero brothers can ''converse'' with ''Americans'' like Sonya Blade and Johnny Cage. In English. ''Perfectly well''. Hell, since Raiden is GodInHumanForm, it is also possible that he also speaks in a StarfishLanguage, so the UniversalTranslator is pretty much the only way to explain why EVERYONE speaks in perfect English no matter which realm and country they might come from.
** Tarkatans are demon spawn, which mean they're creatures of magic. So, basically, AWizardDidIt

* How exactly can [[spoiler: Kung Lao be the reincarnation of the Great Kung Lao]] when a major plot point of [=MK4=] and Mythologies: Sub-Zero was that Shang Tsung had absorbed the Great Kung Lao's soul, [[spoiler: meaning it wouldn't be available to be reincarnated]]?
** Through the magic of not being canon, like all the rest of [=MK9=]'s Arcade endings.
** Or it could be a retcon. It's not like [=MK9=] hasn't already retconned a character's backstory (see Mileena being born during the events of [=MK1=] rather than knowing Kitana for years and how both of the Sub-Zeros were abducted as children in what is clearly East Asia rather being taken by their father away from their mother and sister in America). And while Mythologies was referred to in [=MK9=], how much of the game as it was back then still applies is questionable.

* In the movie many people wonder how Johnny Cage escaped Netherrealm after defeating Scorpion. Because Scorpion can't die, Cage didn't kill him per se. However even when controlled by Shang Tsung, [[HonorBeforeReason Scorpion follows a certain code of combat.]] So when Cage beat him after giving him everything he's got, he let Johnny leave. It makes sense why Johnny would do the [[DefeatEqualsFriendship Friendship Autograph, rather than Fatality as well.]]

* Why is it [[ForgottenSuperweapon never suggested]] that Earthrealm use [[NuclearOption its vast arsenal of continent-shattering, precision-guided superweapons]] against the other realms?
** Because [[AWizardDidIt sorcery]]. By the time this would even have been brought up, everyone would know that the constant invasion campaigns are being masterminded by people with tons of sorcery and magic at their disposal. No nuclear weapon can compete with that. Best case scenario, the bad guy just magically seizes the nukes and tosses 'em away harmlessly.

* In Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero, Raiden claims that he would lose all of his powers if he went to the Netherrealm. Why did he enter the Netherrealm (Scorpion's Lair) to visit Quan Chi in desperate measures and not lose his powers?
** In ''VideoGame/MortalKombat9'', they finally step in to assist Raiden after Shao Kahn merged the realms, and not a second before. They're not concerned with preventing deaths or destruction like Raiden, a protector God is, their concern is just keeping the realms apart. Which sort of explains why they did nothing to stop Onaga directly; they only react to the merging, never act proactively (aside from appointing Scorpion their champion). Is it still stupid? Yes, but slightly less so.
*** At that, they only really did anything because Shao Kahn WON by cheating. That was sort of the point of Raiden's message to the past, beating Shao Kahn more or less led directly to the events of the following four games, in which more death and destruction was caused by the bad guy of the week circumventing the tournament as opposed to letting the Elder Gods enforce the rules.
** Hierarchy. The Elder Gods' job is to observe every realm in existence and maintain the division of the One Being. A bunch of guys killing another bunch of guys is below their radar; events that are actively merging the realms and threatening the resurrection of the One Being is their focus. For the smaller-scale "people are suffering and dying" issues, that falls into the jurisdiction of Protector Gods like Raiden. Spirits and entities like Fujin before his promotion are focused on even smaller roles, like protecting the temple that housed Shinnok's Amulet. It isn't apathy, they just have more important things on their plate. Asking the Elder Gods to step in because Shao Kahn is killing people is like asking the CEO of a company to take customer service calls; until he becomes an actual threat to the separation of the One Being, they have bigger fish to fry.
*** Thing is often when someone does becomes a threat they refuse to do anything or barely do act. Onaga and Shao Kahn merging realms into Outworld increased their power and threatened to awaken the One Being. They do nothing as Shao Kahn breaks the rules of Mortal Kombat in the first timeline. This would only encourage would-be conquerors to skip the tedious process of Mortal Kombat and invade directly with massive armies. In the second timeline he grows powerful enough to nearly overthrow them before they act. They ignore the Netherrealm and Shinnok frees himself and nearly destroys them. Shang Tsung and Quan Chi open a portal to heaven threatening to destabilize the afterlife and eventually all realms and they do nothing. Onaga is resurrected and threatens to return the One Being. All they do is appoint Scorpion as their champion and screw him over. Armageddon is at their doorstep and they tell Argus to deal with it. A bunch of guys killing each other in a single realm is below their radar. But their continue refusal to take serious action against direct threats to their existence is just plain laziness on their part.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Mortal Kombat X]]
* Erron Black says, in an interaction with Leatherface, "Nice to meet a fellow Texan." That would indicate Erron is from Texas and moved to Outworld, despite that he explicitly says he's from Outworld and never mentions himself being from Earthrealm outside of the one line. Does that mean Earthrealm is the real Earth? And if that's the case, who or what would put Erron in a position to find work in Outworld?
** Earthrealm is indeed the very same earth that we inhabit, and as for what would move Erron into moving into Outworld? [[MoneyDearBoy Probably the same thing that would drive him to fight a god like Raiden.]]
** In the story mode, Takeda is surprised that he can read Erron's thoughts, meaning he's not from Outworld. Erron confirms that he's originally from Earthrealm, but is of Outworld because his employer (Kotal Kahn) is of Outworld.
** Erron's Arcade ending reveals that he was originally a bounty hunter/mercenary in the days of the WildWest who took jobs for Shang Tsung, and his skill led him to be [[TheAgeless rewarded with eternal youth]] so he could continue to work for his long-lived employers in Outworld.

* If the Netherrealm is accessible only to those whose heart and soul is tainted with evil (willingly or unwillingly), then how were Kenshi, Johnny Cage, Sonya, and the special forces able to access it in the first place without harm? How was Raiden [[spoiler:pre-corruption]] able to access the Netherrealm various times without losing his powers? How did Raiden use his power to purify souls in the Netherrealm?
** I can give Johnny a bit of a pass since his powers do allow him to shrug off attacks from Shinnok, which are undoubtedly of a corrupt nature. Best I can come up with for the others is that their purity allowed them to get by the Netherrealm pretty fine. Jax can possibly be justified as well since he was already corrupted once, so it's probably safe to assume that he can skip around the place, presumably because of being familiar with the corruption reeking all over.
** Pretty much everyone possesses evil within them to some degree. The only ones who were sufficiently pure in canon to be expelled from the Nether realm are Nightwolf, who used a ritual to cleanse himself, and Ashrah, who used her magic sword. As Sareena herself shows, you don't need to actually be evil to exist within the Netherrealm. As for Raiden why wouldn't he be able to use his powers and purify souls?
*** Which also imposes a trivial question for Raiden. Mythologies state that Raiden would lose his powers in the Netherrealm, yet during the Special Ops mission, he was still able to use it in great measures, including combining his and Quan Chi's powers to revert revenants to their original form by accident. Did Raiden bluff the quote or did he figure out how to go to the Netherrealm unscathed? It will be less questionable on the Epilogue when [[spoiler: Dark Raiden appeared in the Netherrealm showing Shinnok's severed head and have a much more darker and threatening power instead.]]

* Just a bit of pickiness and admitted overthinking-- is there any possible, plausible explanation for how different ''Franchise/MortalKombat'' Jason Voorhees is from ''[[Franchise/FridayThe13th Friday The 13th]]'' Jason Voorhees? In the game, obviously for balance issues (thus the overthinking), Jason runs, jumps, dashes, and utilizes moves like low sweeps and jabs, most of which he never does in any of the dozen ''Friday The 13th'' films. It also wouldn't make sense, in theory, for Jason to follow the rules of Mortal Kombat itself (i.e., two rounds in each fight, allowing the opponent to recover for the next round, etc). Is there anything that anyone can think of, even a [[WildMassGuessing wild mass guess]], that would justify this?
** The difference is in the victims of his wrath. Movie!Jason can take his time for all he cares, because his victims aren't fighters. Fighter!Jason on the other hand has to contend with badasses from different realms, so he has to put up a good fight. Although gameplay-wise, it's pretty easy to make him act as he does in the movies, patient, sinister and all.

* According to Shinnok's Ladder Mode ending, [[spoiler: he plans to awaken the One Being by merging the Realms. What does he get out of doing that? What stops O.B. from devouring Shinnok? Even if he didn't (maybe out of gratitude for his awakening), what would Shinnok do now that reality has ended? Float forever?]]
** {{Big Bad}}s in this franchise have a history of doing [[StupidEvil stupid things]]. Remember what would have happened to Shao Khan had the original timeline stayed in place?
** Lampshaded a long time ago in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOfopT3v3o4 this ending]].
** It might be that [[spoiler:he's simply more interested in wiping out the Elder Gods than anything else. As maniacs go, he comes off as pretty omnicidal.]]
** [[spoiler:SuicidalCosmicTemperTantrum over an unknown offense, maybe?]]
** It's possible that the Kamidogu would allow Shinnok to remake reality as he saw fit, with the possible blessing of The One Being if the gratitude suggestion panned out.
** My reading of his ending is that Shinnok found a way to magically manipulate One Being into devouring the Elder Gods and otherwise serve his plans. He wouldn't be devoured since he was making O.B. not do that. It's also possible Shinnok being all fleshy and not ethereal like the other Elder Gods might play a part too.
** It is possible that the O.B. was manipulating him. It is implied in other games that it has been manipulating Kahn and Onaga in their lust for conquest, so why not Shinnok too?
** Whose to say that Shinnok planned to survive the O.B.? The narration of his ending implies that he sees the O.B., not the realms, as the true nature of existence. If he and the elder gods must die so that the O.B. can exist, then so be it.

* Ignoring the comic's timeline, Kotal Kahn's coup against Mileena occurred five years before the main events of the game. So why does he talk about "imminent war with the Netherrealm" when Shinnok had already been defeated at that point?
** Maybe he had Quan Chi in mind?
** Shinnok is far from the only threat in the Netherrealm. Aside from Quan Chi, Liu Kang and Kitana govern the damn place and the rest of the Revenants are also intent on freeing Shinnok from his amulet.

* Even if it isn't canon, why does Liu Kang appear to be older? As the champion of Mortal Kombat, he is TheAgeless
** I think they didn't want ''all'' the aged males to have beards.
** Does it still apply though? With Shao Kahn gone the Mortal Kombat Tournament is no longer needed so Liu's extended life cause probably isn't necessary.. Let's not forget that he died as well.
** As with Kung Lao, this was intentional. [[FixFic You can make up your own microcanon]] about Liu, or Lao, or whoever you want surviving [=MK9=]'s events, supported by their aged appearances. There's a good read on this on the concept art in the Krypt.
** I'd guess because of the Outworld tournament, the old rules were tossed out and new ones implemented.

* How can Shinnok [[spoiler:be beaten by a girl from Earthrealm while he has his amulet, and the Jinsei? In the first timeline, Shinnok was using a fake amulet and Johnny Cage didn't actually beat Shinnok in battle. He just distracted him long enough for Sonya to survive and for Raiden to seal him in his amulet.]]
** Isn't this like asking why people can still fight after they've gotten their skulls and spines broken in the X-Ray moves?
** Judging by the cut scene after the Arcade fight, [[spoiler:a majority of the Amulet's power goes to maintaining his form, as once it's torn out of him he dissolves]]. How exactly is The Jinsei empowering him? After all, he was mid-process when the fight occurred.
** She is capable of channeling [[spoiler: that green Shadow energy like her father]] which, if this one element of Johnny Cage's semi-canonical [=MK9=] arcade ending is true (In which after training in Seido Johnny became one of the most powerful beings in existence), would logically let her have the ability to go toe to toe with an Elder god. Also, Shinnok [[spoiler: only poisoned the Jinsei chamber]] and, as shown in ''VideoGame/MortalKombatMythologiesSubZero'', Shinnok can [[spoiler: transform into his Corrupted from (AKA "Demon" or "Beast" from) at will]].
** For the same reason Liu Kang could beat Shang Tsung and Shao Khan.
*** Shang Tsung seems to be your run of the mill immortal like Kitana. Aside from the abilities granted by binding his soul to Shao Khan, he can be killed, he just won't die. In any case, Liu beat them in "Mortal Kombat." From what I can tell, invoking MK levels the playing field for the kombatants. So, without MK, Liu wouldn't or, at least, shouldn't stand a chance against Shao Khan or anyone above him like Raiden and/or Shinnok. However, MK either empowers a normal or as normal as they can be character like Liu or depowers a godlike character like Shao Kahn. It also seems to make immortal characters physically killable. Shao Kahn, as he's not a "god," would just die while a god would just reform after a while like Raiden does.
*** Mortal Kombat doesn't level the playing field, and both [=MK3=] and the final act of [=MK9=] happen when there isn't a tournament happening, anyway. Liu Kang beats Shang Tsung and a soul-glutted Shao Kahn because he's just that good.
** Especially since Johnny Cage has never been able to beat anyone above Baraka. People forget that Shinnok is actually more powerful than Shao Kahn despite how they portray him. In addition, none of this was "Mortal Kombat" so that means that Johnny and [[spoiler:Cassie]] can straight up beat an Elder God without the modifies from invoking MK. They're, effectively, the most powerful characters in the game with the exception of The One Being.
*** Johnny and Sonya had to step up their game in the new timeline since the previous heavy hitters were killed off. Johnny's always had the potential to be a top tier fighter he just never had the motivation to put in the work until now.
** In the comics, Havik mention that a mortal beating up Shinnok is impossible. Unless he possessed the power to kill a God. The green aura is more than a booster, as seen in Johnny Cage's [=MK9=] ending, it is either something that tremendously augment his ability or the equivalent to Kryptonite against Gods. The reason he and Cassie can beat Shinnok even in his final form is because it's what their line was created for in the first place. Now, how could mortals harness such powers? That's the real unanswered question.
*** The comics give an insight of this. Basically, Johnny and Cassie descend from a lineage trained not only to serve gods, but to fight an Elder God in case he or she goes rogue. Maybe it was the Elder Gods themselves who thought of such a plan. It could be after Shinnok's defection, in order to not let an interrealm war happen again.

* Why is Takeda in his Ronin variant when his chapter starts? There's Shirai Ryu variant with him right?
** Perhaps that's the fighting style Hanzo trained him in since Takeda wasn't officially Shirai Ryu yet.

* Why is Quan Chi is so loyal to Shinnok? He even [[spoiler:sacrifices himself to free Shinnok.]]
** Why would he NOT be loyal to him?
** Dialogue during Jax's chapter implies that much of his power is derived from Shinnok (technically being an Elder God and whatnot) and that he can't access that power while Shinnok is trapped in the amulet. As for [[spoiler:the "sacrifices himself" bit... seems more like "I'm screwed in this situation anyways, might as well say the incantation to free Shinnok as a ThanatosGambit" than a legit sacrifice on his part.]]
** Why NOT sacrifice for him? As long as you stay on his good side you have someone with the power of an Elder God on your side. Shinnok can resurrect Quan Chi at his whim, in Armageddon Shinnok resurrected ALL the dead villains to take part in the final battle so the forces of Light wouldn't win, so resurrecting his loyal and most powerful servant would be nothing to him.
*** But that's the thing, he didn't revive Quan Chi. Shinnok left Quan Chi dead and continued with his plans. Ultimately, Quan Chi's loyalty didn't save him. Then again, Shinnok likely knows how his relationship with Quan Chi ended in the original timeline.
*** Shinnok was also kind of busy at the moment. Had be been resealed in the Nether Realm he likely would have resurrected Quan Chi to get things going again. Their's is a relationship of convenience, not affection, and Quan Chi is his strongest and smartest minion.
*** After being unsealed, Shinnok's powers were still likely too weak to resurrect and the timing window was very short. Had Shinnok revived a dead Quan Chi or have his minions carry him (and Johnny Cage at the same time) for later resurrection, the other warriors that came back from Outworld (healthy) would have reached him and reseal him again; the people Shinnok took with just a blast of the Amulet were already exhausted in the previous battle.
** One important note about all of the above: Quan Chi was able to backstab Shinnok in the original timeline because he stole Shinnok's amulet and replaced it with a duplicate, granting him enough power to strike out on his own (as Shinnok remains in the Netherrealm following ''Mortal Kombat 4'', Quan Chi retains full access to his powers granted by the amulet). In the alternate timeline, ''this never happens'', as whatever message Shinnok conveyed to his past self must have mentioned keeping a tight grip on his amulet. As Quan Chi never manages to steal the amulet, he has little choice but to stay loyal to Shinnok and work on freeing him from the amulet, otherwise he will slowly lose all his powers.
*** Important note about this one above; Quan Chi, in the "original timeline" revealed his treachery to Shinnok in a non-canon ending to the game. We know it was non-canon because it ended up with Shinnok dead assuming all of Earth Realm's warriors lost. That never happened, thus the reveal that Quan Chi did that didn't happen, so that knowledge wouldn't be with Shinnok at all to send that message back. That said, the treachery and swap of the amulets was committed back when he first recovered Shinnok's amulet, during Sub-Zero's Elemental Temple raid, which happened just two years prior to the 10th Mortal Kombat tournament. So, those events actually still happened, and a further bit of evidence is that in ''[=MK9=]'', Quan Chi did have a hold of Shinnok's amulet, despite it having been stolen back by Sub-Zero during their encounter before the tournament.

* Why don't Cassie and Jacqui seem to recognize Erron Black, considering that they met him in the comics? Shouldn't Cassie be like "Hey, I know you. You're the asshole who [[spoiler: helped Kano kidnap me and Jacqui."]]? Did they just want to avoid confusing people who hadn't read the comics?
** Probably, since more people would likely play the game than read the comic. A possible in-universe explanation is that they didn't want to provoke him by bringing up old rivalries when they just came to talk.
** There's a number of holes between the game and the comic. For example, name changes for Scorpion's wife and son, differences in how long the Outworld civil war has been going on, and several other things. Best to take the comic as only semi-canonical whenever information clashes.
** It was also years ago, it's possible they simply forgot about him.

* So, how did [[spoiler: Rain and Kano steal Shinnok's Amulet?]] Did I miss the explanation? I presume it has something to do with [[spoiler: Rain being a half-god.]]
** And while we're at it, who or what caused Raiden's message (via a medallion) to Sonya Blade informing her about the above mentioned spoiler protected detail to be cut off?
*** Possibly Kano's trap that Raiden later mentions in his chapter.
*** In Tremor's Ending [[spoiler: it's said that Kano sent Tremor to the Dream Realm to get a Psych Bomb to steal the Amulet with. That may have been Kano's "snare". This suggests that the plan was heavily planned and impeccably carried out.]] It still feels like a very quick HandWave because they had to speed towards the ending and didn't want too much exposition, but at least we've learnt ''something''.

* I know it's not canon but why are the revenant's normal skins what they were when they're alive? (Aside from Jax, Sub-Zero, and Scorpion)
** Dude. You just answered yourself. It's not canon.

* Kenshi can leave a comment on Cassie's "Selfie-tality". But ain't he kinda... blind? Unless Sento or Takeda help him with computers or mobile phones and such? That just leaves a funny image in my head really.
** [[http://evengrounds.com/blog/how-do-blind-people-use-the-computer Blind people can use computers]], even if there isn't some more immediately cyberpunk solution in the ''MK'' universe.
** A blind man using the computer makes no sense, but it makes ''perfect'' sense for Cassie to have the villains in the game as social network friends, the Outworld natives to have internet access, and ''the victim of her Fatality to comment on the selfie'' (which happens from time to time)? It's a gag move, and you shouldn't take it seriously.

* Why is Sub-Zero suddenly incapable of defeating Scorpion when he not only handily kicked his ass in the last game, but also defeated [[SNKBoss Goro and Kintaro]] at the same time? Hell, he seems to have the Dragon Medallion too so shouldn't he be even stronger than before now? In the original continuity it buffed him up to godlike levels.
** He was probably going "easy" on Scorpion, in hopes of gaining his trust.
** We also can't take one character overcoming another in a previous fight, as definitive statement on how future fights will go. Performance and fighting ability can vary a great deal, especially over the course of a couple decades. Outside of broad strokes, it's very difficult to figure out how characters measure up against one another. Raiden, as an actual god walking the Earth, sits at the high-end of the scale along with folks like Shinnok and Kotal Kahn. Cassie, Jacqui, Takeda, and Kung Jin are capable but comparatively mundane and inexperienced and can be said to sit at the lower end of the scale. But one can always have an "off day" or a bad match-up, and upset even these patterns.
** Considering Cassie has a power that allows her to take on Shinnok, i would not call her abilities mundane.
** I seriously doubt Sub-Zero's fighting skills have suffered in the intervening decades -- he was still capable of killing Sektor, he easily defeated Cassie and Company in rapid succession (and they were said to be the best the Special Forces had to offer), and even in the comic where he lost to Scorpion, the latter admitted that he only won because Kuai was weakened. He even had the upper hand for the battle until he lowered his defenses to try and reason with Scorpion. Once again, assuming he has the Dragon Medallion now, his power should be exponentially increased.

* Was there ever an explanation for how Goro got a new set of arms after Kotal Kahn tore off his previous four in the comic book series?
** No explanation is needed. See, being a DLC character, Goro plays no part in the Story Mode of the game (as opposed to the comic), and is only in the Arcade Ladder Mode, assuming you download him. And what happens in Arcade Ladder Mode is non-canon.

* Something has been bothering me for some time - why the hell won't anyone cut Raiden some slack? He made a mistake interpreting a message and didn't get the desired result, but he ''did'' obtain a result about a thousand times better than the alternative, one that likely saved the lives of billions. I'm starting to wonder if the characters who keep reminding him of his mistake are just using him as a scapegoat at this point. (I'd like to see any of them do a ''better'' job preventing the apocalypse with such scant information.)
** Keep in mind that it's mostly the Revenants who blame him. Jax (after being freed) actually ''defends'' Raiden's actions.
** It also bears mentioning that it's a better scenario for ''Earthrealm''. It's implied that Kitana has gotten visions of the original timeline, where Edenia and she personally came out a lot better at the expense of Earthrealm. From her point of view, which is also likely worsened by her status as a revenant, Raiden's actions have cost her nearly everything for a realm that isn't even hers. It could also be said that, while Raiden's actions has saved many lives in Earthrealm, the consequences of his actions have caused unparalleled amounts of destruction in Outworld. His manipulation of time has lead to a vastly larger realm falling into a near constant state of civil war and unrest, which is having effects that are spilling over into the other realms. Mileena personally blames him for killing Shao Kahn, her father, which he ''did'' do, which is why she refused to ally with Earthrealm the first time Shinnok broke out. All that being said...yeah, he is kind of a scapegoat. He was working off of very limited information, in the hopes of preventing what would have been ''total'' Armageddon, and unfortunately everyone just sort of has to take his word that things have improved. Which they're not likely to do for the reasons mentioned above.
** The problem is, they do have every rights to not trust and eventually blame Raiden. Limited information, yes, but aside of the players sitting in front of the TV, who in that world knows that if Raiden did not interfere, Armageddon would come? Even Raiden himself doesn't know, since all he got was "He must win." It kind of make sense that everyone thinks he's gone really delusional and quite self-entitled to demand the heroes to know that Raiden was 'trying to prevent Armageddon' and be all happy with him. ''The characters are not expected to share the knowledge of us audience''.
** It's heavily implied that the revenants have all been brainwashed into their darker personalities. Their current behavior is greatly out of character for what has been established, and Sareena and Kitana's encounter implies it's an effect of Quan Chi's magic and can be broken through embracing positive emotions. They all seem to be locked into a state of rage, hostility and resentment. The three revenants that broke free all act differently and greatly regret their previous behavior, the remaining revenants would likely have a similar HeelRealisation if they were restored as well.

* Just to clarify, when they say Kenshi's ''Eurasian'', do they mean to say he has one European parent and one Asian parent, or that he's descended from Eurasian nomads? His old bio said he was descended from a line of "Eurasian warrior kings", but to my knowledge, the only people who could qualify as "Eurasian warrior-kings" would be Cumans, Kypchaks, Huns, Pechenegs or other Turks, as well as Sarmatians like the Alans or Ugric speaking peoples... I personally guess the former, seeing as how there's really nothing about Kenshi that strikes me as "Turkic", least of all his choice of weapon and clothing.
** I was thinking the former. It could just be me, but I can't help but think he looks a bit like the half-Asian (all right, half-Pacific Islander) Keanu Reeves. It isn't impossible that he's half Japanese (given his name) and half-European/white, but has some distant ancestors in the Caucasus (after all, Johnny's ancestors are apparently Mediterranean but it probably wouldn't occur to you just to look at him).

* Why does Cassie have her father's surname? The Mortal Kombat wiki says that Sonya and Johnny were married, but obviously Sonya kept her own last name. Wouldn't that make the daughter either Cassie Blade or Cassie Blade-Cage?
** Obviously not, especially since it seems Cassie stayed with Johnny after the divorce. Plus Sonya probably was Sonya Cage while they were together and went back to using Blade after the divorce. Also remember that Cassie has a closer relationship with Johnny. It makes perfect sense she'd prefer to go by Cage rather than Blade.
** Even if Sonya kept her maiden name after marrying Johnny Cage (or if they'd hypothetically never gotten married at all), it wouldn't have mattered. He'd be listed on Cassie's birth certificate as her father, and Cage was the surname she was given.
** The simplest answer is because she wanted the surname Cage, she's legally an adult and capable of changing it to whatever she wishes. And considering everyone seems to insult her dad at every opportunity she may feel he needed the recognition more than her mother did.
** Cage is just Johnny's stage name, his actual last name is Carlton. Cassie's last name would actually be more like Carlton-Blade or Blade-Carlton. So she probably uses the name Cage to emulate her father.
*** Cage is his legal name, he had it changed ages ago, hence why nobody ever calls him that, not even Raiden whose on a full name basis with everyone.

* Why doesn't Sub-Zero have his beard in his masked primary costume? For that matter, neither does Scorpion.
** They had a shave, I'd guess. Beards and facemasks don't work well together.
** Says who? Anyway, Scorpion keeps both his beard and facemask at the same time in the comic. Sub-Zero also wears a mask over his beard in the Unbreakable variation if he's in his alt.
*** Maybe Sub-Zero just doesn't like having a beard and facemask at the same time. Hanzo would feel a stronger attachment to his appearance after his identity issues with Scorpion.

* Why does Sub-Zero [[spoiler:"co-sign" Scorpion's mission to kill Quan Chi? He knows that some of earth's heroes (including Smoke, his friend) are Quan's revenants and Quan Chi's death could keep them trapped that way. Yet he doesn't do ANYTHING with that information.]]
** This is discussed on the YMMV page with the speculation that Sub-Zero simply decided that there was little hope of the other revenants being restored. In Smoke's case, he may just be resigned to his friend being gone and permanently being replaced by the Enenra he was possessed by.
*** But why? I might agree if not for the fact not only is he talking to someone who had the process reversed but he ''himself'' is an ex-revenant. The idea Quan Chi must be alive in order to revive the revenants seems sketchy (since when they were revived it seemed like it was Raiden doing more of the work) but in the very least the idea the revenants can't be saved is surely something both of them would agree is not impossible. Plus they both agree that being a revenant sucks (since it has them doing things they hate themselves for but are powerless to stop), surely that must also hold for those still trapped like Smoke or Nightwolf.
*** It bares remembering, that they were only freed from their status as revenants through a very unusual set of circumstances. Each of the revenants that were freed and Quan-Chi were in the proximity of the ritual, as Johnny Cage sat between life-and-death, with Raiden actively using his own brand of magic to reverse the spell as it was happening to Johnny. There's a good chance that even Raiden didn't expect what he was doing to end up reversing the process for Jax, Sub-Zero, and Scorpion. Even if Quan Chi cooperated, which is itself unlikely, they would have needed to subdue the remaining revenants, bring them to Quan Chi's ritual chamber in the Nether Realm, then undergo a dangerous application of magic. It's not impossible, true, but it's still unlikely to happen without a hitch. Between the unlikelihood of pulling that off, that Sub-Zero would recognize Quan Chi as a dangerous threat that should be ended, and the fact that he wouldn't have likely been able to change Scorpion's mind, it may have simply been sheer pragmatism. There's also the angle that, Sub-Zero may have recognized Scorpion's right to seek his vengeance on Quan Chi, for the death of his family. Given that Quan Chi also ended up screwing over the Lin Kuei and orchestrated events that lead to Sub-Zero's brother becoming a monster, he may have been quite sympathetic to Scorpion's decision.
*** Quan Chi is also far too dangerous to be allowed to live. He constantly evades death and then reappears to make everything ten times worse than before. This is a villain who you HAVE to kill when you have the chance, because unless you take the greatest of precaution, he's guaranteed to slip through your fingers. Raiden was optimistic of the heroes' chances of bringing back the revenants, but Sub-Zero acknowledges that the likelihood of Quan Chi escaping and wreaking even more havoc is simply too great. And with Shinnok's Amulet unaccounted for, that is just a risk you can't take.
** None of the former revenants seem to hold much hope of the others being freed and share the desire to kill Quan Chi. Jax is the most optimistic but even he doesn't seem to really think it'll happen, Sub-Zero is more of a realist, he'll morn the loss of Smoke and the others but prioritize the death of Quan Chi, therefore removing one of Earthrealm's biggest threats, granting the revenants a degree of freedom and avenging his brother.
** Sub-Zero was aware that the amulet was (or would be) stolen. Quan Chi alive still poses a threat to both the new Lin Kuei and the new Shirai Ryu due to repeating the manipulation past; imagine if Quan Chi manipulated Frost. With Quan Chi being the only person to restore Shinnok, his return pose a much bigger threat than the revenants, especially after seeing Shinnok's non-canon ending of summoning the One Being has he succeeded.

* Why does the victim explode in Kung Jin's "Pinned Down" fatality? He impales them on his bow, and they just blow up for no reason. Sure, he can shoot fireballs from the tip of his staff in his Bojutsu variation, but that doesn't explain how it works in his other variations, not to mention there is no visible fire/explosion.
** Presumably he just twists the staff in the enemy's insides with such force as to rip them apart. Also RuleOfCool.
** The dragon head on his arrow is not just for decoration. It spews out fireballs, so presumably that's what he uses to blow the body up for that Fatality.

* So was D'Vorah [[spoiler:ever interested in Kotal Kahn's regime at all? She seems very committed to working with Kotal during the coup but come the time of the game's story she's firmly a Netherrealm sympathizer, as if she had been in Quan Chi and Shinnok's servitude all along]]. If that's the case then why even bother to depose Mileena? And it's not because of the amulet because that only becomes a factor after Mileena is unseated and [[spoiler:it was at Rain's suggestion she take it]]. Removing Mileena and instating Kotal as the emperor is a lateral move at best for her purposes and required a lot of work just to get nowhere.
** Very committed? "This One understands your logic but doesn't reach the same conclusion", remember? I assume she just realized that her influence on Mileena (who seemed to trust nobody except Baraka and possibly Tanya) was rather limited and there was no chance that Kahnum would [[spoiler:let her lay hands on the amulet once it was found]]. On the contrary, Kotal Kahn put a great faith in D'Vorah, making her his First Minister - precisely due to her decision to support him in the coup. Or, even simpler, she just calculated that Mileena's rule wouldn't last much longer and decided to be on the winning side.
** [[spoiler:It seems like D'vorah has [[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder no loyalties]] towards ''anyone'' but herself and her swarm. Presumably she was sticking around with Kotal because he was offering her a high-ranked position, treated her better than most others, and was the greatest power around. As soon as Kotal stopped being the "winning side", D'vorah dropped him like he was hot. Would she do the same to Shinnok if she had a chance? Non-canonical as it may be, her Tower ending says "oh yes, she would".]]
** It's stated outright in the game D'Vorah was under orders to stay close to Outworld's throne until she could get her hands on Shinnok's amulet. She was "loyal" to Mileena right up to the moment it became clear Mileena was doomed then she became "loyal' to Kotal. Had Rain's plan bore fruit she likely would have become "Loyal" to him as well, until she found a way to steal the amulet. It's similar to Tanya's 'I fight for the winning side' mentality but with a long term plan.
** The comic covers this. Upon witnessing the power of Shinnok's amulet, she switched her allegiance to Shinnok and Quan Chi.

* Okay, so back in [=MK9=], after [[spoiler:the invasion of Tarkatans after Shang Tsung's proposal of a new tournament was turned down, Raiden tells Johnny and Jax that Liu Kang and Kung Lao went to free their Shaolin masters. However, in Raiden's chapter in MKX, Raiden goes with them.]] Did I miss something?
** You didn't miss anything. [[spoiler:Raiden went to Outworld first with Liu Kang and Kung Lao, then returned to Johnny and Jax to take them to the Outworld tournament. It's mentioned in the MKX scene there are ''two'' ships with the Shaolin masters on. One has already set sail, the other is at the docks. Raiden, Liu Kang and Kung Lao take over the docked ship, then Raiden says he has to return to the tournament. That's when he goes back to Johnny and Jax and takes them to Outworld.]]

* In the comic, it is stated that Reiko had reduced the Osh-Tekk race to just Kotal Kahn. However, there are numerous skull-masked troops seen throughout the story mode; while they aren't identified in the main game, the MKX mobile game identifies as "Osh-Tekk". Was Reiko mistaken? Is the name simply adopted by those serving Kotal's regime? Is this a SeriesContinuityError? An error on the mobile game's part?
** Probably just what Kotal decided to name his forces out of tribute to his people.

* Why would anybody listen to Raiden after he went dark? Something is clearly wrong with him, what with the EvilCostumeSwitch, FemmeFatalons, and GlowingEyesOfDoom, just like the revenants. The only difference is the lack of glowing veins. And he's wearing Shinnok's amulet.
** He wasn't necessarily evil, just a bit more unhinged with his methods. He's still Earthrealm's designated protector, so people will still listen to him.
** The other thing to consider is we have no indication of when Raiden's transformation took place as he appeared normal the last time we saw him before the ending, so it could have happened afterwards and the Netherrealm might just so happen to be the first to see him like that.
*** My theory is that He appears normal to the good guys, but look like Dark Raiden to the bad guys. This could be a Reason Bo' Rai' Cho' defends Outworld in his Arcade ending. He sees through Raiden's Disguise and decides to do something about it.
** Looking at the Mortal Kombat 11 prologue trailer, it is presumed that the timeframe from the prologue to the Mortal Kombat X epilogue was very short. Shinnok was chained. Everyone else (Special Ops and a captured D'Vorah) left. Raiden stayed in the Jinsei there to recover and absorb the remaining corrupted essence out of it. Once Raiden reawakened with his new darker power, he does his torture and head slice to Shinnok. He disappears for a short time without seeing Kronika. He then returns back to the Jinsei. He goes to the Netherrealm and sends the decapitated head of Shinnok to Liu Kang and Kitana. In other words, outside of the few who seen dark Raiden, no one else knows yet.

* How old exactly are the kids? In Takeda's chapter we see a flashback to five years before the story begins and he's implied to be 18, making him 23 in the main story mode. The beginning flashback takes place 20 years before the main story, and Sonya and Johnny still don't exactly get along. So Cassie would be around 20, right? And 20 years ago is also when Jax and some others were revived, so would Jacqui also be 20? Kung Jin is the only one to not be given any details to determine how old he is. So would Takeda be 23, Jacqui and Cassie 20, and Kung Jin unknown?
** It seems Cassie should be older than that, given that she already has an extensive career in military special forces (not that other characters don't have implausible skills and achievements under their belts, of course... like the screen actor who's on par with SpecOp agents and Shaolin Monks). Is it possible, despite the clues, that Johnny and Sonya have already begun their relationship and had a baby at the time of the Netherrealm War?

* The issue of Kung Jin's [[spoiler:homosexuality]] makes no sense. Why would Kung Lao and Liu Kang reject him when Raiden accepts him and outright states that The White Lotus does too? This is the same as Jesus saying, in The Bible, [[spoiler:"Being Gay is A-Okay]] and the priests, ministers, reverends, etc. still speak out against it.
** Raiden does not fill the same role as Jesus in terms of moral compass. He is more a commander in chief than a role model, so his opinion may not matter to those who have seen he is far from perfect in his actions and opinions. In addition to that, Kung Lao is family, which makes it all the more personal, and Liu Kang may simply not agree with that rule and feels free to speak out against it.
** Has it ever been said outright that Lao and Liu reject him for that reason? He doesn't have any interactions with Kung Lao that indicate a real problem, simply that he's inexperienced and in over his head, and kind of a dick really. You could make an argument for some of Liu Kang's comments but even those could easily refer to him being a thief or his immaturity. He's certainly faced discrimination but it's not stated from whom exactly. Hell, based on the timeline Kung Lao and Liu Kang would have been dead before he would have even realized he was let alone have a chance to comment on it.
** Where exactly does Jesus say that in the Bible?

* Why does Cassie and her team suck so badly? They go to Outworld for what is implied to be their first interrealm mission and Kung Jin immediately risks war with Outworld over a thief just because [[spoiler:he used to be one]]. He has no idea what that guy stole, yet decides that it's more important than maintaining the truce. Facing [[spoiler:Sub-Zero]] alone proved how incompetent they were, who in their right mind would pick them for such an important job?
** The team is like the dream team of the new fighters for Earthrealm. Individually they have excellent records, but they are new as a team. Kung Jin is a jerk and Cassie lacks the authority to hold him on a leash, leading to most of the problems they encounters. Why would they send them rather than a more experienced team? The Lin Kuei are allies but don't mingle unless it's really important, and nothing at that time seemed to be dire. The Shirai Ryu doesn't care at all, Takeda being here because he's been freed from his duty to the clan. And the major players of SF are busy hunting Quan Chi and his revenants, a much more major threat to Earthrealm than a check up on an ally. It's the kind of mission you'd send an inexperienced team on, because unless someone messes things up immensely [[spoiler:Kung JIIIIIIIIN]] there is little actual danger.
** The simple fact is that they were best available for the job. Everyone better than them is either busy with more pressing matters or dead. They've got the skill but lack the maturity and experience to be effective. The only way to overcome that is to keep them working together until they start to learn. Also, Jin is not emotionally stable, he's dealing with massive inferiority and self loathing and he covers that by being rude and lashing out.

* How can Triborg have Cyber Smoke as one of his forms? Cyber Smoke never existed thanks to Raiden's time travel bit. He's still Enenra, right? Is Triborg just impervious to canon because he's not a story mode character?
** Triborg's bio states that all of the Lin Kuei had their information recorded onto a server where they served as a backup to the living members should they not be cyberized. The Triborg character came about because the information on Sektor, Cyrax, Smoke and Sub-Zero were uploaded into a test body built by Special Forces after Sektor's death. Unfortunately for them, it just so happened a malicious AI resided on the the server.


* If all the characters have unique dialogue between them...how will Jason work, since he doesn't talk? Or the Predator, for that matter.
** The more talkative and snarky characters are going to have a field day riffing on the lack of responses, while the more quiet and serious guys could do good enough with a general reaction to Jason and the Predator.
** In its own franchise, the Predator had the ability to copy phrases as a means of luring prey. It also had the ability to make more noises than the iconic clicking noise.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfP2mhYvqL8 Jason's trailer]] does confirm that Jason will be TheVoiceless (although the other characters fire off one liners to him first).

* In Erron Black's X-ray move, he has a bullet marked with the name of every possible playable character, some of which include his allies. While it could be him just being CrazyPrepared, it gets a little strange when he performs an X-ray move on [[MirrorMatch himself]], and the bullet is labeled "Me". Was fighting against a doppelganger of himself something he was also prepared for, or was that bullet in case he'd ever have to [[DrivenToSuicide take his]] [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled own life]]?
** Given what has [[AndIMustScream been known to happen to some characters]] in this franchise, that may not be a bad idea.
** FridgeBrilliance ensues when taking into account [[spoiler:his ending, where it's revealed that he's OlderThanHeLooks thanks to interactions with Shang Tsung. If he interacted with Shang Tsung regularly enough, he might know enough about the Flesh Pits to realize that he might have to clash with a potential doppelganger in the future.]]

* With regards to [[spoiler:Scorpion's ending, where the Shirai Ryu are infused with a portion of the Jinsei, having extended life to serve as Earthrealm's protectors]]... does that include Takeda? Wouldn't he also be affected by this?
** Scorpion tells him in Story mode that his path doesn't lie with the Shirai Ryu, so probably not.
** Or... he may have been the first. Issue #13 of the MKX comics show how the Jinsei chamber managed to revive him out of the discharge Raiden gave to him when the latter was possessed by the Kamidogu. He also felt empowered.

* Also Smoke appears in one of the Lin Kuei Faction Kills titled "Smokes Revenge" [[spoiler: despite still being a revenant due to Quan Chi being killed by Scorpion.]]
** The majority of non-story mode matches are not canon, as evidenced by the possibility of Takeda stabbing Kenshi with his own rib cage.

* Scorpion's first Fatality seems to leave his opponent alive, if temporarily: to wit, he slices off his opponent's face, and with it, a good part of the front half of their head. Even though he sliced off the frontmost parts of his victim's brain, their tongue and larynx can still be seen twitching in agony. If anything, it will be blood loss that kills the victim in the end, and not the slicing-off-part-of-your-brain part. To quote ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys'': "It's amazing that the human body can live without the frontal lobe, you know?"
** This is ignoring the fact that said fatality starts with Scorpion burning a hole through the opponent's torso with their heart basically dangling on a thread, so cutting through the person's brain and head is certainly going to kill them just from sheer trauma & blood loss at that point as they fall over on the ground.

* In Kotal Kahn's tower ending, [[spoiler: Outworld is forced to defend itself from Earthrealm in the Mortal Kombat tournament. Erron Black is shown to be among the defenders of Outworld, ready to fight in the tournament]]. However, it was stated [[VideoGame/MortalKombatDeadlyAlliance several]] [[VideoGame/MortalKombatDeception times]] that Bo' Rai Cho could not fight on Earthrealm's behalf in the Mortal Kombat tournament because he was not born in Earthrealm; if he fought in the tournament, he would be representing Outworld. [[spoiler: So technically, Erron Black can't represent Outworld because he was born in Earthrealm]].
** Black's ending reveals he was an assassin for Shang Tsung, eliminating potential Earthrealm warriors from the Tournament. Not only that, but ''[=MK9=]'' had Sektor, Cyrax and Bi Han fight for Shang Tsung despite being Earthrealmers. It could be a loophole or a simple retcon that lets them compete.
*** Shang Tsung was bound to Shao Khan using sorcery. It's possible that Shang Tsung set Erron to no longer register as an Earthrealmer. And depending on when Erron first reached Outworld, Kotal also could have used his power to make Erron count as an Outworlder.
** It only matters what Realm you belong to if you win the tournament. That's why Bo' Rai Cho can't compete, he's badass enough to beat everyone which would just serve Shao Kahn. The Lin Kuei warriors were never going to win the tournament in 9, they were hired by Shang Stung to eliminate the other Earthrealm warriors, a clever way to cheat without breaking the rules by assaulting them himself. If they'd eliminated all of them he would have simply told them to forfeit or had Gorro kill them and steal their souls. Same goes for Erron, he can fight for whatever side he wants, his birth Realm only matters if he wins.

* Johnny Cage is stated to be the descendant of Mediterranean warriors who fought for the Elder Gods... but doesn't his last name, Carlton, basically imply Anglo-Saxon descent?
** Just because they were once there hundreds of years ago doesn't mean they didn't travel and spread out since then.

* Why would Shinnok of all people be aware of the guest fighters? Does he have some sort of interest in Earthrealm movies?
** Shinnok probably has a degree of omniscience as a result of his (fallen) Elder God status. Shinnok implies such when the revenant alert him to Jax's team being in the Netherrealm, Shinnok stating that he already knows; as he had recently been freed from the Amulet, which had been in Outworld for an extended time and not in the Netherrealm, that's the only way he could have known.
** Shinnok is an Elder God, though fallen from grace, he knows every Realm and every species. Jason and Leatherface are from Earthrealm, the Alien's bio states they tried to invade Outworld in the past and Predator seems to be from an unspecified Realm.
*** They're treated as real in the Mortal Kombat universe even if (probably) not canon. Then again, Mortal Kombat 8 was the DC Universe invading and that's apparently canon.

* What exactly happened in the old timeline after Shao Kahn won? The merger of the realms is supposed to set off the release of the One Being and, by all accounts, that happened because Raiden sending a message back to the events of ''Mortal Kombat 1'' forked the timeline (hence why Kronika is irritated in ''11'' and why uncorrupted versions of Kung Lao and Liu Kang are getting involved, since they were plucked from a timeline where they weren't already dead). So does that mean the One Being also exists within the constraints of time and that Shao Kahn probably did release it in the original timeline while the new one didn't suffer such a fate since Armageddon didn't occur? Or did the changed events also negate the realm merger from the original timeline as well and releasing the One Being in one timeline would eradicate all forms of time period?
** It was wiped out by Raiden's actions, completely gone. However [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGqt4oTA9XE Kitana's arcade ending]] in ''X'' suggests if not for Raiden, Earthrealm would have been wrecked, but Kitana would have united the other realms and destroyed Shao, ushering in an era of peace.
*** Except Kitana was dead already in that timeline, as was almost everyone else. Kitana is being clearly manipulated into thinking things could have been better, not that they actually would have been.
** Mortal Kombat 11 stated that by altering time itself, the other timeline gets erased. So, what happened to the original Shao Kahn is wiped out due to Raiden altering the timeline to kill off Shao Kahn in the 2011/X timeline.

* Why is Revenant Sub-Zero fully human in this game, when the previous game's story mode showed ''Cyber'' Sub-Zero among Quan Chi's newly acquired revenants?
** The comic shows Quan-Chi, who has a distaste for cybernetic technology, regenerate his physical body with magic during their time in the Netherrealm.

* Even when Kuai Liang reveals to Scorpion that [[spoiler: Quan Chi was the true murderer of the Shirai Ryu]], shouldn't Scorpion still be pissed at Bi-Han for being the one who initially killed him, which led to Scorpion's first bout as a Revenant under Quan Chi? (Assuming the events of ''Mythologies'' happen the same way in the rebooted timeline, that is).
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Mortal Kombat 11]]

* Kronika has relatives? [[SarcasmMode What a surprise.]] One of the recently introduced newcomers of ''Mortal Kombat'' universe - the Elder Goddess called ''Cetrion'' - is her daughter. Here is yet another curveball: Cetrion is also Shinnok's sister. Does this mean that Shinnok would actually be Kronika's (possibly disowned) son?
** Yes, Shinnok's her son. Given her desire for balance, she may have also been helping him do as well as he did in the various timelines - so there'd be a suitable darkness to oppose light after Shao Kahn's defeat, considering the guy's a putz.
*** Alrighty then. But what if Kronika herself persuaded Shinnok to turn on his brothers and sisters? Maybe she's the one who gave him the obsession to conquer Earthrealm in the first place? She also could give Shinnok a subtle direction towards Netherrealm's throne while he was cast out for treason.

* At the end of Chapter 1, [[spoiler: we see Sonya sacrifice herself in order to complete the mission - destroy Shinnok's Bone Temple in the Netherrealm. Immediately afterwards, Kronika appears before Revenant Liu Kang and Revenant Kitana and easily undoes the destruction. Which should mean that this should undo Sonya's death as well. Older Sonya is promptly treated as KIA, but forgotten by Liu Kang or Kitana, who should have taken her prisoner. Or Sonya should have attempted to escape the Netherrealm. Or they should have hinted at the fact that Kronika's Time Rewind doesn't affect dead people (which wouldn't make sense in general, but would fix the plot hole related to Older Sonya's death).]] It's a plot hole, and a big one.
** Kronika can selectively alter the flow of time, she left her dead on purpose.
** It's also possible that she only rewound the structure and not the people who died there.

* How does the One Being play into [=MK11=] story mode and [[spoiler: Kronika herself and her goals? Throughout the story, it's never made clear how exactly she plays into the rest of the lore and how the time stuff affect the one being, especially the ending.]]
** It's not explicit in the story but Scorpion and Sonya's endings state that there's an even higher lair of gods than the Elder Gods (like the One Being and Kronika). So that means that it's probably a HeroOfAnotherStory kind of deal.

* Is there any legitimate reason (other than RuleOfCool) to bring back ''Shao Kahn'' for ''Mortal Kombat 11''? Even if there is one, then ''how the game will explain his comeback''?
** He's from the past (specifically ''MK 2'' era), like Liu Kang, Kung Lao, Good Raiden, etc. TimeCrash basically brought all of those characters back
** There is also a character arc reason for his return.

* How was Liu Kang's future self/revenant counterpart able to absorb his soul without erasing himself from existence?
** It's possible Liu Kang wasn't entirely dead from having his soul stolen, just in some kind of state of suspended being. It's also possible that since there was still a way to potentially bring Young Liu Kang back, that time hadn't recognized him as being erased, unlike Kano who had a hole where one's brain should be. It could also be that Kronika's keep exists outside of time, and events taking place in there are paradox-proof.
** There's also the simple fact that Future/Revenant Liu Kang is already technically dead. Being dead in the past isn't going to make Future/Revenant Liu Kang any deader than he already was. Whereas, with Kano, he never had Quan Chi mucking about to bring him back in any sort of undead state.

* If Kronika needed souls to "power up", wouldn't she utilize the service of Shang Tsung and Quan Chi - and revive them for this timeline?
** Maybe she's fully aware of how dangerous and cunning these two sorcerers are. They aren't called ''Deadly Alliance'' for nothing. After all, their combined intelligence would be sufficient enough to outsmart ''even her''.
** Why would she? She clearly states that she's already made use of Shang Tsung to provide the power she needs and Liu Kang as mastered his sorcery so if she needs more she's got him. Bringing either of those two back would just piss off Shao Kahn and the revenants. Plus they're both the type to try and steal her hourglass for themselves instead of just following the plan.
** Explained by Cetrion in some match intros with Shang Tsung. Kronika recruited him in previous timelines, but he always betrayed her. With Quan Chi being even more treacherous, it's safe to assume the same thing happened.
** This may be covered in ''Aftermath''. Kronika revealed that Shang Tsung is very dangerous, yet wonders why the forces of good are siding with him.
** This is explained in Aftermath. Full stop. Since the defeat of Kronika, Liu Kang agreed to send him back in time to retrieve the crown, and anticipated that Shang Tsung would betray everyone and be powerful enough to absorb Kronika's soul. As for Quan Chi, his whereabouts are unknown, though it can be hinted his involvement with Cetrion, Shinnok's sister.

* One more thing about Kronika. When you beat her in classic mode. Why does she crawl? I mean she can probably get up, run to the crown, repair the hourglass, then get back to ass-kicking ('Nam flashbacking to a 22 hit combo.).
** That's the thing, you already kicked her ass. And knowing that sometimes adrenaline can cloud logical thoughts it's not too far-fetched that she'd crawl instead of run.
** And some of the fighters in this game are strong enough to: create shockwaves, keep themselves supported when bicycle-kicking, heave a huge hammer, use frickin hair as a support, throw a gun hard enough to make a lot of blood come out your face, shoot f*cking heat out of their arms, nut punch hard enough for your head to pop off, pick someone up without extra support, flap two fans hard enough to propel their ass hard enough to crack someone's skull, pull someone with a chain-kunai and nothing else, lift someone on an axe, push hard enough to make a spike of blood go through someone's head, push hard enough with legs to dental nightmare someone, pull a spear out of a body easily, break a lot of ribcage's and beat the mad goddess of time.
** She just got the living daylights beaten out of her and to top it off, she was punched with enough force to break the hourglass and land on the ground. Being such a powerful relic, it's very likely that breaking it isn't an easy task, so the force used to knock her into it had to be pretty hard. Taking all this into account, it's reasonable to believe she's still dazed an stunned from the impact, so she couldn't muster enough balance to stand up as she was.

* As the ''Mortal Kombat'' universe was established during its first years, we all knew that the Realms were created by the Elder Gods as a result of overpowering the One Being and shattering it into the pieces. Also, we knew that at the beginning of time, there were ''only'' Elder Gods and the One Being - the emphasis on the word '''only'''. Thus, there was nothing that could exist ''before'' the Elder Gods in general. And yet, we have ''Mortal Kombat 11''. This title introduces a major contradiction - the ''Titans'' (of which Kronika is the only known member). The Titans are said to exist ''even earlier than the Elder Gods'' - which is evidenced by one of such gods, Cetrion, being Kronika's daughter. Did the developers forgot that no other race would exist at the dawn of the [=MK=] universe, ''before the Elder Gods and the One Being''? What's the point of bringing up the Titans? Why change the lore so drastically?
** It really isn't a drastic change at all; it's explicit the One Being fed on the Elder Gods, so they had to come from somewhere, being the spawn of older gods is hardly a large asterisk. Like Gaia, Khaos, or Cipactli, it could be that the One Being ''is'' a Titan or their parent, and being slain allowed the Elder Gods to remake it into the Realms.

* Past Raiden claims that his future self disappears because he's immortal - and when it comes to immortals, ThereCanBeOnlyOne. But what about Scorpion, Liu Kang and Erron Black? They are immortal too, but aren't affected the same way as Raiden.
** Think about the word "immortal" as in "deity" or "god". (Dark) Raiden certainly fits the description well. As for Scorpion, he's certainly immortal - but as an undead wraith resurrected to serve Quan Chi; he doesn't have godly powers. Liu Kang was brought back to life as a revenant, but that also doesn't make him immortal in the godly sense of the word. ''Why'' do you thought about Erron Black being immortal? His life was ''magically prolonged'' by Shang Tsung - and such operation doesn't render him immortal; he can simply live hundreds of years without breaking a sweat.
** Scorpion has never been immortal. All that could happen to him is that he gets resurrected, but he has never been deemed an immortal. Besides, his future self is human again anyway.
** Also, Dark Raiden simply wouldn't be included into Kronika's plans: she needed the original - ''unaltered'' - Raiden.
*** Needed for what? In fact, Raiden being present at all is what ultimately spoils her plans. She was only threatened by the combined power of Liu Kang and Raiden, taking either one off the board would solve the issue. Speaking of that, how was she able to bring Past Raiden to the future at all, if gods are immune to her time manipulation powers?
*** She simply opened the time portal and Raiden came through, it was a necessary move to bring the others to the present. Plus, a younger, uncorrupted Raiden is less aggressive and dangerous than the aggressive, proactive Dark Raiden. It also robs him of his current timeline knowledge, making him less aware of his own resources and wastes their time having to explain things.

* Why did Kronika's time manipulation also bring forward a bunch of good-aligned characters from the past, along with her recruiting the bad ones? It's not like she just cast a wide net and scooped up a bunch of innocent bystanders; they were very specifically important characters from MK's history who collectively became integral to stopping her plans. Was this just a weirdly-specific cosmic screw-up on Kronika's part?
** What effects the past fighters also effects the present ones, if Kronika can turn the past versions of Liu Kang, Kung Lao, Jade and Kitana to turn on Raiden then that robs Raiden of allies and strengthens her position without her having to rewrite their destinies which makes her end goal easier to achieve. You'll notice Kronika has each of the past fighters fight their future selves and reveal what led to their deaths (aside from Kitana, but that's because Kitana was largely out of the action for most of the story playing diplomat).
** Could be Kronika's obsession with symmetry and balance just being that extreme. In any case, having them all fight each other stopped the time-displaced good guys from beating her and stopped the time-displaced bad guys from putting two and two together and turning on her for clearly not intending to keep her promises.
** Could also be that Past!Raiden saw Shao Kahn vanish in a ripple and decide to follow him to see what happens. I don't think we ever saw what happened from their perspective.
** I'm pretty sure Kronika ''did'' "just cast a wide net and scooped up a bunch of innocent bystanders." Everyone who shows up from the past into the arena are people who were at the tournament with Shao Kahn and the others she was after. The only others that arrive in the future who weren't there are the cyborgs and Noob Saibot. Her control of time is not perfect (or she wouldn't need to keep redoing history over and over), I assumed bringing forward the heroes was a mistake.

* "But I re-read the file." ''When'', Sonya? Did you seriously sit down and re-read the report after every screen turned red, alarms started blaring, and your future daughter screaming: "We're under attack, go to Condition Red!" over the loudspeaker? I know you were ordered by your future-daughter-CO to do so, but: 1) Did that really seem like the appropriate action at that particular moment, and 2) Could you really concentrate on that specific issue with all those (urgent) distractions going on?
** Between killing Kano(s) and Geras' attack, there was plenty of time for her to take a break and re-read said report.
** It was very likely Sonya lied. Cassie gave Sonya a very justified WhatTheHellHero response for accusing her of leaving her own mother to die, especially since it just recently happened. Sonya had a JerkassRealization and after Cassie stormed at Kano's hideout to rescue her and Johnny, Sonya admitted her mistake in her own way. It's not a perfect apology but it took a lot off of Cassie's guilt of being unable to save her Sonya.

* So in Scorpion's chapter, we see that Cetrion needs to raise a bridge to gather Kronika's army because Kharon won't help them with his boats, and that taxes Cetrion's powers. 2 Chapters later, Kronika's even ''bigger'' boat attacks Raiden's. So why not use Kronika's own super boat in the first place? Heck, her ship doesn't even rely on sails.
** You need more than a boat to travel between realms, especially to Kronika's since her keep is between them.
*** Alternatively, her battleship wasn't large enough to transport the entire Cyber Lin Kuei/Netherrealm demon army. After all, Kharon has a small fleet of barges, not just the one boat.
** Kharon's purpose is, in a cosmic sense, to ferry souls across the rivers of the Netherrealm. So it's not strange that his purpose is a source for as many ships as are needed to carry the heroes and their forces. Kronika is a time goddess, she cannot create an armada out of nothing unless she carefully manipulates the timeline to give one to her, which has proven a slow and delicate process.

* During the fight between present Johnny Cage and past Johnny Cage, how is present Johnny Cage not getting hurt when he beats up his younger self? The timeline rules explicity stated that past selves getting hurt affects the present selves.

* As Raiden states multiple times, Immortals are immune from Kronika's manipulation of the timeline. Near the end of the story, Kronika reverses time to send Kharon's fleet back from their assault. So what happened to Kharon? Is he a "lesser" type of Immortal and thus affected, or was he just standing there pissed off while his ships sailed backwards against his will?
** You must interpret "Immortals" as "Deities" or "Gods".
** Nobody ever said Immortals are immune to her powers, just that they respond to them differently. For example Raiden can be yanked from his place in history just as easily as everyone else but doing so replaces his modern self rather than co-existing like the others. The big rewind is reversing time itself, Kharon included.

* At the end of the story, ''how'' Kronika gets crystallized? And, is it possible for her to recover from LiterallyShatteredLives predicament?
** Like all gods, she's made up of her element - in this case, the Sands of Time. When sand is super-heated, it becomes glass, and Liu Kang killed her.
* On that aforementioned note, let's address her fate in the Arcade Mode. How the shards from the Hourglass are able to slice Kronika's limbs off? She's an immortal goddess, for crying out loud!
** Shinnok was an immortal god and that didn't keep him from being decapitated. It didn't kill him, but there's not a lot one can do as just a head. That was likely the same with Kronika, with her being bisected and sliced up not being anywhere near lethal for her; perhaps not even having her head split in half killed her. But, again, it doesn't matter if you're still alive, if you've been reduced to chunks.

* "Not even you can kill an Elder God." Immortality seems to be the Elder Gods' only real defining trait, given how repeatedly they're overpowered. Yet Kronika dispatches them all off-screen, destroys Cetrion, and is killed by Liu Kang. In what way they are immortal at all?
** The Elder Gods cannot be killed by anything less than them - only an equal or greater power can kill them. Cetrion killed the other Elder Gods and then sacrificed herself to power up her mother for the fight against Liu Kang. Liu Kang couldn't have killed Cetrion on his own, even with Raiden's godhood. Kronika is a Titan and follows different rules.

* In Jax's arcade ending, wouldn't preventing slavery erase himself from existence? This was a big deal in Jacqui's ending, where she made a HeroicSacrifice to save her father from becoming a revenant, thus preventing his PTSD, knowing it meant he would never meet her mother and she would never be born. Jax preventing slavery would prevent the circumstances under which his ancestors met, especially if he, like most African-Americans, have tiny bits of European and/or Native American blood as well. He says that it took him a couple tries to get it right, but wouldn't he have erased himself the first time he said "No slavery"? It ''would'' be in-character for him to willingly sacrifice himself to make such a change, but the whole point of his ending was that he got everything he wanted.
** It's likely that having control over the hourglass also renders one outside of the usual cause-and-effect of their actions, until they actually let those actions "sink in" and released control over the hourglass. Jacqui disappeared because she accepted her disappearance from the timeline as being the only way to save her father. Jax's trauma was a fundamental keypoint to her being born. With eliminating slavery from the timeline, that's far enough back that Jax has more wiggle room. And for a being with infinite control over time, a "couple" of tries might as well be hundreds or thousands of tries.
** The difference between the two scenarios is that Jacqui made no effort to maintain herself, she just crafted a timeline where her dad was happy and accepted it, Jax took time to sculpt a future that contained the changes he wanted and maintained the people he cared about as well.
*** Which is kind of dark, as it implies that Jacqui might have developed a bit of a death wish, worse still a death wish brought on by the trauma of seeing her dad undergo a FaceHeelTurn by joining Kronika just to, in his own mind, protect her. She basically thinks that her dad might have been happier had she never been born.
*** This is, sadly, a thing that really happens. Children whose existence is linked to some tragedy for their loved ones often blame themselves for their parents pain and think those same loved ones would be better of without them. Seeing her dad's mental breakdown after the death of her mom has made Jacqui hyper aware that she owes her life to her dad's pain.
** I admit this is only speculation, but using the hourglass makes his control of time absolute, right? He could just fill in a new family history for himself and Jacqui and anyone else. Genetically they'd be different but not significantly so.

* In the Koliseum fight, Kotal gets saved when Liu Kang and Raiden gang up on Shao Kahn. When Kotal gets back from the lower level, Raiden is somewhere off-screen while Liu Kang is fighting a random guard on the opposite end of the Koliseum from Shao Kahn (who's just getting finished with kicking the shit out of Jade). So...''why'', exactly, did Raiden and Liu Kang stop fighting Shao Kahn? As far as they're aware, he's the biggest threat to the realms ever, and they just demonstrated that they're willing to team up to fight him. For that matter, as far as Shao Kahn is aware, his mortal enemy and greatest obstacle were both within arms reach; someone as overconfident as him would have seen that situation as being able to kill two birds with one stone. Considering the characters, Shao Kahn should have been in the middle of getting bailed out by D'Vorah by the time Kotal made it back to the surface.
** It's impossible to say what took place in the battle that lead Liu Kang and Raiden to focus their efforts elsewhere. Perhaps they were separated from Shao Kahn or perhaps they broke off fighting him so that they could save someone else.
** Remember, Baraka was also in that fight and this game treats him as a serious threat.

* It seems like Kronika's major hangup with our timeline is that the forces of good and evil aren't carrying on with their senseless, endless war. Okay, fine. But... why does she need to abort the timeline to fix that? Why can't Wraith Liu Kang serve Shinnok's role as Big Daddy Evil? Or, hell, Dark Raiden, for that matter? Either one looked like they were headed that way. And how does the original timeline emphasize Balance in any way? It ends with Shao Kahn taking over the world! That sounds like a decisive victory in Evil's favor. For that matter, how has Shinnok been contributing to Balance when he's been sealed away for millennia?
** Here are some possible explanations. ''First,'' Kronika could sense that the "endless war" you're addressing is about to get [=FUBAR=]'ed if she doesn't "set the things right" in her favor. She clearly saw that the Balance shifted ''waaaaay'' too drastically for the side of Good, thus Evil gets a major disadvantage in that regard. ''Second,'' even though Liu Kang now exists as a Revenant and prefers to stay on the side of Evil, he couldn't assume the role of the so-called "Big Daddy Evil" in time - Kronika offered him a chance for a better life in exchange for servitude. As for the Dark Raiden, he's ''pragmatically'' Evil - not in the sense of the classic Evil, but for the vigilant, necessary Evil. And ''third,'' Shinnok could be contributing to the aforementioned Balance indirectly, through his minions. Even though Shinnok himself could be considered as ''the Evil'' (he practically outperforms Shao in that arena - just think of him as the equivalent of ''the Devil''), it doesn't mean he would get his hands dirty way too often; he's a scheming, calculating villain who prefers to observe from the sidelines and get reports from his subordinates.
** Liu Kang and Kitana were effectively dethroned at the end of the first chapter, with the loss of their base and Shinnok's head to use as a power source they were sitting ducks and they knew it. Only Kronika's interference kept them in play in so there's no way they could fill the role of a counter to good. And even without that loss their influence was still far more limited than Shinnok's, the revenants are treated as being more annoying than anything by the good aligned forces.
** Keep in mind that Kronika wanted a very specific balance between good and evil — namely, a ForeverWar between her two children. Shinnok's beheading made that impossible.

* In Sonya's story mode chapter unburned Kabal from the past makes an appearance in Kano's Fight Klub, pushing Sonya back in a fight cage with his Nomad Dash. That makes no sense. First of all, Kronika clearly brought back characters from MK 2 era, right after Kung Lao has defeated Shang Tsung and Quan Chi. By that time Kabal was working in police with Stryker, so why did he became a Black Dragon member again? But if this Kabal is from even earlier point of timeline, he still shouldn't have his Nomad Dash, a move he gained only as "a result of the Outworld magic", after Kintaro burned him and Shang Tsung healed him.
** You are correct and the only options I can offer are: 1) they forgot they established that since it's the only time it's been mentioned, or 2) they deliberately ignored it because it would have required giving younger Kabal an entirely new moveset that didn't use his speed at all.

* Let's address the moment when Kano fires at the heroes with a Minigun in Chapter 8. Cassie decides to peek out to get a clear shot at Kano, only to get injured (the key word here being '''injured'''). Shouldn't Cassie ''get her hand ripped clean off'' from such gunfire?
** Kombatants have been established as being much tougher than ordinary people - and she only took a couple bullets to the arm.
*** "Couple" of bullets... Minigun is known for its absurdly high rate of fire - around ''2,000 to 6,000 rounds per minute''. Cassie just couldn't get a ''couple'' of bullets; a burst of ''10'' or even ''20'' rounds sounds plausible enough. Kombatant or not, but Minigun should clearly pack a one helluva punch - even the people that are MadeOfIron should think first about ''not'' getting in the line of fire.
*** Then assume that she got hit by a couple ricochets off the truck instead of taking direct hits. We see her get hit - and there's only a couple bursts of blood and no visible wound, so she definitely wasn't hit by 10-20 rounds.
*** About the ricochet part... This troper watched the scene carefully several times over - and didn't noticed any ricochets. Cassie was hit ''dead-on'' with the barrage of bullets, and that means that she was ''partially out in the open'' to be hit directly. Making ricochets with Minigun is a cruel implausibility: any object should be ''already torn apart'' by its tremendous power. Magic or not, but the truck which Cassie and Sonya were covering under should be ''already blown up'' in a matter of seconds.
*** Then the logical conclusion is that Cassie, and the truck, are made of tougher stuff than you're giving credit for. This isn't even the first time in this same game that a character walked off serious injuries as if they were nothing.
*** Maybe those supernatural powers that allowed Cassie to fight Shinnok kicked in again, this time without a warning glow.

* When did Liu Kang and Raiden fight in the original timeline? The snippet that was shown in the various flashbacks that implies it came from the original timeline is zombie Liu Kang and dark Raiden fighting at the Pyramid of Argus, but so was everyone so that’s hardly noteworthy (and even then zombie Liu Kang was there to fight Shang Tsung, not Raiden). Beyond that, Raiden reanimated Liu Kang’s body himself to serve as his harbinger, so they wouldn’t be fighting (Liu Kang’s spirit wasn’t happy but it wasn’t really in a position to do anything about it).
** Its stated that Kronika has reset time many, many times over. We don't get an exact number. Any unfamiliar fight we saw in that montage is merely another previous timeline, one we aren't privy to the details of. Perhaps in that one instance, certain events that were similar to the original timeline resulted in a zombie Liu that WAS going after Raiden instead of Shang.
** Technically in the original version of the first game Liu Kang and Raiden weren't allies. As Raiden said, Kronika has restarted the timeline countless times, his flashbacks only show four or five of them and there's no mention that the timeline we knew was one of the ones shown.
** If we assume that was the original timeline, that's entirely possible. Zombie Liu Kang's body can be seen near the top of the pyramid in ''9'''s intro, so they would have eventually had to fight each other, likely as a case of YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness, it being Dark Raiden and all... (now why he'd fight Zombie Liu Kang instead of teaming up against Shao Kahn and ''then'' fighting each other is anyone's guess... unless that's what actually happened in that flashback timeline).

* The entire concept of the ''Time Lord''-sort of character in ''Mortal Kombat'' universe. It sounds, for the lack of the better term, ''ridiculous'' - at least for this troper. ''What's the point of it?'' And while we're at it, ''what are the possible "pros" and "cons" that could apply to this kind of character?''
** It gives an explanation for the state of the Mortal Kombat universe being what it is , it explains why making lasting progress was so hard and it explains why there were so many non-canon endings as different timelines. Kronika exists to provide an in-universe explanation for why the series acts like a video game.
** ''Mortal Kombat'' has always been a FantasyKitchenSink, happy to throw in ninjas, cyborgs, [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs cyborg ninjas]], humanoid dinosaur ninjas, demigods, soul-eating sorcerers, beings from other dimensions, magical Native Americans, a vampire... A being related to time travel doesn't seem like that huge of a departure. Especially since the reboot trilogy started on the premise of changing time.

* Another good question concerning Kronika: ''What stops her from reviving Shinnok?'' Why she doesn't think about making ''him'' one of her top enforcers along with Cetrion?
** I assume by "revive" you mean "bring him back from a past point in time". My guess is that, because of the whole "gods exist outside of time" thing, if she brought his past self to the present, there's a chance he'd just wind up as a head.
** Also, it's hinted that she can't bring people out of their native times without deleteriously affecting the flow of time. Raiden mentions that it disrupted "the natural momentum of time" or something. So bringing Shinnok from the past would have only temporarily solved her problem.
*** '''That''' sounds good, yeah... but by "reviving Shinnok" I meant "reattaching back his fucking head". Any follower of Kronika could be instructed to find his body, then locate his head, and then bring those parts to her - and ''*Boom!*'' - divine surgery operation is complete. ''Why Kronika can't think about doing just that?''
*** That simply may not be within Kronika's or Cetrion's power.
*** We never saw what happened to Shinnok's body. Raiden could have charred it to a crisp, ripped it into tiny pieces, mutilated it beyond all use, or all of the above.
*** Kronika could easily get a cyborg body for Shinnok and make him similar to the Cyber Lin Kuei like Frost whose head is attached to her body. Having a Cyborg Elder God wouldn't be too out of place considering we have a new class of gods (Titans) coming out of nowhere...
** Had Shinnok be revived in his past self (and eliminating his present self), ask yourself 2 questions: ''Can Shinnok and Cetrion even get along? Can Shinnok not betray his own mother?'' Shinnok's ending in Mortal Kombat X indicated that had he defeat his enemies (Raiden), he would bring back the One Being and destroy that reality for revenge which would fall under ''going too much on the Dark side'' imbalance. During the intro of Mortal Kombat 11, Shinnok mentioned something about ''The truth I was cast out for speaking'', hinting a lie between the Elder Gods or Kronika herself. While Cetrion was the one who helped the Elder Gods and Raiden cast Shinnok to the Netherrealm and develop to become the big evil (replacing Lucifer), it is hinted that Shinnok was either unaware of Kronika's plans and Kronika doesn't want to reveal it to Shinnok OR Shinnok was sent to the Netherrealm for learning that ''truth''.

* I guess I'm okay with only one Raiden existing at a time, but how exactly does the universe choose ''which'' Raiden gets to stay? Why does present Dark Raiden disintegrate while Past Raiden remains?
** Past Raiden likely takes priority since future cannot exist without past.

* Finally, Shang Tsung is playable... ''and he's a badass''. What's with the sudden homage to the almost-forgotten Chameleon in terms of his special moves?
** It's not a reference to Chameleon, it's a reference to Shang Tsung's own shapeshifting abilities. More specifically how they worked in Trilogy where, in order to avoid serious loading time, the player would instead select a handful of characters for him to shift into, which included all the ninjas since they all shared the same character model. Plus it gives those characters a presence in the game that they otherwise wouldn't get.

* Kronika apparently rebooted the timeline many times, got Raiden to kill Liu Kang in these timelines and its implied without Liu Kang that Kronika won (Based on her confidence that Raiden winning is an impossibility, and her [[spoiler:later telling Cetrion that victory is no longer certain after Liu Kang merges with Raiden]]) If that's true, why did she need to reboot the timeline again, and get Raiden to kill Liu Kang again, many times? She already won once
** Kronika's plan seems to be creating a timeline where Raiden dies for good (likely at Liu Kang's hands) and at the same time prevent Armageddon from happening. So every time Armageddon happens (given she let Raiden send visions to his past self to prevent it), Raiden kills Liu Kang with no way to bring the latter back or Raiden and Liu Kang make amends means Kronika cannot execute her plan. And yes, she could reboot the timeline as many times as she wanted, but Fire God Liu Kang's existence created the possibility of her being stopped before rebooting the timeline again.
** Because she desires more than just Raiden's death. She wants an eternal balance between Good and Evil and every time she restarts the timeline something eventually throws that balance off. She's only trying to erase Raiden entirely now because she's gone insane from trying so many times and is blaming him because she can't accept that her desired outcome is impossible.

* I get that suspension of disbelief is required in a story where all conflicts are settled via a series of one-on-one martial arts battles, but how is Liu Kang and Kitana's Netherrealm army in any way a threat to Earthrealm? It's composed of berserker mooks who are downed by common gunfire. Mortal Kombat 9 at least tried to handwave the technology gap between Earthrealm and Outworld by having Kano smuggle weapons to Shao Kahn, but 11 makes no attempt to explain how primitive monsters could threaten a modern Earth army.
** 1) Most people in Earthrealm won't be armed or know how to fight 2) the benefits of an undead army is that if they get struck down you can raise them right back again 3) there's more to the Netherrealm army than just the cannon fodder soldiers, there're fliers, more powerful demons and the Revenants. Raiden only has so many champions and the army only has so much resources.
** Presumably, the regular Netherrealm army can't resurrect, because Deadly Alliance treated that as something unique to Onaga's army. But also remember that there is WMD level magic in MK, such as the Soulnado from [=MK9=] which could do a lot to bridge that gap, and the Netherrealm inhabitants likely know more of it that Earthrealm's.
*** The army could be reraised by anyone who knew the spell, Onaga's army was special because it raised on it's own (actually an affect by Onaga's heart and not something inherent to the army).

* This is minor, but in one intro dialogue Raiden says that Kano's "life of sin and licentiousness" means they can never be friends. This troper's a little puzzled by the thunder-god's choice of words: "Licentiousness" typically refers to self-indulgence of a sexual nature. Which Kano has obviously done of course, but considering all the evil that Kano's pulled (murders, genocides, treason, betraying Earthrealm to demonic aliens, and causing personal tragedies to many other Kombatants), it seems a little odd that "licentiousness" would be Raiden's main point of condemnation for Kano.
** Kano asks him why they aren't mates, and this version of Raiden is good, and annoyed by young!Johnny Cage's antics, so he's effectively saying "We can't be allies because you're evil, and even if you weren't, you're a dick."
** This is Kano we're talking about. By "licentiousness", Raiden probably meant "rape".

* Regarding the audience at the Koliseum, I've noticed that they have been cheering at inappropriate times. An example of this is when Kotal Kahn is about to be executed, despite him being a huge improvement compared to Shao Kahn and Mileena. I thought that nobody liked Shao Kahn? Is it a case of Outworld being [[CrapsackWorld Outworld]]? Or is it because they're too scared to boo Shao Kahn?
** The entire area was affected by the time displacement so large portions of the audience were likely replaced by those from the [=MK2=] tournament. Plus there's the people who just don't care who is in charge or just plain liked Shao Kahn better.
** Outworld seems to go their own ways of liking or hating things, as long as there is a Kahn to rule.
** Maybe they all have the attention span of gnats and will cheer at anything?

* So the Kollector in Aftermath can open pens full of dangerous beasts with the snap of his fingers. Is there any reason he couldn't do that with that stock-wheel-thing that Kotal had him trapped in?

* Shouldn't [[spoiler:Fire God]] Liu Kang be called [[spoiler:Fire and Thunder God]] Liu Kang, since he's seen shooting lightning in cutscenes?
** Just take into account that Liu Kang primarily uses fire as his main element in all of [=MK=] games. Plus, [[spoiler:"Fire God Liu Kang"]] sounds shorter and more convenient.
** Liu Kang only had control of lightning when Raiden was fused to him.

* Shao Kahn has draconic features in this game. Is this a reference to Onaga or is Shao Kahn a half-dragon now?
** Shao Kahn was always supposed to be non-human (originally he was supposed to be a Tarkatan but that was dropped). He might be part dragon, part demon, or just a race we haven't heard of before, his origins have always been vague.

* Aside from being a CreatorsPet, how did MK2-era Scorpion at all manage to defeat the current Sub-Zero, who not only thoroughly trounced him not a few days ago back in his point in the new timeline (and also managed to beat both Goro and Kintaro at the same time), but has also gained the Dragon Medallion and a decade or two of additional fighting experience? For that matter, how the hell did he beat Raiden, who not only thrashed him in the Netherrealm but also managed to defeat every revenant in rapid succession back in [=MK9=]?
** Sub-Zero's discipline greatly held him back from killing Scorpion similar to his restraint against future Scorpion in ''X''. It is likely there was some truth in Scorpion's words, but got impatient.
** The temporal shift occurred before the invasion (''[=MK3=]-ish'' phase), where Raiden successfully fended them off. Also, Raiden was showing a less control of himself due to the nature of the Amulet.
** Scorpion has always had an advantage over Sub-Zero.

* When Sonya went to fight both Kano's why did Future Kano immediately feel pain from her hurting the past one? Future Johnny felt nothing from beating up his past self as well as Future Kano not feeling the pain when Cage hit his past self in the groin. Even more questionable is how Kano managed to get Johnny as his hostage against Sonia in the first place. Considering how he felt pain from Sonya beating up his past self, how did he find the time to overpower Cassie and grab him just in time?
** Sonya was likely causing internal injuries on past Kano (she has no reason or desire to hold back when fighting him) which would then immediately appear on future Kano (even healed wounds would still be painful for someone who wasn't used to acomidating them).

* In the Aftermath chapters, Sindel sides with Shao Kahn and stated she killed King Jerrod because she felt her first husband was a weak leader and that Shao Kahn had mighty power. It also revealed that Sindel never committed suicide, but she was killed by Quan Chi as a cover-up. Shao Kahn states that he would have killed Quan Chi for killing Sindel. How are all these events possible? Why didn't Shao Kahn try finding Sindel with that kind of knowledge? Why didn't Shao Kahn invade the Netherrealm? In both the original and the second timelines, Sindel was revived during the [=MK3=] alignment; the original being Shang Tsung plus the shadow priests and the other being Quan Chi. In both those specific timelines, the reason of resurrection was to remove the protection that prevented Shao Kahn from invading Earthrealm. In addition, both those timelines had Sindel unwilling evil upon Resurrection. In the original timeline, after Sindel was freed from mind control in [=MK3=], she became of the forces of good since [=MK4=]. During Aftermath, Kitana questioned Sindel whether or not she is truly herself and not possessed by magic by stating the above. Or is it that this chapter has so many BlatantLies as mentioned by Liu Kang? Nothing adds up.
** It's a new timeline so nothing from the original matters, just like how Mileena was originally thousands of years old only to be newly created in the new timeline. The new timeline seems to suggest that Quan Chi killed Sindel, made it look like a suicide and erected the barrier over Earthrealm himself in order to manipulate Shao Kahn in the direction he and Shinnok wanted. It doesn't entirely hold up, since it's obviously a retcon created for this game, but that's what they're going with for now.
** Shao Kahn was under the impression that Sindel killed herself. Sindel probably told him the true circumstances surrounding her death when they were reunited.
** BlatantLies taken up to eleven. The obvious being Shang Tsung. Even Fujin is lying as Fire God Liu Kang's agent to spy on Shang Tsung, knowing Shang Tsung's ulterior motives. Sindel is manipulated by Shang Tsung like the original timeline.
** Here's a question, why would Quan Chi give a Tarkatan's ass about Sindel distracting Shao Khan. He works for Shinnok, not Shao Khan. Not to mention he was the one who revived and brainwashed her in ''9''. Why? Surely anything this game's Sindel could offer Shao Khan, a brainwashed version of her would offer even more of. [[BrainBleach Yuck.]]
* Okay, so all endings in both the base game and Aftermath end with the timeline getting reset, right? So what was the point of things like Kitana becoming Kahn, Sonya and Johnny's past selves making up, the Cages' horrific fates as well as Raiden and Fujin's in Aftermath, and so on? To build suspense? To keep up the facade? [[AbortedArc It all goes nowhere]] and the last two just come off as needlessly mean.

* In Aftermath, what is this '''Void''' place that Shang Tsung, Nightwolf, and Fujin mention of where they were cast away at?
** In-Universe, it's probably the same place where the Nexus from MK Deception was, just without any portals leading back to the realms. Out-of-Universe, it's a convenient excuse for why these characters weren't at all present for the events of the base game storyline.

* Is the Kung Lao Liu Kang meets in the new timeline the present day Kung Lao or his ancestor, the Great Kung Lao?
** The Great Kung Lao.

* Why does it seem that Scorpion basically got off Scot-free in [=MK11=] despite the fact it's his direct fault that all of the revenants, many of whom who were close friends of most of the main cast, are forever trapped in their corrupted states? He doesn't get reprimanded, he's not punished in any way, and he frankly doesn't seem at all guilty about it. Shouldn't Sub-Zero, whom he seems to be best buddies with, be very annoyed with him since he basically ended any chance for Smoke and Bi-Han to be restored?
** Knowing that [=MK11=] happens immediately after MKX, there was no time for punishment, Raiden already transformed into Dark Raiden. More deaths occurred because of him. Kronika created the time temporal shift and Kronika's plans are in motion quickly. This includes the enhanced Cyber Lin Kuei's revival that poses a much bigger threat to both the Lin Kuei and the Shirai Ryu.
*** 11 does not take place immediately after X, there are several years in between the two games and many signs that it has been so. Cassie and Jaqui are noticably older, Vera died over a year ago when she was alive in X, Scorpion and Sub-Zero have had time to build up a genuine friendship and learn to work well together, Dark Raiden has had time to sour Earthrealm's relations with Outworld and for Earthrealm's champions to be well acquainted with his new outlook and Johnny and Sonya have rebuilt their relationship.
** There was another way to revive the revenants into their old self, as evident in Aftermath when Shang Tsung explained this. Whether or not Raiden has that knowledge is unknown.

* What is the exact power level that Shang Tsung reaches at the end of ''Aftermath''? Wearing the crown that contains many souls that he can control, absorbing souls of strongest kombatants like Shao Kahn, ''plus'' wearing Kronika's crown definitely makes him millions (if not ''billions'') of times more powerful than he ever was... but he's still can be defeated by Liu Kang - whose godhood couldn't match sorcerer's tremendous strength at this point. Is this an intentional homage to the whole "Johnny Cage vs Shinnok"-scenario or what?
** If we are talking about the level of "powers" someone has, let's not forget that being bound by the hourglass also shares its weaknesses as well. Shang Tsung having the hourglass and absorbing Kronika's soul means that Liu Kang can utilize Shang Tsung's bound weakness. During Shang Tsung's treacherous quest, Liu Kang [[GuileHero lied]] to him likely to have given him time to absorb enough hourglass power but not too much to destroy it.
** Power levels have always been vague in this series and how much of a power boost you get from a soul has never been consistent, especially since Shang Tsung seems to actually expend the energy of the souls he steals instead of just letting them stay whole and magnify his power. And Liu Kang has always been able to beat opponents far out of his weight class, remember he was the one who took out Shinnok in the original timeline and he didn't have the Cage ability to nullify his magic.

* Why did Shang Tsung need to wield the crown to fight Kronika? Since the crown makes Kronika stronger, one would suspect that taking it away would make her weaker. This would mean that even without Liu Kang using the crown, Kronika would still be easier to defeat. Also, no matter who won in their fight, Liu Kang would still have to fight someone who was wearing the crown (Either Kronika after she defeated Shang Tsung, or Shang Tsung after he defeated and absorbed Kronika's powers).
** The fight at the Fire Garden was evident of how strong Kronika really is. Shang Tsung cannot defeat Kronika by himself. He needed Fujin wearing the crown to disable Kronika's defense, and the combined attacks of Shang Tsung, Dujin, and Raiden fend her off. Additionally, Shang Tsung also absorbed the essence of Raiden and Fujin upon betrayal, as well as absorbing the souls of Shao Kahn and Sindel.
*** But since Liu Kang defeated Kronika with the crown, it would presumably be easier to defeat her without the crown. Also, if Shang Tsung is the only person who could weild the crown against Kronina, why does it not mean that Liu Kang would be unable to use the crown to restore the timeline? If he can't use the crown against Kronika, then why can he use the crown at all?
* Why was Liu Kang fighting Shang Tsung while he was wearing the crown safer for the timeline than Liu Kang fighting Kronika wearing the crown? What I mean in the question is: It was suggested that Liu Kang go back in time and fight Kronika earlier for the crown and it was shot down for being too dangerous. Since Liu Kang ended up fighting someone wearing the crown, I am wondering what the difference between fighting Shang Tsung wearing the crown and fighting Kronika wearing the crown is.
** Liu Kang knows Shang Tsung's strengths and weaknesses, both as himself and through whatever knowledge the merge with Raiden granted him. He is quite confident that even with numerous souls contained within the crown, he will prevail against the sorcerer, who does have a bit of a reputation as never quite making the cut, and always having to resort to dirty tricks. Kronika is someone he's much less familiar with, and the fact that he beat her was already astounding in the first place. Betting he can pull it off again so soon is pushing his luck, and a shaolin monk like him doesn't gamble with the fate of reality. Better let the eternal loser sorcerer do the dirty work instead.
* Why did Shao Kahn breaking Liu Kang's legs not affect Liu Kang? It affected his revenant, and after that, Shang Tsung took Raiden's soul so he was not going to merge their powers together to save him from being a revenant. That adds up to a ton of butterfly effects that should have affected Liu Kang in a big way.
** Fire God Liu Kang controls the hourglass, therefore he an protect himself from the effects of the timeline changing. His entire plan was to use Shang Tsung to eliminate Kronika and then take the crown away from him so he would have known from the start his past self was going to be taken out in some way.

* "You can't kill me Sindel, not without killing my revenant!", so, uh, how is Kung Lao's revenant still around despite Sindel throwing his past self overboard into the Sea of Blood?
** Perhaps he's still alive? Kung Lao can teleport and Fire God Liu Kang is still around to influence things.
** The Sea of Blood doesn't always mean instant death.
** For all we know, Kung grabbed onto the boat with whatever strength he had left. Or, if you are the more cynical, pessimistic type, the rest of the story took place in the brief time before Kung drowned.
** Maybe the Shaolin Masters did teach him how to swim (heh). It's not established that falling into the Sea of Blood equals instant death (and since Geras mentions leviathans, the Sea of Blood isn't devoid of life. The only difference between it and a normal sea is that the SoB is bottomless).
** Kung Lao was no means injured like Liu Kang nor died in the Sea of Blood. Kung Lao survived long enough to not affect his revenant self.

* Where were Scorpion and Sub-Zero in Aftermath? You'd think [[CreatorsFavorite Ed Boon's favorite character]], the guy on the cover-art for this game, [[MyFriendsAndZoidberg and the little brother of the guy who keeps jobbing to him]] would show up when half the army starts turning on each other, but no.

* Speaking of Shao Khan turning the Outworlders against their allies, did ''all'' the Outworlders on Kronika's island see him drop Kotal's head? Were only the closest able to see it and the rest were wondering why their allies were suddenly attacking the Earthrealmers?

* Sonya sees Kabal's Revenant and just says he was one of Kano's goons. ''Woman, you fought alongside this man to protect Earthrealm!'' He turned around and joined the police before dying and becoming a Revenant. Did Sonya forget this? Did the franchise as a whole forget that Kabal was trying to redeem himself? That'd explain a lot actually.
** To be fair, Sonya only spent a couple hours alongside Kabal before he got killed and may not have known about his life as a cop.

* Why did no one try restoring the Revenants at any point between MKX and MK11? It's been shown that Quan Chi is obviously not needed for it, since Fujin doesn't mention him at all, and they have the means to do it. Hell, just ask Kotal to enlist Ermac's help if they need a soul magic practitioner.
** There are a few factors in play here: 1) Dark Raiden didn't care enough to pursue such a difficult task as he's more about destroying future threats than restoring past allies (he barely pauses to acknowledge he got Sonya killed and shows no signs he cares about her loss and that's after decades of knowing her) 2)the method they used required them to use Earthrealm's jinsei which they are unlikely to tamper with as it's outright stated to be Earthrealm's lifeforce, we don't know what the potential consequences would be for using it, they didn't care in Aftermath since they were planning to reset the timeline anyway. 3) They may simply not have known anyone who knew the right spells, which was likely the whole reason they wanted Quan Chi alive so badly. Resurrections aren't common magic in the MK universe, aside from the Elder Gods, both current and former, only Shang Tsung, Quan Chi and Shao Kahn have been establishged as knowing how to do so. Even Raiden and Fujin have never suggested they were aware of or even capable of doing so (Fujin helped with Sindel's ressurection and Raiden raised Lui Kang as a zombie in the previous timeline but they've never shown the knowledge for doing so on their own).
* What the hell happened to Ash Williams?! Yes, I know that Bruce Campbell gave the explanation of "the rights owners couldn't come to an agreement", but that sounds more like he was under an NDA and couldn't get into specific details. Furthermore, MassiveMultiplayerCrossover games usually have most if not all of the legal issues ironed out during preproduction so that the studio doesn't waste resources on something that would never see the light of day (''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosUltimate'' being a perfect example), so the fact that Ash could suddenly be cut after months of leaks and teases means that either Netherrealm went through a lot of effort just to be a TrollingCreator or someone's lawyer seriously screwed up.
** Possibly, who could say? The legal nonsense surrounding rights to characters are complicated at best and such things falling through is hardly unheard of. It's unlikely anyone who has an answer is gonna post it here. I would note that the character he seems to have been replaced with, the Joker, is a safe pick legally speaking; DC and Mortal Kombat are both owned by Warner.

* Milquetoast compared to everything else, but why does Spawn call Batman an old friend? Their crossover had the two at each other's throats, and at the end, Spawn actually tried to offer a handshake, all he got was Batman slicing his face open with a batarang. [[SarcasmMode An old friend indeed.]]
** Compared to most of the people that Spawn knows, Bruce is probably one of the friendlier ones. That, or he actually met the "real" Batman off-screen instead of [[WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall Crazy Steve]].
** It's also possible that he was being snarky about it.

* About Rambo's knife... or, specifically, one of his possible knife models (one of them is called Alamo). They have this little chain on the side of the blade. Does this kind of knife exist in real life and the chain has some purpose? Or is it just RuleOfCool?
** Based on some brief research, this knife ''kinda'' exists. The closest thing to what's in the game is [[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MQRYF5Q/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_i_JT8ZMXM3S7CC70FMVJ31 this thing]], but not only is it a pocket knife and not a combat knife, but the "chain" is just molded into the blade to match the handle's aesthetic. However, Google also provided videos of people melting down their old bike chains to make into knife blades with some of the chain detail still visible. It's possible that the art department mixed these two ideas together.

* So Sheeva has been Sindel's bodguard for a long time, right? So why did she act so surprised to find out [=MK11=] Sindel is a bitch who'd turn on her own daughter just to eat Shao Kahn's Jinsei? If she did know Sindel was like this, why didn't she warn anyone or keep an eye on her? [[SarcasmMode What a wonderful teammate.]] Either Sindel is a better liar than even Shang Tsung or Sheeva is TooDumbToLive.
** Sindel established the lie that she was a genuinely good person and had married Shao Khan to save her people and daughter. This lie was well kept enough that even the gods didn't know better, so there's no reason Sheeva would know better, especially since Sindel seems to be genuinely fond of her and liekly treated her decently.

* So Preset!Jax is desperate for a better future. Okay? Let's put aside the obvious issue "Jacqui willingly signed up for Special Forces, she knows the risks" and focus more on the fact that Jax is ''allying up with the Revenants.'' All it gets out of him is an awkward joke about "pleasent company", but you'd think he'd question himself a lot more about this. He protects the crown alongside Noob Saibot, a servant of Quan Chi. You know, the guy who revived Jax as a Revenant? He's allying up with Quan Chi's cronies, and yet he has the gall to chew out Fujin for working with Shang Tsung? For that matter, does he know he was working on the same side as Shao Kahn too? Did Jax think any of this through?
--> '''Present!Jax:''' I'm a damned fool.
** No, he did not think it through. Kronika made her move while he was depressed, panicking and drunk and he was justifying it using Cetrion's pressance as a reason to believe in Kronika's good intentions. As soon as Raiden gets a chance to point out the obvious Jax realizes he's made a mistake. He likely justified the pressance of the revanents with the assumption that Kronika would avoid Sindel's massacre altogether so all of them would avoid that fate entirely. He likely didn't know about her deal with Shao Khan and probably assumed Noob Saibot would also have been looking to escape his fate as an evil undead servant of Quan Chi.

* So Fujin, Nightwolf, and Shang Tsung are released from the void when Kronika is killed and sent back in time. Does that mean that when they're in the past, there are just another Fujin, Nightwolf, and Shang Tsung watching themselves run around? This turns to FridgeHorror if this is true, because once Kronika dies in Aftermath, that would mean ''another'' Shang Tsung will be released, and would know not to fall for Liu Kang again.
** The implication is tht Liu Kang erases Shang tsung from time entirely in his ending path so no version of him exists anymore.
*** And Shang is back in ''Mortal Kombat 1'', so so much for that.

* So without Kronika to create them, are Shinnok, Cetrion, and Geras just [[RetGone gone for good?]] Is a long-standing GodOfEvil for the series and his [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter potential]] Foil and sister just erased from the franchise, possibly leaving us with Shao Kahn and Shang Tsung as the big bad guys for the umpteenth time? Is the Kollector of all people the only new character from this game that can properly return in a later one without serious plot gymnastics? Geras ''might'' be immune to Liu Kang rewinding time, but that's a big ''might''.
** If Liu Kang is sculpting the timeline why would Shao Khan and Shang Tsung even exist? Either he's going to try and rebuild the timeline as to close to how it was as he can amanage or he's going to try and make it as better as he can, meaning either the new era will be the same with everyone we know involved or it will be entirely different. Tpp many characters are dependant on Shinnok and Shao Khan to do things half way.
*** The jury is still out on Shang Tsung, but as of ''Mortal Kombat 1'', Shao is a general and seemingly Outworld's champion. Outworld has also been at peace for ages so it seems that he's just a dick as opposed to an evil conquering dick.

* Why is Kotal much more civil to everyone but Tarkatans here? He offers refuge to Shao Kahn of all people because it's his people's custom, and he says Outworld and Earthrealm united against Shinnok. Neither of these fit with him instantly giving up on Earthrealm, making no effort to evacuate or help protect it, and trying to bring Shinnok Jacqui and Takeda's heads. Because that would somehow appease him? And he hates Tarkatans because they opposed his rule. You know, [[SarcasmMode because hating them because they eat people is just absurd.]] What is with Kotal in this game?
** Kotal and his inner circle were also shown snacking on Tarkatans so it's not like they have any room to judge there, the Edenians seem to be the only group that hasn't been shown eatting other sapient beings in Outworld. He's clearly offering a more self serving version of events to Raiden than what actually happened. His grudge against the tarkatans is because they, as a whole, sided with Mileena against him. He hates Mileena and by extention all of her allies. he had Tanya killed, wants to do the same to Rain, fed Mileena to D'Vorah and wipoed out the Tarkatans. His philosophy is that when a threat presents itself you wipe it out rather than allowing it to grow over time and get worse. His extreme methods have actually alienated most of the races of Outworld by the time this one begins. The Tarkatans side against him for survival, the Shokan don't support him, the Edenians are angry he won't free their realm, the Naknada aren't well regarded unde rhis rule, he's an improvement on Shao Kahn but still not a great ruler.

* Shao Kahn says he killed Jerrod, Sindel says she killed Jerrod, D'Vorah says she killed Jerrod, is this all just alternate timeline stuff, or did they all just take turns stabbing Jerrod in the jugular?
** With Sindel it's because they clearly came up with her evil all along plot twist after the main story was written. With Shao Khan he was the one who ordered Jerrod killed so no matter who did it he's still responsable. D'Vorah probably just lied to piss Kitana off, she's hardly a trustworthy character.

* What is the deal with timelines in this game? Can alternate timelines exist like many MirrorMatch intros in this and ''Injustice 2'' imply, or is it all connected in a single line that somehow means Revenant Liu Kang suddenly gets his legs broken once his past self gets knee-capped? Why can't two Raidens just face off in the story mode too? Wouldn't that make a better story? Putting that aside, how can Revenant Liu Kang steal his past self's soul without killing or hurting himself in the process? Did he leave a bit of himself alive in that chair? Is it his past soul keeping him from withering away? Because that is such a TimeyWimeyBall MindScrew, just typing it is frying this Troper's computer.

* So Kotal can turn into a jaguar now? Okay, feels like that'd be useful when [[CutsceneIncompetence he's in a cutscene]] fighting someone like Shao Kahn. Hell, why didn't he go into kitty mode against Kano in that carriage back in ''X''? Nowhere for Kano to run, and he'd be momentarily confused and open to an attack.

* Kronika can summon DLC fighters in her bossfight, even in story mode. First of all, why would some of these characters be [[OutOfCharacterMoment fighting for her out of nowhere?]] Second, does that mean Spawn, Rambo, Robocop, Terminator, and the Joker are all just running around during story mode? Shouldn't the last two being free be cause for alarm? Unless this is serious GameplayAndStorySegregation, ''[[FridgeHorror the Joker is running around the Mortal Kombat universe unimpeded!]]'' [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking And does Robocop know Sonya]] [[KillSteal beat him to Kano?]]

* This game just seems to make everyone look like they hate clones. Sure, there are good reasons for the heroes to not like Mileena, but a lot of their dialogue, Kitana included, just paints them as assholes who think her being a clone of Kitana is enough of a reason to condemn her existence. Really? She can eat people's faces and wants to follow in Shao Kahn's footsteps, but her being a double of Kitana whacked with the ugly stick is enough of a reason for people to condemn her? SkewedPriorities much?
** Clones are often seen as unnatural and given how she was created it might be that clones in this setting can only be created through dark magic. If that is so then their attitudes make sense, Mileena is a perversion of the natural orde, or at least is seen as such.

* So Kronika made Geras, he is of her design. So...why does he have nipples? Did she add them? Why did she add them? [[ARareSentence Why does the time-golem have nipples?]] Why? ''Why?'' Also, if she wants an unstoppable army, why didn't she just make more Geras'? There, she already won. An army of unkillable golems.
** That assumes that the elements used to create Geras exist in large enough quantities to create more and that those elements aren't being used for some other important function.

* Why is everyone acting like Shang Tsung is some scheming, backstabbing sorcerer here? It'd make sense in the past timeline, but in this one, his track-record is "I served Shao Kahn for ages, did some shady things in a tournament, got eaten by Sindel, and now I'm back." It'd make some sense if Raiden and Fujin understood this, and maybe Liu Kang with the Hourglass, but everyone else? I mean, they're fine working with Baraka and Sheeva, and one is a cannibal and the other hates Earthrealmers, and yet the old guy who Shao Kahn fed to his undead wife is some untrustable mastermind?
** Because he's always been the way he is and considering Sindel recognized him that means he's been a backstabbing, scheming sorceror for over ten thousand years.
*** Just ask Kenshi.

* Why does Present!Kano look so much younger than he did in ''MKX''? In ''MKX'', his hair was grey and balding and his face was slightly wrinkled, whereas here he looks almost identical to how he did 26 years ago in ''[=MK9=]''. Meanwhile, Past!Kano, who is meant to be from that point in the timeline, looks nothing like his ''[=MK9=]'' design, instead looking more like his Klassic design.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Mortal Kombat 1]]
* Why didn't Liu Kang try to reform Shang Tsung and Quan Chi? I mean, he gave Shao of all people a second chance and he was just as evil as they were in previous timelines.
** Shao can be treacherous as evidenced by his poisoning of Onaga given he couldn't take him in a straight fight, but generally he's up front with his villainy. As literally everyone [[FailedASpotCheck except Kronika]] knows, you can't trust either of those two to give you the time of day. He likely looked through other timelines, and saw how many, if any were actually either heroic, or at least not traitorous swine and probably got a very bad indication of what would happen if he tried.
* What's the significance of Liu Kang's red and blue fire? Like, is the red fire normal and the blue fire divine/cosmic?
** Probably. Given he no longer seems to wield lightning the blue flame might be an lasting influence from his Raiden.
* Why was Mileena already being groomed for succession when Sindel could have likely gone on for a few more eons?
** Better to have a plan and start on it early. If Mileena had any struggles or issues, they could be spotted and accounted for. While Sindel could still live for a long time, Jerrod's death likely had her spooked.
* Why does the Final Warrior have to be a variant? It would've been more satisfying and have made more sense narratively for it to be someone from Liu Kang's universe.
* What exactly did that ghost do to Quan Chi to make his skin turn chalk white?
** Partial soul absorption, or damage perhaps?
* Is Hellfire Scorpion Past!Scorpion from ''[=MK11=]''?

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Mortal Kombat: The Movie]]
* In the first movie, what was the point for Shang Tsung to drag Sonya into the Otherworld? Why couldn't he challenge her right there? Also, what's the deal with Liu Kang forcing Shang to fight him? The deal was that Cage gets to fight Goro ahead of his turn and Shang gets to challenge whomever he wants for the final battle.
** He was trying to force her to accept his challenge. Cage made him agree to enter the tournament so he has to fight someone. He chose Sonya as the least threatening (considering Kang is the chosen one and Cage just killed Goro it's an acceptable assumption as she only killed Kano, whom he told to go easy on her). By isolating her he was trying to force her to think there was no other choice. As for Kang, he simply wanted to avenge his brother whom Tsung killed in the previous tournament.
** Shang Tsung wanted to isolate Sonya both to get away from Raiden (who cannot enter Outworld) and to essentially cheat. Either Sonya accepts and he kicks her ass, or she refuses and he, with no witnesses, can pretend that he won and Shao Kahn is free to invade Earthrealm at will, something Kitana sees through and warns him is treason. The important aspect of his deal with Cage is not that he is allowed to challenge someone- as Raiden said, as an ex-Champion he could do so at any time- but that this challenge would be "the final battle of the tournament", winner take all. The problem is, the rules state this is fine ''only if'' the opponent accepts, a rule that Sonya did not know, which is one reason he picked her. The other, of course, is that Liu Kang is The Chosen One and Tsung just plain didn't want to fight him for that very reason; he ultimately accepted Kang's challenge because he was backed into a corner and, frankly, by that point seemed a little pissed off. Finally he was panicking- Goro had just been killed, Tsung was about to fail Shao Kahn ''again'', and so faking Sonya's defeat was sort of a desperate gamble to avoid his Emperor's wrath.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Mortal Kombat: Annihilation]]
* Kahn kills Rain for not making his enemies beg for mercy before dispatching them. Why he would kill a general whose troops just offed two of Earth's best warriors for that reason is baffling. The closest you get is Rain quickly saying "But master, I thought if I let them live-" before being cut off, but that could mean anything.
** It could also be interpreted as an echo of the earlier scene where Shinnok asked Kahn if he'd made Raiden beg for mercy before killing him; Kahn, knowing that neither happened, was hesitant to admit that failure to Shinnok. In the same way, Rain merely said that Kabal and Stryker were "taken," meaning possibly that they were captured, not killed; Kahn's expectation was that they should have been killed, and when Rain admits that this wasn't the case, he was killed for showing ''mercy''.

* Why are the heroes taking Kahn's seven-day deadline at face value? Wouldn't that have been a shock to them if Kahn showed up on Day 4 instead?
** FridgeHorror to add to this: Everyone, including Kahn himself, was saying that the seven-day deadline was necessary for the realms to completely merge and for Outworld to be totally victorious; however, Kahn could just as easily have struck on any day prior to Day 6, especially since there's not much indication that ''that'' much time has passed between Kahn's initial appearance and the heroes' arrival in Outworld (the most we see is the change from day to night to day from Kahn's first arrival to when Sonya finds Jax, but that would mean only two days have passed, and we don't know how much time has passed since the latter point)--he just did it this way to screw with Raiden, who it's established loses more of his powers the longer the merger goes on.

* Why didn't Raiden kill Kahn's army [[spoiler: after Johnny Cage is killed]]? He seemed as if he had the power to do so when preparing to exchange himself to Kahn.
** For that matter, why didn't Raiden just kill Kahn himself during their initial fight? He ''was'' [[CurbStompBattle wiping the floor with Kahn]] after the initial surprise strike-down Kahn gave him, and only started sharing the IdiotBall with Sonya when Kahn roped her legs and dragged her into DistressedDamsel mode.
*** As we learn, Kahn is his brother......so obviously not kill him. He may not have also wanted escalate the situation without first speaking with the Elders. Then again it did seem like Raiden could have done whatever he wanted.

* About "[[Literature/TheBible The Earth was created in 6 days]]" sentence... which was said at the beginning of the film by an ''Outworlder''. And not by just any Outworlder: ''Shao Kahn himself'' is the one who says it. There is no way that he could read the Bible in his spare time... Is he a WickedCultured, or what?
** Or the Earth was literally created in six days, perhaps all the realms were.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Mortal Kombat: Legacy]]
* How did the people who run the BedlamHouse not notice that Raiden has blue blood?
** Or freaking LIGHTING coruscating inside his eyes? Or hell how did they keep him there, they legally don't have the power to kidnap bums and then give them expensive drugs, food, and treatment without telling someone in the government and all Raiden would have to said is "let me out of here" and legally they would have to. They can't hold onto him unless he was legally declared a ward of the state, and then the STATE would be paying for his treatment, but do we see /1/ govt agent?
** Maybe its secretly run by Shao Kahn.
*** Then the psychiatrist must be Shang Tsung (and killed the real psychiatrist)?
** Maybe the psychiatrist is just TooDumbToLive.

* About Scorpion and Sub-Zero...why are they in feudal Japan? Don't get me wrong, [[RuleOfCool it was cool,]] but if everyone else is from the present day, and they're all supposed to be in the same tournament, how would they get there?
** Well, okay, Scorpion's undead via Quan Chi's magic, so that's an easy explanation for how he'd live to the present day. As for Sub-Zero...how would that work? I know he's a LegacyCharacter and all, but Scorpion specifically calls him Bi-Han. Do present Bi-Han and his ancestor just happen to have the same name?
** The world is most likely a giant [[AnachronismStew Anarchronism Stew]] just like how the games are
** It's also possible that Bi-Han's relationship with Kuai-Liang has been changed from brother to ancestor, especially since the opening narration for Hanzo's story is framed around a member of the Lin Kuei telling a story to his child.
** The second season states that the flashbacks of Kenshi and Sub Zero happened in feudal Japan. ''How'' they lived to reach the modern era has so far been ignored.
*** Bi-Han and Kuai Liang's ability to control ice comes from the fact that they're at the least one half cryomancer, an Outworld species, and all Outworld (and the other realms, really) inhabitants live for ridiculously long amounts of time (Shao Kahn, for example, is in the 100,000's range, if not millions, yet looks like he's 40 at most). Kenshi's could be explained by his encounter with Ermac.
*** Given that Kung Lao's outfit was changed whenever he was teleported to the island, who's to say that Bi-Han and Kenshi didn't have their attire upgraded to modern standards? It's not improbable to suggest that Raiden has been recruiting across time.
*** What if Kenshi and Bi-Han both are previous Mortal Kombat tournament champions and were never killed when they lost their champion title/position? I mean, what do we know about former champions of Mortal Kombat who lose their title and aren't killed? What if they don't lose that nifty little clause that keeps an champion from aging until the next tournament? It'd give the former champions opportunities to reclaim their title. Of course, that idea could be nixed, considering that Kenshi was surprised when He found out that He could telekinetically manipulate things. Although in Bi-Han's case, He took to using his freezing powers quickly, as if He's used them before.

* Is it me, or does MK Legacy II take place TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture? From what I've gathered, it's taking place ten years after the first season. If MK Legacy takes place in 2011-2012, that would put Legacy II in 2021-2022. It would explain why Johnny Cage is older(aside from the fact that they got a different actor), and having spiraled down the ladder even further. His declining mental state could be due to Shang Tsung cursing him for rejecting his offer to fight for him in the previous Mortal Kombat, as seen in the first season. It doesn't seem like it's been just weeks or months since Johnny said no to Shang Tsung. We also don't see enough elements in the EarthRealm to indicate that 2021-2022 is more advanced than now. I mean, the relatively lightweight looking tactical responder vest that Stryker wears could be handwaved as something high-tech. It doesn't look like someone on a SWAT Entry Team would wear without something bulkier underneath. Maybe the vest he's wearing is some next-gen Kevlar successor or spin-off that provides the same protection as an duty vest or assault vest.
** There's nothing indicating that there's a ten year gap between the two seasons.
*** Liu Kang and Kung Lao mention that it's been ten years since Liu Kang left the Shaolin, and Liu Kang was the last Champion. So it's reasonable to say that a ten-year gap has passed between Seasons 1 and 2.
[[/folder]]

* Why is Hotaru on the side of the Forces of Darkness when that's the side that all three of his arch-enemies[[note]]Havik, Darrius, and Dairou[[/note]] are on?

** Shao can be treacherous as evidenced by his poisoning of Onaga given he couldn't take him in a straight fight, but generally he's up front with his villainy. As literally everyone [[FailedASpotCheck except Kronika]] knows, you can't trust either of those two to give you the time of day. He likely looked through other timeliness, and saw how many, if any were actually either heroic, or at least not traitorous swine and probably got a very bad indication of what would happen if he tried.

* Why does the Final Warrior have to be a variant? It would've been more satisfying and have made more sense narratively for it to someone from Liu Kang's universe.