The Mortal Kombat series had a lot of lame characters who showed up in the games ranging from the fourth to the seventh, and this game is one long parade of those characters getting the blood and guts beaten out of them.
- Bo' Rai Cho: Zigzagged overall. Although he does fare well in the comics, helping Kuai Liang to get over his burden, his apparent death at the end of Raiden's chapter can be counted as this. Unlike a lot others, Bo' Rai Cho is still counted as a good guy and a good friend of Raiden, so rather than a complete Take That! there's also an element of tragedy intended here. In addition, he became a playable DLC kharacter after the game's release, which went to the extent of having his intro dialogues make his fate in story mode ambiguous.
- Daegon: Although the ending of the MKX comics shows him getting Kenshi's beaten-up body at the hands of Goro, Kenshi's ending shows the swordsman explicitly slicing him in half, getting revenge for the Red Dragon clan assassinating his wife.
- Drahmin: In issue #34, he gets destroyed by Quan Chi for not being useful enough in keeping Hanzo locked in hell.
- Frost: She has a loyal character fanbase, but also a polarizing figure for the overall MK fandom. This is represented in the comics and the games:
- In issue #4 of the Comics, Cassie beats her in in a deathmatch, and was about to be killed until Jarek and Tasia interrupt the fight. Later, in issue #36, Kuai Liang almost strangles her until he realizes that she was sent by Raiden in order to take part of the reformed Lin Kuei.
- In the game proper, she's on the receiving end of a punch to the face by Hanzo while Kuai Liang was seeking to make peace with him and is later frozen after Hanzo and Kuai Liang's altercation in which the latter states that she will be disciplined for her reckless action. This can be interpreted as a non-lethal "Take That, Scrappy!" moment for those who have an unfavorable view of Frost. Like Li Mei, however, this is also a better treatment of her than in the original timeline, where Frost turns out to be a Deceptive Disciple, though that may still hold true for her in the future like where she voluntarily becomes Cyber Lin Kuei in 11.
- Hsu Hao: The first issue of the comic of the game features him being killed off in a few panels brutally by Scorpion via kunai to the artificial heart and fist through the skull. Even Ed Boon himself replied to Hsu Hao's assassination with "Yes, and we don't care".
- Jarek: Jax calls Kano a second-rate version of him.
- Kintaro: In a non-DA-D-A example, while having some fans, Kintaro is generally seen as paling in comparison to Goro. In issue #33, he gets offed by Possessed!Sonya Blade while Possessed!Cassie and Possessed!Jacqui hold him. In the game, Goro refers to him as a "striped commoner" when Kitana calls him Kintaro as an insult.
- Kira: Kano takes offense when Kung Lao refers to him as her.
- Kobra: A one-off battle dialogue line by Erron Black tells us that he killed him, straight to Kano's face. Slightly subverted in that Kano's reaction was that of disgust that Erron killed a Black Dragon member.
- Liu Kang: In a strange, non-DA/Deception related: For the longest time, people have been complaining that he's a bit too boring and bland as a protagonist, and some are still annoyed by his turkey yells. If you don't count his storyline in the reboot to be better Character Development for the otherwise bland Liu, then it looks more like character assassination instead: First, he loses his sense of goodness, at first believably so in 9 where Raiden infuriates him through his many mistakes, but in this game, he turns into an undead Evil Overlord with no more compassion for anyone except Kitana and possibly the other Revenants, and looks to become a strong, hostile power to Earthrealm after Shinnok's defeat. People want to complain about boring good guy Liu Kang? This is what they get. Liu Kang the Hero, a massive Base-Breaking Character, is now dead and gone, and a darker, more dangerous man has taken his place
To further nail the point home, Jason's ending shows Liu Kang going full Shao Kahn and trying to recruit Jason for his invasion of Earthrealm after being impressed by his displays of violence against innocent teenagers. Liu gets choked with his own guts in response. Out of all the characters who showed up in games before MKDA, Liu Kang has perhaps gotten the most trouble heaped on him since the reboot. It's not far-fetched to say that Netherrealm is sick of either Liu Kang or the complaints about him.
Netherrealm's final solution for this later in MK11 was to reintroduce the past Liu Kang who proceeds to show that this Liu Kang doesn't have what it takes to be a hero as the latter fall down further the slippery slope willingly, while the former showed what it means to be a compassionate monk and hero that stayed true to his morals despite troubles heaped onto him. So, the trope in the end is less directed to Liu Kang in general, but the one who would become a Revenant. - Mavado: He fared a little better than his fellow Black Dragon cohorts, but still ends up disemboweled by Cassie Cage. With his own sword, no less.
- Moloch: One of Quan Chi's intro animations has him carrying his head. Furthermore, issue #34 of the comics has Quan Chi himself declaring Moloch as useless, and had Kitana behead him.
- Shujinko: He gets possessed in the Comics by Havik. In the game, he also appears in Cassie Cage's Arcade Ladder ending, where Raiden tasks her with hunting down a soul-stealer, most likely a resurrected Shang Tsung. When she finds the old man and defeats him, she asks him his name as he lays dying. It turns out this man is him.
- Taven: Subversion. Kenshi's and Takeda's endings have them team up with him in order to bring Daegon down, in a semi-retelling of Armageddon's story (minus the whole "Armageddon" business).
- Tremor: The hugest subversion of them all: he originated in the worst thing to ever bear the name of Mortal Kombat. He comes as a fully-formed playable character who can fight the likes of Liu Kang and Kotal Kahn on even ground, and oozes badass from every aspect of his design, from his Variations to his finishing moves, and has a whopping 10 Brutalities. He even gets a pretty sweet deal in his ending, where he becomes a demigod with powers on par with Raiden and Fujin. It's incredible what can happen with a dedicated fanbase.
