Mortal Kombat is an interesting series. Not because it has great fighting mechanics, because that's not always the case. Not because of the gore, because at this point it's overplayed and excessive to the point of not even being fun. And not even because of the quality of the writing because even that can be scattershot at best. Rather, Mortal Kombat is an interesting series because, despite what the games and adaptations actually do, the setting has a huge amount of potential for story telling.
If you follow The4thSnake on youtube, he has a lot of very interesting and creative ideas for the setting of Mortal Kombat whether it's in his MK Chronicles series or they're just ideas that are created specifically for his youtube channel. However, one interesting idea that I don't think gets talked about a lot is the value of divinity, or lack thereof, in the Mortal Kombat series.
So before I set the stage let me be clear that everything I have to say is relevant to the Mortal Kombat franchise as a whole and not anything outside of it. Some things I talk about like the benefits and drawbacks of being a god versus a human won't translate too well to Mortal Kombat because those things manifest differently in that series than they do in real life. Secondly, this is not going to be a structured post, this is just me rambling for a while. That's usually how my posts go but I'm not confident I'll be 100% coherent this time so I apologize if the rambling aspect is a bit more obvious this time.
So generally, in Mortal Kombat, there are various forms of existences but they generally fall into one of two types: mortal and immortal. Now, the traditional definition of mortal and immortal are that mortals can die where immortals can't. However, in Mortal Kombat the distinction between the two is a bit murkier, to the point of being arbitrary.
So let's talk about some unique existences in the series, starting with what we're introduced to in MK1 and move forward from game to game.
Starting with human, which is most of the Mortal Kombat roster, these guys are obviously in the mortal category but humans have a ton of variety. Obviously, in MK1, you had humans like Kano, Johnny Cage, and Sony, who all seem to be relatively normal apart from great fighting ability but then you have Liu Kang who has supernatural powers not unlike the fire god Kajin, and he does end up ascending to godhood in many of his endings in the series as well as canonically under different circumstances in MK11. Other humans with supernatural powers like his show up later, such as Kung Lao, Nightwolf, Kai and Kenshi. Remember this, I'll come back to it.
After that we have Raiden who is the god of thunder and the first god canonically introduced in the series. Now, Raiden as a lesser god is obviously immortal, though how it works is a bit weird. Firstly, it's worth noting that Earthrealm has 5 elemental gods but three of them, the ones for fire, water, and earth are all dead. Before I continue, I don't know if there's an official name for those three gods, I don't believe so, but since Raiden also goes by Raijin in some areas, and Fujin is the canonical name of the god of wind, it's safe to say that these gods all have the japanese names so I'll be assuming the fire god's name is Kajin, the water god's name is Suijin, and the earth god's name is Daijin. The kanji for earth can also be read as dou, however, that name would end up being Doujin, which would return very different results on google, so I'll go with Daijin.
Now, the fact that three of the gods are dead says that maybe gods in Mortal Kombat are not immortal but firstly, reversed dialogue in Mortal Kombat Deception says that Gods reincarnate whenever killed, which is probably how immortality is being interpreted here, which can still fly with Mortal Kombat 11 if we assume that Shinnok is different for being a fallen elder god and the new god of the Netherrealm after Lucifer. And given the fact that those three died in battle in between MK3 and 4, we can assume they were somehow killed by either Shinnok or something created by Shinnok, indicating that elder gods perhaps know how to negate immortality in lesser gods. All that is speculation but since Raiden never actually dies permanently in any continuity and Shinnok's severed head still talks in MK11, we can only speculate.
However, while Raiden is quite powerful, as well as Fujin, it's worth noting that neither of them is substantially more powerful than Liu Kang. Personally, I like to interpret Liu Kang as being the strongest character in the setting pre-netherrealm save for exclusive 3D era additions like Onaga, Shujinko, Taven, and Daegon, and it's worth noting that Liu Kang almost never actually loses a fight in the Netherrealm era even with the character chapters creating the opportunity for him to do so without affecting his powerscaling more than any other character, indicating that he may very well be. But even if Raiden and Fujin are stronger, it's not by a huge degree. So Liu Kang and lesser gods are generally of similar might but Raiden and Fujin can reincarnate perpetually provided they're not killed by an elder god, right? Well, let's take a look at more examples.
The last character from MK1 that is not strictly a living or divine character is Scorpion. Other characters fit nicely into mortal and immortal but Scorpion presents an interesting gray area.
Scorpion is the dead soul of Hanzo Hasashi after his death at the hands of Sub-Zero in Mortal Kombat Mythologies. We can assume that Scorpion was a code name from his time as Shirai-ryu given his skill with a rope dart, similar to Sub-Zero being a code name for Bi-Han or Kuai Liang depending on where you are in the series. Now, prior to Mortal Kombat 2011, or MK9 as I'll be referring to it from here, we don't have an actual source of resurrection here so it's possible that he left the Netherrealm by his own volition.
I've seen people take issue with this explanation but remember that in the Mortal Kombat series, the Netherrealm is a place characters can physically enter or leave, as we see with Shujinko and various Black Dragon members in Mortal Kombat Deception. Perhaps those Black Dragon Members died in Deadly Alliance and that's why they're there in Deception's post-story Konquest mode but still. Scorpion enters and leaves the Netherrealm at will, as does Noob-Saibot, though Noob in this case is directed by Shinnok via some means, where Scorpion acted mostly on his own with only some motivation from Quan Chi in MK4 onward. Sure he did turn into a Spectre whereas Noob was a Wraith, though at the time we were never given an explanation for what was the difference or how either was born.
In a lot of ways, Mortal Kombat's setting for a long time behaved like a mythological story. Not so much in terms of narrative structure or character arcs but rather in terms of how things behave and are explained. Generally, when we got gods, wraiths, specters, factions, and races, we weren't given explanations on how these things came to be, they were just part of the setting. In a way that's clever. Earthrealm isn't Earth, Earthrealm is the name of the mortal world in general, where in real life Earth is the name of the planet we live on. So in ways the setting of Mortal Kombat isn't a real place. Hence, the only elements it really needs to explain are the ones that are directly relevant to plot events and character arcs. We don't need to know how a character rises from the dead, we only need to know that such a thing is possible for the setting and we can move forward with it in mind.
Because of that much of what I'm getting at isn't explained in these early games, I'm just postulating based on what I know and am ignoring the Netherrealm era for now because that gets its own section. However, if Scorpion can physically leave the afterlife after death, and there's no indication that he got his powers by being a specter, there really isn't much of a difference between really powerful humans and gods.
Remember, at least in nature, Scorpion's powers aren't all that different from Liu Kang's. Both are fire manipulators, and while sure you can argue that Scorpion uses hellfire rather than mortal fire, you can also argue that the nature of his flames changed with the nature of his existence. He's no longer a human, he's a Netherrealm entity, so instead of wielding Earthrealm flames he wields Netherrealm flames. This makes sense if his fire is a manifestation of his chi like it would be with Liu Kang.
I guess in this vein its possible to explain the power connection of Sub-Zero and Noob-Saibot in that Cryomancy is freezing, which relies on the destruction of kinetic energy, whereas Noob-Saibot would be a void that just destroys energy in general. I still believe at this point in the series Noob-Saibot would be artificially resurrected by Shinnok as opposed to Scorpion who seemed to be an independent agent in that capacity. But this is speculation either way.
So then what about demi-gods like Rain, Taven, and Daegon? Well, naturally they're part god and part mortal, most likely Kitana's race given that they're from Edenia. But again, they don't seem to self-resurrect the way a lesser god does, as far as I know at least, and while they have lived for a very long time, Edenians are a long-lived species in general. Remember, while Kitana is younger than Shao Kahn and Sindel she's still 10,000 years old, since she was a baby when Edenia's merger with Outworld occurred that long ago. Mileena is likely younger by a bit but I wouldn't be surprised if Mileena was introduced to Kitana at a young enough age that she'd believe her supposed father when he says that Mileena is her sister. In fact, the exact lie back then was that Mileena covered her face because of a disfigurement caused by Earthrealmers, which caused Kitana to be prepared to fight against them for her appearance in MK2, and despite what MK9 wants you to believe, Kitana and Mileena were introduced at the same time and most likely were already well acquainted with each other.
I believe that particular explanation showed up in Shaolin Monks which would put it before Armageddon and therefore before the buyout by Warner Bros. Speaking of, Edenians are a weird area between these two things.
Before I go any further, I want to clarify something about the Mortal Kombat tournament though. And that is that the Champion of Mortal Kombat does not age from the moment they become champion, likely to maintain their strength so that anyone who'd become champion would have to be stronger than the last one. This means that Liu Kang would be stronger than The Great Kung Lao, since Goro is stronger than him, and Liu Kang is stronger than Goro. But it also means that when I speak about no aging, I'm excluding the Mortal Kombat champions since time has essentially stopped for them.
However, Kitana, Jade, Mileena, and Shao Kahn have each never won a Mortal Kombat Tournament yet they all seem to be really powerful. MK vs DCU said that Shao Kahn and Raiden were brothers in the sense that Shao Kahn is to Outworld what Raiden is to Earthrealm. However, given that Onaga was actually stronger and also appears to have the same no aging property, it's more likely that Onaga would fit that bill and Shao Kahn is just a denizen of Outworld that took over after Onaga's death, similar to how Reiko or Kotal Kahn would take over after Shao Kahn's death in some endings and timelines.
This especially applies to Onaga since he reincarnates through the dragon egg in Deadly Alliance going into Deception, which may be an indication of how lesser god resurrection occurs in at least some instances. Regardless, all this is to say that Edenians and Outworlders probably live long lives by default as any information that would sway any character's immortality also applies to mortals from the same realm, and exceptions to the rule are not actually from those realms, as Shang Tsung is a former Earthrealmer, and Reptile is from Zatara, one of the realms Shao Kahn merged with Outworld prior to facing The Great Kung Lao.
So all this may make it seem like the difference between mortal and immortal is reincarnation, right? Well, not necessarily. Because reincarnation in the Mortal Kombat series is just another variation of resurrection in this series. Raiden becomes Dark Raiden when he reincarnates in Deception but that's because of Onaga's influence. And while Onaga has to reincarnate through Reptile, he morphs Reptile's body into his own, suggesting that reincarnation is an automated version of resurrection.
But not so fast, because mortals that die but are too kind to send to the Netherrealm end up becoming souls, souls that can then be merged either into brand new bodies like with Onaga's army, or they can merge with their original bodies like the entire Deception cast. Even Liu Kang's body coming back as a Zombie doesn't really count because that's more of a reanimation than a variation of resurrection. Where resurrection can be thought of as a second life, Zombie Liu Kang is just the body moving without its soul, still rotting, still dead, but its moving through Raiden's powers, likely a complex form of automatic electrokinesis, which Raiden can do because human nervous systems are electricity based and Raiden is the god of thunder.
Basically what I'm getting at is that in the Mortal Kombat series, being a god doesn't seem to have too many perks to it over just being an ordinary human. In fact, humans becoming gods and vice versa actually occurs in MK11, albeit in weird circumstances in both cases. So it seems to me that divinity in the Mortal Kombat universe is more of a formality than it is a state of being. After all Liu Kang himself is basically identical to Raiden in almost every way, apart from Raiden ascending to Elder god status. Which Liu Kang could do himself if he ascended to Lesser God status first, which gets bestowed upon in some of his endings as well.
So what is the point in all this? Well, if I were to pull a theme out of this, it would be that in the Mortal Kombat universe, being a god is not really an upgrade on being a mortal as much as it is a promotion, you're still mostly you, you just have slightly different properties on you.
I hope this was entertaining enough to read all the way to the end and, if you did, thank you, I hope it was worth it. Or as The4thSnake would say, if you liked this, be sure to subscribe. And if not, share it with your enemies so they can suffer along with you.
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