Mortal Kombat's Blue Ninja

Crazy to think Mortal Kombat has been around for over thirty years. Long enough now to have gone through multiple reboots and eras.

As followers of this blog would guess, I'm of the older generation. My time was the original timeline from the first Mortal Kombat of 1992 to 2006's Armageddon—nicknamed by some the "Midway Era." I effectively called it quits come Mortal Kombat 9 and later embraced Kitana's MKX ending as my canon ending to the story as a whole (see the fifth part of the Kitana Retrospective for more on that).
I do still peek at what's going on in the story and characters I care about, but I've accepted my time as an active Mortal Kombat fan passed long ago.

Younger and more recent fans might not realize, but once upon a time...before the reboots and retcons and rewrites...if I were to single out who the true protagonists or "main characters" of Mortal Kombat were, it would be these two:

Yes, Liu Kang was the hero who saved the day at the end, and there is definitely something to be said about Scorpion and even Reptile, among a handful of others.
But, in terms of fleshed out backstory, motivation, conflict and development—the things that actually make a compelling protagonist in a story—the two leads of the original generation were easily the younger Sub-Zero and Kitana.

An interesting thing when looking at their respective characters and how they progressed over the years is how much they parallel one another, which is what I want to look at with this blog post.

So let's compare and contrast Sub-Zero and Kitana and see how they align and differ....

Growing Pains: Mortal Kombat's Mileena

I’ve written quite a bit about Mortal Kombat’s Kitana. There was her five-part Retrospective, a look at MK11 and how she just can’t win, and most recently, a look at how she’s been adapted in various media.
Naturally, though, one can’t talk about Kitana without sooner or later bringing up her counterpart, rival, and dark half: Mileena. 

Like her "twin sister," Mileena has come to be a very popular, beloved and iconic character in the franchise. Also like Kitana, a big reason for that is her developed storyline and character in addition to memorable gameplay and designs—to say nothing of her trademark grin, which is memorable to say the least.

Look at that smile...

I thought I'd prattle on a bit about her. What drives and motivates her. What made her what she is, and what stands in the way of her becoming more. And explore whether her hated sister really is the source of her woes after all, and what she could do about it.

Adapting Kitana: Boring Hero or Redeemed Prize

Kitana.

Mortal Kombat mainstay. Icon of the franchise. General fan-favorite.
One of the more developed characters story-wise, and one of the few to undergo an actual arc through the series.

And, for some reason, a character adaptations of Mortal Kombat just can’t get right.

The story has been adapted to outside media quite a few times now—movies, comics, TV, animation—and has even been rebooted/re-imagined in the games themselves. Kitana, as would be expected for a popular and iconic character, has been featured in most if not all of them.

But, for some reason, we’ve yet to see a great interpretation of her. For all the times she’s appeared in MK films, animation, etc., few (if any) have managed to truly nail her. Have they come close? Sure. Is she the only character who’s been done dirty by adaptations? Absolutely not. Has she gotten it worse than others? Not really.

Most would point out—not incorrectly—that Mortal Kombat is just a video game. Not exactly Shakespeare. For all the lore present, when you get down to it, it’s a collection of familiar archetypes, stock characters, and cliches. Should any of these characters, including Kitana, really be that hard to translate to film, television, comics, etc.?

So how and why—despite multiple goes and despite being one of the franchise’s most popular and iconic characters—do so many miss the mark?

Kitana Can't Have Nice Things

So, as readers of this blog know, I did a big retrospective on Mortal Kombat’s Kitana—looking back on her debut and backstory … development into one of the franchise’s best characters and heroes … downfall into a damsel in distress and princess stereotype … hitting rock bottom with retcons and getting stuffed in the fridge … and finally capping it off with a somewhat happy ending.

As I said at the end of the retrospective, I was content to accept her MKX arcade ending as closure for the Kitana I knew and loved—the Kitana from MK2 to Armageddon, dubbed Kitana Prime. I decided to take the ending as confirmation that there are multiple parallel timelines and therefore Kitana Prime and the original MK timeline not only still existed, but that she had survived Armageddon, eventually united the realms, and finally defeated Shao Kahn once and for all.

A satisfyingly happy if bittersweet ending, leaving the Kitana introduced in MK9—dubbed Nu-Kitana—to carry on as Empress of the Netherealm in the current timeline.
I figured if she appeared in future games, it would be that version of the character, allowing me to effectively retire my fandom as it was.

But of course, as it does, news of Mortal Kombat 11 crossed my path. And wouldn't you know, they couldn't leave well enough alone.

***SPOILERS AHEAD FOR MORTAL KOMBAT 11 AND AFTERMATH FOR THOSE WHO CARE***

Kitana Retrospective - Part V: Closure

And now we come at last to the final part of my retrospective on Mortal Kombat's Kitana. Who'da thunk I could write so much about a video game character? Hell, I originally planned this to only be three parts—yet here we are.
I chronicled her humble beginnings in MKII and her development into a major character. I looked at her downward spiral into mediocrity and finally bottoming out in MK9.

When we last left Kitana, she'd been retconned into oblivion, reduced to a victim, and stuffed in the proverbial fridge. A sad, sorry end to what had once been an engaging protagonist and strong hero.
That, among many other things, led me to give up on Mortal Kombat as a whole. The story, as far as I was concerned, was dead. There was nothing to look forward to, and I was left with a strong bitterness about the whole thing.

But Mortal Kombat 9, lousy story aside, was a major success. From what I understand, it had probably the best core gameplay in the series' history. I can't comment on that—didn't buy it or play it. And although the story itself was lousy, one couldn't argue the quality presentation.
So of course the franchise machine rolled on. After a diversion with Injustice: Gods Among Us, the developers began moving forward with Mortal Kombat X.

And it's here, shockingly, we might find a happy ending.


Oh...and since MKX is still fairly new as of this writing, SPOILERS ahead for those concerned.

Kitana Retrospective - Part IV: Rock Bottom

And so we come to the penultimate part of our look back on Mortal Kombat's resident assassin-turned-princess, Kitana. In Parts one and two, I've chronicled her rise, growing into a well-developed and strong protagonist, and in Part three, her fall, sliding down a slippery slope that would reduce her to a two-bit damsel-in-distress.

Is there any hope for our heroic assassin princess?
The aftermath of Armageddon promised a whole new era in the story, and with the purchase of Mortal Kombat by Warner Bros. there was a great deal of anticipation for what Mortal Kombat 9 would end up being. Would we see Kitana reclaim her rightful place as one of the franchise's best and most compelling characters or—at the very least—end on a good note?

As the old saying goes: it's always darkest before the dawn.

Kitana Retrospective - Part III: Fall From Grace

As explained in Part I & Part II, Kitana—assassin & step-daughter of Shao Kahn turned rebellious & heroic Princess of Edenia—was a rich character with (for a fighting game) dimension, motivation, development, conflict, and agency who grew over the course of the series into a strong hero and leader.
Not surprisingly, combined with her striking look and memorable choice of weapons, she emerged as a beloved fan favorite and icon of the franchise.

Here's where things turn sour.

Now, as I've tried to keep clear, a great deal of Mortal Kombat's "depth" is reading between lines, connecting dots, and filling in gaps. In regard to Kitana in particular, I've tried to maintain a distinction between what is actually presented in the game's story and what is me putting pieces together.

Because Mortal Kombat is, first and foremost, a video game—meant to be played. For better and worse, the story is a low priority for the developers and they are pretty much making it up as they go along. This can be good when it leads the type of organic storytelling I talked about in the previous post, which is partly what made Kitana a solid character to begin with. But it also means there's likely little-to-no plan or deliberate consistency.

So when I talk about the thematic meaning of Kitana's battles with Mileena, the full implications of her internal conflict to redeem herself, and how her story can be interpreted with Joseph Campbell's Monomyth...that's me reading into the story, and no, I'm sure the developers of Mortal Kombat do not/did not have any of that in mind when making the game.

I'm pointing this out because, when I say things are going to go bad for Kitana, I'm sure some probably think it's because the developers did something or took the character in a direction that didn't sync up with my interpretations and I'm mad they've clashed with my personal head-canon.

Believe me...if only it was that simple. 

Kitana Retrospective - Part II: Rebel to Princess

Welcome back to my retrospective on Mortal Kombat's resident assassin princess, Kitana.

In my last post, I covered her debut in Mortal Kombat II and went on at length about her motivation, conflicts, agency, and rivalry with Mileena. 
When we last left her in the story, she'd just fought and killed her demented clone, outing herself as a traitor to Shao Kahn.

And from here, things are really going to pick up as Earth gets invaded, friends turn against her, her mother returns, and Kitana grows into a Princess and leader.

Kitana Retrospective - Part I: The Assassin

Once upon a time, I was a huge Mortal Kombat mark. I was there in the beginning, and I stuck with the series through the highs and lows for a long time.

One of the things that kept me coming back was the storyline and its characters. If anything can be said about MK, it has probably the most ambitious—if not always coherent or consistent—story of any fighting game, and I was one of the idiots that obsessed with its lore.

The thing one must understand about Mortal Kombat's story is—at least until recently—it was like a puzzle. Every character had their little bio at the beginning of the game, explaining who they are and why they're there, and their little ending when you beat the game, explaining what might have happened to them.
These were your puzzle pieces—disconnected and with no inherent structure—and you wouldn't know which endings came true and which ones didn't until the next game, if you found out at all.

As such, how good (or not good) the Mortal Kombat story was depended on how you put the puzzle together. One person can look at the story for what it is and see an incoherent mess. Someone else might put it together into a simple, straight-forward story that—although not ground-breaking or terribly original—might at least make sense. And finally there are those who really try to put the story together and find something worth a damn.

I was one of the guys that always tried to make sense of the story, read between the lines, and make it out to be something grand and epic...within reason. There are some who go too far with that and find connections and meanings based on nothing. I always tried to stay within the bounds of confirmed canon.

What I'd like to do here is focus a couple of posts on one character that would emerge as my personal favorite—who also happens to be one of the franchise's most beloved and iconic characters: Kitana.

Credit: joshwmc

Kitana is a character with a rich history within Mortal Kombat's lore and is one of the few characters in the franchise to undergo an actual arc throughout the story. She's also, unfortunately, been the victim of some horrendous character derailment that has, in the eyes of many fans, tarnished her.

So strap in as I ramble on at great length about a fictional video game character, beginning with her rise: what made her such a stand-out character and, for my money, one of Mortal Kombat's best creations—then going into her fall: how and where it all went wrong.