Opinion post: Why I prefer Raiden to Fire God Liu Kang?
Hey, there, my fellow Internet pals.
While this blog is usually meant to be to publish things about my own AU, but I feel it can be interesting if I also share my opinions. Especially because I want to speak with other people 🤣 Of course, feel free to share your point of view, no matter how different it is to mine!
Now, as the title says, I will be comparing two characters from this same franchise: Raiden (the version from the MK9-MK11 continuity to be exact, who isn't my favourite Raiden but it's the most fitting for this comparison) and Fire God Liu Kang (the one from MK11 and the New Era. I'll not be taking into account his human version, for the record, just the god version). The both have similar roles, but I prefer the former by a considerable amount and I wanted to try to express why.
To do this I will be speaking about my feelings of the character flaws they are both given and the mistakes they both commit, and how I think Raiden's are significantly better handled and framed by the story in comparison to FGLK's.
I must first say that the character flaws/mistakes I will speaking about are those I am mostly sure are intentional from the writing. To be specific, I am 100% they are intentional from Raiden's part and like... 65-70% they are from FGLK's part (I hope you'll see what I mean 😅).
I will be touching three points:
1 - When both of them (accidently) caused the deaths of a whole lot of people
As many of us fan remember, a source of drama in MK9 story was how Raiden's attempts to change history led to different tragedies due to butterfly effect, in particular the deaths of many Earthrealm defenders who were later brought back as Revenants. The most notable example is when he accidently kills his own son figure and the other guy I will be speaking about here, Liu Kang:
MK9, MKX and MK11, for all its flaws, make sure we never forget this is a mistake which Raiden deeply regrets, even when he is corrupted into Dark Raiden:
And all in all I just think that I have to admit that, despite not really liking many things about how we got to this point, it's clear what they want to do with Raiden's character, and I find it honestly interesting. His mistakes had clear consequences that allow us to explore a bit of Raiden's character: a terrible fate for people who didn't deserve it and years of regrets for the Thunder God.
Now, to compare this to a mistake of FGLK. So, remember when he accidently nuked a universe? 😳
But speaking seriously, yeah, at the end of the main story of MK1, by killing Titan Shang Tsung, he causes the destruction of his timeline, and therefor of all its lifeforms (although Titan Havik is still standing at the pyramid after its universe exploded in the post-credit scene somehow?).
Also, to clarify this quickly, given that the Keepers of Time are meant to have in-universe limitations about controlling everyone's fate, and that in Shang Tsung's MK11 Aftermath ending he speaks about conquering realms (meaning he doesn't control everyone), no, I don't think the intention was that everyone was evil in his timeline, at least not in theory.
Now, you may say that including this as an intentional mistake of his character is unfair. Maybe the writer just wanted a big explosive ending and didn't think about the in-universe consequences. And I would agree with you if it weren't for this happening in Khaos Reigns:
So... apparently it was intentional? And he's meant to have learned from his mistake by this moment, I think? (see what I mean with 65-70% sure they're intentional flaws?)
If that's the case, I can only say that, unlike the Raiden's grave mistake I am comparing it to, this just feels so... off. Not even a mention in that KR scene I have shared of how regretful he is of what he did, just... nothing interesting about FGLK's character come out of this from my point of view, it's just there. If someone can share to me an intro or anything similar at least addressing this issue, I would be interested to see, but I can definitely say that, in any case, I think Raiden's regret was handled significantly better.
I must mention another thing which makes this fact especially odd to me. So, the objective of the villain of this story, Titan Shang Tsung, was destroying timeline (Liu Kang's). And we ended the story with the hero accidently doing the same. It's another fact that makes it especially weird to me how little weight this action has and how little it's even brought up.
I'll also say that I know the reason out-of-universe why Raiden's mistake is given more emphasis that FGLK's: one affected main characters and the other not. But honestly, that yet another reason why I think Raiden's mistake is far more interesting for his character than FGLK's is. Also, in the next points you may see that when FGLK's mistakes affect main characters it isn't given appropiate weight either imo.
2 - When both of them were willing to gamble with other lives
We go back to MK9, to a particular moment. A desperate Raiden goes to the Netherrealm during Shao Kahn's invasion, seeking an alliance to defeat Outworld. What he tries to offer in exchange of the Netherrealm's help are the souls from Earthrealm's warriors who will die during the conflict. An action even Quan Chi himself points out as morally questionable to say the least:
I am not a fan of this moment for more than one reason (if you want a morally questionable ally you could go to Seido or something, Raiden, at least they may ask for less and they aren't in an alliance with Outworld, dude). But at least I have to admit I get that they were going for here: Raiden's desperation to save Earthrealm is leading him to make questionable choices. This moment frames him as conflicted in his mannerisms and facial expressions, and later on he even tries to offer his own soul too, possibly in an attempt to ease the guilt:
I want to compare this to MK11 Aftermath's ending. There, at the end we are revealed every horrible event was part of a plan of FGLK and that he allowed everything to happen:
I have never understood the logistics of this plan or why only Shang Tsung is apparently the only one who can use the crown against Kronika (FGLK literally can, we see it at the end, all they needed to do after taking the crown was taking Shang Tsung and S11ndel out of the way, have Raiden merge with Liu Kang again and give him the crown!), but I'll not be talking about that today. I'll be speaking of how the story apparently frames this decision as questionable as the one I have mentioned with Raiden. We even have the other DA half pointing it out in a similar way:
And the possible consequences are the same. If Shang Tsung wins, he'll have the universe for himself and therefore everyone's destiny will be on his hands similar to how the souls of others would be in Quan Chi's hands if he accepted Raiden's deal. If Raiden was conflicted and regretful about that whole deal, one can only imagine how FGLK must be feeling the same, perhaps even to a greater extend...
... or maybe he's completely confident about it and doesn't feel any regret at all ☠️
But seriously, this moment is so wrong in so many levels to me. How is someone who is meant to be more emotional than Raiden (who is meant to work purely on logic, as of MK11) reacting so much more stoically and less emotionally to his questionable decisions? How is the guy who we are told over and over and over again that he's humble in contrast to Kung Lao that his plan will succeed despite its countless risks WHICH PUTS EVERYONE'S FATE AT RISK, HIS FRIENDS' INCLUDED?
This moment also makes me confident that FGLK less emotional reaction to the mistake of the first point isn't a consequence of him living a lot of time as the Keeper of Time, btw. He was like this two hours after getting the Hourglass, it just happened. I consider it a character reset rather than development.
The worst part is that all of this ended up having consequences in-universe. Titan Shang Tsung's timeline existed thanks to this, and every bad thing from the New Era that happened to that Shang Tsung is a consequence of this. Did we get regret then? Nope. Just Shang Tsung getting beaten up again, and his timeline getting nuked.
Now, I must mention that I am confident of what's the out-of-universe reason for this to happen: plot. They wanted a villain win story with a cool twist at the end, and the result ended up feeling a betrayal to Liu Kang's character rather than anything interesting to me. And it's a shame, because I really like Liu Kang's human character generally, but I have never really liked his god self since this happened.
3 - When both of them were cruel to a cruel person
This is going to be something simple for Raiden. Whenever we see Dark Raiden torturing Shinnok in MK11 and the ending of his New Era self, it's crearly framed in a negative light, despite the fact that Shinnok may be the most evil being in all existence:
What I get from this, is that it doesn't really matter who is he torturing. The point is that he's being cruel, showing that he has lost his way. It's a nice, efficient start for his villain self (pity it went nowhere 😭).
The moment of FGLK I want to compare it to is when... apparently he made New Era Quan Chi be born a slave?
I didn't want to speak of any bad aspects of the New Era being FGLK's fault, because I think the game is too vague about what he actually did and what's a consequences of some randomness happening after the universe was reset (for every statement I found other that puts it into question lmao). But one thing that seems consistent is that the lives the usual MK villains had are actually his plan, and with Quan Chi in particular he doesn't seem willing to deny his life was his plan:
Honestly, yeah. If you are going to make him be born a slave in awful conditions, just kill him 🤣
And I suppose it's intentionally meant to be a mistake from FGLK's part, given that it earns him a villain who is especially motivated to kill him, and that I at least found this dialogue saying something about it:
How on Earth would being a slave keep him away from evil? Lmfao
And I must just ask, what was the point of this? I cannot even say 'plot', because there were a million different backstories they could have given to New Era Quan Chi that had the same result, but they decided to give him this one.
Did anyone want a sympathetic Quan Chi? I certainly didn't, I like him as the bastard he always is. And despite his backstory, this version of him isn't really put in a sympathetic light at all either:
My best guess is that they wanted to be 'nuanced' (something MK1 in general seems to want to be up to a point), but between the fact that they don't have time to explore it in the story and that I honestly feel they don't even explore it enough taking into account the limitations (there are a lot more of factors to express that slavery in Seido is awful in comparison to those pointing out it must be awful in Outworld, and I have found little to no dialogues of the heroes feeling conflicted about Outworld's remaining questionable aspects. If I am wrong about it, I would be grateful if someone pointed it out to me 👍), it has ended up feeling far more like random or even inconsistent writing than like 'nuance' to me.
It has happened with many aspects in the New Era's lore (the Umgadi's fucked up traditions and rules, for example), and this is another. They point out the fact there's slavery in Outworld to make it feel like an imperfect world which still has horrible things (like ours), but I doubt is ever going anywhere interesting, and definitely think no interesting development is done with it in this game. I don't see anything in it other than the sympathetic backstory of a villain who isn't even sympathetic.
And in terms of what it means for FGLK's character, it's pretty much the same. I can tell this is (probably) meant to be a mistake from his part, but I don't see what was the point of establishing it, and I don't think it has interesting consequences either (not for now, at least), just another bad guy to beat up and be done with it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
You know, when I see Raiden and FGLK's comparison being compared in terms of their actions and their morality, it's usually to put FGLK in a positive light and Raiden in a negative one. FGLK is the guy who doesn't consult all the time with the Elder Gods, he's the not the God of Useless, etc. And honestly? That also reflects why Raiden is a better character to me.
They are both meant to have flaws (probably), but Raiden's flaws have actual weight, his mistakes have actual consequences and something is done with them. That has made people in the fandom generally question him more, even find him unlikeable in a good amount of cases. With FGLK I feel nothing like that. His flaws feel random, his mistakes have no weight or interesting consequences, or they go nowhere I am interested. And that is what makes me prefer Raiden over FGLK any day.
As I said, this is just my point of view, one I have tried to rationalize. If someone has been interested enough to hear me yapping about this and wants to share a different point of view, feel free. I am bored and I would like to listen to you lol.
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