[Professional Perfectionist Procrastinator] [Primarily Mortal Kombat but bound to go crazy about other things] [The official demonic cyborg enthusiast™]
Only in Earthrealm can one have green eyes naturally. No one in Edenia or Outworld naturally has green eyes. Soul magik had to be involved at some point for the mutation to happen.
OP, I gotta be honest, your hatred for Bi-Han is both so frustrating and amusing to me, it goes to the point that I don't even know if your question is even genuine. However, I felt like yapping anyway so even if you ultimately don't care, I'm happy to write this.
First of all, I think it's important to mention that I'm a big Lin Kuei fan overall. Bi-Han is not even my favorite Lin Kuei warrior, Tomáš is, but Tomáš is just my favorite MK character overall. But yeah, I just love every Lin Kuei character.
I also do hate Bi-han's MK1 ass and mostly, I hate what the writers did to his character. To be honest, this specific Bi-Han is so bad and ridiculous I find it hard to take him seriously so he ultimately makes me laugh more than anything. Anyway, Bi-han's characterization in this game is something I've already voiced my opinion on. Namely, that is not Bi-Han, that is a bad Sektor knock-off. I won't go over it again. Whatever, reasons under the cut.
Bi-Han is such a wasted character and I think there's a lot to explore and love, mostly as far as his original Midway self is concerned. Really, if we take Mythologies: Sub-Zero alone as a source because it's literally the Bi-Han Game™, I'm genuinely shocked writers never took Bi-Han's character further and instead chose to reduce him to a grunt-type villain because BOY-
As an opening statement, I want to say that I appreciate both Bi-Han and Hanzo equally and sympathize with both of them. However, I admittedly do tend to have more sympathy for Bi-Han, for the sole reason that his own trauma was completely erased and ignored by History while Hanzo's pain was never forgotten nor downplayed and essentially caused him not only to gain the sympathy of the other good guys but also to be redeemed and to be considered a good guy as well. It never happened with Bi-Han in spite of him being just as deserving of it in my opinion.
I'm a sucker for characters with childhood trauma. I consider childhood such an important and pure thing that shall never be tainted, hence my sympathy for characters whose childhood was stolen, broken. Although it was never explored, never outright said, Bi-Han is one of those characters.
The Mythologies lore literally says that Bi-Han and Kuai Liang were kidnapped by their own father and forcefully brought to the Lin Kuei temple in China to be molded into warriors. The boys' mother and sister were reportedly "never seen or heard from again" which, in MK and/or Lin Kuei vocabulary most likely means they were killed. Although it is never explored or outright said, it's safe to assume that a child who was kidnapped, uprooted, forced to follow a rigorous abusive training to become an emotionless killer and who on top of that, might or might not have seen his mom and baby sister being killed, would be understandably traumatized.
Going just a bit off-topic but that leads me to one aspect of the Hanzo/Bi-Han dynamic I love: they both know the pain of having lost loved ones. Hanzo lost his wife and son, Bi-Han lost his mother and sister. Hanzo is a grieving husband and father, Bi-Han is a grieving son and brother. The only difference is the age they were when they faced that trauma, the stage of their life they were at when they were broken. Hanzo is a broken man, Bi-Han is a broken child.
And that is not to say I infantilize Bi-Han. He's still a grown man who did bad things and who has an unfathomable amount of blood on his hands. However, I think of this forgotten background, his original background and to me, he'll always be that broken child at his core.
Not only that, but while Hanzo willingly joined the Shirai Ryu and chose to live the life of a warrior and assassin, Bi-Han was forced into it. They're both supposed to be neutral but the narrative changed in order to make Hanzo a good guy and Bi-Han a villain.
Which is why I have such a huge soft spot for Joe Taslim's take on the character, because he acknowledges Bi-Han's original background and fully integrates it into how he portrays the character on-screen.
It's so easy to paint Bi-Han as a pure evil asshole the way MK1 does when Mythologies is right here, existing as the Bi-Han bible. The game literally exists as the answer to the question "is Bi-Han good or evil?" and said answer is not a simple "yes" or "no". Yes, Bi-Han is a bad person because he's an assassin and his life of crime has tainted his soul which not only allows him to enter hell but also curses him to be sent there once he dies. However, this newfound knowledge is a genuine shock for Bi-Han who insistently asks Raiden if it is true, to which Raiden answers that only Bi-Han himself can change this if he actually chooses to. And while this cutscene is immediately followed by Bi-Han claiming to the Grandmaster that he vowed to serve the Lin Kuei, we know by now that this isn't entirely true, because Bi-Han never truly had a choice in anything... Bi-Han has also been shown to be able to show mercy as seen by him sparing Sareena for unknown reasons when he had previously slayed not only Hanzo but also Kia and Jataaka. Bi-Han aggressively rejects Quan Chi's offer to join the Brotherhood of Shadow when it would have been so easy for a true evil asshole to accept- which is something MK1!Bi-Han essentially does by accepting to join the Deadly Alliance, betraying his little brother in the process. Speaking of which, it's so obvious Bi-Han originally was a good brother in the previous timelines or else why would Kuai Liang seek to save him from the Netherrealm influence in Armageddon and why would he seek to avenge his big brother's death in MK9? Hell, I don't even like Battle of the Realms but Kuai Liang being outraged upon learning that Scorpion is to be taken alive and crying when faced with the man who killed his brother is such a nice touch.
You might have noticed already but I'm having a real hard time making this answer concise because me talking about characters I love implies me going on a full rambly analysis. The long story short is that I like Bi-Han because he is a sympathetic character to me, a broken villain/antihero who's always been a spectator of his own life and the claim that he alone can choose his destiny sounds like a cruel joke. I like him because he's obviously flawed and a bad person but is evidently bothered by this fact and refuses to give in to further evil until he's once again forced to (Quan Chi bringing him back from the dead as Noob Saibot to serve him when Bi-Han in his lifetime assertively expressed his refusal to join Quan Chi's side is once again a cruel instance of Bi-Han's inability to choose anything for himself, which Bi-Han himself claims when Raiden asks him to go to the Nether). Bi-Han also possesses redeeming qualities such as an obvious but unseen love for his little brother as well as the mercy he showed Sareena, resulting in her being freed from Quan Chi's control. I like Bi-Han because while he died a bad person, he was unjustly murdered for a crime he didn't commit and this fact still hurts him judging by one of his intro dialogues with Raiden in MK11 where he rightfully claims he wasn't given justice. I like him because he's considered one of the best Lin Kuei warriors but still manages to show some insolent attitude in the face of the Grandmaster himself. I like him because I like how cryomancy was developed in the past timeline as a form of magik that harms its users. I like him and I think he deserves better. I think he deserves at least the same level of love and compassion Hanzo is given instead of being turned into a pure asshole character because the people at NRS can only write manichean bullshit.
I like him because he's got an insane amount of potential but everyone squanders and ruins it.
I also like that he's an asshole in every incarnation of his character but while Mythologies!Bi-Han, MK9!Bi-Han and 2021!Bi-Han lean more snarky/insolent/smug sympathetic asshole, MK1! Bi-Han is just pure asshole.
The only thing I can respect when it comes to MK1!Bi-Han is that he killed his father/left him to die but that's going off the basis that his father is abusive in every timeline. I just pretend that Bi-Han from previous timelines killed his father too and I'm happy.
dead serious normalize having an average boring ass life where you have enough to meet your needs we do not need to be remarkable we just need to be alive
Keeping an alive tumblr in 2026 is proof of one's sincerity and authenticity - a type of person who enjoys posting for the sake of it with absolutely nothing to be gained....just the enjoyment of curation and self expression untainted by opportunity and relevance
fucked that you can’t fix other people especially when you really care about them. Oh so im just supposed to be there for you while you suffer. like a useless cunt gargoyle
