Hello and welcome to Wasted Plotential, where we
discuss the wasted potential of our favourite plotlines.
If you thought MK9's retcons to character backstories were a problem,
you really are not ready for what MK11 did. While there were quite a lot of continuity
issues between 9 and X, character backstories stayed mostly consistent between them. But,
the new writers in MK11 decided to just randomly change the backgrounds of a bunch of characters,
right before another reboot that could easily justify having these altered histories. The MK11
versions of the characters are supposed to be the same versions from MK9 and X,
so these vast departures and even total inversions are inexcusable.
Today, I'll be going over six specific examples and reworking them to fit with
the established backstories. So, without further ado...
Erron Black
It's fitting that Troy Baker voices Erron Black. After all, he's a cowboy, who had a cool voice,
before everyone decided that Joel was Baker's most iconic role and started turning all his characters
deeply Southern without explanation. This is part of the issue, but it's the backstory that really
causes problems here. In MKX, Erron Black was an actual cowboy from 150 years ago, given longevity
by Shang Tsung in return for his service as an Outworld assassin. In MK11, there is no mention
of his longevity, nor his ties to Shang Tsung, to the point that the two don't even know each other
in their intros. Instead, he's just some arsehole from Texas who joined the Black Dragon and went to
Outworld with Kano to seek adventure. I didn't realise Erron could become less interesting,
but that's MK11 in a nutshell; taking things that are bad or boring and somehow making them worse.
Erron is now much more flirtatious and quippy, has a much lighter tone of voice and intense
Southern drawl, and has a long-standing affiliation with Kano that was never once
mentioned in the previous game, to the point that Kano tries to recruit him in one intro,
and says Erron could never be Black Dragon in the comic written by one of this game's co-writers.
I mean, compare the wording to him trying to get Kabal to come back in MK9.
Kano: "The Black Dragon ain't the same without you,
mate. You should come back. We're in the money on this war."
Kano: "You could join the Black Dragon."
Erron: "I can barely stand one of you."
It's quite explicit.
This is the theme, you see: new backstories that are totally incompatible with the originals,
to the point of coming off like totally different characters. And then,
I come in and prove it by making entirely new characters out of these new backstories.
Having heard the stories about the legendary outlaw, Erron Black,
Kano wants to recruit him into the Black Dragon upon meeting him in Outworld during the MKX comic,
but his loyalty lies with Kotal Kahn, currently, and he views the Black Dragon
as beneath him. Not only that, but he has killed Kobra of the Black Dragon by then.
Erron: "Killed one. Kobra, I think."
Later, Kano hears rumours of Erron making waves in Earthrealm's underworld and goes
to kill him, but finds a completely different man using the name.
Erron has longevity and is at least 170 years old. Before he found himself in Outworld,
we'll say he had a wife and a son. After his father disappeared, his son took up
his father's name and continued his legend. As did his son, and his son, and finally, his son,
who we'll name Salazar as a nod to Erron's original development name. You could go a
step further and make the descendant female, as Erron himself was originally going to be,
but we'll stick with Salazar Black for the sake of simplicity. Erron's great-great-grandson is
the current Erron Black of Earthrealm. His accent remains much closer to his home state than the
original Erron's, whose accent has changed in the many years he's spent in Outworld.
Kano recruits Salazar into his clan and brings him with him to Outworld, with the promise of meeting
his idol when he gets there. Upon meeting, though, Salazar is disgusted by his ancestor not being the
defiant outlaw the legends reported him to be, but instead basically a lawman to some blue-painted
freak. Erron, likewise, is none-too-pleased with his descendant's antics and allegiance,
and seeks to whip him into shape. Salazar also has a run-in with Kung Lao, who is similarly defined
by the legacy and reputation of the ancestor whose name he shares. The difference, though,
is that Salazar chose to continue his ancestor's legacy, while Lao had it forced upon him,
offering an interesting dynamic between the two. This can also apply with Sub-Zero.
This leads to Erron's ending, where their encounter has reawoken Erron's rebellious
nature, concluding that his descendant did have something of a point. As such,
he teams up with Salazar to take down Kronika and Erron uses the hourglass to change the timeline so
that his longevity applied to his entire line, present and future, granting his descendants
the same immortality. Each new son expands the ranks of the infamous Black Syndicate,
which continues to cause trouble for law enforcement in all the realms to this day,
eliminating any rival criminal organisation that gets in their way.
Skarlet
Skarlet, when she debuted in MK9, was a creation of the Flesh Pits,
much like Mileena and Meat. She was intended to be a secret weapon Shao Kahn employed for very
specific missions. Her current mission was to spy on Quan Chi, whom Kahn did not trust. From there,
she showed up in the MKX Comic as part of Reiko and Havik's schemes, making an enemy of Mileena
who, as I've discussed in the past, really should have been quite close with Skarlet,
but that's besides the point. MK11 decided that being another homunculus wasn't good enough. Now,
she's a street urchin Shao Kahn noticed and decided to teach blood magic to. Fucking why? Why
would Kahn notice her? She's not Prince Dastan, impressing the monarch with her nobility - she's
a filthy urchin that is unto an insect to Kahn. And even if he did take note of her,
why would he want to teach her blood magic? And if he knows how to use blood magic, why doesn't
he teach Mileena or even use it himself? It might allow him to win a fucking fight every now and
then. Even her knowing blood magic is a retcon, because the comic had her wanting to learn it from
Havik over a decade after Kahn died. And the comic writer then co-wrote MK11. I don't get it either.
And what makes it worse is that this is one of those retcons that doesn't serve a purpose. At
least, the changes to Kabal, Sindel and Erron impact their roles in MK11's story. They had
purpose, as dumb as that purpose may definitely be. But Skarlet's story would be exactly the same,
shy of a few lines of dialogue, if her old origin was kept. It's like how 11 decided that the
Cryomancers are from Edenia now. While that could have been taken in some interesting new direction,
the writers went no further than stating this is the case. It's retconning without purpose,
and that's the worse kind of retcon. And they aren't even consistent with it.
Sheeva: "Shao Kahn was desperate when he created you."
Given that Present Skarlet is totally absent from MK11 and Kotal suggests she died,
possibly after Mileena's blew off her legs in the comic,
we'll go with that. She died during or after the comics, either from her wounds,
or from being hunted down by Mileena or Kotal's forces and executed. However, we'll say that,
as an artificial life, her soul does not pass on. It remains wandering in Outworld.
Eventually, Skarlet comes across an urchin girl of around thirteen, whom we'll name
Ruby. Skarlet can sense the child's potential for blood magic and guides her in learning by
leading her to some depository of knowledge. The child becomes highly proficient over the next
seven or so years until MK11. Ruby, now around nineteen or twenty and a master blood mage,
then becomes possessed by Skarlet's spirit. She either takes the body for her own,
like Flemeth from Dragon Age, or controls her blood to manipulate her body like a marionette,
of influence her brain, like Magneto in that one Avengers comic that got really
awkward a few years later. Erik, no, she's your daughter! And you knew the whole time!
This even goes some way to explain her radically different look in 11. Past Skarlet keeps her
classic red hair, while the urchin has raven hair, given blood highlights once she becomes
Skarlet's vessel/puppet. But, the girl's mind isn't completely gone. Some part of her old self
remains, such as her feelings of anxiety over exposing her body. This, coupled with the fact
that this normal human doesn't absorb the blood of her enemies through her skin to gain power like
the blood homunculus Skarlet did, justifies her being generally less exposed this time.
Her ending or the story mode either sees Past Skarlet draining Ruby to a husk (shockingly not
an existing Fatality for her) and using her newfound power to avert her fate,
or the girl breaking free and absorbing Past Skarlet into
herself and using this power to achieve her dreams, be they noble or spiteful.
Nightwolf
Nightwolf was one of the few characters who didn't undergo any noteworthy retcons between timelines.
He was always the guardian of his tribe's lands and a powerful shaman. MK11 establishes
"Nightwolf" as a mantle passed down from guardian to guardian. This is fine. What is not fine,
however, is Nightwolf's bio claiming he was asked by Kano to steal artefacts from his own tribe,
but refused to do so after thinking unselfishly for once, whereupon Kano murdered him and he was
chosen to become the Nightwolf. This is not a catastrophic alteration of the character,
by any means, but like with Jade and Kotal, it makes previous instalments strange when Nightwolf
and Kano were both on the island and Nightwolf fought alongside former Black Dragon Kabal,
but never once brought this up. Not even to let Kabal know he forgives his
past affiliation with Kano and accepts his desire for redemption as genuine,
having begun his own quest for redemption after his past temptations. Actually,
that's pretty good, but that's not the direction I was going to propose.
Instead, I propose that they simply introduce a new Nightwolf along with bringing back the
original. It would certainly be a better use of your face and voice budget that a Dimitri
Fucking Vegas skin. Introduce a younger member of the tribe, roughly Kung Jin's age, with a
similar idolisation for his predecessor before his death, and a more extreme disenfranchisement
thereafter. Kano, having learned of Nightwolf's tribe during the invasion, seizes this chance
to steal from the Matoka now that their guardian is dead. He attempts to get this
rebellious youth to steal from his tribe, which he almost does, leading to his moral awakening,
death, and selection as the new Nightwolf. He now sets out for the Netherrealm to find
his predecessor's corrupted form and put his soul to rest, as Nightwolf's spirituality gave
him greater independence after Quan Chi's death and he left the revenant faction.
Don't just have him as the past version, with off-hand mention that Raiden killed
his revenant self off-screen, while also having Noob claim he's still alive because this series
can't even maintain internal consistency within a single DLC release anymore. Actually do something
with this mantle concept, rather than just teasing the idea of past and future female Nightwolfs to
be expanded upon later. Either make use of your retcons or don't even bother with them. Oh,
and don't make the claim that he threw his fight with Scorpion during the tournament, because
that means he was jeopardising Earthrealm in its darkest hour and that makes him utterly unlikable.
And yes, I wrote much of this episode before Aftermath was announced, much like the previous
one, but held off on making it until the MK11 kritique and the other MK11 Plotentials were
out. So let's add an Aftermath version here: the new Nightwolf is not with Fujin and Shang Tsung
until the two arrive in the past. After escaping the koliseum, the two decide to recruit him,
since he originally died to Grey Cloud, and thus had no impact on events. They save him from Grey
Cloud in the Netherrealm and Fujin has to hold him back when Shang Tsung takes Grey Cloud's soul,
promising to reclaim the soul once the battle is won, but secretly knowing another timeline
reset is on the horizon. The successor then fulfils Grey Cloud's Aftermath role from here,
with Liu Kang deciding to give him a bigger role in the next timeline.
Jade, Kotal Kahn
The Jade and Kotal relationship retcon doesn't strictly contradict anything like Sindel,
Skarlet, Kabal or Erron's, but it raises about as many questions as they do.
In case you're somehow not familiar, Jade and Kotal Kahn are now revealed to have been in a
relationship since long before now. Jade died two games ago and became an evil revenant,
but a version of her from before her death is brought to the present,
at which point she resumes her relationship with Kotal.
The issue is not the romance idea itself, but the suddenness of its introduction, and the insistence
that this has always been around. Do you not think that, had Kotal and Jade actually had
the kind of relationship MK11 wants us to believe they did, that Kotal might have felt a sense of
urgency to ally with Earthrealm and go raid the Netherrealm to reclaim his lost love?
Or that one of the two might actually fucking talk about the other at least once before now?
What they did would be like if Sareena had skipped Mythologies and been introduced in
Tournament Edition as Bi-Han's lost love, and then Bi-Han returned in the next game with his entire
character revolving around this relationship he's suddenly claimed to have always had.
It could have worked if they had just established Jade and Kotal as having had a friendly,
but mostly professional, working relationship while serving under Shao Kahn, or even a past
relationship that ended years ago. And then, the two working together during this game causes their
relationship to deepen or reignite, depending on the version, through impressing each other with
combat prowess, morals, and ideals. Maybe Kotal's crippling is a self-sacrifice to save Jade from
Kahn, who wants to kill her to hurt Kitana. This all leads to a brief romance before the timeline
resets. It could have made for a decent tragic romance, forged in the face of everything being
undone by a power-hungry entity that cannot craft a decent storyline to save its life.
At the very least, they should have had him actually meet the corrupted
version of his Jade. That would have fucking helped. For more on
how effective that scene could be, see the episode on Mirror Matches.
Sindel
I've already gone into the problems with Sindel at length, so I'll simply
present one alternative here that I'm pretty sure I've not presented before.
You take this characterisation and voice, and you give them to a brand new character. Following
Sindel's death, Kahn conquered numerous other realms before setting his sights on Earthrealm.
Let's suppose that one of said realms had a queen who betrayed her husband for Shao Kahn and become
his wife. He accepted her as a replacement, but she could never truly take Sindel's place. She
could be the queen of a realm we've never seen before like Vaeternus, or an entirely new one.
Why was she never around before now, you ask? She died some time in the past,
and Kahn didn't care enough to bother resurrecting her. And then Kronika
brings her back via the hourglass when Kahn asks for his bride back,
but she knows Sindel has to play her part in driving a wedge between Raiden and Liu Kang,
and doesn't want to jeopardise that. Instead, she brings back his second wife, who holds
a grudge against Kitana and the Edenians for her always being compared to Sindel.
This was the basis for the MK Khronicles character,
Valkaria, Queen of Vaeternus, who was created specifically to prove
that Twindel's characterisation would work way better with a new character.
In Aftermath, she can still play the role of secret villain by lying and saying she
was mind-controlled by Kahn as well. Everyone else buys it because she kept her true self
hidden prior to her realm's fall, because Kahn did that to his other wife later,
and him wanting to keep his second wife from game-ending herself like the first makes
total sense. Her ending then sees her kill Shao Kahn and make the Edenians her slaves.
You really can't tell me this isn't just better than randomly
retconning the royal redeemer into a parasitic, opportunistic whore.
And now for the other big one.
Kabal
When he debuted in MK3, Kabal was a former member of the Black Dragon that had left the group,
gotten horrifically burnt, and become a vigilante. In MK9, this was tweaked so
that he had left the clan, become a police officer and Stryker's partner, and been burnt by Kintaro,
who was obviously not the source of his original burns due to time shenanigans. This was a great
way to deepen his characterisation and I believe his FRIENDSHIP with Stryker helped
boost both in popularity. MK11 says he was a crooked cop that was bought off by Kano.
Jade: You're as vile as your Revenant. Kabal: Tried a face turn, didn't take.
...YYYYYYeah, no, go fuck yourself, writers.
This goes beyond a lack of understanding of the character. This is intentional inversion.
And why? To justify his past self from around MKII still being with the Black Dragon? His
existing flip-flopping between good and evil in the Midway games? There are tons of ways
to make that work. Kano already lies to him about his future burns coming from Sonya,
which is about the only decent goddamn thing they did with the guy in this story. Let it
be that Kabal was pursuing Kano when he came back to Earthrealm for more guns,
and then Future Kano tricked him once they were pulled through time. The two
were clearly friends once, so him believing him, even after leaving the group, makes some sense.
Kano: "The Black Dragon ain't the same without you, mate."
Alternatively, we could combine MK9 and 11's ideas to make something more complex. Go all
the way back. Kabal leaves the Black Dragon prior to MK1. He turns himself in and wants
to make amends. After ratting out his former comrades, Kabal is given a shorter sentence
or he adopts a new identity, leading into his training in the Police Academy. Kabal
is assigned as Stryker's partner. Kano then tries to talk Kabal into coming back and selling out the
pigs. Kabal discusses it with Stryker and a plan is concocted: Kabal will act as a double agent,
providing intel to the police, while also providing certain police secrets and assets
to Kano. Kabal's cover is eventually blown, and he flees the Black Dragon, where he is
horrifically burnt. Given his connection to fire and his absence in the MKX comic where all
of his peers come back, we could say that in the original timeline, it was No Face who burnt him,
getting himself shot dead by Stryker for his troubles. Kabal is then patched up,
maybe by whoever set up Jax's arms. This might make Kano still trying to get him to come back
during MK9 seem a tad unlikely, but maybe Kano just really likes Kabal and wants him
back. Plus, it's certainly a hell of a lot more consistent than the drivel MK11 came out with.
As for the time-displaced version, he's not had his cover blown yet and so he continues
to assist Kano until Sonya's chapter, where he helps bust Sonya and Johnny
out once Cassie arrives. Maybe he's secretly been acting as a mole inside the Black Dragon,
setting up a plan with Johnny or Cassie during the raid on the SF base and helping
them locate the fight club. He can then have a cutscene fight with his revenant
during the final battle, where the revenant is leading Kronika's forces outside the keep,
instead of having him go down to the Briggses or Fujin and drop off the face of the Earth.
And with that, all of the pre-Aftermath MK11
episodes are complete. There's still the odd topic to discuss before MK11 is completely over,
though, so I hope you'll look forward to those, as well as the inevitable episodes
inspired by Mortal 1 Kombat, which I've not actually said much negative about so far,
but you know what Netherrealm stans are like when it comes to being ignorant little buttholes...
If you liked this video, why not subscribe and support me on Patreon like these fine people
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Today's recommended video is What should be done with retcon Sindel
by Legion Beast. Because it's exactly right.