I'm not against Frost but I don't think she can replace Sub-Zero. Sub is a poster child for MK. He's been in every single MK game. He's simply too important to the brand to not have in. And he's a serious fan favorite. Maybe he'll be playable in Arcade mode and Verses but not the Story.

Believe me, as a fan from the beginning for Sub-Zero, I had to do some major thinking about this idea, and the only possible thing I could come up with is that Sub-Zero actually sitting out of a game.

Here's the thing, no matter what, you're going to get people pissed off anyways with whatever they have him doing in the next game. People on this site can't stand that he's a favorite, and the character voting thread clearly shows how annoyed they are that Sub-Zero is a favorite character since they think he'll always win, or Scorpion.

If they bring him back, how are the fans going to react? The same way they normally do, get upset that once again another character that died didn't actually die. We could have a Mortal Kombat story that actually has characters stay dead for once, and that is where I was heading off with. But then that pisses off another group of people, the ones that actually wants Sub-Zero back in the game.

No matter what, you're gonna end up pleasing one group of people and pissing off the other. We can't be satisfied here, and this is the best I could think of that could give us a character that wasn't given a great opportunity, get an opportunity.

As a fan of what Frost was in Deadly Alliance, I don't really see what there is for her character to DO if she's re-introduced as a member of Sektor's Lin Kuei or anything like that. Her origin story kinda only works if she studies under Kuai Liang, because the whole thing that made her interesting was her relationship to him, that Obi-Wan and Anakin "mentor fails and his apprentice goes bad" dynamic.

Sub-Zero, at that point in the franchise, was this aging guy who had gone through all these years of hard work and shit to become a hero and clean up his family legacy and make being a Lin Kuei and being a Sub-Zero something to be proud of, and he has no kids to pass his legacy onto, but along comes another person with the same powers he has so he decides to take her as an apprentice. It's almost like a surrogate-daughter thing.

And because she's so powerful for how young she is, she's too cocky for her own good, and he tries to teach her to be humble but it just won't take because she doesn't care. She turns out to be a completely selfish bitch and is really only there to usurp his place, take his magic medallion and get control of the Lin Kuei for herself, and he's blind to all of this because he WANTS her to be the next generation of him so bad that he's not paying attention to her flaws.

Without any of that specific character drama, what do you have? A generic henchwoman for Sektor to command? A Frost who runs into Raiden and becomes a good guy for some reason?

That's boring and neither option really makes any sense because if she's recruited by Sektor's Lin Kuei, why is he not turning her into a cyborg? He wants to turn EVERYBODY into a cyborg. If she was ALREADY a member of the Lin Kuei during MK9 before Sektor took over, and is now trying to escape automation, how the hell did she get there so early? In the old timeline, she didn't join until AFTER Shao Kahn and Shinnok were beaten. If she's a good guy, why does she have the exact opposite personality she had before, and how do you expect to make her interesting if she's not a selfish bitch? If she's still a bitch but joins Raiden anyway so she can turn on the good guys the way she turned on Sub in the old timeline, what's her motivation for doing so? What is there to steal from them? She turned on Sub because she wanted the medallion's power boost and to be in charge of the clan. Raiden doesn't have anything to take. Johnny and Sonya don't have anything to take. And if it's just "the bad guys made me a better offer" or "I was with them all along", what would make her any different from Tanya or any other traitor character?

Like I said, I like Frost. I wanna see Frost again. But maybe she should hang back until MK11, so that Kuai has time to come back to life and find a reason to train a sidekick first. Or maybe she could be an MK10 DLC character instead of on the starting roster, and her bio and ending could tell the story of how AFTER the events of the game, her and Sub-Zero meet and he starts training her.

Why piss off the casuals though? The people who give MK the majority of it's sales. He's so iconic to MK. It would be stupid to not feature him in the game as a playable character. That's like having a SF game with no Ryu. The solution is actually very simple. Like I said, we keep him playable in everything but Story mode. Kung Lao and Kitana are also dead, and they're fan favorites as well. But you can do the same thing with them as well. Playable in everything but Story mode.

How will us the fans react? Normally. I accept that MK is full of bullshit and the writers will always find some excuse they pulled out of a hat to bring characters back. That's just how it is. They killed off 8 good guys in a single sequence, you think they'll stay dead forever? Hell no. Death is meaningless in MK, it's one of my biggest gripes with the series. We all know nobody really does in MK, so when they bring back Sub I doubt any of us would think much of it. Casuals sure as hell won't care.

I'm all for giving Frost a chance. She got fucked over pretty hard in the original timeline. But having Sub sit out a game would be absurd. He has to be playable at the very least.

Obviously there are going to be flaws in the idea I gave out, but she doesn't necessarily need to keep her old story. Why resurrect her old story, having her be someone we thought was good and then turn her into a selfish prick because she wants to?

If let's say, Li Mei was to return, would we see her be again this heroic person standing up for her people and then just losing it all in the end? Or, fall in love with someone on the opposing side?

You don't need to keep what was there before and just try to make it fit in the newer story, you can recreate someone, as we've just witnessed a new end to this game that we've never seen before, where our heroes are just left dead. And I'm sure they could easily write a story as to how she got into the Lin Kuei, as well as talk about the differences.



Also, we don't have to constantly keep the same rhythm flowing as to keeping certain characters around because the fans want them. There's nothing wrong with taking one single character out of a game. They did that with Liu Kang, I'm sure it's not that bad to take out Scorpion or Sub-Zero, despite the popularity they have going for them. Like I said, I'm a huge Sub-Zero fan, I've been a fan of him since I was two years old. Twenty years later, I'm still this giant fan. To see someone say that... that's kinda big. I don't mind seeing my favorites get taken out for someone new. But then again, I'm not like a lot of Mortal Kombat fans so...

Well it's like said, if you don't keep the personality and backstory she had in the old games, you have to replace it with something that's better, or else why bother?

What can they replace it with that won't be shallow and less interesting than they original? What can they do that would be better than the Deadly Alliance Obi-Wan-and-Anakin story?

Look at Sheeva for example. In MK3, her story was about being so proud of her race and hating the Centaurs so much that she betrayed Kahn and killed Motaro.

In MK9, she's a generic henchperson who never says or does anything important or memorable, she's not even Sindel's bodyguard anymore, which would have given her an important role during the last third of the game.

Instead, they made her the official "prison guard", which is completely stupid in a game that has no prison stage, so she's always stuck tying people to random things in random places like the Deadpool or the Tower and repeating that dumb "If you had not tried to escape, we would not be here" line as a poor justification by the writers to explain why they're in a random place instead of a dungeon, which doesn't make sense, because how is being tied to a hook more secure than the bars of a dungeon cell?

And why wasn't she guarding Jax when Sonya rescues him during the MK1 part? If you think about it, MK9 actually DOES have a prison stage, Goro's Lair is a dungeon with barred cells, and they didn't even use her in it! It's not like she wasn't on the island, she pops up out of nowhere to fight Cyrax in one scene (which also doesn't make sense since she wasn't in any tournament fights and totally spoiled Goro's entrance by being the first 4-armed monster we see in the game instead of him, so what was she even doing there...)

Another example: In the original MK1 thru 3, the deepest thing Scorpion did wasn't getting revenge on Bi-Han, it was how, in MK2, he meets Kuai Liang, and because he thinks he got his revenge already yet his soul still can't rest in peace, he decides he should make up for all the bad stuff that got him sent to Hell and vows to make up for killing Sub-Zero by watching out for his brother. Then Scorpion is recruited by Kahn in MK3 and at first accepts, because it's an escape from being stuck in Hell, but when he finds out Sub-Zero's on the other team, he honors that vow and switches sides.

In the reboot, Scorpion isn't even allowed to make those kind of decisions for himself because they've decided to have Quan Chi show up to every tournament and have Scorpion follow him like a damned henchman, to the point where when Quan gets Noob as his new henchman, Scorpion doesn't do anything important during MK2 and doesn't even show up in MK3 except for one scene where Raiden travels to Hell.

I'm rambling...but I hope you get my point that if you're going to change a character's story, the new one has to actually be deeper/better than the old one was or else the character is going to go to waste and be a dumb henchman like all the bad guys and half of the good guys were in MK9.
If anyone can suggest a story for Frost that would be different but still as interesting as the one she had in Deadly Alliance, I would totally be supportive...but I haven't heard one yet that would, so I'm not sure there's a different role for her that will make her as good a character as she was. That's all I want, for every character to have depth and be interesting and worth following.
Also, the whole "They're dead, so they won't be in the game" thing? We already know it's not gonna work like that. I don't understand why people keep talking as if those characters won't be in the game. There's no "the dead stay dead" when the end of the game tells you "In the next game, the bad guys are Hell, they have an army of the dead."
It would be a possibility if we hadn't been told that "the plot of the next game will be about Shinnok and Quan Chi using the dead guys as his army"...but we WERE told that. MK9 flat out SHOWS us that Sub-Zero and Kitana and co. are definitely going to come back and fight as mind controlled bad guys in MK10. Are people just choosing to forget the part where Raiden is in Hell and Quan Chi outright tells him the whole reason he teamed up with Kahn was to get everyone who dies as a soldier? Or the very last scene where Quan Chi and Shinnok are all like "Now that Kahn is dead, we can attack"?
They might be NPCs who get released later as DLC, they might be unlockables like Cyber Sub was...but they'll be in the story. You can't say "Sub-Zero is gone, that's an opportunity for Frost to stand out" when 1) Sub-Zero's not really gone, and 2) Whether or not Sub-Zero is around isn't going to help Frost stand out anyway, the way to make her stand out is to give her moves that are nothing like his (which we know they can do because they did it with Killer Frost in Injustice, she plays nothing like Sub-Zero) and write her in an interesting way.

But there's no real reason to replace him. Liu Kang being killed was significant, but he was not a poster boy. Sub-Zero markets the game.

But just because Sub-Zero is a widely popular character, why can't he be allowed to be killed off and stay out of a game? Are there rules to characters who promotes their game to where they can't be touched by death? Because if so, then that's stupid. I feel killing him off and having him somehow reanimated as the dead, and probably coming back to life again whether he remains a cyborg or returns human is something we've seen time after time after time. What's really affective is what I suggested... kill him off.

Honestly, it doesn't hurt to say that, whether or not it'll happen. Am I trying to say, "let's retire Sub-Zero's character?" No, but this gives more opportunities towards those who never had any if those who got killed in the previous game doesn't come back as a playable character. They can stay in the game as a NPC, and possibly DLC that has non-cannon stories/endings. But seriously, let the dead stay dead, and if they're only being used as a zombie army for Quan Chi and Shinnok, that's perfectly fine. "No one ever dies in Mortal Kombat" is a slogan I'm tired of seeing and shoved in my face when I'm asking for characters who die to just stay there. This series has over sixty characters and yet only half of them are always being used.


As to the other issue, it's easy to come up with a different story than having Frost remain as a selfish student whether it's her battling against Sektor's army, joining forces with Raiden and the good guys to take on Quan Chi and Shinnok, or having something completely different and interacting with characters we may or may not see happening. The idea I gave out was a mere example, something that could work if they plan on doing things different with Frost. And there can always be room to add more details to the story to make it a better one rather than having it disappoint in the end. Not every character who gets a new kind of story needs to end up as a Scorpion or a Sheeva.

It's easy to come up with a different story, yes.

It's not easy to come up with one that's good. It's not easy to come up with one that gives her depth and makes her more than a generic badguy henchman or a generic Raiden follower.
I say if someone's story was already great, they don't need changing. Don't fix what isn't broken. Some unpopular and underdeveloped characters needed to be redone and MK9 did well...but for every Stryker or Nightwolf who got a boost in that game, there's three times as many characters whose new stories are worse than their old ones because they stood around and did nothing once their tiny little chapter was over, or they didn't get a chapter at all.

Says one person, when there could hundreds of others that would disagree. One says 2011's story sucked, I thought it was great. I rather care more about the initial reaction of her than just one person.



Says you. I'm sure with given more time and info on what the next game's background is, there could be a great opportunity that could have Frost become something different than just being a sidekick to the heroes, or what other way she can play out.

They killed 8 characters for the sake of shock value. Death has no weight in MK and it doesn't look like it will anytime soon. If they're willing to kill off characters just for shock, it's pretty clear they don't intend on keeping people permanently dead.

I wish death held meaning in MK, but it just doesn't. Sub-Zero being playable in everything outside of story isn't affecting Frost in any way. So don't know where you're going with that.

I wish death had a meaning in this series as well, but unfortunately that might never come to light.

My only thing with this is if Sub-Zero stays dead, doesn't come back, and gives Frost an opportunity to rise. Or who knows, we could see some other character with the ability to possess ice make an appearance.

That's all I'm asking and kinda hoping on. If it comes true, then yay me. If not, which most likely will happen, meh it's whatever.

I feel they kind of screwed themselves over with the reboot. They have some really awesome reimagined characters, but they killed them off. Not only that but they almost killed off everyone. They really missed an opportunity here: death could have had meaning if they only killed off a couple of characters that really needed killing off. Instead they killed off a bunch that shouldn't have, and now they are pretty much required to bring them back in the sequel.

In order for "death to have meaning" in Mortal Kombat, if the idea of dead people staying dead was to be taken seriously, then the Netherealm could never be used again and Scorpion, Noob Saibot, and Sindel would have to be removed from MK1 thru 3 and never show up again.

I disagree.

Scorpion and Noob Saibot are the two characters where death DID mean something. They didn't just come back to life - they were turned into Wraiths by a necromancer and given powerful abilities/powers. But they had to give their souls willingly to Quan Chi.

These characters aren't the problem. It's the rest. The ones that can die and be completely rivived as if nothing happened

They really didn't need to kill everyone off at the end of MK, and Quan Chi really didn't need to reanimate them all (they're more like brainless zombies than sentient warriors like Scorpion and Noob).

Sure, by all means kill a few characters, but don't make that death trivial. Show it has meaning, like Kang being killed in Deadly Alliance for example. His death impacted the next 3 games (Deadly Alliance, Deception, Armageddon).

Liu's death was more of a shock to me than killing off eight characters in the latest game.

Well here's the thing:

If you think about it, there's a reason why they killed so many off. I'm not saying it's a GOOD reason, but it does kind of make some sense.

See...someone thought to theirself "What are we gonna do in the next game when this one's over? Shinnok, right? MK4 comes after MK1 thru 3."

And then they realized MK4 sucked and started wondering why. And one of the answers is that Shinnok was lame and didn't pose a real threat.

But why would Shinnok not pose a threat? The dude rules Hell. The dude commands the dead. The dead rising from their graves to attack the realms SHOULD be scary and awesome, shouldn't it?

Well...the problem with fighting the dead is, if you don't KNOW any of the dead people, if you don't SEE any of the dead people, if you can't PLAY as any of the dead people...how do you know they're even there? It was all just background text, and that makes it forgettable. In practice, Shinnok's army in MK4 was made up of only like THREE actual dead guys and they're all a bunch of losers who used to work for Kahn and why should we be scared of Baraka or Reptile or Mileena when they failed to win anything the last 2 or 3 times in a row we saw them?

Isn't "Oh no, the heroes are vastly outnumbered and the enemy is their own best friends turned against them" way more of a threat? Isn't Raiden being deprived of all his GOOD fighters, left with only B-Listers Sonya and Johnny and maybe some newbies, and them having to fight Jax and Liu Kang and Sub-Zero and Kitana kind of a big deal?

So...yeah. That's why they killed everybody. Because Quan Chi and Shinnok NEEDS that army of zombified heroes to not suck in MK10.

Again...I'm not saying that's a good reason to kill off so many popular characters. I wouldn't have done it. I'd have found another way to make the zombie army scary that didn't require making Sub-Zero or Kitana look like pussies who can't fight a single person 9-on-1, I would have found a way that didn't require killing off Stryker in the same game they finally made him cool and worth keeping around. But then, I wouldn't have made a game where the whole plot is "Raiden, who has millions of years of wisdom, is suddenly dumb and screws up everything" in the first place.

But that's why they did what they did. And given that logic, I would say this one time, death DOES matter, even though they're going to come back. It's made them different and is important to the plot in a similar way that it made Scorpion and Noob Saibot different and important to the plot.
On the bright side, I really doubt they'll still be mindless zombies in MK10. I think at least the most important ones like Kitana, Liu Kang, and Sub-Zero will be transformed into something like Scorpion and Noob are so that they're more intelligent and dangerous.

I've always pictured Sub-Zero and Noob coinciding together in some way. Which I do have another idea for Frost to be in this but I'm on my iPad and typing it out sucks on here.


But I'm jotting this down to remind me later.

Sub's appearance in Arcade mode doesn't even have to be canon. Take Takken 5 for example. Heihachi wasn't even at the tournament but he was still a playable character. It's a fighting game at heart, so we should at least try to keep the core roster the same.

Like I said before, Sub being playable in Arcade Mode has no effect on Frost. Arcade mode isn't canon so it would be even easier to explain his appearance in the Arcade. There can be two Ice characters without them being clones. They could be as different as Batman and Batgirl.

There's no need to have the Sub-Zero in Arcade Mode be non-canon when we know he's going to be in the Story Mode already anyway because the story will be about Shinnok and Quan Chi using their dead soldiers.

I agree. Sub-Zero is going to be in MK10 regardless. But I'm trying to appease Icebaby. She seems to be under the impression that Sub being playable in Arcade mode will somehow affect Frost.

I'm not under any impression, I'm throwing ideas out as what if possibilities. I can already tell Sub-Zero will be in the next game, all I'm trying to say is "what if he's not?" Thus that leaves me to think "hey, if he doesn't return, could this bring an opportunity to Frost? Could we see her return with a new story?"

Just because my favorite will return obviously despite me asking let's not doesn't mean it's gonna affect a character who we have no idea is going to be in the next game or not. That just doesn't really... Make any sense.

Well let me say this:

I think the only way Sub-Zero's absence would be an opportunity for Frost is if Frost had the same moves as Sub-Zero. Which she shouldn't.

If her moves are different from his, then whether he's there are not has no effect on whether or not people are willing to play as her.

Kenshi and Ermac both use telekinesis but don't have the same moves in MK9, and I don't think there's anyone who refuses to play as Kenshi because Ermac is there or vice versa. Same with Liu Kang, Scorpion, and Shang Tsung all having fire, or Johnny Cage, Nightwolf, Jade, and Shao Kahn all charging into people while glowing green.

To create an opportunity for Frost to become popular, you don't need to remove Sub-Zero. You just need her to play completely differently from Sub-Zero. Which should not be that hard, since as I already pointed out, Killer Frost in Injustice has ice powers but doesn't do any of Sub-Zero's moves.

It is very simple to have two characters in a fighting game that possesses the same abilities but use them very differently, yes.

However, the way this community acts about things like this, you're not gonna satisfy them, there will be complaints and there's the whole, "she's a clone, why bother?" Well, another way we could fix this issue is an idea that I wanted to write the other day but decided not to:

Let's say, hypothetically, that both characters are going to be in the next game.

I figured, since Sub-Zero is coming back, he'll be undead, which leaves me another idea, could we see the returning undead come back, and have that be apart of their characters permanently? .Such as Sub-Zero having himself have his ice powers, but they have some sort of undead effect to them? Also with Smoke and Jade and Kitana, etc.

We will have two characters that possess ice, but one has a different effect nod could possibly act differently as to the other who just has ice powers? So we can have these guys return, but they're not necessarily themselves/another costume/some other reason to have them in there?