You guys kind of look alike !!

Yay! I am so happy to see so many people support Raiden! I really feel like Raiden's actions were strongly misinterpreted. I think a lot of the hate comes from people's favorite character getting killed or automated. Seriously, some people seem to give Raiden more shit than Shao Kahn and Quan Chi. The ones who are causing all the mess. The characters rarely stay dead anyway if ever.

To make manners even worst, Raiden blames himself. He clearly has a bad case of survivor's guilt. "Kung Lao's death is my fault." How?! For letting him fight in the tornaments he trained his whole life to be in? For letting him try to prove himself like he was craving to do since the beginning of the game, or fighting a guy he would have had to fight anyway because he and Liu were the only Legal fighters left and Liu was too busy trying to free a girl he had a crush on instead of making the fate of 6-7 billion people his first priority? Shao went up behind him. Theorizing from gameplay, Shao is incredibly fast, of course Raiden would have said something had he seem him in time. As a couple of others stated, I hope Raiden "screwing up" does not become the norm. Based off of some rumored character intros and some stuff said in the comics Raiden is still taking heat. *Sigh*

At the end of the Day you can say this for Raiden. He definitely had good intentions in MK9.

However, a lot of people with mental issues can often do really bad things having perfectly fine intentions.

Maybe that's how they are trying to portray Raiden here. Raiden is a god, and as a god he should have handled some of these visions better. Gods area all knowing. Raiden was making drastic decisions based on so little info and it made him look really stupid. If you are looking at it from the heroes standpoint he could come across as a crazy person. So, I think we will see more of his "psychotic" side explored in MKX.

I'm wondering if maybe a new protector (Fujin possibly) may be gaining the trust of the Earthrealm warriors and Raiden isn't taking too well to it. The whole "Where have you been Kung Lao?" sounds like Raiden knows where Kung Lao has been and he doesn't like it or feels betrayed by it. That was just my take on it though. I'm thinking a new protector could definitely rise in MKX though.

Yeah

If some colossal imbecile got me killed and then tried to sell my fucking soul to the right hand of Satan, I don't think I'd wanna sit around and have a beer with the guy, ya know?

I'm not sure why everyone was so pissed that Raiden left them for like 5 minutes to ask for help from the elder gods, or why Liu Kang was protesting it before they left, asking the Elder Gods for help seemed like the most logical thing to do at the time. Worst case scenario happened and they all got murdered at the same time that he left.. although Sindel probably would've just kicked Raiden's ass too if he was there.

I think Scorpion kind of implied Raiden did something even worse after MK9 though.. I mean.. who is Scorpion to say Raiden got the MK9 characters killed when he was actively fighting against them the whole time?

Either way though I'm fine with the idea of everyone hating Raiden because it's pretty amusing.

Being a god, I just think that Raiden has a different mentality than the people he's trying to protect. As a god, he's immortal, so his view of the universe is skewed, and to mortals like us...it seems like he's done more harm than good.

He thinks in terms of Eternity, not life times. He thinks on a cosmic scale, not on the here and now, because to him, there is no here OR now. To him, sacrificing a few good men to save a few generations worth of souls is worth it. To him, wiping out the Saurians is worth it to save Earth, which will eventually be repopulated.

His job is to protect Earth...not make everyone happy.

Personally, I hope to see a grudge match between Raiden and Liu Kang, with Liu winning, becoming a god, and having that moment of "Wait a minute....Raiden actually knew what he was doing...being a god sucks!"

I can believe that anyone can make mistakes or act out of desperation.

It was a sad display, and I was with him up until the end, but the moment where he tried to bargain with the souls of his warriors was the moment I called bullshit character assassination.

I'm not blind to the good things that MK9's Story mode did, or tried to do; I just think it has its pros and cons. And this is one of the big ones:

The Raiden I know, the one I grew up with, was someone who put his own life on the line first - see his MKT bio where he willingly sacrificed his own immortality and risked permanent death as a mortal in order to fight against Kahn. He wasn't someone who gambled with the lives of others while hanging back safe; this is someone who bears the guilt of an entire civilization's death.

All it would have taken was for him to offer his own soul, first and foremost, at the very least before he offered the others', and I could have bought it. Instead it just took me out of the moment and made me realize the character was being written by people who didn't understand him nearly well enough.

They did that so that there was a plot device for killing off a slew of characters so they could be used in revenants by Quan Chi/Shinnok in the follow-up. That may seem like a bit of a stretch but considering Shinnok's appearance in the story mode and the words exchanged between him and Quan Chi, NRS was definitely laying the groundwork for Shinnok and Quan Chi's invasion of Earthrealm.

The problem is that the plot device they came up with to accomplish the result they wanted involved Raiden doing something completely out of character. And they either didn't care about Raiden enough to not do that or didn't understand him well enough as a character to not do that.


I'm hoping that it will turn out that "He who walks in silence", the malevolent being from another realm Raiden warns about in the comics, was actually manipulating Raiden in MK2011. If the theory that it is Havik is true, maybe manipulating Raiden into alienating his allies and getting many of them killed and enslaved by Quan Chi as revenants was his attempt to throw a monkey wrench into Raiden's efforts to change the timeline. Perhaps when Raiden tried to contact himself in the past, he accidentally also made contact with Havik?

I am glad that this topic has more than a few people who are actually can think, without jumping on badnwagons and stuff.


Not again this bullshit about "all knowing"...how and why Raiden should have been able to be all knowing, when it was never part of his powers?
What drastic decisions? He litterally changed very little in the MK1 and MK2, basically taking cautious baby steps in order to ensure Kahn's demise.

But Hanzo doesn't deem NPCs as just collateral damage and thoroughly seems to care about the well being of his clan. Yeah he shouldn't have kept the dagger but who knows if he owed Raiden a favor or not. You dont exactly tell a demi-god of earthrealm no anyway. I'm sure he thought it was safe surrounded by assassins. Raiden obviously lied about its power so you can't blame Hanzo for the death of his clan yet again.

As well-meaning as he was, Raiden DID fuck up colossally due to not being clear enough on many occasions.


He must win -Kahn must win. Same amount of syllables. The message would have been infinitely more useful. MK1: Shao is not present, so Liu Kang must have had the victory. The question is wether MK2 or 3.

Raiden did not know the technicalities of the tournament? SAY WHAT? That is like me teching English without knowledge of the perfect tenses... his epiphany in front of Quan Chi was like, DUUH.

for some arbitrary reason, he did not intervene during Sub-Zero's abduction. That is massively out of character for no reason at all. He already saved Smoke, what is the justification that not preventing Sub-Zero's cybernetization would be better for the future?

ESPECIALLY SINCE HE HAS KNOWLEDGE of him becoming the grand master and being a potent ally in the long run???


The problem is, as much as I would ilke to chalk these up to distress, the writing clearly does not bother with making actions organic. Subs has not been rescued (violation of common sense and taste) because the Cyborg Sub-Zero character was mandated.

MK9 wasn't Raiden screwing up, it was Raiden avoiding Armageddon and to do so heavy sacrifices were made. He was successful and saved the day, case closed. The story was just so poorly written and so full of awkward dialog it made Raiden come off as the blunder God, bumbling through the timeline fucking everybody up. Lui Kang's death scene is a prime example.

Last time I checked, he didn't do anything to stop Blaze, Daegon, Taven, Shujinko... How is Armageddon not happening? "He must win!" - Who is "he"? Win against whom?

I have one question for you, Raiden defenders: Why did Raiden save Smoke, but didn't do the same for Sub-Zero?

I'll tell you why. They made Raiden look retarded so they can continue the story with a twist.

At the end of Armageddon raiden had just few seconds before sending the message to his former self and he had shao Kahn right in front of him, that's why he said "he" instead of shao Kahn's name. It's not a matter of syllabes.


Raiden knew perfectly how the tournament worked, I don't know what you're talking about.

Sub-zero was kidnapped during the tournament, with rules set by shao Kahn, helping sub-zero could have been interpreted as interference , hence breaking the rules , remember "I cannot fight, unless directly challenged" . smoke, on the other hand was just wondering in the living forest, there was no tournament or rules to follow, that's why Raiden helped the grey ninja.

Read my only three posts in this thread and thou shall get the answers thou seek.

He didn't know those characters would help lead the world to Armageddon yet. But trying to alter the time line meant they wouldn't eventually come into play anyway. All Raiden tried to do was alter the path to Armageddon to try and avoid it and in this he succeeded. Unless of course MKX is about Armageddon, which I highly doubt.



Like I said, bad writing.



Again, bad writing.



no shit thats what I said. Read all of my post before you quote it numbnuts

This. Raiden should have gone down to the Netherealm looking for help, should've found out Quan Chi had the souls of Earth's warriors and then should have proceeded to go HAM on some bitches. There would've been absolutely nothing wrong with Raiden giving up his immortality to try to right his own wrongs, going back to Earthrealm and telling Liu what he had figured out and of losing his immortality and that Kahn was his to deal with and his alone. Then, during the battle, perhaps Raiden starts getting his ass handed to him and figures out what the message meant all along and prepares to ultimately sacrifice himself for his realm and then the Elder Gods begin to intervene before the death blow could come.

I don't know why they did things in story mode the way they did, but I think Raiden is in dire need of some sort of retribution. Not just because he's a classic character who made dire mistakes in the previous games story, but because Raiden is like the caring Grandfather to all of MK's Earthrealm characters. Even if he were to bow out and let Fujin take over at some point or time, he's still supposed to be the guy who's always watching, who would do whatever it took to ensure his peoples safety and protection. To give us MK1-MK3 they could've easily kept MK1 the way it was, MK2 could've stayed Kung Lao being overly cocky, getting killed and Liu saying to Hell with Raidens visions and killing Kahn as a means of revenge for killing his fellow warrior and then once Earthrealm was invaded, they could've taken Raiden all seriously then or start to figure it out along with him, they get slain by Sindel, Raiden finds out, gives up his immortality as a result and prepares to sacrifice himself for the good of the realm so that Kahn may win. It's not THAT hard to make the story infinitely less dumb by ruining one of the core characters in the process of killing people off. You could've still made him some sort of tragic, ready to sacrifice himself, character who wanted to make amends with his mistakes and right his wrongs but no, he kept making mistake after mistake after mistake and blundered his way to ultimate victory.

MK9 in my eyes did a lot of cool things, made a few shocking (and ultimately neat) decisions that work fully well for an alternate timeline, but come on! Screwing up one of your most classic characters and making him into a walking, talking joke was not cool.

You keep using those words, just because we disagree with a specific character's decisions within a particular context doesn't makes it bad writing. If. Raiden doesn't act like a badass almighty that doesn't make him retarded.
I agree with you that the execution and the dialogue were poor at best, but given the limited options of the chapter system in the story mode, it could have been way worst.


Flaws and human characterization in Raiden was pretty much what held the the entire MK9 storyline together, if they would have made Raiden into a bland, "all knowing" one dimensional superhero the whole MK9 story would have been predictable, boring garbage.

Raiden AVOIDED Armageddon with his actions in MK9.

When Armageddon started? When Blaze become free... and realizes that there's too many powerful fighters. With the massacre of MK9, if Blaze awakes about his true mission in the ending instead of Shinnok/Quan Chi plotting, surely that we won't get any Armageddon for MKX.

In fact seems that the Netherrealm War fixed Raiden's alterations in previous game and now the path to Armageddon is again in route...

So everyone is just going to ignore my theory about Havik? Mmkay, thread time...

I agree with this. He sold his followers out he also sacrificed the Saurians. Then killed his champion out of desperation. Yes all these characters can come back because death is irrelevant.

I'm not only talking about success in tournaments, I'm talking about overall as a character.

This PR ad sums up the God of Blunder's screw-ups head on.

Deviantart