That's not always true. Havik is billed as Neutral, and in Deception he teams with both the Black Dragons (bad guys) and Shujinko's team of good guys to help take down Onaga (evil). I believe Dairou is also listed as "Neutral" and his story involves a lot of being hired to help good guys (Shujinko) or kill bad guys (Hotaru - yes he's evil, he works for Onaga) and the guys hiring him are both bad guys pretending to be good guys (Damashi and Darrius).

Scorpion is also always referred to as Neutral and in MK2, the end of 3, the end of 4, Deadly Alliance, and Deception he's actually a good guy or ally of the good guys. Hell, you could argue he's a good guy in MK1 too because Bi-Han deserves to die.
Tanya is definitively not "Neutral", though. Her personal goals are outright harmful to others and as you said, she always works for the villains. For all the talk about how she's just a "survivor"...that's a description of DECEPTION Tanya, who's already an on-the-run criminal. As I pointed out before, Tanya's origin story features her actively wanting to hurt Kitana and Liu Kang. And that is WHY she's later on the run and concerned with survival.

I've always considered Hotaru being lawful neutral, since he did go after the Tarkatans who were attacking his city once, but then he sought Onaga being a ruler who'd bring order throughout the universe. I can see why he's considered "evil," but he's only working with Onaga because he believes he can bring order. He could have also worked with any good character who wants to bring order around...


But I really don't see how Tanya is considered to be a neutral character all because she's doing things for herself to thrive on survival. She allowed evil forces to run a muck in Edenia, Granted that she had a choice to either serve Onaga or die, that doesn't mean that she's considered neutral. She's pretty evil, even if she has the looks to be considered good.

All those people code as evil to me maybe because of their looks. I don't know of all of those I can only really buy Havik for trying to play both sides which I forgot about. But the fact that all the neutral characters tend toward the dark and most of them fought the good guys during Armageddon, I just think NRS drops the ball with them.

Going by the Dungeons and Dragons scale, Hotaru is Lawful-Evil because he uses the law to oppress and harm people unreasonably, as does Onaga.

He may not be doing it deliberately, not REALIZE that the law is not serving the best interests of the people and they are being treated unfairly by it because how people feel isn't important to him, the letter of the law is all he cares about, not the spirit of the law or why laws are supposed to exist, such as in the example where Shujinko spends 10 years in jail just for breaking a curfew he wasn't even aware existed in Lei Chen, a city where he's a visitor, not a legal citizen...

But actions are what's supposed to dictate alignment. You are how you act, not how you THINK you act or what you WANT to be, and if your behavior in-game doesn't match the alignment you wrote down on your character sheet, then your DM is supposed to have you either change it to match or advise you to change how you play the character. Granted that most DMs give leeway or don't care because alignment is rarely important as a gameplay mechanic, it only applies to Paladins and the targeting on certain spells.

It's just a matter of perspective. A good example of neutral characters fighting good guys would be Nitara & Ashrah in Armageddon. While Ashrah has been portrayed as good, she was the antagonist of Nitara's race because of the blade she wielded and thus Nitara became her 'rival' to defend her people. In this perspective, although Ashrah is of 'good' alignment, her intent in this instance is inherently evil while Nitara's is good.

What mainly makes Nitara neutral is that her real alignment is to her realm and since no one else from Vaeternus is around she just does what's best for her. Several characters follow this point of view and because of it, they don't fit the traditional mold of good and evil.

Just because a neutral character is fighting a good guy it doesn't automatically mean they sway more towards the bad side.

Tanya, although she does what's best for her, would still be evil because of the actions she chooses to do. She allows Shinnok to invade Edenia. She acted as an 'ambassador' to the Deadly Alliance. She helps Onaga find Edenian inscriptions in order to combine the Kamidogu. Her actions don't just have her fighting good guys. She ends up not only being involved but actually helping almost EVERY main villain's plans. Not only is Tanya evil but she actually has the tools and the means to helps our main bad guys carry out their schemes.

In a way Tanya would be more evil than characters who just fight the good guys(Baraka, Reptile, Sheeva) since she actually has utility for the main villains. If NRS writes her the way she's been so far, she'll be evil.

Unless you count the fact that vampires have to bite people and drink their blood, Nitara never really hurt anybody.

She manipulated them a bit, like making Reptile break Cyrax's portal device so that she could get Cyrax to agree "help me get this thing and I'll send you home", but at the end, she keeps her end of the deal and does send Cyrax home. That shows that she's not a malicious or unfair person.
Evil is doing harm to people out of selfishness. If you're selfish but you don't harm anybody, you're not evil. If you harm people but don't mean to, you're not evil.
If you DO harm people, and your reason for doing it is because you don't care about them, or because you WANT to make innocent people who don't deserve it suffer, THAT is what makes someone qualify as "evil".

Well said.

The Cannon Drill is one of the main reasons I love Tanya, so I don't want her to lose it.

As for her alignment, you guys come with some great points. She definately appears to be evil. But no one is born evil. There is always a reason for it, whether it is because of a mental illness or through some experiences in life that makes you so. But it's the same with being good though. We're all born neutral, and outside influence is what shapes us...

Well as far as Mortal Kombat goes there are characters who are evil without any need for a backstory. They're just evil and we have to live with it. And some may even be born evil(Kintaro, Baraka, Quan Chi), or "born" evil(Ermac, Mileena, Skarlet).


Ordinarily i'd say Tanya would have to have an explanation since she's Edenian and they're mostly good. But then again there are good Outworld characters and bad Earthrealm characters so obviously a bad Edenian isn't out of the picture and if they choose to make Tanya evil without any explanation then that's perfectly fine. It's one of those things where the inclusion of an explanation would help but a lack of it wouldn't necessarily hurt the story.

It's basically my favorite move but only because it's a special move of my favorite Street Fighter character. Although I wouldn't mind different moves where she otherwise hurled herself at her enemies.

That's exactly why I love it too! Cammy rocks! ;P
Though I'd prefer Tanya to be more a sorceress kind of character, if NRS decided to make her an acrobatic fighter like Cammy, I wouldn't be opposed it.

If Tanya is going to be confirmed, there's one problem: Many people mistaken D'vorah to be Tanya from the gameplay trailer at one instance because of the black and yellow coloration not to mention the hooded clothing that could easily resemble a sorceress. How are they going to have fans easily distinguish D'vorah from Tanya?

D'Vorah's so distinctive looking with her bald head and bug armored skin, I don't think that's a realistic concern when people actually look at the characters for longer than a glance.

To be honest, I never had any problem knowing D'vorah is a different character than Tanya, its like saying Cyrax is Scorpion in MK3(ninjas weren't in the game but in UMK3) just because he was wearing Yellow.

To be fair, people on message boards sometimes choose to be dumb on purpose.

I'll give you an example:

When Deadly Alliance was first announced, the very first image we got was a picture of Quan Chi. However, the picture did not come with any kind of text or explanation, it was just a render of a character, no context.

So on this board, and I swear to God this is true...there were some people who DID NOT BELIEVE it was Quan Chi and were waiting for Midway to announce who this character is...even though he was CLEARLY still a bald powder-white man with black stripes coming from his eyes and giant spiked shoulder pads...just because his shirt was gone and he had red writing all over himself now. Dude still had the exact same head, but they could not comprehend the costume change.
And this did not seem nearly as silly to anyone in 2001 as it does now that we've had to deal with Quan wearing that same costume for over a decade straight.

What kind of brilliant revenge?

Yeah Tanya and D'Vorah will be easy to distinguish unless we're looking at a super low quality cluster of pixels.

This is why I don't like colourcoded character designs. Just because one character is blue shouldn't mean that he/she should be the only one who is.

Characters should be distinguished through style and design, not colour.

Yeah that something NRS definitely need to break out of.

OMG, I remember that too, haha.

It's the same with the whole Scorpion/Sub-Zero hate. People were burnt out with Liu Kang at that time for the same reasons people are burnt out with those two now. It hasn't always been that way. People have selective memory, lol.

Oh well, no Tanya reveal this time. Hopefully she will be next. ^^

I think unless we get a dual reveal they'll do another guy first. Just because there aren't many girls.

You're probably right, but one can hope. ;P

I hope this is true! I also hope tanya's long hair doesn't end up like Kitana's in MK9.

Long hairs need to go.