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cienie-isengardu · 6 months

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Quan Chi's bio states he was basically born to be a slave in the mines. With Shang it's at least debatable whether he 'chose' to be poor of it he was just unlucky but I don't think Quan Chi chose to be enslaved since he was a child and mined minerals for OutWorld's government.

This seems awfully deliberate, like how Liu Kang had a hand in Smoke's family dying as a way for him to join the Lin Kuei. Like Liu Kang gave Mileena the life most iterations would kill for and whilst he did cripple Shao, Shao got the better deal compared to Quan and Shang.

I don't think there's a really good way to justify that one. It feels like Liu is punishing an incarnation of Quan Chi for something he didn't even do. Unless someone wants to make the assumption that Quan Chi was born evil...which doesn't make any sense since we literally see a good version of him and Shang fighting against Titan Shang Tsung.

Even if he was born evil, erasing him probably would've been preferable than subjecting him to slavery given how slaves are treated.

Last time I checked mortalkombat.com there was no official BIO for Quan Chi so I can’t address something I did not read yet by myself - not that I don’t believe your word, I just like be familiar with officially released source material and context before I start throwing the stones at any characters, especially since MK1 already proved with Shang Tsung that BIO, story mode and intros may approach differently character’s origin.

That said, I don’t have a doubt that Liu Kang is biased when it comes to certain people as it is visible in story mode alone how he interacts with the Royal Family or his Champions he considered his friends and for example Lin Kuei serving him and Earthrealm from centuries. He on purpose get involved with characters lives, be it choosing Johnny, Kenshi, Kung Lao and Raiden for Earthrealm’s Champions or deciding that Shang Tsung and Quan Chi won’t get a chance to obtain any power (magic) however the same story mode proved that Liu Kang’s plans could be - and in fact were - foiled by actions of others. Shang Tsung and Quan Chi learned magic due to Titan Shang Tsung’s scheming, Kenshi lost his eyesight again, despite Liu Kang’s hope for different means for his bonding with Sento

so it is not like every character’s life is set in stone and the once made Keeper of Time’s decisions won’t change due to outside forces.

My main problem with accusation that Liu Kang intended Quan Chi to be born in slavery or Shang Tsung in poverty is the implication he intended slavery and poverty to be part of his new era in the first place - and with that he chose to doom billions beings to unimaginable hardship solely to punish two people he personally dislike for things done in previous timeline steered by Titan Kronika who cared only for balance between good and bad, not for the living beings who were her own creations.

Because Shang Tsung is not the only character we could see living in miserable conditions, as the Edenians infected with Tarkat sickness lived in literal poverty, banished and shunned by society, with little food or basic goods to survive on their own. Quan Chi may be a slave working in mines, but we have the whole Umgadi system that literally takes away freedom from the first-born daughters of edenian families, who from childhood are trained and indoctrinated to put Royal Family’s best interest before anyone and anything, because apparently the monarch is more important that the lives of common people.

If we agree that Liu Kang in fact decided to include slavery and poverty in his new timeline just to punish two people, following that logic we should also assume that by making Johnny the USA’s famous movie star (with all the references to Hollywood and pop culture we know from previous timelines and our own word), he also allowed history to repeat itself with the European colonization of Americas and coming with it irreversible destruction of native cultures followed by unjust and cruel treatment of the indigenous population and ever further consequence: the Atlantic slave trade and the racial segregation that was part of America’s history preceding the official independence of USA (and racism being part of its history for another ages). All just to put Johnny in comfortable life as close to what his friend had in previous timeline.

What frankly, does not sit well with me knowing what kind of person Liu Kang was once and is currently as Earthrealm Protector. He was not a flawless human and definitely he is not the flawless and all-knowing god now - he doesn’t pretend to be one either. And sure, some of his decisions led to bigger tragedies but the fact he stepped down from Keeper of Time’s position to be just a mere Earthrealm’s deity implies he truly wished to allow people make their own choices. Because as Keeper of Time he could manipulate time and events to his own liking at any given time, but as a mere deity he is forced to play alongside the unfolding events and mortals choices - he may guide people, he may punish those disturbing the established peace, but he does not fulfill characters’ wishes or demand to erase the problems of their world because he did not give himself such power, as intro dialogues suggest is the case:

Li Mei: Why permit crime to fester in this timeline? Geras: It was beyond Liu Kang's power to prevent it.

Liu Kang: It is beyond my power to prevent all injustice. Li Mei: Then it shall always fester.

Scorpion: As Time’s Keeper, you could have abolished kombat. Liu Kang: Even a Titan’s power has limits.

Kenshi: With Liu Kang's help, maybe they'll find a cure. Baraka: If he could've helped, he would have done so by now.

Baraka: If you're a god, then cure me. Liu Kang: I did not give myself that power.

Baraka: Tarkat is a cruel fate, Geras. Geras: As Liu Kang has told you, we cannot cure it.

My point is: when a god gives mortals a free will then he must also accept that people will choose the wrong, even outright evil things. Not because anyone is born inherently good or bad, but because things like greed, pettines, fear, curiosity, ignorance or love exist and emotions are as strong an impulse, if not stronger, as is common sense.

As much as I would really like if Liu Kang gave everyone the same, fair chance for a good life, I think we need to take into account that each character's life does not exist in a vacuum and was preceded by hundreds of lives and choices of other people that lead to this point in time. Choices that could get in the Keeper of Time’s way and push events in different paths that he intended. Like Smoke’s family - did he truly decide to kill them to get Tomas into Lin Kuei as the best way of action or did the Lin Kuei warriors, who found outsiders on the protected by them territory, acted too aggressively on their own and their choices lead to unplanned tragedy? Or Shao’s sickness - was it Liu Kang’s choice to prevent the possibility he will raise one day against Sindel but the plan was foiled by one stubborn father who wouldn’t accept his child’s sickness as it was or the iron discipline of father was a part of the plan from the start? My point is, it is hard to tell where Keeper of Time’s will ends and where start the will of mortals that make each day their own choices, for good or bad.

Sindel is the best example, as Liu Kang intended her to rule Edenia as a firm yet fair queen and for all we know she indeed is one compared to the previous rulers. Yet what we learn from story mode and intro dialogues put a great shadow of doubt on whether she was truly so great Queen, if the sick Edenians are banished and forced to live in poverty, as their assets were taken according to Sindel's own edict, and in general treated like unwanted trashes. Not only that - Li Mei's intro dialogues says that Outworld has organized crime and Sun Do's beauty hides its darker side as it is far from the peaceful city Earthrealms think it is. Since people often are pushed into crimes by the bad circumstances (poverty, seeking refuge from persecutors) rather than inherent evil, should we accuse Liu Kang he planned such misery for those mortals or we accept that Sindel - generally seen as a good person, even admired by vast number of characters, including Liu Kang himself - made a choices that in fact have endangered or literally destroyed hundreds of innocent lives for ages? The Royal Family got rich off the harm of others, its power was secured by people deprived of their own civil freedom (Umgadi, the Palace Guard). Who should we blame for that? Liu Kang who destined Sindel to be Queen or Sindel herself, who had a power and free will to decide?

Like I said, no one lives in a vacuum and there were countless numbers of mortals before our main heroes were even born. Kenshi is dealing with his ancestors’ desperate choice to join Yakuza for protection and born out of it shame and crimes; their choices affect who he is and what drives him. Bi-Han is affected by his father’s decision and decisions of Lin Kuei Grandmasters before him that shaped reality in which Bi-Han lives now and considers an enslavement, because someone in the centuries old past chose to pledge their clan to serve Earthrealm and by extension, Fire Lord. Did Liu Kang intend such a turn of events or is it an effect of countless choices made by mortals preceding Bi-Han and Kenshi existence?

And so we come back to Quan Chi and the question, did Liu Kang decide to introduce slavery to his new timeline solely so Quan Chi could end in one or did mortals (Edenian aristocracy/government) at some point make the choice to enslave other living beings, including Quan Chi’s family, for their own gain? Because for Quan Chi to be born in slavery it means:

his parents or at least mother - and that alone may implies Quan Chi's being a result or rape - would need be a slave in the first place and

mother was punished for her son’s crimes he did not commit - and if Liu Kang’s plan had succeeded, he would never have committed either.

We can go on with questions like that but I think it comes down to this one matter: do we believe that Liu Kang would intentionally damn a billions of innocents to either punish Shang Tsung and Quan Chi or secure the well-being of his favorites like Royal Family and Johnny or not.

The game and intro dialogues won't give us a definite answer to that and each of us will need to settle this dilemma for themselves. I myself still debate whether to believe or not that Liu Kang sat down eons ago and wrote out how numberless generations will live so a few certain characters end in miserable (Shang Tsung & Quan Chi) or happy setting (Sindel). I do however believe that within Liu Kang's timeline, the Keeper of Time's choices shaping people's destiny and free will of characters can and are co-existing. I won't cross out yet the possibility that Liu Kang indeed decided to include slavery just to fuck up Shang Tsung and Quan Chi's lives - and I won't do it at least until I read the new source material. However, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that slavery and poverty are the outcome of bad choices made by mortals living before the heroes and villains were born.

Of course, this is still not the best scenario and there is no denying Liu Kang wanted a meaningless life for both sorcerers and that he did interfere with events and destinies of mortals. But if he set all life in motion and then immediately step down from Keeper of Time’s position, we need take into account that A) he gave up control over people voluntarily and B) he did it eons before Shang Tsung or Quan Chi - and their families - came to alive and for such a long period of time, many bad things could have happened without his participation or ill will (is Tarkat even part of Liu Kang’s plan or did it happen spontaneously, as a result of the actions of unforeseen forces? As the “forces of nature” balancing things out?). The characters already asked Liu Kang why he did not prevent injustice, why he did not abolish violence, why he did not cure the horrific illness, why he did not make his timeline the better place… but I think to do so he would need to take away the free will, so no mortal could commit a crime again or go against his plan. Which is the total opposition of what he wanted and Liu Kang is aware his world did not improved as he hoped:

Liu Kang: This timeline has not improved as I had hoped. Geras: Thoughts like that led to Kronika’s madness.

But I guess that is the problem with free will, it allows bad things to happen. There is no win-win scenario and someone will always be harmed - if not by their own choice, then by someone else's, because people do not live in a vacuum.

So, unless Quan Chi’s Bio (that I still didn’t see for myself) outright says Liu Kang decided to made his former enemy born as a slave, I’m willing to give Liu Kang the benefit of doubt that slavery and poverty weren’t on purpose added to his new era just to fuck up two people he didn’t like - even if his dislike is well-understandly considering everything that happened.

It is easy to look at MK1’s story mode and blame Liu Kang for the characters' background but that is looking at this specific point of time the way we look at NRS and blame them for messing up our favorite heroes for drama’s sake alone. In-universe though? There are plenty of factors outside Liu Kang’s control that shaped the world before any of them came into picture. Like I said, it may not be so easy to determine how much for things to be the way they are now is the fault of god and how much of mortals alone.

Also, in regard to why not just erase them from the timeline, I too myself wondered about that. Or why not make them born in Earthrealm, whereas as mere humans they would pose a threat for a 100, maybe 120 years at best and then be safely tucked in the afterlife. Or why let them both live at the same time and not separate them by ages. My working conclusion for now is that erasing people is not such an easy matter, as people - their histories and relationships - are too well connected threads on time fabric. MK11’s Jacqui ending showed that changing one thing may lead to much more serious consequences. She wanted to spare her father from death at Sindel’s hand and following it the life of revenant. But when she removed that event from his history, in result she erased her own existence, as Jax did not meet Jacqui's mom and thus Jacqui wasn't born. Original Shang Tsung and Quan Chi brought more pain and despair to people than anything else, but since we don’t have an idea how time fabric works or how much it is influenced by the countless erased timelines, maybe Liu Kang couldn’t erase them without erasing more innocent and/or important people? Just a thought to think about.

#mortal kombat #my replies #liu kang #quan chi #shang tsung #destiny vs free will #as you can see i have a lot thoughts about liu kang's choices and the free will given to mortals #i won't say liu kang would never on purpose fuck up shang tsung and quan chi's lives #because powers corrupts and endless time make you look at things from different perspective #i do however have a serious problem to think liu kang would include slavery and poverty and damn billions of people to such hardship #solely to fuck shang tsung and quan chi's lives #also if he stepped down from his keeper of time's powers did he still could make the decision that yes this is fucked up enough misery #for those two bastards to be born right now #or did he could shape destiny eons ago to happen exactly as he wanted? because that cross out the free will of mortals #i guess each of us need to decide what fits our understanding of this new timeline #and is liu kang a kind god or control freak type of god #also a side note: between shao shang tsung and quan chi I too would make quan chi life the worst if i had to pick that life for one of them

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diarrheaworldstarhiphop · 6 years

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I feel like you're one of the best informed and impartial people on tumblr to answer this question - was Islam extremist and radical before Western intervention in the 20th century, or was it already radical but the west made it even more reactionary? Should Islam as a whole be criticized or is there enough good in it to still be salvageable? I'd appreciate any input, thanks.

was Islam extremist and radical before Western intervention in the 20th century

Yes

i mean, look at the rise of the caliphates and spread of islam. Unlike christianity, it spread by the tip of the sword. The crusades, after all, were a collective christian act of resistance to the loss of literally half of the known christian world to the Arabs.

but that’s literally ancient history and not too pertnent to contemporary or even modern islam, because back then, christianity was similarly violent and imperialist in character after they managed to take power over the formerly pagan roman empire.

So I’m going to focus on the last couple hundreds years of history of islam at a glance, because as i said, yea, it was “radical”

But western civilization was too powerful, rich and populous to be bothered by it

like here is the world

Here is it in 1900 at the height of european power, with the countries inflated by the relative share of the global population

the middle east and north africa virtually disappears as Europe explodes outside of it’s bounds. Europeans, as a share of the global population was enormous.

and they fucking dominated India and outskilled China at this time too.

The fundamentalists and religious radicals in the muslim world were too sparsely populated to matter, but also, devout muslims had no interest in politics in pursuit of their pious lives, so people outside of the muslim world never quite dealt with it before the world wars. Islamic society, in juxtaposition to the immensely powerful European powers, just appeared exotic and fascinating (ie: orientalism). Europoors took a fancy to islamic society rather than feared it.

The middle east was floundering under the rot of the decadent Ottoman Empire, which had embraced modernization and emancipation efforts decades before (even decriminalizing homosexuality) while north africa was being inundated with cultural overflow from european colonization. the cosmopolitans were in power in the north african population centres like cairo, casablanca, tunis and algiers. Some of these population centres even had 30-50% european demographics by the world wars. The radical islamists were off fucking around in tiny groups in the desert. They had no relative clout or power from how these regions were snatched from the corrupt, miserable Ottoman empire and suddenly thrust into the commercial and economic boost from being part of the European sphere of influence. However, over time, nationalism from a secular as well as religious take began to take hold once they became accustomed to rulers from far away in Paris or London rather than far away in Constantinople.

In the case of Egypt, after it was conquered by Britain, Britain took control over the government and brought commerce and economic reform to the country, while working to reduce the debt left by Ottoman corruption and mismanagement. The upper classes rejoiced and to a degree, the middle classes as well since both began to profit from the arrangement, but the poorer classes were left even poorer from British refusal to introduce British-style political reform. Then unease began to rise among the middle class from the British staffing positions of power with British officers only. Newspapers began to postulate that, if not for British racism, capable Egyptians could have filled these roles of governance. Additionally, the middle class were losing patience with a lack of effort done to deal with viceroy or ottoman corruption left in the country.

Coupled with military incidents resulting from British soldiers and their racism or insensitivity to egyptian culture, nationalism began to rise across the country as Egyptians came to realize that cooperation was impossible. This developed across the two world wars such as the British denying the Nationalist Liberal Egyptian Wafd party to participate in the paris peace conference, even though they were the most popular party in the country, but eventually Britain budged and afforded Egypt more autonomy under the puppet state monarchy.

But the Nationalist fervour only grew, coalescing under the nascent Muslim Brotherhood and staunchly nationalist elements of the police and army. The Muslim Brotherhood came out of nowhere in the 1920s, quickly outpacing and showing itself as a better populist option for the young, poor and dispossessed after the Wafd party was seen to concede to British whims. Anger rose because of the classism and imperialism exerted on Egypt through Britain, it’s soldiers and the wealthy in Egyptian society. The humiliation of the loss against Israel was the tinder needed to push Egypt into the 20th century with the 1952 revolution with Nasser taking power and imbuing the country with Arab nationalism and a platform for modernization, education, industrialization and sovereignty.

And this pattern of increasing anger over poor concessions from imperial powers lording over them is what you find across the middle east and north africa. As seen in the Free Officers Movement/Nasserists and the Muslim Brotherhood, the general constant in the region is that whoever is the more competent and outspoken in their resistance of imperialism, takes the lead.

Movements like the Muslim Brotherhood were certainly emboldened by the conservatives in their society, but the nasserists found more favour among liberals and Nationalists. The character of the two poles of Egyptian politics became distinctly defined by moderate (radical/repressive by western stanards) islamism or secular nationalists.

And a curious thing happens to the world over the 20th century. Thanks to agricultural reform, it goes from almost majority European (discounting china and india) to a world of only 11% of the population being european - today.

en route to

Tremendous population booms in the middle east and africa take hold, and similar to what you see in the west, conservative religious people reproduce many times more than secular liberals.

between 1900 and 1950, the egyptian population doubles to 20 million people

by 2000, it then triples to over 65 million. By the time of the 2011 revolution, there are 15 million more people

So when the Arab spring occurs, with liberal secularists in urban centres making the push for liberation… and for the first time in Egypts history, it gets a fair democracy, it is the Muslim Brotherhood and not the secular liberals who sweep the election.

and the muslim brotherhood begins dismantling the hard fought for democracy to put in place a repressive islamist constitution instead.

So the freshly old guard military steps in and stages a coup. So ends the experiment in democracy in egypt.

and i cite egypt as an introduction to the population of the middle east and the broader trends because on a more complex scale, there is geopolitics to consider. Particularly involving countries like Syria, Iran, Saudi ARabia, Israel and by far the most powerful middle eastern country, the United States.

the west made it even more reactionary

yes, cold war geopolitics, extending from british vs. russia geopolitics in the imperial/colonial era before continued to enflame the region in outrage toward the west. For much of the 20th century, arab nationalists tried to exploit the soviet and american war of influence in the middle to benefit their countries (and themselves), but as the modern muslim world increased in population and wealth through this modernization, they climbed out of colonial rehabilitation into old fissures between each other, beginning to expand their own spheres of influence.

After the failure of Egyptian and Syrian unity (spoilers, the egyptians completely cucked the syrians out of any sense of power in their shared republic), Syria fell back into the influence of similarly shiite run Iran, which had just finally booted the US and Britain out of their own country, so to speak. Syria, like the USA, had a bone to pick with the USA - for iran it was the shah the CIA forcememed the destruction of Iran’s socialist democracy, for Syria, it was fury over Henry Kissinger for destroying Syria’s dream of a unified arab world by fomenting divisions between the different arab states. How do you strike back at a super power? well, terrorism of course, which means funding and forming shiite terror, which coupled with the USA funding sunni terror by allying with Saudi Arabia against soviet aggression in Chechnya and Afghanistan - means a region rife with well funded, increasingly more sophisticated terrorism bursting at the seems to strike anywhere at any time. Most unsettling, is that the USA, in allying itself with saudi arabia, has made the worldwide heart of salafism and radical sunni terror as the primary benefactor and supporter of islamic societies, mosques, madrassas around the world.

So in return for the west bringing globalization to the middle east by force, the middle east via saudi arabia has globalized the spectacularly violent, hyper radical form of islam that now infests muslim communities in the west and around the world. A sort of salifization or arabization of previously secular or natively unique styles of sunni faith.

Should Islam as a whole be criticized or is there enough good in it to still be salvageable

absolutely not, the religion itself shouldn’t. Do you get pissed at a bee swarm for stinging you after decades of bashing it with a club? Additionally, blaming it as a whole is pointless when you can distill which parts and who’s responsible from this mess. Namely salafi jihadism, cough saudi strains like al qaeda and similar shiite, cough, iranian strains that preceded it like Hezbollah.

But also deconstruct the globalization that necessitated the formation of these homegrown middle eastern groups, namely western influence and saudi imperialism/religious ideology, which is the cancer at the heart of this all. And cancer it is, because it is nearly unstoppable now, considering current world geopolitics and the wealth and influence now wielded by furious and vengeful middle eastern regional powers.

radical islamic terror that now sends “trucks of peace” through german christmas markets does not exist in a vacuum. There is a definite cause and effect to it all and to begin addressing that is to begin addressing the common denominator in all this for how shit has got this bad, which is western imperialism and western enforced market globalization that crushes sovereignty and self determination in pursuit of a world order bereft of rivals to western hegemony.

#effortpost #globalization

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