User blog comment:Cry0$ting94/Stryker, Shujinko, and Society/@comment-3982739-20110910014018/@comment-422853-20110910030406

I guess I can respect that opinion of Shujinko, even if I disagree. To me though, his personality is exactly what a protagonist of Mortal Kombat should be. Kind, loyal, pure hearted, and all that. The only real significant downside to his character was his naivety, but after learning that Onaga had used him, he was no longer naive.

And I definitely understand where you're coming from with the stereotypical "world's last hope" kind of hero, but to be frank, with the way it was executed, and the way Shujinko redeemed himself in his Deception ending just made Mortal Kombat Deception all that better as a game, to me at least. Plus Liu Kang had become a mindless zombie and Raiden became a corrupted asshole after his suicide against Onaga, while the rest of the forces of light were under the Dragon King's control until Ermac freed their souls, so who else was there to be the hero at the time?

And yeah, Stryker's like a perfect example of one who was bland before, but became really fleshed out and more interesting thanks to MK9. Guess I should've mentioned him earlier instead of Smoke, but hopefully you see where I'm coming from now. :p